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For the slow down of sales for clothes: I started noticing this early in 2019. I mentioned this on the blog in April of 2019. Jay suggested that I was too heavy on clothes. I took his advice and stopped buying clothes (not altogether, but now I only buy very select clothes). I got deeper into other categories that I was already in. That really helped me for the rest of 2019. Thanks Jay!
I think the point is well taken though. You have to be on top of your numbers. When something starts going wrong, find out what the issue is and try to change things up. Troy mentioned his issue above that he is working on. I think in these more difficult times on ebay, we can’t fall asleep at the wheel of our stores. We have to keep up with what is changing and adapt.
Mark
2/9/20 – 2/15/20
Total Items In Store: 3319
Items Sold: 21
Cost of Items Sold: $ 65
Total Sales: $ 673.12
Highest Price Sold: $ 210 (chairs)
Average Price Sold: $ 32.05
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 28.65
Number of items listed: 16Gut Sales Report for the week: This was an average week in terms of sales.
Challenge of the week: I am the process of planning how to ramp up my store. I am working on a plan to ramp up the number of pictures taken and listed.
Scavenge of the week: Picked up several nice pairs of shoes on the cheap. Went to a vintage estate sale and got some cool items. Nothing worth a whole lot, but I had fun looking at everything from the 1960’s\1970’s.
Customer Service: I had two interesting stories of how I had to up my game in customer service. The first story is straight forward the other is a long one. I will share the short story here and post the longer story later. The first story is about a local guy who had an indoor game of soccer to play. The problem was that he bought a cheap pair of goalie gloves that didn’t give much protection to his hands. I met him up with him 30 minutes before his game to get him a nice pair of goalie gloves that would protect his hands in the game. I didn’t make a lot on the sale, but it felt really good to be able to get the gloves to him in a timely manner and help him out for his game.
Mark S
Ryanne,
Thanks for the heads up on unclaimed.org
I searched for myself, but there was nothing for me. However, it showed that my brother is owed between $100-$250. I let him know and he was surprised because it was his employer from about 28 years ago. He is going to claim it.
Mark
Doublythumbs, Totommyto, Mike, and Jay,
Thank you for your kind words.
It was a rough week, but we know for certain that she is resting in the hands of God.
Mark
2/2/20 – 2/8/20
Total Items In Store: 3324
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $ 30
Total Sales: $ 316.13
Highest Price Sold: $ 50 (Bowling Shoes)
Average Price Sold: $ 28.74
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 42.40
Number of items listed: 22Gut Sales Report for the week: Very Weak sales.
Challenge of the week: List more.
Scavenge of the week: Picked up a nice vintage LL Bean Jacket on the cheap that will sell for good money.
Personal News: My mom passed away this past week. The funeral is tomorrow. She has been battling with dementia. It has been difficult, but it has been good catching up with old friends I haven’t seen in awhile.
Mark S
1/26/20 – 2/1/20
Total Items In Store: 3324 was 3340
Items Sold: 23
Cost of Items Sold: $ 85
Total Sales: $ 884.23
Highest Price Sold: $ 80 (Skates)
Average Price Sold: $ 38.44
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 46.84
Number of items listed: 7Gut Sales Report for the week: Good sales. A little better than last week.
Challenge of the week: List more.
Scavenge of the week: Picked up a nice 12″ World Globe with a wood base. Had to pay more than usual, but it should sell well.
Mark S
1/19/20 – 1/25/20
Total Items In Store: 3340
Items Sold: 24
Cost of Items Sold: $ 70
Total Sales: $ 736.03
Highest Price Sold: $ 65 (boots)
Average Price Sold: $ 30.67
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 67.33
Number of items listed: 16Gut Sales Report for the week: Good sales. Felt a lot slower than last week, but still a good week. I finally got around to listing the clocks I picked up a while ago. They are starting to sell well.
Challenge of the week: List more.
Scavenge of the week: Picked up a new pair of Riedell ice skates for $5 at the thrift store. I bought 35,000 of the same item. They all easily fit in a small grocery bag. Can you guess what it was? It was 7 boxes of vintage swingline staples – 5000 per box.
Mark S
1/12/20 – 1/18/20
Total Items In Store: 3348
Items Sold: 39
Cost of Items Sold: $ 125
Total Sales: $ 1348.15
Highest Price Sold: $ 100 (Cooler)
Average Price Sold: $ 34.57
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 14.74
Number of items listed: 8Gut Sales Report for the week: Very Good sales. I had all cylinders firing this week. I have the majority of items on promoted sales. I am running 3 sales in the store including a 30% on 534 of my oldest items from Nov 2013-Jan 2016. I have also been sending out a lot of offers.
Challenge of the week: List more. Haven’t had much time to list with all the sales going on.
Scavenge of the week: Didn’t buy much, but bought a very nice VCR for cheap.
Mark S
1/5/20 – 1/11/20
Total Items In Store: 3379
Items Sold: 19
Cost of Items Sold: $ 60
Total Sales: $ 555.42
Highest Price Sold: $ 50 (Remote Control)
Average Price Sold: $ 29.23
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 14.29
Number of items listed: 29Gut Sales Report for the week: Slow sales. If I had not sent out a lot offers, I wouldn’t have sold much at all.
Challenge of the week: List more.
Scavenge of the week: Got a nice pair of Roller blades for cheap at the thrift store. Not sure why but they don’t value roller blades very much.
Mark S
For those of you who are interested in cross posting but don’t want a monthly fee, there is a site called https://vendoo.co It is signup for a free beta version. So, not sure it is ready yet and you would probably be a tester for it, but it would be free for a period of time.
Mark
cali-debs,
From what you are saying and from what else I have seen, it sounds like you do this one listing at a time. For example, you can import from ebay then cross-post or just enter the item into List Perfectly and cross post where you want.
I would prefer a batch approach like Bonanza where you just import your whole store at once. Now I know there are some differences between platforms, but if you could just set up rules to tell it how you want it done. I think I heard someone saying you can do that with macros, but that gets difficult.
Or, can you do 10 like items at a time, like 10 pairs of shoes that are similar?
Mark
Retro,
The same with me. The weekends used to be when things sold, but now Monday-Thursday seem to sell more. But it flip flops sometimes. Like you say, Ebay is a weird beast…
Mark
cali-debs,
Thanks for your post. I have been wanting an inexpensive tool like this. This is very close to what I want. The main drawback that I see is that it doesn’t take the items down from the sites like Sixbit does and there doesn’t appear to be any accounting help for the platforms. But, the cheap price is appealing because I can test and see which other platforms may be a good fit without putting out too much money each month for the service.
You said, “Etsy is the slowest of all platforms for me.” Do you mean the amount of time to cross-post to Etsy or the slowest selling for your items? I know etsy has some different fields that ebay doesn’t have, how much longer does it take per listing to fill those in for Etsy?
Any more details you can give would be great.
Mark
