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All is well here. We are about 1.5 hours North of the big fire and have no smoke or ash. It’s so sad what’s going on. I’m familiar with the some of the fire areas and they are beautiful neighborhoods. VT I hope you have a great trip. The weather here is beautiful – in the high 60s to low 70s but chilly for us at night. If you want any recommendations, feel free to lmk.
I’ve been having a lot of family time. After next week the college kids will be away and I have some things I want to improve on with the business and routine. Also lots more inventory management to do. It feels so good to do that.
I listed 20 items last week. Hoping for more listing and more organizing this week.
That’s a good week for this time in January.
I sold a decent amout of Christmas this week, which I was thrilled about. All items were pretty much bread and buttery. I did sell a very high quality piece of fabric https://www.ebay.com/itm/335658551237 for $120. Paid $5 or $8 I think. I look for the ends of these upholstery fabrics on the big cardboard tubes – thrift stores usually price them to move.
@Craig Maybe just a slow time of year for listings?
I went to the bins with my daughter. It was fairly crowded. Our bins get pretty well picked over, which is reassuring because only broken and heavy items end up wasted as far as hard goods go at least. When I went to the bins in other cities, there was a lot of excess and people were cherry picking. I know some of these sellers take their items to the flea markets. Like Jay used to say, it’s its own micro economy.
I did manage to get two framed needlework and cross stitch pieces, a nice J Crew leather handbag, a full open box of magic erasers!, and a couple of other items. You have to go elbow to elbow with people for the new ones or pretty much there is nothing left. It’s like a bunch of ants on a carcas. There is a pretty good etiquette at mine about not going through other people’s carts around the outside, some of which have family or friends standing guard.
I also went to the flea market but was very selective. I got a really nice, clean Pottery Barn comforter for $1, which the other women proceed to try to steal out of my bag multiple times. LOL. Just a piece of Swedish glass and a small painting otherwise.
I had sort of a similar issue this week with a buyer I think buying my new in very safely packaged item to replace a chipped one she already had.
“the cup is chipped at the bottom. I dont keep damaged dishes in my house. need to return thx”
I used a stock photo and it’s worth it to me to continue to use them on my new items due to the time savings. So, I was pretty torn. I normally just refund and chalk it up to doing business but didn’t like her message. Ended up asking for photos of the packaging inside and out and the chipped portion. She only sent a photo of the chip. I also did immediately send her a label for the return. She hasn’t sent the photos and wanted a replacement so I took the item down and again requested the photos and told her I’d return her money when I get the item back. I told my husband no way am I sending another one. I will block her after she (maybe) provides the packaging photos. It does feel like people are just losing their morals sometimes…
Tracking my habits every day has helped keep me a lot more accountable. I don’t like when I look at my daily listing log and see zero items, so I’ve started creating a little backlog of photographed items for those days when I’m completely unmotivated or super busy.
Super great advice. I plan to do this, but it doesn’t really make sense until after the kids go back to college. I’m helping my son with grad school apps. Before they go I’m also working on organizing inventory and selling off some larger items on Facebook. I still need to finish the atomic habits book as well. I really liked the way it is written.
I group my items by size and type so I will use the one SKU. It will save me a lot of time each year at tax time if I do it consistently.
I decided to pass on getting Flipwise this year and just focus on the outflow vs inflow ratio. I really need to get into the habit of putting my COGS in the custom sku. I learned that I could save a lot of time in January going through my COGS notebooks that way. I don’t really want to do the extra data entry along the way that flipwise requires.
I was instead going to try maybe List Perfectly due to their photo to draft listing function, but the price went up to $99 a month. Also I’d need to load up my old listings I think somehow. So also putting that on hold. I did find out their is a cheaper app for just the photo-to-listing but the reviews are mixed. I’ll keep an eye on that.
Just went to find the app name and found this https://www.retaildive.com/news/ebay-ai-magical-listing-product-descriptions-listings/693185/ Ebay is supposedly going to release this but I’m not sure if it will do item specifics, which is what I would most want completed from the photo. I like doing the titles. If I could list faster, that would really help my business.
@Craig great post.
End and sell similar, reprice, accept lower offers than normal, send out more aggressive offers, run a real sale…I feel like I really learned this year that interested buyers will just tune out my offers unless they’re 20% or more.
100% agree. People just love a sale right now plus I think Ebay will be more likely to show your listings in search if on sale. Generally I have room for a discount of at least 20% and want to move more of my items. I started doing this 4th quarter and will continue. I used to start with the highest price but now I’m pricing a little closer to the average and running a sale. I’m seeing more people offering free shipping in the home decor comps but I’m not willing to go there even now when I have a pretty good feel for costs on lower items. It would be helpful to know how most buyers are filtering.
For me, my problem is really just needing a higher differential between outflow and inflow. I can do this with sales, pricing and offers but also just sourcing a bit less. I’m getting older and like my naps. If I go sourcing too many days a week somehow the hours of the day just pass and often I’m not really in the mood to list at night. We are cancelling our direct tv. Also walking taking the dog in the morning so I hope to get into a good rhythm in the mornings after the kids go back to college later this month.
@Sharon great soap sale. Gotta love that overlooked item. Those folding sewing kits are hot.
@Craig congrats. We are all working on improving our business but you really seem to have it down to a science. Did you check out commons.net Reseller to reseller bulk sales. Could be good sellers dumping their junk or maybe you will find card sellers who just don’t want to do individually list?The celebrating this week for me was selling multiple items to a couple of buyers. Old listings too. Very excited to sell 4 starbucks cups to a buyer on Mercari. Also sold 4 tiles to a lady on Ebay. Even sold some unrelated items to a person on Ebay. Much of that I would not buy now so a double win. Very lower dollar bread and butter week. Also happy to see more Christmas trickling out last week.
Not much scavenging for me this week. Planning to go to the bins (35 min away) with my daughter today for some fun. I started working on consolidating and organizing my inventory yesterday. It was very cathartic. Found a small handful of new items not listed (for various reasons I put off listing or misplaced) and posted those yesterday. Lots more work to do on inventory management but some fun today. I passed on an estate sale and the reopening of one of my favorite thrifts. Lots of stuff here.
I’ve been looking for a good 2025 goals podcast for resellers. Many are just going over their numbers from last year mainly. I did like this podcast this morning. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-year-new-you-lets-take-actionable-steps-to-grow/id1651293159?i=1000682611129 I don’t really worry about competition but there are conflicting predictions coming out about whether or not sellers will drop reselling because of the new tax reporting threshold. These guys are predicting more higher quality part-time resellers. At least from what I am seeing at the thrift stores, there are more people shopping there for sure. I feel like the prices are a bit higher and the stores are still emptier.
Yes I can too walk with nothing. In the early days I spent way to long lingering and always buying something. I have to admit I’m still not looking up sell through rate, but I do educate myself through Youtube and have more experience. I also try to reflect on what’s doing best that I have already listed. So, generally I’m not picking up cute but unbranded items – it’s hard enough to get buyers to find your listings with a name brand! I’m picking up more of the names that sell well for me. I’m trying to learn what does well in the vintage home decor market and see what younger Youtubers are into. Definitely using Google Lens or Ebay research and putting things back. I just prepared listings for everything I bought last week (a small pile). With one exception they are looking like a pretty good ASP.
PS. Mercari is very very slow. Had hardly any sales during the season on there and my stuff is cheap. VAMP/Niknax on District was painfully slow. It seems largely like those are live selling platforms and the BINs are not moving much overall. VAMP is whittling down its sellers even more. Both say they are going to try some things to improve BIN…
