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MDC – From Rome, GA to 285 takes over an hour but I’m on relatively uncongested state highways for the first 31 miles. Then I’m on I-75 S for another 31 miles to get to 285. Sometimes the traffic is backed up from 285 all the way to Acworth. On those days I’m looking at 1.5 hour commute just to get to 285, minimum. Some days the backup doesn’t start until Kennesaw. Once I’m on 285, it seems no matter where I’m going from there in Atlanta the commute is only half way over. When I do have to commute to Atlanta, its usually to Dunwoody or Norcross. Its been taking 2.5 to 3 hours due to the Peach Pass construction. Before that it was probably just under 2 hours for the entire commute from Rome to Dunwoody in good traffic conditions. The I-75 Peach Pass lanes are supposed to open this summer. I don’t care what it cost, I’m going to use those lanes!
If I had to commute daily to North Atlanta I’d move to Acworth/Kennesaw/Marietta. They are expensive and congested but worth it to shorten the commute. Acworth isn’t as congested and at least has a bit of a smaller town feel (sort of) and lake front when you can get it. Going anyplace in Kennesaw at any time of day on any day of the week will have a lot traffic. I’m not as familiar with Marietta but beings its closer to Atlanta, it’s probably the same.
T-Satt’s comment rings true. I worked in the federal government for a decade, 7 years in DC at a Treasury bureau responsible for writing and implementing certain regulations. I predict state governments will act first and worry about the details later.
States will be quick to amend their legislation – they’re the government and they want their money. Georgia has already calculated their expected annual windfall from this and are touting its economic benefit over the evening news and in newspaper headlines this morning. In Georgia’s case it is probably as simple as changing the language in their current regulation to remove the physical presence exemption. I imagine they will have to put it up for a vote in the state legislature but again, because its more $ coming into the state coffers, it will get to the floor for vote quickly. So on the state-level, I expect it won’t take long for many states to require it. They certainly won’t wait until they have the systems in place to accept, monitor and enforce it.
As far as county/city legislation, Georgia covers all of those jurisdictions within the state regulation so a change only need to be made to the state code (county/city sets their own additional tax rate).
I think for a while it will be hairy. Once its a giant mess, only then will governments take action to simplify things, and then it will be because they are motivated to ensure they are getting all monies they are owed.
But like many commenters have already stated we can only wait and see and hope that it takes awhile for this to really affect us little guys.
In GA I have to remit to the state at the state + county/local tax rate where my GA buyer lives, rather than where I reside. To my knowledge ebay only allows me to charge one tax rate to GA buyers and its illegal for me to overcharge a GA customer sales tax. So I do end up having to eat some of the tax costs (negligible amount) as I charge the lowest possible rate within the state (6%) and make up the difference myself when a buyer in a higher taxed jurisdiction buys something. It’s a pain to have to identify which tax jurisdiction each one of my GA buyer resides so I can remit the proper sales tax. I cannot even fathom doing that nation-wide. If that ends up being the case and eBay doesn’t step up to collect and remit the sales tax for its sellers, then hopefully a third party service will offer a software that will track, report and remit for us (for a fee, of course).
Whenever I visit my folks in Iowa we inevitably spend 1 day in the big metropolis of Des Moines to kill time. Dad thinks I’ll want to hit up the Goodwills while there so I’ve gone with them a few times. They are not thrifters or resellers and have never purchased anything from eBay. I end up spending the entire time at the store with them telling them “no thank you” to all of the collectible treasures they think they are finding for me to flip: Avon perfume bottles, collectible hanging plates, anything Norman Rockwell, Precious Moments, colored glass dishes. It starts to feel like I’m bursting their bubble so now I tell them I don’t need anything more to flip, I’ve got plenty at home. The things they remember being valuable when they were younger is now the crap that no body wants. I can’t imagine that there will ever be a market for collectible hanging plates by any future generation ever again.
Ha! Someone commented on the ecommercebytes article that eBay should make the same feature but in reverse: every 5 days an item’s price goes up 5%. I think that might help move inventory a little quicker versus buyers allowing items to sit in their carts waiting for a price drop. 🙂
Yes, this situation has been very motivating for paying off debt. I was already paying it down aggressively but now I’m trying to pay it down at hyper warp speed!
Thanks for everyone’s comments! Its been a situation where I’ll get all worked up about it until my blood boils and then later when I’m calmed down I wonder why I was so upset only to then get all worked up again later. Some of it is my ego I suppose.
One helpful exercise from all of this is last night I calculated my income versus my expenses (including the aggressive pay down of debt) and divided each to find how much “extra” I have to live on per day. The “extra” of course has to cover non-recurring expenses such as vet bills, groceries, home repairs, savings, etc. I like knowing that “daily” figure versus a monthly figure. I think knowing the smaller increment will make me more frugal. I’ve calculated it with my current income and debt and later today I’ll calculate it under the scenario of not having the regular job to see if the daily figure is something I can live within.
I turned on Free Returns yesterday for all items that can ship for under 1 pound. I’m using the eBay promotion that promises to reimburse me for all postage on free return shipping through August. I believe the return shipping reimbursement is capped at a certain dollar amount. A metric provided by Ebay said that a person with a 30 day return policy can expect to see a 5% increase in sales if they elect free shipping. A 5% increase in sales is not worth it. That metric is so pathetic I don’t know why eBay even provides it. Once the free return shipping promo is over I’ll probably switch Free Returns off. Its been turned on for 28 hours so far and I’ve had 0 sales (I usually have at least 2 sales per day during the week, more on the weekends). I’ll see how sales go over this weekend.
I have been interested in starting to sell on Poshmark lately. It seems to require more seller involvement on the platform than Ebay, which is why I haven’t started it yet. Some youtube Poshmark sellers I watch note that certain clothing brands do a lot better on Posh than on Ebay, which is tempting me.
Kate Spade is one of my favorite iconic designers but I could never justify owning any Kate Spade items myself due to cost. I do however buy it to flip. All 3 items that I shipped out this morning were Kate Spade. And oddly, all had cats on them (1 tshirt, 2 different Kate Spade cat necklaces). All 3 items went to 3 different buyers. I have 24 more Kate Spade items in my listed inventory so I expect some more to sell this week.
Truly tragic situation however. It just goes to show that depression does not discriminate. She seemingly had it all: major success, money, enviable Manhattan lifestyle, looks, fame, and family.
This week’s episode was one of your best IMO. You both hit a lot of points right on the head for me. You also captured the mood really well of what a lot of us are feeling with current & never ending eBay changes; which I suspect is attributing to eBay fatigue. I was recently thinking back to 8 or 9 years ago when I started selling some of my old stuff on Ebay. It was either very simple back then or I was just clueless and lucky that it didn’t result in any defects. I just put the items up for auction. I don’t recall reading any instructions, any shipping deadlines, policies, return issues, calls to eBay or anything. Stuff simply sold, I shipped it, feedback was left, transaction over. I don’t think I would be able to be a new seller on Ebay if I started now – there’s just too much to know.
Another topic that resonated with me was conspicuous consumption. Growing up in Iowa if anyone bought anything lavish, everyone in town would whisper about it. “Who does that person think they are? Putting on airs. Show off.” When I was in my 20s in Cedar Rapids, IA a town of 130,000 people, a transplant from another state bought a Hummer vehicle. In a town that size it was still a huge deal. No Iowan would dare be seen driving such an expensive vehicle back then! Later I moved to DC and then to an Atlanta suburb, both areas where conspicuous consumption is a way of life. I’m very glad I’m not on that bandwagon but grateful that I’ve found a way to profit from it.
6 years ago I moved from the center of Washington, D.C. to a relatively unknown town in NW Georgia, 70 miles away from Atlanta. Moving from a $2,600/month 1 bedroom apartment to 3 bed 2 bath house on 2 acres for just over a 1/4th of what I was paying before made me feel like the richest person in town for quite some time.
The situation addressed in the video was infuriating. I must now google pictures of baby animals to calm myself down.
I’ve never personally cared for the practice of forcing a return to close after 5 days. To me 5 days seems rather short. Perhaps eBay was wrong in ever allowing returns to be forced closed within a set number of days from when a return is initiated, rather than basing it on the day the buyer received it (especially when compared to the return policy set by the seller). What if the buyer initiated the return the first day they got the item, didn’t ship right away and the return was forced closed on day 6, 7….or even day 29? That is before the 30 day return policy that many of us have set. As a buyer having the return closed before 30 days would leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Second, most buyers aren’t as adept at shipping nor do their lives revolve as much around e-commerce as ours so the “return” becomes a slightly burdensome To-Do item in their daily schedules. Many buyers don’t know or can’t leave a package in their outgoing mail so a trip to the post office trip is necessary. If they work 8 to 5, they may never get a chance to make it to the post office while its open. Some have lobbies with package drop off, some do not, and regardless many buyers aren’t aware of the package drop off bins. Therefore, their only chance to get to the Post Office may be on Saturday before noon (if they aren’t working, or have children involved in weekend sports, etc).
Like T-Satt, I just let the return process play itself out. I’m not going to remind my buyer about their return. I’ll let Ebay close the return automatically.
Which of course begs the question, is Ebay preparing an Ebay Plus in the US and can you imagine the other seller forums if/when such news is made? I think the stage is being set but I’m not worried about it.
In the meantime, I do think I’ll change my shipping policy to put Australia back into GSP. I would expect/hope that by doing so, Ebay will charge the 10% tax to those customers and I’ll be left out of it.
