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I live in one of the worst places in the country to be stuck in a possible pandemic, so I’ve had to make plans over a possible eventual quarantine and/or slow-down in business. We’ve also had our first case confirmed, so it’s “officially” here (probably been spreading for a few weeks anyway) and people are starting to take notice and are already starting to change their work and commuting habits.
I’ve spent less than $50 on new stock over the past 2 weeks. Skipped a few good auctions, some library sales, estate sales, usual thrift store runs, buying stock online. Just working through the new stock I got in before I stopped buying and the backlog. Sales were fantastic on Saturday as well, including a lot of older stock moving. Currently running a sale to get even more sales in before it potentially gets worse. The buying is really good right now, the sales are good – my concern is over how the economy will be over the next few months. It really could go either way – sales could be like Q4, or sales could completely come to a halt. The uncertainty makes me not willing to spend a lot of money to buy the current good things – once this blows over, there will still be a lot of good stock to buy.
I never thought that this is something I would have to be concerned about, but since it is my f/t income, I do have to take precautions for all possible developments that might come up and impact my business. Can I get through a few weeks with my store on vacation? Yes, I had already planned on putting my store on vacation for a week this winter if I got the flu. Can I get through a possible slow-down in sales due to how this might change the economy over the next few months? Yes, I will alter my buying habits, list only what I’ve got in my backlog and run more sales in my stores. Can I get through a possible increase in sales due to people buying like it’s Christmas? Yes, I stocked up on shipping supplies a month ago just in case I had trouble buying any due to supply chain issues. It’s just prudent to look at all angles of your business and try to stay on top of all possible developments that might hinder or spur it.
02/29/2020 at 11:54 am in reply to: What to watch today: Dow to drop into correction as global coronavirus concerns #74583Yeah, at the time I did it I bought a few boxes for myself and sold the other boxes to cover the costs of the masks I purchased for myself. It would be nice to have the extra money they’re going for now, but eh. I also made sure not to buy out the entire supply of the store. I’ve seen pictures on Ebay of people with masks that clearly bought out skids of masks at their local Home Depots or pharmacies, not caring that other people could also purchase them.
I’m also not going to dig into my personal stash to sell the rest in case I get this thing and have to go out in public.
02/29/2020 at 11:27 am in reply to: What to watch today: Dow to drop into correction as global coronavirus concerns #74580Or maybe not. This just popped up in the seller hub:
COVID-19 (Coronavirus) – Important reminder about our listing policies
Considering the global developments associated with Covid-19 (Coronavirus) and our dedication to delivering a safe and trusted marketplace, we would like to remind you of eBay’s Listing Policies:
Health claims and misuse of keywords: titles and item descriptions containing health claims and misusing terms such as “Coronavirus”, “Covid-19”, ‘Virus”, “epidemic” are prohibited.
Inflated prices over market value: listings that attempt to profit from tragedies and disasters (such as the Coronavirus outbreak) are prohibited.
eBay requests that all sellers who have live listings offering items such as face masks, hand sanitizer gel or wipes, etc., review their listings and make sure that they comply with eBay listing policies.Activity that doesn’t follow eBay listing policies could result in a range of actions, such as eBay ending or canceling your relevant listings, hiding or demoting all listings from search results, lowering your seller rating, enforcing buying or selling restrictions, or suspending your account.
To learn more about the policies and make sure your listings are compliant, we invite you to read our three most relevant policies on this topic: Prescription and over-the-counter drugs policy, Disaster and Tragedy policy, Search manipulation policy.
Our thoughts are with all those affected by Coronavirus.
As always, thank you for selling on eBay.
02/29/2020 at 11:10 am in reply to: What to watch today: Dow to drop into correction as global coronavirus concerns #74578Even the normal medical masks are doing well right now on Ebay, even though they are ineffective against Covid-19. Not sure if it has to do with supply chain issues or people panic buying everything.
All type of masks have been sold out in my city since January (I went around on foot and called places to find any), but I did stumble upon a few boxes at a small neighborhood pharmacy and was able to make a fast return on them – I do wish I had held onto them, they’re now going for $90 for a box of 10! That’s probably the best bet to find them these days – all the normal chains have been long sold-out and will probably not get restocked. Also in my city, hand sanitizer is getting hard to find. That might do well on Amazon or Ebay at this point.
That’s not even factoring in N95 masks, which have also been long sold out and if you’re lucky you can get them at a Home Depot or paint store on a rare restock. My Home Depot online says there are none available in a 100 mile radius around me.
If I had a car and lived in the middle of nowhere with less panicky people, I would be doing some serious RA at this point.
02/28/2020 at 1:40 pm in reply to: What to watch today: Dow to drop into correction as global coronavirus concerns #74553Yes, exactly, we have no natural immunity to it like we would the flu. That is one way it differentiates itself from being “just the flu.”
02/28/2020 at 1:12 pm in reply to: What to watch today: Dow to drop into correction as global coronavirus concerns #74548What gets me about the “it’s just the flu” is that when you look at just the Diamond Princess quarantine – if 700 people on a cruise ship caught the flu, would at least 6 of them die within a few weeks from it? Doesn’t that seem a bit odd and high of a death rate if it was just like the flu? Maybe 1 or 2 people would have died catching a normal flu on it, if even that many? Yes, the majority of them are in older or in their 80s, but they were active enough to go on a cruise ship in the first place.
Would China have quarantined 10% of their population (NY Times % quote) if it was just the flu?
It doesn’t help that there’s a great deal of misinformation floating around on this, even from normal news sites. I guess it’s best we all just use our best judgment on this.
Now Mike Pence is in charge of the response here and will muzzle the CDC on what they can say in public, so whatever statistics we will hear in our own country will be muted and downplayed. The effort to hide a basic level of transparency in order to “calm the markets” scares me. I want real statistics, dammit. Most states and major cities are still lacking test kits, too. All of the data received from the CDC will be days behind any possible community spread, hindering efforts of stopping whatever this is from spreading more.
Oh cool, I will opt out in that case. I wonder why the requirement for larger sellers?
Well, that’s annoying. No way to opt out? At least Ebay doesn’t force us into managed payments.
I’m currently at 10 sales on Etsy this month. Instagram is bringing in 18% of my traffic currently. If I work more at it, I could up the off-site traffic and have an excuse to move all of my listings to Shopify. That’s a lot of work by itself, but might be worth it to get off the train of being forced into these stupid decisions by people that don’t ultimately care about the direction of your tiny individual business.
02/27/2020 at 4:15 pm in reply to: What to watch today: Dow to drop into correction as global coronavirus concerns #74517Down 1,200 at the bell! Not what I was expecting. Tomorrow will be interesting.
02/27/2020 at 2:23 pm in reply to: What to watch today: Dow to drop into correction as global coronavirus concerns #74511Yeah, it’s going to be interesting to see how this shakes out. Looking at my sales today, people are still buying incredibly stupid and pointless things, so I guess they’re not concerned at the moment. How will this be a few months from now when people are forced to stay home from work and potentially lose their jobs because the businesses they work for have closed? Will they still buy wants over needs?
02/27/2020 at 2:17 pm in reply to: What to watch today: Dow to drop into correction as global coronavirus concerns #74509Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, Peloton, Slack and Zoom are among a handful of companies that MKM Partners identified could rise despite the broader market sell-off.
Ebay’s on the list!
I guess deliveries will continue even during potential quarantines? I don’t see how, but yay? =/
Wow, that’s good that some mail is flowing between countries. My sales to China and Hong Kong have completely stopped since early February. Products I’ve tried to buy from China remain completely unavailable, and we’re almost in March now. As much as they paint a picture of it “getting better” in China, the supply chain is still broken down. I’m worried about if the situation expands to other countries – Japan, South Korea. Italy has always been bad for shipping, so it wouldn’t make much of a difference.
I’ve been trying to google info on possible quarantines in the US and what the postal service will do during them, but I’m only finding articles recommending employees at the USPS wash their hands and links to the CDC website on how to maintain health! It’s annoying that the CDC recommends businesses have protocols in place for a possible quarantine, but so far nothing for mail-order businesses. Also no guidance once again for seller protections on any of the selling sites for shipping to and/or from quarantine regions in the US or internationally, if it comes down to it.
It looks like another way Ebay’s copying Amazon.
Amazon’s photo policy:
“Image standards
Images must accurately represent the product and show only the product that is for sale, with minimal or no propping.
Main images must have a pure white background (pure white blends in with the Amazon search and item detail pages-RGB values of 255,255,255).
Main images must show the actual product (not a graphic or illustration), and must NOT show excluded accessories, props that may confuse the customer, text that is not part of the product, or logos/watermarks/inset images.
The product must fill 85% or more of the image.
Images should be 1,000 pixels or larger in either height or width. This minimum size requirement enables zoom function on the website. Zoom has proven to enhance sales. The smallest your file can be is 500 pixels on the longest side. Consistently sized images are strongly recommended.
Amazon accepts JPEG (.jpg), TIFF (.tif), or GIF (.gif) file formats (JPEG is preferred).That being said, I’m really hoping that having a white background does not become required for all photos on Ebay. I don’t have the time to adjust all of my photos manually or with this tool.
02/26/2020 at 11:04 am in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74421I was really hoping they would up all the listing amounts allocated to each store level in order to better compete with Amazon’s unlimited listings for $39.99 a month. Oh well. I could really use 15,000-20,000 “free” listings in my anchor store at this point!
02/26/2020 at 10:56 am in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74419 -
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