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Yeah, ceramics from China can be worth big $$$. I wonder if they’re selling on Ebay directly here or selling them onto an expert in China, or consigning to auction houses there, etc,. They probably have really deep pockets for items like that, especially if they have potential buyers already lined up. I would love to hear a podcast of you buying items like that and competing against those bidders, haha.
Several years ago, I used to flip items that I purchased for 200-300 apiece for 1k apiece. Since I sunk so much money into them, I chose only items that would sell within 6 months to a year. Long-tail, but not incredibly long-tail. This was maybe 2-5 times a year for a few years straight.
I don’t do that anymore. It was fun while it lasted! I have since only been able to to flip 1 item for over 1k over the past few years – something I found while out thrifting for $2.
I think that in theory it would be fun to have a business that only had items that were worth that much, but it would definitely be a whole different beast unto itself.
Maybe niche it up with a few specific focuses, get repeat customers and build up an audience that can trust paying 1k for an item off the internet, repeatedly. It could also work as a generalist store, but a high-end general store. I would probably have expensive items like that be a completely separate ebay store, while having normal items remain in the larger store.
I don’t believe I have shipped with Greyhound before, but I have used Amtrak for shipping very heavy, large, bulky items. I don’t know if they would accept furniture, but it might be worth looking into.
If you’re sort of meh about your current way of scouting, I highly recommend trying something different in order to inject new energy into what you are doing. It is easy to get set in your ways of scouting when you have been doing it for so long, especially when you’re getting good items and doing well overall with your business. It works, so it’s fine. Why change anything if it works? That’s pretty much where I’m at right now.
I have made slight changes to my business over the past couple of months and feel like I am having fun with it again. It got to feeling too much like work after awhile (which I realize it obviously is, but it felt stagnant the exact way I was going about it). I would also get enough stuff to list through for a week or two and feel like yay, no more scouting needed. Now, I am getting a third to half of what I used to get, and not feeling guilty or anxious over leaving “money” behind. It takes a bit to lose the feeling of guilt over leaving items behind, but it is sort of joyous after awhile to be hauling around less stuff that is just ok.
I am scouting more and getting better items, but I am paying less overall for the items I am getting when factoring in the cost of all the marginal items I used to get. I am hitting up more places more often and making a day out of it, rather than bulking up on what I want and going straight home with all of the marginal stuff, listing through it for a few weeks. While those items are still good overall for my business, it is not really great with all the costs associated with getting all of the items and hauling it all back, and neglecting other places to source.
At the same time, if you are getting lots with $50 items in it, you might still want to get them, but also maybe spend extra money to get the other items as well? Maybe instead of listing everything to squeeze all of the profit out of it, only list good items that are worth $20 or $30+, donating the rest to a thrift store? That way, you are able to go through what you are listing faster, able to source at a higher frequency for more items since you are no longer stuck on plodding through the cheaper items, and open up more time for your lister to list the good stuff that you will be now getting more of since you are sourcing more for it.
I price items lower than solds or active listings. I figure that just because someone paid a higher price once doesn’t necessarily mean that someone else will pay a price that high again. If it’s really expensive, I’ll price lower and add a best offer, unless I know I can genuinely get that price.
Another pricing strategy is to discard items below my pricing guidelines for what I want to get for an item. I used to price higher to make up for it, but I’d rather just get it out of my house and fill the space it would’ve taken up with better stock.
I sold a book yesterday for $40 that I listed 10 years ago on Ebay and forgot I had in stock. I even forgot where the storage location for the item was. That’s another strategy. Trusting in old pricing decisions and letting items sit for as long as they need to in order to sell.
07/31/2018 at 6:58 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 371: T-Satt (Troy) Reports on eBay Open #46504I clicked on “show all returns” for 18 months and it brought back 0 results. 🙁
07/31/2018 at 6:56 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 371: T-Satt (Troy) Reports on eBay Open #46503Oh yay, another stat I’ve never looked at on the dashboard:
Return rate
0.23%
1 of 426 transactionsTransaction period: May 01, 2018 – Jul 31, 2018
It doesn’t say why they returned it. Will INAD be another secret metric?
Ah, for those sort of jobs your best bet is to go through a temp. agency. It’s hard to get hired straight through by a major company unless you’ve already been working for the company for a few months.
If they’re more mom & pop type operations, they might be out of the loop for what younger people are doing for employment these days. If they’re reacting that way about Ebay or Amazon, I imagine they would be the same if you had said Uber or whatever.
I wish there was a professional term for resellers that didn’t sound so jokey or scammy, even though all businesses operate on “buy low and sell high,” so I don’t know why one is considered technically better than the other.
07/30/2018 at 1:30 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 371: T-Satt (Troy) Reports on eBay Open #46426Listening to the podcast and just thought about an issue with the 200 sales or $100k minimum state sales tax issue:
Are states going by venue, or combined sales on all venues? I don’t make $100k a year from any individual state, but I know there are a few states I make over 200 sales a year in individually on Amazon as an FBM. There might be 1 state I make over 200 sales a year in individually on Ebay, not sure atm. I would have to look.
There might be additional states I make over 200 sales a year in combined through Ebay and Amazon. But, would the state tax info only be sent to the states if the individual venues themselves only had 200 sales a year?
I think that the whole state sales tax mess will have to be really thought through on the state level before implementation. I don’t think they realize the actual reality of how individuals sell online.
If your store has a focus, you might be better off saying business owner rather than Amazon or Ebay seller. If you want to get specific: clothing store, or antiques store, or something like that. Then, if you have a skills section, you could put all of the points that buyselltiki/Mark S have said above: “customer service,” “mailroom” all the sort of BS that employers like to see on a resume. Or, “photoshop,” “excel,” that sort of stuff.
I think a lot of it depends on what sort of jobs you are applying to, as well. Try to rewrite Ebay and Amazon selling to fit in specifically with the skill sets of those jobs.
Thanks for all the updates, T-Satt. I had no idea the level of nitty gritty you could get into with the ebay higher-ups on these issues.
What frustrates me is that you have to go to ebay open to get this level of attention in the first place. There is no open line of communication for these type of talks through an online intermediary venue with these higher-ups, or even by phone. You have to pay to get access.
Even then, it sounds like being there for the most part is for the newbie to get excited by being in the presence of such ebay luminaries. To get hyped up like at a sports game for sellers who have had only a few hundred sales, if even that many. It is all show, not really substance for the bulk of people attending, as well as a convenient tax write-off.
I’m glad that you were able to get straight, real answers (not all positive) out of the mgmt. in the midst of all the production.
The line of reasoning behind this is pretty scary. Can’t use third party apps until they make sure it works well together. I’m almost afraid that there will be cascading glitches throughout all of Ebay for the next year as they try to piece it all back together again.
I just purchased the annual license for my listing software today. Yikes. This is such a no go for me.
With the disaster this current system sounds like, sellers would have to be getting major incentives to be beta testers for it. Like, free anchor store subscriptions for 3-6 month level incentives.
Thank you for posting updates on managed payments. Can you please clarify what they mean by third party apps? Does that mean that we can’t use other shipping programs to upload our tracking numbers from? All shipping must be purchased directly from Ebay shipping with managed payments?
I can’t tell if I’ve read this wrong. Thanks
My husband and I took Monday off from work, but ended up hitting up 3 thrift stores in the afternoon anyway. We bought so much stuff at the last thrift store that we had to buy a large rolling suitcase to haul it all back in via public transportation. We hadn’t even brought backpacks with us, because we were expecting to do absolutely no work at all. Hah. So much for a day off. 😉
I like a variety of different places to source – thrift stores, estate sales, online auctions, rummage sales, etc,. I used to hit up yard sales when I had a bike and cargo trailer and did well, but I haven’t had that setup in years. Without a vehicle, it is impossible to hop from sale to sale.
I’ve never been to an in person auction, but they sound fun. I like the idea that you can get snacks and make money simultaneously. Like a bidding alamo drafthouse. When I do online auctions, I have to frantically refresh to see if time has been extended. It almost seems more relaxed in person. Still, if I find a good online auction, I’m in.
Estate sales are hit & miss. I like looking at the pictures of the sale to see if anything looks good in my specialty. If not, I pass. I go to maybe a dozen estate sales a year, but that has to be a really good year. Otherwise, maybe 1 every few months.
Thrift stores are fun because it’s ??? Also, they’re pretty much everywhere, so it’s fun to poke around for a few minutes and savor the a/c during this miserably hot summer.
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