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Welcome! I have two little bits of unsolicited advice as a fellow working mom seller with a BIG newbie backlog. Keep a healthy balance of listing vs. buying (the fun part). Takes almost no time to find good items where I live in Cali but fitting the listing in was a struggle.
Depending on what you are selling, you might try Mercari or Poshmark as well as Ebay since it’s so much faster to list. Ebay is trying to simplify their app listing but it’s not quite there yet. Ebay I still get more money for the items than the apps, but I have trouble getting enough up.
Also had a couple of sales on Mercari. It was very dead over there but I’ve started to get a few offers on some old listings.
Total Items in Store: 248
Items Sold: 4
Total Sales : $87
Highest Price: $34 (Set of new plates)
Average Price: $21
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $31
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 0Well it seems like about 5 weeks of no listing pretty much killed sales. All of these sales came on one day – Sunday. I ran a sale over the weekend. Focused on non-Ebay at the moment.
R&J, I’m reminded lately of how expensive renovations can be. Like you, I don’t like to skimp on quality and labor is just so expensive here. Are you over the pain at this point since you are so experienced?
Thanks Amantino for tracking. I was wondering how many weeks since I listed. It really, really killed my sales after a few weeks. I haven’t had time to buy anything either, so at least there is that. My extra remodeling / moving parent project should be done by August and I hope to bulk up my store before Fall/Winter. I’m also digging in on learning about the College Admissions process and just kind of taking a break from Ebay I suppose. I’ve got a ton of our stuff to clean out of my house as well (mostly kids’ stuff). But, I’ll for sure be back.
I just discovered the Crazy Lamp Lady too. I especially like the videos where she is alone and discussing what she won’t buy and why, or showing great examples in antique stores of desirable items that are priced too high to resell so you can recognize them. She’s been doing it long enough to talk about items trending down in price (eg. carnival glass). I also like how she still makes mistakes and is honest about buying repaired items.
She’s very careful to warn newbies about Ebay auctions and reveals why they work for her. Her guests are a bit tedious but it’s one of the few people I can learn new things from on Youtube. I’m still not convinced to buy gigantic lamps to ship, but luckily she also picks up other things I like.
Hi – I’m on kind of a detour helping family and had asked for you to just put me down for 0 listings if I don’t chime in on time. I listed my son’s textbooks this week, so that’s something!
Would be great if Ebay negotiated with FedEx and then actually passed on the savings.
I’m pretty much on break mode and only sold one item last week and one the week before. Struggling to find a contractor for my dad’s remodel who is available, good, and reasonably priced. This and the kids being out of school is taking up my time for now and it’s been stressful.
Basically I haven’t bought anything or listed for over a couple of months now. I ran a sale today to try a little life support for my store. I do not particularly feel like taking on Ebay listing into my crowded mental space but could use the money for our summer vacation and Hamilton tickets, so plan to get some Ebay mojo back and list soon. This is the slow season of my contract work and projects have dipped over the last couple of weeks.
Wishing you all better than usual summer sales! I’m hoping to read about how you all did with make offer to buyers. I’m also interested in hearing about anyone selling home goods on Poshmark. Someone said on Youtube that it’s messy right now and limited.
@HistoryNerd thanks for your input! PNW schools are very high on our list. My son fell in love with Seattle on a family trip and we’ve already toured UW. I suspect that a smaller school might be good for him but we need to flush that out.
#3 is particularly interesting to me. There is some controversy about bothering to apply with dream schools. This Ted Talk is relevant.
#2 is also very interesting because he would consider the Midwest region, which is supposed to be easier to get into generally. Michigan is a reach school, Minnesota and Wisconsin are on the list.
We are right next to UCSB and he’ll certainly apply there.
He is concerned about bio job prospects and when I mentioned it to the counselor, she agreed. Trying to research where the two might intersect, careerwise. I’m hoping he can find a tech field where he can use is creativity and out of the box approach to things. Maybe also his interest in ocean life. He’s a kind soul who is great volunteering with kids and peer tutoring. We think he might make a super teacher. We also think he might enjoy the Midwest, where it’s a bit easier to connect with friendly people. The weather scares me though.
Thanks for sharing. Interesting perspective on the mega tour. I’ve heard some negative comments about those. A lot of the schools on our list are pretty spread out, except there is a cluster in New England.
Thanks Indy. He’s done some coding in classes and short camps and seems to have some proficiency for it, as well as some interest. I hate to see bio go to the wayside but we have some time to explore in high school. He has comp sci and AP bio next year It would be hard to fit in a 3-4 month coding class (he’s knocking out an AP this summer at CC) but I think this is really smart advice.
Hi Sharyn and thanks. This part of your post is really interesting to me.
One thing that my daughter wished she did more of was volunteerism. Some schools really emphasize that. She is waitlisted at two schools, and she thinks she might have gotten in if she had more volunteer experience.
Was this just a suspicion? What made her think this?
There are a lot of UC schools on our list. That is definitely a lot of bang for the buck. You’d like my son scavengers. He already wants to move away from California to pay less taxes and get more house for his $. Very scavenger type thinking.
We haven’t even begun to get into the financial side of it, though it will certainly be a consideration. He will get some help from a grandparent though that won’t cover a private school. He would only qualify for merit scholarships even though after taxes, retirement, housing expense, and the higher cost of living we are living basically middle class out here and have not saved for college. We’ll do what we need to to make sure and cover his undergraduate degree at a school that is a good fit. Beyond that, he’ll probably do loans.
We have an excellent, free community college here. However, my husband I an both experienced seriously amazing growth by going away to a four year school and we king of want that for him. Selfishly, I’d love for him to stay home of course.
Total Items in Store: 255 Ebay, 45 Mercari
Items Sold: 5
Gross Sales: $157 Ebay, $10 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $62
Highest Price Sold: $50 (set of Dansk side plates)
Average Price Sold: $39 Ebay
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Thankful for the sales. It’s been at least 6 weeks since I’ve listed and I’m way down from 400 items. Enjoyed the podcast on my drive back from a quick LA trip. Life is very busy. It’s fun to listen about scavenging strategies even if I can’t do it. In fact, between my dad downsizing, my daughter’s outgrown clothes, and stuff in my kids’ rooms, I’m adding to the piles without even going shopping. Ugh. I expect to get back into listing before the better Fall season hits. Have a great week and enjoy scavenging.
