Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
01/16/2019 at 9:38 am in reply to: Competitive Pricing vs. RARE – Pondering Research, shipping, wacky ideas #55240
There are certain words eBay should strip from product descriptions – RARE being one of the most abused and incorrectly used terms on eBay. Especially when 100’s of the same item are on the same platform.
I also hate “HTF” / “HARD TO FIND”…
Any true collector knows the value of your item – and if it is truly “rare”, they know it and will pay for it.
Hi Grace – thanks for sharing. As someone that has hearing issues as well (sensorineural deafness), I really enjoy selling on eBay since it doesn’t affect me in anyway. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone, don’t have to have conversations where I may interpret things wrong, and don’t have to deal with odd looks from people when I can’t understand them. It’s just nice to have days where I don’t have to have awkward conversations with people, or be worried that I’ll say the wrong thing.
Big and Tall stuff is an easy sell – as someone who wears tall shirts (they have the size with a T – like 2XLT) they are VERY expensive at retail and the number of stores selling these items at a fair price is lessening every day. I’m in Canada, and only 2 stores sell Big & Tall clothing now with Sears gone here since last year.
My favorite stores in the U.S. are also dying off – K-Mart was great for Big and Tall clothes at a reasonable price, but all the local ones to me are gone. The retailers that still exist in the U.S. are charging crazy prices for low quality product – Destination XL is horrible. I’m basically left at brick & mortar stores trying to see if the 3-5 shirts at Marshalls interest me.
The U.S. is one of the only countries that has online retailers selling big and tall clothing for a decent price – if you are outside the U.S. like me, you are stuck with eBay or a few other online retailers to get a deal.
Anytime I find Big and Tall stuff, especially with the tags, it is a quick and easy sale. Most of my items go to Europe where it must be VERY hard to get the sizes that are in the U.S.
Huge shoes are another struggle to find – I wear size 17…good luck finding them at a mall or for a good price when you do find them 🙁
I can’t believe that people still show up to work without getting a paycheck…..I don’t understand why different jobs are considered essential by the U.S. government, but the jobs that issue the checks aren’t essential…
Every area has a corrugated carton plant that you can call up to get boxes cheap. I use to work in the industry and there is always extra boxes made, or scrap boxes we had to dispose of. If they don’t have any branding, we gladly would give them away instead of renting a recycling dumpster.
They also sell to small businesses, and may have pre-made inventory for various local industries that you can buy on the cheap.
You should be able to get boxes for around 20 cents each by going direct. Also, specialized distributors sell boxes cheap. For example, I’ve bought boxes at a local restaurant supply business for around the 20 cent mark (generic pizza boxes, and various other boxes that are intended for use in the food industry).
Uline isn’t the cheapest, but they have more selection and easy ordering.
Also, if you buy 1000 boxes at a time, you could get your own size/printing on them cheaply from your local corrugated plant. They are very cheap if you aren’t picky on the liner/medium required (the paper that makes the box) so they can run it with someone else’s boxes, if you don’t have a tight deadline (they can run it when they are slow), and will pick them up yourself. All you need is your dimensions and they would provide a quote.
I think that everyone’s store/method is different. Depending on your items, your pricing, etc. your sales figures will be all over the place when compared to the next guy.
For example, I operate on a quick turnover – to do this, I like to be the “cheapest” guy on eBay for most of my items. I rather make $15 quick, then sit and compete to make $20 or $25 on the same item. It probably limits my profit in the long run, but in the short run I’m storing less, getting capital back, and it’s how I feel good running my business.
I sell about 10-15% of my inventory in a week – as I scale, I’m barely growing the size of my store inventory month to month. The calculations above would say I’m making about 20% of what I’m really taking in profit, so in my case they are invalid.
It all goes back to knowing your own personal numbers – as I scale, they seem to line-up with what I’ve done in the past. Using someone else’s numbers may get you into trouble in the long run.
YES!!!!!! Made my Friday thinking of one particular black belt I worked with in the past’s head blowing up. He drove a beat-up early 80’s Monte Carlo, that was converted to propane. If he wasn’t in six-sigma speak, he would be stating bible passages in Spanish and then explain the meaning in English. He spent his vacations in central America on bible missions that would end up with him married to a girl (when I say girl, they were always young) that would divorce him immediately when they qualified for citizenship. He did that at least 3 times. He would slyly steal 1 Keurig coffee cup from the board room after every meeting, and when he was let go, his office had a 4 tier metal filing cabinet full of them. I went out bowling with him once, he had a Miller Lite, and was wasted after half a bottle.
That is my best experience with a black belt.
When you start using this process, make sure you have some green belts and at least one black belt around to help with the DMAIC, SIPOCS, and over-analyze the data with at least 50 charts someone pulled out of Minitab. I want to see at least one RACI and some Paretto charts on why you choose to tackle the low hanging fruit. Remember, Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result folks! I expect a PowerPoint deck on which item you are going to list first by tomorrow at 8:30am.
Sorry…just having Six Sigma / “corporate speak” flashbacks!
I always second guess buying large/heavy items, but if the buyer pays the shipping, and there is good profit, I have no issue.
Some of the wilder large stuff this year I’ve sold was two bowling balls (they totaled almost 30 lbs – they were listed separate but one buyer bought them both) and a lot of 8 vintage tennis racquets (they don’t nest together well in a box – ended up bagging each one in a large garbage bag and filling the box with foam peanuts).
Good for me, but bad for Americans is that I had a buyer from the U.S. leave a note on a purchase today saying “Thanks for not charging tax”. They were from Illinois. Didn’t understand it at first but maybe tax was being charged on similar items they were looking at.
Strange a law would be enacted to give foreign sellers an advantage.
LOL – it’s always the black shirts for me as well – but I think 95% of the shirts I sell are black. I only sell vintage sports, wrestling, or concert shirts, and those shirts for some reason are always black. When I’m stretched for time at thrift stores, I just look at the black shirts as they are typically what I’m looking for.
Pain in the butt for me as well as I fold, bag, and put a label on shirt, and sometimes miss the shirt I’m looking for going through my bins. Love it when a bright yellow or other color sells – saves me a few minutes of rummaging.
I’m really enjoying @Winchester38’s story. Looking forward to the updates when you are done your job, and what type of place you find.
I’m excited for you – as mentioned before, you are several steps of my goals/ambitions and it is nice to follow someone on a similar journey. Good Luck!
I just subscribed to a store (through eBay.ca) in December, and noticed I’m getting more then I expected.
I spent a good amount of time deciding what subscription I would get (either a .com or .ca one) an settled on .ca. I however noticed yesterday a subscription give you 250 free listing on .ca, and an additional 250 free listings on .com. So, for $20 Canadian a month (about $15 US), I’m getting 500 free listings…pretty good deal as I historically split where I posted items.
Out of curiosity, I looked at ebay.fr (France) and saw I have 250 free listings there (I understand enough French to look). I also looked at .co.uk (United Kingdom) and it was only 20 free listings on my account….just curious if anyone knows how many free listings you get across the various eBay platforms?
I’m going to take advantage of the U.S. and Canadian ones, and maybe the odd UK/France one for items that I mostly sell in Europe. I didn’t look at Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, etc, but would be curious how many free listings you could get across platforms.
Can you hang a shelf under the table you do your packing on? Just thinking a couple brackets from the bottom of a table, a light sheet of plywood slightly larger then the tissue would hold it and be easily accessible.
I store my poly mailers this way under my packing table, makes it real easy to pull the size I need quickly and they don’t get all wrinkled
Not just framed photos have hidden items – I once bought a used Black Sabbath CD back when I was in college in the 90’s and was going through the booklet and it had a $50 bill in it!
Lots of cool ephemera, cash, stamps, stock certificates, etc is hidden in crazy places.
-
AuthorPosts