The Numbers: Week of January 28-February 3, 2024

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- 02/05/2024 at 4:52 pm #102329
  Jay
  Keymaster
  Location: Virginia
  @jay
  Ever year we think we’ll phase out selling clothes since competition has grown tremendously for used clothing. There are more sellers scavenging for p
  [See the full post at: The Numbers: Week of January 28-February 3, 2024]
- 02/05/2024 at 9:45 pm #102333
  Sharyn
  Participant
  Location: Central NJ
  @sharyn
  I have narrowed down vintage clothing to items that are interesting or high quality, but they still move slow. I still have several boxes of clothing from my consignment deal with my neighbor, and I think this month I’m going to pull out the t-shirts. There are no vintage band t-shirts, like your high sale from last week, but there are ones from festivals, old software, and so forth. After that, I’m really going to consider whether something is worth the work or just donate.
  
  My theme last week and continuing to this week has been large items. It’s great to get back some space, but shipping has been quite painful. My highest sale this week was a bear to pack.
  
  Week of Jan 28 – Feb 3
  Total Items in Store: 1687 eBay, 34 Etsy, 18 Ruby Lane
  Items Sold: 11 eBay, 0 Etsy
  Cost of Items Sold: $10 + $74 Commission
  Total Sales: $371.55 eBay; includes fees but no shipping
  Highest Price Sold: eBay $56 for 3 Tier Wrought Iron Rack with Ceramic Plates
  Average price: $33.78
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
  Number of items listed this week: 4
- 02/05/2024 at 9:50 pm #102334
  ChristineR
  Participant
  Location: Southern California
  @christiner
  Total Items in Store: 1194
  Items Sold: 10
  Gross Sales: $534.36 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $317.14 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $86
  Highest Price Sold: $96 (One art pottery tile, paid $2.99 at GW)
  Average Price Sold: $53
  Returns: 1 (Another claim of incomplete kit)
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $80
  Number of items listed this week: 59
  
  It felt dead all week and I remembered to run a sale on the weekend so yesterday (Sunday) was good. Not much sourcing last week with all the rain, but I did a little bit of online sourcing. Working my way through some piles. Hope sales pick up soon!
  
  Had another claim and photo of a used item I sold as new. The person had already left good feedback and seemed more legit than the last one, though the photos I put in the listing make it look sealed. Now I’m starting to show the top and bottom of these kits with extra photos. I just refunded the $20, blocked the person, and chalked it up to doing business. Hope that’s the last one I get for a while. I also never called Ebay about my buyer with the negative feedback…
  
  Hope all is well with the restaurant. I kind of got a little burned out on some of the harder to pack larger breakables and considered doing a little clothing, especially if it has the tag. It is really nice and easy to ship. Smaller size or new linens are so great.
- 02/05/2024 at 9:55 pm #102335
  ChristineR
  Participant
  Location: Southern California
  @christiner
  Afraid to edit again, but I have heard a lot of clothing sellers prefer to sell mens clothing only. @Retro you can have all the shoes. 🙂
  - 02/06/2024 at 8:54 am #102339
    Retro Treasures WV
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @retro-treasures-wv
    Yes, Men’s clothes do much better than women’s.
    
    As for shoes, I’ll take ’em! I sold 7 pair of non-hoarder shoes last week for $220 on $40 COGS. $22 Profit after fees per pair for about 5 minutes of work per pair*. That’s one heck of an hourly rate.
    
    *my profit margins are actually higher now that I make a significant amount on shipping. Much of my fees are covered by the difference in shipping so it’s more like $25 a pair.
    
    I also sold 7 non-hoarder clothing items last week for $141 on $35 COGS, $12.75 profit per item after fees. Listing is maybe a minute longer due to measurements. I lose some time on listing due to measurements, but make up some time on photography on most clothing since it is typically just 3-4 photos.
    
    Bread n butter shoes blows bread n butter clothes out of the water…as long as you have the storage space. It will take up to 3x the space depending on how efficient you are with storing clothes.
    
    I challenge you next time you are in a thrift to find one pair of shoes with a 50% or higher STR and a sales price of $30 or more that are in above average condition. Then list them and see what happens. Just one pair. You can even wear gloves if you can’t get past he ‘ewww’ factor. LOL!
    - 02/06/2024 at 10:11 am #102340
      ChristineR
      Participant
      
      Location: Southern California
      @christiner
      
      @Retro challenge accepted. Your point about storage is a good one though. Also I believe the shoes in good shape are pretty pricey at our thrifts. Do you sell kids’ shoes?
      
      I can’t throw a stone without hitting tons of men’s swim / surf trunks, which wouldn’t require measurements and would pack super small. Finally, I was also considering flexible sun hats but never checked the ROI. A ton of those and they would stack.
      
      People are on the belts and leather big time. Never ever find good belts. I’ve been looking for me.
      - 02/06/2024 at 10:38 am #102342
        
        Retro Treasures WV
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @retro-treasures-wv
        
        I’ve done well with belts, but I rarely shop for them. I have a bag of them from the hoarder collection I’ll eventually get around to listing. I’ve sold every belt I’ve ever listed.
        
        High quality leather or unique design combined with a good brand name = good sale.
        
        You can make money with mens surf trunks but you have to get them dirt cheap and sell dirt cheap. Not worth it if COGS are over $5 an item unless they are REALLY special. $10-20 sales price. The cheaper you go the quicker they sell.
        
        I do sell kids shoes occasionally. Kids Air Jordans, and kids Adidas Samba are great pickups that are usually cheap. I also buy/sell cheap baseball cleats. They’re usually $3 at the thrifts. Then I have cleats on hand for my kids when baseball season rolls around. If they don’t fit them they will sell and I make money. Win/win!
        
        Soccer cleats can be BIG money if you find the right pair. The best cleats are made with Kangaroo leather (once you feel it you know it). I’ve sold soccer cleats for $100+. Nike Tiempo and Adidas Copa Mundial are the words you want to look for on the cleats for the big bucks. I regularly buy soccer cleats even if not kangaroo leather as they can sell for $100+ and are usually in great condition.
        
        Avoid the sun hats. Hats in general don’t have a great STR unless you have something very special. The market is super flooded.
        
        If I could make one hat recommendation for you, it would be Ping brand golf hats. They always sell.
        
        02/06/2024 at 10:55 am #102343
        
        ChristineR
        Participant
        
        Location: Southern California
        @christiner
        
        Great advice, thanks! Kids’ soccer is huge here. I’ll start keeping an eye out. I sometimes find Patagonia trunks and sold some I thrifted and my boys rejected. Patagonia is huge here and their headquarters are a half hour away.
        
        I see cowboy boots on occasion but I don’t think I want to get into storing that right now when I’ve still got a lot of piles. I know some can bring good money. When I saw my friends’ teens shopping for graphic tees in Hollywood at the flea, I thought I could easily find that random stuff but I’m sure the market has been flooded. Also there are a lot of young clothing sellers now picking here, so that would be more of a garage sale thing.
        
        One of our big 3 annual rummage sales is this weekend. Woo hoo! Better get to listing…
    - 02/07/2024 at 7:56 am #102345
      Jay
      Keymaster
      
      Location: Virginia
      @jay
      
      I will say that I don’t know how people ONLY sell clothes/shoes. It certainly feels like a grind just selling a single kind of thing.
      
      But yes, adding clothing/shoes to the stream certainly makes business sense.
      - 02/07/2024 at 9:55 am #102346
        
        ChristineR
        Participant
        
        Location: Southern California
        @christiner
        
        I looked at GW yesterday and the shoes were priced high $30 for the nice ones behind the counter. They are on to some brands there – lulu would be like $19.99 per item for example. The local chain would be a bit less. I know some other quality brands but just don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for picking this stuff up. Howe er on my busy shopping days packing breakables does get annoying. So if my business grows I may get more attracted to clothes.
        
        02/07/2024 at 11:44 am #102349
        
        Retro Treasures WV
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @retro-treasures-wv
        
        In your area yard sales may be better for shoes and clothes. I figure you have year round yard sales with your weather (JEALOUS!!)
        
        We get a bit of overpricing locally and I see it WAY worse in Columbus when I go there. There are entire thrift chains up there that I don’t even waste my time going to because of their pricing. I stick to Goodwills as they are the most reasonable in that big city. There is a Goodwill outlet there but I’ve never went. Maybe someday just for fun. Hairy Tornado does the Goodwill outlet near him and finds pretty good stuff. He also has his Whatnot channel to sell everything to his viewers really quickly so it’s not a model I can adopt.
        
        Thankfully the goodwill closest to me swung back the other way and went all in on just turning over product as fast as possible. Their shoes are mostly back to $3.99, with only a few pair priced up.
        
        Always be willing to try out new things to sell and pivot to what is available and profitable.
- 02/06/2024 at 7:22 am #102337
  The_SEAM_Store
  Participant
  Location: PA
  @the_seam_store
  Jan 28 -Feb 3, 2024
  Total Items in Store: 3781 listings for 5425 items
  Items Sold: 45
  Gross Sales: $3860.51 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $2698.90
  Cost of Items Sold: $698 ($152 mine / $546 consignors)
  Highest Price Sold: $255 Fur Coat
  Average Price Sold: $85.78
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $152
  Number of items listed this week: 56
- 02/06/2024 at 8:33 am #102338
  Retro Treasures WV
  Participant
  Location:
  @retro-treasures-wv
  Items in Store: 3013
  Items Sold: 32
  Total Sales: $1,556.00
  COGS: $242.00
  Total Profit: $1,314.00
  Average profit: $41.06
  Average sales price: $48.63
  New Listings: 24
  Items scavenged: 7
  2024 weekly new listings Avg: 40
  2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,428.60
  2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 33
  2024 ASP $43.55
  2024 projected total sales $74,287.20
  
  After some thinking this week I added a few new metrics to the bottom of my weekly numbers. Now each week I can see a snapshot of if my trending ASP and projected sales for 2024. It is nice see these numbers automatically populate each week. I’m not exactly lighting the world on fire yet, but I’m still doing VERY well compared to past performance this time of year.
  
  I need to get my weekly listings over 50 to get my items sold back over 40. If I can keep my ASP over $40 where it is now I need to get up to 46 sales a week. That’s a TALL order. The further I get into the year the harder it will get. That $100k gross sales goal is definitely a stretch. Still, having $75k in sales be the new normal is a TREMENDOUS change in my business!
  
  I was quite light on listing this week. Actually I didn’t create any new drafts – just had my daughter photograph most of my draft bank from last week yesterday. I ended up busier than I originally planned. Saturday morning I spent some time on inventory management which is SUPER important for my long term success. Then Saturday evening and all day Sunday I was down with migraine and bad neck pain. It’s still there today but much more manageable. I’m still not where I need to be, but the fact I’m getting alot of the organization knocked out now means I’ll be spending my time listing in March/April instead of doing all the inventory management then.
  
  It’ll probably be another light week this week as I have some family commitments this coming weekend.
  
  Premium Hoarder update:
  
  Sold 9 items for $896. It seems like I’m gonna live & die this year based on my hoarder sales each week. I haven’t listed any new hoarder items in a bit. I will try to list a couple pair of shoes this week since I sold a few pair.
  - 02/08/2024 at 1:31 pm #102360
    craig rex
    Participant
    
    Location: south jersey
    @craig-rex
    That $100k gross sales goal is definitely a stretch. Still, having $75k in sales be the new normal is a TREMENDOUS change in my business!
    
    Congrats on such a huge number as the new normal. So many full-time flippers don’t even touch your numbers, and you have a full-time career and family on top of it. Amazing. Inspiring. Can’t wait to see what your numbers are like in a year or two.
    
    I’m still not where I need to be, but the fact I’m getting alot of the organization knocked out now means I’ll be spending my time listing in March/April instead of doing all the inventory management then.
    
    I have realized that I fall into this pattern during Q1 as well, since Q4 is often hectic with both buying and selling, I end up accumulating more death piles during this time. Plus I have a habit of putting off taxes until the last minute. This year I want to get the taxes done (if not fully paid) by March 15th (a full month early!) so I can spend April really focused on listing, hopefully setting myself up for big sales in the second half of this year.
    
    Sold 9 items for $896. It seems like I’m gonna live & die this year based on my hoarder sales each week.
    
    How much more is left to list from your hoarder haul? And how much more do they have left to sell? This will be the gift that keeps on giving to you into 2025 and beyond. You have a lot of options for how you can sell your current inventory and the rest of your pickups. If you want to sell faster, you can always cut prices, send out aggressive offers to watchers (I bet this would be successful with these types of items) or even run auctions.
    - 02/08/2024 at 1:40 pm #102361
      Retro Treasures WV
      Participant
      
      Location:
      @retro-treasures-wv
      
      I have a couple bins of clothes and about 30-40 pair of shoes left.
      
      There is a ton of stuff left. There is about 30 bins of mostly NWT clothes & loose shoes they pulled from the apartment in a hurry to get it ready to close out.
      
      Then there is a ton more stuff that they already had in the garage that is in my neighborhood. In short – a ton of stuff.
      
      I’ve been doing 15-20% send offers but the sales conversion is pretty low on offers.
      - 02/08/2024 at 7:12 pm #102362
        
        craig rex
        Participant
        
        Location: south jersey
        @craig-rex
        
        That’s incredible. I’m so glad you’ve been able to pick through this haul at your leisure. It would have been a very different if you had to buy everything at once and figure out storage and (the important part) get it all listed on top of dealing with your already existing inventory. That would have been very stressful.
        
        I bet if you went 25% or higher with your offers, you’d start to see more watchers turn into buyers. But there is no rush with a lot of this stuff unless you think values will go down for some reason.
- 02/08/2024 at 12:10 am #102352
  craig rex
  Participant
  Location: south jersey
  @craig-rex
  Like clothes, my trading cards niche is easy to pack, store and ship, and I have lots of sources for getting inventory at bargain prices. It can be time-consuming and it’s a lot of work to process all this inventory, but it rarely ever feels like work and I have all the flexibility in the world. I’d love to expand to other niches faster, but I’m happy with my schedule how it is right now. For now, I’ll keep riding these waves and building my inventory, buying a lot or selling a lot when opportunities present themselves.
  
  Speaking of that, I created 300 auctions tonight to end the evening after the Super Bowl, and I’m really excited to see how they end up. I tried promoting my auctions for the first time — eBay calls this Promoted Listings Express — and you pay one flat fee ($0.99 to $1.49) to promote the auction listing for the duration. What’s a buck worth to you? I tried Promoted Listings Express on some expensive items, like a Taylor Swift box set and some fancy Chiefs and 49ers cards, and some cheap listings with lots of competition, like a few of my curated team lots. You can’t get much for a buck these days. I want to give my auctions every advantage I can to get into a bidding war.
  
  I got bids on 3 items within the first hour tonight, and one $14.99 listing sold for a $25 best offer. So we’re off to a good start. Full results next week.
  
  1/28/2024 to 2/3/2024
  
  Listings: 377 — up from 324 last week thanks to a few big bursts of listing today and this past weekend
  
  Items sold: 27 — 19 via best offer, 4 via seller initiated offer, 19 via promoted listings
  
  Gross sales: $1059.31 (down 61.1% from one year ago)
  
  Net sales: $621.00 (down 66.3% from one year ago)
  
  Average sales price: $39.23 (down 15% from one year ago)
  
  Highest price sold (net): $66.03 — Fran Tarkenton 2017 Panini Preferred autograph /25
  
  Lowest price sold (net): $10.24 — Udonis Haslem 2013-14 Panini Intrigue autograph jersey card /99
- 02/08/2024 at 9:01 am #102357
  ChristineR
  Participant
  Location: Southern California
  @christiner
  https://imgur.com/a/bKg8cqm
  
  Speaking of coupons, every time on the app this lady’s coupon is taking up a lot of real estate on my phone. Is anyone in here using this type of coupon?
  - 02/08/2024 at 1:18 pm #102359
    craig rex
    Participant
    
    Location: south jersey
    @craig-rex
    @ChristineR
    
    I think the coupon in your imgur post is just a regular markdown coupon. Why it says 25% when she has a number of different coupons (some at higher rates), I’m not sure. Maybe the 25% coupon covers the largest number of items in her very large store.
    
    I’ve never had much success with markdown sales, or volume pricing, but I’m sure those numbers are very different with a 100,000 (!!!) item inventory. In my experience, the best options for moving stale inventory or selling inventory faster are:
    
    1. Price more aggressively — set the BIN at something like 75 to 90 percent of solds instead of 100% or higher
    
    2. Lower best offer settings — for example, to 50% of BIN price if your minimum offer settings are set at 60 to 75 percent like mine are
    
    3. Send stronger offers to watchers — I start at 20% off and I’ve found that 25% is where my interested buyers get more likely to accept the offer. Also allow counteroffers on sent offers.
    
    4. End and sell similar — especially listings that are 6+ months old, but even on newer listings with no watchers/offers, try end/sell similar and fiddle with price, category or title.
    
    5. Auctions!*** with these caveats: don’t run auctions for weird gewgaws and items where there are like 3 potential buyers in the world, don’t expect bidding wars, don’t start opening bids below your floor price for the item (I usually go 50% of my buy it now price) — but keep auctions in your mind as a possibility for items in collectibles categories (where you get free auctions every month with a store subscription) or items with a decent amount of competition where an auction stands out from many similar/same buy it now/best offer listings. Also for stale inventory where you’d be happy just to get $10 or $20 or whatever your absolute floor is. Auctions should be in every eBay seller’s repertoire for the right types of items. They are a unique feature of the platform and I think part of why eBay has held off so many competitors over the years.
    
    6. Markdown sales — these used to be more useful back when the eBay bucks program was still around, but I have run them less and less over the last two years. Now I only do markdowns around holiday weekends and I always make sure to end and sell similar most of my store a few days before I start the markdown. Maximize chances of connecting with potential buyer this way.
    
    7. Volume discounts — I see these often with sellers who have multi quantity of the same type of item (for example, something new in the package which they sell wholesale) and I think for those types of listings, absolutely set up volume pricing. It’s never really fit my store but I know @retro-treasures-wv has had some success with it. Generally I think these types of discounts (as well as markdown sales) are easiest to pass by.
    - 02/10/2024 at 7:54 am #102378
      ChristineR
      Participant
      
      Location: Southern California
      @christiner
      
      @craig thanks! I’m definitely considering some of these. Sales are super slow for me.
      
      I’m really torn between getting up new listings vs going back and revising things (spending time). Also a bit torn on lowering prices and allowing lower offers and counters. I don’t get offended but I do kind of get annoyed. Right now everything is either auto accepted or rejected. If my phone makes a noise it’s a sale. But, I’ve been listening to others on podcasts say it’s kind of a time where you need to take deeper discounts. I tend to go with a one size fits all approach to things and forget it but since I carry both new and used, I should probably allow lower offers on the used items. I have gotten a boost in markdown sales and I’m due for that and sell similar.
- 02/09/2024 at 8:25 am #102364
  Sooozles
  Participant
  Location:
  @sooozles
  Hi everyone,
  
  I’m a long time listener but haven’t posted on here in years. I just wanted to chime in on the clothing conversation. I live in NYC, and lately, I feel like it’s become more difficult to find things to sell that aren’t clothes. Prices at estate sales and thrift stores have gone up (or the products are picked over and don’t ever hit the shelves). They’re also just a pain to store in my tiny Chinatown apt.
  
  I have about 1030 items in my store (mostly high-end or contemporary brand clothing, some shoes, and a very small amount of housewares or perfume from before), and I try to list consistently, but I can only manage about 15-20 items a week at best. I still can’t eke out a full-time living doing this. Jan 21st-27th was my best week in a long time I sold $1800 (gross) worth of stuff. Of course, now I’ve been hit with the most returns I’ve ever had for things like “this jacket fits well but is scratchy in the shoulders” 🙄, and it seems all the high ticket sales I was so happy about finally selling are all coming back. I’ve had 5 returns and counting.
  
  I’m wondering if any of the clothing resellers have any tips for me. I got laid off from my job about 8 months ago, and since then, I have been trying to find a new job while focusing on eBay for now. (I’m a freelance writer and this year has been rough)
  
  Is there a specific number of listings I need to hit to make my sales more consistent? For example, last week, I only sold 2 items for a total of $237 dollars, and this week, I haven’t done much better. I’ve only sold 2 things so far for a total of $200, but one buyer has already started a return because she “couldn’t find a belt that worked with the dress.” I’ve dealt with clothing for a long time and I always point out any flaws and include measurements, but the returns are out of control lately. I’ve never had so many! Gah 😩
  
  I do cross post to Poshmark, Depop, and Mercari. But I’ve only made a handful of sales on Depop and one on Mercari, Poshmark I’m lucky if I get two sales a week. Thanks in advance
  - 02/09/2024 at 2:07 pm #102365
    Retro Treasures WV
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @retro-treasures-wv
    My anecdotal history over time shows that my items sold per week averages out to about 60-70% of what my recent new listing average has been. And if I hardly list at all my sales will keep dropping off eventually to very little no matter how many items are in my store.
    
    So if I consistently want 20 sales per week, I need to list 30-35 items per week consistently.
    
    If I want 40 sales, I need to list 60-70 items.
    
    It sucks but that is the reality for most buyers unless you’re a youtube reseller star.
    - 02/09/2024 at 3:06 pm #102366
      craig rex
      Participant
      
      Location: south jersey
      @craig-rex
      
      My anecdotal history over time shows that my items sold per week averages out to about 60-70% of what my recent new listing average has been. And if I hardly list at all my sales will keep dropping off eventually to very little no matter how many items are in my store.
      
      Same here. This is a great rule to follow. But there are always experiments you can try — if you really need to sell some things in your store right now, send out offers to watchers at a strong discount rate– let’s say 40% rate. Almost guaranteed you get a few sales that way.
      
      Another option is to end everything in your store older than x months and sell similar. Voila, now you have a ton of new listings this week. Even better if you reprice your listings as you do this, which makes the process less about tricking the algorithm and more of a strategy to keep your inventory fresh and interesting. A few days after you have all these new (or “new”) listings in your store, send out a fresh batch of offers to watchers. Or run a markdown sale and see what that stirs up.
      
      I was struggling financially when I started selling on eBay, which is what motivated me to keep growing my business. It’s not always a linear process, there are ups and downs, but the beautiful thing about this life is that you can see the progress over time. You learn what sells and what doesn’t, and what you like to sell and what you don’t. If buying in thrift stores doesn’t work for you, try sourcing through online auctions. You can change strategies any time you want. It doesn’t always pay off, but then sometimes it pays off huge.
      
      @sooozles My challenge to you is to list an hour a day, every day, for the next week and get back to us in next week’s numbers thread. When I need to list consistently, I pick the same time every day and just set the timer. I get all my pictures done in advance, so all I am doing is researching price and listing. If you run out of stuff to list, experiment with older listings. Cut prices, change titles, end and sell similar, even run auctions. With 1000 items in your store, you have some room to run experiments and see what works.
- 02/09/2024 at 8:56 pm #102372
  ChristineR
  Participant
  Location: Southern California
  @christiner
  @soozies not sure about your returns issue but wanted to share this video about slow sales. It echos some of the advice above. https://youtu.be/l3LT9mwwAyg?si=tAHAsCa43xx6VCyA
  
  I found Mercari buyers to be extremely cheap so even though it’s pretty fast to cross post, you might want to focus on one platform and being very consistent there, or just cross post to posh.
  
  I don’t sell clothes but February is always my worst month for sakes.
- 02/10/2024 at 9:35 am #102379
  Sooozles
  Participant
  Location:
  @sooozles
  I appreciate all of the advice, thank you! I’ve been selling on eBay for 15 years (albeit in a PT capacity), so I already send out offers, sell similar items that haven’t sold in 30 days, created a coupon, and use promoted listings (I changed it from 2-4% now) and try to take professional quality photos on a mannequin.
  
  I was hoping there was another tip or trick I haven’t heard yet lol. I think, ultimately, it’s a numbers game, and I just need to be listing a whole lot more and ensure what I buy has a good STR. That really good week was a fluke. I asked a representative at eBay, and they said it was related to the algorithm, but they couldn’t say what I had done to trigger the flood of sales ( I was selling 3-4 high ticket items per day versus my usual 1 or 0).
  
  @craig rex I’m actually going away tomorrow for the week, but I will do your challenge when I return. In the meantime, I’ve pre-set my listings to have 3-4 items go up on eBay per day (but I don’t think that’s enough).
- 02/10/2024 at 3:55 pm #102380
  craig rex
  Participant
  Location: south jersey
  @craig-rex
  I’ve been selling on eBay for 15 years (albeit in a PT capacity), so I already send out offers, sell similar items that haven’t sold in 30 days, created a coupon, and use promoted listings (I changed it from 2-4% now) and try to take professional quality photos on a mannequin.
  
  One of the most interesting things about selling on eBay now is the secret sauce of the algorithm and how listings can get hidden in search results for specific buyers. It can feel unfair. That’s a huge reason why I still post here. The negativity that pervades forums like r/flipping has never made it here. The forum was the perfect size to avoid that, in my opinion.
  
  Selling on eBay felt so much simpler even a few years ago. Buy weird unique stuff for cheap, post it for sale and wait…wait…wait, and eventually your perfect buyer will come along. There are a lot more levels to pull now. Much more competition in every niche. But change is inevitable. The freedom we have in selling online is that we can adapt at any time.
  
  There are a lot more levels to pull now, and what works for one person may not work for another. But I’ve found that it helps me a lot to analyze my own eBay selling behaviors on a regular basis. Basically a more granular way of looking at “the numbers.” Often I’ve learned new things from other posts on this forum or my own experiments. So here are my thoughts on each of the areas you mentioned:
  
  send out offers
  
  The lowest discount I will send to an interested buyer is 20% off but I have much more success when I get less precious about getting “my price” and send a 25% or 30% offer. I know others who send out offers at 10% (or even 5%) but I just don’t think that’s enough to engage interested buyers anymore. Allowing counteroffers to your sent offer (the first checkmark) is crucial. Often you’ll get lowballers, but they’re easy to decline and ignore.
  
  What are your general offer settings at? This was another key step as I moved from part-time to full-time; I recognized that I had my minimum offer settings much too high. Now they are around 50 to 60 percent of my BIN price. This allows me to weed out the lowballers while catching almost anyone who’s truly an interested buyer.
  
  While writing this post, I sold an item which was priced at $39.99 for $28. I sent the buyer (one of 10 watchers) an offer of $31.99 (20 percent off) and they countered at $28. Good enough for me.
  
  sell similar items that haven’t sold in 30 days
  
  What is your process for how you do this? My favorite approach is to take all of the zero watcher items over 60 days, end them and sell similar all in one batch. So 100+ at a time. This usually leads to a few “dead” items selling within the first few days and a few more within the next week or two. Lately I have been repricing (mostly down) every 60 days or so. Eventually some things will sell for lower than I like, but like you, space is at a premium for me and I’ve found that my business operates much more smoothly when I turn over inventory faster.
  
  I will often do sell similar batches after I get back from a vacation or taking time off, to give me a few days to get caught up and back to the day to day of eBay while also giving stale inventory its best chance to sell.
  
  created a coupon
  
  Maybe others experience is different, but I think coupons are the easiest to ignore. eBay doesn’t do a great job of promoting individual sellers coupons or make them very prominent.
  
  use promoted listings (I changed it from 2-4% now)
  
  I was late to promoted listings, only having used them consistently for about two years, but I’m a huge proponent of them now. My base setting is 5% and my “I want to sell this bad” setting is 7.5%. I think just upping your promoted listings will lead to an uptick in sales once you get back into the normal flow of selling and listing.
  
  try to take professional quality photos on a mannequin
  
  This is a pretty big differentiator because of how easy the eBay app has made it for total amateurs to sell something with a few clicks. But keep in mind that perfect is the enemy of good. This is something I’ve had to learn over time, and it’s still a work in progress. Many buyers don’t read item descriptions or look past the first picture. I take photos of every feature of an item and use the seller notes to emphasize the item’s condition, but for $40 and under items, I’ve learned to focus on the bigger picture. Take a couple pictures, get it listed and move on to the next listing, the next pile, or something else.
- 02/11/2024 at 12:25 am #102382
  ebaymom
  Participant
  Location: Ohio
  @ebaymom
  This is an interesting conversation… pondering the journey of “selling clothes”… Since Q2 of last year I decided to stop buying hard goods and just stick to clothing in efforts to niche down and hopefully improve my processes and make more $. Ebay sure has changed over the past 10 years. Sometimes I miss looking for the rare vintage hard goods, but the rare gems can be found in the clothing category as well, so it doesn’t get boring for me. Packing is so much easier. Sourcing is fast and quick and continually improving as my knowledge of name brands (what to buy and what to avoid) grows. The competition amongst other resellers is fierce and the thrifts are charging more than ever, but there are always the loopholes and places to seek for cheap (or free) items if you are determined. If you are having a terrible sales day, you need to ask yourself if you have consistently listed anything within the last 24 hours. The best way to drive sales is to list. The 2nd way is to up your promoted listings to the “dynamic rate” and your impressions/traffic will most likely double and you will start hearing the cha-ching soon after. I know nobody wants to pay these high rates, but there is no denying (for clothing at least) that it works. As far as offers to watchers, I like Craig’s advice to offer at least 25% and will try doing more of that this week. I tend to offer minimal off ($2-$5 etc.) but keep counter offers on to get the deal going. If they are interested, they usually counter back. I generally try to list 5 a day minimum but have been slacking these past few weeks and my sales are down in proportion to the decrease. I would love to grow to 10 day, but I probably need to wait until my son starts pre-school so I have more listing time during the day. Tonight I am listing a ton of items (more than normal) and I have had the best sales day I’ve had in over a month (or two). On days I can’t list I will use the sell similar oldest listings and tweak pricing to at least have some activity. It’s not as great as it used to be, but much better than doing nothing and does help drive sales. I am struggling to create a “draft bank” – I get a few going but then usually use them up a day or two later, but I need to find the discipline to build and grow one because I know daily listing consistently is the key to predictable daily sales. These days it feels like 5 a day is as much as I can do.
  
  My Store Week January 28-February 3, 2024
  
  Total Items in Store: 765
  Items Sold: 22
  Gross Sales: $627.88 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $216.43 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $57.23
  Highest Price Sold: $30 (sweater)
  Average Price Sold: $26.09
  Returns: 2
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $40.45
  Number of items listed this week: 21
  
  $ Amount listed this week: $790.65
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