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10/22/2018 at 9:38 am in reply to: Trash Elf Twins Challenge 2018 Thread #3 From Week 31 August #50509
Congrats Amatino on the win with 51 listings! I didn’t have a prayer this week. LOL
10/22/2018 at 9:35 am in reply to: Trash Elf Twins Challenge 2018 Thread #3 From Week 31 August #50508Ugh. My work schedule has changed and life is pretty hectic this Fall. I really haven’t had much time at all for Ebay unfortunately. I guess the good news is watching old items sell off and space clear out. Haven’t had time for sourcing either. I listed two of our costumes on Mercari this week.
My office moved and we remodeled, so I have acquired quite a bit of odd shaped boxes and bubble wrap. My husband finally complained about it and the stock in the garage because he loathes getting up into the attic to get the holiday stuff. So, there’s some extra incentive to not shop. Ironically there is actually 30% less inventory on hand but I do need to consolidate some boxes. I probably can give away some of this packing material. Too bad no elves are close.
I also missed an awesome Halloween / Fall special sale at my favorite indy thrift because I had to take my reluctant (major understatement) daughter to get a flu shot instead. Have a great week ladies.
I would create one variation listing and offer to bundle shipping within reason if flat rate shipping is not better. I use foam between plates, wrap with plastic shipping wrap on a roll to make a chunk before bubble wrapping. Then protect the chunks from each other. Cups and odd shaped serving pieces are harder to ship together though.
@pythonesk Yes, I have created some boards either by item type, brand, or general category. I also participate in Facebook sharing groups when I have time and when I need to share others’ listings, I use one board to park all of those.
You’re welcome! I have these really cool ones in my piles to list. Also like pick up nautical stuff.
@Sigilini Not all of them have sold super high, but they usually sell within a few months. Most of them are brass or pot metal / cast iron look. I’ve sold these Indian Chief for $125; something like these brass tennis ones for less. I usually put Man Cave in the title (if appropriate) and pin them on Pinterest.
I do pretty well with bookends. A coworker brought me a Princess Diana collector’s plate and some English wall plates (chipped) from his mom’s house today. After looking them up we had a laugh and he said “I guess my mom wasn’t a good collector.” I told him he probably threw out the good stuff. Actually, his realtor in So Cal “generously” offered to clean out the house. :/
Total Items in Store: 359 Ebay, 56 Mercari
Items Sold: 2 Ebay, 2 Mercari
Gross Sales: $50 Ebay, $21 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $3 (most items ours)
Highest Price Sold: $30 best offer, Our PBK party games
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Crappy week on Ebay even though I didn’t turn my store off during vacation. I enjoyed the Podcast, especially the analysis of live and online auctions. The scavenging is not at all the problem for me in this location, but still interesting. Hope to list away on the piles soon. It is super crazy outside Ebay these days so that’s hard during 4th quarter. Have a great trip to SF. Hope you have an extra day or two up there to enjoy the City.
10/15/2018 at 5:06 pm in reply to: Trash Elf Twins Challenge 2018 Thread #3 From Week 31 August #50204Thank you ladies for the birthday wishes. The long weekend in Scottsdale was great, except for my Ebay business and it was splurgy as we were traveling with spendier friends. No listing, no purchases. Life is so very busy. It’s kind of tough because I know I have holiday stuff in the attic that should get listed and there is a rummage sale at the end of the month. I really hope to get back to listing soon.
Amatino, we may be mainly twins but I’m not a belly dancer. 🙂 What a fun hobby. My mom totally did that in the ’70s.
I have bought and sold about 20 items on Mercari at this point. I have mainly sold better brand clothing and pop culture items but I plan to cross-post some vintage soon. I see Mercari having an advantage because it’s very Google friendly with its hashtags (optional) and short titles.
It’s super efficient and simple. Once you start using it, you can see how clunky Ebay is. Ebay wants to add a lot of new users, but there is a bigger learning curve then these clean apps and the fees are higher on Ebay. Mercari right now is a straight 10% off the top, transfers balance to your bank account free without going through Paypal. Mercari can’t collect sales tax yet or give you combined sales summaries. For items over a pound, Mercari passes on good shipping discounts vs Ebay.
I really love it because it’s uber fast to list and time is my major challenge. No need to type and finish on the desktop like Ebay. Only a couple of item specifics you finger tap with super simple categories and shipping. I think you get +/- 30% lower prices than Poshmark or Ebay at this time and buyers are encouraged to make offers. Mercari has a daily 10 item max promote feature I use to drop prices once I have likes (watchers).
I had an issue as a buyer with a brand misrepresented, and Mercari asked for a bunch of photos, took a few days to review but it was all done by messaging, so no annoying long waits or calls with a clueless foreign rep. I have read, however, that Mercari can be kind of harsh vs. Ebay, have closed accounts with balances, etc. I wouldn’t list expensive items (over $75) and I transfer out my balance regularly. None of my buyers have refused to approve merchandise yet or failed to rate me within 3 days. Returns are essentially discouraged. It’s my understanding that the buyer has to demonstrate that the item is not as described, so I suspect the return rate is much lower than Ebay and that is nice for clothing.
If anyone is interested, I’ll let you know how vintage does. Most of the FB people reviewing seem to be selling clothing and not home goods or vintage. I read that shoes do well.
Sorry for your loss. If not too awkward, you can offer to sell things to your family members before you liquidate. I’m in the estate business and sometimes the lesser value “things” get in the way of relationships, especially if the expectation is not unequal division. Congratulations on your early retirement! I hear it’s good to look at the numbers in waiting until after age 62 to pull social security.
10/09/2018 at 11:45 am in reply to: Trash Elf Twins Challenge 2018 Thread #3 From Week 31 August #49862Thank you all for the kind birthday wishes. We are doing a group celebration couples weekend away this coming weekend. So much for listing but you only turn 50 once! Hopefully I can manage to have an ok 4th quarter after all of this life stuff getting in the way. The kitchen is in the home stretch. What a PITA.
10/08/2018 at 12:07 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #49769Total Items in Store: 360 Ebay, 58 Mercari
Items Sold: 12 Ebay, 2 Mercari
Gross Sales: $457 Ebay, $89 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $124 + Free shipping $39 + 3 items ours (b/e or loss)
Highest Price Sold: $119 Pillow sham set purchased summer clearance for $38)
Average Price Sold: $39
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: About $80 for 10 items
Number of items listed this week: 1Ok, just call me Mrs. I’ll take your offer. This season I’m looking to move more things out. I used to be a perma-sale person but seem to be annoyingly blocked from adding items to a sale whenever I check. So a couple of weeks ago I added best offer to everything on Ebay over $10 and removed the auto-decline floors. I also decided to cancel all promotions running on select items (@5.1%) and put everything in my store at 1% hoping that many other sellers are refusing to use it and Cassini likes it. The offers lately have been pretty reasonable (at least half) and I suspect that accepting offers quickly might give you a boost. I had turned it off most items because I was getting lowballs on my phone while at work.
I’m getting a bit nervous as my new RA inventory gets down to about 20% of my peak but I’m proud that I’ve been pretty good about not shopping – really I’ve been too busy to shop BUT STILL lol. I got off early one day this week and went to two thrifts. I was selective but was a nice mood lifter after not shopping for weeks. I found this Franciscan Starburst Dish for $3 (not my listing) so that was a little thrill. I definitely see room opening up and have some inventory boxes to consolidate. So, the piles are going down! It’s going to be a long process digging out of the newbie overbuy and I have vintage items from my parents’.
I got the Ebay Payments invoice and I’m like “heck no”! I don’t have any confidence in a smooth roll out. I also feel like Ebay should focus on improving yet simplifying their app. Sites like Mercari make it so fast and easy to list and figure out shipping. I think this is a major weakness that Ebay should address asap. I don’t think most sellers have much allegiance to Ebay, but they will stay while the traffic is superior.
Have a great week!
10/08/2018 at 11:39 am in reply to: Trash Elf Twins Challenge 2018 Thread #3 From Week 31 August #49767Congrats Amatino. I only listed one item this week and never got back to it. I had friends in town to celebrate my birthday so really nice reasons keeping me from listing this week. I did get out of work early one day and went to a couple of thrifts. It has been weeks so it was a nice mood lifter but I have about 8 new items to list now. Oops.
10/08/2018 at 11:33 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #49764I bought rolls of thank you stickers and clearance tissue after Christmas 90% off. It takes like 2 seconds to do this. If it’s not a soft item, I put the thank you sticker on the shipping label. Personally, after doing beach clean up I’m kind of bummed about using polymailers so I always recycle even though it doesn’t look that great to tape them up.
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