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It’s a bummer, but it’s coming. Your buyers state is a 10% state also. If he lived in a 6% state that would be $18.
Until this sinks in and buyers figure out it is not us sellers who are trying to do something fishy they may think they can just go shop elsewhere. But sooner later it will become a reality, sink in and realize it is there own states percentage rate and a new law, and it is going to be applied across the board.
A friend of mine was telling me, one way he was going to try to “offset” some of the sales tax, is to start looking at the location of who he is buying from for common, everyday supplies and to start buying his supplies from vendors who are very close to him which would lower his shipping costs somewhat and that may help “offset” what he will now be paying in Sales Tax. Interesting idea, but if buyers start doing this, that will hurt sales.
We are located in Atlanta and FL is our largest buyer state but California is second. If all those buyers start to look at a sellers location and try to buy only from someone who is 100 miles away instead of 3,200 miles away, then some buyers may not buy from us. Again, on unuslaul hard to find items, there may not be another one closer to them or even available at all, but throws just another wrinkle into the mix.
MIke at MDC Galleries and Fine Art.
I agree Jay. These light but larger size boxes, up an over 1,728 cubic inches cost a lot more just because of their footprint. I am packing one right now, 24x18x18 but less than 5 lbs. Lamp shade and a lamp base but it sold for $80 but over $25 to ship to Virginia.
Also I just went to do my first labels this morning and I see a brand new, more modern looking shipping interface. Things located in new places, so I had to slow dwn and read what was where. It does require a couple more clicks, but no big deal.
MIke at MDC Galleries and Fine Art.
Hey Sharyn: To add to your comments. I did a trade name posts way back, who knows when, but to paraphrase sometimes trade names become to go to regular name for products other wise made from a common basic formula.
Few quick examples:
*Lexan made from Gen. Elec. resin pellets is actually a polycarbonite plastic. Lexan is just its trade name.
* Plexiglass is Rohmn Haus name for Acrylic sheeting. It has several trade names but they are all just rolled or sheet flowed acrlic resin.
* Same for Mylar, Duponts name for Polyester sheeting. etc., etc.As for your Catalin .. check the Wiki link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalin
In 1927 American Catalin bought the patents for Bakelite which is just an Phenol resin which is the opaque Phenolic plastic we see used as mother boards and plates for soldered electronics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenol_formaldehyde_resin The Catali company came up with a two part phenol resign compound that was transparent and not the opque Bakelite formula. Those in the mid century we started seeing clear plastic jewlery, handles, knobs, etc., etc.
Bakelite being the older formula and mostly opaque has become more collectible because one, it is older, used on many radio, electronics and such as America moved into the plastic age and for all the various colors. Some colors more valuable than others, depending on the product also. And it is harder to find these days.
I think other SL members had comments on that older post on plastic also, but one would have to started doing a search here on the forum to see.
Take care..
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art.
01/03/2019 at 7:53 am in reply to: Listing items you are completely not interested in listing #54431Sharyn: Was this something you did a while back or just recently? The reason I ask, what type of success have you had, sold any and at about what price each.
I pulled 2 trunk size tubs, 2 smaller bins and 4 shopping bags full of clothes our daughter gave us and they have just been sitting for over a year. We don’t do clothes except for a few jackets. There’s got to be over 100 pcs. of clothing some never worn, so new with tags still attached. Women’s tops, pants, jeans, shoes. But they are no high end brands. Most, considering how low clothes sell for these days would maybe be $10 or less per item. We target selling items for more than that.
I have them pilled into the living room so we can sit down and go through them. The first thought was to just donate and be done with them. Then Susan said take them up to a local consignment store, and if they sell them, take what we get and we are done with them.
But now you mention “lotting” clothes in bundles we were both wondering what success you have had and about what you were getting for them?
Just curious. We are going to make a decision in the next day or two and the easiest would be just give to the consignment store, then after 4 months I think they pull things that didn’t sell and donate themselves.
Consigning would be the fastest way to get all of them out of our hair, and do so within just a few hours instead of the time to list them.
We try to target items that will sell for more than $30 these days to make listing worth it for us.
So just curious…
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Troy.. Your Last line.. what a hoot!!! Amazon $15. LOL đ At least I didn’t have a mouthful of coffee and spit it all over my keyboard.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
12/31/2018 at 1:28 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54235You know, thinking out of the current topic but still related, if you are the owner of a smaller store or restaurant, just try to refuse to sell to or provide services to anyone and see how fast that gets you in trouble. It is a wonder the “potential buyer” for whatever reason, doesn’t come back legally with some type of claim, about why they are being refused or not allowed to buy at the store??? HHHhhmmmmm.
mike a MDCGFA
RTWV: I hear you loud and clear. But in the case of real old vintage decorative items, dinnerware, glasses, ashtrays, fishing lures, old tools, old pottery, etc., etc, there is something that can be called a flaw on some level by anyone.
we have expensive pieces but they have crazing in the glaze, Royal Doulton pieces from England that has a couple of flea bites in some of the intricate detailing.
we have an “eye” here at MDCGFA that in most cases find flaws that many buyers don’t even know about.So with all this said, we would have to send a message such as yours out to every buyer who purchases or makes an offer on a whole lot of our very old items. Especially when it comes to glaze crazing.
But I hear what you are saying. You are trying to create a clean seller-buyer delivery stream in an effort to minimize any type of negative response in any form from a buyer. Man, I wish we could send something like that automatically via Ebay to every interested party.
And to the meat of the issue, we do describe flaws we find on every item that we see them on, but what I would really like to say to every buyer, “READ THE DANG DESCRIPTION AND ITEM SPECIFICS!!” We daily get questions about something that is 99.5% of the time already answered in the listing at some place.
Your statement about the buyer saying they didn’t read anything just reinforces what Jay has said a couple of times, Some buyers just see the one display photo, the Bold Face Price and then they buy. Many don’t see that the item is on Sale at 20% off, they don’t see the original price, they offer an amount that in their mind is 40% less but in reality is 60% low because they don’t see the original price.
Add to that, that Ebay on cell phones chops off a certain amount of the title, and many people don’t know what “blue links” are, then we are in a world of just buy it fast and then I will send it back if I don’t like it, and will blame the seller some how to get out of any responsibility for not seeing anything we have posted or paying for any of the shipping.
Ok, I get a small, partial rant out. Whew I feel better. đ
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art.
12/31/2018 at 12:57 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54228Herman Cain used to have a saying either at the beginning or end of his radio show, “Those that are going our way, then jump on our wagon, those that ain’t, then get out of the way!”. đ
mdc at mdcgfa
12/31/2018 at 12:52 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54227Geoff: I would think that serious resellers would just set up some kind of rotating buying line. Have 3 or 4 people going in every hour and buying a small quantity, then rotating people until a large quantity is purchased.
Seems to me that determined, clever buyers will figure out some type of simple work around to get thei buying done. And seems like a cost to Target to patrol the check out lines.
Hhhmmm..mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
12/30/2018 at 4:29 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54174Troy: Good point about the “networking” mentality. The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask. So ask your partner and if they don’t have the skills sets to dig into the question, then reach out to someone else.
Susan just couldn’t throw back detailed answers on the relational database issues, so when I heard you mention something way back on the forum, then Bingo.. A light bulb went off and I told myself and her, that this is a guy I need to talk to, especially with you and I having the same manufacturing backgrounds.
It was the conversation with you that pulled my focus away from WonderLister, especially with their current hold-ups-roadblocks about Etsy and aimed me toward SixBit. Then after I informed you of what WL did for the Shopify interface, you said for me to inquire with SixBit, let them know about some solutions I found by working with WL and dig into those issues. Which 2019 is the time that is going to happen.But the point is having someone, or this forum or even our helpers to build that sounding board of brains around yourself and it will make things so much easier.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Sorry to hear about the situation at the University. What a kick in the pants at Christmas time. Chin up and get focused on the back-up plan. Maybe you will have enough time for the switch to plan b full time-hard core.
good luck mike at MDCGFA
Steve.. Love the musiv at the end. Fits the dogs just tooling around on the path. Cute.
BTW, the foggy background shot would make an interesting frame to “freeze” and print out and frame up. Nice, soft, landscape shot. Maybe print out a small test shot and see how the rez comes out.
Enjoy the Holidays..
Mike at MDCGFA
12/23/2018 at 10:11 pm in reply to: Sad story I heard this week. Makes me thankful to sell online! #53924But Mark.. Here is a tip, if he takes any country record and puts in on a record player and plays it BACKWARDS, he will get his business, wife, money, hound dawg, and truck all BACK! đ LOL
Mike at MDCGFA đ
OK.. I know you are not expecting this, but I had to run some clean up utilities on both our computers, sort of my year end house cleaning and it was going to take hours, so I went way past the simple, we jumped to a premium store at about 400 ++ items. Can’t remember the sales volume.
But I have tried to show a different way of not only thinking about what level store, but what level do I need to be at, period, in this game of “Online Selling” on Ebay.
So, here goes..
I understand you are asking for opinions of the SL members on the threshold of when to jump from a $25 store level to a $75 store level, but also you may be interested in using this Ebay calculator to take a broader look. Overall, personally, the difference is small when compared to everything else, in perspective. Though, granted $600 is no small amount, when you run our example through the calculator link below, I think you will see my point.
One you can use to find profit, either by putting in one item OR drop in your whole quarter or annual numbers and do a what if using it. May help shed some light on what to expect to live from after fees.
This calculator is fun if you have your total annual sales, know about what your avg. selling price is, what your avg. price you have paid over the year, then fill in the other couple of fields. You may be surprised at what you are left with. Comes much closer to the figures T-Satt and I throw out at Jay at times.
From the stated bottom line subtract what you pay out [expenses] to run your business such as First your annual store fee at $75 per month premium or use $60 per month for yearly pre-paid. [which saves money and we are going to start doing that this year]. You can change that expense, but that is all your store fee is an expense, we put it into the “Rent” category in our accounting program. But when you finish this example you will see the difference between Basic and Premium is very little in the overall scheme of things. Either $25×12 mo= $300 per year or $75×12 mo. = $900 per. = $600 difference.
Then subtract estimated car expenses, home office expenses such as increased utilities, and then office supplies and you will see that the remaining amount can start to fall into the under 25% of the gross sales figure. We mention this occasionally of SL but it usually starts a string of I can’t believe that replies.
So, here is an example:
* Let’s say you are planning on or hoping to sell $40,000 gross per year,
* now divide that number by what your average sales price is per item, [which u can get from your Ebay stats]. We will use $35 per item = 1,143 items sold in a year
* Now multiply those 1,143 by a guestimated avg. price you charged the cust. for shipping. We will use $9.50 per item or $10,858 charged [now put your number or ours into the second field]
* Next, put a guestimate of what those 1,143 items may have cost you. Our overall avg. purchase price [which we track in our accounting software as well as WonderLister {{soon to be converted to SixBit ï}}] is approx. $9.00 per item, so insert $10,287
* Next since we are a Top-Rated Seller plus, we get some large shipping discounts, as high as almost 40% at times, but I am going to use 20% overall average, so the $8,686 âchargedâ shipping only costs us [less 20%] at $8,686
* Ok, now this is where you can play âwhat ifâ. Input your store level, click on premium or basic, or toggle back and forth, do the Same for Top Rated Seller status, and then just leave International sales as a no for this experiment.
* The final light at the end of the tunnel. With my example numbers above, $40,000 in sales, [avg. sales price per item at $35 ea. gives you 1,143 items sold], avg. cost to purchase an item at $9 ea., next the avg. shipping cost charged to the cust. at $9.50 ea., avg., avg. cost to ship we paid [less 20%] is $7.60Then toggle and âplay what ifâ with which store level you want and or top-rated seller and you will see what I think is an interesting final number.
My example plugged in shows that out of $40,000 in annual sales, the profit is showing at $25,259 or approx. 63% left over for a seller meaning Ebay, PayPal, shipping, fees, everything is close to 37% of what you sell.
NOW, subtract all the soft costs many of us have mentioned over the years here on SL as well as any taxes you will have to pay on it, and you may find 50% or more of what you have sold {GROSS} has been eroded by all the factors [that some us do actually track] as a cost of doing business online. The bantered about 16% to 17% figures of what Ebay costs are fine except they do not encompass the whole story.
So, now you will see that $40k in sales may yield, after all is said and done maybe $20,000 to $25,000. But sticking with what is showing, the $25,259.00 dollars, clicking between the Basic, Premium, even Anchor stores doesnât move the number, what does move the number is by being a top-Rated Seller, it moves the final amount by $366
NOW… go back and play the âwhat Ifâ game. Input higher or lower annual sales, higher or lower avg. selling unit costs, any number you want, the bottom line numbers will still show what I think to be a much higher âCOST OF DOING BUSINESSâ than most people think or consider. And never over estimate the amount of âsoftâ [hidden costs]. They are there, believe me, electricity, water, heat, A/C, square, office supplies, magic markers, paper towels, silver polish, shoe polish, storage bags for shirts, dry cleaning costs, lint roller brushes, paper clips, rubber bands, staples for your stapler, ball point pens, windex, ink, toner, printer paper, tape, footage portion of your mortgage, paying yourself, and of course the Non-liquid-direct out of pocket cost of having 1k to 8k of hard goods sitting in bins on your selfves [using even a $5 per item avg COG] that is $5,000 to $40,000 tied up in inventory.
Think about where that money came from??? And to find even $5,000 of SPARE CASH using a real accounting program and the calculator numbers that means I have to sell $15k to $20 to generate that âreserve capitalâ to plow back into inventory in the first place. Jay says, to slowly grow your business, well that is a forced given nless you take out a $5k business loan to invest into inventory or use OPM [other peoples money]. If not think about this, Jay and Ryane have taken over 15 years to build up an 8,000 plus item inventory. That came out of âreserve profitsâ. Sales over and above what the cost was to replace what they sold, and live off of some of it also. Letâs say and average cost of $3 per item, then they are sitting on $24 in inventory that took a decade and a half to build. That is only $1,600 per year hard cash pulled out of reserves. Not much when looked at annually. Thatâs only approx.. $133 per month, but steadily invested [plowed back] into inventory that was over and above what was sold. No small feat indeed.
So, For those planning on quitting your job, look hard at being able to sell $40,000 of merchandise a year and then living from only $15k to $25k that will be left over and having $5k to $10k sitting in plastic bins. All of the YouTube vides do not paint the whole story by a long shot. But they will be willing to sell you a .Pdf file of how they do it. I even wonder if most of those YouTubers even know what their real bottom line, actually is??? HHhhmmm.
Again, just think it all over deeply. It is not as rosey of a picture as some make it seem, and that it doesnât even have to be an extremely detailed look at it either.
No arguments wanting to start here, just saying, this is how some of us here that participate on SL look at the overall picture, barring all the little spread sheet nuances we all use and differ in how we use those numbers.
There is a cost to selling online, there is a cost to Ebay and the difference between a basic store, premium store or anchor store only means something in the smaller, month to month scheme of things not so much on the grand scheme level.
There used to be a calculator used to answer your question directly, without providing an opinion, just a dollars, cents and fee look at when the calculator says to “jump to the next level” store, but I havenât seen that in a long while and think that this new calculator is its replacement.
And as Sonia mentions above, you will get another few dollars per month in supplies from Ebay, then divide that by 3 months to get a monthly value in dollars to aide your contemplation.
So, thatâs my monthly wall of text and not a Dennis Miller rant. Just an opportunity to play âWhat Ifâ with friends. [Joshua says to Dr. Falcon], âA strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of Chessâ ï
Have fun playing what if and contemplating if full time selling and at what level store is needed and if this way of life is the way to make a living.
Ok. I expect the coming bombardment but be forewarned I have very little time for rebuttal since we are now involved with building 4 spec houses and permits being pulled by Friday.
Have a great Holiday everybody and may the coming year be one of great sales, growth, progress and always remember to always be applying KAIZEN as you go forward.
Kindest Regards and Happy Holidays to All from
The management team, Michael, Susan, Lisa and Christie at
MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art
SmartParts Small Equipment Parts divs.Thanks Temudgin: That surfices for me. Not worth it at all. We have too much vintage stuff to sell than trying to make a few extra bucks from cleaning out my admin. office supply cabinet.
It was seeing Ryanne list some of her software that got me thinking. But why even chance it, and we are way too busy to have to stop and deal with any issues. We need to focus with any spare time we have making the switch on our listing software and starting to build 4 spec houses than to have to deal with a VERO, copyright, non-authorized re-seller and everything else you mention.
Into the trash those 4 bags will go.
Thanks
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art -
This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by
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