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@VT thinking positive thoughts for you. @Sharon great job getting your auction going. It might actually be good to get stale listings out of your Ebay store in the long run… Of course they want you to put new ones in all the time. @Liz hello!
On one of my Ebay podcasts they said Ebay acknowledged that has an annual problem because February has fewer days and there are more resets at once. The listing disappear but then it gets resolved in a day or two. However, I do think a few listings tend to drop off now and then.
So yesterday I moved out about 15-17 boxes of clothing, board games, books etc. Some of the clothing would have been worth money at pop ups or online but I hate selling clothing online and I don’t have room in my car for taking clothing also, plus everyone and their mother at pop ups sells clothing. So that felt really, really good to get out of the garage and house and off my plate.
Now I have a huge mess to tackle. Lots of art and frames that need to be cleaned, sorted, marked for projects. Unlisted inventory (maybe a good 8-10 boxes and bins) to be sorted and organized (sadly there is more unlisted that is already organized by type). I definitely did cut back on thrifting and I’m having a chat with myself about getting my business house in order and more profitable. I’m also more aware of frittering my time in general. Not really structured but steps in the right direction. There is a lot of value unlisted here – they are just piles, not picked over death piles. Logically, I would start with the largest and most valuable items, but somehow I just start grabbing things. I do have a loose goal of working in some textiles to make shipping a little more balanced each day.
Week of Feb 23 – Mar 1
Total Items in Store: 1222
Items Sold: 14Cost of Items Sold: $105
Gross Sales: $693 Net: $431
Highest Price Sold $64 (Portmeirion 4 bowl used set)Average price: $50
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $150 RA extra 50% off sale + $60 +/- thrfited + flea
Number of items listed this week: 21It felt slower than this, so it is nice to see the numbers. Some of these items had been listed quite a long time, so that’s interesting. I am making serious traction on my reorganization and donations of clothing items and household items to my daughter’s former choir program. Felt great to get that stuff out of the house. I did some listed inventory consolidation but there is more to do and I need to organize all of the unlisted and prep for the art sale happening in 10 days. In the meantime I also hope to list quite a bit. I do feel the sting of punishment when I am not listing regularly. We can use the money too since this spring break trip to Boston just sprung up. It’s nice it’s the off season so a little less expensive. Lots and lots to do before we go!
Last week I thrifted less and had a pretty nice little haul at the flea market. No big ticket items and the theme of the day seemed to be brass items – hardware. I also got a vintage crate that I will use for my pop up markets for $3.
At the flea this week not many one time dumpers to shop with. From the $1 guy I got a complete set of Ralph Lauren sheets for $4 and some clothing for my daughter. Also a new pair of smart wool socks in package and a couple of used pair in great shape.
ty! so excited for him. I’m not sure what he will do just yet but getting accepted there is a real shot in the arm. My husband and I are hoping he chooses to go.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/335658544439 Fisherman style is in for spring. I’m happy to see this sell, as it has been up for probably a year +. Good design. Paid $25 RA on clearance.
This was also up a long time and finally sold. Not my usual item. https://www.ebay.com/itm/235819197821 (Paid 3.99 at GW)
A few items I got an an estate sale sold super quickly, which is good because I paid more than I usually do. https://www.ebay.com/itm/335814426561 (paid $8) https://www.ebay.com/itm/335814420521 (paid $30)
So things are either selling super fast or have been listed a looong time. I guess maybe my recent sell similar did pay off a little more than I thought even though I didn’t get to make a lot of offers.
I listed 16 items on eBay and started turning on some more waiting drafts in Mercari. I’ve had a few sales on Mercari, which is nice. The fee changes they reversed have definitely helped. Also all the pictures and most of the data imported from eBay, so I’m able to do this on my phone while I’m just hanging around. Still not putting higher end items on that platform because of their customer service Cutbacks.
I can’t believe it’s almost March! I had some really nice time with friends over the weekend in our beautiful city. It was up to 70 degrees again with no wind. One of my younger friends turned 50. My daughter is also struggling a bit with growing pains and needing more of my time. I have no idea where the beginning of the year went. It’s an insomnia blur. I have to do my cost of goods for taxes very soon, which puts a stop to everything else for a couple days. Hoping to just do a bunch of organizing and some listing today. eBay as dead as a doornail for me this week.
@VT Good care is so important and having a family advocate. I hope things improve.
@VL I was not going to do live sales yet, but I got accepted to a bigger local sale that only runs quarterly and it should have a better mix of buyers both young and older. So I’m going ahead and doing it on March 15. I think I am pretty much just bringing the art this time and it’s only a 7 x 7 but I have a lot of organizing to do. Pretty exciting.
My son was just accepted to Tufts university for graduate school. 🎉 I think we are going to go to Boston around the weekend bridging their spring breaks. Better get to work!
Thanks for checking in everyone. I’ve met a lot of nice resellers and vendors locally but still working this business on the computer is so quiet.
Total Items in Store: 1224
Items Sold: 21
Gross Sales: $1,015 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $640 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $202
Highest Price Sold: $133 (New throw)
Average Price Sold: $48
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $50ish
Number of items listed this week: 16 + a few on MercariNice sales Sharon. I also really liked the items you posted on sale of the week.
It didn’t feel as good as it looks on Ebay. It’s complete crickets right now. I started a 10% sale but I don’t think that moves the needle for people. I’ve been a little uneven about listing every other day or so.
Have my first neutral and it’s just for color of the item. I asked the buyer to revise and asked Ebay to remove and they told me to suck it up. A little frustrating.
I signed up for a bigger live market only because I finally got into that one. It’s in March and I have a lot of organizing to do. I’m going to donate some clothing and other things to a charity garage sale.
Have a great week!
@Ryanne thanks! I’ve been so lazy about doing this with a credit card and looking into external shipping. My goal is to start selling some larger art work online so I need to step it up later if I get to those larger items. We could certainly use hotel points!
@Craig I just kind of eyeball the solds and # of items available to set my bottom offer and always use auto decline. In the online world, I don’t like to go back and forth either as a buyer or as a seller. Ebay is now telling the offering buyer what your bottom line is so I feel like it’s good to have that on. Generally it’s still only 15-20% off, 10% on new items I have to pay up for. Then I run sales at around 15-20% but will make deeper offers on old items if I get the chance. My only change has been pricing at 1 year terapeak market value on new listings (rather than the highest comps) and then offering deeper discounts. On my stale items though I haven’t gone back to reprice at current solds.
I promote everything right away at at least 2.5%. Depending on the actives and item desirability, I will go up to %5 if more competitive and then 9% if I think it is a potentially really long tail item, lesser known brand or clothing. I don’t adjust these % when I do sell similar.
I think my stuff in general is harder to price accurately and slower moving than your niche.
I do get to make more offers after sell similar but it was much less effective this time around than in November. So I’m wondering if I should time it again for an upswing season.
@Sharon, I’m totally down for the packing but I want to list larger art works on Etsy and I’m not sure I will get the cost right. Plus I may have some packed. It’s just so much easier with calculated.
Williams Sonoma is usually a solid pick up. I break up all of my china by item type so I don’t have to pack a big mixed lot.
@Craig you get used to it. I have a big roll of packing foam and use large bubble. Never need to double box. A lot of people avoid plates, which I think are super easy.@Ryanne are you saving any money with pirate ship on packages that aren’t bigger than 14” cube?
Probably no one here is interested, but Mercari is taking a turn for the better again. They have the Japanese CEO taken over the US operations now. I believe they are working on fraud issues. They have removed most of the fees from the buyer check out.
Over time I’ve been adding lower end items and very stale items from eBay. I have managed to sell a few and have watchers on some better brand items. I think I will keep rolling out the drafts that I had already imported. Just this week Mercari announced they will have discounted USPS ground advantage shipping, which is great because the preference before was for UPS. Allegedly the discount will be 40% off retail rates. I had already imported my ebay listings at one point to Mercari using their free tool.
I’m scavenging in my own garage lately mainly https://www.ebay.com/itm/335817474112
This is a hard to find piece to a popular vintage Italian pottery pattern I should have gotten listed long ago. Paid $10. Not really any solds, someone else is asking like close to $400 but I’m not seeing any serving pieces at that level. Just in case I priced it a little high but with a pretty low offer floor.
23 listings for me last week. I hope to maybe double that this week. @VL glad you enjoyed the show.
@Craig I noticed obvious trends in sales when I stopped listing for a few days and started again. Also clearly seeing a preference for newly listed items. I know some sellers either don’t promote or don’t make offers on new listings, but I’m going ahead with both due to my observations. I price competitively and do that. I really should go through my old listings and reprice things but when I get motivated I like to add fresh stock instead.
My sale of the week was a bundle of two kids Christmas items from Pottery Barn Kids and discontinued new salt and pepper cellars from Target RA to a fire victim.
