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This is an article about secondhand retail being a high growth area. Ebay really needs to pay up for good tech people, simplify their app, and start marketing as discussed above. Arguably, they have more trustworthiness and selection being the long standing business, so they could capitalize on that.
Zero for me this week again. I worked on my taxes and bookkeeping this weekend. I made about half the profit on Ebay that I made the years prior, partly because I took off the summer to help my dad and didn’t source RA, but also because of poor listing. We’ll see if I can do a little better this year. I may have a weekday off this week, then we have a superbowl party next weekend.
Zero for me. I had some house illness and super distracted by narrowing down my son’s college list and speaking with the counselor. Also pretty steady at my day job. Plus, watched the niners win last night. Basically not dealing with Ebay in any way except shipping. Sales reflect this. I also need to do my COGS and organize my tax stuff so not sure I’m going to be hitting it hard this week. :0
Congrats on all fronts! I hope you don’t get motion sickness – Universal is big on screen rides and HP is a doozy! I get to sit with my butterbeer in the pub when we go.
Zero for me. We were out of town, but the trip was a good mental reset I needed.
I’ll have a goal of 20 per week. I think I can do better some weeks, and that should average out the no time for listing weeks. Thanks!
@MyCottage yes you can easily sort solds with a toggle button. There is a category for vintage and subs. I do feel like certain items do better on Mercari than others – that would be a good way to confirm which of yours might be a good fit.
I’ve not been super active reselling in the past 6 months, but I did try a few vintage items on Mercari with mixed results. I think in some cases you can get slightly more than Ebay for something that is under $30 if they are plentiful on Ebay just because there is so much less posted on Mercari and maybe the vintage buyers are less experienced. Also Mercari is phone-driven so they are better about notifications to potential buyers than Ebay. At least on Mercari you know your items are getting good views, albeit sometimes by stingy buyers.
As the resident Mercari cheerleader, I have to point out that it is a really good option for people with time constraints and arguably the easiest to cross-post on. It’s quick and dirty. There is no social media component, square photo requirement, and your sales are final after buyer approves or in three days after delivery. Returns are rare and buyers I suspect are way less high maintenance than Etsy. You aren’t necessarily going to get top dollar, but the relative ease and speed of Mercari I think appeals to a lot of younger buyers and sellers.
The big advantage over Ebay is that things happen faster because your items are way more visible, though there is also more pressure to drop the price. And, possibly there are younger people who are not into Ebay shopping, so maybe worth cross-posting certain items on Mercari especially if you have your help do it after you’ve created the Ebay listing. Using my millennial coworkers as an illustration, they are not shopping Ebay much – unless they get there from a search engine, and they are very enthused about buying and selling on Mercari. They are looking for bargains and are very price driven but want quality.
@Simon, on our last trip to SD in the Fall, I went to all the Point Loma area thifts. I found it to be very picked over (I only sell hard goods).
Well, I’m in but this week was zero and we go to Disneyland this weekend, so seems like I will get a slow start. I’ve kind of been distracted by a couple of non-Ebay projects and I need to get my tax numbers done early this year. Just COGS and Mercari since for once my Tracker Spreadsheet managed to get out all of the Ebay sales successfully.
Time for the annual death pile photos. Piles for 2020 I really made good progress this year. On the other hand, it’s still a lot of stuff.
I really didn’t buy a lot of inventory this year at all and basically discontinued RA. Skipped most of the rummage sales and way fewer thrift shops. The few times I shopped, I mostly kept to fewer, higher value items.
Lately, I’ve just been grabbing a box. But looking at these photos makes me realize that I’m now leaning toward cherry picking the higher priced items though I still feel obligated to step up on the things I purchased unless they are under $10-15.
Once again I want to thank you all for your input on this. I’ve revisited it as we will be narrowing my son’s list in earnest with the college counselor within the next three months. In a nutshell, it’s a rub between a better ranked (and maybe suited) school and getting a break on tuition. It’s also a rub between his preferences and desire for a name brand school vs location.
We toured UC Boulder, loved it, and their honors program is our safety school. He should get some merit aid there and Minnesota. The better UCs are definitely in play and a couple of private schools (Notre Dame and Santa Clara) that we expect should afford him some real advantages in the work world but he won’t get much if any aid there. We would be digging deeper and having a serious look at ROI before committing to one of those. The private schools suit his preferences and he doesn’t prefer to live in a big city (except Seattle).
While we are keeping generally to the West, I feel like we are still probably overlooking some options where he would be eligible for merit aid. I’m trying to find resources with real merit aid info besides College Data. If anyone is awaiting responses this year, you might try Tuition Fit. You send them an offer letter and you get to see what similarly qualified students are being offered. Pretty cool database.
History Nerd if you are willing to chat by email offline please reply and maybe we can exchange email through Ryanne and Jay. Thanks!
Sharon I hope your child enjoyed her first semester!
Zero for me this week. I was feeling pretty unmotivated Ebay-wise and distracted by college research and the kids being off. This week I’m home mostly from my day job, so plan to make a push.
This past year, I think due to app improvements and my willingness to compromise on picture quality and getting top dollar, I’ve definitely learned to list more efficiently. I’m hopeful about 2020. I have access to good items, Terapeak is making it easier to set a good opening price, and listing is a little bit faster than when I learned over the last couple of years, even with the new item specifics, which I hope Ebay will cut down. I’ll have to take a hard look at my piles this year though and decide what is worth my limited reselling time. I’m not a goal setter, but I do want a strategy.
Total Items in Store: 282 Ebay, 40 Mercari
Items Sold: 7 Ebay, 3 Mercari
Gross Sales: $87 Ebay, $45 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $40 + one item free
Highest Price Sold: $29 offer to watcher (Target Christmas Bird Decor sold after Xmas, paid $12 thrift xmas boutique
Average Price Sold: $12 Ebay, $15 Mercari
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $42 (mostly RA)
Number of items listed this week: 0Thanks again for the Sunday podcast. Pricing at thrifts has a lot to do with manager staffing. Over time our indy thrift pricing has gone up and down. When the prices are raised too high, stuff really starts piling up, then they advertise that they have lower prices than before. At Goodwill, they have a hard time keeping staff. The old manager was sending out most of the good stuff for online selling, but they are remodeling now and the current pricing on hard goods is great and the emphasis on movement. That store already turns over very quickly due to it’s prime location downtown.
This week was all about low dollar for me on Ebay. Speaking of low dollar, even though the garage is looking much, much better, my spouse is starting to question whether it’s worthwhile for me to continue to sell on Ebay. This is mainly because that profit taxed on top of all our other income at high rates. So, perhaps I should consider cherry picking in my backlog and making death piles? We’ll see. I told him I love to sell on Ebay, it’s good for my stress level in some weird way and we can use the extra $ even post-taxes due to our high cost of living.
