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Does anyone know of a standard template that can be used to upload listings faster/better? I did find it to be faster than my standard process: sell similar, opening each listing on the computer to update the title, saving in draft, uploading photos via iPhone, and then reopening on the computer to finalize everything. Using a template, the listing only needs to be opened once on the computer.
This is always such a great question for discussion. I am probably different than a lot of sellers in that I do all my listings exclusively on the computer. But most of my inventory, the photos for my listings are created using a flatbed scanner and not my phone’s camera. So I just sell similar when I am listing and upload the images to the listing.
Even when I have larger items which require me to take pictures with the camera, I take photos in large batches and then upload them to a folder on my desktop, then add the pictures to each new listing. I have tried saving as draft and adding the photos through the app, then finishing the listing on the computer, but it felt a lot more tedious to keep stopping and starting.
I have always thought about looking into processes like the old (?) TurboLister or CSV templates but I am like Jay & Ryanne where I do things a certain way and am slow to change.
Thanks @Jay. Writing everything out at the end of one week and beginning of the next helps me see patterns that I don’t really see day to day. Whether it’s what sells and why or thinking about my own processes.
There is an interesting element of luck in what inventory ends up in my store, since so much of it (75%, maybe more) is found by combing through a handful of large sellers who run thousands of auctions every week. Many of these sellers reliably have pages of listings which feature cards from the newest sets, and there is a new set almost every week. Then the rest of their auctions are whatever items they are selling on consignment that week. These are the listings that I like to bid most since there is more of a price history, and it’s always interesting to see which auctions I win and which I don’t. It’s very unpredictable, like most auctions, and that makes it a lot more fun and a lot less tedious.
I had the opposite experience as many of you with a really busy week of sales. It is a good time to be selling sports cards as two leagues (NHL & NBA) are in playoffs and baseball season is in full swing. But I was busy across the board, even sold a few items in other categories even though the cards have become the vast majority of my listings. I think my good week was the combination of three factors.
1. This was my second full week of using promoted listings after trying it because of the promotion on fees that eBay offered at the end of April.
2. I created two markdown sales this week on Sunday and Monday and adjusted the offer prices I’d accept lower as well. So that led to some items moving just from a reduction in price. But sometimes that’s worth it.
3. I listed almost 50 items on Thursday and Friday when I usually create 3 to 5 new listings a day.
Every day from Wednesday to Saturday was really consistent sales for me. I have noticed a trend over the last month or two where early in the week (Sundays, Mondays, sometimes in Tuesday and Wednesday) there is less activity in general. Less sales, less offers.
I hope my busy sales continue this week. Maybe I will create another markdown sale this week. But I think there is a point of diminishing returns with markdowns, offers, and all the other selling tools. Sometimes you just have to list…and wait.
5/8/2022 – 5/14/2022
Total items in store: 2144 (up from 2096)
Items sold: 50 (35 via best offer, 7 via seller initiated offer)
Gross sales: $2912.68 (up 63% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1986.71 (up 64% from one year ago)
Quantity sold: 50 (up 16% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $58.25 (up 40% from one year ago)
Highest price sold (net): $170.13 — Christian Yelich 2013 black refractor rookie card ##/99 BGS 8.5
Christian Yelich was the star player as the Milwaukee Brewers rose in the standings, and this type of card (a numbered rookie refractor from a quality set) would have regularly sold for $500 and maybe higher when he was winning MVP awards in 2018 and 2019. Similar quality autographed Yelich rookie cards would have regularly sold for $1000 or more, and the rarest ones (serial numbers to 10 or less) could fetch $5000 and up.
But he’s had a tough go of things the last couple years, so his card prices dropped across the board. This is usually how I acquire my individual card inventory which sell for $100 and up. I buy it at $30 or $50 or $80 and wait for the right time to sell and the right buyer. I am sure there are ways to buy large lots and find these bargains that way. But Terapeak makes it easy to gauge the ups and downs of individual prices, and I find that research process really interesting and more lucrative.
This buyer was located in Milwaukee, so most likely a collector and fan of the Brewers. But the interesting thing with modern cards is that if Yelich resumes his star performance, the buyer can easily resell and make a nice profit. Cards being sold and resold, and browsing eBay to find the best deals or new listings for the player or set you collect, is such a part of the modern card world. There is a lot of logic behind what gets bought and sold, and for what prices, even with expensive cards like this.
But I think that a lot of card sellers get stuck on the possibility of what something could be worth in a few months or years, and hold on to individual cards too long. Or they just priced them too high to begin with. I’m sure for the collectors of a particular player or team, there’s an emotional element to how they value the individual cards and sets. Very different from me, where it’s all about Terapeak sales and my own knowledge of trends with pricing, individual cards and sets and, to a lesser extent, the players.
Lowest price sold (net): negative $20 — Max Meyer Panini Prizm autograph ##/50
As you can see from the listing, the card pictured does not match the title. I didn’t realize this until the item had been delivered and the buyer sent me a message. I sent them the card in the title, not the picture.
I haven’t made a mistake like this in over a year, but these types of mistakes are fairly common in the card world. Something is priced far too low and gets purchased in seconds. A picture is wrong or really sloppy. I get many of my buying deals from good timing, but some others the seller just makes a mistake. Many small time sellers will refund the buyer and cancel if an auction ends particularly low. I had that happen this week. The seller valued the extra $50 more than keeping their word and completing the sale. It’s annoying, but I remember what those days were like.
This is also a niche where tons of huge consignment sellers who list 5000+ auctions every week. Many of them make errors in their listings here and there. It’s inevitable at that kind of scale. So there are always more good deals to be found.
I’m somewhere between small and large seller, but I like to resolve problems fast. So I told my buyer they could keep the wrong card I sent them, and I’d send them the correct one first thing on Monday. I’m out a few bucks for the cost of what I paid for each card, a few bucks for shipping two packages, a few bucks for eBay fees and whatever profit I would have made on either card. But the buyer gets a freebie, so even with the extra wait time they’re happy.
In my earlier eBay days, I used to get upset at myself for making this kind of mistake. But it is truly just a part of selling on eBay. It happens to everyone. Returns, weird buyers, mistakes — they all happen to every seller once in a while.
I am really grateful to be in a position where I can lose $20 to avoid a potential headache. There’s really not a price you can put on being able to move on with your day and not beat yourself up or obsess over a problem which doesn’t have a perfect solution.
I have seen this happen in the last few weeks. I had a random order from last month show up one day when I went to bulk print labels. At first I thought maybe a return had been opened by the buyer or something like that. But no, the item had been scanned as delivered a few weeks ago. Eventually the stray order disappeared…then popped back up again a day or two later…then disappeared again and I haven’t seen it since.
I wish I could say that I did something to fix the issue, but I don’t think I did anything besides logging in and out. But at least you’re not the only one!
I have felt like it has been slow recently for all the reasons @Jay mentioned. Especially the last three or four weekends but also the odd day here and there during the week. In a way, that’s reassuring because it means people are probably just not buying on eBay across the board right now.
One of the things I have liked most about eBay’s constant changes over the last few years has been their emphasis on adding more tools for sellers. I was able to create a promoted listings campaign, and 2 markdown sales, in about an hour total this week. It was simple and easy. I’m a list it and forget it seller, so it’s helpful to have these tools to get me interacting with older listings. Send offers to watchers has been a nice addition as well.
Do these tools have a real impact on sales, and is there a way we can measure it? I have no idea. I’m not sure it’s possible to know for sure. But I’ve had a few sales from promoted listings and a few from markdown manager in the last few days. I’m happy for any sales at all when things are slow.
I think it’s become easier to manage a large inventory with these tools, too. None of them are perfect. But they really come in handy on slow weeks like this. It is hard to motivate yourself to list when things are not selling, even when listing is almost always the best path forward. But you can send out some offers to interested buyers in a few minutes, or create a 500 item markdown sale and bulk edit all your offer prices in about an hour. When I do these things, it makes it easier to put the slow week in perspective and get back to the basics — buying, selling, shipping, inventory. I don’t know about anyone else, but all of those systems are always works in progress for my eBay business. But tweaking them and improving them really pays off when sales pick back up.
Are you now buying big lots of cards to find the gems?
Every once in a while, but it’s become more about buying individual cards for $10 and up and selling for $40 and up. I still buy the less than $5 cards and list for $20, but the last few months I have been sending 90% of those directly to consignment. I might only get $15 or $10 selling there because of higher fees and so many flippers involved in the process, but it’s worth it since the consignment selling is so hands off. All I have to do is set the price.
I have also started buying in larger quantities. A few years ago, I might buy 10 auctions from one seller for $50 but now I’m much more likely to really search through all of a seller’s listings for a week and spend $100 and up on 20 or 30 cards. The consignment sales have really helped with this as well since I can process inventory much faster.
Auctions are such a huge part of the trading cards world, and there are almost infinite bargains to be found based on the way that cards prices fluctuate and because auctions are so volatile as a selling method. Of course, you need the knowledge and patience to sift through all these listings.
There are definitely buyers who go the other route to buy large lots of cards and hunt through them for the gems, and I love doing that when the opportunity comes up.
It’s been about eight months since I started doing this full-time, and I knew when I made that shift that I would need to adapt, and change, or else my sales would eventually plateau. So I am sure my methods will be different a year from now. Maybe I will be buying all large lots of cards and hunting through them, or maybe I will only sell cards through consignment. I really enjoy making these changes on the fly, and experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m sure it would drive some people crazy!
There is a walking path right through the heart of my small New Jersey town. I try and walk on it every day, even in the winter, unless it’s raining or snowing. I like seeing the same characters and their pets, some who are friendly and some who really aren’t. Every town should have a place where you can walk safely.
I had a nice sales week thanks to an experiment with Promoted Listings Standard because of a 75% off promotion. It was fascinating to see the week play out and which items sold from the promoted listings campaign and which sold without the buyer clicking on the promoted listings.
The promotional period for savings on the fees ended this weekend, but I’ve already created a new Promoted Listings campaign to run for the rest of the month. I’m not sure that I understand how Promoted Listings works, and it’s one of those things where I don’t think I want to understand it. But I’m happy to use it, and think it might be something that I’m always using going forward. I have just been running a fixed ad rate of 2% or 3% on all my listings, but if anyone with more experience has better ways to use it, I’d love to learn from you.
I’m going to try a few small markdown sales over the next few weeks (15% off, maybe 20% if I’m feeling adventurous) and see if anything crazy happens when I combine a markdown sale with promoted listings.
5/1/2022 – 5/7/2022
Total items in store: 2096 (up from 2084)
Items sold: 37 (27 via best offer, 5 via seller initiated offer)
Gross sales: $2601.44 (up 32% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1896.62 (up 35% from one year ago)
Quantity sold: 37 (up 0% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $70.31 (up 32% from one year ago)
Highest price sold (net): $329.60 — Cale Makar Jewels of the Draft autographed patch card
This card is a good example of how intricate modern trading cards can get. Cale Makar is one of the best young players in hockey, and the colorful Jewels of the Draft autographed patch cards are among the most popular for new rookies every single year. I had this card listed for over a year and and I increased the price a few times because the listing kept gaining watchers. Over 50 by the time it sold and I had received at least that many offers, most of them lowball. To be honest, I was starting to wonder if this card (and others like it) was ever going to sell. Or maybe those interested in it were just happy to add it to their watchlist and not buy. Sometimes that doubt can creep in when you have a higher priced item or an item with a lot of interest but no buyers.
But this week, the card finally sold to a buyer who offered a mere $1 below my $399 buy it now price. I thought that was an odd offer, and the buyer had low feedback, so I was cynically expecting that maybe they wouldn’t pay. But they paid the day after I accepted the offer and sent me a message thanking me for being patient about their payment. Then, this weekend they left happy positive feedback with a message of gratitude because I included some other cards in the package. I had a few nice buyers sending me messages this week. If only they were all so pleasant! But thinking about it, most buyers are either pleasant or quiet.
Lowest price sold (net): $11.10 — Connor Zary SP Game Used autographed patch
It’s always interesting when similar cards end up as the high and low sales of the week. The Cale Makar card is from a nicer set, and nicer quality card, but ultimately the difference in price between that card and this Connor Zary comes down to the quality of player. This Connor Zary card is on its way to Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, where Zary played in the minor leagues. He’s still trying to find his way to the pros, so there’s not as much of a collector base for him just yet. Always an opportunity to make a few bucks on cards like this here and there, and a huge part of building my knowledge base was finding the items I could buy for $5 and list for $20. But I’m not listing, or buying, as many cards at these prices as I was a year ago. It will be interesting to see if that’s changed in a year, and in what ways.
I chalk this up to your scavenger “spidey sense”, but also to your deep knowledge of vintage toys. I would likely have grabbed the dolls but you really know you got a big score. Good find!
I agree with all of this. Really amazing finds. It’s always exciting when a non-plan comes together.
I can think back to a few times where my scavenger spidey sense has gone off full blast, but it’s often based in a previous good experience scavenging at that place or somewhere similar. Or a general sense of wanting to go out and see what I can find next weekend, that sort of thinking.
There is a particular thrift store in my area that I have been thinking about visiting for the last few weeks…maybe next week I will get the feeling of needing to go there right now and report back my findings. I have gotten so used to scavenging online that it’s easy to forget how much fun it is to get out there and find some real gems.
I will have to keep a closer eye over the next few months if there are times when my spidey sense goes off and I don’t find anything much. Those times are not as fun! But always a learning experience.
One suggestion from my experience in the niche: depending on which player’s jersey you have, your ideal buyer might be located in Canada or Europe. Those buyers will be much more inclined to look at your listing if you don’t use global shipping because its import and handling fees are so high. Jerseys are light enough that they can easily ship USPS first class or even priority if they’re expensive enough.
Entirely possible that your buyer might also be located in the Hershey, PA area, as well, in which case you’ll be good to go regardless of international buyers. But I sell a lot of hockey stuff to Canada and Europe and figured I would pass along my experience.
It’s one of the major pros to only selling two types of items – I create a perfect listing and then sell similar off that listing and all I have to do is upload photos, change a couple things in the title and description and that’s it.
This is a very similar process to how I do my card listings. There is a rainy forecast in New Jersey for the next few days, and I have a large backlog of cards (300+) ready to be listed. It seems like the perfect opportunity to try and knock out as many listings as I can. I’m not sure how long it’s been since I listed 100 over a few days, or if I’ve ever hit that number. But it will be fun to try — unless it’s sunny and 70 all weekend, in which case I’ll be outside.
I don’t track my time super precisely But I know I pretty much never work past 5pm and start working around 7:30-8am and eat lunch and have other interruptions throughout the day. And I did an experiment last week to see what I could get done if I waste as little time as possible and don’t listen to podcasts or anything while listing.
This is always such a great topic for discussion. When you’re just starting out, it can be hard to find the time and energy to sell on eBay and build up an inventory. When you are doing it full time, it can be easy to work too many hours without realizing it. I definitely work more than 40 hours a week on my eBay store and pricing consignment sales. But the flexibility is amazing. I love to cook and to take walks, and the freedom to do either of those things at any point in my day is really good for both my productivity and my mental health.
of course, I’m not sure eBay even flags buyers with unpaid item dings since they broke the unpaid item system.
Buyers with unpaid items definitely still get flagged. I had one message me last week with a lowball offer, then a message asking why they were blocked…
Because they had already “bought” the item once (for higher than their lowball offer) and didn’t pay!
I usually leave things unpromoted for the first few weeks then add the promotion.
This is a great idea. My current campaign ends on May 5th or 6th (which is when the promo ends) so the next time I run a campaign, I will definitely try this.
I average 50% of sales being promoted. I sometimes think I’d like to see how things would compare without the promotion, but would hate to lose sales to prove a point.
Yeah, in the grand scheme of things I will happily give eBay 5% if it means more sales. There are so many corners of the eBay selling world where people call eBay feebay and complain at every little fee or every time a new seller feature is introduced. I had never used promoted listings before this, and you don’t need to use the feature to sell on eBay, but if you have a 1000+ item store it seems like it is helpful. At least if our experiences are common.
I definitely noticed a bump in sales when I first started and feel it must be part of the reason some of my items sell at higher prices than other available items.
I had a few items sell in the last few days through promoted listings which had been lingering in the store for a while. One will almost certainly be my highest sale for the week. I need to get that shipped out today!
This sale from last night was interesting as another seller had the same exact card available. Kind of a surprise there would be another listing for this card available since the card is serial numbered to just 5 copies! Their listing was $70 with best offer, mine $80 with best offer. Both with promoted listings active. But my listing is the one that sold. I received and accepted a $65 offer. I think my title is slightly more optimized for eBay search, but turning on promoted listings is probably what ensure that the buyer saw my item first and not the $70 listing.
Do you ever hold cards back if you think the player will have a good year? Wait till his stock rises?
I wouldn’t say I hold anything back, necessarily, as much as I buy and sell in huge quantities. So there have been
dozenshundreds of cards waiting to be listed. The consignment sales have helped speed this up quite a bit. A year ago I would have hundreds of cards and sometimes not even start to sort them for a few weeks. Now everything gets processed within a few days of receiving the packages in the mail.My basic strategy is to buy low (whether it’s because the player’s stock is low, or the sport’s in its offseason, or an auction listing that I bid on is missing some important info), price higher and sell high enough. There are so many ways to do this with the cards, it’s amazing, and for the most part I acquire based on analyzing the quality of set and card and Terapeak sold listings for the same or similar cards. There are so many different sets and I still enjoy the process of learning which sets and types of cards are valuable and why. I have a good instinct for it at this point, but every day that I look at new auction listings and analyze them for what to bid on, I learn about a new set or type of card that has some value.
I rarely save searches for individual players, though many buyers and sellers do what I did with Shaheen Holloway and buy/sell in large quantities — it’s called prospecting. I know a lot more about sports than a non-fan but since I don’t watch the games, I would probably be about as good as you at speculating who will perform well in 6 months or a year. There is a lot of math and analysis in modern sports, and I’m sure there are people who use that in their card buying and selling as well.
How many of his cards did you purchase when he was still not super popular?
I probably bought about 50 Shaheen holloway autographs in the early part and middle of their run. Basically cleaned out every card selling site where I could find his autographs. I bought a lot of his basic rookies (no autograph) for $0.50 each or less and I add one in with every autograph I sell. So I get a lot of feedback like this one from this week:
<span data-test-id=”fdbk-comment-4″ aria-label=”Card arrived in great condition. TY for the extra Shaheen card!! “>Card arrived in great condition. TY for the extra Shaheen card!! </span>
Here are all the different autographs of Shaheen Holloway in my store. It is basically every different type of his autographed cards. It is interesting to compare these cards from 20 years ago to the ones manufactured in the last few years. The quality of the cards has improved a lot and cards have a lot more intricate differences.
I have added another 10 to 15 autographs to the pile in the last month as some random eBay auctions have popped up. Shaheen’s not really in the news now (sports news moves fast and college basketball doesn’t start again until the fall), so the auction ending prices vary a lot. Sometimes his autographs will sell for $3, other times for $10 or $12. It all depends who’s bidding that week.
I always make sure to show my wife the sale and say “ see! Procrastinating DOES pay off!” Lol!
This gave me a great idea. I feel like now I should start printing out these kinds of sales for posterity, write some “inspirational” messages on them “It’s ok to lose your inventory for a year, that’s how things become more valuable” and plaster them all over the walls of my eBay room. A procrastinator’s wallpaper.
However, to borrow a phrase from Jay & Ryanne, I have become so focused on listed, packing, and shipping I fear I am making a prison for myself.
I was thinking about this exact phrase yesterday while walking the dog. Probably came to mind from the discussion in last week’s numbers thread about your great sales week with 60 items sold. Finding balance can be tricky. As Ryanne would say, you want shipping to be annoying!
I find that in the busy times I get much more excited about listing and scavenging, and can easily do eBay all day. Especially in the last few months, as I’ve gotten my inventory much more organized in preparation for my next steps forward — a move? a bigger apartment? — in the next 6 to 18 months. I don’t get so focused that I skip the other things I enjoy most about the flexibility of a scavenger’s life, like being able to stop what I am doing to cook a nice meal in the middle of the day. But I can see how others might.
I have found that selling on eBay is most rewarding when I go out and do something which has nothing to do with eBay, then come back to find that I sold enough things to cover the cost of the activity.
I also have 2 day handling on all of my listings. I don’t usually take that long to ship, but the buffer makes it a lot easier to take a Thursday or Friday where all I do on eBay is list a few items, casually look through auction listings for an hour, maybe swing by the post office and that’s it.
