What was your major there At Penn state? Eugene: I was Finance and Economics. Bradley Sutton: Okay. And then did you get into that field upon graduation? Eugene: Not really. I mean. It was related into financial. I was more in. Got into like risk management underwriting for insurance. Bradley Sutton: That just sounds like a minute right there. Oh my goodness gracious. Eugene: Yeah. My first corporate job. Yep. Bradley Sutton: Okay. And then. So around what year and how did you get introduced to e-commerce. And was it Amazon or was something else was your first entry into e-commerce? Eugene: It was really while I was working my job pretty much my cousin hit me up like. “Hey.
We’re getting ready to. To do something here”. And they were just kind of selling on ebay. Right. They were messing with products import from China and selling on ebay. And I just would go over after Fiji email list a few hours and help out and pack some orders. And then. I mean. Fast forward to probably about like six more that like. Okay. I think it’s time to quit my main job and then just jump in and go all in. Bradley Sutton: On ebay only? Eugene: It was ebay only at that point in time. Yep. Bradley Sutton: So you had made enough to quit your day finance job.
Take Over the Restaurant That’s
Just selling on ebay. What year was this again? Eugene: This was late 2007 and. And 2008 is when we entered Amazon. And. But that was. Yeah. I did it with the premise of no Amazon yet. Bradley Sutton: So what were you doing on ebay in2008? Like I mean. I think I was selling on ebay in 2008. But it was mainly like. You know. Some used stuff I had. I was trying to get rid of and stuff like that. Eugene: It was just. I mean. Disco and date me. But we did a lot of those. I remember those digital photo key chains. Like had like four gig eight gig
That was the hot cakes. That was the hot product back then. And I think I forget what it was like hundreds of those a day that we pack and went crazy. And I so was it like a- Bradley Sutton: Private label. Like your own product that you like source from. From China or something. Or it was just like brand name stuff that you were just reselling? Eugene: No. It was just generic stuff. It was generic stuff. I mean. We didn’t have brand play back in the day and just. Yeah. It just took off and.that kind of opened our eyes like. Oh. Wow. This is actually real.
Bradley Sutton Pennsylvanian
We can do something with this. Bradley Sutton: All right. So that. Then you took that business over to. To Amazon and just started it’s. You know. Splitting your. Your time between Amazon and ebay. Or did you completely switch to Amazon or how did that work? Eugene: No ebay was in the picture for a long time. Cause that was still the biggest. Biggest chunk of the business. I mean. Back in 2008. Amazon was I know it was already was going on for a few years. But it definitely didn’t have the volume yet. But I think cuz FBA wasn’t even available back then yet and in 2008 but we applied the same philosophies that we did on the ebay and pushed our same generic products out.
