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Zero listings for me last week. I’m still dealing with a serious family health issue, but hoping to get more clarity on it soon. Thank you to everyone for the good wishes, they are much appreciated.
I am hoping to do at least a tiny bit of listing this week. I don’t think I’ve posted a zero listing week for a very long time and it certainly has effected my sales in a negative way.
Wishing everyone a good week.
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I listed zero again, but it is as expected due to my work on setting up the auction. However, I was kept very busy with my career job and getting ready for a Super Bowl get together at my house. I am up to 48 lots, so only six created in the past week.
VT – Stay strong, and I hope everything works out.
Amatino – Sending healing thoughts your way! Thank-you for keeping this thread going. I appreciate being able to talk about progress even when the progress is nothing to talk about!
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40 listings for me this week. Trying to bank higher numbers so when I have zero weeks I still stay on track.
Amatino…sending you many healing thoughts. Know that when you aren’t able to post, you are still in our thoughts….always.
I really appreciate our little community here…I agree Sharyn. It’s important to me to check in once a week (or so) and also hear how everyone else is doing.
Just putting it out there that other people are always welcome to chime in. Now that it’s not a contest anymore, there’s much less pressure and please feel free to join in. Listing can be a lonely business, so it helps to chat about it!
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Ugh I only listed 6 items last week.
I did also finish putting up some cross posting listings on Mercari that were auto loaded from Ebay. I have had a few Mercari sales of very cheap items I want to get rid of since they changed the fees after the new year. I’m cool with unloading my mistakes over there since I’ve already done the listing work. I earned enough to purchase something on Mercari I’ve been wanting for the house.
Have not been listing on District.net. Thinking about starting a curated Etsy store later in the year.
I have been suffering from RLS at night and insomnia but taking some vitamins that should help. I do feel a little bit of my Ebay mojo has gone. I’ve been listening to some podcasts while walking or driving to try to get motivated but it’s not helped too much. I know how important consistency is, but just feeling low energy. Still some family stuff to take care of too.
On the flip side I’ve been enjoying sorting my unlisted inventory. Lots of great items.
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Welcome back JR!
We’re getting ready for a vintage show this weekend. It’s a show we’ve done before in downtown Portland and it was not well attended but the promoters are going back to where they used to have the show and where their customer base is, so fingers crossed that people show up.
We’ve signed up to do Live Auction shows on NikNax and are pretty excited about it. We’ll get our first one going weekend after next, and feature vintage books. Other sellers seem to do well on there so we’ll see what happens!
Christine I think you’d do really well on Etsy, especially if you tie in your instagram. You have a great curated style that I think would be very popular.
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Hey JR, good to see you again!
No new listings for me. However, I cleared out another whopping set of boxes filled to the brim with stuff. I didn’t count the items, I was just on a tear to clear out, but if I had to guess, I would say close to 200. I filled 4 boxes with donation items. One of the boxes was almost the width of the back seat of the car, for reference. Usually I sit and price each item before donating, but I’m so, so done with all the cheap ass junk I collected when I first started eBay. Instead I pulled it out and looked at it, almost a Marie Kondo version! Not “does this bring me joy” though, instead it was more of a “do I really want to photograph, list, store, and ship this sucker?” 🤣
I’m busy with taxes this week. I have to submit early because I’m afraid of having a whopping tax bill due to selling property, and once I have cleared the taxes, I need to shut down my husband’s page on Facebook. He wants to start cutting back on business, so I’m trying to reduce our online footprint. With luck, I’ll start listing again next month.
Wishing you all a wonderful week!
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I listed 16 items on eBay and started turning on some more waiting drafts in Mercari. I’ve had a few sales on Mercari, which is nice. The fee changes they reversed have definitely helped. Also all the pictures and most of the data imported from eBay, so I’m able to do this on my phone while I’m just hanging around. Still not putting higher end items on that platform because of their customer service Cutbacks.
I can’t believe it’s almost March! I had some really nice time with friends over the weekend in our beautiful city. It was up to 70 degrees again with no wind. One of my younger friends turned 50. My daughter is also struggling a bit with growing pains and needing more of my time. I have no idea where the beginning of the year went. It’s an insomnia blur. I have to do my cost of goods for taxes very soon, which puts a stop to everything else for a couple days. Hoping to just do a bunch of organizing and some listing today. eBay as dead as a doornail for me this week.
@VT Good care is so important and having a family advocate. I hope things improve.
@VL I was not going to do live sales yet, but I got accepted to a bigger local sale that only runs quarterly and it should have a better mix of buyers both young and older. So I’m going ahead and doing it on March 15. I think I am pretty much just bringing the art this time and it’s only a 7 x 7 but I have a lot of organizing to do. Pretty exciting.
My son was just accepted to Tufts university for graduate school. 🎉 I think we are going to go to Boston around the weekend bridging their spring breaks. Better get to work!
Thanks for checking in everyone. I’ve met a lot of nice resellers and vendors locally but still working this business on the computer is so quiet.
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Congrats on your son’s accomplishment Christine! That’s very impressive!
I also want to express how grateful I am for our little community here. I don’t personally know any eBay sellers who live near me. It’s great to have people to communicate with who understand this business, and who also have empathy for any personal life struggles. Thanks everyone!
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Hi, I doubt anyone would remember me. I posted here a few years ago. I periodically read here to keep motivation to keep listing. My husband and I bought a couple of storage units the day before Thanksgiving and we’re still going through inventory.
Anyway, thanks for keeping this thread going. I’ve gotten 63 items listed this week. I’m going to have a piece of cake and try to find some more motivation to list tonight (I’m so over this crap in my garage).
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Hi Liz! Nice to hear from you. I’m impressed by 63 listings and I so hear you about your garage….for me it’s my carport.
I join VT in mentioning how grateful I am for our little community. It definitely spurs me on and I too appreciate the kindness shown by everyone.
And Liz? Most importantly…what kind of cake?
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Vanilla bundt cake with chocolate chips!
Alas, it did not motivate me to list anything else. I cheated and did end/sell similar on a bunch of listings since it was the last day of the month, and I had unused listings available for my store. It worked though! I had 4 sales today from that action.
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20 new listings for me.
I had an interesting week on eBay: A few days ago my active listings dropped by about 100 listings. I remember that a few years ago many sellers had listings disappear from eBay, but luckily I wasn’t one of those sellers back then. Within a day or two my active listing number was back to (or at least near) where it should have been. It makes me think about my choice to post directly to eBay where I have no backup if listings are lost. Something I need to think about.
Should finally be getting a diagnosis on the health issue today. Fingers crossed.
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Congrats Christine! We did our second Niknax auction yesterday and sold 6 items, which is encouraging. I’m told it takes a little time to build up a following, so we’re hoping that our weekly auctions keep building.
Liz…that cake sound delicious!
VT… last week my husband went through his listed books on his shelves and discovered that at least 20 weren’t listed anymore. There’s certainly wonky stuff with ebay for sure.
19 listings for me. But more importantly, we completely organized the carport. Last year when I was so sick for several months things kept getting dumped in there until it was a mess. So Saturday we were fortunate to have a nice sunny day and we pulled everything out to the driveway…..sorting it as we went, set aside several boxes for donation, and put it back in, nice and neat and very very organized. It was a beast of a job, but very satisfying and now we can process it much more quickly. Whew.
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I’m at 91 lots in my auction, so I’m very close to my 100 lot goal. I also want to get the whole auction completed by the March 22 weekend, so I’ll need to finish up in a few days so that I get get everything reviewed and started next week.
Y’all are dealing with illnesses, kids, eBay organization, and life. It’s a crazy way of living, but it can be fun. I’m grateful for this little slice of the internet where we can inspire each other and talk out our challenges. I’m hoping everyone has a great week listing, organizing, or planning for the next big challenge.
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Also, I’ve been finding a number of items that I had in my inventory that were not listed. I’m sure some were user error, but some were definitely dropped by eBay. For the most part, I’m choosing to put them in my auction and not relist, but I do have a few I will get back up there.
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@VT thinking positive thoughts for you. @Sharon great job getting your auction going. It might actually be good to get stale listings out of your Ebay store in the long run… Of course they want you to put new ones in all the time. @Liz hello!
On one of my Ebay podcasts they said Ebay acknowledged that has an annual problem because February has fewer days and there are more resets at once. The listing disappear but then it gets resolved in a day or two. However, I do think a few listings tend to drop off now and then.
So yesterday I moved out about 15-17 boxes of clothing, board games, books etc. Some of the clothing would have been worth money at pop ups or online but I hate selling clothing online and I don’t have room in my car for taking clothing also, plus everyone and their mother at pop ups sells clothing. So that felt really, really good to get out of the garage and house and off my plate.
Now I have a huge mess to tackle. Lots of art and frames that need to be cleaned, sorted, marked for projects. Unlisted inventory (maybe a good 8-10 boxes and bins) to be sorted and organized (sadly there is more unlisted that is already organized by type). I definitely did cut back on thrifting and I’m having a chat with myself about getting my business house in order and more profitable. I’m also more aware of frittering my time in general. Not really structured but steps in the right direction. There is a lot of value unlisted here – they are just piles, not picked over death piles. Logically, I would start with the largest and most valuable items, but somehow I just start grabbing things. I do have a loose goal of working in some textiles to make shipping a little more balanced each day.
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Twinsies, Christine! Although.. I didn’t move out clothing, I cleared hard goods. Not only from my DPs but from my store too! As Dearest Hubby says, if it hasn’t sold in 9 years, is it going to sell now? Tbh, it felt fantastic to get rid of all that dead weight! At a guess, I’d say another 400+ items have left the property. When I first started eBay, I began with shoes and men’s clothes and I think I want to return to start. Plus sewing machine parts, because of the hubs.
Taxes were submitted, so now I need to get back to eBay!
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Sounds like everybody is cleaning out and organizing. 👏👏👏
@VL I forgot to mention that I only have BIN on Niknax and VAMP. It’s really dead over there. Once in a while I get to send an offer. Seems like mainly a live platform. I have notifications off on district but lmk your handle and I’ll try to catch a show.
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Christine…I would agree that Niknax is primarily all about auctions. I’m not putting any effort to listing on there unless it’s something I’ve already had in an auction, as it’s good to show potential followers the kind of things you sell. We just switch the items from “auction” to “buy it now”. It mainly seems to be about jewelry and collectible glass like Fenton. People go nuts for the glass. That’s not really something I want to get into selling and having to ship. I have a phobia about shipping glass!
While I was organizing the carport I ran across a large box of jewelry left over from when I had my brick and mortar shop. It’s all costume jewelry, fun pieces I picked up extremely cheap at the Atlanta Wholesale market and I’m going to hopefully get rid of it this way. I’m going to have a Spring Bling Fling jewelry auction next weekend. Our shop name is Penelope’s Hope Chest.
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@VL I don’t have a lot of glass either. I usually pick up only Scandinavian glass, which is hard to find here and it sells fine on Ebay. I do have my family’s costume jewelry hanging around. Totally not my thing. Are you selling BIN jewelry over there? I imagine it’s fairly saturated by now. I will ship glass – my secret is dish packing foam from Uhaul. Never double box.
I listed 25 items this week, plus added a few imported drafts to Mercari.
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I’ve got 104 lots completed for my auction, and that will be it. Last week I was up to 91, so that is 13 completed in the past week. My work now will be to get it all set up with MaxSold.
Glass has to be special to even consider listing. I have my longest listed glass in the auction. If it doesn’t sell, I will give it away. In general, everything I buy here on out needs to be in the $25 and up range. If I buy an auction lot just for a couple of items that are worth more, then everything else needs to be freecycled. No listing stuff just because I think it’s cool!
I hope everyone has a decent enough week. I don’t think I’ll be focusing much on eBay until April sometime. In the meantime, I have the auction, taxes, and organizing the basement.
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@VL “Spring Bling Fling” LOVE IT! 😻
@Christine What is this magic you speak of? I must check out this dish packing foam. I have a lot of glassware but, alas, I suspect it’s not worth a bean.
@Sharyn I am totally with you! It’s hard not to hang onto things that seem cool.I got rid of another couple hundred items and I feel so freeeeeee! LOL. I know my numbers sound ridiculous, but I literally had enough DPs to list every day for a year and not run out. Plus I had hundreds of items in my store. Now I’m below 400 in my store and have free space on one* shelf. Unheard of, I tell you!
This week I listed one! Yep, one whole listing. That’s 100% more than I’ve listed all year, so I did brilliantly! 🤣
Wishing you all a wonderful week.
*You did notice it’s only on one shelf, didn’t you? ;o)
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30 listings for the week. Concentrating on DP items right now, although my focus this week will be shifting to Brookhaven, as it’s coming up fast.
Watched some of the Crazy Lamp Lady show on Niknax yesterday. Very educational. She has a HUGE following…over 700 people were watching her live show. She had 60 pieces for auction…lots of higher end glass and pottery pieces and people were bidding like crazy. Most pieces had 3-4 pre-bids before she even started. She easily sold several thousand dollars worth. Good for her! It was really impressive.
That being said, it takes a lot of time and effort to build that kind of following and I just don’t need another thing on my plate. I also don’t have enough knowledge. The money is there, if you know what you are doing. We’ll just keep plugging away, much more low key. Christine, I am not doing BIN jewelry on there. Just the live auctions. We’re having some issues with our listings…the website is very clunky and not easy to get things right.
Y’all are working it! Keep up the good work! Everyone is getting so much done!
Sending good wishes to everyone for a productive and peaceful week ahead.
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There have been a number of posts about Crazy Lamp Lady on this forum over the years. I did watch a few videos in the past to see what it was all about. She obviously has the personality and knowledge that brings in people. They are not just liking her stuff; they are buying into her story and feeling like they are part of it. From the videos I watched (not recent), her stuff was not that high end.
While it’s great what she’s accomplished and how she is making an incredible salary over this, but it definitely takes a certain person. Being mostly an introvert, I’d probably tank. Maybe squeeze out a living where I could eat most days LOL. I don’t know if I could hack it.
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I’m an extrovert but super camera shy. I’d have to do it with only my hands. I hear that you have to be really consistent to get traction live selling and it takes a while to get a following. It’s not somewhere I want to invest my time. It would be nice to get multiple sales st once though of course.
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@VT so sorry to hear about your circumstances.
@Amatino it’s just dish packing foam. I use that and then large bubble. The only times in the past I had something break is before I used the foam and when I used too small of a box. I ordered some from Amazon before but it’s thinner so I like the uhaul. Miraculously I found a HUGE roll at a thrift store that will last months. I hate that it’s not biodegradable but paper would be much more expensive and it helps me use less bubble. Hopefully customers are reusing. -
I agree Sharyn with your insights about the Crazy Lamp Lady. She’s worked really hard to build her brand and people buy things because it’s her. As both an introvert AND camera shy it’s been especially challenging for me. I do live Facebook sneak peeks before every preview night at Brookhaven and that has helped me gain some confidence and customers do comment how much they like it. We also have been working to build our brand on Youtube and that again is a challenge for me, but I also think it’s good to push myself out of my comfort zone. I’m much happier NOT being on camera and just making commentary. We are working and have worked on having several income streams, so if one goes under we won’t be struggling. We’ve done very well selling on Amazon over the past 18 years, but the rug could be pulled out from under us at any moment, so there’s always that fear. I’m going to share a cautionary tale on a separate post.
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As I mentioned, we do quite well selling on Amazon and it provides about 40% of our income. However, in my opinion, Amazon does NOT care about it’s sellers and even having a flawless record doesn’t count for anything.
The bulk of our Amazon sales come from an artist who makes figurines and a company reproduces those figurines in China, using specialty painters…they are all handmade and quite detailed. Her figures have a huge following and I sell thousands of them every year. There are several of us who sell them on Amazon, and last year one of them tried to put me out of business, by buying one of the figures from me and then telling Amazon that I was selling counterfeit figures. Amazon takes the accusation of counterfeit VERY seriously (as they SHOULD) and I was immediately placed on notice of having my account closed. It was terrifying. I have been buying from this particular company for over 20 years, and have become good friends with the Vice President and she’s always had my back. She immediately went to battle for me and forced the other seller, who also buys from her company, to withdraw the complaint. It was a terrible few days as it all played out but in the end the accusation was taken off my account and I was back in good standing. On a side note, the company decided not to do any more business with this seller who had accused me, as it was malicious.
The whole mess really shook me up and made me double my efforts to work on other income streams, as one never knows when something outside our control can completely shut things down. You can give the best customer service in the world, or at least try, and it still doesn’t matter in the end.
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I read an article a number of years ago about how this can happen. At one time, Amazon got rung out in the media because of how many sellers were selling fakes or copies of another company’s products. Amazon toughened up its rules, but then sellers were taking advantage of the process to get rid of their competition. Amazon is very hard to contact especially wrt the seller help. People were pushed off Amazon with no way to fight it.
I wasn’t sure if this sort of thing was still happening but having someone in your corner is definitely a huge help. I’m glad you were able to get out of it quickly.
Having several streams for business has definitely been a big topic here over the years. After all, Jay and Ryanne have grown several lines of business, and they have been very successful at it. Since I have a part time career job, I haven’t bothered trying out different avenues other than adding in Etsy.
I did watch your You Tube videos when you posted them (a year or two ago), and they were really nicely done. I’m sure you’ll do well in building that brand for yourself!
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Wow, VL, that is horrible! How lucky you were that the VP had your back AND canned the other seller. Now that’s karma!
I’ve heard of folks losing their eBay and Etsy businesses, as well as Amazon, with similar underhanded tactics from competitors. It sucks! My husband’s website was closed down because one of those “we’ll amp up your website” callers reported us as scammers when we refused to work with them. The guy actually told me he would shut us down as he hung up on me! Asshat! Too bad for him that our business is about 95% word of mouth, so I just shrugged and started over.
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