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I’ll let you know. They end Friday and so far I only have 4 with bids. But, I would have donated them anyway, so just trying to maybe get my $ back. Only one I bought on clearance inexpensively, the rest were thrifted at $1-3 bucks.
Total Items in Store: 428
Items Sold: 8
Cost of Items Sold: $48 + $18 free first class or PFR shipping
Total Sales: $394
Highest Price Sold: $105 Needlepoint kit to Park Avenue https://www.ebay.com/itm/232662692009
Average Price Sold: $49
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Shout out to the forum person who started the thread about marking down prices on watched items and also to BethGreen discussing auctions boosting sales (and possibly visibility) with activity. One day in a rather neglectful Ebay week, I chose some old items to do .99 cent auctions – just stuff I’m really tired to looking at or keep cropping up in my suggested changes page over and over. I’m over my basic store limit, so ready to cull some old stuff. I also dropped some prices on a handful of other items. I immediately saw some action, receiving a bid immediately, selling an item within minutes of reducing its price, and selling another older BIN item. It just reminded me that activity is apparently rewarded. So I’m running an experiment this week by reducing the price by 10% on my 15 most heavily watched items. My auctions will be ending and I’ll have a lousy ASP next week. So far, I have not received an email from Ebay asking me to drop the price of a particular item.
This week I sold another needlepoint kit for over $100 and an antique tile for $80. It occurred to me that these are the perfect items to sell on Ebay with the increased shipping rates and fees – small, lightweight, valuable – and ones that I could easily afford to offer free returns on but very rare so it is unlikely to come back. I wish all of my items were like that! Unfortunately, I’m working through the backlog and thinking really, really I should be evaluating what is worth listing since I have such limited time. There are a number of low dollar items in the backlog as well as heavy ones. I have them sorted by type (not by value) and so far I’ve just been listing what category I’m in the mood for. Have a great week!
Life stuff totally got in my way this week, all zeros for me.
Interesting, I only have .74% but over 6% in the clothes category. I haven’t sold much clothing in the past and this is one of the reasons. But I do have a box of my kids’ better brand clothes in the queue and was considering cleaning out my closet. Maybe I should get that stuff up before June.
Would love to find a Marushka. I’ve found Quimper pottery a handful of times since listening to the podcast.
03/02/2018 at 2:59 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 349: Having A Huge Inventory Is Not The Goal, It’s The Strategy #34251Thanks for sharing Beth. I had an unusual break this morning at home and started 22 .99 cent auctions on stuff that’s been around over a year and a half that I am tired of looking at. Instead of donating it, I thought I would try to get some activity going. Immediately sold something once I got a bid on the first item. Being someone who has my foot on and off the gas with Ebay, I have noticed that activity definitely leads to short term sales. Thanks for reminding me. I’m certain you are a good picker as well. Congrats again.
03/01/2018 at 4:29 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 349: Having A Huge Inventory Is Not The Goal, It’s The Strategy #34177Beth, can you generalize how you do your pricing compared to solds? Are you on the low end? Thanks and congrats on your success.
Enjoying the discussion and reflecting back to all the changes since I started on Ebay. The ease of listing these days I do enjoy and has improved. I just don’t have time for Etsy level presentation, networking, and longer listing time. I’m also pleased that they have stepped up advertising.
I think what bothers me about this seller update is that Ebay is finding a bunch of different ways to chip away at seller profit. A little bit here, a little bit there. Try promotions, try free shipping, try free returns, reduce the prices on these listings, reduced TRS discounts, etc. all with the implied threat of being pushed down in search. Then there is the steady march toward more and more expensive shipping cost. It makes me wonder if there are just certain things that won’t or don’t make sense to sell on Ebay, especially if you are not sourcing inexpensively in your area. I think purchases need to be thoughtful and one needs to keep an eye on the bottom line and fees graph, even if you are not a spreadsheet person.
Yep, T-Satt I think you are wise to evaluate on the buying end. Unfortunately I have some death piles going here so will use this experience to evaluate what I will most want to be buying, shipping and selling. There is so much stuff out there, so from now on increasing shipping costs will be an even bigger part of the equation, along with projected profit.
Sharing a video from The Thrifting Board FB group of Griff and Brian discussing the new free return TSR+ requirement. International not required, even GSP. Free returns with TRS seal and 10% FVF discount applies on item by item basis. If you have TRS I believe you get all of the other goodies even if you opt some items out of free returns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRWNpEGWwt0
I’ve only ever had three returns (I sell very little clothing or very large items), but I’m moving away from retail arbitrage so more issues might crop up. I will probably try it if they actually go through with this TRS demand and then look at the numbers. I think they will get a lot of push back on this item and hopefully they will just drop it. I certainly hope they are only requiring free domestic returns. I don’t see that it says that, only that you can have a separate policy for international. I’ll continue to carefully evaluate my new purchases for flat rate sizing and estimated shipping costs.
I’m going to be a bit disappointed if I’m not included in the March 1 group for guaranteed delivery. I joined the waiting list right away and have a great record. As a buyer, I’m not filtering with that currently. Most of my Ebay purchases are not time sensitive.
Since the overage on my store subscription is going up five cents per listing, I might be needing to upgrade as the break even will change for premium. If anyone recalculates b e, please share. I wonder though if they will create even more levels later.
Finally, I hope they have really, really worked on their product catalog. I was unable to successfully enter a sku on anything except Legos and dvds in the past. If you do, then they really hound you to change the price and do free shipping. I’m guessing they will drop this requirement once again or put it off.
Good job, no purchases for me either. I made one friend of the old timer pickers. He told me about a great 3 day estate sale in a multi-million dollar part of town happening. But, I was like nah – I’ve got the piles plus a lot going on. Halo for me this week.
Listed: 16 items, 15 from death piles, 2 listing sessions.
Listed some items that I was super unexcited about – antique hand painted plates and vintage user guides that are worth less than $10. I want to make myself learn what not to buy and eat my vegetables with what I bought, but it’s probably really not worthwhile to list the stuff that is worth less than $10. I dunno. Right now I have a box of paper goods that is easy to list. Then I really should do Easter. I only have one box of that.02/26/2018 at 9:28 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 349: Having A Huge Inventory Is Not The Goal, It’s The Strategy #33858Total Items in Store: 468
Items Sold: 12
Cost of Items Sold: $79 + $13 free shipping
Total Sales: $414
Highest Price Sold: $120 UK Needlepoint kit, paid $10 estate sale https://www.ebay.com/itm/232662616338
Average Price Sold: $35
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 16
Number of listing sessions: 2Part of this week I caught an unexpected school hours break from my day job and spent the time working on kitchen remodel planning (ugh), Ebay bookkeeping, and Turbotax. Doing my COGS and determining my net profit was only $8.5k. On one hand I’m thrilled that amount kind of from nothing in my spare time, on the other I can’t help but feel disappointed. I’m currently moving away from RA for a couple of reasons, and I think I’ve got a pretty good eye for vintage so hopeful that this year I can make the same sales with better margins. I only have so much time for reselling, so I need to figure out my optimal mix and pricing. Continuing to work through the piles and towards my reward goal of going to estate sales. I only got to listing twice this week, but did get a sales boost both times. This is unlike January and early February when I felt no boost occurred.
There are some news articles being discussed on FB about Ebay changing the algorithm, which they apparently announced at the last Open event. No hard facts yet to share but I’m wondering if that seller boot camp Ebay has coming up will shed more light on things. One of the changes apparently has to do with stale listings. I’m going to make myself cull some old stuff and create lots, since I am also getting over the break even point in my basic store anyway. This is probably my least favorite task of Ebay – admitting that I have duds.
Regarding the Podcast topic, it really sounds like a lot of the stuff in your area is super long tail and you are making the most of it. Again, I’d love to see you spend some time in the urban areas during garage and estate sale season and scoop up goodies to bring to your warehouse. You have the knowledge to pick relatively inexpensively and the space to store items. Maybe you’d enjoy a better sell through rate without overspending. Feel free to ignore me. “) Have a great week!
02/22/2018 at 6:34 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Bose speakers, Lucchese boots, Anri chess set, Mailbox, Tension pole lamp #33729Love the Dansk Summerhouse because the handles are easy to spot. I’ve sold it before and have some white to list.
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