Home › Forums › Podcast Comments › Scavenger Life Episode 418: Brick & Mortar Store Is Not For Us
- This topic has 91 replies, 34 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 1 month ago by
T-Satt.
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07/07/2019 at 6:49 pm #64594
Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week June 30-July 6, 2019 Total Items in Store: 8495 Items Sold: 29 Gross Sales: $1,157.23 Cost
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 418: Brick & Mortar Store Is Not For Us] -
07/07/2019 at 7:53 pm #64596
Anonymous
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I am one of those people who likely won’t post in a fully public forum. Why don’t you just make the sub-reddit private? You would have to approve members just like you do now, but it is much simpler to do. You would still have all the benefits of the reddit sub (minus the user gen content directing back to this domaain)
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07/07/2019 at 8:12 pm #64597
Here’s my latest what sells on eBay report. June was a good month for my little store.
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07/07/2019 at 9:00 pm #64598
I would not watch you if you go to reddit. I think most people will feel like me. Just my statement is all.
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07/07/2019 at 9:52 pm #64600
Our audio podcasts would still be on Youtube and iTunes as always. We’re just talking about moving this forum to Reddit (which is a big public forum).
Just curious: why don’t you like Reddit? We haven’t made any decision but trying to figure out what would work better. Maybe we’re just stay here.
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07/07/2019 at 9:01 pm #64599
I would watch facebook before reddit any day though.
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07/07/2019 at 10:50 pm #64601
Anonymous
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Jay,
Why won’t you address using a private sub-reddit.-
07/07/2019 at 10:53 pm #64603
It’s possible to make a sub-reddit private? Have you ever created one or are you apart of one now?
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07/08/2019 at 11:41 am #64640
I have a reddit account but know zero about setting up a subreddit. But doing a quick search on the site got me this reply.
How do I make my subreddit private and invite only? How does it work? from modhelp
It is 6 years old but appears accurate. If you go to the bottom link of that thread it shows you what the landing page of a private subreddit would look like.
My two cents, having it private would make me feel much more comfortable participating also if you moved to reddit.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by
mickdog.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by
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07/07/2019 at 10:54 pm #64604
June 30 – July 6
Total Items in Store: 2400
Items Sold: 31
Total Sales : $1044
* Above yearly average of $950
Highest Price: $130 (Keystone Stereoscope Cards)
Average Price: $34
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $58
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $2
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 55Last week’s sales were kinda weird. The beginning of the week was filled with sales all the way through Wednesday. Then it just died. I made a couple on Independence Day and didn’t have a single sale on Friday or Saturday. But I still managed to sell over $1K which was unexpected.
There hasn’t been much excitement happening our way. Just trying to stay cool in this hot, muggy Ohio Valley weather. I am rocking it on my listings lately though. I may not hit 3000 listings by the new year, but at this rate it’ll be close.
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07/07/2019 at 11:17 pm #64606
Thanks for the podcast this week!
I rarely look at Reddit – maybe moving the forums there would convince me to participate, who knows? Honestly, this forum has a high barrier for participating, and the upside is that all of us who run the gauntlet to get in are very motivated to be here. So the conversations are constructive and professional, which is what I’m here for. With a low-barrier, public forum I’d expect a lot more negativity and one-shot “How much is this worth kthxbye” posts. But I’d still give it a shot. I imagine that running the forum takes away time from more profitable endeavors, so I respect whatever decision you need to make.
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07/08/2019 at 8:16 am #64611
Yeah, you have to be committed to get in this forum which is why I feel its low noise and high info. If we moved to a better platform, we’d just need better moderation.
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07/08/2019 at 12:33 am #64608
Did I understand you rightly regarding your new building, that you are taking on commercial tenants but not running a new front-facing business yourselves?
I had a really good week on eBay, I seem to be on a streak lately.
Sales: CAD$2225, 11 items, COGS: $193 –> Item profit: $1698
Expenditures: $536 –> Cashflow: $1335
Hours: 7, $191/hr
Notable sales: 14 voip adapters $510 paid $70, shower head $360 paid $60.
Not much scavenging as I was out of town Wednesday & Thursday. Of course, while I was away we had to have our basement drain back up, which meant my ebay lair’s carpet got soaked. Now that I’ve got the clog cleared, drying it all out. Doesn’t help that storage is a mess as I’ve been delayed in acquiring the new storage unit.-
07/08/2019 at 8:23 am #64613
Yes, we’re basically going to just rent out downstairs. We still have another 5 months to finish down there though.
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07/08/2019 at 5:24 am #64609
“Honestly, this forum has a high barrier for participating, and the upside is that all of us who run the gauntlet to get in are very motivated to be here. So the conversations are constructive and professional”
Yes!
People are seldom more innocently employed than when they are honestly making money.
Samuel Johnson (amended)
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07/08/2019 at 7:11 am #64610
I haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcast yet, but I would like to add my 2 cents about the forum:
-I suspect that 50-75% of the normal posters on here would be gone if this forum moved to Reddit, myself included.
-If a move to Reddit is necessary, a private reddit as suggested might work? A lot of us would probably still not bother to create another account in a new place, just because.
-There would most likely be a net gain of active forum posters on Reddit, but that would probably consist of people from flipping (it’s up to 134k subscribers now, which is terrifying). Ugh, flipping.
-I believe a lot of people like posting on this forum because it feels “private,” even though it’s not. Exposing insight on what you sell is one thing when a place feels private, but when you’re just out in the open with any would be “flipper” lurker hanging onto your every word, a lot less can be said.
-Maybe keep the forum here, but require an annual maintenance fee for the continuation of the forum and make the forums completely private unless the fee is paid?
-Add mods here?-
07/08/2019 at 8:21 am #64612
True. The overflow from the r/flipping crowd is my biggest worry. Not looking for arguing and people wanting to just grab info without contributing. I do love our solid community here and wouldn’t want to lose what we have.
Our concern is not the money ($70/month), it’s more our helplessness when the forum doesn’t work correctly since we’re not programmers. I guess if you guys are here, the forum must work well enough 🙂
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07/08/2019 at 9:35 am #64621
Just curious why you’re worried about the r/flipping crowd. I have my reasons for not posting there very much but curious yours.
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07/08/2019 at 9:41 am #64623
Its been a while since I hung out at r/flipping. Just seemed like a lot more new people than existing sellers. The tone was too much about new people wanting to know how to sell. Not much depth.
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07/08/2019 at 10:46 am #64627
Gotcha. There is some truth to that. The actual existing sellers are tending now to hang out on discord chat.
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07/08/2019 at 11:04 am #64634
/flipping forum:
common posts on the forum include:
“i just found out about flipping 5 minutes ago. read some links on the sidebar, sounds cool. how do i quit my job in 2 weeks, and what should i source and from where?” lol
also, i like how this forum trends older (30+) /flipping is full of 20 yos, some teens. i’m too much of a curmudgeon to deal.
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07/08/2019 at 9:51 am #64625
-I believe a lot of people like posting on this forum because it feels “private,” even though it’s not. Exposing insight on what you sell is one thing when a place feels private, but when you’re just out in the open with any would be “flipper” lurker hanging onto your every word, a lot less can be said.
Yep. This site is more of a low key tight knit group of folks and we’re all comfortable enough to share pretty speciifc details about our stores.
I avoided reddit for a long time as reddit had a wrap for basically being the “toilet of the internet”, but recently spent some time there reading on the keto subreddit.
I agree we’ll probably lose many of the high quality posters here, possibly me. There’s alot of trash on reddit, and I really don’t want to sign up for a site that is “anything goes”. This site is a very specific forum with minimal off-topic content. That is the big appeal for me here.
It is highly unlikely at this point that I would sign up for reddit if the forum moved there.
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07/08/2019 at 8:30 am #64614
Reddit would never be as organized. I have a forum on netfronts server. Costs me about 150 a year. I use phpforum, sets up in minutes. Can be organized like this one. Netfronts is super helpful if an issue and correct things quickly. In 15 years I’ve had maybe 4 down times longer than one hour.
Also check out Tapatalk, I use them as a mobile portal but they have desktop forums that integrate as well, Tapatalk can generate ad revenue (I don’t use)
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07/08/2019 at 8:35 am #64615
Week June 30 – July 6, 2019
Items in store: 4092 Listings for 6104 Items
Items Sold: 62 Items
Gross Sales: $3653.08
Highest Price Sold: $250… Edward Green Shoes
Lowest Price Sold: $2.75… Shoe Laces
Average Price Sold: $58.92
Cost of Goods Sold $193, Plus consignment
Number of new items listed this week: 70 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $75
Repeat Customers: 6Pretty slow this week, but could be worse for a summer holiday.
I decided to buy another camera this week. My main camera has over 200,000 clicks and has just started getting a little quirky. It straightened up with a little cleaning, but it’s only a matter of time at this point. I have a backup that can fill-in in a pinch, but it’s missing a couple of my favorite features for tethered shooting, and I often need to use two cameras at the same time. Ideally, I would have 3 cameras, one on vertical, one overhead, and one free-hand.
Since it was time to buy, I decided to upgrade to a full frame camera. Full Frame cameras can be ultra pricey, so I picked up one up secondhand on ebay, hopefully it will workout until I can manage to thrift one. The idea is that, when used overhead in my customised photo booth, the full frame camera can be mounted at a lower height than the cropped DSLR, making it easier for the user to reach without over-stetching/straining/twisting their back. It the moment, I have to really stretch to reach it at some settings, and my wife has to get on a step stool and reach. Neither of which is ideal. Can’t wait to see if this improves things. I will likely have to do more cropping during post editing, but I suppose a little added crop time is a good trade off for less back pain.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by
The_SEAM_Store.
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07/08/2019 at 8:49 am #64617
Would you be able to possibly share a photo or two and a general description of your setup in the Photography section?
This two camera tethered setup sounds quite interesting!I’ve always thought it would be cool to have an overhead camera, use a remote shutter release, and have the images show up on the computer screen just like a photography studio.
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07/08/2019 at 11:05 am #64635
Sure, I can put something together. Someone remind again me how to add photos here.
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07/08/2019 at 11:56 am #64642
Upload your photos to any online photo hosting site.
Get the actual URL of the photo – not BBS code or anything. Just the URL link that ends in the name of the photo.
Copy the URL and click the “img” button on your post here. Enter the URL and you are golden.-
07/08/2019 at 4:04 pm #64668
Lol, I’m not so golden. I tried to add photos to my post 6 times and nothing.
I got it. It wouldn’t add the pics if I used the img tool, so I just copy/pasted the URL directly into the reply field.
Photo Set-Up at The SEAM Store
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This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by
The_SEAM_Store.
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07/08/2019 at 9:19 am #64618
Items in Store 1218
Items Sold 21
Total Sales $719.50
COGS $60.00
Total Profit $659.50
Average profit $31.40
Average sales price $34.26
New Listings 0I had a $200 sale right before midnight last night to save my week. Score! It was the Seiko watch I picked up at a yard sale a couple weeks ago for $20.
It was a short week, so no listing. Went out of town for the holiday weekend. I did a bunch of organizing and rearranging of my ebay spaces. I have a pressing need to get my workspace fixed up nicely because my 12yo daughter has proven she is very capable at being my helper. This week will also likely be light on listing as I work to have a more functional “two person” space.
Summer Goal: Under weekly sales goal by $155.50. Running total is under pace by $565.
Eh, it could be alot worse. Once I’m up and running as a 2 person operation this month I hope to gain some ground on my sales goal.-
07/08/2019 at 9:32 am #64620
Once I’m up and running as a 2 person operation this month I hope to gain some ground on my sales goal.
Did I miss some news? Are you hiring someone?
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07/08/2019 at 9:37 am #64622
My daughter will be doing photography for me during the day while I’m at work. I’ve tested her out doing a few things and she is legitimately interested and is doing good work.
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07/08/2019 at 10:31 am #64626
Hello, and thank you again for the podcast. Although I’m sure there will be advantages to moving, there will be adjustments as well. Certainly I’d give it a go. What’s best for J&R is paramount. Personally, I prefer things just as they are with the forum. Better is the enemy of good, but sometimes good is good enough.
6/30– 7/06/19 (no cross listing is done between platforms)
eBay store: totommyto
Total store items: 701
Number of items sold: 10
Total eBay sales (not counting s/h): $478.50
Cost of items sold: $66
Highest price sold: $175 – antique 2 button (MOP) light switch plates lot – paid about $20
Average price sold: $47.85
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $1.00 (terrible scavenging trip! Found one patch!)
Number of new items listed this week: 26
Sell through rate for the week: 1.5
Number International sales: 0Etsy store oldfleatoymarket
Total store items: 663
Number of items sold: 6
Total Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $112
Cost of items sold: $7
Highest price sold: $22.50 – small beat vintage wood cutting board – paid $1.00
Average price sold: $18.70
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of new items listed this week: 16
Sell through rate for the week: 1.0
Number International sales: 0 -
07/08/2019 at 10:47 am #64628
Great podcast once again! In May I noticed the shipping options situation you mentioned this week on the podcast and I posted it on the forum here: https://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/shipping-options-hidden-on-some-items-i-asked-ebay-and-they-said/
Here is a piece of that thread. I wrote to Ebay and they said:
Me: I noticed that even when I put shipping options sometimes only the lowest priced option is made available. This is new… is that intentional?
Ebay: Great observation! This is new and it is intentional. Right now we’re just testing it out on the site. Essentially, we’ll only hide shipping services that are more expensive and offer the same estimated delivery date as a service of lesser cost. So if a more expensive item has a better delivery date, it will still show for your customers.
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07/08/2019 at 11:00 am #64632
So eBay will hide options if its more expensive and take longer. Interesting idea. Parcel Post does sometimes ship faster than Priority.
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07/08/2019 at 10:49 am #64629
Another great show. I’m sure whatever place you end up will be just fine once we all get used to it… just like here it took a bit of time for people to adapt, but it happened and the community is larger than ever. There are several people above (and likely callers/emails next week) saying no way they’ll move to Reddit without any explanation/validation – why/why not? I personally don’t go on Reddit much currently, but it’s more because of the trolls & disorganization – but when you weed out those things, Reddit can actually be a useful source of information & community.
Weeks June 23-July 6, 2019 (2 weeks)
Total Items in Store: 1023
Items Sold: 31
Cost of Items Sold: $537 (31% of sales)
Total Sales: $1,730.38
Highest Price Sold: $180 (4) (Alice in Chains – Jar of Flies, Jimi Hendrix – Are Your Experienced, Beatles – Sgt Pepper MFSL, Bush – Sixteen Stone)
Average Price Sold: $55.82
Returns: 0 (1 NPB though)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $800
Number of items listed this week: 24
Promoted listings test: 17 sales, $987.94 (57.1% of total sales), $48.62 fees (4.9% of sales)Really good last week of June, so so start to July. July 3-5 had no sales, and things started to pick up again Saturday. COGS are way higher than I like, however that comes with the territory of going after higher dollar items for sale – 5 sales of $130+. Outside of the high dollar records sold, also had some neat finds that sold including this Certificate of Citizenship folio, a neat beam compass I was able to tie back to a German engineer, and a quick reminder to everyone that the fall/winter holidays will be here sooner than we think after I sold a Halloween blow mold.
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07/08/2019 at 11:27 am #64638
Another topic that just started affecting me and might affect some of you out there – the new extra fees that come if you have “excessive” INADs. I never thought I hit that mark since I always look at Seller Level/Performance and I’m Top Rated, overall return rate is 1.88%. However, there’s a new section called Service Metrics that shows your returns by category as compared to everyone else in that category. After 3 returns in May, my Music Category return rate is 2.28% (13 of 571 sales) as compared to the average 0.59% return rate in the category. I now get charged an EXTRA 5% on any sales within the music category, which recently has been the majority of my sales.
Working to resolve this and calling eBay to see if some can be excluded, like when a buyer opens a case but never returns the item… while I never had to refund or provide a label, it’s still counted against me.
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07/10/2019 at 8:39 am #64749
Yikes, I remember people discussing this change. Here is the link to see your service metrics:
https://www.ebay.com/sh/prf/service-metrics?src=filters&metric_type=SNADWe’re a little higher than our “peers”, but not in the danger territory. I can see how it wouldnt more than a couple more returns to push us into the danger zone.
I guess the good news is that they judge you on a three month time period. If you got a lot of returns n on e month, they’ll drop off quickly. But I’m not sure what eBay expects you to do when people just change their mind.
Do you have a sense why LP’s are being returned to you?
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07/08/2019 at 11:43 am #64641
Thanks for the podcast! After a long weekend, it was good to have your podcast to listen to on the way to work this morning.
Here are my numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 3159
Items Sold: 43
Total Sales: $1476
Cost of Items Sold: $223
Average Price Sold: $34.32
Average Cost of Item: $5.19
Highest Price Item Sold: $229.95 Scotty Cameron Studio Style Newport 1.5 Putter (paid $30)
Number of items listed this week: 66
YTD Sales: $26337
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +14%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 378
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 193
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 42
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.36%
Hats sold this week: 26 (60% of sales) worth $459.99 (31% of sales $)The end of the week (Sunday for me) was very strong which pushed my numbers above this week last year. I sold a couple of high value golf clubs which boosted my numbers so I’m happy wiht how the week turned out.
On the subject of Reddit, I’ve been active on that site for years (since Digg collapsed). I like using it and I’d join a SL subreddit though I think you’d find the amount of time necessary to moderate it would probably be greater than what you do now if it was public. Maybe it’s worth setting a subreaddit up and see what happens. If it’s successful, shut down this forum, otherwise shut down the subreddit. You’ll have twice the moderation duties for a while.
Different topic: I’ve recently crossed the 1-year-from-retirement countdown mark. I set myself a goal 2 years ago to retire from my day job next June. I’m on track to do that. I plan to sell part time on eBay and do lots of traveling and probably volunteer work. Lots to look forward to.
Hope everyone has a great week!
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07/08/2019 at 12:09 pm #64643
June Monthly numbers:
Items sold : 36 (below average)
Amt sold : $1072 (also down a bit)
Avg price sold $29.78 (that is up a few dollars due to a couple big sales.)
Customer issues: none so far on the 36 sales above, but I did have the person try to scam me by returning a different broken item (detailed in another thread). That case was closed but only after I gave a partial refund and eBay did not send me a credit as promised. Fortunately when I started free returns I added a .50 per item surcharge which is now my self-insurance. So far in the year I’ve done this I’ve not paid out much less than I’ve taken in which is good.
Big sale was a working Atari 800XL Computer that I got at an auction. Paid up for it at $34 but I knew even if it didn’t work I could part it out for $70-80. It worked nicely and sold it for $150.
Other big sale was from someone accepting an offer I sent. It was a case of 24 sealed Avatar (anime, not movie) trading cards. I had them up for a $100 for a while and sent an offer of $89 out that was accepted. Found these for $3.99 at a Goodwill, so that was a sweet sale.
I’m going to keep better track of how many offers I send and get accepted. I’m entering them into a spreadsheet each day. For example, so far in July I’ve sent 27 offers and got one taker (only a $12 sale on a poster that was up for $15).
I’m also listing like mad now that my time is more free in the summer (I’m a full time college instructor). My goal is 30 listings over what ever I buy. Meaning if I buy 10 new things in a week, I have to list 40 that week! It is helping me cut down my death pile and curbing purchases, unless they are very nice items. So far since 6/17 I’ve listed 136 items bring my store up to 765 listings. I hope to get close to the 900-1000 range by the end of the summer!
I did source from some garage sales, the aforementioned auction, and a couple thrift stores. I’m heading to Seattle for a quick trip to see friends this week and I may stop at multiple thrift stores on the drive and back. I love sourcing in new territory!
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07/08/2019 at 1:13 pm #64648
I love your plan of listing 10 more than you buy. Great idea!
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07/08/2019 at 4:33 pm #64680
Similar to my strategy. I want to grow my store to 7000 items by January 5 (26 weeks). I have 6104, and need 896 more. 896/26 = 34.5. So every week if I list at least 35 more items than I sold the week before, I will reach my goal.
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07/08/2019 at 2:12 pm #64650
To Reddit or Not to Reddit, that is the Question?
Yes, even if you can make the Reddit private, in my opinion, there will be a lot more outsiders or newer incomers than before. Not a bad thing but what is your ultimate goal? Grow the forum, monetize the forum, have it on robotic auto pilot and not have to monitor it, stop it or abandon it. What are your goals.
Well take the following from a good place, the heart and in stride as just a personal opinion and maybe from a little different perspective than just the navigation and organizational of reddit point of view.
I have participated here on SL through the years and provided and shared a lot of information that I have acquired through 6 years in art school, teaching a few years on the collegiate level and 32 years in the printing and publishing areas.
I don’t mind dispensing this harder to come by information which cost me lots of sweat and money, but only to those I feel have contributed to my well being and success also. Here on this forum, with the current group of approx. 5,000, I feel Jay and Ryanne as well as many of those who have been around a while have helped Susan and I tremendously. And still to this day, while we have gotten down the basics, we are always learning from others who keep digging into the why things happen and how to avoid issues going forward, especially after Ebay does major updates.
I also feel that I owe something to J&R especially for creating and building this community into what it is today and instead of large cash donations to J&R, I dispense my “walls of Text” [detailed replies in other words], to those newer members here to help them succeed because that is my way of paying it forward for J&R and in turn in hopes that these newer members will “indulge” into the world of providing detailed replies to other newer members.BUT to jump formats and your own homestead place to a location with hundreds of thousands of subscribers having access to information that I post as a courtesy, I would just stop doing that because I have no idea how my information will be used and I surely know I will get no royalties on it.
About the only way I would post on a place with that much exposure, trolls and potential for argumentative, negative rebuttals would be to sell my information or market a book I would write about my experience with art, prints, fakes, forgeries, tips and techniques and only market to sell my information there. No way am I going to just throw all that hard-earned information out to hundreds of thousands of total strangers. Many of whom, would probably use it in their own efforts, via plagiarize and cut and paste techniques to make money for themselves.
I know people here on SL, so much so, we communicate directly even off the SL forum. We call or text each other at times. We have shared spread sheets with each other, tips and techniques because I feel there is a true and appreciative nature in the people I communicate here, and that number is a smaller, interactive group. Not that wouldn’t be the case on Reddit, but as many have already expressed, they may cut bait and not be there anymore. That would leave us with our private communications and no more “posting” live any longer. In today’s world it is hard to trust anybody or anyplace other than a place you feel secure and at home with. I feel that here at SL, not Reddit.
To also put the value of participating on SL into a mini time study format there is a “cost” associated with being an active participating SL member.
Participating on SL costs a poster time which we all know is money. My SL profile metrics say I have created 34 topics, not too many but replied 1,396 times, and those who know me, understand many of my replies are longer and detailed which Jay calls “walls of text”, as such is this one. But I can say, that some members have thanked me for the details in many of my replies. But my main point is in creating 1,396 replies comes at a cost which I am willing to donate as a “pay back”.
If my 1,396 replies have averaged 500 words per reply, or 698,000 words, at an avg. of 8 to 10 characters per word = 5,584,000 charters. That’s almost 6 million characters. I type slow and with 3 fingers, so let’s say 10 to 12 words per minute that’s about 58,166 minutes or 969 hours and at 40 hours per week that is approx. 24 weeks or 6 months’ worth of time just typing on SL nonstop.
Now think about the time to read thousands and thousands of other people’s replies. Hard to multitask when reading.
Now to the cost of participating. At the 969 hours of replying and at a random choice of $20 an hour fee for posted information [if anyone is really interested in it] the information, comes to approx. $19,380 worth of time spent just in the replying on SL to try to help anyone that is asking for help or trying to shed more light on a topic, all the while not trying to be critical of any other member, nasty of hateful like some of the “Anonymous” members used to get before Ryanne started screening more carefully and eliminated the anonymous sign ins.
In my opinion I just am not going to be willing spend that amount of valuable time to just throw my knowledge out into a more public domain and the online “junk-o-sphere” , than it already is. My knowledge and information, even though it may not be very good, or such “secret” information, out in that “junkosphere” I have even less control on how it will be used and it will be for anyone to grab, cut and paste, and maybe used for too many other purposes other than helpful information for my fellow SL comrades. Then add to that, to possibly read a bunch of arguments from people who don’t appreciate the comments and understand the place in the heart they come from.
Jay and Ryanne, I understand if you two are getting over whelmed with your other diverse work, don’t have the time for this more warm, cushy, cuddly “private place” you have created for those of us, who truly care for each other and wanting to help each other out, then I would rather see you abandon it all together and wish us all a good and safe journey for the rest of our lives rather than put the content and community into the hands of a quarter of a million of other people who I don’t know from Adam. Personally I am not going to spend the time to get to know all those newer members the way I have the current SL members and even more time due to the influx of many more members with questions and arguments and spend time reading all of those. The SL Fire Hose serves me well enough daily. My time and knowledge to another batch of newcomers is not something I would look forward to.
And if so, then color me “outta’ here”.
My time now is even more valuable because Susan pathology report came back and the hysterectomy did not get all the cancer and it has moved downward and is now classified as Stage III-B and she will have to do chemo and radiation treatments now for approx. 20 weeks.
So, between our Etsy and Ebay stores, building a few new homes to sell, our basement rental, some art creation and selling and then all of Susan’s medical trips, I personally just will cut bait as well on going over to Reddit and doing that whole gig.
That is just my humble opinion coming from A southern guy which that and $.75 will get you a third of a cup of coffee.
Did this come out as a “new rant”???? LOL
Ta Ta for Now!Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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07/08/2019 at 2:27 pm #64651
Oh man, so sorry to hear the new info on your wife’s treatment.
You may already know this, but make sure to research intermittent fasting before she begins her treatment. It can help with the radiation sickness symptoms.-
07/08/2019 at 3:07 pm #64655
Thanks. Ok will do RTWV. We are doing a bunch of research since we got the final reports last week. Anything that may help both physically and financially.
We have a list of resources the oncologist team gave us, where we can get gas cards for the trips back and forth, the chemo will be once weekly for 6 weeks, then radiation everyday for 6 weeks, then a second round of chemo weekly for the last 6 weeks so about 40 treatments in all. So the gas cards will help with the mileage plus we will track the medical mileage.
Another resource will pay one utility bill per month. Every little bit will help. The surgery rounded out at approx. $64k and each of the after treatments say about $12k to $15 x 3 = $45K +/-. While we have not gotten any actual invoices-statements yet, we are expecting in the range of $100k +/-. Then we will have to wait and see how much the insurance will cover. We both have a Medicare Advantage Plan through Aetna.
There seems to be some caps on the totals but not sure yet, how much and if they are per year or lifetime totals and what our co-pay share will be. Think it may be an 80/20 split but still $20k may be out of our pocket. Got to sell a boat load of “Vintage Stuff” to cover that! LOL 🙂
Then if the chemo is considered as a separate drug cost or included in the hospital bill. Just so much to be determined.
Susan’s advice is for all the ladies make sure you get your regular PAP Smears and Mamograms done by your GYN and guys do a colonoscopy and prostate exams.
But thanks and keep her in your prayers..
mike at MDCGFA
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07/08/2019 at 9:32 pm #64704
Mike – Sorry to hear about Susan’s prognosis. Good luck to her with the therapy.
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07/22/2019 at 12:13 pm #65231
Mike: Veronica and I are so sorry to hear about Susan. We will be praying so hard for her. If you need anything, ANYTHING, you know how to reach me directly, both email or cell phone.
So sorry we just heard about this, but you two will be in our hearts everyday right now!
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07/22/2019 at 1:32 pm #65240
Welcome back to the Forum buddy. Missed your inputs.
Thanks to everyone, for the thoughts and prayers for Susan. She had her first Chemo treatment Thursday and her next one is coming up Wed. morning. She will have 6 chemo [one per week] then 6 weeks of radiation 5 days a week, then ending with the once a week chemo again for the final six weeks.
I sat with her last Wed. and Thurs. Wed. they put a “port” into her upper right chest-collarbone area. This is so they can do all the connections, disconnections and draw blood through out the chemo. That was 4 hours. Then the very next morning [Thursday] they did the first chemo and that lasted about 5 hours but had an hour of orientation and 1/2 hr. with the doctor. Going forward about 4 hours of the drip chemo.
So far she has been tired mostly but no sickness. She spent the first part of last week finding a wig and style that she liked. It will most likely be total hair loss in a few weeks with about a year to year and half of grow back time frame. She also got some scarf like head covers that everybody says are cute.
Attitude wise, she says it is what it is and will just take it one day at a time. I am doing a larger portion of the house and kitchen stuff along with the Ebay and Etsy stores. She hasn’t been in the office to do any help in 2 or 3 weeks and may be until Dec. before all treatments are done.
One of our helpers left and moved to San Diego. Husband is military and got transferred but still have Lisa, our long time friend who helps me Fri.-Sun +/-.
Having a little bit of an issue with SixBit skipping on deleting some of the solds from the non-sold platform and contributed to me selling an item that had already been sold. I am working on a ticket request from the SB team now. Need to find out how is the best way, en mass, to cross check and find any strangling listings on both platforms that got sold and were missed by SB. Wish they were faster on their response time.
But thanks for the help offer, very kind, and I too will just be taking it day by day.
Thank goodness those 2 house got finished, closed and the new owners moved in.
catch everyone later
mike at MDCGFA in Atl.
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07/22/2019 at 2:05 pm #65244
@Mike: Prays for you and Susan. I’m sure it will all work out, and love her attitude. Can’t change the hand you are dealt, so just lean in and get through it.
So, your SixBit issue is that something sold on eBay and did not come off of Etsy? If so, I haven’t run into that one before.
The only item we run into is keeping Poshmark and SixBit in sync. Morning ritual now is to keep them in line. Thank god for SixBit to do that. I don’t know how I could keep eBay and Poshmark in sync without it.
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07/08/2019 at 2:56 pm #64653
My Prayers are with you and Susan Mike.
I hope she has a full recovery.
JOE
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07/08/2019 at 3:15 pm #64656
Thanks Joe: Appreciate it. We are hoping for a full recovery.
They will do some tests and a Cat scan this week to establish some benchmarks to gauge her progress by. That way we can see how she is responding as she goes along. The original prognosis at the Stage I-B was in the 97% or higher. Now at the III-B stage it drops to the 70% range but these ranges are all fairly loose and open. It depends on how each patient responds to the treatments, thus the benchmark “markers”, cell counts and others have to be declining throughout treatments.
mc@mdcgfa
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07/08/2019 at 4:36 pm #64681
Hi Mike,
Sorry to hear about the return of your wife’s cancer and continued treatment.
I enjoy reading your “wall of texts,” as I’m sure a lot of the other long-time posters on this forum do. It’s just usually not necessary to add anything to them, hah.
I feel that when it comes to long-term selling, this forum really drives home the point of what it is like when you’re past the point of asking questions or needing help (for a lot of us). We have been doing this forever, it is just another part of our lives. Even the people on instagram can’t really get past the point of showing what they do all the time, it is all about selling because a lot of them are still too new to this. For a lot of us on this forum, it is ordinary, everyday, boring. Selling online is what brings people together on this forum, but it’s not even really the focus of being here for a lot of us.
In a world where everyone is out to hustle, con, rope in newbie sellers with unnecessary courses and self-promote through dishonest, laughable instagrams & youtubes, this place is one of the only places left that is free of the schlock and the salesmanship. It is not a facebook group of 30,000 people asking why they aren’t selling anything, or asking for help on pricing an item that could’ve been priced in 2 seconds, or figuring out just how to sell online. It is not reddit with 134,000 users, even more lurkers, and just question after question on the most basic stuff.
It is not instagram with “look at these labels, buy my course, watch my youtube video.” The same posts and videos over and over and over again, watered down to appeal to the most common denominator. Taking the spirit and fun out of reselling, making it rote because a lot of these resellers just enjoy being told what to buy and what to sell, never veering off the course of what “works” to try something new for themselves. Huge difference between having work that you enjoy integrated into your life vs. going out to look for the same 100 items everyone else is looking for because that’s what the internet told you is a good way to make some quick $.
At least here, people seem to have a general joie de vivre when it comes to reselling. Especially one that is not utilized as a way to market themselves as an additional income stream through youtube or elsewhere. Here, people have nothing to sell each other. We’re just sharing what we know and enjoy. It feels honest. That is rare in this world, even more so when it comes to running a business.
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07/08/2019 at 9:12 pm #64702
Mike, I’m so sorry to hear about Susan’s pathology findings and the rough road ahead both physically, emotionally, and financially. Will definitely include both of you in my prayers.
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07/10/2019 at 8:45 am #64750
This is the feedback we wanted. Seems everyone here is on the same page.
Its not about the money, and it’s not about posting moderation. This is the easiest community I’ve ever dealt with. I feel we self-regulate here. All the trolls seem to not want to jump through hoops to bother us 🙂
We’re just trying to solve the problem of the clunky software and the difficulty many people have with joining. The software isnt going to get any better unless we can find a bbPress developer who understands what we’re doing.
Most important thing is the quality of conversation we have together week after week. We’re not looking to invite chaos 🙂
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07/10/2019 at 10:08 am #64756
I belong to several different forums on different topics (including on Reddit) and find this forum contains the most useful information per post.
One of the professional organizations has a very detailed/technical engineering forum, with an annual cost of $375 a year – still filled with spam, trolls, and advertising. Paid moderators even in an environment with a financial barrier of entry can’t keep up.
On Reddit, moderating a forum seems to be horrible – I have seen many moderators give up and the forum becomes garbage. Also, I cannot access Reddit at work or occasionally at some Wifi locations (hotels mostly) as the site is blocked due to the amount of illegal content on it (I see a lot of piracy on the sports forums I’m in for example).
I like the forum as is, but would move to a new location if it were to continue elsewhere…except Facebook.
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07/10/2019 at 6:30 pm #64771
Mike I’m sorry to hear your wife has to go through chemo and radiation. Ten years I had cancer and went through chemo. Although my cancer was different I have one piece of advice that I think applies. Find a quality forum of people that have the same cancer. People going through the same treatments will have lots of tips and tricks that you won’t get from the doctors and nurses. Just little things that will help get through the side effects and other concerns. Much like scavenger life does for resellers. My best wishes.
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07/11/2019 at 10:41 am #64795
Thanks Nancy. I mentioned this to her last night and she said she would start some research today. She also said she would come up to the office and do photos during the times when she feels better.
Appreciate the input and concern. We are praying she will survive and make it through all of this. After 50 years of marriage we have been a “team” for most of our lives. We first met in high school in 1966 and got married in 1969. Been together ever since. So I will take her to treatments everyday and we will see how it goes and where we are around mid November.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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07/08/2019 at 2:38 pm #64652
WHy not just put a Facebook group together. You can make it private to members and no maintenance on your part.
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07/08/2019 at 3:42 pm #64660
If you’re thinking of getting moderators on Reddit, wouldn’t it work to just put moderators here? Same diffs, better outcome? You have moderator options in this forum. A Mod would take a lot of the grunt work off your hands.
I vote Mike be a Mod! 😀 😀 😀 😀
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07/08/2019 at 4:52 pm #64682
Some time back I saw the phrase “Jay for President”. I am still waiting for his name to appear on the ballot.
I would love to be a fly on the wall with Jay sitting down with the Chairman of China and saying, “No, no more tin, metal fakes from you guys! I am going to make America Vintage again!”
And, “Hey Mr. China President, if I want to go all in, who do I talk to about buying a whole container load full of this China, vintage knock off stuff!” LOL 🙂
mc@mdcgfa
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07/08/2019 at 4:53 pm #64683
I don’t think moving to reddit would be the right move. From my experience with it, you wouldn’t be able to keep the static structure of this forum where there are different categories that you can post to. Everything would have to be put on one page and each new topic would push down previous conversations, resulting in the same questions being brought up constantly.
I personally don’t think this forum is all that clunky. If you need to hire someone to moderate SL, you could probably cover the costs of that by joining a premium advertising company instead of using google adsense. Adsense pays ways less money than the premium ad networks and I just joined one called Monumetric that pays me around $15 per 1,000 pageviews. I’d be doing good to make 10 cents with adsense for every 1,000 pageviews.
I’m sure whatever you decide to go with will have some success, but I don’t see enough benefits to moving the forum as there will be cons with any option and I’m not sure what you’re hoping to accomplish with the move. I appreciate the community you’ve built here and I think with some additional monetization of the site, you could easily hire someone to take care of all the grunt work!
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07/08/2019 at 5:07 pm #64684
@MDJ: Sounds good to me. And if the costs of a helper for J&R to handle everything for them could be easily covered by paid ad clicks then, it seems like that would be the way to go. But, the BIG BUT is IF the ads would produce enough clicks. Most of us are hardcore resellers with our own outside, local sources and with only about 5,000 SL members are there enough non-members who visit regularly to provide enough clicks to earn enough money.
Looks like an experiment for Jay is in the wind. 🙂
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07/08/2019 at 5:25 pm #64686
@MDC That’s the beauty of some of these ad networks – you get paid just for someone being on the website without even clicking. You get more money if people actually click on the ad, but even if they don’t, you still make money. It’s basically the same model as renting out a billboard but for the internet. And a lot of ad networks pay good money to display ads on your website (just not Google adsense). I have no idea what kind of traffic SL gets, but if it’s 10s of thousands each month then you should be able to make several hundred each month
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07/08/2019 at 5:47 pm #64687
I would guess J&R would know the traffic stats. SL has about 5,600 members and I usually see about 40 to 50 logged in at the bottom most of the time. Many whom seem to stay logged in continually. So don’t know about random visitors that can pop in.
Maybe Jay will drill down some numbers on this and see if they do stay, if the ads can generate enough cash to cover the expense of a “Forum Helper”.
mc@mdcgfa
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07/09/2019 at 11:22 am #64719
I would absolutely have no problem with ads here on the forum. They are everywhere else I go and I don’t mind them there either.
If having ads would cover your cost of the forum and some basic tech support, then by all means do it!
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07/09/2019 at 11:37 am #64720
Same goes for us here at MDCGFA.
And if time is more of a consideration than just money, use the ad income to to hire a person who can handle the technical side, moderate and all Jay and Ryanne would do is post their once a week pod-cast. Cut down on the amount of time they spend actually reading and replying in person.
Johnny Carson ended up having co-hosts do his shows for multiple weeks in a row. Do a weekly 45 pod-cast and save up some stuff for a longer once a month pod-cast and cover several bigger topics more in dept.
So lots of things to think about that may cover either the associated costs or the time constraints.
But again, just an opinion.
mc@mdcgfa
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07/08/2019 at 6:23 pm #64689
Average Summer Sales Slowly crawling towards my goal of 500. At that point I’m not trying to get a whole lot bigger. With 500 listings I know I’ll have a steady albeit small supply of sales. After 500 I want to work harder on organization of listings, diminishing death piles, and just reclaiming the home from the Ebay invasion. Perhaps I’ll list a lot more for 4th quarter. Perhaps I’ll get pickier and list not just the $100+ that everyone wants, but more $45, $50, $60 items.
Total Items in Store: 491
Items Sold: 6
Total Sales : $139
Highest Price: $35 Eileen Fisher Top
Lowest Price: $15 Izod Shorts
Average Price: $23
Returns: 1 still in process They have until tomorrow.
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0 Death piles still loom -
07/08/2019 at 7:53 pm #64699
Mike I’m so sorry to hear about your wife’s cancer. My thoughts and prayers are with both of you!
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07/09/2019 at 1:20 pm #64723
Thanks to everyone for the special thoughts and prayers for Susan.
Tomorrow is the group meeting with the hospital chemo and radiation team. Schedules will be set-up, a small injection port inserted for chemo and a small abdominal tattoo to serve as a target for the focused radiation. Supposedly after tomorrow we will find out the start date and appointment times for the coming 18 weeks.
Thanks again everyone for your thoughts and hopefully Susan can walk away from all of this by next year as a well person.
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07/08/2019 at 8:38 pm #64701
I echo the sentiment of many on here with the fear that moving to reddit may bring a barrage of newbies who would ruin the supportive community we have here. I like Erol’s suggestion of a private closed FB group. Just curious, why is FB a hard no for you?
Regarding eBay hiding more expensive services, I did learn that it will always keep (and show on the listing) your first shipping option. I was excited when I read the concept, as we’re selling magazine lots, which are not allowed to ship via Media Mail. With Priority, flat rate medium is cheaper going from AZ to NY, but regular priority is cheaper going to CA. I was hoping it would select and only show the cheapest option for each buyer. It does not. Now if they could get that to work, that would be amazing.
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07/10/2019 at 8:47 am #64751
We never joined Facebook way back when, and it doesnt look like its improved much. Just not a fan of Facebook.
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07/10/2019 at 1:14 pm #64763
Facebook is what you make of it. My wife and I share an account. We only have like 50 “friends”. Any family or acquaintances that are not value adding aren’t on there. Noone can friend request us unless they are already friends with another friend.
My wife likes to post some family photos on there. I use facebook to stay up to date on local homeschool news and events, communicate with neighbors in my subdivision, use marketplace to buy/sell, and communicate with ebay for business (way better than phone support!).
We’re about to the point of erasing our page and starting a new anonymous one minus pretty much all friends but keeping the groups we use for important communication.
The social aspect of facebook is just soooo toxic and so wasteful of valuable time.
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07/10/2019 at 1:25 pm #64764
Way back when, we chose to use Twitter over Facebook because that’s where our friends were. But we quit Twitter several years ago when it got toxic.
We now just use a more distributed private method to communicate with friends. I feel this will be the trend: a social network is useful and great, everyone flocks to it, then it becomes toxic. Mix and repeat. Its okay though: the internet is infinite and it’s good things evolve.
Young people dont really use Facebook because their parents are on it. So I see Facebook dying out in the next generation like Yahoo. Thats why they keep buying up other social networks and doing cryptocurrency plays.
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07/08/2019 at 10:12 pm #64705
I certainly will post no matter what the venue, but I would probably curtail any personal/specific information on a more public forum. I have never posted regularly anywhere else, and I did take some time to feel comfortable posting my numbers and links to my store. If the forum can stay private, I’d continue to post that information if I was assured of a closed group similar to this site.
Week of Jun 30 – July 6
* Total Items in Store: 1347, eBay, 3 Etsy
* Items Sold: 9
* Cost of Items Sold: about $20
* Total Sales: $305.65
* Highest Price Sold: $125 Vintage 1950s Rheem HVAC tool box
* Average Price Sold: $33.96
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 0My numbers weren’t all that bad considering that I am on vacation with an extended handling time. I had a few high value sales that helped.
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07/09/2019 at 12:33 am #64709
Regarding the fee for scheduled listings, I still see the 10c fee mentioned on the eBay site:
https://pages.ebay.com/turbo_lister/schedulingfaq.html#7When I attempt a scheduled listing, the fee still appears.
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07/10/2019 at 8:33 am #64747
Thats weird. It does say it on the page you found.
Check here: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/selling-fees?id=4364#section5
If you scroll down to “Good till cancelled” listings, then “scheduled listings” says “free”. Maybe we’re misinterpreting the page?
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07/12/2019 at 12:35 pm #64825
That’s funny. With the number of pages eBay has I guess it doesn’t surprise me too much that they have inconsistencies. I hope scheduled listings do end up being free but I’m not seeing it yet. It sounded like some people are seeing free scheduled listings though.
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07/12/2019 at 2:29 pm #64826
Simon: I noticed the word “Turbo-Lister” in the link string you attached. Turbo Lister was an old offline listing program that was abandoned by Ebay years ago. It used to be a way to gang list items and track and control inventory after BlackThorn was abandoned.
Turbo Lister got so clunky and outdated, Ebay gave up trying to patch and fix it. It was a mess, but a user could create scheduled listings with TL.
About 7 or 8 years ago, part of the BlackThron employees left Ebay and formed their own companies. Chavi Rogasti formed WonderLister and John Sloan formed SixBit both of which are used by members here and talked about a lot.
Both of these programs offered a transition from TurboLister users over to their programs for those still left on the abandoned TL.
WonderLister and SixBit both offer free scheduled listings and is a feature Troy [T-Satt] uses regularly. Using scheduled listings within SB is a way to end each of your listings at a set day and time, then have SB auto re-list and upload and re-set for another specified time frame.
Some people still end listings every 30 days and other every 90 days, etc., etc. Using these 3rd party apps still allows a seller to do that even though Ebay has stopped those time frames and made eveything all GTC. With SB you can still start, stop and auto re-list in any time frame you want AND it is free. No charge for scheduling anything in both WL and SB.
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07/09/2019 at 8:34 am #64710
Sales this week were only a tiny bit higher in number than last week, but the sales, when compared to last week, were less. I am grateful for the sales I did get, and I will keep on listing to get my store numbers up and try not to buy new inventory for at least one week. I said that last week, but that didn’t quite work out.
I am still utilizing promoted listings at 2% and for the Fourth, I did a storewide 15% sale. The sale accounted for about half of the sales, and before I started the sale, there were a couple of best offers I accepted from customers.
Total Items in Store: 565
Items Sold: 10
Gross Sales: $237.12Highest Price Sold: $70.00 Vintage Wall Tapestry of Last Supper
Average Price Sold: 24.00Returns: Had a return request on an item shipped via Global Shipping. It arrived damaged to the buyer, called eBay and closed the case and reimbursed the buyer. I love Global Shipping!
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $36
Number of items listed this week: 35This week the goal is to list, list, list. I am working hard to reach a mini goal of 600 with a back to school goal of 700 items listed.
I calculated a set of 6 month goals with regards to gross income from eBay. The last six months of this year (2019) I am working towards earning a minimum of $300 a week gross sales, $1300 a month in gross sales. By the end of the year, that will be an end goal of $7800 gross sales. Of course, more is better!
When we go on Christmas break at work ( I work at an elementary school) I will have time to revisit these goals with the intent of revising them to reach a higher weekly income.
Thanks again for the podcast! It is the voice of reason in the eBay selling world.
~Lisa
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07/09/2019 at 12:12 pm #64722
Anonymous
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I don’t mean to pile on, but I think @almasty summed it up best:
I haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcast yet, but I would like to add my 2 cents about the forum:
-I suspect that 50-75% of the normal posters on here would be gone if this forum moved to Reddit, myself included.
-If a move to Reddit is necessary, a private reddit as suggested might work? A lot of us would probably still not bother to create another account in a new place, just because.
-There would most likely be a net gain of active forum posters on Reddit, but that would probably consist of people from flipping (it’s up to 134k subscribers now, which is terrifying). Ugh, flipping.
-I believe a lot of people like posting on this forum because it feels “private,” even though it’s not. Exposing insight on what you sell is one thing when a place feels private, but when you’re just out in the open with any would be “flipper” lurker hanging onto your every word, a lot less can be said.
-Maybe keep the forum here, but require an annual maintenance fee for the continuation of the forum and make the forums completely private unless the fee is paid?
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07/10/2019 at 8:48 am #64752
Good feedback. This is what we wanted to here from everyone since a forum means nothing without the people here.
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07/09/2019 at 2:14 pm #64724
June 30 – July 6
Total Items in Store: 1413
Items Sold: 10
Total Sales : $550
Highest Price: $170 (U.S. Military ART II Green Heavy Sniper Scope Case)
Average Price: $42 (not including the scope case)
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $17
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $30
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 35Hello all,
A better week for me. The military sniper scope case was an interesting find at an estate sale. We thought it was an art case of some type when I found it since it said ART on it, lol. But I threw it on auction and away it went. So that helped my funds, especially with our Seattle trip coming up.
I went to a couple yard sales with my mom on Friday. Nothing crazy but we got to spend some time together which was nice. Then I got to meet up with my best friend that moved to Georgia who was visiting family on the weekend, also a good time!
Other than that like Doubly said, trying to stay cool in this gross Ohio Valley humid weather.
I had two unfortunate things happen. I had read last week that Kirkman ended the Walking Dead comic series. I did not think I should go and stock-hold the last issue but I should have. People went bananas over it. And apparently it sold out. But I cant imagine that comic stores wont restock soon… so it’s just strange to me. And sadly one of my favorite stores closed and I didn’t know about it, ThinkGeek 🙁 Bummer!Also, I dig Reddit! Deleted Facebook couple years ago thanks to drama and wasting too much time on it. I support the move to Reddit if YOU two decide to do it and will follow. All good here 🙂
Have a good week all!
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This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by
xxThinkLinkxx.
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07/10/2019 at 8:35 am #64748
We’ve had the same gross humid weather here in VA. 98% humidity.
Why did ThinkGeek close down? I’d assume someone would just buy them.
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07/15/2019 at 11:20 am #64935
Sorry for the late reply Jay!
I’m not sure about the reason ThinkGeek closed down but apparently a couple years ago they were going to be bought out by Hot Topic. ThinkGeek declined the offer and instead went with GameStop! When I click on the old ThinkGeek link it redirects me to GameStop which is sort of liquidating ThinkGeeks stock… My hope is that maybe GameStop will revamp the old, awesome ThinkGeek items but it may be wishful thinking on my part 🙁-
This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by
xxThinkLinkxx.
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07/09/2019 at 4:38 pm #64726
Just got my bay box shipment and noticed a sticker on the box that mentioned “Sales Tax”. In my post over in the shipping forum on my post about having a slim selection of supplies to choose from, I also mentioned a few things I personally thought Ebay could consider to help Sellers out a little bit more.
One of those suggestions was to allow those of us who have a formal business structure to provide our Federal ID number and State Tax Resellers ID number so that we do not have to pay all of the various states Sales taxes that are now being imposed in 26 states I think.
Well the decal said to go to the following link: ebay.com/salestax and register your Tax Exempt Dept. of Revenue Resale number. Well that is good to know. By doing so, anything that you buy that is part of your business or inventory that we source off of Ebay, anything for your business that is to be resold, we won’t be taxed on it because it is all for resale and will be taxed to the buyer at their end when they purchase from you.
How far that can be stretched, because some things while not for actual resale are used in the process of making an object saleable, but that is a fine line for your CPA.
But thought I would share in case you have a Dept. of Revenue resale number or business license in your state.
I haven’t jumped over there yet but will do so shortly and see if there are any snags.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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07/10/2019 at 12:23 pm #64758
URGENT eBay tech issue…Heads up:
Just bought 5 shipping labels totalling $63.56. When the paypal receipt came through I saw I was charged $127.12, exactly double for 5 labels. Reported the bug, awaiting an answer and a refund.
Everyone keep an eye out to make sure you are being charged correctly.
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07/10/2019 at 1:09 pm #64761
Thanks for the heads up.
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07/10/2019 at 5:50 pm #64770
Hi Ryanne and Jay, I was reluctant to post here for the first time (for some reason my “introduce yourself” post never published) but I wanted to comment on moving the forum. Yes, this format is clunky and, in my opinion, laborious to actually participate. I do have a Reddit account but I rarely go there.
I want to encourage you to re-consider Facebook. I heard on the podcast that you are against FB but you didn’t really give a reason. I personally am not into FB and spend zero time perusing the social aspects but I do find the group format beneficial.
You could create an email and set up a profile for your cat and then create a private group for Scavenger Life. There would be no need to post any personal information on FB and you could have qualifying questions for members to join the group. No spammers.
It’s super easy for both the admin and the members. My guess is that anyone participating on this forum is also versed in using FB.
I appreciate all you two do in putting content out for your community!
Tracy
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07/11/2019 at 7:47 am #64786
she doesn’t even go here! youtube link
lol, sorry, i had to post a reference to that in this instance.
facebook is a cesspool, and it seems like it would require a lot work for people to be added to a private group on there? plus, in a private group, there’s no ability to see older threads. it’s whatever floats to the top.
there are a few ebay groups on facebook with 10-30k members apiece that are awful and full of people shouting and asking dumb questions. why create 1 more?
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07/11/2019 at 8:17 am #64790
Appreciate the feedback. Glad you made it through into our little corner of the web:)
I hear you about Facebook. Everyone’s on it. Probably has good tools. But I thin our life is better avoiding that platform.
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07/10/2019 at 7:31 pm #64780
Anonymous
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So glad I deleted my facebook account after 11 days in 2006.
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07/13/2019 at 8:16 am #64838
Scheduled listings are NOT free, everyone! eBay has multiple web pages showing the listing fees. They give contradictory information. I saw the wrong info and asked if anyone could confirm because I didn’t know what to think.
When I asked a question on the forum, I was looking at the eBay page showing listing fees for a seller with no store. On that page, next to “scheduled,” it said “free.” But IF YOU HAVE A STORE, IT IS NOT FREE.
I tested it out to make sure. If you have an eBay store, scheduling a listing STILL COSTS 10 CENTS.
I’m so sorry for the misunderstanding. I was just hoping someone with more experience would answer my question – I was asking because I didn’t know how to interpret the info on eBay’s web pages. If anyone heard about this on the podcast and scheduled their listings, thinking they would be free, I am SO SORRY.
– Paula
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07/22/2019 at 12:20 pm #65232
Week of 06/30-07/06
Total Items in Store: 3,225 (Up 34% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 90
Number of Items Sold: 58 (Down 28% YOY)
(Includes 0 Etsy, 5 Poshmark, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 8% (Down 7% YOY)Total Product Sales: $1,729 (Down 13% YOY)
Sales Volume Variance to Prior Year: Down $545
Sales Price Variance to Prior Year: Up $292
Cost of Items Sold: $281
Cost of Labor: $0
Highest Item Sold: $260 – Hugo Boss Suit
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 15-13.Clothing
# Listed: 1,874
# Sold: 33
STR: 8%
ASP: $29.32Shoes
# Listed: 741
# Sold: 19
STR: 11%
ASP: $29.55Hard Goods
# Listed: 610
# Sold: 6
STR: 4%
ASP: $33.28EBay
# Listed: 3,225
# Sold: 53
STR: 7%
ASP: $28.56Etsy
# Listed: 226
# Sold: 0
STR: 0%
ASP: $0Poshmark
# Listed: 750
# Sold: 5
STR: 3%
ASP: $43.00Had a bit of a comeback, but with the July 4 holiday, slow sales.
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