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We all know that the bottleneck to running an eBay business is photographing and listing items. Treasure hunting, picking, thrifting, dumpster diving, scavenging: this is the fun, easy part. The often tedious work of listing each item on eBay is the part that throws most people off. There’s a long, dusty trail of burnt out sellers who have given up the ghost because listing got too much.
About a year ago, we did an interview with Susie who explained how she used a Virtual Assistant in the Philippines to help her list. Sue had a very particular process that worked for her. Also, she was able to travel to the Philippines to help her train her assistants. Since they were “virtual”, they could only do so much of the work.
We also interviewed Will aka Terminal99 about how he has hired two full-time employees who help him photograph and list. He pays a full salary and benefits.
Today, we talk w/ Lisa & Dan from NewVintageNY. Both have full-time jobs, but have managed to build an eBay store with over 6000 items. They’ve created an eBay pipeline where they find the items, but then locally hire out the work of photographing and listing. By placing ads on Craigslist, they are finding trusted people willing to be paid per listing. It’s a cool conversation because they’re still figuring it out.
You’ll hear us walk through their process, what they’ve learned, and how they plan to expand. After we recorded this conversation, Dan has hired a new person to help list. Hopefully he’ll update us all in the comments.
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Oh man, I'm really looking forward to this. I go back and forth to just have someone go through my huge pile. It would be a big help. But then I'm cheap too so there's that…
It's great to see the volume of sales that Dan and Lisa have every week. Their short descriptions have made me rethink my own descriptions.
I'm always amazed at what people will buy. Someone paid $33 for a pair of socks today. I am not my target customer!
Short descriptions in my opinion a key because the more you say the more a buyer can use that against you in a return scenario. Outside of the description the only other thing I will say is if there is a stain etc.
Never comment on condition unless it's damaged is the rule of thumb I give people that list for me.
Be careful with socks……..I had a person approach me and ask for my families dirty socks. He bought a pair of sports socks for soccer and requested to purchase all i had. I think its a fetish thing. *gag* i stopped listing pre owned socks unless they are smart wool or wool (Cant give up the profit on wool or smart wool).
If you watch Orange is the new black you will see they sell some items that fit that mold lol.
Ha! Dan! Since I watch that show I know exactly what you're talking about and people actually sell that on EBay. Totally gross and disturbing but…no buts, its just gross lol.
Interesting. A few questions come to mind:
1. How much are they netting a month now?
– because income is not exponential the more you list, is netting 50K a year possible with their method. Another way of asking that is, how far away from netting 50K/yr. are they now?
– Does anyone remember what the other people interviewed who contracted work out were making? It would be interesting to compare the results if possible.
2. Are they paying the photographer and lister as employees or under the table? If not, are they contracted? How does that all work? Paying FT employees would seem to be a whole other kettle of fish.
3. I wonder if it would be hard to find good people paying .75 cents/item. I don't think it's a coincidence that one employee is family. Small biz is often built around family for a reason.
Comments:
1. Smart to have lister enter a relatively high price with obo. That eliminates the research process (at lear on the lister's end). It can take quite awhile. I'm sure that would speed up the process for a lot of us. I get bogged down in research often because I have a lot of unique items. To be honest, even if they're not unique, I get bogged down in research because there is usually such a huge range of sold/completed prices.
Thanks for the interview. Food for thought for sure…
1. How much are they netting a month now?
– because income is not exponential the more you list, is netting 50K a year possible with their method. Another way of asking that is, how far away from netting 50K/yr. are they now?
Overestimating is a very bad thing to do in the financial industry because if you don't hit your number your stock price is going to take a hit. With that being said that is a low estimate and we are there at this point.
2. Are they paying the photographer and lister as employees or under the table? If not, are they contracted? How does that all work? Paying FT employees would seem to be a whole other kettle of fish.
1099 independent contractors.
3. I wonder if it would be hard to find good people paying .75 cents/item. I don't think it's a coincidence that one employee is family. Small biz is often built around family for a reason.
It's not easy to find good people at any pay grade. I work with lots of people making a lot of money that are useless. With that being said if you properly train someone and know what questions to ask in an interview process you can find good help. I just hired one more person since this podcast and they are killing it. They literally listed 600 press photo's for me in a week.
Comments:
1. Smart to have lister enter a relatively high price with obo. That eliminates the research process (at lear on the lister's end). It can take quite awhile. I'm sure that would speed up the process for a lot of us. I get bogged down in research often because I have a lot of unique items. To be honest, even if they're not unique, I get bogged down in research because there is usually such a huge range of sold/completed prices.
I hear that which is why I put a somewhat high price on the item to cover myself and to cut down on research for the people listing. If there is something that does not fit the mold of that price point I list it myself.
Wow, fast reply! Thanks Dan. Good interview and info. Ain't SL blog grand? I love that people really get down to business here and are so practical – and fast!
Hi! Loved this interview – thanks for sharing. This may have been discussed before, but I'm wondering what is your return ratio? I'm actually thinking of testing your method of fewer measurements but the downside to me is having a lot of returns which I have very few now.
Thank you Cat. I would say that it is on par with most people's return ratio on here. Maybe 3-5% depending on the month. I am a top rated seller at this point so you can see that based on those guidelines we are meeting ebay's criteria.
Usually the people that hound me for measurement I have no interest in dealing with because they are the type of people that do returns.
If you have seen Seinfeld I am kind of like the Soup Nazi. If someone asks me for a measurement or an annoying question then it's no soup for you. It's kind of my way of weeding people out that may cause trouble for me.
Maybe that is harsh but I caution sellers not to go out of their way to meet buyers demands that are pushy. If a buyer is pushy before buying an item just imagine how pushy they will be if they have buyers remorse or aren't happy with a purchase.
Dan, thanks for the quick reply. 3-5% is not too bad. I think that I am going to test your plan out.Just like Ryanne and Jay, I love to experiment. I have a lot to list and I just want to get it all up! Sometimes I think that other sellers are being the "eBay police" sending questions or pointing out an error in your listing. thanks again
I have had some of those types and if there is an error for whatever reason or they make a valid point then I revise the listing to reflect that. I guess the point is you can be a top rated seller by taking this approach. It's not perfect and there are issues that arise but as we have seen on the message board everyone has issues even if there are measurements.
It's usually how you handle the issues which is what keeps everything in good standing.
Yes, it's always best to treat the customer right and with respect.
Returns are part of selling so I just take the stuff back and I don't worry about it as I'm sure you do the same. You said on the podcast that you are selling about 175 items per month that would be between 5-8 returns per month. I don't consider that a lot considering the time savings for listing with out the measurements. Plus you just sell it again 🙂
Yes and now that you put that in a numbers context 5-8 seems a little high. 5 returns for us in a month would be a lot. So to backtrack I would say between 1-5 returns a month would be average with 5 being on the high end.
I don't want to sound like I am flippant with customers. Once someone purchases an item from me they have my full attention. I obviously value positive feedback and no issues so I have learned to bite my tongue in certain situations and give the customer a good experience even though I may be saying a few things to the computer screen.
I wouldn't say are method is perfect but it works for us and if it's something you are comfortable with doing I can show from my results and top rated seller status it won't negatively effect your ebay account.
We have received a 3 negative feedbacks this year none of which were in relation to measurements and all of them were eventually removed. If you give the buyer a full refund and apologize there is a 99% chance they agree to remove it.
Clearly you have an excellent track record and your method is working. It definitely doesn't sound like you are flippant with your customers. It sounds to me like you are not chasing PITA "potential customers". Sounds pretty healthy to me. You are focused on the things that you can accomplish and you don't worry about the rest.
1- 5 returns per month is even better than I was estimating and is probably about average for clothes anyway.
This operation seems unbelievable but I can't for the life of me figure out how you guys have time for anything. At my 1300 items even on days I don't list I'm barely getting sleep and have no time to breathe. You guys are amazing
1,300 items is a ton of stuff on ebay. We would have a lot of trouble handling that on our own as well. That is why we needed to get help to lighten the load a little bit.
I spend more time on setting up a strategies and improvements than I do on buying, listing, shipping, etc. All of that is easy. Conceptualizing and implementation is where you will see growth in my opinion. After you implement everything on the surface it looks straight forward but there is a lot of thought put into it.
I would recommend putting an ad on craiglist to have someone do the more mundane tasks for you so you have more time to do other things. You will get a lot more replies than you would think.
Dan,
Can you post your CL Post you used to contract a photographer for us to copy and paste? I would love to experiment with this method.
I do not have the original one I did last year because they delete them after a period of time. Here is my most recent ad and I received about 20 responses in less than a week.
http://albany.craigslist.org/cpg/5377109203.html
In this case I actually started the person listing a lot of press photo's instead of sports cards and they have listed over 800 press photo's in less than 2 weeks for 50 cents per listing. I already had these scanned and ready to go.
They listed everything on inkfrog.com which Jay recommended. Inkfrog was very good because it let me set up a listing template where all the lister needed to do was enter a title and description (which I also had 75% completed in the template).
Things to keep in mind when hiring someone for pictures only. These won't apply to a lister because you can just upload the photo's to the website or give them a flash drive.
If you do not feel comfortable with them coming to your house go to their house if you are having them do pictures. That way you know where they live if there is an issue.
Set up their photo station. Provide them with items they need for pictures so you can have it done the way you like it.
Provide training.
Remove all tags prior to giving them the items.
Know how many items you are giving them. That way if something goes missing for some reason you know something occurred.
If there is an issue with an item identify it before giving it to them. This is something that we learned after a few months. It's hard for them to pick up on every flaw as it would be for anyone else doing a lot of volume.
Be respectful and don't hound the person or jump on them if there is an issue of some sort. I know that is an obvious thing to say but like any other work place people don't understand how to manage other people.
YOU READ MY MIND…. I just hired a gal today. My first employee quit the day he was going to start. This is my last ditch effort to keep this shop rented. If it doesnt work im going back home to take over the house again…..my poor children.
I have to comment on a problem i found with GOOGLE CHROME and LISTINGS a couple weeks ago regarding FONT. Sorry for the caps….want to make sure this is seen. I have now started typing whatever font or size the listing offers me……after im dont i copy the entire paragraph and leave it highlighted. When HIGHLIGHTED you can instantly change the color, size, etc. With Chrome i was having to hit the font size button 20+ times before it would stick…..no more!! Highlight with copy and select away! When your done selecting just click somewhere outside the description box and walaah.
Hope this makes sense……let me know.
Just curious, what font do you prefer? I've just started using the new Beta version and am leaving the default font. I'm wondering if font is just a personal preference or if it matters in any way. For instance for mobile users, different browsers etc.
Is anyone having trouble printing postage thru the Ebay Seller Hub? I printed postage this way yesterday. Don't know if it is the seller hub, the Post Office or some other entity, but I tried it using two different browsers. It can't pay for the postage.
I printed something not long ago. Have you cleared your temp internet files, cookies, … that usually helps. Sometimes I try another item and it works and I come back to the troublesome item.
Popup blocker?
The buyer's address was too long. It didn't inform me of this issue right away. Thanks.
Anyone familiar with the clothing brand Renzo from Italy? I found a bunch of Renzo handkerchiefs or scarves or something and I'm not finding much to assign a price value. I originally thought I had packs of the same initial but once I opened it I realized I have more of the full alphabet. Makes it a little harder to list now with variations but shouldn't be too bad. Anyway, appreciate the help if anyone knows.
I need some advice about a blocked buyer…A buyer emailed me last week about an item, they wanted me to ship it to them first class to Canada instead of GBS. I responded to their first 3 emails saying no, and told them nicely why it wasnt safe for me to do that. They emailed me 7 more times which I ignored and then I blocked her. Today that item sold and the buyer asked for a revised invoice to include first class shipping to Canada. I contacted ebay which confirmed this was the same buyer with the same last name just a different account. They advised I cancel the transaction. A few minutes later the buyer paid for it and sent me an email saying " you could have just said no" I called ebay again to see how to proceed and they said since she paid I was "obligated" to ship it. My fear is that she leaves bad feedback or opens a not as described claim or something just to be hateful and vindictive. Any thoughts on if I should just ship it to her or refund? I really have no idea what to do. You would think ebay would say NOT to ship it since shes in violation from using a second ebay account but it seems they could care less.
Thanks,
Tina F
I would cancel the transaction. Make sure you use buyer requested the cancel and see if they bite. If they reject that then there are a few scenarios. Refund them completely and don't send it. They may leave bad feedback but unlikely. Or send it and hope for the best. I would try to cancel it and block them. Maybe change that specific item if you relist to no international or global shipping.
Dan,
Thanks for the response. I went ahead and cancelled it. I just want to avoid the drama. Im sure shes really mad at me for ignoring her emails…and then blocking her. I also relisted it and changed the listing to ship to US only as you suggested. Thanks for the advice. 🙂
Tina F
Definitely cancel. International orders aren't worth it if there is a chance for a return. I think you'll be fine on defects since you had previously blocked the buyer. Also having then try and circumvent your shipping should be enough for eBay to side with you.
I went out of my comfort zone and purchased two atomic midcentury metal sconces today. Similar to this:
https://img1.etsystatic.com/015/0/7687913/il_570xN.452569245_tu1n.jpg
They are lightweight – aluminum? Seeking advice on (1) removal of some light paint splatter and rust? spots inside; and (2) should I leave the wires sticking out from under the housing or trim? Thanks!
I think if will be really difficult to remove rust spots unless you're willing to sand and paint them. Be careful not to shorten the wires too much or you may have to rewire the fixtures.
There are a lot of home remedy rust removers. Just Google it and try one.
a green scrubby should work on both issues.
I would do very little to these lights other than give a simple wipe down. Just show any wear. It's a beautiful atomic age lamp. Let the buyer choose how they want to clean it.
Thank you
Thanks again – they're listed. The tiny paint splatters came off with my fingernail and I bailed addressing the rust.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/231815993630?ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
This may be an ignorant question but if you file your taxes quarterly, how or when do you claim all of your deductions? It seems like you would pay more taxes than you need to if your deductions are not calculated in quarterly to.
I am so nervous about taxes. I only made about 12000 last year but I did not pay any taxes on it. Self employment tax plus other taxes add up. I am married so I have that to add to it but do you think I have a shot at a refund or will I probably owe? I've never had to pay taxes before (always got a refund) so eBay selling is starting to scare me. Do other people here end up owing?
Anonymous. As a self-employed person, I don't file taxes quarterly. I'm paying estimated taxes based on what I paid last year. It's really to encourage me to pay in installments so I don't hit with an unpaid multi-thousand dollar tax bill in April It's very similar to how someone working for a company gets money pulled out of their paycheck each month.
Sam, don't be nervous. Just learn the law. Making $12k isnt running a random yard sale on a couple summer Saturdays. You;re running a business. $12k is real money. You owe taxes on it.
Why would you receive a refund if you haven't even paid any taxes yet? People only get refunds because they've had money pulled from their checks each month and then realize they didnt owe as much at tax time.
Will the IRS find out you made $12k this year? Supposedly Paypal doesnt alert the IRS until you hit $20k in transactions. This is a conversation you need to have with your partner. I'd be more worried about future years when you do hit $20k and then are unprepared to file taxes.
Well depending on how big his refund was in previous years he could get another this year. You have til April 18th to pay. If you really can't pay you have even longer if you really can't afford it(see installments plans).
I'd suggest taking all of January-March's sales and earmarking them for taxes.
We tried it both ways online. Without my income we got back a few thousand. With my income we owed. Since PayPal isn't forcing me to file, I'm not going to this year. I'm scared of the IRS finding out one day and back charging me but I'll have to live with that fear. I can say i will never make the mistake again of not keeping up with it throughout the year.
I assume your husband has a regular job where they take out taxes each paycheck. He'll get a refund because he's paid in more than he needed to.
Your income is currently undeclared and no taxes have been paid yet. Once you declare it with his income, then his refund essentially goes towards paying the taxes you owe.
If you made $12k last year, that's equal to having a full-time minimum wage job. $8/hr x 40hrs x 4 weeks x 12 months (minus deductions). It's real money. Start realizing you're running a business vs just fooling around selling stuff around the house.
What years do you classify as mid-century? Thanks
Mid-century probably runs from the late 40's through the late 1960's, but I've seen the phrase — especially "midcentury modern" applied super-liberally; I've seen "MCM" used describe anything vintage with a sort of mid-century modern *look*, or anything that might work in a room with mid-century modern decor, even if the item itself is from the 1970's or even 1980's. I'm not saying that's a technically accurate usage, by any means — just noting that it's often used as a term to describe a flavor as much as it is a time period.
thanks
How often do the store owners who follow this blog list their items with a higher price (say 20% more than they think is a reasonable sales price) and then use OBO with their listing. I seldom use OBO, but my sales are not stellar, either. I'd really appreciate knowing more what strategies successful store owners use. Thanks much, Candace
List it high and let people make offers.
I agree, list it high and let people make offers. I usually price things at double the price I would be willing to let them go for. A lot of buyers make offers at 50%, and I have found that counteroffers rarely go anywhere. On the other hand, a lot of people just pay the really high price. It's kind of amazing.
I always list at the top end of historical sales with Best offer enabled. You would be surprised at how often folks purchase with buy it now without making an offer. I would estimate off the top of my head that 60% or more of my sales are Buy it now. There are large portions of the country that just don't believe in haggling. Weird…haggling is a way of life here in WV.
I rarely (almost never) utilize "best offer" feature on my listings. I think it makes most people think you've seriously inflated your price and they will want a significant discount.
However, I do sell maybe 15% of my items for best offer. I utilize the "send the buyer an offer" feature from ebay messages quite frequently. I've found many people will ask for a deal through ebay messaging even if the listing is not marked best offer. Or I might just shoot them an offer if they have asked a random question. I'll offer them maybe 5% to 10% off the asking price, and usually they accept. They weren't expecting a deal, so I imagine they are thrilled to get one.
I see it as a "reverse auction". We get to set the price we want and then choose if we want to sell for less. Some days we're hungry and will discount. Other days we're feeling strong and stick close to our price. Bottom line: we have the power as the seller.
We find that many buyers don't even fool with "make offer" because they don't want to wait or go back and forth.
In an auction, the buyers have all the power. Some people say to start the auction for the price you want, but this sucks any oxygen from an auction. But if you start low, you could sell it at the lowest price.
We probably sell 30% of our items using "make offer". We also love eBay's relatively new feature of sending a buyer an offer if they send a question.
I'm grateful to all of you who took the time to answer, offering your helpful insights. Sending the buyer an offer in response to a question is something I'll consider doing in the future. I only thought to use it if they contacted me for a price reduction. Right now I'm using best offer for items over $100, but not below. Given what you've all said, I think that's a reasonable way to go. Thx again, Candace
Really enjoyed this interview. I'm impressed by how much Dan & his wife have been able to scale up their business in only a year. I have approximately 650 items in my store and would like to get up to 3,000 and am thinking of hiring out help for listing and taking photos.
Dan mentioned potentially looking into selling new sealed items on Amazon FBA in the future as they handle storage and shipping for these items. I'm also interested in sending out my inventory in the future and was wondering if anyone has tried Sellery yet? I know items with SKUs can be stored in the Amazon FBA warehouse but what about the used items we all like to sell on Ebay?
Thanks
Suzy
Post an ad on craigslist and see what happens. Not sure what your situation is but in our case the only way for us to scale up is by getting help from other people. I am sure we would have a different mind set if we both dedicated ourselves to this full time.
As far as the seller that looks pretty interesting but I am not familiar with it. i may have to do some research on it though.
Already posted an ad unfortunately it seems harder to find people interested in this sort of thing in NYC. Crickets…
http://albany.craigslist.org/cpg/5377109203.html
Take a look at mine. Obviously you can adjust the wording to fit your needs. I would think it the city someone would bite. If you are looking for someone to list only it's much easier. I actually have a woman in WV listing items for me. The pictures are much more time consuming in coordinating everything and the person obviously needs to be local.
Sold item not showing up in Seller Hub SOLD LISTINGS, even after printing shipping label off of Paypal. Will wait and plug in tracking number (in sold listings) if/when it shows up.
Also, still trying to get my bank account to link to GoDaddy. Called again, 4th or 5th time, and they have no one that can access this personal info when setting up bookkeeping account for taxes. Only option is to email, help.bookkeeping@godaddy.com,which I did yesterday. No response yet, maybe no one there on the weekend. Won't stress out, have until April 15th to set up. Wondering if the Customer ID they're asking for is my social sec. #. Not comfortable giving that out, if it is. Did anyone else link their bank account? What did you use for customer ID?
The problem could be that it's only pulling up up a business bank account for TCF and I have a personal account which only uses a loggin and password, not a Customer ID.
Sandy, do you have online banking set up with your personal bank? Perhaps you should call your bank and ask about the "Customer ID." I know one of our banks uses a "Member ID" number which is not a social security number or account number.
Yes, I went into my bank yesterday to see if there was a customer ID for my online banking and they said no, just the loggin and passcode. It's too bad that there's no one that can help me at Godaddy when I call. I'm hoping someone will get back to me on Monday. Thanks for the reply, Kate.
Dan who edits your pictures? The person who takes them or your sister?
Nancy we do not edit the pictures. The person that takes them uploads them to a flash drive and they are uploaded during the listing process. We do not crop or enhance the pictures at all.
Great interview. I completely agree with the way Dan does business. Customers that ask multiple questions tend to be a problem in the future. Those are not the customers anybody want. High volume selling on Ebay requires an efficient system and Dan definitely found a successful angle (giving his 175 items per month of sales) and a Top Rated status. Thank you for the interview Jay! If it is not too late I have a question about inventory.
Do you keep track of how much money you spent on each item (in Excel, Docs…), or simply write down a total for the haul?
I used to put a price of each item into excel, but feel this practice is tedious. However, I would like to know my average margins. Thank you in advance Dan.
Thank you for the reply. I believe that your margins are at least %50 and I imagine that is on the low end. Since you're in the finance space, I thought you'd have the best system in terms of input and output. Intuitively I switched to putting things into a spreadsheet as a haul rather than by item. But, thought maybe you had a different method. Thanks again. Great interview!
On the getting started as a small business theme:
I wonder what the cheapest simplest option is to get started as a legal online seller. I also wonder what the minimum one could do is.
I imagine the bare minimum is to declare any income on your taxes. No business registration – which of course means no write offs. But would that work for someone who only has income from online sales? Wouldn't they have to have a business license?
I imagine the next easiest would be to get a basic business license – not sure what you would register as. "Online sales" maybe? Then get a CPA and begin the write-offs.
I also wonder what people say their business is on the official forms.
I also remember there is some other license that some people get (maybe it's called something like a reseller's license?) that affords them some other opportunities, but can't quite remember. I think Michelle or Nancy said they went through the process and it was a PITA.
I know R&J have something a little different because of their other businesses and don't know all of the ins and outs. It's on my mind because I should probably get going on it and use last year's receipts as my first write-offs. Lots of start up costs.
Even though it keeps getting discussed, I still don't understand how you're supposed to handle COGS. I remember an experienced seller talking to R&J about getting audited and the auditor making her do COGS a certain way that actually wasn't appropriate – and she mentioned she couldn't then go back and do it the right way because it was set in stone, so to speak.
Well, these are some of the questions that have been rolling around in my head. Any elucidation would be appreciated.
Thanks fellow trash elves!
I would say the easiest way is to start listing items and deal with these questions as they arise. It sounds like you are over thinking it way too much.
Get this book: The eBay Seller's Tax and Legal Answer Book
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0017UGQ7S?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage
A couple years old but the general ideas are still valid.
I set up as a sole proprietor DBA (doing business as). Took about an hour to get my federal and state paperwork done and submitted and cost $30. I don't live in a city so I don't have to worry about local municipality issues.
Retro – Thanks. I will check it out.
Dan – That's exactly what I did. And now those questions have arisen. I have spent money on making an operation of sorts and I have made a little money. I am going to ramp it up to full-time this year. I guess I could wait until next year, but I (at least) hope to gross over 20K this year, so the time is now. The questions are pressing at this point. I'm going to talk to a CPA sooner than later, but I thought I might get some good ideas and a little clarity from the trash elf borg mind first. 😉
Anonymous
The question of "being legal" has a few different aspects:
– Your city or county may require you to get a business license. Start with your city's website to find out what's involved.
– Your state may expect you to get a reseller's license because as a seller, you should probably be collecting sales tax for sales to people in your state. (One benefit of having a reseller's license is that you may not have to pay sales tax when you buy stuff to resell).
– Regardless of either of the first 2, your state and the federal government will expect you to pay tax on the profits from your business. Your profit is the difference between what your sales totals and all your costs. (Your costs are the cost of the items, the cost of your shipping costs, ebay fees, paypal fees etc. You called these write-offs.). Paying taxes is the most important of these 3 steps to operating a busines and the government doesn't care if you have a license or not in regard to paying taxes.
COGS is cost-of-goods-sold. If you buy $500 worth of stuff and sell $300 of that during the year, $300 is your COGS. (Assuming that you'll sell the remaining inventory the following year, your COGS would be $200). The main thing is that your COGS only includes the value of the items you sold in a given year, not the cost of everything you've bought.
[I'm not an accountant]
This is why Jay and Ryanne don't like Goodwill.
http://www.theonion.com/article/goodwill-executives-arrested-after-years-skimming–51247
I'm quite a "skeptic", but isn't the Onion a spoof magazine? Hoarding needlepoint Christmas stockings? $450 in restitution? Something doesn't
add up. I think you got punked. Don't feel bad, it's happened to me too. They make it sound so convincing. I'm sure some of that does happen though.
Yep. The Onion is satire. It's not real news. It's completely ficticious.
I am curious for the people who have a lot of clothing & vintage items on ebay if it would be worth while to sign up for a service that syncs your eBay listings to Etsy. Imagine for a $100 dollars a month having most of your listings on Etsy at the same time as Ebay all the while syncing up when selling on either platform. I personally do not feel my store has enough items or quality of items to justify the service but I am sure some of you do. Anyways, just thinking outloud.
Not sure about $100/month but a service that syncs to Etsy would be super useful. Ryanne has said in the past that the lack of a sync process is the reason why R&J haven't posted lots of items on Etsy.
Is there a service you're looking at or just imaging one?
There are several companies that offer that ability to sync. I do not have enough inventory to justify paying $100 dollars or more a month to try syncing with Etsy. To me, larger sellers with 2k+ in inventory could probably benefit from such a service.
Sellbrite $179 a month minimum
Stitch Labs $99 minimum a month
ecomdash starts at $25 a month
GoDataFeed starts at $29 a month
Would love to hear an interview on someone who uses one of these and if it makes sense.
It seems like they are all geared towards sellers with quantity. There's gotta be one that is catered towards sellers that are selling one of kind stuff. Like create a template, hit submit and it magically is posted on ebay and etsy. That would be ideal.
That is pretty cool Steven I will check out those services to see if I can actually get my ebay listings on to etsy because that would be well worth the money.
I doubt etsy will ever approve a sync process for ebay. etsy has positioned itself as a niche site with hand crafted (and vintage) stuff buyers can't find elsewhere….if it's TOO easy for eBay sellers to just mirror their ebay listings on etsy, they risk finding themselves with a lot of inventory that can also easily be found on eBay. I'm sure etsy has the tech ABILITY to sync with eBay, they just don't have the financial incentive.
This is totally off topic but I'm under the prime free trial and I ordered a printer on Friday night and it got delivered by the post office today…on a Sunday. I was shocked. Wow.
Anybody in the Bedford, New Hampshire area? $22.50 with 9hrs to go.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/131698107330?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
It is a privilege to finally comment. J & R have helped me out so much! My comment is actually a question. When I first signed up for Seller Hub I was able to edit my listing while uploading photos at the same time on the same page. This went away a few weeks ago, but I've heard J & R mention it. Being able to edit your listing on the same page while uploading photos was a great feature. I've called eBay several times but they either have no idea what I am talking about or do not know how to get the feature back. Has this happened to anyone or does anyone know how to get this format for listing back?
Hi,
I am a relatively new seller and very confused about what "seller hub" is? how do you sign up for it?
Thanks!!!
Jay – I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy the interviews that you do. You always ask the right questions and you dig past the superficial stuff so that we get a better sense for how people are really operating. My eBay biz isn't at the level where I would actually hire anyone but the thought of having someone else do all the hard work to list items sure is appealing.
Thanks. Who has time to waste. Interviews give me an excuse to learn the things I want to learn. Always appreciative of other sellers taking time to share.
I also would like to say thank you for your interviews. I like how you go thru each part of the process with every person. Thanks!
Yes, thanks! I haven't listened but it's great hearing different perspectives and strategies from sellers. There's no one correct method of doing things so hearing all the different ways of doing things let's each seller decide what works best for them.
Simon if you have an excess of items that are building up that is usually the perfect time to bring someone in. It doesn't matter if you only have 100 listings in your store. What matters is how many items you have that is not listed. If you have 500 items that aren't listed that is going to take a lot of time and opportunity cost to list those items. Don't let the size of your store dictate your growth.
Jay does a great job with making people feel comfortable during the interview which is definitely a skill.
So I had two antique Windsor chairs listed, local pickup only. One sold and was shipped to Cape Cod. This afternoon I got a message from someone interested in the other one. Turns out the couple lives not only in my same town in Missouri, but in my same SUBDIVISION! How weird is that? They came right over, loved it, and took it home. Awesome! Now I need to find another chair. I had grown quite attached to it. 🙂
I have listed about 30 big and tall clothing items today (yay, me!) There have been a number of views on the items and I'd like to combine shipping if one person buys a number of items, but I don't know how to do it. I searched "combine shipping" on the blog and get zero hits. Do I find that a person wants to buy 3 items and then go into two of them and change it to free shipping and on the third item and charge the amount for all three items?
Do a Google search for : ebay combined shipping discount. Here's one of the pages that is returned. Maybe this will answer your question: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/ship-smart/advanced-shipping/attract-more-buyers/shipping-discounts.html
Thanks, Simon. That was the first place I went to look (seller central, I think is what it's called) and all I found was "set your Combined Payments and Shipping Discounts preferences in My eBay and apply them when listing your items." I looked all over for a combined payments and shipping discounts preference are in My eBay and couldn't find anything like that. I don't have a store, does that matter?
i think the issue with combined shipping with the types of items we all sell, is that it's tough to set up rules for combined shipping. if you are selling multiples of something, it's easier to say $3 for shipping, $1 for each additional item. that only really works for items in quantity.
Dan (and Lisa), I just finished listening to your interview, after anticipating it for quite some time; and it was fascinating.
I am a tactile learner, so the idea of your sister listing items without handling them is really incredible to me. How novel that is! You offered lots of new ideas that I will be considering as I try to streamline my own listing processes.
Kudos to both of you for all you have accomplished on EBay – it's truly inspiring!
Thank you for the kind words Pat. If you ever have any questions feel free to ask. We are continuously streamlining and improving our process as well as learning from our mistakes so I might be able to help you avoid some of our mistakes.
Hi Dan! I really enjoyed your interview and found it very inspiring. I think it is great that you do not post measurements. Neither do I, lol… I just find it a time sink. I also find that I prefer selling men's clothes to women's. Much easier! People do email and ask for measurements and for the most part, I will pull the item out and give them some information after I check their feedback and they seem like an "easy going" customer. (But I only have 240 listings, not 6000!) One question I want to ask you, is after you receive a request for a measurement, that you strategically decide to not respond to… do you then block them? Whenever I do not choose to respond to a request for information, I usually block just out of fear that if they DO buy the item, well, I'm probably going to get bad feedback, so let's just avoid that and BLOCK. DO you think I am being too paranoid? How do you handle these situations?
Thanks!
Thank you Sharon. I do not typically block someone that asks me a question unless they start to harass me. I have had people asking me over 10 times for a measurement and even if I block them they can stay on the same message string and keep messaging me. I have had buyers that asked me a question just flat out buy the item. This has happened a hand full of times and at that point they are a customer and I give them any measurement they want etc to ensure there are no issues. If they end up canceling the transaction because the measurements aren't what they want that is fine I just move on. Long story short I only block someone if they won't leave me alone. Outside of that most people ask once and go away.
It's not that I am opposed to doing measurement. Logistically it's very difficult when I have other people listing and picturing the item to get measurements in an efficient manner. Once the item is listed the opportunity cost of me looking for an item, doing measurements, and having the buyer say thanks but no thanks is not worth it for me. The odds are 5050 at best even if I do provide measurements they still won't want the item.
One thing that Jay mentioned, is that sales don't seem to grow exponentially with the number of items in the store. Could this be the explanation for it …
The number of ebay sellers have grown as your store has grown, and there's a greater supply now. So prices are lower and things don't sell as well. If you went back to only 500 items today, you wouldn't have as many sales as you did a few years ago when you started out with 500 items.
Just thoughts, but maybe a better explanation than an ebay conspiracy.
That would be interesting if individual store sales are down because there's simply more competition. If anything, that hypothesis would mean business overall is better than ever.
How would that hypothesis mean that overall business is better than ever?
To me, I feel the curve is moving up with more and more people buying online. Yes, there are more sellers, but there are also more many more buyers. I know for us, food is the only thing we still buy in an actual brick and mortar store.
It means there's more competition, but overall online sales are continuing to grow. If our individual sales are declining, it means, we must take an action to change this: sell different items, play with prices, etc.
Good point. More sellers, but also more buyers.
Yep, to your second point. My action lately has been trying to learn fashion. I even visited Nordstrom this last week, just to browse around.
we do that too. one of the main things we do in NYC is just people watch to see what fashions are cool right now.
First of all, thank you for all of the invaluable information and wisdom.
Yesterday I took the plunge and posted an ad on CL for someone to help with photography. I wanted to be clear about what I was offering and what I was offering to pay…
here is a snipit of my ad:
The Gig: Photograph 75-100 unique items per week* (item examples listed below)
The Pay: 50 cents per item (average of 4-8 images per item)
I've had MULTIPLE very rude responses to my ad. And my ad has been flagged and removed TWO times. Snooty creative types that think my offer is a joke. Not just responses via email, but these people posting 'ads' in reply to my post in the 'Gigs' section.
I did have had 2 legit responses, one of which I will follow up on.
But gosh.. it took a lot of thought and courage for me to finally post on CL for someone.. then to have people be so rude about the legit job posting.
Has anybody else have this response?
Hey Kara. There are two sellers who comment regularly who have hired help off Craigslist: Brian and Dan.
It'll be best if you comment on the latest post. No one looks at these old post comments but me.
Haha I get random emails because I clicked the notify me button and I figured since I did the interview I should keep an eye on it. Karen when I posted on CL I titled it "ebay listing associate". I didn't get any snippy responses but maybe I was lucky. Either way not a big deal you can just ignore them.
In the content I basically said I sell on ebay and am looking for someone to help me picture items for the purpose of selling them on ebay. I pay 50 cents per item. From my experience picturing between 15-20 items per hour is the average output. This will be a 1099 independent contractor position. Please message me if you are interested and I can provide further details.
You can usually look up people by their email address on facebook or find them pretty easily. I would look at their profile and try to research them as much as I could before responding to them. Some people based on what I saw from their facebook page was more than enough to know I didn't want to work with them. I hope that helps. I would show you my posting but it was a long time ago and they deleted since then.
I would not be at all discouraged if people are being rude. You are the one that will reap the rewards and they are wasting their time trolling craigslist ads. You are on track to setting up the infrastructure to ramp up selling on ebay so the rest is just white noise. Haters gonna hate! Keep up the good work and let me know if you need any help on the set up.
Thanks for the quick reply!
Do you list under 'Gigs' or 'Jobs'?
I'm afraid I'm going to need a new approach.. I've had two listings flagged and removed in the last 24 hours. I think anything I put up there right now is going to be flagged for removal by the same person/people.
I was thinking of posting the job on NextDoor or even a local FB garage sale site? My concern is privacy until I've someone I want to share more information with… you know what I mean? Have you posted your jobs anywhere other than CL?
That is weird they would be flagged and removed. I posted mine in the jobs section. I haven't tried posting anywhere else but I'm sure it would be similar. I am sure you will find someone and when you do it will be the next step to ramping up your production. The key is don't get discouraged and worry about what you can control.
Thanks again. I appreciated your thoughtful followup.