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Dang, this is also interesting. Just on Ebay alone, I currently have 10k items in stock with another 10-20k unlisted reqdy to go to increase or replace existing inventory with little effort.
I feel that to an extent, you will even out at a level of items in your inventory, sell or delist a bunch, and then still need to figure out a way to replace potentially thousands of listings at a time. To already have a high listed inventory with stock already ready to replace it is definitely key to making this an actual functional business as opposed to hoping to luck out at a thrift store or auction frequently.
Lots of good points in your commenr, MDC
I don’t really have anything to add to the discussion other than I had to read that a few times (could also be waking up at 5 am to work on startup) other than “ah” once I got it.
I am however confused by the net going down year after year. Is that due to expanding to such a point that outside help is needed? Or does a larger business with additional costs (idk what) per item add to the overall reduction in net?
I do find the hard part with this business as a f/t seller is balancing the point when items are too expensive, long-tail and slow moving vs. cheap and fast-moving items. Is the net going down year after year the result of having to introduce cheaper items in to keep a steady flow of sales and to gain in gross, or something else? I’ve just been imagining having to introduce in products with cheap price points as “diluting” an overpriced, slow moving inventory.
That being said, I feel the cost of one’s self as “labor” is interesting from the non-business perspective of one’s self-worth as a participating member of the working class vs. being a self-employed business owner. I’d rather have an overall net of 0 as a self-employed person rather than have my hours set by someone else’s view of the worth of my labor.
I would ship this by media mail, but pack it as well as possible. Media mail sometimes gets thrown around or handled less carefully than other mail classes.
12/3-12/9
Total items in store: 10,100
Items sold: 33
Total sales: $850
Cost of items sold: $36.6
Highest price sold: $350 – Book
Average price per item: $25.75
Items listed this week: 50-75?The $350 that sold was the one that originally sold last month for $600, but the buyer didn’t pay for it. Meh. I received an offer of $350 for it on Friday from somebody with good feedback, so I just accepted it. They paid within the hour. Woo! I only paid a quarter for it, so I am happy with the return. Took around 5-6 weeks to sell. I could have held out for $500, but one of my cats had surgery on Friday and this order completely covered the cost for it. It was funny, as soon as we brought the cat home from surgery the offer came in. Good timing!
Ugh, still hate the word hustler so much.
When people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a bookseller. For collectible sellers, I would suggest “antique shop owner,” or “vintage shop” for either antiques or vintage clothing shop owners. Reseller by itself sounds very neutral to negative, most people tend to think of those who raid shops for popular toys during Q4 and charge double to quadruple the going rate for their “services.” Ebay seller is pretty vague and generic. I think if you’re more like “I sell these products” it sounds more professional and less shifty/fly by night than just “reseller.” I think there can be just as much of a problem of hanging onto an identity for selling online as in any traditional career, especially if you have been doing it as long as one in a traditional career would.
My November 2018 was up by $200 over last year, but I needed 2,000 more active items to get there, as well as 20 RA items (sourced for $2, sold for $20 apiece) that were Christmas themed.
December 2018 is currently on par with last year, but again, needed more listings to get there.
I still don’t believe in promoted listings, so I’m holding steady by just listing more items.
Omg, the beard and fish threads at the top. Don’t look at this reddit before you eat!
some of my personal goals for 2019:
by june: -get up to 12,000 items in the main ebay store, 250 listings on the 2nd ebay store, 50-100 items on etsy, 10-15 items on poshmark.
(currently 10,060, 185, 20 and 0)otherwise:
-do an actual inventory this year of items listed and unlisted that i haven’t had a chance to toss yet. get out the junk. free up the space for new inventory, yay.
-rebox the majority of my inventory in new boxes and free up listing space so some of the new 2,000 items to be listed have a place to go thanks to the inventory purge. (i rebox my inventory every few years to make sure there isn’t any damage to listed items. this year is the year for it, yay =/)
-make a significant dent in my backlog this year
-actually list through my “junk drawer” of small ephemera i haven’t put in a box because it’s too small and fragile. stop tossing new things in it, ugh. just list it when it comes in from now on.
-list more on days that are mainly for listing. stop making excuses!…when you counter-offer a buyer with a good deal on the item and tell them why you can’t give it to them at the price they want because it already includes free shipping and this is the best/lowest offer you can give them, they come back with another lower offer within minutes! thanks for showing me this will not be a good transaction because of your inability to read, block, bye.
$7-10 net is good. It all adds up.
I feel that for every weird, vintage item out there, there is a larger audience than ever for all of it. If there are 10 people selling the exact same item and are competing on price and condition, that is one thing. Every single period of time that has an item associated with it will be of interest to at least 1 person with the means to buy it, if not several, and especially with a worldwide audience.
That is what concerns me about a slowdown occuring with even items like this. If there are enough unique items listed of varying types, there shouldn’t be such a severe slowdown. However, it is impossible to track every single item simultaneously across the market with such large inventories.
Perhaps there is increased competition coming in for these items, but you don’t see them because they sell before your item does? Idk. I guess everyone will eventually try to sell everything, if we all get bored enough. It’s just interesting to think of all the nuances still out there with reselling that haven’t fully been taken into consideration yet.
12/05/2018 at 9:20 am in reply to: USPS – The Post Office will be closed on Wednesday, December 5th #52695Yeah, we rarely get USPS delivery of Amazon prime orders where I live, either. Most packages usually get delivered by unmarked white vans. I’ve also seen moving trucks during really busy parts of the year.
12/05/2018 at 6:58 am in reply to: USPS – The Post Office will be closed on Wednesday, December 5th #52677Unfortunately, it will probably get worse:
abstract and geometric would also work as keywords for this.
(source: i had a period i was specifically buying 80s sweaters like this for myself, and those are some of the keywords i used to search and make purchases on).
I haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcast yet, but as a f/t online seller, this year has been the first time I’ve really worried about selling online since the years around the 2008 recession. Amazon sales are down for a great number of sellers. That started around the spring. Ebay sales have been unusually soft for Q4 for a lot of sellers. More low sales threads than I have seen since the recession on various forums online.
Increased competition? People buying new instead of used? It shouldn’t really impact long-tail, 1 of a kind items, but it seems to be. I’m not sure what’s going on.
From November 26th to December 2nd, I had 46 sales on Ebay. That’s a pretty typical week. What is unusual is the spread on them:
November 30th – 0 sales
December 1st – 20 sales
December 2nd – 2 salesI realize that it overall evens out, but still. If it had been 5 sales, 12 sales and 3 sales, that would have been a little easier to accept. Just a weird breakdown.
November for me actually turned out to be on par with last November almost to the dollar. However, I had to have 2,000 additional listings in order to equal the same amount of sales dollars. I also had a number of brand new items I purchased RA style very cheaply after last Christmas that I sold out of by the middle of November. If I hadn’t had those, my sales $s would have been less than last year, even with the addition of 2,000 long-tail items priced correctly.
I feel like even though I have been doing this forever, I am having to change a lot of how my business runs and be more hands-on than I’ve had to be in years in order to keep things at the very least on par with years past. A combination of that and not finding really good collections over the past year has added to having to figure out other ways to keep things going.
Oh, I did manage to sell 1 item for $600 in November. Of course, the buyer didn’t pay for it. According to Worthpoint, I should eventually get $500 for it. Eventually. At least the buyers are currently paying for their $10-20 items. That being said, I am also seeing more returns for $10-20 items than I have ever seen before. It’s getting weird out there, but at least people on this forum are more frugal than most, so it is easier to weather through unusual lulls in sales than people that are used to being more spendy.
Haha, love this!
Netflix recently got in a bunch Star Trek shows, so my husband and I have been skimming through episodes of STNG. CBS also has a pretty good new Star Trek show, too, with the creepy guy from “The OA” on Netflix playing the Captain.
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