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@Steven If you are on Managed Payments, Ebay doesn’t allow listing any items that are currency. American or foreign. Paper or Coins.
They say they are working on it. There are a couple more catagories as well some in Ebay Motors and some in the Adult item categories. The last Ebay Update had a link to what can’t be posted as of now. Also a bunch of category requirements that are required and many that are recommended.
So lots of changes.
mike – mdcgalleries
JR may be on to something. Maybe slip it over a folded cloth wash cloth or small hand towel in a guest bathroom on the side of the sink? Or to slip over a folded napkin and there were once several others to make a set? [but without a size or something to reference “scale” hard to tell if too big for that.
Mike – MDC Galleries
Agree with all of the above. And think about your statement of what you said. You would cherry pick then donate the balance. Well any body else could donate the stuff just as well.
If you do want to cherry pick, has her take “good, sharp” photos and send to you. Look closely and zoom in. If you see anything of interest just ask for more photos.
Another thing, if you take all that stuff someone is going to have to go get it, or deliver it to you and who is going to do that. If they deliver stuff it will be a back up to your door and dump quickly. Do you have a space for a large, quick dump off?
As many of us have said in the past, there is a whole world and tons of inventory out in the world. When you need inventory, there will always be a source for it. The harder thing is to list all of your current in house inventory, clean it all up then go looking for new stuff later.
Don’t forget it is 4th quarter right now and every item you have unlisted is a missed opportunity to possibly have hard cash in your pocket.
Just my opinion. That and $1.50 will get you half a cup of coffee, or a partial payment on some of Ryanne’s fresh roasted! 🙂 LOL
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Like TM I am not familiar with it but here is a link to Worthpoint that shows about 40 or so comps. Maybe you can dig some more info. out of them. The highest sold was about $51 in May of 2019.
See if any are a match. And if you have a paid store on Ebay, don’t forget about the TerraPeak Research that’s free and goes back for all solds on Ebay for the past 12 months.
https://www.worthpoint.com/inventory/search?query=rapid+fire+zebra&category=
Good Luck
Mike – MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries
Congratulations Julie!!! Welcome to the “Full Timers” Club.
Now you will be able to enjoy those North Georgia foothills to the Great Smokey Mountains that begin up your way.
I know you said you will doing the reselling routine on a full time daily basis, but at least you can break away whenever you want for some Carefree touring of North Georgia, which is beautiful in the fall.
Just breath, relax and enjoy the ride! 🙂
Mike – MDC Galleries and Fine Art
I go with Mickdog. No use trying to explain anything at this point. When a seller replies and starts giving an explanation to a situation, that is just possibly educating that buyer with information he may never have even thought about. Such as sure, yeah that’s it, sure, why didn’t you tell me which size chart you were using.
Well just as plausible is that may they are now retaining water, got fatter, gravity works so pulling down on their body their feet are getting wider or longer, etc., etc. see my point.
Don’t give them any info. We use automatic returns. Ebay answers then within seconds and sends them a return label. This prevents them “Phishing” for a discount-refund. You can always resell a returned item if still in good shape and re-coupe most of your money. In about half the cases the item is never returned anyway.
If you made an error you will know it and in those cases refund the intial shipping and you eat the return shipping cost, no matter how much. Your bad, so it is a cost of doing business. Same as if you drop and break and item before you ship. Your bad, you eat it.
But with any return reason for anything short of our mistake, Nope.
Also don’t run afraid of a negative review. You have “tools and skills” to deal with that as well as all of the experienced talent here at SL to help you through it. Deal with a complaint only if it happens.
We currently have a request for a return of a small Haeger cat figurine ceramic planter. A sitting cat with a small backet that will hold some small amount of dirt and a small flower or a small group of artifical flowers. His reason for requesting a return is ” It is defective, it won’t work”. Are u kidding me. A small area to place flowers “won’t work”. Well, Ebay gave him a return label within seconds of asking for a return. No discount or partial refund. Just send it back. He has until Oct. 5th to return it. I don’t expect it back. If he does, then refund him minus the original shipping since the return shipping is a replacement to us for that and that is that.
If he creates a negative feedback do that battle if it happens.
Also do not be too hasty to respond as a “Reply” to anything he may post as his feedback. I have heard here on SL, that once you post a reply to any “feedback you recieve”, that it locks Ebay out from removing the Feedback or other things.
Just an opinion from us down here at MDC Concepts, Inc. That and 1.50 will get you half a cup of coffee.
Mike – MDC Galleries and Fine Art
I think they may be corner supports for a glass shelf that has rounded corners. Slide 1 down 4 vertical side supports and then position a rounded corner shelf in each corner slot.
Of course there are usually a set of 4 for each shelf and if a 4 shelf unit 16 total to hold all shelves.
But just a wild guess.
mike – mdcgfa in Atl.
My helper made a statement that may hold true. She said if we say “Not for Food Use”, it mat send a signal that we know something in it is harmful and may discourage some buyers. That may very well be true.
Guess maybe a simple “none” as Timo suggests may be a better choice.
I think I may be using “Not for use with Food. For decorative / display use only”. Copy and paste this into that field and saving it in my templates.
This is what all the imports from other countries do / use on their tags or stamped on the products. Many dyes, glazes, colors contain phthalates, cadmium and other stuff. Without really knowing what all is in most of our old stuff then maybe the above disclaimer will cover most of it. Seems to work on the import labeling.
mike – mdcgfa
P.S. Is it magnetic. Steel, Tin and platinum are magnetic materials.
We always carry a 10x power or higher loupe and a magnet with us whenever we go procuring for inventory.
mike at MDCGFA
Howdy declutter:. Can you tell me what letters are above the letters “Zinn”? Those letters may be a better clue but even with my screen enlarged to it’s fullest and using a magnifying glass I can’t make those letters out.
The <span class=”ILfuVd”><span class=”hgKElc”><b>Zinn</b> is a German occupational surname, which <b>means</b> someone who works with tin, a tin blacksmith.</span></span>
So that is leading me to think “Tin”. The PL18 could be an artisan’s initials and the 18 could be a mold he used to create the piece. Like a two piece mold with melted tin poured into it.
The metal used would need to be pliable enough to “crimp” onto a cork, but would need those edge close ups to see more detail.
The Top letters or word may help further to identify.
But at this point just throwing darts at the target in the dark so to speak.
mike – mdc galleries and fine art
Yes, I agree. Thank was what I was trying to say in the “wall of next” reply. If many quick listers or newbies are looking to see what things are “LISTED AT”, then my higher pricing before a Sale is placed would hopefully make them think to price higher also.
mike – mdcgfa
Aahh.. Indy Sales. The Fast Nickle Approach as Jay calls it.
Yes indeed and agree. I looked on worth point and only one has sold for over $40 by itself. It seems like it is more of a souvenir type item. 333 Sold ones and the ones that seem to match these design styles all under 45 down to $10.
Yes when there are many, many currently listed items then unfortunately you are in the “soup mix”. That mix includes sellers who have pricing methods all over the place. We usually look up most of our items prior to purchase at an auction preview or during the walk through at estate sales. We don’t do many yard sales because we don’t find many $50 to $100 dollar and up items. At least for the the amount of yard sales we have to go to.
We currently have 1,185 items and 632 are all priced over $50. We bought into Jay’s statement years ago of trying to find higher dollar items so we could work less. I am almost 72 years old, been doing this since 2002 on another account and my wife is 69 and just gotten over a whole year of cancer chemo and radiation treatments so she can’t help me much. So it’s me and helpers so we really need to have more expensive items and handle less inventory.
mike – mdc galleries
Collins Creek Collections
We have talked about pricing strategies here on SL before. You may try a search to see if you can find those threads. Some older members had very good pricing strategies to share.
Ours in a nutshell for vintage [over 20 years old], more eclectic type stuff, not everyday commodity items.
Yes, go high. We take the highest comp we can find from 3 or 4 price sources. We believe if someone else sold it for that amount in the last 2 to 3 years, we believe we too can get at least the same amount. So we take that amount then multiply it times 1.60. So if an item sold 16 months ago at $50, we take $50 x 1.60 and list it at $80.
Now here is the strategy which several us have discussed through the years including Jay. That is “Perceived Value, Perceived Bargain, Perceived deal, Perceived having won”
Now we are constantly running flash sales at 7 to 15 day intervals depending on start time, day of the week or seasonal holiday time. So in essence our items are basically almost always on Sale.
So, now take the $80 listed item and it will within 24 hours of listing show the Red Cross Out line over the Original List Price and Show a 25% Off Sale Price of $60. Then now take another 5% Off because we use Promoted Listings at 5% so now that item is down to $57. Now take another 10% Off because we also will tender “Offers” which we cap around 10% to 15% under the Showing Sale price so now the item may be poised to Sell at $51.30 to $48.45.
So now that item sells for just about at what the original highest priced Item sold for, which is right where we wanted it to be in the first place.
BUT THE BUYER is proudly sitting there with a “Perceived value of buying at a discount=FALSE], Ebay showed the buyer how much he saved with the Sale in the listing, a False Perceived Savings, we recoup our 5% promoted listing fee [comes right out of the buyers pocket but he doesn’t know it, Then he MAKES AN OFFER TO US or WE SEND AN OFFER TO HIM [doesn’t matter which] and we or he accepts [again doesn’t matter], then the BUYER IS SO PROUD because he is the WINNER of a “Fake Challenge” and we end up right where we wanted to be in the first place. The buyer gets a trip through the land of falsehoods of thinking he got a deal, caught a Sale just at the right time, bargained us down through shrew lower price offers, he walks away very proud and we smile all the way to the bank.
If an item has set for a long time, months or year, we will often times as JandR do, take even lower offers but not by much. Being the slower dime advocates, there is a buyer for everything at some point and time. But even another 5 to 15% is BUILT INTO the price.
Then when we offer REE SHIPPING all of the above applies… It is “Shipping Included’ so we take the shipping cost [Say $15 for the item] and add it ON TOP of that $60 [so now $75] covering costs out to ZONE 6 zip codes, then let the item price go through all of the same levels of discount, still ending up in the same final sale price of about $45 to $50, again right where we want to be in the first place, but with the benefit of the Buyer “THINKING” he got “FREE SHIPPING” to Boot.
Now yes, the Ebay FVF, store costs, and all of the expenses come into play at the end, but that gets into NET PROFITS which is why we bump up the Selling prices so high.
To end, this does exactly what Stephen is saying, this keeps everyone from being engaged in a race to the bottom. We are actually increasing the overall market place value of the market for the item. We are actually helping all sellers to increase their profits IF they will adopt the “RACE TO SEE WHO CAN SELL AN ITEM FOR THE MOST” instead of for the least.
Value added either “Real or Perceived” is the race we want to win, striving to be the one who sold for the highest price.
And don’t forget that your net profit is to be found in two places. One is in what you pay for the item and two is in the spread from that purchase point to the point of final Sale Price. Buy for a $1.00 and sell for $100 not buy for $75 and sell for $100. Always be listing sure, but always be trying to drive the actual cost of your inventory down.
My wife Susan worked for Pfizer Corp. years ago when they owned Coty Cosmetics. The cost of a packaged tube of Lipstick that hung on a Kiosk in a store was $6.50 per package. The lipstick costs to make was $.01 per unit, the metal or plastic twist tube holder was $08 and the blister package and printing ran she said about the same per unit. So, item unit cost of $.17 per item and sold at $6.50 or approx 38 times the cost to produce.
The problem we see online, especially Ebay is there are so many newbies and those not knowing their gross and net numbers and getting fooled by other lower priced items by those who think buy for $1 and sell for $1.50 then others see those in the comps and think they should compete. OR, that many times those comps are for items that were listed as Auctions and sold for the low starting price. We never include anything sold on an auction in our searches for comps sold.
Hope this helps in giving those mulling over pricing methodologies something to maybe think about. Not saying to follow us, we just believe in buy low sell high, use our brains and not our backs, sell less items thus less to pull-pack and ship BUT YET MAKE MORE MONEY by following our own process.
mike at MDC Concepts, Inc. MDC Galleries, Collins Creek Collections and SmartParts Small Equipment Supplies
The team: Susan, Lisa, Christie, Karen, Kim and Michael
OK Zach. Will try that next time. That will be so much quicker than a total take down and a complete relist.
Change the category and refresh-revise the listing.
Think some of us are just bumping into the issue Ryanne discussed in this episode. The MP program not playing well with items listed in the GSP program.
mike – mdcgfa
