- This topic has 24 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 1 year ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
Got any scavenger’s New Year’s resolutions? Or, if (like me) you think that resolutions are often silly because most people give up on them by January 15th, any goals for your business for this year?
I might write a @retro-treasures-wv style opus while everyone in the Philly area sets off fireworks in the backyard tonight. Happy New Year’s y’all!
-
I do! Last year my goal was to tackle the mountain of items I have to list. My goal was to to list at least 3 a day for the year. I <span class=”kqEaA z8gr9e”>persevered and managed to meet my goal. This year, I’ve decided to up my goal to 4 a day and hope to get to a bunch of space freed up. </span>
Hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!
-
My goal is actually to purge my inventory. My “career” job is busier, and my boss is talking about me increasing my hours. In addition, my daughter wants a workout area in the basement. I have signed up for a MaxSold auction, and I am hoping I can create most of my listings by the end of January.
After the auction, I will need to be much more selective about what I list.
-
Well, I don’t really do resolutions but definitely need to work the piles I have here. I am going to stop short of a full picking ban, because I need to get out of the house and keep the interest peaked. I also need to consider which of my sources I will cut back. I feel like there is downward pressure on prices, so the flea market, bins and estate sales are best for sourcing. I do score some great picks at the thrifts but I think I need to have a limit on where or how much I visit them. I have been practicing getting through them faster. Also am looking up the values more often. Trying to stick to at least $25 for new purchases.
I started out 2024 doing well at getting into piles, but got really sidetracked by preparing for and doing the live booth selling. I really enjoyed it, met great people, but it definitely took away from my listing time and was a distraction. Would have made much more listing on Ebay to be certain. I think it might be a summer thing for me, or maybe summer and seasonal post – Thanksgiving? Now I have the set up and learned a bit so it would be less time consuming. I’m also going to try to get into the bigger monthly maker and vintage market next time. The small ones aren’t too well attended and unfortunately aren’t probably worth the time and effort business-wise.
In the meantime I need to make some tracks on my accumulation. I need to reorganize and consolidate, get a car back into the garage, shed some more used clothing cheaply (yard sale or flea), and tackle the piles. I have made a pact with my husband to pay for most of the groceries with Ebay, so need to ramp up the listing.
As far as Ebay goes I will be doing end and sell similiar more frequently. I also really need to try to not skip many days listing. Some days I’m not feeling it but should try to knock out a few in the morning. I suspect Ebay has tweaked the algorithm to increase emphasis on freshness in the last year or two. I’m going to keep pricing on the higher end and pretty much run a perma-sale at 15-20% with additional offers.
On the personal side, I plan to take more walks in different areas of town. Our new smaller doggo is pretty active so that should help. Also want to try to work more beans and veggies into my diet.
Wishing everyone a productive and happy 2025!
-
If you already have a death pile of sub $25 items and if you ASP is $25 or less, then you should absolutely be shooting higher when scavenging. ONLY buy items $35 or better. Shoot, go even higher if you are still buying with the higher pickiness.
-
@Retro yes you are probably right. I’m going to see what I find the next couple weeks and check myself. There is PLENTY on hand. I’m also trying to think of a weekly 2X listed as I take in goal or something simple like that. I don’t need any more weeks when I’m not listing but go thrifting.
-
It takes some practice to get used to putting things back. When I’m at a thrift store I’ll fill my buggy with potential items and then before I leave I’ll got through the whole cart item by item to verify STR and sales price. So while I leave alot of items on the rack now without even considering, I als0 am well versed with putting back items I put in my cart – sometimes I put the whole cart back and walk out with nothing…and feel GOOD about it!
-
Yes I can too walk with nothing. In the early days I spent way to long lingering and always buying something. I have to admit I’m still not looking up sell through rate, but I do educate myself through Youtube and have more experience. I also try to reflect on what’s doing best that I have already listed. So, generally I’m not picking up cute but unbranded items – it’s hard enough to get buyers to find your listings with a name brand! I’m picking up more of the names that sell well for me. I’m trying to learn what does well in the vintage home decor market and see what younger Youtubers are into. Definitely using Google Lens or Ebay research and putting things back. I just prepared listings for everything I bought last week (a small pile). With one exception they are looking like a pretty good ASP.
-
-
-
-
This is an excerpt from my numbers post for the last week of the year (if that thread gets posted)
I have a list of goals for next year:
Process upgrades
- Upgrade listing/shipping computer and switch to 2 vertical screen setup
- Finish upgrading shipping supplies station (in progress)
- Add light on articulating arm to photo station
- Convert 1 wardrobe in inventory shed to bin storage – adds 9-12 bins (250-300 items)
Store goals:
- List 2500+ items (get store to 3500 items)
- stretch goal: Front load 1000 listings in Q1
- Maintain scavenging parameters that focuses on high STR and high value. I only want to source $50+ items unless the STR guarantees a fast sale.
- Have helper photograph 30+ items a week to tackle clothing backlog deathpile.
-
I somewhat punted on the monitor setup I was going for. I’ve decided to wait until Novemeber/December to replace my ebay computer ( new pc required to run 2 monitors). In the meantime I bought a 27″ monitor at a yard sale this summer for a few bucks without a power supply. I have a bunch of HP power supplies that had the same voltage/amps requirements but sadly the plug was wrong once I got it home to test (Why HP???WHY??? – just use the same dang plug!). It’s just been sitting collecting dust waiting for me to find a power supply. I looked but was too cheap to pay $40+ for one. Kinda defeats the purpose of a cheap monitor.
So since I’m home from work today due to weather I cracked out my multimeter and solder station and went to work hacking. I found the correct plug from my universal 12v power supply tester kit. Then I hacked up one of my 4 amp HP power supplies to figure out the wiring. Tested it all out with alligator clips – monitor works great. Soldered and sealed the new plug on and now I have a big ol 27″ monitor that I can run two windows on in split screen -effectively a 2 monitor solution. Not bad for $5.
So scratch one action item off the list.
I’ve almost sold enough coats to condense the wardrobes. I’m thinking if I can sell 4-5 more I can make the change. I really want that shelf space!
-
I came across a comment on Stampcommunity.org- someone had a 19th century pamphlet where the fold had an old sellotape repair. They were given an estimate of 750 dollars for removal and conservation, with a caveat that it could cost more and that it might not be successful.
Here’s me with a death pile of paper that needs conserving, such as a large 1970s etching by Nigerian artist Bruce Obomeyoma Onobrakpeya. Cost £4, estimated retail value £1,000, if someone hadn’t used a piece of fibreboard to frame it. There’s a dirty brown ring round the print, and straight through Bruce’s signature,
I was going to take this and other items over to a conservator in Brummagem. Kind of gone off the idea, thinking about a new career for 2025 🙂
-
I’ve been looking for a good 2025 goals podcast for resellers. Many are just going over their numbers from last year mainly. I did like this podcast this morning. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-year-new-you-lets-take-actionable-steps-to-grow/id1651293159?i=1000682611129 I don’t really worry about competition but there are conflicting predictions coming out about whether or not sellers will drop reselling because of the new tax reporting threshold. These guys are predicting more higher quality part-time resellers. At least from what I am seeing at the thrift stores, there are more people shopping there for sure. I feel like the prices are a bit higher and the stores are still emptier.
-
Like @christiner, I don’t really do resolutions. But one of the great things about reselling (on eBay especially), which I think we all learned from this podcast, is that you can pivot and change your business around at any time. I did that a lot in 2024. What were the biggest positive changes I made?
I started getting serious about organizing my inventory and spent a lot more mental energy thinking about how to spend my most valuable resource, my time. I expanded into a few niches that were new to me which was a learning process. I loved doing that and it will definitely be an annual experiment. If you’re not learning when you’re reselling, you’re at risk of complaining about how slow things are in a few weeks or months, with no real way to change your situation. Maybe my best change of all was that I started tracking different numbers, like how many new listings I created each week and how many photos I was taking. The results were pretty eye-opening. I can see there are times when I slow down on listing, usually because real life has gotten in the way. My sales will suffer when this happens unless I use some of the other tools in my eBay toolbox.
What are the tools in my eBay toolbox besides creating good, quality listings that are priced reasonably? End and sell similar, reprice, accept lower offers than normal, send out more aggressive offers, run a real sale. If my goal is to sell x this week because I have a bill to pay or need some more money in the bank, then I have to stop piddling around with 10% off. I am competing with other eBay sellers, Amazon, livestream auctions (don’t sleep on these y’all) and constant discount emails and coupon codes from corporations and stores. I feel like I really learned this year that interested buyers will just tune out my offers unless they’re 20% or more. And not all watchers will become buyers. So maybe I will go 30% on my next batch of offers to watchers. Or even 40%. How bad do I want to sell things this week?
Every seller should be using these tools on at least a monthly basis. It’s not going to lead to you selling your overpriced items, but it will move some listings that would otherwise sit forever and more importantly, get you thinking about your listings differently.
@retro-treasures-wv posts are basically the bible on how to how to approach your reselling business more analytically in 2025. We are so lucky to have his posts as a resource. I’m sure there are podcasts out there which cover similar ideas, but I wouldn’t know about that. The best lesson I’ve learned this year from his posts? You can look at your reselling business on a micro level, how do I save time or change up this individual process? Or go from a macro level like in terms of your monthly or year-end numbers or goals, and work towards that. Breaking my business down in these ways makes me feel like I have a lot more possibilities and a lot more options with my business. Reselling can be overwhelming! It’s important to recognize what we can and can’t control, and harness our energies towards maximizing success (however you define success, for someone just starting out that might be 5 listings a week) rather than avoiding failure.I’ve been doing the reselling game full-time for a couple years now and when I started, eBay used to be 100 % of my income. That seems crazy to think about but I had thousands of listings and was just constantly buying, selling, shipping. Over the last couple years, it’s become half eBay and half my card consignment business, which requires more buying and selling on my part (and of course paying higher fees) but the process is enjoyable and a lot less stressful. Mostly I think about prices and 90% of the time (or more), making some profit is fine, it doesn’t need to be top dollar on every card every time. I’m fine playing the middleman because with my knowledge, having a little extra money to buy and sell can lead to huge profits (usually a few months from now) if I find some amazing deals. And those deals are out there, maybe now more than ever.
It has only dawned in me in the last year how much time and energy (and clutter!) a reselling business can take up. I got used to the mess and always having more sh*t to do. Lately I have been thinking a lot about other questions, like what kind of setup I want for inventory storage or taking photos. My process had always been, and still is, pretty disorganized. A lot of putting things anywhere, sorting through inventory (especially for the card business) on the floor, taking photos wherever. My thermal printer is on the floor! It doesn’t feel great to admit any of this, not that anyone except us scavengers really appreciates what it means, but take it from me: you can build a business this way! A good business, even. I will hit 12,000 (!) feedback on eBay this week. Let it be known: by the time I get to 13,000, I will have professionalized my setup a little bit more. Maybe it won’t be perfect, but it will be progress, and that’s the name of the game with setting goals and making resolutions.
Happy New Year’$$$!
-
@Craig great post.
End and sell similar, reprice, accept lower offers than normal, send out more aggressive offers, run a real sale…I feel like I really learned this year that interested buyers will just tune out my offers unless they’re 20% or more.
100% agree. People just love a sale right now plus I think Ebay will be more likely to show your listings in search if on sale. Generally I have room for a discount of at least 20% and want to move more of my items. I started doing this 4th quarter and will continue. I used to start with the highest price but now I’m pricing a little closer to the average and running a sale. I’m seeing more people offering free shipping in the home decor comps but I’m not willing to go there even now when I have a pretty good feel for costs on lower items. It would be helpful to know how most buyers are filtering.
For me, my problem is really just needing a higher differential between outflow and inflow. I can do this with sales, pricing and offers but also just sourcing a bit less. I’m getting older and like my naps. If I go sourcing too many days a week somehow the hours of the day just pass and often I’m not really in the mood to list at night. We are cancelling our direct tv. Also walking taking the dog in the morning so I hope to get into a good rhythm in the mornings after the kids go back to college later this month.
-
Generally I have room for a discount of at least 20% and want to move more of my items. I started doing this 4th quarter and will continue. I used to start with the highest price but now I’m pricing a little closer to the average and running a sale.
Yes! I think consistent sold listings (along with consistent new listings) are two of the big key factors within the eBay selling algorithm. Of course, there are certain items where it makes sense to price high and wait. But I don’t think that philosophy can work with every item, and with items that are older than a few months and under $50, I’ve started looking at my inventory like…let’s just find a buyer that wants this and move on to something else.
It would be helpful to know how most buyers are filtering.
I think most experienced buyers sort by price, but eBay’s search will default to best match if you’re not logged in. Who knows how the best match algorithm really works, though.
If I go sourcing too many days a week somehow the hours of the day just pass and often I’m not really in the mood to list at night. We are cancelling our direct tv. Also walking taking the dog in the morning so I hope to get into a good rhythm in the mornings after the kids go back to college later this month.
I have always struggled with buying too much, not listing enough. Especially in the last two years since I shifted to reselling full-time. Sometimes spending more time on my reselling business has simply meant buying more! Tracking my habits every day has helped keep me a lot more accountable. I don’t like when I look at my daily listing log and see zero items, so I’ve started creating a little backlog of photographed items for those days when I’m completely unmotivated or super busy. Simplifying my listings has helped with this. I’ve always had a listing template and I would change the description for each item because I like to be thorough. But no one really reads descriptions anymore. So last month, I started changing my new listing descriptions to say something like
You are bidding on the item in the title and in the pictures. Please contact me if you have any questions about the item’s condition.
Now I can knock out a couple new listings in five or ten minutes. So I try to do that every day, even if I’m not feeling motivated or I’m super busy that day, usually I can find that time so I get 2 or 3 items listed. I think having a few big listing days where you put up 15 or 25 new items are also important, but if that’s not manageable sometimes, 2 or 3 a day is better than 0.
-
But no one really reads descriptions anymore.
I blame that pablum produced by the AI:
The bottle’s beautiful green colour and intricate design make it a great addition to any collection of collectable bottles and pots.
and laziness:
Good condition
does have scratches in the glass from been buried
does have swirls in the glass
see all pictures
-
I love the AI descriptions, they read like they are written by an insane alien who is studying these tricky humans:
The card is made of high-quality plastic with a thickness of 20 Pt. It is a standard size card and printed in English language by Leaf, a renowned manufacturer. The card features a serial number and is signed by the player himself, adding to its value and authenticity. This card is a great addition to any collection and is sure to impress any baseball fan.
-
This crafting piece is made from old pants, crafted into ribbon roses or flowers. The theme is floral, with a colour described as filthy, possibly indicating a distressed or aged appearance. The product’s title, “Piece of old rope the property of an ancient mariner,” adds a whimsical and vintage touch, suggesting a connection to the sea or history. It would make a unique addition to crafting projects, adding a touch of character and nostalgia.
-
-
-
Tracking my habits every day has helped keep me a lot more accountable. I don’t like when I look at my daily listing log and see zero items, so I’ve started creating a little backlog of photographed items for those days when I’m completely unmotivated or super busy.
Super great advice. I plan to do this, but it doesn’t really make sense until after the kids go back to college. I’m helping my son with grad school apps. Before they go I’m also working on organizing inventory and selling off some larger items on Facebook. I still need to finish the atomic habits book as well. I really liked the way it is written.
-
-
-
for me it’s just to list more and get more organized. I’ve started numbering bins and then updating my listings with what item is in what bin.
-
That is an excellent goal! It is a necessary upgrade somewhere between 100-500 items depending on what you sell. I use a letter and a number system. Each shelf unit has a letter, then each individual shelf has a number, then each bin has a number.
So for example if I sell something in bin B23 I know it is shelf unit B, row 2 (from bottom), third bin over. If I bring online a new shelf unit I just move on to the next letter.
If say I’m coming back from vacation and have alot of items to sell I will sort my shipping list by custom SKU so I can pull everything in the most efficient manner as it will go in shelf, then row, then bin order. That may not work as well if you just number in order
Your life will become MUCH easier and scaling will be a breeze however you do it.
-
-
I decided to pass on getting Flipwise this year and just focus on the outflow vs inflow ratio. I really need to get into the habit of putting my COGS in the custom sku. I learned that I could save a lot of time in January going through my COGS notebooks that way. I don’t really want to do the extra data entry along the way that flipwise requires.
I was instead going to try maybe List Perfectly due to their photo to draft listing function, but the price went up to $99 a month. Also I’d need to load up my old listings I think somehow. So also putting that on hold. I did find out their is a cheaper app for just the photo-to-listing but the reviews are mixed. I’ll keep an eye on that.
Just went to find the app name and found this https://www.retaildive.com/news/ebay-ai-magical-listing-product-descriptions-listings/693185/ Ebay is supposedly going to release this but I’m not sure if it will do item specifics, which is what I would most want completed from the photo. I like doing the titles. If I could list faster, that would really help my business.
-
I’ve begged and pleaded with ebay for them to add a couple more custom SKU entries. Why just one? If they added 2-3 more I could integrate my COGS directly to my listings. Book keeping would be INCREDIBLY easy at that point!
I don’t think they ever will unfortunately.
-
-
-
eBay UK have been advertising the new tax reporting thresholds; £1,750 or thirty sales, and then they’ll contact the seller to ask for unspecified information that they’ll pass on to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
They stress that this doesn’t mean that sellers will be paying tax, but they do state that sales of over £6,000 will be liable for Capital Gains Tax.
Car boot season’s going to be big this year! Cash sales only…
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.