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Hey scavengers, I need some outside the box input here.
We live in the Midwest and snow bird down south at our vacation home 3 months+ of the year. I am looking to spend more time at the vacation home (VH) but can’t decide on the best way to do ebay. The past couple of winters, I have dragged about 150 pieces of inventory to VH to sell: just changed the shipping location. But, I always seem to leave an item or two behind when we return to the north, and those sell, resulting in cancellations/dings. I have considered having two stores, and splitting up the inventory, but am not sure I want the additional expense.
(One challenge is, as I understand it, ebay will only hold non-active listings 90 days, so I need to return to the other location for a 3 day relist every 90 days. That is not a problem since I usually fly back and forth every 6 weeks to check on the house and collect mail anyway.)
I scavenge and list while at VH, but not enough to make any real money-it would help to more more inventory down south. If there is a better way, short of hauling a trailer full of inventory up and down I-75 twice a year, I would like to hear it. Thanks.
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I am very interested in the documentation also, specifically, what is considered active. I am down south again to help family, and this time may be longer than 3 months. My store is on vacation, but all items are GTC and I tweak my listings occasionally.
While I am away, I have opened another account, but not a store. I plan to list and sell this way while I am here, although it’s hard to get much traction in 3 months. I will probably take the best items home later (in my car) and re-list them in my store.
It would really have to be very financially rewarding for me to haul my entire inventory back and forth. The cost and the effort to do this are too high at this point. Also, it is annoying to pay for the store on vacation for 3 months with no benefit. I definitely would not want to pay for one for 8 or 9 months in location 2.
Beyond selling without a store, I am using the down time to get my taxes ready and do other administrative things. Closing my store at 4th quarter sucks big time but this too shall pass.
Good luck, and please keep us posted if come up with a solution. -
If you were to get back every six weeks, that’s about 30 business days.. I suppose you could put the permanent store on extended handling time while you’re away and ship like a madman when you come back to check on it. If you needed a little more time, you could make your store inactive for a week or two when you first leave and then put it on extended handling time.
It’s a bit of a hassle, but your inventory would be available all the time.
I suppose you could open a basic (Free) store for the vacation place and just bring easy (small) or quick selling items with you. Depending on how often you’ll make it to the vacation place, you could either end the listing when you leave or play the inactive/extended handling time game with that inventory as well.
It’s just an idea..
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Is it possible to train someone on how to ship the items when you are out of town? So you have your inventory in the midwest and you train someone there to do your shipping for you. That is the best solution I can think of. This is what Veronica and I do when we are gone for an extended period of time and we have our boys ship for us. As I move to hiring an employee, having them do our shipping is another item we are considering.
Then when in your vacation home, you can list those items with that location on them and then take them back to the midwest with you.
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Well, J&R, you have made my day, talking about my dual store question on the blog!! My 15 minutes of fame-haha!
No documentation on losing the listings, only past experience. I usually list for 30 days, and let all “up north” listing expire before driving south for the winter. If I don’t re-list for 90 days, they disappear. The same thing happens when I leave FL. What I usually do is visit the other home every 7-8 weeks or so, and relist for 3 days. I only sell a couple of things, but the 90 day clock starts ticking again. This works as long as I remember to make the trips.
I realize I could put on list until sold, but it easier with 30 day when I need to let them expire twice a year. I would rater not have the hassle and expense of two stores, either.
The bigger problem is having to cart stuff, that isn’t seasonal, back and forth. Ideally, I would keep the winter stuff down south, etc. But the problem is that most of my winter stuff (clothing) sells before Christmas.
I work from home, and don’t have anyone I trust (with a key) who I would consider shipping for me when I am gone. I may have to consider getting a climate controlled storage unit and a helper.
Lots of good ideas from the forum-thanks. Let me know if any of you want my autograph! Haha!
PS-please let me know if Jena figures out a better way to do it.
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Like Tsatt said above, there’s listing software that would store all your data (but comes with a monthly fee).
The other option is start selling on Amazon and let them store and ship for you.
No easy answer if you want to keep your inventory in one place and sell/ship all year from different locations.
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