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We like to think of our eBay store as a”steady state” business and our numbers over the years have reflected this to be right on. Also, eBay now has
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 365: Our Steady State Business] -
6/10/18 – 6/16/18
Items In Store: 2,014
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $80 (around)
Total Sales: $885
HIghest Price Sold: $135 (Set of golf clubs)
Returns: 1
Money spent on new inventory: $21I was bracing myself for a slow week, but that didn’t happen. Hoping the momentum carries into this next week.
Mark
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Items in Store 861
Items Sold 6
Total Sales $183.00
COGS $26.00
Total Profit $157.00
Average profit $26.17
Average sales price $30.50Oh my what a bad week. I had a couple sales on Monday for over $100 that had me psyched for a great week. For the rest of the week I only had two more sales. Ouch! I also have a return request for a $35 pair of shoes from those numbers.
Not much else to say. I did hit up a great yard sale for clothing on Saturday. Lady lowered her price to $1 an item when I asked price. Then I started pulling multiple things so unprompted she said she could do 50 cents an item if I bought a lot. Challenge accepted! I ended up with 36 items. Really nice stuff. My favorite items were 8 pair of like new Izod golf pants. The plaid ones with crazy colors. I also got a pile of shoes.
Ebay room is progressing but not as fast as I’d prefer. Family life keeps me busy. We had a end of school year pool party and dive in movie for the kids Friday night. Last summer my giant 12′ movie screen got damaged by a freak storm when I left it out overnight. I built a new screen last week for the party. I ended up leaving it up since there was 0% chance of rain forecasted all weekend. Our sources say THAT was a lie! We had a freak storm come out of nowhere last night with 50 mph winds. My brand new 110″ movie screen was…fine! I built it a little sturdier this time.
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Numbers first, listen second, thank you again for all that you do.
6/10 – 6/16/18
eBay Store totommyto
Total store items: 536
Number of items sold: 8
eBay sales (not counting s/h): $253.00
Cost of items sold: $22
Consignment payouts: $33
Highest price sold: $70 – Legos building pieces
Average price sold: $31.62
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $85
Number of items listed this week: 12Etsy store Oldfleatoymarket
Total Store items: 505
Number of items sold: 3
Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $58.50
Cost of items sold: $5.50
Consignment payouts: 0
Highest price sold: $27 – mini Christmas tree (vintage putz)
Average price sold: $19.50
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $20
Number of items listed this week: 8Still finding great stuff to list from a big buyout a few months ago. The stuff you set aside during the first sifting and later realize good stuff! I did take an opportunity to pick a neighbors house that is leaving the area, found some good things, paid fair prices.
For sure, a calm selling week.
Take care
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Fair to middling week. Still keeping the purse strings tight till the credit cards are all paid off.
Sales: CAD$1006, 10 items, COGS: $161 –> Item profit: $673
Expenditures: $148 –> After-tax cashflow: $511
Notable sales: $128 pipette plugger, $125 hair steamer, $100 HDMI presentation hub thing. No home runs.
Notable buys: Bought a fancy Acroprint time clock at a country garage sale for $70 with a couple throw-ins. Hoping to get about $300 from it.
Listed: $415, 9 items
Hours: 8, $64/hrI agree that the expectation that a business needs to be growing is a sort of lost purpose. I’m interested in growing but not at the cost of spending much less time with my kids. Challenge is to use the same hours to achieve more, not to work harder.
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Some bad news for Canadian sellers came last week. Canada Post, already a good 20 or 30% more expensive than USPS (and so impractical for shipping outside of North America that some Canadians actually use special services to ship internationally via USPS), is now ending their deal with eBay/Shippo, and we will now be paying full retail price for labels. Realistically for me that means about 10% less profit. US buyers already think my shipping is too high. That being said, I’m trying to sell higher-dollar stuff where shipping is less of a dealbreaker.
I will continue to ship Canada Post but this makes me grumpy.
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I never used Shippo – I stuck with PayPal for purchasing Canada Post labels – if you have an old VentureOne or Solutions for Small business account with Canada Post, you get discounts through them by printing through PayPal or through Canada Post’s website.
They keep track of how much you spend each quarter, and give you more discounts based on how much you spend.
At the moment, I’m paying under $10 for Expedited parcels in Ontario/Quebec (some that are a few kg in weight) and my U.S. parcels are just under $15 for a tracked packet (less than 1kg) and about $18-$22 when it gets over a kg.
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Happy birthday, Ryanne!
Week June 10-16, 2018
Total Items in Store: 883
Items Sold: 16 (1 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $101 (16.9% of sales)
Total Sales: $597.93
Highest Price Sold: $85 (1977 Led Zeppelin Bootleg LP https://www.ebay.com/itm/202324073310, also sold this 1970 bootleg to the same guy for $75 https://www.ebay.com/itm/192552221812)
Average Price Sold: $37.37
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Promoted listings test: 12 sales, $467.95 (73.8% of total sales), $22.84 fees (4.9% of sales)Nice steady week. It was really front loaded, selling about 60% of my total last Sunday to start the week. Mainly bread & butter, although those two Led Zeppelin bootleg sales to the same person were really nice and booted my average price sold.
No sourcing or listing this week as traveled to see my wife’s parents for Father’s Day. Spent a nice relaxing day BBQing and sitting outside on a gorgeous day.
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Total Items in Store: 407
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $111 + $33 (free shipping)
Total Sales: $338
Highest Price Sold: $72 Pair of new shams – paid $45 1.5 years ago (RA item, I have dropped prices on solid color leftovers)
Average Price Sold: $38
Returns: 1 – but closed by me after 5 days when not returned.
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: About $10
Number of items listed this week: 27Got back to listing this week as contract day job is slow and it felt really good. I’m really in the mood to dig into the piles. I’ve been tweaking prices on my listings with the most watchers to see if I can generate sales. One sold right after but who knows.
Also went to a church book sale to buy used textbooks for my high schooler. Found a few kids’ book sets that should pay for his remaining books. I bought this Textbook best offer. This item has a catalog page, so I originally found a different seller with a higher price, but down below found this best offer, free shipping listing. As a seller, I don’t like this at all as I’ve said. Very often I’m not the lowest price but I’m doing promoted listings, using better keywords, or getting someone in through Pinterest. I don’t want Ebay showing them others’ better prices! I think we’ve got some annoying times ahead too while Ebay attempts to drape this over inappropriate categories and because their catalog is so incomplete.
Regarding long tail items, I am getting charged .25 a month for my basic store subscription overage items. I get some weird credit too on my bill that kind of offsets the overage, but it still makes me pause. I’m sure I am carrying some items that are not worth it, but it would make more sense to run auctions once we are past the slow summer season.
Happy Birthday Ryanne “) Glad you got away for a bit. Have a great week!
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Week of 6/10-6/16
Total Items in Store: 2,255 (Up 44% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 152
Number of Items Sold: 79 (Up 58% YOY)
(Includes 0 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 1 TrueGether, 0 Amazon)
Weekly STR: 15% (Down 2% YOY)Total Product Sales: $2,069 (Up 93% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $429
Highest Item Sold: $100 – McDonalds Extra Value Meals Store Menu Display
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week (of course!) and Veronica leads for the year 13-11.eBay Clothing
# Listed: 1,426
# Sold: 57
STR: 18%
ASP: $22.40eBay Shoes
# Listed: 251
# Sold: 13
STR: 22%
ASP: $34.48eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 578
# Sold: 9
STR: 7%
ASP: $31.14Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 160
# Sold: 0
STR: 0%
ASP: $0Hello from Las Vegas! We had a chance for a free 3 night hotel stay at the Luxor, so we are doing that now. Figured I could remote in to our computer this morning and post our numbers. Posting now, will listen to the podcast on the drive back.
I love Google Remote Connect to be able to work from anywhere. Also love that SixBit is relisting our items for us and that we have 105 Free Scheduled Listings going up while we are gone. The store keeps on churning!
Really happy that we hit our 150 item listing goal 2 weeks in a row. The process is working…
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T-Satt,
Wish I were in Vegas. I learned how to win at roulette last time I was there. Can’t wait to get back. I don’t win a lot of money, but just enough to have fun and get some spending money
Mark
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I learned how to win at roulette last time I was there. Can’t wait to get back.
Famous last words when the man is signing over the title of his home for one last spin.
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Jay,
I never lost money when I played last time in Vegas except for a few dollars at the beginning be ause of how my strategy works. I am only talking about $20 or so to start. I came out with a little over $100 in the plus. So, not big winnings but never lost money. And after my first win, I was always in the black.
Mark
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Yeah let me pile on too. Gambling against the house is a sure method for turning some money into less money. That’s why casinos exist in the first place. Unless you count cards or are a poker shark or something, just fuhgedaboudit.
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I learned how to play roulette with a mini tabletop roulette game thing back in college. It was pretty fun. Having said that, I have no inclinations to play for real with real money. In my opinion, it’s not as sure a thing as you think.
Of course, I am not a gambler. I can play for 2 hours with $5-10 at the nickel machines and be happy as a clam. My parents took me to the casino when I turned 18 and gave me $20 to play. I played a while on quarter machines and hit decent payout that put me back at $20.25…and I cashed out. Lol! I have an Aunt who let gambling ruin hers and her families’ lives. It’s an experience to accompany a true problem gambler to the slot machines. You have no idea how fast money can disappear until you’ve seen an addict in action. My experiences on that front keep me far away from casinos. Last time I went was at least 15 years ago, and I live 10 minutes from a casino.
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Retro,
Yes, if I were you I would stay away. I am not recommending that people go out and gamble away. I have a very discipled thought out process that works. But that is not enough. You have to stick to the plan. I have found that when I veer from the plan, I lose a little money. Last time I was in Vegas was 2014, that’s why I would like to go back.
My plan is a proven plan but no one is going to get rich. No such thing as fool proof, but mine is close. But only for small amounts of money with low reward. My plan will not work if the plan is not followed. Stay away if you dont have a plan or cant follow a plan with very low risk.
Mark
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Now that I think sbout it, the way I do roulette is a lot like ebay. I buy things for next to nothing with very low risk. No 1 item will make me rich, but if I follow the plan, I can it least make a partial living or full-time living.
You do take a risk selling on ebay, but you do it anyway? Why? Because the risk is so low and you have seen it work time and time again if you follow the plan. That is how it is with me for roulette.
Of course there are the real risk takers on Amazon that Jay talks about. Now that can be high stake risks. I won’t do that either.
Mark
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Mark: I have a strategy on roulette as well, and I am a net winner in it. I wonder if it is similar. I only play outside as part of the strategy. Do you play inside or only outside?
Overall, poker is my game. I’m way rusty at this point, which is why if I do hit the tables, it is only small stakes and certain games. Poker takes away any house advantage (as long as you can beat the rake, which I can). I really need to get back to playing regularly, as I miss it and was a net winner. When they passed the online poker laws, that really hurt…
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Happy Birthday Ryanne and Happy belated Birthday to Jay. [we have been out of pocket for 3 plus weeks].
Ryanne, [u may be too young to know this], but 39 was the age that Jack Benny always stated. At this point he never went any higher. It became almost a trade mark statement for him.
For Jay [the numbers guy], I have bad news for you. I hate to be the bearer of bad news and the glass is half empty guy, but you like the numbers so here is a few truthisms.
At 45, if u calculate 90 +/- years of life these days, you are at the peak. I want to be the first to welcome you to the down side of the slope. Forget all the sayings, like I am only as old as I feel, etc, etc. From this point on, you will have less time to live than you have already lived, you will get slower in motion, slower in thinking, able to lift less, able to do less, your bones turn from rubber whereby you bounce to brittle whereby you break, you will ache more, sleep less, do bedroom stuff less, your skin starts to sag more, facial lines become deeper, bags increase in size and quantity, the whites of your eyes start to turn yellower, hair lines start receding, dark color of your hair starts to be peppered with white areas, joints begin to ache, stuff accumulates, sclothes seem to shrink for some reason, the scale seems to be always out of calibration and the needle always goes way too high, belts start to get shorter and, and.. so Jay Welcome to the backside of the slope!!!!! LOL HaHa 🙂 🙂
Ryanne, how about a game of tennis or a long jog!! 🙂
Just a joke guys… At 67 and 69 we just keep going the best we can each day and try to enjoy our Vintage Buying and Selling life.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta 🙂
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If I may chime in,
What you left out is that those heading over 40, 45 and beyond are on the down side of caring what others think and say. Are heading on the downside of caring what you should and could do toward what you want to do. Are heading on the downside of having people around who really do not exemplify the term friend and/or family. Are heading on the downside of needing to be whatever because others tell you to. Are heading on the downside of having to define your life and being by the someone else’s standards. Are heading on the downside of accepting behavior from others to establishing and/or confirming a line in the sand as to what is and isn’t acceptable. Are heading on the downside of participating in and/or doing stuff because others say so to doing things and participating in things because you want to.
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Week of June 10 – 16
* Total Items in Store: 1176
* Items Sold: 12
* Cost of Items Sold: $35.75 + $7.40 Commission
* Total Sales: $382.80
* Highest Price Sold: $118 Vintage Patti Playpal doll
* Average Price Sold: $31.90
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $40.50
* Number of items listed this week: 0With my kids finishing up school for the year, summer plans being made, and general non-eBay stuff going on, a slow week is sort of expected. I wasn’t able to list, but this week should be better.
Happy birthday Ryanne! and belated happy birthday Jay! My brother-in-law & sister-in-law also have birthdays close together. They used to have a combined birthday party at a restaurant every year, but stopped at some point. They probably figured out how much it was costing them. I’m sure you two don’t make that mistake!
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Total Items in Store: 1525
Items Sold: 22
Cost of Items Sold: $70.28
Total Sales: $705.98
Highest Price Sold: $85 (vtg 60s rotary dial phone)
Average Price Sold: $32.09
Returns: none
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $382.77
Number of items listed this week: 104June must be a month for scavenger b-days. Cheers to both Ryanne and Jay. Mine is actually next week as well so another trip around the sun about to begin.
I had a good week of sales and spent a lot of time sourcing and listing. Hopefully it pays off down the road.
Another great podcast and I am wondering if anyone here has had their store taken down by ebay for a vero offense? I believe the caller said you are allowed 3 times and then you are banned for life. Is that correct?
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I dont think eBay publicizes the number of VERO violations + suspension. I know we’ve had probably 5 or 6 over a 10 year period. I would hope that eBay is looking for a pattern of abuse ie stores who’s sole purpose is to sell counterfeit products.
That’s why if we get a VERO claim, we often just re-donate the item. It’s not a battle worth fighting.
Happy bday to all my Geminis.
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Jay,
I believe the veros go away after 90 days or so, maybe a year. I called to follow up on a vero and they said they removed it for me. So they do disappear after a set period of tome of 1 year or less. Of course that may vary by violation, seller, etc.
That is what i dont like about their Vero program- very hard to find info and they dont lay it out well on what happens.
Mark
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Happy Birthday, Ryanne!
I believe that most people don’t understand the concept of having time over money because they don’t really know what unstructured time is outside of work. Outside of a normal 9-5, most people just spend time with their families, clean their houses, go on vacations, go to the movies, do whatever they have time to do when it is not time to work (which is not much). To have time beyond that is sort of ???
I found that when I went from college to a f/t job, there was really not much of a difference in how I viewed the use of my time outside of work as compared to school. If anything, I had more time to do what I wanted outside of my expected hours of work than in school. That’s how I was originally able to start selling on Ebay and Amazon p/t. Work wasn’t challenging enough, time to move onto something else.
The jump from a f/t job to just full-on selling online led to a sort of “wow” moment for me, in that all of a sudden I had all the time in the world to do anything I wanted. Or, nothing. It was just a huge chunk of time that was available. It was up to me to fill it with work, because bills still had to be paid.
For a lot of f/t sellers, there seems to be sort of a moment of reckoning between expanding greatly or just remaining on a plateau with better processes. I’m with you guys on staying on the plateau. I feel that a lot of sellers become as accustomed to selling online as they would at a normal f/t job, so it’s just sort of like “what now?” Maybe even with all of their free time they still haven’t developed extensive hobbies or interests in anything outside of work. Maybe they never will, so they just devote their resources to becoming bigger. If not that, then they devote their time to becoming Youtube or Instagram celebrities, but they are still enmeshed within the worlds of reselling and have not really separated themselves outside of selling.
If they want to become the embodiment of work, good for them. However, it is not obviously healthy, as many people question “why not become bigger?” Well, what is the use of all that additional money if you are working harder to gain more free time? Take the time now, not the additional money!
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This is why, whenever I negotiated my salary at a new job in the corporate world, part of my ask was ALWAYS at least a week of unpaid leave – usually about 3. Yes, that meant I would make less per year. But I much preferred the time over the money. Nobody else did this. Everyone thought I was crazy. Pretty much everyone just wanted to keep getting promoted, whether they had management skills or not. I hate managing people so I chose to keep my sanity and fun over the money. Again – crazy to everyone else. That’s okay – I thought thought THEY were crazy.
lolto each her own
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At my last job it was standard for the company to allow employees to “buy” a week of vacation. I always bought a week and always used it. There was a small deduction off of every paycheck throughout the year to cover the week, so the impact was minimal.
At my current workplace I’ve brought up this idea of buying extra vacation and I may as well be speaking greek. I work with people who wear it as a badge of honor to keep their rollover vacation maxed out to the point that they forfeit vacation time. Ughhhh….
I have three weeks and it is not enough. Not even close.
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Yes, RetroWV, the forfeiting of vacation time is one of the craziest behaviors I have ever encountered. I mean, if it was just a few people here and there, I could imagine that maybe there’s a good reason, but it’s so many people. I think there’s a statistic out there on how many days of vacation are forfeited each year in the entire US – it’s enormous. And as I always used to say to my colleagues, the more you work crazy long hours and the less vacation you take, the more work you are creating for me! Blank stares.
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Hi R&J. Thanks for the podcast and Happy Birthday Ryanne!
My numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 2348
Items Sold: 30
Total Sales: $603
Cost of Items Sold: $76
Average Price Sold: $20.09
Average Cost of Item: $2.56
Highest Price Item Sold: $49.5 Focus Enhancements FireStore Direct Edit DTE Recorder (for parts)
Number of items listed this week: 63
YTD Sales: $19899
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +15%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 309
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 157
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 90
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.28%
# of Hats Sold: 21 (70% of sales)Nothing special going on with my store this week. I’ve had a few weeks in a row where my total sales are lower than this time last year. Not sure why that is.
Have you heard about the new eBay Easy Pricing feature. If not, you’re going to hate the idea of this one…. https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2018/6/1528724531.html
“Starting 10 days after listing, we’ll lower the price (5% every 5 days) until your item sells or gets to $xx.xx. We’ll notify buyers who showed interest each time the price drops. Turn it off anytime by going to your listing.”Have a great week everyone.
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Ha! Someone commented on the ecommercebytes article that eBay should make the same feature but in reverse: every 5 days an item’s price goes up 5%. I think that might help move inventory a little quicker versus buyers allowing items to sit in their carts waiting for a price drop. 🙂
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As I understand it, the auto repricer is being tested right now. I’m expecting (hoping) that ebay will eventually provide a version that allows the seller to set the parameters. Auto repricing has been a “thing” on Amazon for years, and I think there’s third party software available for ebay repricing. The concept certainly isn’t new, what’s new is that ebay itself might provide the tool or tools.
I think the tools are generally more useful for commodity, multi item listing sellers, but I could see using it for some of my stuff on occasion , especially if ebay eventually provides more flexibility for sellers.
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Interesting concept. This is something you can do in SixBit, but not that fast. You can have SixBit change the price of the item when it auto-relists, by whole dollar amount or by percentage. It is a potential strategy I have thought about but not implemented on more commodity items.
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LOL, love the commentary on aging. I’m 39, too – Happy Birthday, Ryanne! Each year is better and better in some way or another (perhaps due to caring less and less about trivial things, and more fully realizing what matters, and enjoying it) – at least until age-related health issues creep in. In a week, I’m heading to my mom’s to help her recuperate from retina surgery (following her cataract surgeries in previous months)…
In my shop, I continue to sell older items, which is both gratifying in a “get it out of the house” kind of way, and in a “guess that wasn’t such a bad buy after all” way. I also did a big purge of my inventory today, pulling out dozens of items and moving them to the Yard Sale box. Making room for better and better inventory.
06/10/18 – 06/16/18
Total Items In Store: 947
Items Sold: 16
Total Sales: $417.47
Cost of Items Sold: $9.55 (several of my own items sold)
Highest Price Sold: $90 – LK Bennett Yellow & White Summer Dress
Average Price Sold: $26.09
Returns/Refunds: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $208.18
Number of Items listed this week: 28Scavenge of the week: vintage Pendleton National Glacier Park Wool Blanket, in great shape – $6!
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Happy birthday, Ryanne! You’re not old.
To me, the whole idea of business success = business growth is just flawed. I think expecting/demanding continual growth is unsustainable, whether you’re talking about an eBay ‘hustler’ or a gigantic corporation (remember Borders?) — and I think this expectation of constant growth, constant increase, is ultimately harmful, not only on an individual basis but on a macro basis, to people and the planet (remember The Lorax.)
What I’m always searching for is the “sweet spot” — the golden ratio between time/money/attention/interest invested and education/pleasure/income generated. I’m not here to sell the most pieces of plastic produced by child labor overseas. I’m not about the widgets. Not to be precious about it, but it matters to me if I’m selling a billion units of some crappy piece of junk that comes with huge external costs, or building my own sweatshop of thousands of pieces of $7 profit second-hand clothing… or if I’m selling something cool and rare, or handmade and interesting, or simply valuable that I’ve plucked out of the waste stream. I’m not about hustling my way to the “top” of whatever heap this is supposed to be. I’m about maximizing my income and pleasure (and working within the limits of my attentional/organizational issues) within the time I have to devote to panning for gold in the waste stream.
That said, I’m still only doing this in a very small shop on a very part-time basis. When I read what I’ve written, it sounds a little bit precious and privileged, and I apologize for that. But I do think the idea that “success” means that every year must mark an increase over the previous year is fundamentally flawed. Finding and holding your sweet spot, owning your time, and having “enough” are all part of success in my book.
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After that whole slightly pretentious screed, I’d better share my numbers:
06/10/18 – 06/16/18
Total Items In Store: +/- 190
Items Sold: 5
Total Sales: $697.00
Cost of Items Sold: $25
Highest Price Sold: $500 woodblock print
Average Price Sold: $139.40
Returns/Refunds: 1 cancellation (not included in the totals above.)I got super-lucky this week and found/sold an interesting German woodblock print in under 24 hours. Without that sale, it would have been a pretty minimal week.
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Well said. We each have to find our sweet spot. We wanted to give the voice for “more time/less money” that I dont here enough in the online selling world.
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I’m definately in the “Sweet Spot” camp.
I don’t want an empire, I want to pay my bills.
I don’t want to work my ass off until I retire, my goal is to keep doing this work/lifestyle until I’m physically/mentally unable.
I enjoy working about 4 hours a day and then doing whatever intrigues me at the moment or dropping everything and go somewhere.
I’ve built a nice home, work environment, it doesn’t feel like a job, it’s my life.
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Habnab, I’m curious…was the German print printed in Germany, or printed in the US but in the German language? I sometimes come across some of the latter when sourcing, living (more or less) in the Pennsylvania Dutch country as I do.
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Sorry for the late response. Just to clarify, when I say “print,” I mean an artist-printed woodblock print, with multiple layers of color each laid with a separate block, and then hand-signed by the artist. This artist was a German, working in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. I have no idea how the piece ended up here, but it’s on its way back to Germany as we speak.
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Spinachetr said:
Just listened to the podcast. I use the letter-track service on every postcard I sell under $25 that is going to a US address. When you print the label in letter-track a barcode, called an Intelligent Mail Barcode, is printed above the address. The post office scans this barcode at the first sorting center. Look at any piece of 1st class mail you receive and you’ll see a barcode on it. Even the birthday card from grandma will have a barcode printed by the USPS on the envelop. Letter-track pretty much eliminates that step when the letter gets to the sorting center. This is the same thing the USPS uses to give you the emailed preview of what mail you are expecting. So, the USPS is actually tracking every piece of mail. Letter-track just found a way to gather that data from the USPS.
Since I do so much volume I actually get a decent bulk discount. I can still ship a postcard for about $.50. $.07 for the mailer, $.01 for the plastic sleeve, $.32 for discount forever stamps on ebay, and $.11 for letter-track.
The service is not perfect because mail still just disappears in the system. The “out for delivery” date is mostly accurate, but that is the last place it is scanned, so it still has to be delivered to your local PO and THEN it’s out for delivery. Ebay won’t accept it because it does not show that the item was actually delivered. But, it at least shows the buyer that I did in fact ship their postcard and they can watch it progress through the postal system. It also shows how messed up the postal service can be. I’ve watched (tracked) my postcards get sorted through Chicago on their way to Florida from Maryland. Happens more often than you think it should.
Anyway, for me, the $.11 per envelope is well worth it.
Letter-track.com is their site and they probably do a better job explaining it than I do.
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I’m almost certain, but could be wrong, that the letter track feature is available through fit shipper. I know they allow for letters and it is priced lower. I like that it’s all built into their label. It’s true that it only tracks for out for delivery status, and not all the way to the door. But I believe that unless there is a problem with the piece never showing up, then it won’t negatively impact your eBay metrics. It sounds like there’s a great shipping nerd podcast in all of this!
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Best wishes for a happy Birthday week Ryanne (sorry I am late to the party).
06/10/18 – 06/16/18
Total Items In Store: 256
Items Sold: 9
Total Sales: $153
Cost of Items Sold: $9
Highest Price Sold: $45 Talavera plate
Average Price Sold: $17
Returns/Refunds: 1 refund due to a snag on a tie I missed.It is my 2nd to last week of work. I have one Monday left. Not much eBay work this past week, I have been focused on finishing projects and handing off my work at the 9-5. My daughter and I are taking a month long road trip in July and August and I need to get my minivan converted into a camper van. We’ll be on the road starting July 8 headed to MN and Ottawa, Montreal and Acadia NP. Unless I get a bolt of energy, I am probably not going to do much with the eBay store until I get back in August.
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This week’s discussion reminds me of the story of the Executive and the Fisherman!
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Great story except the kids will be grown. Cats in the Cradle Song Lyrics
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It was in a different context than business, but I used the “sweet spot” term with my husband the other night in regard to age. I’ll turn 60 next month and my husband is 65. He’s been retired for five years and my small Ebay business is mostly for extras, so I can turn it on and off. Our three kids are self-sustaining and out of the house. We have truly never been happier. I said that we had to enjoy this “sweet spot” while we’re still healthy and active, but I think that sweet spot can last into the next decade and maybe even the one after that.
I could go on and on about happiness through the decades. Every decade of my life, so far, has been the happiest.
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This is great to hear. Ryanne and I aren’t afraid of hard work, but we always remind ourselves that our lives dont have to be brutal and unhappy…hoping for a retirement when we can finally relax.
So far, I’ve never looked back and thought “my life used to be so much better then”.
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Happy Birthday Gemini’s !!! you lucky summer birthday people…go outside and have a party! For me and Jesus, it’s all MacAurthur Park…rain rain rain- till Mexico Life becomes a reality…
Mike and Terri and all the over ’39rs I echo your sentiments on the 2nd half of the hourglass. I’m 51 , not working for the man anymore and lovin it- The freedom is mind blowing.
I still have my “worst case scenario worries” as described by our hosts on the podcast, its part of my larger “impending doom syndrome”. But it is minuscule to the levels I was at while grinding for 31 years-
I’m Just keeping my foot on the gas and following the path. Medicine, technology and the Universe may keep us fit to our 100’s! I’m betting on it, you should gamble on that! and the same strategy applies at the craps table.
thanks for sharing,
going on a hike now,
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Jay, no wonder you love doing the numbers. It’s a Gemini thing. My mom is one too (June 10th) and she was an accountant/bookkeeper for many years, and actually loves doing taxes. Doing taxes makes other people want to puke but she adores it.
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Over lunch I am prepping some NY Times tomato sauce and some sweet italian sausage for baked ziti. I was listening to the podcast and heard a shout out to me!!! I am so internet famous!!!
Thanks for the congratulations and well wishes. Happy Tuesday to everyone.
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Hey Jay & Ryanne,
I thought I put my numbers here yesterday but now I don’t see them. Could you look to see if they somehow disappeared as some other elves comments have in the past? Thanks!
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I listen every week but I guess I haven’t been on the forum in so long I had to re- register. lol. I did all of that to tell you Jay about a food truck! I had a brick and mortar antique/cafe, sold it last year after being tired of the red tape and chains a brick and mortar involves and realizing I was making more in my sleep on ebay some days than I did running up and down the steps of my 225 year old building.
Anyway- before we bought that building we had looked at doing a food truck. So I am always paying attention to them. Near my hometown their is one permanently set up in a couples front yard, it is called Ethel’s in Keysville, VA. They are across from the local community college. They are seasonal, so they shut down Thanksgiving to about March. However the one I visited yesterday- made me think of you two so much that I had to get back on the forum. They move around constantly- not sure if they get as far as Luray but they do go to Charlottesville some. I was shocked they came to my tiny town, but they have been in my area enough they had a bit of a line all day. It is called Mama Crocketts Cider Donuts. They have a vintage camper pull behind trailer that is in a 1970’s teal, with a cool silhouette logo of “Mama” in horned rimmed glasses. Cool couple with a vintage vibe, they do donuts, cider and that is pretty much it. I think they are based out of Lynchburg. They have a website- While I waited in the heat index of 100+ yesterday for 20 min of steaming hot donuts all I could think of was , Jay & Ryanne would totally dig this setup! -Benita -
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Happy Belated Birthday Ryanne!
My numbers week of June 10-16, 2018
Total items in store: 217 eBay & 147 Etsy
Items sold: 32 eBay & 1 Etsy
Cost of items sold: $42.00 approximately
Total sales: eBay $515.89 & Etsy $5.00
Highest price sold: $53.25 Reyn Spooner Men’s Shirt NWT
Average price sold: $15.78
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $75.47
Number of items listed: 42Wishing everyone a great week!
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I thought I heard Ryanne say that she was deleting all of their stores items off of Bonanza. Well I think this may be why we, personally, haven’t seen a Sale since last fall. They are pushing Store Memberships now along with their original “Turbo Boost” for traffic “juice”. So agagin as I said earlier, you pay us we will show you to customers, pay us more and we will show you more. That is just like the Angies List, Service Magic, Home Advisor or Kudzu. If you are a home remodeler, service tech or home handyman, plumber, electrician, etc. you pay us for leads and we will give you contact info for those who respond to our advertising.
Here is some of the content in an email we got from bonanza today..
follow this link: https://www.bonanza.com/memberships?utm_source=BonanzaDirect&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=anniversary_sale
Anybody on SL doing / paying for these tools and extra exposure on Bonanza? If so, are you seeing any benefit? Anybody even getting any sales since the fall off of Bonanza? Just curious.
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I am still getting a sale or two a month. I don’t pay for any of the upgrades. I get duplicate listings quite a bit and will go in and sort by name and delete the duplicate listings. More work than I want but I do get a good sale on there once in a while for not a whole lot of work.
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I have never used any of their tools, I’ve only sold 5 items on Bonanza this year, quite a drop off from years past.
I’ve considered eliminating my items on Bonanza for a while now as too many times the auto synchro doesn’t work and I end up selling the same item on eBay and have to cancel.-
Only had 5 Sales since 5/23/2017 [little over a year] for $185.43 Total despite it having all of our feedback and hundreds of listings from Ebay. The synch number is off by about 30 or 40 items. Considering I dont do anything to maintain it, guess that’s $185 I wouldn’t have had, but what’s the point unless I need to figure out something that can be done that doesn’t cost anything to “apply some juice”.
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Yeah, we deleted our Bonanza store because we stopped getting any sales in 2018. Not sure if they’re pushing down stores that dont pay for placement.
But the bigger issue is their increasingly buggy eBay syncing. It’s not worth the time the time to troubleshoot.
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i think i said this on the podcast, but because they were showing my scheduled (not public) ebay listings, that i set to $1000-5000 (incase they list by accident, which they have), people were consistently messaging me, outraged at my price. i would explain it to them and point to my ebay listings where it showed the real price. it just got annoying and obviously i don’t have time to make sure Bonanza is syncing correctly, so yeah i deleted my store.
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Jay/Ryanne: Would be an interesting experiment. In a few weeks, resync your Bonanza store for 8 weeks…
See if you suddenly get Bonanza sales in the middle of the summer when it has been crickets before.
Just to see if there is a Bonanza algorithm set for “new” sellers. You are mostly unique items, so search may not help you at all, but it would be interesting…
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Through Q4 and a little bit of January, we were still getting a decent amount of Bonanza sales every month. We would average at least one or two a week. Then we had one sale in February, one in March, one in April, and haven’t had another one since. TrueGether has had more.
No extra cost because it was never worth it.
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Here are the top 12 states we sold in and the number of Sales and dollar amount in those states for 1/1/17-12/31/17.
Buyer state Buyer country Currency Quantity
<>=;> amount
CA United States USD 36 2363.31
FL United States USD 35 1144.68
TX United States USD 32 1368.37
NY United States USD 26 708.1
GA United States USD 24 722.48
OH United States USD 23 937.47
Ml United States USD 19 486.67
IL United States USD 19 729.48
PA United States USD 17 504.2
MA United States USD 15 503.65
VA United States USD 15 374.51
TN United States USD 12 722.5Our average Sales price per item Sold was $43.25 x 479 items = $21,718 [Boy these numbers are just so easy with SixBit and WonderLister, just a click of the button]. So, I would assume we are small potatoes as far as Sales Tax goes or if there are exempt limitations. But as we grow and double at least all T-Satt, Mark S, others and myself have tpo do is click a Sales Tax report from our apps.
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Here are the top sales in the top 12 states since 2013 [as far back as WonderLister goes for our database]
Georgia is in the middle sort of for last year and all time. But again if they exempt $200,000 or less in Sales OK. Don’t think number of sales would be used because you could have 50 sales at $10,000 each, they would want the tax on the dollar amount.
Buyer state Buyer country C u rre n cy Qu a ntity Sale
amount
TX United States USD 148 4675.97
CA United States USD 135 5308.59
FL United States USD 88 3145.49
NY United States USD 88 2838.71
GA United States USD 56 1480.11
PA United States USD 55 1713.16
IL United States USD 55 1662.94
OH United States USD 50 2003.39
Ml United States USD 45 1217.74
VA United States USD 40 1060.46
MA United States USD 37 1170.67
NC United States USD 36 1037.97 -
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RR Store Week June 10-16, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1607
Items Sold: 25
Cost of Items Sold: $27.01
Total Sales: $570.07
Highest Price Sold: $89.99 (Fairuz record)
Average Price Sold: $22.80
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $47
Number of items listed this week: 25I can’t believe I spaced on posting my numbers! It’s been a crazy week, but better late than never.
Not much to post about. Sales the previous week were amazing, then they fell off a cliff. Estate sales and the thrifts were dreadful, so not much listing going on. But lots of forthcoming sales, so hopefully this trend will change.
Paul
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Better late than never, right? It was a really slow week, which is frustrating, but I guess everyone is as broke as I am by the end of the month. I feel like I have been hemorrhaging money this month-all the regular bills plus quarterly taxes and the wedding. Which, in case you are curious, went splendidly. I spent time listing and am back up to where I was before I did the big purge of old low dollar items. Since I am not planning on upgrading from my current store size (1,000 monthly fee buy it now listings) I’m sure there are more purges in the future as I upgrade the items I have listed. Just getting rid of some of listings from when I started this in earnest. You know, the ones that make you say to yourself “What were you thinking?” Enough blather, here’s my sad numbers….
eBay June 17-23
Total sales. $95.93
Items in store. 1,043
# sold. 8
Avg. sale. $11.99
COGS. $7.39
$ spent on new. $25.14
Highest sale: $24.99 Westmoreland milk glass dish & candleholders
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