XIV

I feel like I'm stuck. When I started selling Funkos I could see how my inventory expanded little by little, but for the last month or two I feel my inventory has remained basically the same. If I got 5 new Funkos I'd sell 6 in the next few days, so I had to be constantly looking for new ones and, because of that, I became a little less cautious; I ended up getting deals that weren't as good as I thought, meaning I was basically filling my inventory with Funkos nobody really wanted to buy, or at least nobody wanted to buy at a fair price.

So, I lowered the price of some of those figures and tried to solve that "stuck" problem searching for lots. The first one I found consisted of 69 Funkos—yeah, I know, 69, nice, whatever. They were horror figures and some Disney ones nobody really wanted, but they seemed to be at a good price, so I investigated every single figure and, with the help of my excel sheet, I came to a conclusion it was a good deal indeed.

But it could be better: when I checked the Q&A section of that post, I discovered whoever was selling the lot was willing to lower the price a pretty good amount. I then asked them to modify the post's price so I could buy it, he/she/they told me that offer was only valid if you came to his/her/their store, which was in a near state, so I thought about going there.

Nah, I didn't want to take the highway with that much money or that many Funkos; bad things could happen in a Mexican highway.

With that in mind I made him/her/them an offer that would benefit all of us, to my surprise, he/she/they accepted it. I couldn't miss that opportunity.

The problem was I didn't have that much money at the moment: most of my investing money was in my Amazon seller and my eBay equivalent—MercadoLibre—accounts, waiting to be liberated—when you sell something there, you have to wait like a week to get your money.

But I could ask for a loan in MercadoLibre: they had been sending me spam about a pre-approved loan they had for me, a loan up to the equivalent of $3,000USD. I didn't need that much, but a loan could help me a lot.

I then entered my account, looked for that pre-approved loan and, surprise, surprise, it was not there anymore. It turns out they cancelled the deal because in the last weeks I had cancelled 3 of my sales—I had already sold those Funkos somewhere else, and I've forgotten to remove the post—so I didn't met up their metrics, and my reputation as a seller decreased.

In other words, their algorithm didn't trust me anymore. That also affected my sales overall—and still is—but I'll talk about that later.

I couldn't use my credit card because my credit's limit was not that high. And obviously I didn't want get a loan from some shady guy who would end up breaking my legs or something if I didn't pay him, so I decided to just save until I had that much.

But one day, while I was buying groceries, I had an idea.

"Hey, what if you just use your savings?"

Yeah, I could totally do that, even though I really didn't want to, but if I did I'd only need to get it back eventually—I'm halfway through rn. I'd save any interest rates a loan would have, and I could buy the lot ASAP.

And that's why used part of my savings to buy that lot.

A couple days after, I had all 69 figures. It was a Thursday, and it took me until Friday night to inspect them—a few of them had some details in their boxes, even though all of them included protectors, but luckily none of those figures were any valuable—and post them one by one in Amazon, Mercado Libre and Facebook.

People really, really like horror Funkos: I was constantly selling them online, and a lot of people from Facebook were interested in the ones I had left. Most of them wanted buy, and one guy only wanted to trade. He had a couple nice figures, which I could trade him for some of the ones he wanted and sell them with a higher profit—and I did—but the rest weren't worth a lot, and he also wanted some of the most valuable figures I had. More of him later.

Remember my uncle, the one with all the failed businesses? Well, his vintage museum is actually a store where he sells old collectible toys and Funkos. A couple days before he saw the figures I had on clearance and told me he wanted to buy them all. I told him there was a lot I'd receive in the next day, and we agreed to wait for it to make business. When I received the lot and started to inspect it, I send him a photo. He told me he wanted to buy them all. I gave him a fair price, considering some of those figures were really valuable—the most valuable one was a Ghost Face, worth $200 USD—but he told me he only wanted the cheap Funkos, so I made him a special lot including the cheap figures from the horror/Disney lot—including the damaged ones—and the cheap ones I wanted to get rid of my inventory. I added the price of each one of those figures—obviously with a nice profit margin—and then I added the equivalent of $50 USD just because. He had money, so he could totally pay for that—also, he'd probably make a counter offer or ask for a discount, so I had up to $50 USD to pretend I showed him the lot and gave him my final price. It was around $630 USD. He told me to leave it at $600 USD, and I gladly accepted.

I put them all in the box the lot was in and visited him a couple days later. I left the box in front of him, he entered his room for a moment, gave me the money, and that was it. He didn't even glanced at the Funkos.

That's why he's so good at failing business and it's no surprise at all.

I could've easily ripped him off, but obviously didn't.

Anyway, that week was the most profitable of them all.

But the next one was the worst. Ironically, the lot I bought—or at least 90% of it—sold so fast I didn't solve any of my problems: I basically end up with the exact same figures than before, and I was still feeling stuck, but now I was also feeling like a dumbass because maybe I could've sold most of that lot at a higher price.

Maybe it sold so fast because it was so cheap.

Anyway, the case is that, after I sold most of that lot, I was barely selling anything. Now, I know this is dumb, but this constant lack of sales made me feel depressed. Stress emerged and clogged my throat constantly.

But that's also kinda my fault: I'm using different platforms to sell my Funkos—Amazon, Mercado Libre and Facebook—and sometimes, when I sell something in one of those platforms, I forget to pause or delete the post with that figure from the other ones, and if someone bought them, I have to cancel the sell since I didn't have the figure anymore. That happened three—just three—times in Mercado Libre, and it affected my reputation more than it should have. From being a "Mercado Líder," one of the best seller of the site, according to them, I ended up being one with a 2/5 rating. Yeah, I know, this doesn't seem that bad but, for some reason, most Funko buyers in that site are extremely distrustful—even though they shouldn't be: in that site you can always, always, get a refund for free, even when the seller doesn't want to or even if the reason for a refund is extremely petty and non-sensical—so that means I'm barely selling anything there.

The rating's based on my sells in the last two months, and the three cancelled sells were made in the last half of July. Maybe at the end of the month I'll get my reputation—and my sales—back.

Anyway, in order to get some sales back, I got another lot; this time it contained 23 figures of Teen Titans Go!

But no one wants them. No, that's not true: only one guy wants them, and he may buy almost all of them when he gets the money. I even gave him a discount and he accepted.

Man, I hope that ends up happening.

But meanwhile, I've been dealing with the guy I told you before, the one who only wants to trade, and it's a pain in the ass tbh. When we're messaging each other we're like passive aggressive, but really nice when we're face to face. It's like those videos where a couple dogs are separated by a fence and furiously barking at each other, then someone opens the fence and the dogs immediately calm down and stop barking; then someone closes the fence, and the barking resumes.

Funny stuff.

Anyway, the main reason for our discussions is that we have different views on the Funko's value. He uses the app. I say the value shown there is calculated based ONLY on the average price of the latest sales of that product IN THE US—which it is, look it up. We don't live in the US. The US market is not the same as Mexico's, even if we're very close—And if you don't believe me, look for any common figure: maybe it's valued at $6 or $7 in the app, but you won't get it anywhere in this country for at least $12; or the other way around, like a figure could be valued at $55 in the app, but you can get it everywhere for $22 or less.

In other words, the value on that app is basically useless here. But he's extremely stubborn, especially when he learned that my Krampus—the figure he wants from me—it's only worth $14 in the app, but the market price is around $30 - $35, and I'm giving him that price, but he says it's too much.

One time I got tired of him sending me screenshots of the app, with a circle on the $14 my Krampus is worth there, and on the $16 his Howard the Duck is worth—that's the figure he's offering me for a trade, even though no one wants it here in Mexico—so I just asked him how much was he willing to pay for my Krampus. His response was: "idk, man, in the app's worth $14, so…"

Yep. But we still saw each other that day for some fair trades—he didn't checked the app for those ones for some reason. He then told me he understood the price I was giving him was the market's price but he still thought it was a little too expensive—and I was like "ok, that's fair"—and he told me he could trade two of his Funkos for the Krampus, so days later I made him an offer, and he then lectured me about those Funko's value according to the app in the most passive-aggressive way, like I was trying to rip him off or something, and I was like "dude, that was YOUR idea," and he was like "yeah, but only if the added value of both figures is equal or less than your $14."

Anyway, I also feel that most things that happen to me are Funko related, and that's kinda sad, that's the proof I'm a boring and empty person. I mean, I keep writing from time to time—I try to do it at least an hour daily, and that's what happens most of the time—and I also draw a little bit every day—I'm barely improving, which is completely understandable, but I don't really mind tbh.

And that's about it, I spend my days looking and buying new Funkos, which means my inventory is increasing little by little, so that's good, right?

Because it doesn't feel like it.