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Good day Mike. I’ll be behind you and would love to hear how it goes and whether you find a third party service to assist effectively. I haven’t heard anyone mention one before for importing to Etsy. Margaret at Texas Gal Treasures on Youtube did a video I believe discussing cross posting plus a how to Esty video involving both. If I remember correctly she posts first in Etsy and then in Ebay.
I just don’t have time to stay on top of it and I also sell newer items on Ebay. Things like vintage wrapping paper (just as one example) are not getting many views on Ebay, but allegedly sell quite well on Etsy for more than my current Ebay prices. I think more of my vintage listed items that have been sitting on Ebay would go on Etsy. So, I see them as two different markets with some more collectible crossover items that would appeal to both consumers. Since I’m so part-time, two separate inventories make sense for me. I’d love to hear about how sales go once you get things on both platforms concurrently. Perhaps you’ll see some patterns in the types of items you can share with us. Good luck!
You both have great taste and tfs. I’m trying to get a feel for what does better on Etsy vs. Ebay because I don’t want to cross post. There are only a few Youtubers I know of who compare but I don’t do clothes, eyeglasses, and jewelry (yet), which are some of their recommended Etsy items. I think a lot of my vintage backlog would do better on Etsy. I just wish there were more shoppers on there. Apparently they are spending quite a bit on advertising, so we’ll see. “) Anyway, hang in there and try pinning if you are not already.
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2017/3/1488599144.html
Article regarding the push back on the fee increase and EBay’s rewording of the reasoning. Also, some information not mentioned in the podcast, like this:
“Promoted Listings from eBay sellers will replace the PLA ads, and eBay threw Top Rated Sellers a bone, promising what amounts to a $10/month credit if they choose to advertise on its site. (Only Store subscribers and Top Rated Sellers will be able to buy Promoted Listing ads.)”
Maybe they will slow down on the fee increases in the Fall and Spring.
Thank you R&J for 300 episodes. It’s truly amazing that you have been so consistent. I appreciate your frank and analytical approach. I can really identify with wanting quality for cheap and I’m pleased to see your hard work continue to pay off.
It was a pretty poor week for me on Ebay with two sales for about $100. No listing this week because we made our annual winter trip to Disneyland, my son’s getting braces, high school admissions meetings, teacher conference, even more medical appointments, yada yada yada. We are done traveling though and I expect to squeeze in some Ebay time this week.
I’m continuing my no scavenge challenge. At first I really missed my quick stops at the thrifts, but I’m pretty used to going without now. It was while I was driving to work and afternoons mostly so it doesn’t really add up to time I can use to list unfortunately. At Disneyland I told my husband my reseller senses were tingling in Tomorrowland at the Shag Star Wars Cantina print and souvenirs display. I settled on only two oversized postcards for ten bucks which would be great framed by a bar. Checked at home and that stuff is selling strong on Ebay. My dad came and added to my piles, including some antique German dolls of my great grandmothers – totally not in my wheelhouse. D’oh! Will I ever dig out???
Have a great week. Nice bathroom up there – marble up the walls is very luxurious. We did our bathrooms but have the kitchen left. I can’t bear to tackle it even though we have a reliable contractor.
Finally, thanks to those who answered my questions in the Etsy forum page. I think a lot of my (especially lower dollar) backlog is suitable for Etsy and my Ebay store is a hybrid with new items already so I’m going to try to get in there by summer, which is slower at my office job.
That’s a great tip. Thanks! I’ll have to browse the staging on there.
Yes, I tried making a few and then pinning the collection to Pinterest. Waste of time. No followers and inside pinterest only the cover page of the collection carried over, not pins for all of the individual items. All of the featured collections seem to be very slick by the people who work for Ebay.
I think I’d rather they keep the external ads – I always ignore those as a shopper – and not show my potential buyers other seller’s listings of the same or similar items for less money or with free shipping. Just sayin’.
Total Items in Store: 317
Items Sold: 7
Cost of Items Sold: $95
Total Sales: $285
Highest Price Sold: $85 (New Anthropologie lamp base – paid $28 Spring clearance)
Average Price Sold: $40
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0 – Week 10 (I think) of no scavenge challenge
Number of items listed this week: 10Enjoyed the Podcast. Price is key and I tend to go high but now I’m looking to move things out a bit faster if I ever want to shop again. I think another bit of control is not relying on EBay’s internal search limitations (whatever those may be) and putting your item out there on social media for the Google searchers. Ebay has admitted in writing that they manipulate best search results and my suspicion is that are things they are not sharing with sellers – sorry, I know I know!. When Amazon has physical storage capacity issues, everyone necessarily finds out. If Ebay has capacity issues (I’m not a techie) they probably aren’t going to announce that. I’m pretty happy with Ebay though at least on the RA front but I can only share my own experience that I always shake loose a couple of sales after a listing day and after the successful completion of an auction. I’ve been listing long enough and inconsistently enough to notice these patterns in my small store. I’m hoping Etsy continues to grow and that I have time to tackle learning that platform as a compliment to Ebay for my vintage finds.
Local Facebook groups have been mostly disappointing to me so far on the selling front. The groups have become large and users I suspect browse and overlook the search function. One local group was pretty high end, but then as it grew it became muddied up with lower quality stuff. Also people (like me) are generally hunting for great deals, like on Craigslist. However, I have some common Pyrex sets and art I might try there this Spring so I don’t have to ship them. Sometimes I have an item that gets likes and comments early on so it stays toward the top and has a better chance of selling. I don’t belong to any national collectors FB groups yet but it will be interesting if others comment on that going forward.
Slow progress on the backlog, but I listed some Easter stuff on Saturday. Have a great week!
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/343399540323116584/
I can’t decide if this 1963 painting is awful or awesome. I guess my husband feels the same because he didn’t comment on it going up in the guest room. I couldn’t find the artist online.
Hey congrats to those of you finishing up already or making headway! I’ll be here for a good long stretch. Glad it’s not just me and my piles. Honestly, not a huge dent yet but I have sold off a couple of bins and I’m going to keep on truckin’ despite the multitude of demands on my time.
Total Items in Store: 318
Items Sold: 6
Cost of Items Sold: $42
Total Sales: $123
Highest Price Sold: $38 (New shower curtain)
Average Price Sold: $20
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0 Week 8 of the no scavenge challenge
Number of items listed this week: 2Very slow week for me with low average price but not much listing as life is getting in the way. Spent last weekend at my dad’s and looked at old slides. Lots from my mom’s days in the 1960s as a TWA stewardess and fun 1960s and 1970s Disneyland slides. It was cool to see the original (or at least earlier) paint on the Storybook Land whale, for example – more fierce than today’s version. Of course I can’t help but think we might sell them someday… Hard to turn off the picker brain.
I can’t stand clutter in my living space so I’m not really a collector. I’ve been building inventory and paying for practical (kid) stuff with my Ebay profits but also I occasionally use it to pick up items from other Ebay or Etsy sellers that I don’t find – like my set of Siestaware tiki tapa walnut wrap glasses for example. Once in a while I use it to splurge on something for my house from Anthropologie (on clearance, of course!). I am attracted to certain tiki / atomic era decor, tableware, and art, but I actually don’t manage to find much I feel compelled to hold on to. I’ve heard from a couple of fellow pickers that there are others who are hunting hard for that stuff where I live. When I get finally manage to dig out from under my backlog, I hope to skunk them at some estate sales. Part of the enjoyment is getting grateful feedback from happy collector buyers. The vintage linen collectors I find to be particularly pleasant and helpful.
Lots going on here outside of my ebay life that I don’t blog about, but making some progress. In January I purged and organized our own stuff inside the house and listed some of it on Craigslist. I sold enough items on Ebay to need to consolidate a few boxes and I revamped my shipping supplies. Husband does not enjoy the shipping supplies in the garage but I only buy bubble wrap new. I’m also doing some maintenance on my old listings and reducing some prices.
Made it about six weeks and then had a couple of short rummage indulgences, but I’m totally still in. It’s been fun to pull out some cool items from the garage to list. I’m focusing on bulkier items and higher dollar items in this phase. I’ve also listed some bigger items on Facebook but the groups have gotten larger and so my listings seem to get buried there. Later on I will be getting a lot of matching bins from my in-laws home so my stored items should look more presentable and uniform.
I just saw this Sunday for the first time in the antique pottery category only – it said new and no condition menu. I also had the gallery photo box issue too – once I unchecked I listed, but need to see if they charged me. When I first started ebay a couple of years ago, it seemed super glitchy and annoying. I’m now very happy with the upgrades they have made since then (especially the photo loading) but it seems like they have a lot of issues when rolling out improvements.
Total Items in Store: 319
Items Sold: 6
Cost of Items Sold: $3 (used) + $53 (new RA)
Total Sales: $187
Highest Price Sold: $48 (Anthropologie pajama pants)
Average Price Sold: $31
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20 week 7 of the no scavenge challenge – oops.
Number of items listed this week: +/-15An ok week of sales for February. I spent some time doing sell similar on some high view listings and other maintenance. Suzanne A. Wells came out with a video on Youtube reminding us all that we are not allowed to use stock photos without permission. She used – of course – Anthropologie as an example. Between her calling attention to this and noticing that Anthro has recently made it harder to locate photos of discontinued items, I decided to modify some recent listings since I had relaxed this. I also got in a good listing day (for me) Sunday and started listing some cool old stuff from the piles – Quimper, Georges Briard.
Feeling a wee bit guilty because I’ve stayed out of the thrift stores but did hit a church sale on Saturday. I was very selective and out of there in 20 minutes. I saw people in line to pay before I checked out and though to myself “those are probably the best pickers in here.” Also, I passed on items I knew I could make money on – like a big box of Teddy Ruxpin stuff – because I know I can’t process everything and want to limit new acquisitions to what I am personally excited about. I feel like I have graduated to the next level of picking and Ebay selling.
Regarding the topic at hand, we don’t fit any of those categories exactly. Mainly having kids, living in a very, very expensive city in a high tax state, and going big on retirement eliminates the need to ponder how to invest our extra cash. 🙂 However, we have worked the housing market and moved up a couple times. We are more frugal than our peers when it comes to cars, wine, meals, etc. but we do spend on good reno and semi-annual vacations. Our furniture is high end used. I used to use paper coupon too before Ebay, but there is a trade off between time vs. savings.
It was fun to hear about your scavenging weekend since I’ve been (mostly) good. I think location is your sourcing challenge and it makes sense to housesit, exchange airbnbs, or even rent on a Friday night. I’m pleased you were able to get away and do that already with all that’s going on. Quick thank you to Brian @ Grandma’s Treasures, Eve, Beth, Steve and everyone else who shares interesting retro sales. I miss Sheldon. Have a great week everyone.
Total Items in Store: 330
Items Sold: 12
Cost of Items Sold: $112 (RA clearance) + 12 (used) + 0 (my kids’ spongebob dvds)
Total Sales: $363
Highest Price Sold: $56 Peet’s coffee mug
Average Price Sold: $30
Returns & Int’l Sales: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $40 Rummage sale – a brief reprieve from the 6 week no scavenge challenge.
Number of items listed this week: 2Grateful for the sales since the work week after vacation was busy and then we hosted a Superbowl party yesterday. Also cheated and went to a rummage sale early Sat. am. I’m looking forward to reworking how I do things and getting my old purchases out. I posted some vintage items on the forums that I’ve sold and realized how dated some of my listings are – some even recited incorrectly that I don’t do international shipping (from my newbie days when I was using someone else’s copy and afraid to do GSP.) Then I ended some Christmas Papyrus wrap listings because they went into the attic and realized I didn’t have Christmas in the title! I also have tax prep work to do. BUT hanging in there with this. I really, really enjoy selling on Ebay and participating here and I have the hunger *favorite episode*. Going to keep doing my best to squeeze it into my life.
