Yo yo yo! Reader,

I feel like this week had one message for me:

Stop expecting everything to go according to plan.

We started the week with a schedule.

Stock was supposed to arrive on certain days.

Chloe was supposed to be in for more training.

We had seven Live shows planned.

I had cameras to process.

Processes to document.

Things to prepare before Japan.

Then...

Chloe had a car accident.

Thankfully, she's okay.

But naturally, that changed the week.

Then several of our stock deliveries got delayed.

Which changed the shows.

Then eBay Live developed a bidding issue.

Which affected customers' ability to actually bid during one of our shows.

The normal eBay store remained incredibly quiet.

And amongst all of that...

We still had a business to run.

So we adapted.

And somehow, by Friday, we'd basically got ourselves back to where we needed to be.

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Snapshot

There was a lot happening this week.

We ran Lives throughout the week.

We received a large consignment of band T-shirts and turned it into three shows.

We processed another substantial batch of cameras and lenses.

I started properly training a team member to handle camera inspections while I'm away.

We created a dedicated camera-testing station.

More of our internal app started becoming useful in the actual day-to-day operation.

We continued preparing stock and capacity for the three weeks I'll be in Japan.

We handled returns.

Customer issues.

Shipping consolidation.

Delayed deliveries.

eBay technical problems.

And somewhere amongst all of that...

We actually had a pretty good week.

That's business.

The Core Store Is Still Dead

I know I've talked about this a lot recently.

But it's the reality.

The traditional eBay store is still extremely quiet.

There were mornings this week where we were sending:

Four normal orders.

Six normal orders.

Nine normal orders.

That's from a store with thousands of active listings.

At one point, we had around 154 orders to send out...

and roughly 150 of them were from eBay Live.

That tells you everything you need to know about how much the business has changed.

If we didn't have Live right now, some days we'd genuinely be operating on a few hundred dollars in revenue.

That's pretty confronting.

But it's also exactly why I've been trying to build different pathways for revenue.

The Game Has Changed

A year ago, if the normal store slowed down significantly...

That was basically it.

We had to wait.

List more.

Run promotions.

Try to source better products.

Hope things picked up.

Today?

The store can be quiet...

While cameras sell.

Live runs.

Consignment moves.

Collectibles sell.

Higher-value non-clothing stock goes out.

The problem isn't gone.

But the business now has more ways to respond.

That's important.

Then Chloe Couldn't Come In

Tuesday was supposed to be another big training day for Chloe.

Then life happened.

She'd been involved in a car accident.

Thankfully she was okay, but obviously getting to work wasn't happening.

And immediately my mind went to:

Right.

What does this change?

We'd planned shows around her.

I wanted to get more repetitions in before I leave for Japan.

We're trying to prepare her to eventually run shows without me.

Suddenly that training window became smaller.

It's frustrating.

But nobody did anything wrong.

That's just life.

So we adjusted the plan.

I ran the shows.

We moved some training into the following week.

And we kept going.

That's Actually The Test

It's easy to say you have a system when everything goes perfectly.

Everyone arrives.

Stock turns up.

Technology works.

Customers behave.

Nothing breaks.

That's not really much of a test.

The real question is:

What happens when somebody can't come in?

What happens when the delivery doesn't arrive?

What happens when the platform stops working?

What happens when something takes three hours instead of one?

That's when you find out whether the business is genuinely adaptable...

or whether the entire system is incredibly fragile.

We're still somewhere in the middle.

But we're getting better.

Our Stock Didn't Arrive Either

We also had a heap of Live inventory that was supposed to arrive.

Tuesday.

Then Wednesday.

Then...

Still nothing.

The parcels were sitting nearby in the network but weren't actually getting delivered.

That's a problem when the stock inside those boxes is literally your next Live show.

So once again:

Change the plan.

Fortunately, we'd just received something interesting.

A large consignment of band T-shirts.

AC/DC.

Black Sabbath.

Vintage pieces.

Modern pieces.

Different sizes.

Different bands.

Hundreds of shirts.

The original plan wasn't necessarily to run them immediately.

But circumstances changed.

So we turned them into three consecutive shows.

Wednesday.

Thursday.

Friday.

And suddenly, the delivery problem created another opportunity.

Roughly $4,000 From One T-Shirt Collection

This was probably the biggest commercial takeaway of the week.

We split that band-T collection across three shows.

The shows came in around:

$1,210

$1,530

and

$1,278

Give or take some postage adjustments and refunds.

So across three shows...

we generated roughly $4,000.

From one consignment collection.

That's incredibly interesting to me.

Because this isn't stock I've had to source one item at a time.

Someone already has the collection.

We provide the infrastructure.

The audience.

The presentation.

The fulfilment.

The platform experience.

And then everyone shares in the result.

That could become a much bigger part of what we do.

The Opportunity Is Becoming Clearer

We've been doing eBay Live since February.

Initially...

Maybe two shows per week.

Roughly four hours.

Now?

We're doing around seven shows.

Roughly fourteen hours of Live per week.

That's happened in about eight months.

Which makes me wonder:

What does this look like another year from now?

Not just seven individual shows.

Maybe there are full-day events.

Imagine Friday becomes:

10:00am.

We start Live.

Different categories rotate through during the day.

Different hosts.

Different consignors.

Vintage.

Women's.

Men's.

Collectibles.

Special events.

Customers come and go throughout the day.

Maybe we run until late afternoon.

I don't know yet.

But now we've got enough data that these ideas aren't completely hypothetical.

We're learning what the machine is capable of doing.

Then eBay Live Broke

Of course...

Just when you've got momentum...

Technology decides otherwise.

Thursday's women's show had issues.

Customers were telling me they couldn't bid properly.

Swipes weren't registering.

Items were effectively getting stuck at the starting price.

Some products that realistically should've generated $10, $15 or more were going for $3 because other buyers literally couldn't participate.

That's obviously frustrating.

Especially when we're selling somebody else's inventory.

I contacted our eBay representative.

They confirmed there was a known high-priority incident and engineers were working on it.

Which left me with another decision.

We had another show at 5:00.

Do I cancel?

Do I proceed?

Do I risk the same problem happening again?

We decided to proceed.

If the issue continued, I'd stop the show.

Thankfully...

Things improved.

And that evening show did around:

$1,530.

That's the emotional roller coaster of running a business in about four hours.

Platforms Are Leverage — And Risk

It's a useful reminder.

eBay gives us enormous leverage.

Customers.

Infrastructure.

Payments.

Traffic.

Live commerce.

Seller tools.

But when you're operating on somebody else's platform...

There are things you don't control.

If their app breaks...

You can't fix it.

If bidding doesn't work...

You can't deploy the patch.

You can only decide how your business responds.

That's another reason I'm increasingly focused on what we can control.

Our stock.

Our processes.

Our team.

Our presentation.

Our systems.

Our relationships.

Our costs.

That's where my energy needs to go.

The Other Big Test: Cameras Without Me

One of the things making me most nervous about Japan has been cameras.

Our camera trade-in and consignment work has become a meaningful part of the business.

But there's nuance.

You're checking:

Cosmetics.

Functionality.

Shutter counts.

Optics.

Lens condition.

Accessories.

Serial numbers.

Autofocus.

Sensors.

Controls.

Different models have different quirks.

And historically...

A lot of that has relied on me.

That's a problem if I'm going away for three weeks.

So this week we finally did something that we probably should've done earlier.

We built a dedicated testing station.

Build The Environment, Not Just The Checklist

I wanted one place where somebody could sit down and have everything they need.

Chargers.

Batteries.

Testing equipment.

Reference information.

Accessories.

Guides.

Space.

A repeatable workflow.

No hunting through the warehouse every time you need a cable.

No relying on me remembering where something is.

Then we took one of our team members through approximately 19 cameras and lenses.

And honestly?

It was probably the best possible training batch.

Because there were problems everywhere.

Different cables required.

Different faults.

Fair-condition pieces.

Non-working pieces.

Lenses with issues.

Things that needed more investigation.

It took longer.

But that was actually useful.

Because if every product had been perfect...

they wouldn't have learned much.

Training Feels Expensive Until It Pays You Back

I didn't get as much of my own work done that day.

Because I was shadowing.

Explaining.

Reviewing.

Checking.

Answering questions.

That's the cost.

But now?

That team member has processed the batch.

I've reviewed their findings.

We've adjusted the workflow.

And they're becoming capable of handling that part of the business.

Which means eventually...

I don't have to.

That's leverage.

Training consumes your time once.

Then hopefully pays that time back repeatedly.

That's one of the biggest mental shifts I've had to make as the business grows.

And The Cameras Started Selling

Once those cameras were approved...

We photographed them.

Listed them.

And they started moving.

We sold a substantial portion almost immediately.

There was a $1,000+ sale.

Then another camera around $1,200 sold while I was literally driving home.

By Friday, we'd had a day where cameras, Live and other sales were combining to produce somewhere around $5,000–$6,000 in revenue.

That was exactly the sort of day we needed.

Especially after weeks of talking about how quiet the traditional store has been.

My Job Is Becoming Problem Solving

Something I said at the beginning of the week really stuck with me.

My job doesn't feel like flipping items anymore.

It doesn't even really feel like:

Source.

Photo.

List.

Post.

Those things still happen.

But increasingly...

The team makes that magic happen.

My job is becoming:

Something broke. Solve it.

New opportunity appeared. Assess it.

Stock is delayed. Find another plan.

Someone needs training. Build the process.

A customer has an issue. Work through it.

A supplier has an idea. Figure out whether it works.

Japan is coming. Make sure the business can operate.

A system is inefficient. Improve it.

That's a completely different job from the one I started with.

And I actually enjoy it.

Most of the time.

Continuous Improvement Is Boring — And Incredibly Valuable

There was another tiny example this week.

Live postage.

We're doing multiple shows across multiple days.

And customers increasingly buy across several shows.

Which creates another problem:

How do we combine everything efficiently?

At the moment, some of that is still manual.

Boxes.

Sticky notes.

Consolidation.

Partial postage refunds.

And sticky notes aren't exactly revolutionary technology.

Sometimes they fall off.

Sometimes someone has two boxes.

Sometimes the same buyer appears across three shows.

So we're continuing to change the process.

Maybe regular customers eventually have permanent boxes.

Maybe we add wipeable labels to the shelving.

Maybe we change how we consolidate after each show.

Maybe software eventually handles more of it.

Nothing glamorous.

But these are the things that matter when volume grows.

Every New Level Creates A New Process

That's really what scaling seems to be.

You solve one problem.

Then your solution becomes successful enough to create another problem.

We wanted more Live volume.

Great.

Now we need more stock.

We get more stock.

Great.

Now we need more hosts.

We hire a host.

Great.

Now we need more structured training.

We create training.

Great.

Now customers buy across more shows.

Great.

Now shipping consolidation gets more complicated.

Solve that.

And repeat.

That's the game.

Numbers Corner

By Friday, before everything had even fully flowed through the reporting...

we were sitting around:

$11,300 for the week. (we did closer to $19k)

Then in a fairly short window, we added roughly another couple of thousand dollars through:

Live.

A camera sale.

And other pieces.

Which meant we were essentially sitting around our weekly target of roughly:

$14,000–$14,500

before the weekend.

Considering where the traditional store is right now...

I'll take that.

Absolutely.

The weekends have been fairly poor lately, so I wasn't expecting anything miraculous.

But even landing somewhere around the $15K range would represent a strong outcome for the week.

October Is Somehow Working

The interesting thing is...

October has been incredibly difficult.

Yet we're making it work.

By Friday we were sitting just shy of:

$40,000 for the month.

Now, that doesn't mean there's $40,000 sitting there waiting for me.

Far from it.

We've still got expenses coming.

Roughly:

$9,000 postage

Potentially $6,000–$7,000 in consignment payouts

Around $3,000 rent

More payroll.

And everything else.

So that current profit number will get smashed down once those expenses land.

But we're averaging somewhere around:

$2,400 per day.

If we can maintain anywhere near that level...

October could potentially finish around the high-$70K range.

Maybe even become one of our biggest revenue months.

After everything I've just told you about how dead the core store is.

That's wild.

That's Diversification In Real Life

I've talked about diversification plenty.

But this month is probably the clearest demonstration of it.

Clothing store down.

Live up.

Cameras producing.

Collectibles producing.

Consignment producing.

Different higher-value products moving.

The overall business keeps going.

That's the moat I've been trying to build.

Not something that prevents bad things from happening.

Something that makes one bad thing less capable of taking down everything else.

Japan Is Making All Of This Real

I leave in less than two weeks.

And I can feel that deadline getting closer.

I'm excited.

I'm nervous.

And I'm thinking constantly about everything that has to happen before I leave.

Stock.

Team capacity.

Camera processes.

Live.

Consignment expectations.

Who does what.

How much work comes through.

Where problems get escalated.

The interesting thing is that going away is forcing me to do work that probably should've happened anyway.

The camera station should exist regardless.

The inspection process should be documented regardless.

Other people should understand the business regardless.

Our systems shouldn't depend on me regardless.

Japan simply gave me a deadline.

And Maybe That's A Good Thing

I've said before that I thrive a little bit in controlled chaos.

Deadlines force decisions.

Pressure creates action.

Sometimes I've known for months:

"We should probably document that."

Then suddenly I'm going overseas.

And it's:

"No. We ARE documenting that."

Not next month.

Now.

That's probably not the perfect way to run everything.

But it's how a lot of this business has evolved.

Do something.

Reach the limitation.

Build the next system.

Move forward.

Looking Beyond The Holiday

The funny thing is...

I haven't even left yet and I'm already thinking about 2027.

We're currently tracking somewhere around our $750,000 FY27 target.

Then I start thinking:

Could next calendar year be an $800,000 year?

What does FY28 look like?

How do we keep stepping toward:

$1 million in annual revenue by 2030

with a:

20% net margin?

I don't want to force the growth.

But I do want to keep building pathways toward it.

Live looks like one.

Cameras look like another.

Consignment is already a huge one.

Technology and better processes make all of them easier to scale.

It all connects.

The Bigger Picture

This week had plenty of moments where I thought:

Seriously? Another thing?

Car accident.

Delayed stock.

Platform issues.

Returns.

Camera problems.

Training.

Processes.

The core store barely moving.

Yet...

We still hit the numbers.

The team still developed.

The camera workflow improved.

A new consignment model proved itself.

We sold thousands through Live.

We sold high-value cameras.

We continued preparing the business for my absence.

And opportunities kept appearing.

That's progress.

Not everything working perfectly.

The business getting better at functioning when things don't work perfectly.

Question of the Week

Here's what I've been thinking about:

How dependent are your plans on everything going right?

It's easy to make a plan that works if:

Nobody gets sick.

Nothing breaks.

Every delivery arrives.

Technology works.

Customers behave.

Sales stay strong.

Nothing unexpected happens.

But that's not reality.

Something will change.

Someone will be unavailable.

The stock will be late.

The platform will glitch.

The numbers won't do what you expected.

The question isn't:

How do I prevent every problem?

It's:

How quickly can I adapt when the problem arrives?

That's what I'm trying to build into this business.

More options.

More capable people.

Better systems.

Better information.

More ways to generate revenue.

Less dependence on a single person.

Less dependence on a single sales channel.

Because I can't control everything.

But I can keep making the business better at responding.

And this week...

we responded pretty well.

One problem at a time.

One improvement at a time.

One week at a time.

Building a business to suit my lifestyle.

Until next week,

Chris