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Hello! I’m Susanah and I am from Staunton, Va but I moved to Chesterfield about 12 years ago. I just started doing eBay in November and I still consider myself a starter store. I actually did remarkably well the first month and a half and then the bottom fell out. What really happened was that I was reselling trains and other toys and even though I only had maybe 30 items on a time I got to 1500 pretty quick. So imagine the shock when Christmas was over and I didn’t make a sale for two weeks. I know everyone is probably laughing about only my 30 items, but I had just been increased from 10. I thought I was awesome. Now I realize that it was just pure dumb luck. I had good inventory for the time of the year and just got lucky.
Here I am about a month after the sales started to decline. I source from thrift stores and my own house. I started to get really down because even when I lowered the prices and did everything I could think of (while adding items) nothing worked. I found the podcast and started listening with #407 “Never Give Up” and it helped so much. I have listened to as much as I can since then. I have also stopped going on the reddit site for info/advice because I realized how toxic it was. If those people on reddit were so good at what they did, they wouldn’t have time to stalk the page all day to be so negative. I am slowly upping my inventory and reworking my system and it’s getting a lot better. I have made more sales and stopped messing with prices. I’m just listing stuff and going on to the next. I only have 90 items up at this point, but more gets added every day. I just keep learning and going forward.
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Welcome, fellow Virginian 🙂
Make no mistake that what you’ve done is a big deal. You have a working store where you’ve sold and successfully shipped items to happy customers.
But in the gan scheme of things, 90 items in your inventory is a hobby store. Unless you have extremely sought after items, I would not expect daily sales.
When we talk about “long tail items”, this means all those unique, rare, weird vintage items will get bought, but it will take a while to find the right buyer. Lowering prices means nothing for these items because you just have to wait for the buyer to find you.
Its all a big experiment. We’re certainly not experts and have daily struggles. Its all about having fun and doing what you feel makes sense for you lifestyle.
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I know 90 is a hobby store, right now. I have things to list, but I just have to get over My lack of confidence and just do it. I am a bit of a perfectionist and it holds me back, but I am getting over it.
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Welcome to the forum! It sounds like you had a great start during Q4. At the same time, it doesn’t prepare you for what the rest of the year will be like – especially during the summer! Part of the fun of reselling is figuring out how to even out all of the peaks and dips in order to get more steady sales year-round. Just have to learn as you go.
I’m not on the reddit forum because I personally don’t like it, but I do like to pop up on this forum sometimes throughout the day. I’d say people who are on any forums like this potentially all day are on it because they are either bored at work – I used to go on Myspace when I had a f/t desk job, so that dates me – or need a break from listing, or do this while listing or any other myriad tasks that us f/t resellers do throughout the day. No matter what, we’re just good multitaskers. 🙂
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I didn’t mean to imply that everyone that is on forums are bad at sales. I totally get multitasking, I’m a Stay-at-home-Mom that has a house full of chaos. If it’s not the 6 year old, it’s the two hound dogs. It just seems that sometimes the most negative people in the forums post and respond a lot. I also know that people need a break and to vent. As far as dating yourself, that’s how my husband and I got together. Not meeting on Myspace, but reconnecting after college. You can start the math there if you want lol! Plus you are totally right on not being prepared. I almost feel like it is two totally different businesses. I am thankful for the influx of money, it’s the only reason we could afford Christmas presents, but it was certainly a trial by fire. I am always open to suggestions and constructive criticism. I would rather someone help me out and let me know something that might work better than just letting me flounder. Thank you for responding and please know I wasn’t meaning any disrespect with the Reddit comment, I mean I’m here right now…delaying doing bookkeeping!
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