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The summer slow down hit me two months ago, trying to see what I can buy to sell during the summer. For now just stick piling in the summer for fourth quarter sales
A little nervous to jump on the free returns wagon. After hearing the podcast I immediately added it and then thought about the whole free shipping ordeal. I turned it right off. Especially thinking about some of the bigger items I ship which would ruin me if I had to pay for it twice. Im going to wait to see how it turns out before I jump back on
it is finally over. The customer cursed me out, so Ireached out to eaby and they told me as did this group to have him start a return via ebay. He did and immediatly opened a case against me. His return reason was because he didn’t like it yet the case was telling me to refund him the full amount including his shipping. I called ebay again and had an awesome rep! He told me because I have automatic returns that the buyer was able to open a case immediately and was telling me to return the full amount including shipping. The buyer didnt even give me an opportunity to only refund the purchase portion. In the end because I was trying to help the customer and there was a lot of confusion because he returned outside of ebay, ebay decided to refund the buyer on their behalf and let me keep everything. The case wont affect my store.
I may turn off auto accept so I have more control of these options
it would be easy returns if it was through ebay, this person just paid for shipping and sent it back and never sent me any messages through ebay
I decided to take photos of the item and the box to show ebay if they look that the item is exactly as described and message the buyer that I received the package and sorry they were not happy with the item. I wish they would have contacted me but per ebay rules I am unable to process a request and to please contact ebay. should ebay say otherwise I will happily comply.
really puts me in an awkward position because if I refund the guy for just the item and not the shipping he might want more of a return and then their could be issues with paypal or ebay. I figure if I go this route at least it shows I am willing to work with him
funny the guy paid more in shipping fees than the actually item
I just called ebay and they told since it was an unrequested return I do not have to refund the buyer anything and to let them know to contact eBay with issues. Seems kinda wrong and from a customer service aspect wrong but I don’t want to do anything where I wind up refunding the person then they place a request I lose all the money
shiprush itself isnt free, but through ebay it is. I think they do a deal with them. Its also good for multiple ebay stores
it pools all of the orders from multiple stores and sites into a single list and allows you to edit the shipping weight, shipping type and shipping carrier in the list and select print and all of them print in bulk. also I have looked at the ebay prices vs shiprush and sometime its always cheaper. On the smaller packages its .20 or more and on larger packages I have seen a few dollars difference. Those pennies add up after a while.
the plus for me is with amazon, I dont sell much but it all ships from my house so I can print from here instead of logging into amazon and it marks it as shipped. Also both my ebay stores can be seen in a single list so I dont need to log into one store and then the other to ship
the only negatives is you need a label printer to work with it and the setup is a bit archaic but worth it once setup, and you have to pay for shipping in bulk meaning you have to load your account ahead of time. But you can set automatic refill amounts so you don’t have to pay hundreds upfront
here is the link with more info ebay sent me
eCom…thank you for the advice and I am taking it! (this is why I love forums) I actually found another program called MYCOSTPRO which actually brings in active listings and allows you to edit from the excel spread sheet. It also keeps track of COGS etc…
I have been tracking my cost per item and I have a way of processing, but it is tedious and I was looking for a quick way to find COGS. Especially when your bringing in inventory and then don’t feel like listing it right away. Found a youtube video that they went through their new inventory processing routine and it helped tremendously. I guess I could use my original method to get the amortized value of my inventory.
I think the biggest part that most newbie sellers get stuck at is the processing of incoming inventory prior to listings
Is assuming they are the same value not accepted by the IRS?….not sure
Can I use the average cost per item for the year of what I spent on inventory? so If I spent $3000 on 1000 items couldnt I say each item is $3? Lets assume I paid $1 for some items, $30 for a few others and some others where free. As long as in the end the total number of items is worth what I spent
As long as I designate a value to an item sold couldn’t that be accepted? I understand its not a ‘true value’ but isnt it the same as if you bought ten ties for a $1 each and then another 10 ties for $2 each then throw them in a ‘death pile’…how do you know which one was from where?
The only reason I am thinking this way is because I currently am doing the above method where I count the cost of each item, but it gets messy when I have three death piles. and between working full time and ebaying part time along with a few other responsibilities to calculate the actual cost of each item takes up too much of my time and away from pictures, research and listing.
I also tried easy auction tracker and I tend to be very heavy on mobile so it didn’t work for me. I currently track everything on my spreadsheets in google sheets.
Guess this will be my 2017 experiment
I used to be very manual with my COGS. I would calculate each item as it comes in and average the total purchase by the amount of items that I bought. But recently as some of you know I like to streamline and outsource as much as I can so I can focus on the buying and selling….what I do best. I spent the last few days trying to figure out a way in excel to know my COGS and know value of each item for the year without tracking a single value of each item with a constantly changing inventory amount and value. simply base it on what comes in and what goes out and I think I figured it out. And the best part is I only have to do this once a year! If anyone thinks I am wrong or if this wont work let me know.
basically as long as you know how many items you brought in, how many items you currently have for sale, how many items you sold, and how much you spent for the year, it will tell you how much is in your ‘death pile’, the average cost of an item in that given year(taking rollover into account), your COGS
Hoping this will let me churn and burn without bogging myself in the details
here is an example the highlighted is the data I have to manually place in excel:
taxjar.com…found it by accident when looking up a blog article…its a bit pricey but worth not having to think about it. I do the smallest plan right now and they charge you for each time they pay for you as well.
What I like also is it tallies up how much you did in each state so you can see where your selling the most to. Mine last year was overseas
Been a while since I’ve been on, missed you guys! I was working on a kids book for my dad that he wrote so he could see it before he passes…..finally published it! Any who…..
My first year doing taxes and I think I will be okay, still trying to figure out how to do COGS. I did it but I am not happy with how I do it since it interferes with my listing process. do I keep track of each indiviual item I bring ins cost or do I just do what is spent minus what I sold
for shipping with a full time job, I ship with 1 business day so I don’t ship on weekends. I schedule pick ups every Monday Wed and Fri and I package every Tuesday Thursday and Sunday night. so if a person orders on Monday I package and print on Tuesday which is within the 1 business day and then it goes out Wednesday morning. If someone orders something on friday I will ship that night and have a pick up on saturday …if I can. If not as long as it goes out on Monday then I am still within the shipping time…all this and I am a top rated seller now.
I found a company that tracks my sales tax and pays it for me to the state quarterly or annually so now thats one less thing on my plate. I also filled out and paid my It-204-ll fees.
I also made a business decision that my book inspired me to do. My book royalties in honor of my dad, %10 goes to the MS Society. For ebay I decided that %10 of ALL my sales will be going to St Judes. Whats nice is that Ebay lets you bake it into the listing. I have noticed since doing it that people are willing to pay a little more on an item,plus Ebay discounts my fees. It is kind of a win win
Mines pretty simple. I have multiple shelving units. each shelving unit gets a number, each shelf on the unit gets a letter. If I have any boxes on that shelf they get a number
so if I have a box on third shelf on the 4th shelving unit it will look like this: 4C3
I am still figuring out my process of when I place where my inventory is, before or after I list. right now I have a pile of listed items. I pull a report from ebay once a week. I place the names of the listings into a inventory report and as I put the stock away I place the location next to the listing name
My one pitfall is tracking the cost per item so when I sell I know the exact COG. right now I pile a recent purchase and I amortize the cost per item so when I take the listings name into my inventory report I place the COG next to the items and make sure they sum up to the total value. Not sure if this is the right way
yup my first year with ebay income. I had a business prior to this and was horrible with keeping up with the books and would always last minute rush to get it all done so I could file.
I folded that business into ebay and realized with all the moving pieces I had to get it done right. with your suggestion I used go-daddy and looked for everything I could that would integrate into it and worked form there. the entire goal is to automate what I can so I can spend more time buying and listing
The most interesting part with godaddy is moving inventory cost from one year to the other…this should be interesting.
Havent posted in a while, a lot going on, love the new site!
so far the Holidays have been busy on Ebay and personally. Went on my first vacation while running a store, went smooth! Used your advice and changed my shipping time to 10 days and had no issues at all and still had sales. Holidays too I am having a lot more returns than usual
Also I finally became a top rated seller!!!! very excited.
Havent listed much with the holidays, but was able to do two good hauls and have now been trying to list. My father is not doing well, and is declining and it has been hard to stay focused, groups like this keep me going.
Hope you guys have fun in brooklyn
