Making $15k/Month Selling Simple Garage Shelves⏐Ep. #250

Alex Hansen (0:00)

I was borrowing my buddy's truck on the weekends. I coordinated everything for Saturdays. I was out and about delivering shelves. May of 24, I got so busy, I quit the day job and did this full time. Instead of just my evenings to this, if you think of a thousand dollar shelf, the expenses on that is probably 150 bucks. So there's still plenty. My record is still 100% for in-person sales. Hey, can you come measure for me? Sure, I always close. It doesn't cost you a thing to make a listing. So make as many as you can.

Chris Koerner (0:31)

Use ChatGPT to come up with ideas.

Alex Hansen (0:33)

Yeah, you can sell anything.

Chris Koerner (0:35)

What advice do you have for people wanting to sell anything on Facebook Marketplace?

Way back in August of 2024, I interviewed Alex Nelson. He is my buddy in Utah, aka The Shelf Dude. We talked all about how he's able to make 15 grand a month in net profit selling custom garage shelves exclusively on Facebook Marketplace. That was episode 55 and it's linked in the description below. So I wanted to have him back on the podcast for an update. How are things going? How has your business changed? If at all, what advice would you give to other people trying to sell anything on Facebook Marketplace, either a product or a service? So if you want the full context, you're welcome to listen to the episode link below from August 21st, 2024 But we summarized that whole episode in the first five or 10 minutes of this episode. So please enjoy my episode with Alex. So tell us what you do, Alex. We'll get everyone up to speed.

Alex Hansen (1:26)

Yes. Yes. Well, I am the shelf dude. You can see that here on the shirt. I make the shelving units for those black and yellow totes. You can get it in any of the big box stores. You probably have some in your garage, but they're all stacked. But that's not the best way, most efficient way to access some or store them, because you send the husband out, hey, go get me this. And he goes out and has to unstack everything, find it. It's a stressful situation for him. I don't want to do this. It takes him a long time.

And compared to, hey, just go pull the one out directly from the shelf. So that's what I do. It's really worked out for me. It's kind of a, it's a real simple solution to an everyday need. Everyone has this.

Chris Koerner (2:08)

And where did you first see the design for the shelves that you make? And for those watching on YouTube, we'll overlay what it looks like.

Alex Hansen (2:15)

Sure. So back in November of 2023, two years now, my wife was just kind of scrolling around and saw something similar on online, just kind of a thing in the background. And hey, you should make one of those for our garage. So, okay, made one. Because I also felt that stress that this organization, everything was stacked. And so I made one, changed our garage. I immediately felt a relief. It's like, oh, this is easy now. I don't have to unstack anything. You know, it's funny how many, many people I've run into that have pulled their back or pulled their arm because they've toppled over or they can't lift it.

Chris Koerner (2:58)

Do you remember where online you saw it?

Alex Hansen (3:00)

I want to say it was an Instagram. This one from my wife, she forwarded it to me. She was looking for a entertainment center.

Chris Koerner (3:09)

Okay.

Alex Hansen (3:10)

One of the ones that you can buy the plans to and buy or build it yourself. And she'd seen something similar on that guy's site.

Chris Koerner (3:19)

Was there any indication on his site that it was a popular design or a popular item or no?

Alex Hansen (3:25)

Not that I can recall. It was just kind of just something there.

Chris Koerner (3:30)

Yeah. This is kind of like when I tell my Bucky story, the first question that people ask is, what else could you do that with? What other stores could you do that with? And I don't know, Trader Joe's, H-E-B, we've kind of dabbled with some of them. Sometimes you just hit lightning in a bottle and it can't be replicated. Oftentimes, in fact, usually, in my experience, it can be replicated with a different product or service. I wonder if there's a way to go to Pinterest or Etsy or a site that sells plans like this and look at the number of comments or sort by most popular and take your exact same playbook with, it could be a coffee table, it could be a table, it could be garage shelving that looks completely different. To use Facebook Marketplace as your distribution platform to copy that, just wondering out loud if that could be a thing.