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Total items in store: 325
Items sold: 6
Cost of items sold: $18 used + $175 RA
Total sales: $416
Highest price sold: $240 (New bedding bought in spring for $140)
Average price sold: $59
Money spent on new inventory this week: $0This week again not Ebay friendly with graduation, kids getting out of school early, company, and very busy contract work as we prepare for summer vacations and people being out of the office. Nothing listed and mostly small, non-vintage sales, so it’s nice when I sell a bedding set to boost a week like this.
It’s time to do a little reorganizing as I get more seasonal about my approach with things. My goal is to get a bunch of Christmas stuff up by Fall this year. My contract work is fine and fruitful, but I long for a couple of just uninterrupted listing days. It really goes against my grain to list a few items here and there, plus and there are always chores or something else to do with a short window of time. The plague of the part-time mom seller.
A teeny rant here. I’ve mentioned before I get annoyed with Ebay picking randomly on a few of my new item listings in the growth tab. They show my all of my own sales next to the item as comparison and the remaining item is actually priced less, and then say it has a 100% chance of not selling. What? I’d blow it off except I don’t want to draw attention as a stale item seller and get things removed, so I tinker with it. Anything with a ribbon or suggestion, I go in and tinker with or remove. I’m also putting “does not apply” in the upc on new items, because I don’t want Ebay to make it easier for buyers to comparison shop or click away, and I want Ebay to stop sending me listing recommendations to ship everything for free. I don’t see much upside to putting it in since I’m often not the lowest price and I draw in shoppers from Pinterest.
Total Items in Store: 328
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $24 thrifted + $87 new RA
Total Sales: $295
Highest Price Sold: $56 (Catherineholm pan – paid $15 last month)
Average Price Sold: $33
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $30 (Three vintage LLB plaid wool bedspreads)
Number of items listed this week: 4I’m surprised at the numbers because it felt even slower. Very busy at my other job and with end of the school year stuff. Enjoyed the podcast, as always. I hope to continue with Ebay into retirement or earlier parent care phase when I can give it more time. I’m planning to do a bit more gardening in my listings and list things seasonally. I pulled all of the Easter stuff that didn’t sell. I’m also thinking the cons outweigh the pros for putting in the upc, so I’m going to pick does not apply and put the number in the item description in case they start enforcing that.
Ebay sent an offer to upgrade my store to premium, but I’m going to go for a balanced approach of list it and leave it vs. keeping it fresh. I’m not ready to upgrade the store just yet for $30 more a month, and hope they come up with a level soon between 250 and 1000. Have a great week.
Love that they are spotlighting the shopping cart feature! All the time people buy multiple items separately even though it says in my very brief description to get combined shipping with the shopping cart.
I made a book order from Amazon after cancelling prime in January. The shipping was unbelievably slow and I didn’t look at the estimate since it wasn’t a third party seller. Maybe if that is common, it has something to do with the upcoming shipping policy changes at Ebay.
I think Ebay and Etsy both have good opportunities right now. It will be interesting to see what happens as Walmart continues to ramp up. I’m a big Target fan, so I’m rooting for them. Fun to watch it all unfold.
I know! $83.64 shipping. Funny, I had this item priced higher and then thought to myself, “it’s just a tablecloth!” Maybe could have gotten more for it? Pricing is such a challenge sometimes.
I had my first known prop sale for a movie set in the 1960s called “Summertime” being filmed in NYC. Paid $4 at indy thrift. My daughter is a performer type, so she had to touch the item “someone famous” would touch. Fun. http://www.ebay.com/itm/332176984258
Sold this awesome mid-century kitchenware. Paid up a bit at $15 and the black handles were whitened from the dishwasher. I used fine steel wool and olive oil to refresh. http://www.ebay.com/itm/232311694107
Out of my comfort zone but thought I would try. Sold very quickly! Paid $2 at the weird storage clean out thrift store. Have another with LA Guns and some 80s metal decals to list. Maybe I’ll go back for more and try to cut a deal. http://www.ebay.com/itm/332234870686
Good point Mike. I hardly ever have anything long like that, so I just use 12-14″ as my wake up call to start paying attention to the issue.
Total Items in Store: 380
Items Sold: 6
Cost of Items Sold: $152 new + 12 used
Total Sales: $354
Highest Price Sold: $240 (Bedding I purchased online last month for about $140)
Average Price Sold: $59
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 13Thankfully one good sale to save the week and it was a Facebook Pinterest party item sold the same day, so that’s awesome. I’m trying out a few promoted listings and had one sale in a couple of weeks. I’m going slightly over the 5% mark for most items. I pulled an action I was running for a sealed Lego set starting at .99 since there were practically no views after 6 days (seems odd). Very busy with family life and the latter part of week was definitely not Ebay friendly. No shopping this week, so back on the wagon.
For the caller in Santa Barbara, I recommend also trying the Facebook Group Santa Barbara Home Décor Swap. It’s smaller and still a bit more upscale than the other local swap sites, but things do get buried fairly quickly.
Re the removed listings issue, just reporting that an unlucky few reported sell similar items were also pulled, even some that had been tweaked a bit. Those seemed unhappy with paying a bunch of listing fees but were glad they hadn’t lost all of the text and photos.
Have a great week.
I too was intimidated by shipping at first but you will get the hang of it. I looked on YouTube at Danna Crawford’s old shipping show videos. You kind of see someone doing the process comfortably, and see how big a box something ends up going on one it is bubbled and packed well and what type of shipping method was used and why. I also began by listing similarly sized, weighted smaller items to get the hang of it for a bit. One of my early mistakes was not using the usps flat rate bubble mailer and flat rate medium box enough. Good luck. Come back and visit this page after you ship a few items. There is good advice here. If something needs a box that is over 12″ inches on one side, watch out for the dim weight warning up above and maybe seriously test pack it. Dim weight dings can add $35-40 and either keep your item from selling or burn you if your listing package demensions were understated.
Wow. Thanks for posting. I just saw a video on YouTube indicating that the number of listings in certain categories (i.e. clothing) has really taken off in the past year, without a corresponding growth in sales. I also have always wondered if they have the server capacity to show all of the listings at once? I know, I know – it’s conspiracy territory.
I just checked my facebook groups and there are others reporting this. Interestingly, the categories seem to be collectable, used items, so people are speculating that it is part of EBay’s strategy to keep moving toward more new goods. Categories mentioned there were stamps, postcards, vintage jewelry, dolls and housewares.
My used items sales are not too exciting, but will share a few bread and butter.
I love these ’70s canisters. The lids are interchangeable. Paid 2 or 3$. http://www.ebay.com/itm/332089593293
This I got for $5 at a garage sale. But got dinged mysteriously on free shipping glitch to Hawaii. Company store is a nice quality brand. http://www.ebay.com/itm/232307090675
I went a little higher than the solds on these and was tempted to keep for my kids. Sorry kids. Paid $4 at downtown goodwill. http://www.ebay.com/itm/232317741711
Clothes. Meh. I just can’t get into it. I hope these don’t come back. From the indy thrift $5 sales rack. Too short for me. http://www.ebay.com/itm/331919644426
I started out for a few months being really good, then I nibbled a bit. I have definitely turned my buy-list ratio around except for like two weeks of binging. It is very hard to go totally cold turkey for long! I’ve also made my listing language very short so I am listing faster. Getting to it is a challenge and it will take a good while for me to get out from under. But, one advantage I find of having piles is that it’s really nice to have the like items grouped and be able to switch over to another type of item the next day. When I am feeling really motivated, I tackle some larger and more unique items. Keep the faith my challenge elves. It really is so much like dieting, which I am loosely doing for the first time in my 48 years. Buying = Carbs.
Hi Sonia, I think we have some similarities in our limitations and approach to Ebay if I recall correctly. My biggest limitation is listing time. Plus my wired preference for a chunk of it, rather than dribbling in listings, which I have learned is preferred by Cassini. I’m 2 years in, and I’m really trying to focus on used items selling for over $20-25. This is mainly because I don’t have time to process it all and there is an abundance available. That being said, I’m really attracted to Etsy style handmade quilts, afghans, some vintage paper items, etc. and it’s hard to pass that up. Also, I find that if an item costs more than $15-20 I really hesitate to pull the trigger on buying it. Also of importance is that Ebay has been comping all of the insertion fees on my items over 250 even though I only have a basic store, so there is really no down side to going over 250 currently without upgrading. Make sure you check and see if that is true for you too.
Thank you Mickdog! One other came up as free shipping without the box checked. I did have local pick up on for that so I removed it. Not sure what happened with this item I just sold, but I’m pretty confident I didn’t click that box. Oh well.
Ecom, I don’t use business policies because it was a pain when I went on vacation and I had a hard time trying to get used to it, so I haphazardly created too many policies.
Total Items in Store: 366
Items Sold: 14
Cost of Items Sold: $16 used + 125 RA new
Total Sales: $430
Highest Price Sold: $52 (Two coffee mugs)
Average Price Sold: $31
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: About $80
Number of items listed this week: 8Grateful for the week of sales. I fell hard off the wagon since a realtor held a neighborhood garage sale in my neck of the woods – SO Fun! Almost all of the items I bought from one lady who was downsizing. She knew her stuff but had trouble counting the total. I felt like staying and helping her run the rest of the sale. I think she wanted to adopt me. She had vintage le creuset, dansk, pyrex, etc. I also bought a pretty warn out rug for $10 channeling Ryanne. Have no idea what it is made of or how to clean it, but it spoke to me and it’s easy to fold and ship. Now I have new piles in my workspace again from the haul. Hoping to get back to listing and need to lay off again on the shopping. Have a great week.
