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Some quick details on the USPS scanning / not scanning. If you have a lot of packages its best to print out a “scan sheet” The postman will scan this instead. Most likely he won’t stand there and scan 40+ packages, nor will he scan them back at the office. Schedules are way too tight for that.
What most people don’t know is USPS routes are drawn up to be very tight. Some routes have 800+ drops and you’re expected to finish that in roughly 7 hours. If one were to run the math on the delivery times this equates to 30-45 seconds at each “drop” over a 7 hour period. This period also does not take into account scanning customer pickups, certified mail, registered mail, or any other type of mail that requires a signature.
The one potential benefit to the mailman for scanning packages on a route is if he picks up enough packages over a long time (perhaps one year) his route may get shortened, but even that is highly unlikely.
The post office never really adjusted route delivery times after package delivery volume increased. Post office Mgmt M.O. is to keep adding on work until someone can no longer do it.
The predominate method is accrual based accounting. Cash based accounting is good for businesses that do not have inventory. Ebay sellers have inventory although that alone wouldn’t prevent an ebay business from using cash basis accounting.
Cash basis accounting allows one to defer income and/or expenses into other periods which is why the main reason the IRS does not allow businesses to switch between the two.
Cash basis may make sense for a new business that has low revenue, but if the business grows and starts making significant revenue the IRS is going to require it to switch to accrual basis. At that point most likely all previous tax returns will have to be restated and unless you are an accountant yourself that’s going to be expensive.
The only practical advantage cash based accounting has is that it’s easier to manage cash flow.
I would also assume every major consumer accounting program is all accrual based.
The “Amazon has set a new standard for buyer expectations in online commerce” can be annoying. I’ve had ebay buyers contact me after 2 days asking “where’s my package”? One person contacted my every day until their package arrived and of course this was one instance where USPS was slow or misrouted the package. It took 6 days via priority mail – which is unusual even for USPS.
Given what I know about the USPS, I don’t think ebay’s “guaranteed delivery” they are rolling out is going to work. I hope they have deep pockets for refunds.
I can not find package delivery numbers, but as of 2016 the USPS collected approx $15 billion dollars in shipping and packing services. That is just over $1 billion per month. The USPS averages 1%-2% failure rate which is on priority mail, express, certified, and registered. (I may be forgetting some other classes) but I know for sure 1st class mail is not counted in the numbers.
One may be able to infer what ebay may be facing in refunds given those numbers above. I would hope someone at ebay was smart enough to do the analysis.
Cash vs Accrual accounting does not mean what most people think it means. In accounting theory income and expenses are recognized when they are earned/incurred. This is the accrual method.
For example, a business has a sale on June 29 for $100, but receives the cash on July 3rd.
When do you recognize the income ?Same thing for expenses especially recurring expenses. For example, you pay ebay $150 a year for an ebay store. Do you recognize the entire expense when you pay it or do you recognize 1/12 every month ?
Returns can be an issue, but returns are accounted for on the income statement (P/L statement) and subtracted from sales to come to a “net sales” number. Returns can also be calculated as a percentage of sales this way and if your returns are very high it needs to be investigated.
This isn’t a feedback experience, but I had received a letter in the mail and the name looked familiar. I looked up my previous sales and sure enough it was from a previous buyer.
The letter was basically a link to sign up for direct TV or something similar.I can’t think how sending letters like that would be profitable, at the minimum each letter costs .50 cents. Sending thru email would make more sense and save cents.
I haven’t heard of that brand, but if you’re looking for cheap you can find “goof off” at Lowes for about $6 (32 ounce bottle) This stuff works great.
If you find yourself in a jam and don’t have any remover on hand you can use 100% olive oil. Olive oil is a natural solvent, although given its cost its not really a cost effective choice.
IF you want to test how good olive oil is as a solvent, next time you have greasy oily hands from working on something rub some olive oil into your hands and watch the grease fade away.
I just read the wikipedia entry for House of Cards and Kevin Spacey’s character is from South Carolina. The accent makes more sense now. Don’t know why I thought it was set in New Orleans.
What a coincidence. I have the same wooden cassette holder and I was going to throw it out. I will have to double check the name, I’m not sure its a Napa Valley. I do have a Napa Valley vinyl record holder that’s for personal use. That thing must be 25 years old by now.
How did you clean the wooden cassette holder ? I would guess compressed air.
The “2 Fast 2 Curious” crowd won’t care if the parts are scratched and beat up because they are going to beat those parts up even more LOL.
A coworker of mine had his 10 year old Honda Civic stolen from the employee parking lot in broad day light. Car was found about 6 weeks later stripped and sitting on blocks in a ghetto part of the city. So you never know what will get stolen or what has perceived value to someone else.
Motorcycles are even worse, especially if you have a new sport bike like a GSXR, CBR, R6, etc.
2 or 3 guys pick up it and place it in a minivan and off they go. Plenty of videos like this on you tube where the crime was caught on security cameras.I tried to watch house of cards, but I couldn’t get past Kevin Spacey’s terrible New Orleans accent. Don’t know what the hell the producers where thinking. Maybe they tried to save money on voice coaches ?
I did watch “making of a murderer” a while back, and it just confirmed why one should never talk to the police. If the kid kept quiet he wouldn’t have been in that mess most likely.
You didn’t mention in your podcast, but if you have an Acura Integra 2-door version (I’m not sure if they had a 4-door version) those cars and their parts are in high demand. Reason being they are very popular with the “2 fast 2 furious” crowd. Even if the major drivetrain components such as the engine, tranny, drive axle are blown, this crowd will still buy them. They are always crashing and breaking stuff.
In case you didn’t know, large or heavy parts can be sold on craigslist. However, I would be cautious about having people coming to your house if the car is on your property. They may come back at night to strip more parts you never know. IF someone knows what they are doing they can strip any part in 15 mins or less (excluding drive train)
IF you do sell parts on ebay I would NOT offer returns on any of the mechanical parts especially electrical. I know ebay and paypal will make you take a return, but offering no returns may discourage people returning stuff. You don’t want people trying out your “alternator” to see if it works only to blow it out. However, I would offer returns on “trim and finish” pieces such as, mirrors, consoles, knobs, trim, floor mats, etc.
I have sold car and motorcycle parts on ebay and I do not offer returns on mechanical parts only trim pieces. I haven’t had any return requests yet though. No returns is an industry practice even on ebay.
Before parting out, you may want to check the scrap value for the car. Yards in my area usually offer $250 per car. Your area may be different, but you can make at least $250+ very easily only selling trim pieces.
360k is is quite the accomplishment, especially if the car never had any major repairs.
I can give you some insight. If you send an insured package with a value of $500 or more then signature confirmation is mandatory. I don’t know if this applies to your package. The USPS will leave a notice “pink sheet” for the customer to pick it up at the post office. They will leave notices at least twice. If it’s not picked up it will be returned to you. You can call the customers post office and ask how much time they have to pick up the package. It’s 14 or 30 days, I don’t remember.
The “no secure location available” can be a discretionary choice made by the mailman. For example, (assuming the package is not insured for $500 or more), the package is emblazoned with big bold letters that announce what’s in the package. Something like computers is a great example. Dell, HP, Sony et al, love to send packages with their company names all over it. I would not leave a package like that at someones door.
Try looking for ebay / amazon groups with the “meet up” app. There’s a meet up group in my area, although I haven’t gone to it. I think these types of groups are more geared towards “newbies” to ebay / amazon, and frankly I don’t want to teach others how to run an ebay / amazon business (at least not for free).
Still worth a look though since you never know what you’ll find or who you’ll meet.
At least 3/4 of they general public doesn’t have any clue how expensive shipping is, trust me I worked at the Post Office as a temp before. It was always funny when customers would argue at the counter then say they are going to UPS. Little do they know UPS is even MORE expensive.
To get back on topic, I have only received one “contradictory feedback’ so far in which the buyer left me a negative saying the xbox 360 was defective. I had them send it back to me and gave them a 100% refund (including shipping). They wrote in the feedback – xbox 360 wi fi didn’t work but I did receive a 100% refund. To me that doesn’t warrant a negative.
I’ve told people I’m a reseller too, that doesn’t always work though. I like to highlight the tax implications. For example, at the absolute minimum when selling thru ebay (or another site) you lose 22.5% automatically to taxes.
That’s assuming you’re in the lowest tax bracket, which is unlikely if you also have W-2 wage job. I usually just say 30% to taxes, since no one knows they can deduct half of the self employment tax unless they also are running a business. (I also haven’t accounted for state income taxes, which vary a lot)
I also tell them that if you are new to ebay/paypal they will hold your money for a minimum of 3 weeks or until you get 20 positive feed backs. It’s also unwise to be selling high value items as a new seller, since that will bring out some scammers, especially with electronics.
I do think when some people say “everything must go” or “moving to Florida in 2 weeks can’t take it with me” they are actually lying and trying to use that as a sales tactic. Similar to when retailers would run “going out of business sales” some of these guys were going out of business every week, week after week. It got so silly that in CT if you run a “going out of business sale” you have to get a permit from the state and pay for it.
Here’s a funny story. Last year I went to a garage sale in which the owner was being foreclosed on. He and his family were packing up stuff to move out. That would seem like a desperate situation to me, but I guess not to them. Anything they had of value wasn’t for sale or was priced near ebay. Instead they were making a “junk pile” and selling stuff from that pile. Otherwise that stuff was going in the garbage. So if I wanted to I could come back on garbage day and get it for free ? LOL they couldn’t follow that logic.
