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Awesome. I wish my parents would have encouraged me to go to Europe when I was in college. My mother was an international TWA stewardess so I have no idea why they didn’t. I’ve never been and life (and $) really can get in the way after that. Good for you!
Lol. We definitely don’t own a horse! That and a boat are the worst investments. I’ll admit that we are decked in the local “uniform” Patagonia, all sourced at the thrift store ($20! like new jackets!) or on clearance online. I actually brag about my thrift store finds and my Ebay business. My mom friends are curious and a few of them go to rummage sales but none of them resell. We almost moved to Southern LA (Laguna Beach) before we bought our first house here. The fancy cars and spendy, competitive vibe turned us off. The town we live in is very, very highs and lows, everyone in our minority middle group is house poor. Overall, it’s uber casual and people don’t really buy into the attitude some mentioned above. Either they are too rich to care or they can’t afford to. So, it’s interesting.
I was remembering that you were passing on museums, etc. so maybe I didn’t remember that correctly. I really like to use Tripadvisor or Yelp to find inexpensive and good local food.
Total Items in Store: 423
Items Sold: 18
Cost of Items Sold: $104 + $31 free shipping (including one $12 whammy)
Total Sales: $375
Highest Price Sold: $48 New plate https://www.ebay.com/itm/232386798097
Average Price Sold: $21
Returns: 1 for $85 ouch (Buyer misread listing and mistakenly thought getting quantity)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Interesting topic. As far as relatives go, it’s good of you to try to help them learn to be more frugal. It’s best and most effective though to offer help when they are ready to hear it. As for us, I would say that we are not quite your version of frugal. We don’t drive new cars or eat out a lot. We are very heavy on retirement savings. But, we do spend a lot of money on the kids’ lessons and activities. As the kids grow during teen years they get more an more expensive. We also pay a sh*tton of taxes and housing related expenses. I’ve suspended buying inventory and all of my Ebay money will go to the quarterlies coming up, as we’ll lose $15k in SALT itemized deductions under the new tax law. We also typically splurge once a year on a vacation somewhere really nice. If we spend $ it’s on the kids enrichment or on experiences. Sometimes when you talk about traveling, I secretly wish you’d spend a little to see or do things while you were there. Memories are priceless.
Interesting week on Ebay. I’ve been sick all week, so just shipped and didn’t list. Watched more TV and movies than I have in a year – recommend 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO. I had very good results with the buyers with items in carts reductions. 5/7 items sold. mostly RA items. I tend to price on the high end, so I could afford to drop. I sold 9/22 of my .99 auctions. Two or three sold for .99, the rest pretty low dollar, but some over $10. Unfortunately, one managed to have free shipping. Friends, I swear to you that did check this before launching those auctions. Could have been my mistake or a sticky box. I think I did just recoop my purchase price on all items. But, it also generated activity. Over the course of the last year, I have gone away from list it and forget it and more toward anticipating holidays and keeping the store as active as possible with the time I have.
Ebay is trying to accomplish quite a bit in a short period of time, and they need to pay for it all. I find that seller profits are being chipped away little by little – the now puny shipping discount with Ebay labels, try free shipping, try free returns, reduced TRS plus fvf discount, higher fees. The onus is on us as sellers to make sure we are sourcing and listing items that still make sense having enough meat on the bone. 2X the money might no longer make sense for me unless very high dollar. $10 items probably don’t make sense. Not a great time to have a big pile backlog, but something to keep in mind going forward. I really appreciate the what solds people produce. Wish there were more good ones on Youtube. ThePaperCastle is active again, one of my favorites. Have a great week!
I got this yesterday, dropped the prices 5%, and sold 4 / 7 of the items today, 😀
I’ll let you know. They end Friday and so far I only have 4 with bids. But, I would have donated them anyway, so just trying to maybe get my $ back. Only one I bought on clearance inexpensively, the rest were thrifted at $1-3 bucks.
Total Items in Store: 428
Items Sold: 8
Cost of Items Sold: $48 + $18 free first class or PFR shipping
Total Sales: $394
Highest Price Sold: $105 Needlepoint kit to Park Avenue https://www.ebay.com/itm/232662692009
Average Price Sold: $49
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Shout out to the forum person who started the thread about marking down prices on watched items and also to BethGreen discussing auctions boosting sales (and possibly visibility) with activity. One day in a rather neglectful Ebay week, I chose some old items to do .99 cent auctions – just stuff I’m really tired to looking at or keep cropping up in my suggested changes page over and over. I’m over my basic store limit, so ready to cull some old stuff. I also dropped some prices on a handful of other items. I immediately saw some action, receiving a bid immediately, selling an item within minutes of reducing its price, and selling another older BIN item. It just reminded me that activity is apparently rewarded. So I’m running an experiment this week by reducing the price by 10% on my 15 most heavily watched items. My auctions will be ending and I’ll have a lousy ASP next week. So far, I have not received an email from Ebay asking me to drop the price of a particular item.
This week I sold another needlepoint kit for over $100 and an antique tile for $80. It occurred to me that these are the perfect items to sell on Ebay with the increased shipping rates and fees – small, lightweight, valuable – and ones that I could easily afford to offer free returns on but very rare so it is unlikely to come back. I wish all of my items were like that! Unfortunately, I’m working through the backlog and thinking really, really I should be evaluating what is worth listing since I have such limited time. There are a number of low dollar items in the backlog as well as heavy ones. I have them sorted by type (not by value) and so far I’ve just been listing what category I’m in the mood for. Have a great week!
Life stuff totally got in my way this week, all zeros for me.
Interesting, I only have .74% but over 6% in the clothes category. I haven’t sold much clothing in the past and this is one of the reasons. But I do have a box of my kids’ better brand clothes in the queue and was considering cleaning out my closet. Maybe I should get that stuff up before June.
Would love to find a Marushka. I’ve found Quimper pottery a handful of times since listening to the podcast.
Thanks for sharing Beth. I had an unusual break this morning at home and started 22 .99 cent auctions on stuff that’s been around over a year and a half that I am tired of looking at. Instead of donating it, I thought I would try to get some activity going. Immediately sold something once I got a bid on the first item. Being someone who has my foot on and off the gas with Ebay, I have noticed that activity definitely leads to short term sales. Thanks for reminding me. I’m certain you are a good picker as well. Congrats again.
Beth, can you generalize how you do your pricing compared to solds? Are you on the low end? Thanks and congrats on your success.
Enjoying the discussion and reflecting back to all the changes since I started on Ebay. The ease of listing these days I do enjoy and has improved. I just don’t have time for Etsy level presentation, networking, and longer listing time. I’m also pleased that they have stepped up advertising.
I think what bothers me about this seller update is that Ebay is finding a bunch of different ways to chip away at seller profit. A little bit here, a little bit there. Try promotions, try free shipping, try free returns, reduce the prices on these listings, reduced TRS discounts, etc. all with the implied threat of being pushed down in search. Then there is the steady march toward more and more expensive shipping cost. It makes me wonder if there are just certain things that won’t or don’t make sense to sell on Ebay, especially if you are not sourcing inexpensively in your area. I think purchases need to be thoughtful and one needs to keep an eye on the bottom line and fees graph, even if you are not a spreadsheet person.
Yep, T-Satt I think you are wise to evaluate on the buying end. Unfortunately I have some death piles going here so will use this experience to evaluate what I will most want to be buying, shipping and selling. There is so much stuff out there, so from now on increasing shipping costs will be an even bigger part of the equation, along with projected profit.
Sharing a video from The Thrifting Board FB group of Griff and Brian discussing the new free return TSR+ requirement. International not required, even GSP. Free returns with TRS seal and 10% FVF discount applies on item by item basis. If you have TRS I believe you get all of the other goodies even if you opt some items out of free returns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRWNpEGWwt0
I’ve only ever had three returns (I sell very little clothing or very large items), but I’m moving away from retail arbitrage so more issues might crop up. I will probably try it if they actually go through with this TRS demand and then look at the numbers. I think they will get a lot of push back on this item and hopefully they will just drop it. I certainly hope they are only requiring free domestic returns. I don’t see that it says that, only that you can have a separate policy for international. I’ll continue to carefully evaluate my new purchases for flat rate sizing and estimated shipping costs.
I’m going to be a bit disappointed if I’m not included in the March 1 group for guaranteed delivery. I joined the waiting list right away and have a great record. As a buyer, I’m not filtering with that currently. Most of my Ebay purchases are not time sensitive.
Since the overage on my store subscription is going up five cents per listing, I might be needing to upgrade as the break even will change for premium. If anyone recalculates b e, please share. I wonder though if they will create even more levels later.
Finally, I hope they have really, really worked on their product catalog. I was unable to successfully enter a sku on anything except Legos and dvds in the past. If you do, then they really hound you to change the price and do free shipping. I’m guessing they will drop this requirement once again or put it off.
