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07/11/2019 at 7:47 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 418: Brick & Mortar Store Is Not For Us #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?
07/10/2019 at 9:51 am in reply to: Get Priority Placement in US Search with a Free Delivery Guarantee #64755I just adjusted the shipping prices for 30 items manually in about 10 minutes. This is how I did it:
I use the “Sell on Etsy” app installed on my ipad.
I went into the “listings” section of the app and just edited each item individually in this section.
I went into the shipping section and created 2 new “free shipping” profiles for free shipping, since I only currently have 2 types of items that I have previously created shipping profiles for within Etsy.
I then just added the shipping price into the item price like I would normally do for “free shipping” on Ebay, adjusting the numbers so it wouldn’t be like “13.94” or something.I started to work on this yesterday on a computer, but I found the editing to be annoying. It went much quicker to just use the ipad app.
I just started selling on Etsy last year and have had 32 sales overall. 18 of the sales happened since January 1st for a total of $300, which is good for books and ephemera. I currently have 30 items active on the site. Current listed prices range from $8 f/s to $130 f/s. A lot of items have multiple favorites and “this item is in someone’s cart” notifications.
I do not cross-post items listed on Etsy. I also do not cross-post any items on both of my Ebay stores. The only items I cross-post are my Amazon listings.
While 32 sales in a year might not seem like a lot, that is an incredibly high turnover rate compared to my other sites. These numbers show me that if I was going to put effort into Etsy, I could potentially do very well with it. I just have 0 time, so I’m happy to make $300 over the course of 6 months from a site I put like 1% effort into, if even that much.
I have another 50-100+ fresh items ready to go on Etsy, plus I’m considering delisting another 10-15 items off of Ebay and transferring them to Etsy. Just need to find the time.
07/08/2019 at 4:36 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 418: Brick & Mortar Store Is Not For Us #64681Hi 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.
07/08/2019 at 11:04 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 418: Brick & Mortar Store Is Not For Us #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.
07/08/2019 at 7:11 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 418: Brick & Mortar Store Is Not For Us #64610I 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?just finished listening to the podcast. happy birthday ryanne!
i’m actually sort of relieved to hear that mcdonald’s and other places have meals $10+ around the country. i seriously thought it was just in the super expensive city i live in. since i live here without a car, i depend on places like grubhub and uber eats to order food on days no one feels like cooking. meals at mcdonald’s are now $10-$13+ apiece on uber eats! i thought it was just a higher fee for it being on that site, but it sounds like it’s everywhere. ugh.
i stopped eating meat 2 years ago and really only started eating it regularly again earlier this year. 2 years ago, burgers were still cheap. prices have really gone up a lot over the past 2 years! even popeye’s is $10+ for a meal. so lame.
good points on the 2 main topics of conversation on feeling more adultish & anxiety. nothing really to add. to be honest, i still don’t understand people that have difficulty selling on ebay. that is seriously the least of all of this. it’s more integrating it into other aspects of your life and being able to sustain yourself on it as you focus on other tasks. if you can’t get the very basic flow of selling items steadily on ebay, i don’t know what to say. while ebay is subsistence, it is not sustenance.
yep, i found a cache of 90s british import 12” singles 3 years ago and that was it. it was so memorable that i still remember it, but not the times i find all the normal folk/rock 60s/70s records that are fairly common if you’re out there enough buying records. there are some cool ones that come out of those finds, but it’s really not the same like finding certain 90s ones out in the wild for like $2 apiece that are genuinely good and desirable.
the closest to that find were 2 boxes of late 2000s/early 2010s rap records i found at a thrift store 2 years ago. so rare.
lol. everyone listens to records these days. there are cheap garbage usb record players in every thrift store i go in. new records are being sold in urban outfitters, on amazon. reissues are getting released for record store days. even whole foods has been selling new records over the past few years. the resurgence has been going on for a few years now.
there’s such a problem with all these reissues that a lot of small record labels have gone out of business because they can’t get releases made. there aren’t enough record pressing operations to take on all the work. record store days get first dibs on business from the pressing plants over smaller music labels.
Those cookie molds are neat looking. The rolling pins on solds/terapeak seem to go for the most, but the normal wooden molds sell steadily for 20-40 apiece + shipping.
At the lower end, if sold for just 20 apiece, they would sell for a gross profit of 4k. At the very least, a “fair” discount of 50% off would be 2k. 1k is not a “fair” offer from the buyer, whether her intention is to resell or use (who knows?).
At the very least, if you continue to list these at reasonable prices, they will definitely slowly sell over time for a lot more than 1k.
Wow! If only it worked like that every week 😆
Oh, I agree about putting excess funds into a new business when possible. That also calls for a lot of seed money that has to be funded by ebay and other sites, if you don’t have any other income coming in.
The “eggs in one basket” is not about the sites continuing to exist, but about policy changes and competition that might build up on them. The low entry requirement you refer to above exists really hard on Amazon. The forums over there are more and more full of long-timers posting about how they are going to quit after selling for the past 10+ years due to increased competition, low sales volume and low sales dollars.
What’s funny about the Amazon forums is that people will occasionally post about their EBay sales being up, but their Amazon ones are not being at the levels they used to be at. Hence, using multiple websites to sell on.
I have seen this out in the wild while sourcing. Places I go to primarily for Amazon inventory are full of dealers practically getting into fisticuffs over the paltry amount of items coming out that is suitable for them. Places I go to for EBay type items may be full of dealers, but they don’t trip over each other for any new item coming out. Well, Amazon sellers have always acted like that over new inventory coming out at places. In the past, it was over maximum greed. Now, I can tell they are getting desperate.
eBay has been so glitchy this past week. I think it started with the day buyers were having trouble putting items in their carts a week ago. Are they doing some unannounced summer pre-holiday updates that’s messing everything up? Ugh.
I personally feel it’s better to balance at least 2 venues for f/t. More than 2? If possible, sure. “Don’t put your eggs in one basket.”
If you’re p/t or just beginning, stick to 1 venue because it is unneeded complexity when you already have a lot going on in your life.
Burnout comes from the constant grind of having to constantly source, list, pack, ship, repeat in a seemingly endless loop. That’s why I love having large death piles. 😀
I don’t sell vintage clothing on Instagram (yet), but I follow some sellers that do. They sell items via both their feeds and stories. A lot of them model their clothes themselves. If you can do that, you’re halfway there to having a good Instagram store for your vintage.
It takes a lot of work to build yourself up on Instagram, but it could be worth it as an additional form of advertising. I feel to do well on Instagram, you have to be passionate about what you do. It is not so much a list it & forget it venue as Ebay.
Like any other venue, there is a lot of research to do to see what people are actively looking for. There may be trends that are popular only on Instagram that you can start thinking about when you’re out sourcing.
I do use Instagram to sell books. For me, I find it easiest to have an Etsy store I advise buyers to go to if they see an item they’re interested in purchasing. Sometimes, items sell within hours. Other times, it takes months and I have the benefit of people searching for those items through Etsy directly. Last year, I used to make more direct sales to customers on Instagram. This year, I am Instagram/Etsy only. I don’t feel comfortable with the spread of the marketplace facilitator tax around the country, so if someone needs to be taxed, I don’t want to figure out how to do it for them via Paypal or have them not pay a tax they needed to because they bought the item directly from me via Instagram. That’s just me, at least.
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