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@Ebaymom thanks for sharing your process. I’m working through items I already own so I create the draft listing while researching on the desktop (and often doing sell similar). I much prefer to research on the desktop so that’s why I do it backwards.
I’m really thrilled with Mercari for items I am willing to accept less than top dollar on. At this point in my reselling and home life, there are a lot of those items. I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground on Youtube about what sells well on Mercari. There’s not a lot of information yet. I hope some of you find success with it as well. I’ve really changed my focus from getting high prices to moving more stuff out – which totally makes sense based on my backlog and plentiful sourcing opportunities locally.
Had some time off my job and listed 38 items, mostly Christmas that I really want to move out. Yeah!
Items In Store: Ebay 371, Mercari 50
Items Sold: 12 Ebay, 2 Mercari, 1 Facebook
Cost of Items Sold: $59 + $45 Shipping included (including $12 mistake) + a few items ours
Total Sales: $308 Ebay, $41 Mercari, $40 Facebook
HIghest Price Sold: $40 (tie – Folkmanis puppet and antique tile, both Ebay)
Average price $26 Ebay, $20 Mercari
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $10 one jadite item
Items listed: 30 Ebay, 8 MercariNot a fantastic week, with some low dollar offers and sales. It felt even slower during the work week. This coming week before Christmas I remember being very slow as the mail cutoffs start to scare people away. I’m in guaranteed delivery so maybe that will help a smidge.
Enjoyed the podcast. I love spending time raising my kids and the income potential sacrificed by working part-time is well worth it to me. I also love having Ebay to fill in the holes in my schedule with some earning capacity. Certainly the hourly rate would be much lower than my contract work, but it works out great right now in my life and makes me feel more productive and mentally stimulated. However, for me it doesn’t make sense to just let things ride on Ebay. In the past 3 years since I’ve been selling, Ebay has rolled out a lot of changes, competition is emerging, and I can totally understand why people are trying to maximize profits and their time. You only have some much time available, unless you hire people and that’s a whole can of worms. Why not try to get the most out of your time? I also suspect that it’s somewhat hard to reliably project earnings in the current dynamic environment.
Having a bit of frustration on Ebay listing-wise. I do desktop first, then pictures on the phone and would launch from the app. Now I can’t keep my choice or add promoted listing on the phone unless I agree to do trending rates so I have to got back to the desktop. Also, Ebay desktop is defaulting to free shipping and I got a $12 ding on a flat rate box this week. I loathe those sticky box checking issues. Mercari on the other hand is already quick and now they are adding clickable suggested item specifics too, making it even faster so you don’t have to cruise through a menu in that field. Mercari is not sophisticated with shipping options and expected delivery dates, so I’m wondering if at holiday time that might cause an issue.
Have a great week. Fingers crossed to clear out more Christmas items!
Whoops where did the customers go? I was not expecting a drop off until this coming week as people start to worry about on time delivery.
Love to sell this type of vintage item Swedish tree skirt. Paid $4 at my favorite indy thrift xmas boutique. There are a lot of these on Ebay but this one was in perfect condition.
I find a lot of these 1980s and 1990s Brown Bag Cookie Molds. I have had good success with this pan style but not so much with individual molds. I was late listing these so I priced them to move and they did move very quickly. Usually I pay $2-4 per mold whether it’s pan or individual, so I may just stick to the pans going forward and maybe holiday ones.
Took a long time for this studio art pottery to sell. I only paid $4 and this studio art pottery is very common but not popular with pickers here. Seem to be slow sellers though. Took best offer of $50.
Most of the other items that sold I have posted about before. And a dud this mini floral painting. Paid 1.99 I love to pick up small original paintings, but orange ones just don’t seem to sell well. Florals are pretty common too. Yeah! someone finally bought it.
I sell some of my better brand, new items to buyers with zero feedback and I’m pretty confident that pinning does help. Impossible to know if they originate from Pinterest, Google or elsewhere. Ebay’s traffic page shows that the vast majority still come from inside Ebay search.
I think I just had a little ah ha moment after reading IndySales post. I posted about this in another thread. #53192 Promoted listings and catalog pages are conflicting programs in Ebay. What good does it do you to pay for promotion if you are going to end up in an Amazon style race to the bottom product page? I like how promoted listings at 1% seem to be working for me in best match, and for now I’m going to stay off the product page for Home and Garden. Outside hits will hopefully be enhanced by pinning my items on Pinterest. I am using best offer and pricing more aggressively lately but I’m not sure I want to race for box placement. Also how does best offer work with product pages? Hmmm. I think I like the old way of Ebay search better… I don’t want Ebay to make it easy for my buyers to comparison shop on price.
@twizzle do you mind sharing what collectibles you do and don’t well with on Mercari. I’m going to put more vintage on Mercari and I have some man cave stuff but mostly home decor appealing to ladies. I also like to put kids’ stuff on Mercari. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Sally,
I don’t use sell similar. What I was describing is bit different than just being pushed down in search in Ebay best match. The issue is whether to link to the product page.So if I search this item in Google by its name I get a hit on the first page for Ebay this page. You can see that only seller Duke is showing up with his listings on the product page even though mutltiple sellers are offering this same bedding.
On the other hand, if I run a search inside Ebay, I show up first here in results as the only promoted listing.
I also have another size available with the stale ribbon message on but all of the bells and whistles. It was showing up way down the page above, and it looks like didn’t have 1% promoted listings on that one so I’ve changed that.
Regarding drilling down on color, I figured out that I had put in both colors in item specifics, white first and that’s why I’m not showing up in blue at all on the Google entry page.
Since most buyers find items from inside Ebay according to the traffic report and I don’t want to compete with Duke maybe on price, I’m leaning toward leaving it be. But interesting to know that the product page is starting to matter to some degree.
Yes, and look down. Under tables, especially at rummage sales.
Thanks. I’m trying to get new items up and don’t really want to pause for inventory but I really have no idea how this might have happened. I’ve had listings drop off before but not duplicates. Luckily I can afford the ding but I hope she doesn’t leave bad feedback.
At the risk of being that lone annoying Mercari fan in the place, I’ll weigh in. First of all, Ebay is probably going to stay king for the older collector. I agree with a lot of what My Cottage says above. They are way behind but like Retro says, are huge and established.
Mercari is struggling in the US vs. Japan because they are spending a lot to increase exposure in a crowded market here and because US customers are always right and we commit fraud. Japanese buyers are reportedly way less likely to initiate returns and conflict. BUT, I posted an article here before saying that Mercari trounced Yahoo in Japan because Yahoo started to ignore the small sellers of used goods. More importantly, Mercari aims to make listing as fast and simple as buying. I once had aspirations of selling vintage on Etsy, but I just don’t have the time. Mercari is so crazy fast and simple compared to Ebay and Etsy. It makes entry into reselling very easy for the casual smalltime seller. This and their innate appeal to Google search will be the reasons why they succeed in the US if they do.
Total Items in Store: 320 Ebay, 45 Mercari
Items Sold: 21 Ebay, 6 Mercari
Gross Sales: $911 Ebay, $135 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold Ebay: $252 + $59 shipping included
Cost of Items Sold Mercari: $39 + $11 shipping included + a couple items ours
Highest Price Sold: $445 (Ebay, new 5 piece duvet and shams set, paid about $170 spring clearance, 0 feedback buyer, from Pinterest?)
Average Price Sold: $43 Ebay, $22 Mercari
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 24I think this was my best week ever reselling. Packing before work was annoying on a couple of days. I continue to be very happy selling on Mercari and plan to try out vintage in the new year. I have noticed that kids’ items are doing well on Mercari for me. Sold some elf on the shelf accessories this week – GW Target stuff (.49 each) and I sure wish I had bought it all.
I don’t mind telling people that I resell. Most people find it intriguing and sometimes want to learn or have me sell items for them (not that it goes anywhere). Sometimes if I am digging through a junky bin I wonder if this is why I went to law school. 🙂 But then I remember I can spin the junk into gold and buy things we need for the family. It helps offset the cost of living here. The men in my family are amazed at the prices I get for vintage and they love to watch my sales.
Interesting posts in the forum about Google and Ebay, sales being down etc. After reading one of them, I looked up a slow selling bedding set I have online (Home and Garden). It’s a year old listing. I found that Ebay is starting to implement the Amazon style product page for this item and my listing is not showing there. Only one seller with multiple listings is showing up. If I pick on the primary color, my listings still do not show up. And they are promoted, guaranteed delivery, free shipping, the works. I might go back on my high end items and relist, though I don’t really want to compete on price. Hmm.
I’ve been really happy with it but the things I am listing I am willing to let go for less than top dollar. I start the price a little higher than I really want and promote.
Their new promote to likers tool is pretty cool. I’ve been getting those exclusive buying invitations in my email from sellers for a couple of days now with the app upgrade. Not enough to be annoying. This is an area where Ebay just isn’t keeping up. Still love Ebay though for collectibles and I trust Ebay more for higher dollar items.
