Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I have PTSD from my 8 months with Quickbooks.
@debitendcredits – I hear you on that. I lasted 3 months and bailed. I’m using spreadsheets now. Hopefully this new one will work out.
Week Ending 3/11/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $282.54 (eBay: 187.64 / Etsy: 94.90)
Net Sales: $238.57 (eBay: 157.04 / Etsy: 81.53)
Total Items Sold 10 (eBay: 8 / Etsy: 2)
Total Items in Store: eBay 1170 / Etsy 492
Cost of Items Sold: $14.81
COGS Percent 6.21%
Highest Price Sold: $79.95 Dakin Gorilla
Average Price Sold: $28.25
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00Average Days Listed: 290
Longest Listed: 1513
New items listed: 22
New Listings Value $2,750.95You know things are bad when even Jay and Ryanne’s sales are below $1000. I’m hoping for a stronger spring, but with these bank failures looming I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop.
I really had only 6 sales last week, but one sale was a combined sale where buyer asked for a deal if they bought 5 of my ornaments so I created a single listing for her and canceled the original 5. Third time this buyer has done that, and she promises to be back next month again. Listing so many ornaments at once I am starting to see more return buyers than I normally do. I guess you see that more when you specialize.
Had another week of family issues getting in the way of listing but managed to pull out my 20 items anyway. Value is way up as I listed a piece of art for $2000 – the Archangel Michael tile art that I posted about a while back. I hesitated to list it because it was so heavy and large. Really concerned about breakage, but finally decided to bite the bullet and list it anyway. That’s what insurance it for. I imagine it is going to take a while to sell.
@Temudgin – I do basically the same regarding waiting to promote and to allow offers. I usually wait two weeks, I figure that is enough to allow someone with a search to find and ponder at the original price.
I cap my promoted listings at 5%. I’ve noticed that the recommended percentage is very fluid and changes regularly for categories. Lately, I’ve noticed that a smaller percentage of my items sell via promoted listings. It used to be I averaged about 60% of sales were promoted, but now I average around 40%. Wonder if that is unique to me or if others see the same.
Wow, that woofer is insane. I assume this must be for commercial installations. Found a pic where they stacked 6 of them together. Good luck with the auction.
Funny that you mention your library sale bans scanners. We went to a school book sale on Saturday. They solicit community donations every year. Huge deal apparently. I’d been previous years later on the second day, but this year we decided to show up when it opened. OMG! I couldn’t believe the number of people waiting in line, many with stacks of crates and rolling carts. So many people with scanners that you could hardly get close to the books. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve occasionally seen a scanner at an Estate Sale, but to have so many people with them was unexpected. I overheard one person saying they drove 150 miles for this sale. One guy had his scanner set up to make a chime whenever he scanned a book that met his criteria. He never even looked at the scanner or the book, but each time it chimed he tossed it in his crate. I grabbed a few books, but just didn’t have the stomach for standing shoulder to shoulder and fighting for the space.
Late to the party again. Have had a lot going on, non-eBay wise.
Week Ending 3/4/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): Ebay $363.70
Net Sales: Ebay $294.17
Total Items Sold 11
Total Items in eBay Store: 1161
Items Sold eBay: 11
Total Items in Etsy Store: 488
Items Sold Etsy: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $16.18
COGS Percent 5.50%
Highest Price Sold: $80.00 (xmas ornament)
Average Price Sold: $33.06
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00Average Days Listed: 530
Longest Listed: 2442
New items listed: 11
New Listings Value $620.00A rare week where I had no Etsy sales. Everything is slow but at least eBay picked up a bit from the previous week. Have a new record for longest tail item sold. A vintage wood-handled wrench that I posted 3 months after I started on eBay in 2016. 6.69 years.
Didn’t meet my number or $ goal for listing this week.
Week Ending 2/25/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $273.20 (eBay $208.35 / Etsy $64.85)
Net Sales: $216.18 (eBay $162.52 / Etsy $53.66)
Total Items Sold 10 (eBay 7 / Etsy 3)
Total Items in eBay Store: 1156
Total Items in Etsy Store: 476Cost of Items Sold: $20.24
Highest Price Sold: $60.00
Average Price Sold: $27.32
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00Average Days Listed: 292
Longest Listed: 1599
New items listed: 24
New Listings Value $3,137.00Things slow here, also. Been a slow year so far. I’m running about 33% below last year, which was already a slow year. Doing what I can to increase sales. Sent a bunch of offers for items with lots of watchers. Only had one respond with a low ball. Relisted about 20 older items. Posted 24 items exceeding my weekly goal in both numbers and dollar amount.
Will probably bid on an auction that is happening later in the week. I see a few good lots that have potential. Will see.
But I do like Retro’s experiment. He knows our game so it’ll be interesting to see if he can move the needle at all.
Rereading my comment it might sound like I’m discounting Retro’s efforts, that wasn’t my intention. There is value in examining trends, even more so when it compares effort to profit, and what he is seeing sheds some interesting insight regarding posting every day vs. large batch. I appreciate the sharing of the information.
It feels like desperation to me. I thought the tide had turned when I got a few great lots cheap back in November, but once again we’re seeing most things selling for too much to make a profit. I can’t get past the feeling that too many people jumped into reselling during the pandemic and are now panicking as the market has slowed and they are willing work on slim profit margins. It is the only correlation I can draw when overall buying is slowing but auction sales seem to be staying strong.
@Retro – Reading this, I’m reminded of the charts I used to run when I was more focused on my stock investing. I spent a lot of time analyzing the trends trying to find the buy and sell points and I never did much good with it. I finally changed my strategy to buy and hold and forgot about the daily/monthly ups and downs and whims of the market. I bought what I felt were good solid companies and held onto them.
I think this is a fair analogy to the long tail selling most of us do. Buy good stuff for your store, put it up and forget it. It’ll be there for the buyers when the buying sentiment changes. I feel the buyers are holding on to their money right now anticipating things in the economy are going to get worse. When the economy improves your store will be ready.
Week Ending 2/18/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $477.09 (eBay $350.15/Etsy 126.54)
Net Sales: $389.24
Total Items Sold 18 (eBay 14/Etsy 4)
Total Items in eBay Store: 1146
Total Items in Etsy Store: 453
Cost of Items Sold: $36.55
Highest Price Sold: $94.95 (Halcyon Bonbonniere)
Average Price Sold: $26.51Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $476.32
Average Days Listed: 156
Longest Listed: 963
New items listed: 32
New Listings Value $1,233.48Another below average week. Highest sale was a little Halcyon Bonbonniere. It was thrown in with the lot of ornaments we bought. Didn’t think anything of it being so small but was floored when I looked it up. I know I could have sold it for more, but with things being so slow and having no real cost to it I decided to take the money and run.
I know part of the reason my sales are down is that I’m trying to slog through our backlog of Christmas ornaments, so I decided to bid on an auction to get some more collectibles in the pipeline. Picked up an unusual piece of art that doubles as a brooch. Listed it quickly with hopes of a quick turnaround. Artist, Tod Pardon, is fairly well known, repped by a gallery in New York and has several pieces in galleries around the US.
Was a bit disappointed in the auction house as I two items I bought weren’t described or photographed well and not what I was expecting. One of the risks of online auctions.
Still plugging away on listing though. Beat my goal on listings and $ amount this week.
I’ve been posting so many Christmas ornaments, I felt like I needed a change of pace and jumped on an auction just before closing on Thursday. Got several cool non-xmas items, but really like this combination sculptural brooch/art work by Tod Pardon. He makes jewelry that also comes with display stands so you can show it off when you’re not wearing it. I had to pay up for it, $228, but he doesn’t have much listed on Etsy or eBay and dealers are selling his pieces for $2000 plus.
Wow, they didn’t even have phone in the title. Great score.
Week Ending 2/11/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $249.59
Net Sales: $203.34 (all eBay)
Total Items Sold: 12 (eBay 12 / Etsy 0)
Total Items in eBay Store: 1129
Total Items in Etsy Store: 435
Cost of Items Sold: $16.00
COGS Percent 7.87%
Highest Price Sold: $29.95 Plush Doll
Average Price Sold: $20.80
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Average Days Listed: 374
Longest Listed: 1926
New items listed: 32
New Listings Value $934.75Pretty slow week for sales for me. Lowest since October before the Christmas buying kicked in. No sales from Etsy was a surprise when just last week it beat out eBay. I’m consistently listing but as most of what I’m listing is still Christmas ornaments, so I’m not surprised they aren’t driving too many sales this time of year. Just have to remind myself I’m frontloading for a Christmas pay out.
Four of my sales were actually just one sale. A customer asked me to give them a discount for buying 4 ornaments, so I cancelled the listings and lotted them into one for the sale. That same customer came back yesterday and asked for the same deal for six more listings, but they will show on next week’s report. Says she’ll be back next month for more. Nice to have a repeat customer.
I’ve been going through my old listings and trying to relist as new 10 listings per day. Hasn’t generated a lot of sales but did have 2 listings that have been up for over 3 years sell within 24 hours after relisting this week. Even without it generating many sales, it is a good exercise just to remind myself how things have changed. On many of these older listings I’m taking the price down considerably since many are items that don’t have a lot of comps and I shot high initially. Even though all my listings have best offer, I think many buyers are intimidated by the offer system. I’m rechecking comps on some since eBay is providing better data.
Week Ending 2/4/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $568.25
Net Sales: $497.92 (eBay $129.33 / Etsy $368.59)
Total Items Sold 12 (eBay 6/Etsy 6)
Total Items: eBay – 1116 / Etsy: 405
Cost of Items Sold: $52.92
Highest Price Sold: $249.95 Antique Carriage Clock
Average Price Sold: $47.35
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Average Days Listed: 246
Longest Listed: 1383
New items listed: 24
New Listings Value $950.85Late to the game again this week. I had my numbers completed early, but then the week got in the way. Below average week of sales, but better than same week last year. Thankful for the one large sale of the antique carriage clock to push things up. The clock was broken, but seemed rare as it was made by a company that mainly made clockworks for other manufacturers. Sold on Etsy.
Like Mark, I had better sales on Etsy this week than on eBay. This was the second time that Etsy beat out eBay.
Christmas keeps selling. Several of my sales this week were of old vintage Christmas ornaments. I expect this to fall off soon as people pack up their trees finally, but Christmas sells all year round. I joined a vintage Christmas group on Facebook and those die hards are always on the hunt.
Beat my listing goal for the week, but came up slightly shy of the $1000 face value goal.
