- This topic has 13 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
-
Doing items in batches so that each day is different. Monday is Admin and prep day, getting items ready for photos and listing. Tuesday-Thursday is listing and photography (now, that is just the ones that I am doing rather than our photographer). Friday and Saturday are for shopping.
How not to burn out? Outsource what you hate. Our new photographer is doing well, and we are excited about what that will mean for the business. Then it has me explore how to hire the lister/shipper, so that we get out of some of the grind and focus on the buying and QA of the listing.
-
My “grind” is up/down (I work full time) based on how I feel.
SOURCING – I work near three thrift stores (one directly across the street from my office) that I source from on lunches every week. I also go to another thrift store weekly when we get groceries (the grocery store we go to in the same plaza). About 1 or 2 times a month I’ll spend a day on the weekend driving to nearby cities to source for the day.
LISTING – I always list what I have the same week I buy it. I typically will crank up my stereo on the weekend, and do all my photography. I’ll then sitdown with my laptop and watch some racing/football on TV and list casually while watching TV.
SHIPPING – I get up every day 30 minutes early to get things ready to drop off on the way to work. If nothing sells, I’ll just relax!
I tend to slow down when I reach near 200 items listed and cool off my purchases until my inventory drops. I’ve gone over 400 items and it gets too hectic (especially for shipping if I have a lot of sales on a weekday before work). If I didn’t work a full-time job, I would easily ramp up again and would spend the work week sourcing/listing.
-
It sounds like you guys have such an organized ebay rhythm which can be hard to do. It really helps to see what pacing other sellers have established. Do either one of you have a “must” list amount each day or listing period?
-
AdventureE, I dont hear you talk much about your own selling or store. What kind of grind do you have? Where do you source and how do you list?
-
I am a small time seller. In one way, shape, or form, I work on my store 7 days a week. The more practice, the better I get. I spend alot of time learning and studying about selling online, ebay etc through various sources (SL, videos, ebay itself, articles, online resources, talking to people etc.) in order to better understand the selling process. I am constahtly learning the best ways to list, what to list, what not to list, when to leave an item up for the long haul and when to take an item down because it has not sold. I go between using the list and forget it method and the list it and tend to it methods. Just when I think – ok, I am going to use the list and forget it method, I find myself checking to see what is going on. The more I learn, the more I try to update my listings/store in order to get better at this selling thing. Right now, the get rid of things bug has really hit me, so in addition to tending to what I already have listed and items I have to list, I am doing a deep “scavenge” into my closets to find items I might have once considered not for sale. I am also working on listing items friends and family have given me.
-
-
For us, the “grind” are all the things we hate doing in our eBay business. We’re constantly trying to figure out how to have a “grind free” process. Impossible to get the grind to zero, but it’s a good goal.
It’s more important to us to have less grind than more money. I would never trade more grind for more money.
This is why we search for fun things to scavenge and sell. And why we’re moving towards to outsourcing the parts of the business we dislike (ie photos of clothes).
If a seller gets too much grind into their process, then the chance of burnout rises exponentially.
-
Amen Jay. We are still in the growth phase, so we still need to grow the $. But we are looking to move out of the grind at the same time.
And you CAN get to grind zero… just takes processes and quality hiring. You make a lot less money % wise…but you are working less too. I’ve run some numbers and know how to hire it out, but it takes consistent flow of higher margin items.
THAT is the Crystal Key…
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.