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06/26/2017 at 10:24 am in reply to: A minor philosophical point on ROI versus "value of your time" #19789
T-Salt: I definitely underused the PFR in the beginning, but many of my items are décor and breakable. I bought some boxes that fit in the PFR, but many of the items at that price point do not fit. And I know some people put mugs FOMO in there, but I’m not comfortable with that because I worry about breakage.
06/26/2017 at 9:31 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 316: Craigslist Road Trips- We Live For A Deal #19783Total Items in Store: 336
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $10 used + $47 new RA
Total Sales: $193
Highest Price Sold: $30 new brass owl hook
Average Price Sold: $21
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: maybe $5
Number of items listed this week: 7Getting excited to see photos of the new rental. It would be fun to hear how much total you estimate you spent furnishing it. Great that you’ve been collecting items over time. I think the email alerts and some time are all you need to get great stuff if there’s a city nearby. We’re pretty picky and busy so it took some dedication to source for our own house. Husband is also not terribly keen on haggling or dealing with people. During reno, we didn’t get much notice from the contractor so we just paid up for some things. Have a search out for a backyard tiki. Thanks Paul for the recommendations last week. Unless I go see my friend in Palm Springs this fall, then I’ll check out Oceanic Arts. We should make a special trip, because we never find time when we are passing through that area.
Really tough schedule for Ebay again between pre-vacation work and the kids’ sports and camps. I did get a few things listed yesterday afternoon. Also the retailer I source RA from has made their sales less attractive, with shallower discounts. The new items are my better movers and keep my store active so kind of a bummer. I found some similar items missing and have no idea when they were removed – not in ended. Hm.
Went to the local college rummage sale but I bought items for us, except a couple of costumes for resale. Great to pick up matching Tupperware, post its, etc. Someone had been through the snapbacks, knives, and other good stuff before I got there. I tried to make a beeline for the perfume but couldn’t find any. Scores were ugg boots and Patagonia jackets for my kids. College students are so lazy. They just get it dirty and donate it in great shape rather than clean it. That’s ok, I’ll happily do it. The prices are amazing – the event is really all about recycling.
Have a great week.
06/24/2017 at 9:10 am in reply to: A minor philosophical point on ROI versus "value of your time" #19747This is an extremely important concept for new sellers to get. I totally bought things that were not worth my time in the past, having no idea how much time it takes to list. Though the Ebay listing functionality is running much more smoothly than it was when I started, I’m still limited as a part-timer in what I can get up. So important to remember when out sourcing. The other thing to keep in mind is that the cost of shipping items over a pound just keeps rising. I think there are some 1-2 pound items between ten and twenty dollars that are not going to be worth it to the buyer to pay shipping of $7-12. Some of those are sitting in my garage unfortunately.
06/22/2017 at 10:15 am in reply to: Link to article on Ebay's new price matching policy.with interesting stats #19702I know, silly about the call and online chat would have been better.
Here’s another link summarizing the new policies and approach. They do mention used and vintage goods, so that’s good. More traffic to the site will be helpful to all sellers. I hope people don’t come to expect free shipping. I donwanna do it.
I read some other articles about Amazon using resources to meet the prime shipping, and it’s non-prime turnaround really suffering so I think Ebay pushing for faster shipping from all sellers is a smart approach. My non-prime orders from Amazon were painfully slow recently. Also I found interesting that Ebay says 1.1M listings at any time. I wonder about server capacity when my thoughts go all conspiracy like.
06/19/2017 at 9:41 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 315: Okay, you’re making money. Now what? #19565Total Items in Store: 322
Items Sold: 5
Cost of Items Sold: $49 new + $1 used
Total Sales: $124
Highest Price Sold: $38 new pj pants
Average Price Sold: $25
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: about $20
Number of items listed this week: 0Well keeping it real over here with some slow sales. It’s my third week not listing. This week I did have a couple of windows and I have to admit I just wasn’t feeling it for Ebay. One of my challenges is that I’m stubborn and have hard time giving up on items and donating them back. I’m not sure why since they can’t all be winners. So I’ve deleted some items as I am nearing my 250 basic limit and don’t want to pay $50 more a month to upgrade. I found the stinkers with some help from the forum. I find the growth tab to be useless, but better information under the performance/traffic section. At the bottom is a long list of your listings I had been blowing off. You can sort and I found out that some of my listings were getting impressions (I don’t think keywords are the problem) but hardly any clicks. Besides the seasonal and newly listed items, there were some Etsy type lower dollar items. I hear Etsy is slow for veteran sellers and maybe tinkering with search, but I hope to get on there later. I have read that you need to get up 100-150 listings ideally, so that is kind of a deterrent for me with the time constraints I have.
Speaking of time constraints, I love being a mom and I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing. It is very challenging at times and some kids are harder to parent than others. Lately just regulating internet use is the bane of my existence. I have good paying contract work to fill most of the time they are at school and now I squeeze in Ebay too as a hobby but also to pay for extras. I just took my daughter to see Into the Woods in LA and we stayed downtown with Ebay $.
Fixing up houses would be amazing and there are many midcentury and ’20s homes here that could use some love, but you need serious capital even just to get into and carry a house around here for months. The permitting process is expensive and ridiculous. We do our reno on our home one project at a time and that’s about as much as I can handle at once. So, I guess I’ll be watching flips on HGTV instead. They sure make it look easy and Flip or Flop labor prices are insanely low for So Cal. The joke around here is that if you grab someone talented from a cheaper area and rent them a place to stay here while they are working then the labor cost would still be cheaper with you putting them up than hiring someone local.
Brian, the art on those pasta cards is amazing. I’m still working on the piles, but I hope to switch to estate sales later. And Paul, love the tiki bar goal. We’re looking for an authentic looking 3-6 ft. tiki for our backyard and don’t want to pay shipping. If you know of a place in LA, let me know.
Struggling to get into listing. Had a great opportunity Friday to list for a while uninterrupted and I just didn’t feel like it. I did some organizing of inventory and pruning of unperforming listings. Will try to get my mojo back. The piles await!
Happy belated birthday to you both. Here’s to another year of you doing what you love to do. Should be an exciting one coming with the roll out of your new rental. Thank you for sharing and creating somewhere to share with other people who get it.
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You’re right, that is better information. Ugh, have some listings with zero click through rate that I have not ended. Wasted space and I’m nearing my subscription limit. It’s interesting to see what’s trolling at the bottom. Some are maybe price related, many are out of season, but there are some similar items from the same brand or category. Like vintage wrapping paper is not doing well, Pimpernel drink coasters. I would love to check vs. solds on Etsy.
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This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by
ChristineR.
Mp I think they just updated it very recently. I don’t see that slider tab for recommendations. Here’s a visual of myself beating myself up: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/343399540327167003/
This part is a bit more helpful, depending maybe on how big the category is: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4a/6f/36/4a6f360a24cd2e6d429a98abd4bb375d.png I’ve already lowered the price on this item a couple of times.
I suspect that these listings identified as underperforming are getting beat up a bit in search, but it would be nice to know if tinkering was worth it for sure. I don’t have time to sell similar every 30 days, even with a small store. On the other hand, this particular item is getting good impressions and similar page views vs. the category.This is still in the beta stage. I sell new and used items and both types get flagged as underperforming. I find this functionality unhelpful so far. Ebay just uses it to encourage me to add free shipping on my items even if they are priced lower than the comparison sales they are showing. Often, they send me comparisons of all of my own sales of a similar item, and then say I have a 100% less chance than myself of selling that item in an identical listing (even if the remaining item is priced lower). However, if they have an item randomly flagged with recommendations, I always tweak the item slightly – change lead photo, up the price, title words, etc. – just in case it matters to them. I use the filter button for items with recommendations only. Recently they added the traffic stats for the entire category vs your item. I might consider reviewing that data and doing some tweaking since they have labeled it underperforming. It would be more useful if they offered a list of items missing specifics – like after they add additional ones and you have old listings with blanks.
06/12/2017 at 9:19 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 314: Selling on eBay while in the Military #19301Total items in store: 325
Items sold: 6
Cost of items sold: $18 used + $175 RA
Total sales: $416
Highest price sold: $240 (New bedding bought in spring for $140)
Average price sold: $59
Money spent on new inventory this week: $0This week again not Ebay friendly with graduation, kids getting out of school early, company, and very busy contract work as we prepare for summer vacations and people being out of the office. Nothing listed and mostly small, non-vintage sales, so it’s nice when I sell a bedding set to boost a week like this.
It’s time to do a little reorganizing as I get more seasonal about my approach with things. My goal is to get a bunch of Christmas stuff up by Fall this year. My contract work is fine and fruitful, but I long for a couple of just uninterrupted listing days. It really goes against my grain to list a few items here and there, plus and there are always chores or something else to do with a short window of time. The plague of the part-time mom seller.
A teeny rant here. I’ve mentioned before I get annoyed with Ebay picking randomly on a few of my new item listings in the growth tab. They show my all of my own sales next to the item as comparison and the remaining item is actually priced less, and then say it has a 100% chance of not selling. What? I’d blow it off except I don’t want to draw attention as a stale item seller and get things removed, so I tinker with it. Anything with a ribbon or suggestion, I go in and tinker with or remove. I’m also putting “does not apply” in the upc on new items, because I don’t want Ebay to make it easier for buyers to comparison shop or click away, and I want Ebay to stop sending me listing recommendations to ship everything for free. I don’t see much upside to putting it in since I’m often not the lowest price and I draw in shoppers from Pinterest.
06/05/2017 at 8:19 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 313: What’s your Backup Plan to eBay? #19033Total Items in Store: 328
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $24 thrifted + $87 new RA
Total Sales: $295
Highest Price Sold: $56 (Catherineholm pan – paid $15 last month)
Average Price Sold: $33
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $30 (Three vintage LLB plaid wool bedspreads)
Number of items listed this week: 4I’m surprised at the numbers because it felt even slower. Very busy at my other job and with end of the school year stuff. Enjoyed the podcast, as always. I hope to continue with Ebay into retirement or earlier parent care phase when I can give it more time. I’m planning to do a bit more gardening in my listings and list things seasonally. I pulled all of the Easter stuff that didn’t sell. I’m also thinking the cons outweigh the pros for putting in the upc, so I’m going to pick does not apply and put the number in the item description in case they start enforcing that.
Ebay sent an offer to upgrade my store to premium, but I’m going to go for a balanced approach of list it and leave it vs. keeping it fresh. I’m not ready to upgrade the store just yet for $30 more a month, and hope they come up with a level soon between 250 and 1000. Have a great week.
Love that they are spotlighting the shopping cart feature! All the time people buy multiple items separately even though it says in my very brief description to get combined shipping with the shopping cart.
I made a book order from Amazon after cancelling prime in January. The shipping was unbelievably slow and I didn’t look at the estimate since it wasn’t a third party seller. Maybe if that is common, it has something to do with the upcoming shipping policy changes at Ebay.
I think Ebay and Etsy both have good opportunities right now. It will be interesting to see what happens as Walmart continues to ramp up. I’m a big Target fan, so I’m rooting for them. Fun to watch it all unfold.
06/01/2017 at 10:16 am in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Star Wars glass, electric eraser, brass fireplace screen, jean jackets, vintage Texas Instruments calculator #18868I know! $83.64 shipping. Funny, I had this item priced higher and then thought to myself, “it’s just a tablecloth!” Maybe could have gotten more for it? Pricing is such a challenge sometimes.
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