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Cyndi of Amazing*Taste said that her ebay partner/ husband had to go to the hospital last week. As far as we know he’s fine, but she did bring up a good question: what would you do if your eBay partner is out of commission? Could you still run the business alone? Or if you already work solo, how would things work if you couldn’t list and ship?
We certainly depend on each other. Each of us does certain tasks each day to keep the store running. Ryanne could more easily take control of the business herself but at much less volume. Jay would have a learning curve when it came to shipping. Our business certainly would change if one of us got sick.
But if you do depend on eBay for your income, it would be wise to have an emergency plan if something did happen. Maybe find a family member and teach them to ship. Definitely try to put enough away in savings so your expenses would be covered for at least three months. Selling on eBay is living without a safety net unless you build the net yourself. There is no sick leave on eBay.
This week we also discussed an interesting conversation going on in the Retail Arbitrage world on Amazon. Cynthia wrote a blog post that warned that Amazon may be ending the ability to sell retail arbitrage. This means no more going to Walmart, buying out the discounted items, and sending them into FBA. She backed it up with sources and her logic. But then Ryan from Online Selling Experiment (who we interviewed several years ago) responded with a well-reasoned argument why Amazon would continue to let you send in items you buy at retail stores.
The bone of contention is the fear that Amazon thinks that retail arbitrage items are often discounted, clearance items that are not in new condition. Because sellers say they are new, customers are returning these items more frequently and having a bad experience. No one knows for sure what will happen, but it is interesting conspiracy theories are not just in the eBay community. It would be a game changer for many FBA sellers.
For us, we continue to sell used items on Amazon and have learned to list the as such. If Amazon did stop allowing “like new” items to be shipped into FBA, I can only see this as a good thing for eBay since those used items would be sold there. Ryan did say that Target no longer allows him to buy up all their discounted items in huge lots. Not sure if this is nationwide or just his local store.
- We also mentioned some seller’s issues with VERO claims. Please educate yourself on this because eBay does not fool around with accidentally selling counterfeit items on designer labels. Often these claims can be made in error and can still cause headaches fighting it.
- Check out our post this week on how to make your listings mobile friendly This is an evolving situation as eBay slowly tries to get us all to improve the look of our items online. We’re always keeping an eye out on the new practical tweaks.
Hope you had a good week!
Our Store Week August 21-27, 2016
- Store #1
- Total Items in Store: 4,171
- Items Sold: 28
- Cost of Items Sold: $53
- Total Sales: $1,201.60
- Highest Price Sold: $150 (Small wool rug)
- Average Price Sold: $42.91
- Returns: 0
- Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $250
- Number of items listed this week: 62
- Amazon FBA Store
- Number of items sold: 9
- Amazon total sales: $161.56
- Amazon FBA Fees: $77.45
- COGS (shipment to FBA included): $20
- Net profit after COGS: $64.11
- Sold 1 items for $20
- Store #2
- Total Items in Store: 1088
- Items Sold: 12
- Cost of Items Sold: $15
- Total Sales: $332.89
- Highest Price Sold: $40 (vintage wall calendar)
- Average Price Sold: $27.74
- Returns: 0
- Number of items listed this week: 0
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Bonanza:
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