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Week May 14-20
Items in Store: 253
Sold: 6
Total sales: $148
Highest sale: $52 Yakima Mako Saddles
Average sale: $19
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Items listed this week: 28No money spent on inventory but received more stock from widows in my community. Got a call last night that another batch is coming in this week. Thank goodness spring is nearly over! I’ve got my piles organized, so when the clearout is finished, I can list like crazy for the summer and be ready when they start the Fall cleaning phase. LOL
Thanks, MyCottage. I’ll look into the report buyers option and let them know about my customer. I agree with you, eBay should let us know about the system. It would help all of us!
MyCottage – I’ve just completed (I hope) a PayPal case where the buyer claimed no knowledge of the PayPal transaction to her bank. Considering eBay sends her a minimum of 2 emails (you won. it shipped) and I send all my buyers a ‘thank you for your order’ email, she had at least 3 emails notifying her of the transaction. Furthermore, when I buy something PayPal sends me an email to advise I paid for it. The item was tracked and delivered. So with three emails from eBay and one from PayPal, plus the arrival of a “mysterious” package on her doorstep, she didn’t recognize the transaction? I think we should have an option to report these folks to eBay. Not that we want any action, as such, but that there’s a central database record. If this woman is pulling that one on a regular basis, it will show a trend.
As PayPal felt that I covered all my bases, I’ve qualified for Seller Protection, but PayPal is apparently now in a dispute with the financial institution. If these buyer trends were identified, it may help everyone involved.
According to The Guardian article noted, eBay has NOT picked up patterns in a couple cases. It was only found when the newspaper got involved and wanted some information on a particular case. THIS is what concerns me.
I don’t just follow SL (although it’s my favorite) so I’ve seen shady tactics like this listed in a couple of the other groups. I don’t follow the eBay Community Boards, too negative for my broth, but it’s showing up on multiple seller platforms. I think eBay needs to sit up and take notice.
05/22/2017 at 1:27 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 310: Am I Selling on eBay the Wrong Way? #18347In reply to Jay’s suggestion that someone creates a video of how they pick and pack, I’ve created a slideshow. I don’t know how to edit videos yet. 😉
It’s my first time loading an album, so I hope this works! 😉
Full information on the process included under each picture.
Agreed, Jay, it is a headache. I was interested to note that eBay is now acknowledging it has a problem. I think that they could track fraudulent sellers a lot easier than fraudulent buyers. Buyers can and do leave negative feedback. A fraudulent seller would be tagged very quickly! As the article says, eBay protects its income by protecting its buyers, but this leaves sellers in the cold.
I think eBay needs to take seller history into account. The original seller in this article has thousands of positive feedback, a track record of successful purchases and shipping with eBay itself. Why would eBay not even review the seller’s photos and claims? That seems very odd to me!
To answer your question, I suggest eBay should institute a seller-report system where sellers can report a buyer for shady tactics. It doesn’t go on the buyer’s record up front, but remains in the Sellers Only arena. After a specified number of reports, eBay begins to investigate. If this existed, the seller that got hit in this article would have sent in his claim of fraudulent buyer, eBay could have looked up the Buyer report and seen this guy was shady. Case closed in seller’s favor, buyer’s account closed or suspended, everybody wins except the bad guy. I don’t believe this system would be difficult to implement (it’s just an extra report field, similar to feedback, but not public) and eBay could set the system to auto-flag the buyer after x number of negative reports. A representative would then read the reports and delete the “whining seller” issues. If the remaining reports are consistently negative, bang goes the buyer.
Perhaps it’s time for some math?
Unfortunately, I cannot remember where I read it, here or on another seller’s group, but if you want to see how much of your stock will turnover, do the math.
Look up each item. Be as specific as possible: look at brand, color, type, shape, etc. Once you’ve drilled down to be as specific as you can get without refining yourself to zero items, look at the number listed. Then hit solds, and note that number. Divide solds by listed to get sales, then divide by 3 to get months. (eBay lists solds for 90 days.)
So… if there are 45 items listed and 5 sales, 5/45 = 0.11. Divide that by 3 and you get 0.03. Anything below 0.25 is a bad seller and you’d do better just donating it to get it out of your way. Anything between 0.25 and 0.5 means you’ll either have to wait forever to sell it, or price it really low. For these items, I go for lots. Put 3 into a lot and sell it off for less than the value of all three. So if they’re going for $5 each, sell 3 for $12. (All prices a complete fabrication!)
If the numbers add to 0.5 up to 0.75, these are hot items. Price in the mid to upper-mid range to get quick sales. For example: listed 200, sold 350. 350/200=1.75 divided by 3 = 0.58. Terrific! Average sale price is $30. Highest sold price averages $45. Lowest prices average $15. Price at $35 with best offer. (Prices invented.) (You could price high, but then you wait for the sale.)
If the numbers are above 0.75, you’re in the money. Price high high high.
I wish I could remember who gave this advice so that I could give credit, but it seems to work really well. I have found that by working with this guesstimation, I generally have reasonable prices, and when the stuff hits the 0.5 mark, it sells within the month. Items over 0.75 have been rare, but they have sold within hours of listing. I’d kill for a regular source of 0.75 items!
Wishing you good luck!
P.S. Sometimes I don’t drill down to specifics, I do the same calculations using general matches. It’s not as good a barometer, but sometimes there just aren’t any “blue” of the item I’m looking at, for example, so I leave it open to all colors. You’ll get a sense of it as you go.
Our umbrella policy covers liabilities, not insurance, which means if someone sues us for tripping over something, not loss. Dunno what yours covers. Renter’s insurance is pretty cheap, though.
Awesome, thanks guys!
That’s an interesting point of view. Do you write anything in the “Condition” specifics if the item has no flaws? Does eBay allow you to leave that blank?
Jay, what words do you use to describe an item then?
I received a return outside of the eBay system, just arrived in my postbox with a note from the buyer that it didn’t fit. I emailed her to ask her to process a return through eBay but there has been no word and now the window is closed. I don’t feel right about not refunding her money, so this is a real PITA. I’m going to have to do it through a PP refund and then notify eBay or something.
I wish customers would just use the program!
Your title on that sweater looks good to me.
There have been some posts on this forum about how views have dropped dramatically since March. I think we’re just going through a bit of an eBay slump. As J&R say, list it and forget it.
Retro, I can set my auto’s in less time than it would take you to READ the offer! LOL
Honestly, it’s a click and a number. When I’m doing my research, I have an asking figure in mind. Then I wing what I would be happy to accept. So, research an item, **decide to price it at $39.99, paid $2.50, price range is $25 – $50 on solds, I’d feel happy to get $25, so that’s my minimum.** Mental time taken from ** to ** is about 3 seconds. At the pricing section of my listing, check the Auto box, type $25 into auto-decline, guesstimate $30 for auto-accept, time taken about 5 seconds.
It’s really that fast.
If you were to go back and ADD autos into listings, it would take you quite a while, but I’ve been doing it as I’m listing, so it’s a matter of seconds.
Whiskey, there are people and companies who actively do property investment. Have a look at Bigger Pockets for a wealth of information.
05/11/2017 at 10:03 am in reply to: Change in User Agreement… Automatic relist without seller consent #17808The text of the user agreement reads (section in bold highlighted by me)
When you use the consumer seller listing tool to create listings, your fixed-price listings may renew automatically every 30 days, based on the listing terms at that time, until the quantities sell out or until you cancel the listing
IMHO, this refers to our option to select GTC, which is why it says it “may” renew automatically.
This is just one clause under the Listing Conditions, and I think it’s to cover eBay’s GTC for folks who don’t read it or understand it and then call foul when the item is relisted.
Just an opinion…
ETA: Found this chat SOLVED Fixed Price Listing Renewals. Appears to be what I suggested.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by
Amatino. Reason: Added new chat that solved the issue
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This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by
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