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Simon, cool sale on that Eichler brochure! I’ve seen those bay area houses on HGTV. I just found some super cool early 60s art instruction magazines, including a commercial art one. Gotta love ephemera!
08/06/2018 at 10:49 am in reply to: Trash Elf Twins Challenge 2018 Thread #3 From Week 31 August #46914Listed only 5 items, new purchases. Hoping for better this week.
Also, someone asked about Facebook selling. I think buyers have become more flaky on FB lately. I did sell several items from our kitchen – heavy Williams Sonoma mixing bowls, Nordicware pans I picked at garage sales, dishwasher faded vintage Pyrex lot, etc. Things I didn’t want to list or ship but made less $ than Ebay of course. I just have people pick up on the porch but it was still a little annoying with the flaking. We have some furniture and lighting going due to the remodel. Lots of lowballs on that – like $250 offered for a Pottery Barn 7 piece dining set.
As a small seller, I love easy auction tracker! Just be careful to stay on top of it each month and our IT clean up guy says it lives in temporary files, so don’t accidentally delete. I have yet to successfully collect all of my sales for the year on it due to user neglect or error, but most of them come through and it’s great.
Total Items in Store: 418
Items Sold: 12
Cost of Items Sold: $109 plus $24 free shipping + minor promoted listings fees
Total Ebay Sales: $584
Highest Price Sold: $119 (Vintage OOP early readers books set, paid $1.50 at charity church sale)
Average Price Sold: $49
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: About $30 (a couple of thrift store stops this week) plus RA clearance $250 for a few items.
Number of items listed this week: Only listed once, 5 items, ugh.Mercari update: Sold three clothing items (two free hand me downs (Ivivva) and one ours used @ at loss North Face), cleared $75 after shipping and 10% fees. Sold shipping included. Good brands, probably would have sold for about 20-35% more on Ebay or Poshmark, but took like a minute each to list and sold in about three weeks so I’m quite happy. Money is still waiting on buyer approval. I think I later send it right to my bank account without paying Paypal a fee.
A solid week on Ebay for me, timely because it helped pay for some textbooks and back to school (used and new clearance) clothes for the kids, plus a bit of RA sourcing at end of summer clearance sales. Struggled to list this week with the kitchen remodel on top of the usual. Really painful to spend this much $ on anything! Our labor costs are very high here. R&J I’m glad you are enjoying the process! Picking the tile will be fun but it’s hard to make a decision. I’m like a kid in a candy store at tile showrooms.
Yes, I hope Ebay is more stable going into the balance of the year. If they are smart, it will be a low key Fall Seller Update. Online elsewhere I heard someone bring up that Ebay is really a hybrid platform of new and used goods. The person was advocating for different treatment of each so used sellers don’t get drug under with the “advances” for bulk new sellers. Someone also pointed out that young people are not shopping on Ebay or finding it cool. Their costly marketing spending is apparently not paying off with enough growth.
At this point in my Ebay career, I have to continue to list the vintage piles and items from my parents’ house – it will probably be at least another year at this rate realistically. Buying was unusually high this week but I’ve flipped the equation on it’s head and have become very particular about my buys. I also stop at thrifts way less than I used to. My goal is sitting down to list at least 3-4 times a week, even if it’s only a couple of items. Another focus will be upping my sell through rate. I plan to try pricing just a bit lower or running steeper % sales because I’d really like to move more stuff out. Have a great week!
You’re welcome. Let us know how it goes. I haven’t used them but I know some resellers do.
Congrats ChristineK! If Ebay or local don’t work out and if you are flipping more large high end items, there is also Chairish. https://www.chairish.com/maker/povl-dinesen.
08/03/2018 at 11:06 am in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Train case, Gun case, Sony 8mm VCR, San Fran prints, Magazine rack, Speakers, Hats #46780I could literally drive around town right now and pick up 15 afghans. They are bulky so I don’t need that right now. But a seller I follow on Etsy has some bedspread size ones going for $100 and some with the 3d flower design for $40-50.
08/03/2018 at 11:03 am in reply to: We’re Sorry for Recent Issues with Good 'Til Cancelled Listings #46778I wrote on Facebook Ebay for Business Page and they required me to submit my info and some listings. I ran the list from the site someone posted here and emailed all of the items numbers (28 for me) with one photo. They are giving me one month’s subscription credit. I told them in the original email I knew they had done that for others, and my tone was not harsh.
08/02/2018 at 9:21 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Train case, Gun case, Sony 8mm VCR, San Fran prints, Magazine rack, Speakers, Hats #46753Mostly RA items selling last week from my dwindling inventory of new items. I think I mentioned this find in the forum before, but amazing value on these vintage phonics books $119 and best offer $45. I said no returns because I didn’t want them to just copy and return them. They sold pretty quickly. Hard to believe the prices. The books are 8 page paperbacks. Paid $3 at a boy scout fundraiser for both sets.
Finally got my first sale on Mercari of my daughter’s Ivivva Shorts. Yeah! Bought a label on Paypal. Hope it goes smoothly.
Sold this pink afghan from the death piles for $40. Paid $3 at the thrift store. I’m not picking any new ones up, but I think some designs and nice, unusual colors sell. The buyer left feedback that the color was hard to find.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I’d love to hear from more sellers too.
Jay I had a hybrid new RA and vintage but I’m moving away from RA. Usually there are at least a couple of recent Ebay solds for most of the items I’m pricing. So far I’ve been slow dime, but there is just so much to source (and I have my piles to list first) and only so much time to list so probably not a store upgrade for now. I’d like to get my sell through rate up, and I can handle more packing in the mornings. So, I’m wondering if I’d do better with that if I start pricing under solds in the first place.
Best offer I use for higher price items – over $30 – or if there are not many comps, with auto decline at about 50%. I found it really distracting to get offers on my phone at work before I set limits. Sometimes people send me offers anyway and I realize I only paid under $5, and want the sale. It’s emotionally harder for me to set the auto accept, but that would be wiser.
I also find that if it’s something I’m not really into personally, then I tend to be willing to price lower – like the coffee mugs from my death piles. I just want them gone. I did sell quite a few of those I recently listed.
07/30/2018 at 3:07 pm in reply to: Trash Elf Twins Challenge 2018 Thread #2 From Week 19 (May 7-13) #46444I listed 17 items, mostly death piles.
Actually mostly vintage pyrex I had stowed away in a hard to reach kitchen cabinet. Only keeping one set of pyrex Butterprint and one really cute set of hazel atlas. Some of the less desirable stuff I just put on facebook. Good luck with the packing and move VT. I can’t imagine how disruptive to Ebay after just packing the kitchen…07/30/2018 at 10:46 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 371: T-Satt (Troy) Reports on eBay Open #46407Total Items In Store: 457
Items Sold: 16
Cost of Items Sold: $154 + $64 free shipping + some items were my kids’ ($0 COGS for $230 in sales, items sold at a loss)
Total Sales: $807
Highest Price Sold: $172 (New bedding set, paid $85 9-12 months ago)
Average Price Sold: $50
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of Items listed this week: 17 plus several on Facebook
Mercari update: 0 sales still, about 26 items listed.Nice week on Ebay after turning my store’s full vacation mode off and trying to list while the free listing offer happened. Plus I also ran a 20% off sale. I had some Pyrex and Hazel Atlas stowed away in our kitchen so had to list it as we are remodeling. Some of the patterns and condition I shouldn’t have picked up for the hassle to ship, so put those on Facebook. If they don’t sell I might swing them on to Mercari. Spent some time recounting and relisting all of my multi-quantity since I had an issue with that. I have 26 items with one photo, which means I got hit by both the June and July glitches because I only had 12 in June. Still need to swing back and fix those.
I’m down to about the last 25% of my retail arbitrage items and not buying much more at all. Makes me feel a bit vulnerable, but there is some cool vintage stuff in the piles. It is also harder now to get the deals I once got at the main retailer I shopped with. Haven’t been listing on Mercari but I’d sure like to get a sale over there. I’m hoping with back to school that my daughter’s clothes sell per my experiment.
I was distracted listening to the podcast but thanks for doing it. My takeaway is that leadership is trying to do a lot at once, know they are having issues and saying the right things to reassure sellers. I suspect though that maybe the employees who they are able to get and retain are simply not up to executing it well and quickly in this old environment. Despite their issues with growth and investors I think they would be unwise to continue the path of biting off more than they can chew. Making unnecessary and incomplete changes right now like shipping labels is super lame.
As a seller, the thing I’m most concerned about though is the product pages. I don’t want it to be easier for buyers to make price comparisons and not have my listings seen. No bueno. Plus their catalog sucks even for brand new items and media. Hopefully they will back off this for used or at least vintage items and have a hybrid system. I’d also like to see Etsy advertise and pick up vintage buyers to make a greater time investment over there worthwhile. Etsy should for sure step up and try to capitalize on Ebay’s issues. Have a great week!
07/26/2018 at 10:24 am in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Mouse Trap Instructions, Weed puller, Mailbox, Super Soaker, Platter Pak #46172Not much happening since I just got back from true vacation. But I did get a couple of nice vintage sales when I turned my store back on.
This was a weird item I wasn’t even sure about buying at $2. Sold for $55 in a couple of months and buyer was anxious to get it. Go figure.
These 60s trays I got at a rummage sale for $5 and I’m very happy to get $70 for both sets to the same buyer!
Have a great weekend scavengers!
07/25/2018 at 10:58 am in reply to: Problem with ebay combining shipping on flat rate envelopes/boxes. #46103I posted about this problem before. I called Ebay and the foreign rep told me they are super fine with the buyer being undercharged. I haven’t had time to go back and review all of my multi-quantity listings but need to because found count off on one. There is so much going on with Ebay – temporary issues – that begs review. I only got Smartpost off half of the listings after the rates shot up. Haven’t fixed the missing photos yet. I’d rather just focus on creating new merch. Love selling on Ebay but… sigh.
T-Satt, I like how you summarized this at the bottom. Love to learn from those selling higher quantity. Heavy and very small I would think USPS flat rate boxes. Assuming a buyer is not very near to a seller, can you boil down the size box and weight that makes Smartpost a winner vs USPS. It doesn’t take much weight to make USPS expensive in non-flat rate, even with parcel post. I took Smartpost off as my first option and never added it back, so will need to think this through and adjust listings (again!). Thanks!
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