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@CYC – I use Charles Schwab online bank. I am not sure what you are looking for as far as what they fund, but this bank is awesome. Free checks and they reimburse you any fee you are charged at any ATM to withdraw funds. Also pays interest on checking and savings. I have 3 checking accounts tied to one account with them (1 Ebay, 1 for me, 1 for my wife). We also have our savings and roth IRA’s in this account. We can transfer funds as needed between accounts. I believe they require you to open a brokerage account that is also tied to it, but you don’t ever have to use it if you don’t want. Their customer service is also amazing anytime you have any issue. Super easy to get someone on the phone and they are very quick to resolve issues or help you with any account.
If you decide you want to use them, let me know. I can send you a referral code and they will give you $100 for free if you fund your account with at least $1000. My son opened one a few years ago for his eBay store and he got the $100.
12/12/20-12/18/20
Total Items In Store: 2283
Items Sold: 71
Gross Sales: $2483
Highest Price Sold: $350 (Ingersoll Rand Pump Diaphragm Repair Kit)
Average Price Sold: $34.97Returns: 2 $300
Money Spent on New Inventory: $43
Number of items listed: 63- Another amazing week in sales. I beat my single day record from last week in total number of items sold in a day with 21 items sold last Saturday for just over $600.
- I had a good mixed of high and low dollar items this week and my slowest day was still 6 sales.
- Ouch…a couple of big returns this week. It was bound to happen with sales being so high the last few weeks, but still a bummer.
- I ran bone dry on inventory to list on Friday. That hasn’t happened since the beginning of the pandemic when I couldn’t get inventory anywhere. I had a nice haul from an online auction pickup on Saturday and also picked up a few items at an outdoor auction later on Saturday. This is usually a tough time of year to pick up new inventory in my area, so my listings are going to be hit or miss until the holidays are over.
- I opted to not make any changes to my handling times over the shipping slowdown. I keep mine on one day handling time. I’ve had 3 cases opened in the last couple weeks, but all eventually got there and the cases were closed. I have one new one open, but the package started moving again this morning.
@Debitendcredits You’re correct. Ebay has muddied the water on what the correct number of listing is to move up to the next store level, especially when only a portion of your items will be in those free categories at any one time.
For November, my store averaged 1800-1900 items and I paid $45.20 for insertion fees above my free 1000 with the subscription. That ends up being only a little under 6 cents a listing which gets me up to around 5,000 listings before I would need to move up to an anchor store. That number will change every month depending on what I’ve listed and what has sold.
I’m with you guys on this one. Small appliances, vacuum cleaners and old electronics. Hard to get rid of them when the parts can worth so much and are so easy to ship. I recently had an old Coleman stove that came with a job lot at an auction. I could’ve only gotten about $30 for it, but a single part from it sold right away for $40.
Our carrier is considered a rural route, so maybe that makes a difference. We are in a small town of 1400 people, so she has several towns and the country between them. She tried to get a house that is a couple of blocks from our post office added to her route. They have some type of craft business and ship between 80-150 packages a day this time of year, but the post office wouldn’t let her add them. In our town, if you live within a 4 block radius of the post office, they require you to have a PO box and don’t pick up or deliver your mail.
She is very protective of her “eBay People”. There are 3 or 4 of us on her route and she gets pretty upset if one of the subs misses picking up our packages. It happens once in a while, but it’s pretty rare.
12/5/20-12/11/20
Total Items In Store: 2283
Items Sold: 71
Gross Sales: $1988
Highest Price Sold: $105 (Wolverine film to digital converter)
Average Price Sold: $28.00Returns: 0 $0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $182
Number of items listed: 60- Had a huge week in sales. Every single day was over $140 and I had two days over $400.
- Last Saturday I had 14 items sell in a single day. That is the most I’ve ever sold in a day. Every item was $35 or less, but still ended up with $286 in sales that day. 71 sales for the week kept me busy shipping…great problem to have.
- January is right around the corner and anticipated slower sales. I’ve started paying January bills this week, in case it’s slower than usual.
- I don’t know how many people are doing this on a regular basis, but I have had huge success with parting out small appliances and other items for parts. Many items can be sold for parts for three times or more than the item can be sold for. Especially heavier items.
- Scavenge of the Week: I picked up a Victorian hat box at an auction that was packed full of new skeins of DMC embroidery thread. Just under 900 total skeins. I got the entire box for $4. I listed them in 5 different lots on Saturday. I got an offer Saturday night for all 5 totaling $177, which I gladly took. My wife took the hat box for her collection of Victorian items. Win/Win! The sale will show in next week’s numbers.
- I saw a few comments about feeling guilty for leaving packages for mail carriers. My mail carrier has become very good friends of ours (we had dinner with her and her husband this weekend). She actually loves her customers that leave packages, as she gets paid a handling fee for every package she scans. The only packages I take to the post office are ones that are very heavy or very bulky that I think will be a pain for her to deal with.
11/28/20-12/4/20
Total Items In Store: 2263
Items Sold: 50
Gross Sales: $1449
Highest Price Sold: $139 (Nintendo Famicom Console)
Average Price Sold: $28.98Returns: 4 $80
Money Spent on New Inventory: $132
Number of items listed: 83- A very solid week of sales. Just a lot of low dollar items. Only one item over $100 sold this week. Shipping 50 items kept me busy this week.
- Does anyone know how to see how long a listing has been up for when you get an offer on your phone? It shows on my computer and is helpful sometimes when I get an offer that’s lower than I would normally take, but I am more willing when I see I’ve had the item up for over 500 days. It bugs me that I can’t see that info on the phone app.
- Had a weird return this weekend. I had a book on birds listed as a late 1800’s first edition for $50 that has been in inventory for quite some time. I took an offer of $35 on it and it was paid for and on the porch labeled and ready to ship out. The buyer questioned why there was a picture with a page in it with a date of 1909 on it and decided he wanted to cancel. I refunded him and cancelled the shipping label and relisted the book with both dates in the listing and removed the first edition item specific and priced it at $40. The next morning, I got an offer on it for $35 from another buyer and sold it again for the same amount. Very strange.
I also had the same problem. Thought it was just me though. I tried accessing my bank online this morning and the site was down. I thought that was the cause, but apparently this is an Ebay issue.
11/21/20-11/27/20
Total Items In Store: 2231
Items Sold: 48
Gross Sales: $1724
Highest Price Sold: $300 (London Glassworks Bottle)
Average Price Sold: $35.93Returns: 3 $52
Money Spent on New Inventory: $71
Number of items listed: 86- Very good week in sales. Even without the sale of the 1800’s bottle, it would have been a good week.
- Had several $100+ sales which made for an exciting week. I love when I hear the sale on my phone and look down and see a high dollar item has sold.
- I got some nice inventory this week from an online auction at an auction house that is about 4 miles from my house. This is only the 3<sup>rd</sup> online auction this place has done since the pandemic started, so I am thrilled when they do one and I can pick stuff up so close to home. The auctioneer hates doing online auctions because they are so time consuming and he has another job during the week.
- Great podcast this week! I love hearing about the coffee business as well. Very interesting process.
11/14/20-11/20/20
Total Items In Store: 2182
Items Sold: 48
Gross Sales: 1024
Highest Price Sold: $60 (2 Nebraska Machinery CAT Snapback Hats)
Average Price Sold: $21.34Returns: 0 $0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $88
Number of items listed: 120- Solid week of sales. Just made it to the $1K weekly goal.
- My 1800’s bottle that I put up for auction didn’t sell, so I am listing BIN/BO for $1000. I have one person who has offered me $275 for it. I am kind of uneasy about him though. He contacted me several times while it was on auction. At one point he offered me $225 and a golf bag lamp and several golf balls for it. He tried to downplay the condition of the bottle when he made me an offer, which always makes me nervous about the buyer.
- Bottle Update: I ended up taking an offer for $300 on the bottle (will be in next weeks numbers). I had multiple offers come in and most were in the low $200’s range due to a small crack in the bottle. I ended up not selling it to the guy that had been e-mailing me all last week and he was not happy about it. In addition to having a bad feeling about him, he tried to get me to work out a deal outside of eBay, which I never do.
- Scavenge of the week: 2 large boxes of ballcaps from an auction for $35. Spent most of the day Sunday watching football and listing the hats. 4 of them sold by Monday morning for a total of $100. Paid for the entire auction in less than 24 hours. By the end of the week I sold 10 of the hats for $235.
11/7/20-11/13/20
Total Items In Store: 2096
Items Sold: 43
Gross Sales: $1885
Highest Price Sold: $400 (Harrison’s Columbia Ink Bottle)
Average Price Sold: $43.84Returns: 1 $20
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of items listed: 53- Had an awesome week of sales. Easily made up for my last two slow weeks. Highlighted by the sale of a bottle from the late 1800’s for $400. I listed it for quite a bit higher than others I had seen sold and it was purchased for full asking price within a couple hours of listing it.
- I have another bottle from the 1800’s I am listing. I am going to experiment with putting it up for auction with a high starting price. It’s pretty rare, so I am going to see if there is any interest in bidding it up. If it doesn’t sell, I will list it next week with BIN/BO.
- The bottles came with a box lot of glass items I picked up at a local auction for $2.50 – My scavenge of the week!
- I got my book on Saturday from Annaesthetic23. I’d love to say that I’ve finished it already, but I keep stopping to digest the info and reflect on my own business and path to where eBay has taken me. The book is extremely well written and with a quirky style that is very engaging. Great job Anna..must feel great to be a published author!
10/31/20-11/6/20
Total Items In Store: 2090
Items Sold: 32
Gross Sales: $717
Highest Price Sold: $70 (New Corning Spice of Life Menu-Ette Set)
Average Price Sold: $22.40Returns: 1 $60
Money Spent on New Inventory: $26
Number of items listed: 11- Another pretty poor week in sales. Sales really started to pick up at the end of the week, though. Hoping the end of the election puts people in a buying mood.
- The weather has been beautiful here, so I didn’t list much this week. Spent most of the week working outside before the northern Illinois weather catches up to us.
- Hit a small estate auction this week that was poorly attended. I got about a half truckload of stuff for $26. Quite a few box lots with single items that will sell for enough to pay for the entire auction.
I ordered a copy also. Thanks for listing it and good luck with your sales! Gregg.
10/24/20-10/31/20
Total Items In Store: 2104
Items Sold: 21
Gross Sales: $456
Highest Price Sold: $80 (New Corning Spice of Life Menu-Ette Set)
Average Price Sold: $21.71Returns: 1 $8 – partial refund for damaged mug.
Money Spent on New Inventory: $176
Number of items listed: 12- Very poor week in sales. Only 21 items sold and most were very low dollar.
- My shipping options changed back this week to defaulting to what the buyer requested, so that’s a good thing.
- Our area in Illinois is seeing rising COVID numbers and will be shutting down all indoor dining again this week.
- My mail carrier is thrilled that the election is almost over and she won’t have to sort thousands of political ads everyday anymore.
- She also said that she has seen a huge drop in the number of packages she’s picking up and delivering daily. She thinks people are slowing their spending due to uncertainty about the election and worry about their job status with COVID on the rise.
10/10/20-10/16/20
Total Items In Store: 2095
Items Sold: 40
Gross Sales: $1153
Highest Price Sold: $150 (2 Vintage Revere Ware Muffin Tins)
Average Price Sold: $28.84Returns: 1 $32
Money Spent on New Inventory: $74
Number of items listed: 58- Back on track with sales this week. Made it back over $1K after a really slow week last week.
- Found 2 1980’s Revere Ware muffin tins in a box I got from an auction a couple weeks ago and they sold for $150 this week. People will buy the craziest things!
- Had a return this week on a set of flatware. I listed them with the wrong pattern and had to refund the buyer. Dumb mistake!
- My numbers don’t include a couple of small sales on FB Marketplace. I cleaned out a few larger items from the garage which works very well using FB.
- This week’s discussion also prodded me to go and take a look at my weekly averages. So far this year my average week is $1102 in sales. My average week last year was $754. When I quit my day job last May, I was averaging $440 a week and my goal was to get to at least $1K per week by the end of the year. I was able to reach that goal and maintain it. I try to get at least $2000 worth of product listed each week which got me to my sales goal fairly rapidly. Over the next year, I am going to have to try to raise my listing goal to $3K and see if I can get to a $1500 weekly average.
