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Zero for me as well. Doing some organizing and consolidating this week, then will post death pile photos in that other thread. Kids finally back to school and we are finally getting some consistent rain, so good environment for listing over here. Hope you enjoyed your trip Amatino!
Total Items in Store: 308 Ebay, about 45 Mercari
Items Sold: 9 Ebay, 0 Mercari
Gross Sales: $319
Cost of Items Sold: $93 + $44 shipping included
Highest Price Sold: $75 (new duvet cover, paid $45 two years ago – a dud)
Average Price Sold: $35
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Enjoyed the podcast, especially the experiments review. I would add the 1% and other promoted listings %. I’m gambling with the 1% on Ebay not being sophisticated to effectively add functionality and reward higher trending rates, plus other sellers being resistant to using PL. I also starting using best offer in earnest and I think that has made a big difference. I see a little bump after making a sale that way. Together we can spot trends even if we don’t have any proof of how things actually work. So that’s valuable about this forum.
I’m thinking a lot these days about thinner margins and my next step is to get back to tackling piles. I need to finish listening to this Jason T. Smith video about the shipping rate changes. Though they are pretty small I don’t think I’ve been using regional rate boxes enough and I’m thinking about Pirate Ship so that I can manage costs a bit better with cubic shipping. I have a lot of lower dollar free shipping first class items in the 13 ounce range, and it sounds like that is going to be going up. By the way, if any of your numbers guys want to figure out for us what common size packages work for cubic shipping under the new rules that would be super. I’m lazy this way.
I spent time in the garage organizing my recycled packing material and boxes this weekend. I need to consolidate unlisted items a bit more and then take new photos of the piles. I’m not sure how apparent it will be in the photos but I definitely made progress in 2018. I’m also learning what I don’t like to list and what is longer tail. So, good experience but wish I hadn’t dug the hole so deep!
I also did a digital detox and I’m working on my time management. Scavenger life made the deep cut of course!
Good day trash elves. Sharing a few vintage sales of items, nothing really high dollar.
I’m a sucker for this type of vintage tablecloth. Pro resellers have them up super high at flea markets here. This one was in good shape without stains, paid $4 indy thrift. If anyone knows how to get out yellow food stains from these cotton printed tablecloths, please let me know. Can you safely soak in Oxyclean? I find them pretty often with stains.
Took a best offer of $30 on this item from my parent’s house. There were not many solds and it was not marked so I put it up pretty high. Took about 9 months to sell.
I paid a bit too much for these at the indy thrift xmas sale vintage hotpads at $6, but they sold very quickly.
This is the third or fourth Jabara NY vintage linen set I’ve sold. Paid $6 same indy thrift. They are a bit plain looking and this one was made in China, but still sold two in a month.
Think I did mention this before, but I’m able to sell vintage Pyrex lids pretty well. Far easier to pack and ship than the dishes and usually cheap. I had some less desirable Pyrex I sold on Facebook, and I’ve almost liquidated all of the lids on Ebay. Pyrex sunflower lid
Couple of duds – cow pitcher (free from Parents’), wool blanket nice condition and soft but took forever to sell.
Have a great week.
Hi Ryanne, you might try putting a search on Mercari? I just missed a new Pottery Barn duvet and sham set for $22 free shipping this morning by seconds. I think it was someone living near the outlet. There are a number of Ikea sets for sale.
I just recently loaded the update with promote to likers. Most of the time even since then I am using lower the price to everyone because it requires a smaller incremental price drop. I’ll let you know later if I have luck with promote to likers. Please do the same.
If I like something, it usually means I would but it if it was offered at a lower price, so it makes sense to use that functionality if you’ve got the spread.
Yes, you have to go down more on offers to likers than you do to promote to all users. I often will just promote to all because I’m only dropping by a buck. 10% minimum sounds about right for likers but I’m not certain what the rule is since they just recently added this feature with the last app update I loaded. Before, you just dropped the price for all users and they notified watchers so they probably copied Posh with the new feature.
So far I’ve listed a lot of our family stuff and Christmas items on Mercari and I’m really looking to unload it. I’m ok with working the price down on those items until they sell and I haven’t really been paying a lot of attention to how many watchers there are. Going forward with vintage, I might be a bit more patient if I think it’s a good item.
Vintage Lacy, I missed the comment about your dad earlier. A girl and her dad is special and I hope that you enjoy your time with him sharing some good memories.
I need to do some more reorganizing and then take pictures of the piles in the new thread.
Hi Troy, yes I am for sure using the promotion tool. I typically use the max 10 each day and mark it down by the minimum allowed. I have promoted to everyone even if it only has one liker. I can understand why you decided to cross post your higher priced stuff first, but I would keep in mind that Mercari is engineered to create quicker sales. Google likes Mercari but I would say that people are generally looking for a good deal on Mercari. You will definitely get more than a yard sale but less than Ebay and Posh. I recommend pricing a bit higher and using the promo tool. There is no relisting functionality yet, but I know some sellers do remove and relist after a certain point. I remove free shipping when it gets down in price. I also buy on Mercari and have searches out. I get notified of offers on my phone, which is always with me.
Unfortunately so far I would say there is not a lot of chatter about what people are doing well with on Mercari. Here’s what I have heard: skews younger, better brand driven, kids’ stuff, men’s clothing, shoes, books, Rae Dunn dishes, farmhouse, Starbucks, Disney / pop culture, and Pyrex. I’m going to try out more vintage items this coming year and see how that goes.
The nice part is that there is less competition so far. For example, I have a Disney doll up for sale. There are many on Ebay from sellers who are asking less but I suspect I will get a good price on Mercari. It’s on the only one on Mercari and has 20 likers.
Total store items: 373 Ebay, About 45 Mercari
Number of items sold: 9 Ebay, 5 Mercari
Total sales: $758 Ebay, $77 Mercari
Cost of items sold: $411 Ebay, $18 Mercari, $14 shipping included, + a few items ours
Highest price sold: Ebay, new bedding set $355 Ebay (paid $135 spring clearance)
Average price sold: $39 Ebay, $15 Mercari
Returns: 1 (the bedding set above, free returns, immediately sold again thank goodness)
Money spent on new inventory: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Numbers are unusually skewed as I bought some bedding new for my daughter a while back that she did not prefer and I just sold it on Ebay at cost to get my money back. Had it listed higher because I thought maybe an international buyer would spring on it, but no. Now they discontinued the color, so it sold probably because of that. I also was nice and let some guy return a gift after 30 days and then it resold the day after I relisted so happy about that except the free shipping and returns stung a bit. In the past I have not gotten returns on that type of new item.
Enjoyed the podcast despite there being almost zero chance I will go full time Ebay unless one of our dads goes downhill and moves in. I had a couple of days off work recently and did some serious listing. That would be pretty hard to get used to I think doing full time day in and day out and would get kind of lonely. I do enjoy working part-time out of the house while the kids are at school since I am more focused at the office and it is California casual. Both jobs are too much sitting at the computer.
Lots of thoughts about my reselling journey and path forward. A lot of this coming year will be focused on killing the rest of the piles. A serious newb mistake on my part. When I started Ebay was making a lot of changes and glitchy so I would get frustrated with listing plus I was looking to get top dollar and being too precious with my listings. Now I have concluded that it’s mostly about great items at great prices. I find it more satisfying to move items more quickly. Also, I have usually great sourcing here and limited competition so I have learned much about what is not worth picking up.
I was initially fearful about shipping so many coffee mugs are left but there is a variety. I will use Mercari to help plow through those lower dollar items more quickly. There is cool stuff like paintings in the piles too – for Ebay. Those items are much slower to research so I need to get in the mood. They are grouped by type and I also made a seasonal worksheet for myself to tackle the items when it makes sense. My current sales reflect some marked down Christmas stuff that is being liquidated around $10.
Happy New Year trash elves!
@Mark, I missed the original thread but good for you for being nice and I’m really glad Ebay removed those. No doubt that people like your buyer are busy making themselves miserable, but we should try to help people within reason I think. Ebay should reward and highlight sellers like Mark going the extra mile, as it helps make up for the scammer and incompetent resellers.
@Retro, ugh. Sorry you had to go through that experience. I too loathe calling Ebay’s customer service and really I value my time and my seller rating more than being right sometimes. Most buyers are honest, but I’ve had a few email complaints for lower dollar stuff that I just refunded and blocked on the spot despite not having proof. It just wasn’t worth the frustration of calling Ebay.
So, I feel like I need to budget it “shrinkage” for events like this. But it doesn’t help that Ebay is pushing programs that eat into the profits. So one needs to weigh potential issues with items at the sourcing point, and the cost of just eating some problems if your time is limited. I’m definitely considering cutting loose free returns this year and possibly free shipping on the some brand new items I was surprised to get returns on. Also, if I come across death pile items that are damaged, I donate them because I’m lucky to have plentiful sourcing here.
@bcfol440 I think it was first class USPS that made it to Kentucky. The part I don’t like most is the communication I got from Ebay. I know better because of this forum, but if I didn’t it would be crazy to follow what they sent me and it really puts the ball back in my court even though it’s GSP. On top of this I got a big free return. That was over 30 days return, but I took it anyway. The communication again was it was my responsibility to work it out with the buyer. Not a great Christmas day on Ebay for me, but I still love selling. I decided to be nice and take the return because some poor husband bought the wrong size by mistake.
I feel like in the new year, I need to take a look at my current Ebay listings and my fee statements. I’m not really sure I’m buying into the best practices search and buyer payoff. I think promoted listings is more valuable even at 1%.
Thanks – reading my post that was confusing. I definitely won’t be dealing with Ebay France. I just hate calling the main US number because I have a basic store so I get the foreign operators reading the script and I just don’t tolerate it very well. Hopefully I know the magic words and it will be brief!
Ok, so buyer lets me know global shipping item that left Kentucky has fallen out of tracking. I tell her to contact Ebay. Now I get a message from Ebay to consider refunding and reach out to her. If I click on the link, it takes me to Ebay in French. What? I know it’s part of doing business but I loathe calling Ebay overseas as they never seem to help quickly and efficiently.
Hopefully, the rep won’t act clueless. I’ll be sure to mention GSP asap.Happy holidays death pile elves. I only listed 2 items this week and I’m not really feelin’ it. Plus, lots of trouble sleeping. I’m working part of this coming week and I’m taking my daughter to see Wicked in LA next weekend. Sooo…we’ll see.
In the new thread I’ll post new death pile photos. No items spilling out this year. Still a ways to go but I made good progress this year.
