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I listed 20 items, 17 from piles. Time to hit the afghans – ugh! thanks for the challenge. My daughter is here sick today so I might get in some listing as I’m home from work.
I did go to the college rummage sale – not much to resell – and bought some gorgeous ’60s Sascha Brastoff pottery at Goodwill. Fun! but after the afghans it’s my policy to list the new stuff, so other piles will wait.
I’m doing some finer organizing into banker’s boxes by type and I feel like it really helps you feel a bit less overwhelmed. I also have my list of seasons I want to list certain types of items in. Bite size pieces and a plan.
Total Items In Store: 441
Items Sold: 11
Total Sales: $622
Cost of Items Sold: $202 + $24 free shipping
Highest Price Sold: $255 New Duvet & Shams (paid about $130 clearance within a year)
Average Price Sold: $57
Returns: 1 partial cancellation / buyer mistake
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: About $50
Number of Items listed this week: 20After the photo fiasco, I have to confess to you all that I went over to the dark side, looking briefly at ecommercebytes and Ebay forums. I found an interesting and lengthy post from a large seller whose sales had dropped “off a cliff” since December. The gist of it was that in March, Ebay changed the mysterious algorithm to treat high sales history less favorably and effectively punish sellers or listings (not certain which he was alleging) with staleness. Discussion went on to say more than 60 days was stale and furthermore that staleness might trump best practices in best search placement. I bring this up because I noticed that my newest listings are selling, and I did some price drops and tinkering with my stale listings having watchers and sold a few of those. The remaining items have been quiet. I’m wondering if anyone else has noticed this pattern.
I also read once that Ebay has a hard time competing for tech talent in the Bay Area. It really seems like they need to work on managing change better and notifying sellers when there are important issues to show good faith. I would not want to be a rep for them at the open fielding questions! Have a great week.
In my tiny retirement account I make individual stock picks (most of our retirement is in my husband’s accounts and in funds). About the time when Jay and Ryanne soured on Amazon, I figured Amazon small sellers would turn to Ebay, and Ebay vintage sellers may turn to Etsy. I bought stock in both. Etsy said they raised fees to do marketing. I think they will be very wise to captialize and grow given Ebay’s current focus and issues. I currently love Ebay because it’s comparatively quick and dirty to list, and you can list anything. But, as I move away from RA selling to more vintage, I’m hoping Etsy will step up it’s vintage game and draw shoppers. Maybe after a few successful Christmas seasons and better advertising, shoppers will start thinking of Etsy. If Etsy items show up better in Google or Mercari than Ebay items, that’s a big factor too.
Yes, let’s do it starting Sunday morning. I would love to price to sell and clear this bulky stuff out. I could literally pick up an afghan every visit to the thrift store and I like to rescue them because of the work someone put in. But, unless they are really exceptional and I’ve cleared most of the piles, I don’t think I want to store them. I have a bunch of baby quilts too. Same rescue weak spot but I think people are less inclined to buy used baby stuff and they get a lot of new gifts.
Thank you for the very nice compliment VT. Sales are slow this week for me too.
I’ve been doing some finer organizing of my piles in new boxes and made a list of items by type with some general goals about when they are best to list over the course of the year, eg. ahead of holidays or back to school, etc. One of the bulkiest items I have are afghans and vintage bedspreads. I’d be up for a challenge of listing them. I think I have 7 or so. It’s not my worst listing / packing type, but definitely I’ve been putting it off. What I’m most dreading is super fragile 60s thin glass ceiling light shades and vintage tabletop lamps.
Great story except the kids will be grown. Cats in the Cradle Song Lyrics
RT Oh how I loathe the mysteriously checked boxes glitch! Just sold an item on auction for .99 with free shipping. Honestly can’t say this time that I remembered to look though. You’re welcome!
I’m working this afternoon on a whole box of cartoon character coffee mugs from my earliest days on Ebay when I was scared to ship much else. Talk about eating your vegetables! I feel pretty determined to list myself out of this hole I made if it’s $10 or more. The next time I list I will switch it up to something I like better. I did list some patriotic stuff today, including some fabric.
Thanks Amatino. I don’t use business policies because I didn’t want to spend the time consolidating the multiples ones I inadvertently generated. Ebay is always off on the combined shipping but it often works out pretty ok or they punt and ask me to send an invoice. This time with the PRFE it was a $7 loss so it caught my attention. Made me wonder if something had changed recently? It sounds like you don’t think so. They told me to send an invoice for the extra shipping or cancel, neither sounded good since it was an old listing.
You’re welcome VT. I love to buy vintage fabric to sell even though I don’t sew. I’ve been lazy about listing it too so I have three boxes of death pile fabric. Does this category do well in summer? I’ve sold some craft kits lately (my favorite thing to list and ship).
I listed 27 items this week, 16 from death piles. Felt really good to get back to Ebay.
Total Items in Store: 407
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $111 + $33 (free shipping)
Total Sales: $338
Highest Price Sold: $72 Pair of new shams – paid $45 1.5 years ago (RA item, I have dropped prices on solid color leftovers)
Average Price Sold: $38
Returns: 1 – but closed by me after 5 days when not returned.
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: About $10
Number of items listed this week: 27Got back to listing this week as contract day job is slow and it felt really good. I’m really in the mood to dig into the piles. I’ve been tweaking prices on my listings with the most watchers to see if I can generate sales. One sold right after but who knows.
Also went to a church book sale to buy used textbooks for my high schooler. Found a few kids’ book sets that should pay for his remaining books. I bought this Textbook best offer. This item has a catalog page, so I originally found a different seller with a higher price, but down below found this best offer, free shipping listing. As a seller, I don’t like this at all as I’ve said. Very often I’m not the lowest price but I’m doing promoted listings, using better keywords, or getting someone in through Pinterest. I don’t want Ebay showing them others’ better prices! I think we’ve got some annoying times ahead too while Ebay attempts to drape this over inappropriate categories and because their catalog is so incomplete.
Regarding long tail items, I am getting charged .25 a month for my basic store subscription overage items. I get some weird credit too on my bill that kind of offsets the overage, but it still makes me pause. I’m sure I am carrying some items that are not worth it, but it would make more sense to run auctions once we are past the slow summer season.
Happy Birthday Ryanne “) Glad you got away for a bit. Have a great week!
The University (about 25k students) organizes it each year with volunteers at an off campus site and then donates the profits to local charities very nearby. The students were being really wasteful, so prices are good because it’s just meant to keep things out of the landfill but they do have a small boutique area. I think they let the sorters pick it first probably, but there is enough quantity that there are always useful items left.
Free returns is making me nervous this week. I just put it on all first class items and a few higher end items. I got an email from a woman explaining that she is slim with a big rack and would the workout top I’m selling (free shipping & returns) be supportive enough? Another lady says vintage sheets might not fit her deep mattress so she’s making a best offer – but new in packing item requires return in package. I have a business mind for the big picture, but emotionally I don’t feel great about offering free returns.
I’m unhappy that Ebay has not offered a prominent toggle filter for FR like they did for guaranteed delivery. Sellers are really taking more of a risk offering FR, so should be rewarded. Arguably, for most buyers free returns is probably more important than guaranteed delivery. On the other hand, I do like the TRSP ribbon symbol and extra FR notation. I just don’t think it’s enough and who knows what kind of treatment you are getting under the algorithm? It doesn’t seem like all of their best practice stuff necessarily puts you on top.
Incidentally, I added a .75 handling fee with bulk editing to help cover returns but noted that it doesn’t work with free shipping items.
Steve, love the condition on that canister set! Watching your cute dog endings is interesting because it is so seasonal. Our weather is always the same here and it keeps me in touch a bit with what is going on elsewhere. Tfs your great sales.
I did some organizing, passed on a church sale so halo for me. My daughter is around more often and sometimes with her friends in the pool, plus I have multiple drop offs so it’s hard making money at my job and on Ebay. We sat and watched a movie together yesterday after work/camp for the first time in a long time. But, 5 times I squeezed in a few listings last week, so I was very happy with that. Having a chopped up schedule really, really goes against my grain, but going to try to keep pecking away at Ebay over the course of the week. Also, it’s been encouraging to see space open up and to need to consolidate. I’m making progress and have cut way, way back on shopping. Good luck to you!
