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[Mark S]

Jay,

Let’s let Lukatreasure and Mike and others doing Etsy weigh in, but I believe that your time is better spent listing on Etsy. I believe it is way more profitable. Here is why.

If you have to list on ebay, I believe each listing takes about 20 min. of time. Here is that breakdown:

1. Find and buy the item – average time about 5 min per item

2. Research, title, price, Do dimensions and weight, tag, put in lot – average time about 5 min

3. Take pictures, adjust if necessary, upload if necessary, etc – average time about 5 min

4. List the item. Put it into inventory. – average time about 5 min

So, I am saying that a new item listed on ebay is going to take about 20 minutes of your time, give or take a few minutes.

But, with cross-listing, you have already put in the 20 minutes of time. Now you just have to copy and fill in a few details for a specific site such as Etsy.

This cross-listing, even with tags on Etsy, should take 2 min. or less. That is 1\10th of the time to list a new item on ebay.

So, let’s say you have an ebay STR of 1.5% per month and an ASP of $40. But, for new listings, the STR is probably higher, let’s say 3% per month.

You list 100 new items on ebay for the month. At a 3% STR, you should sell 3 of the items for an ASP of $40 each. You make $120 Gross.

Now, for the amount of time it took to list 100 new items on ebay, you could have cross listed 1000 items on Etsy.

Let’s go with an Etsy STR of 60% of your ebay STR (which is what I projected and what Lukatreasure and Mike seem to concur with).

With 1000 items listed on Etsy, a STR of 1.5% would sell 15 items and we are stating 60% of that for Etsy, so 9 items would sell. 9 items at $40 is $360 Gross.

So, $120 Gross for your time to list new items on ebay versus $360 Gross for the same time to cross-list to Etsy. That is 3X more profit for your time spent. Plus, you don’t have to spend time and money on new items to sell. And, you may see better results on Etsy as I have seen, that would be a bonus.

Of course, after you have all your vintage items listed on Etsy, that advantage will be gone, but then you can look to another platform to cross-list to if you want.

Mark

[Mark S]

Mike,

Your Etsy store is only 75% the size of your ebay store. So, your adjusted ebay sales for this year would be .75 * $11,000 or $8,250. Your Etsy sales were about 50% of that.

That is about what I had originally projected; my Etsy store would have an STR of about 60% of that of my ebay store. So far, my Etsy STR is way higher than my ebay store by a factor of 5-10. That may settle down after the Holidays.

Did you put tags in all of you Etsy listings? I spent time putting tags on every Etsy listing. I am wondering if that is the difference or not.

Mark

[Mark S]

Christine,

Part of my Etsy success is that I did it right near Christmas time. I didn’t plan that, it just happened that way.  I am sure my STR will drop as 2023 wears on. However, I think I should be able to average at least the $700\month gross that I projected from Etsy after all 1800 listings are cross-listed. At this point I really think it will be much more than $700\month gross, but we will see.

I do promote some of my ebay listings. I have entered a lot of Etsy tags for each item, so maybe that is helping out.  My photos are of high quality, so that shouldn’t hurt me.

Mark

[Mark S]

12/18/22 – 12/24/22

Total Items In ebay Store: 4663

Total Items In Etsy Store: 296

ebay Items Sold: 21 items for $ 1,165.10 / Net 979.06
Etsy Items Sold: 6 items for $ 297.18 / Net $ 194.94

Total Gross Sales: 1462.28 (including eBay\etsy fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $ 1174 (minus shipping, and taxes)
Items Sold: 27 items
Highest Price Sold: $ 150 (Sweater)
Average Price Sold: $ 43.48
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 25

Number of items listed: 0 ebay, 56 Etsy

Gut Sales Report for the week: Very good week for the week of Christmas. Sales right up to and on Christmas were great.

Focus for the week : Still trying to get all my 1800 vintage listings on Etsy. I have only 296 listed on Etsy so far. But, trying to automate that.

Scavenge of the week: Found a Union Made 100% Camel Hair Trench Coat for $5.

Thoughts for the week: Too much is hitting at once. Trying to ship all the sold items. Listing on Etsy. Trying to code my cross-listing. Just one step at a time.

Mark

[Mark S]

Jay,

List Perfectly does get the job done. The issue is that it is not done in the most efficient way for me.  Everything is done manually. You can select multiple items to cross-list, but then you have to look at each and every listing and fill in fields that were not done automatically for you. Not much to do in Etsy, it is like 6 fields using the Pro version. But, if I want to do this for 17,000 listings or so, this is not very practical.

Also, there are things that you have to manually enter. Like cogs. You have to enter them 1 listing at a time. Not practical for nearly 5,000 listings that I have. I have my cogs in a database table and can get them into a spreadsheet, but there is no import option available.

Let me do an analogy. Can you get around in a horse and buggy? Yes, you can and it does work. If you just travel short distances, it works fine. But say you have to drive to Florida from Michigan, how will that work? Not very well. That is where I am at.

Remember when you copied your ebay items over to Bonanza? It was quick and easy, maybe several hours. That is because they were using the api (application program interface).  Everything is done behind the scenes. That is what I want to do here.  Copy all my data from ebay and then copy over to the other platforms that I want. It will take some coding time, but will probably be around 50 hours or so. If I had to do this manually, it would probably take 500 hours.

Then, the big thing for me is that if something is not working or not efficient, I can change it to work. But, when you use a 3rd party tool, you have to wait for them to take action – that can sometimes take years or maybe never get done. It just seems like pieces of data that you need are always missing.

Mark

[Mark S]

Jay,

If you look at the Etsy statistics I included in my post above, you can see that Etsy has changed signficantly in the last 5 years.

In 2017, Etsy only had 33.3 million users. In 2022, they have 93.9 users

In 2017, Etsy only had 3.25 nnual gross merchandize sales. In 2022, they have 13.4.

You should really try it again. I think it is a whole lot different than when you tried it 5+ years ago.

Also, I think I may have had enough of the grind of cross-listing. Plus, it will take me forever to cross -list a significant amount of listings, even at 1-2 min. each. Since I am a programmer by trade, I have started to work on my own to automate the cross-listing. I estimate that if I can programmatically copy my near 5000 listings from ebay across all major platforms, I could generate another 17,000 listings.  At a 1.5% STR per month for 17,000 listings, that would generate 255 additional sold items. Multiple 255 by $40 ASP, that is an additional $10,200 per month. 1.5% STR per month is about what I am doing on ebay. So, that number could be higher or lower elsewhere. It has been much higher, at least initally on Etsy.

My theory is that ebay didn’t have much competion in the early days. That is why you could list nearly anything and have a high str. Now, the ebay competion is stealing the sales from ebay and it is getting harder to sell on ebay. So, just list on the sites that have taken market share from ebay.

Mark

[Mark S]

Craig,

Glad you like the posts. I really feel like my business is on the move. I do like ebay and it will be around for a long time. However, my issue is that I keep listing more every year, but I never make more money. Like 1000 more items YOY and it makes no diffetence. After looking at those charts in my first post above, now I understand why. Ebay keeps losing users, revenue, and martket share. Etsy has opened my eyes to how sales can be. Maybe it is just what I am selling, but I have a very broad range of all items and most are fairly desirable. But, sales still lag. Maybe I am just more suited for Etsy. I think I will find out as I branch out to more sites. I am working on automating that, so it may come sooner than I think.

Mark

mark

[Mark S]

Lukastreasure,

Thanks for the Facebook Marketplace. I hadn’t seen that in my research, so I started looking for it. I found this video that appears to be fairly good.

It sounds like Facebook Marketplace is like the Wild West. You have to take some chances because you only pay 5% and in return you get little service from Facebook Marketplace. So, I will have to think about this one. Facebook Marketplace appears to need to put policies in place to protect both the buyer and seller. I will have to see if I will delay going there right now.

Mark

[Mark S]

12/11/22 – 12/17/22

Total Items In ebay Store: 4691

Total Items In Etsy Store: 246

ebay Items Sold: 24 items for $ 1,288.09 / Net $1033.05
Etsy Items Sold: 11 items for $ 643.54 / Net $ 469.90

Total Gross Sales: 1931.63 (including eBay\etsy fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $ 1502.95 (minus shipping, and taxes)
Items Sold: 35 items
Highest Price Sold: $ 100 (Coat)
Average Price Sold: $ 42.94
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 68.66

Number of items listed: 5 ebay, 25 Etsy

Gut Sales Report for the week: This has been my best week in a long time. Etsy really also helped a lot.

Focus for the week : Still trying to get all my 1800 vintage listings on Etsy. I have only 246 listed on Etsy so far.

Scavenge of the week: Found a Talbots 100% Camel Hair Jacket for $5.

Thoughts for the week: After some more research and seeing Etsy outperform ebay, I have made some discoveries.

Here are my thoughts on what the landscape of online market places might look like 10 years from now:

1. I believe Facebook Marketplace has the ability to become the #1 Platform.

They have 1 billion users. Let’s see if they can get that to convert into sales. See the two links below:

https://www.engadget.com/facebook-q-1-2021-earnings-marketplace-1-billion-232537001.html

https://webtribunal.net/blog/facebook-marketplace-statistics/#gref

2. I think Etsy will remain the best niche online marketplace. Etsy is killing it lately. See the links below:

https://www.similarweb.com/blog/ecommerce/retail-insights/niche-marketplaces/

Since 2020, Etsy has seen huge growth. They consistently have YOY growth. But ebay keeps losing revenue,users,and negative YOY growth.

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/etsy-statistics/

3. ebay will stay around, but they will keep losing market share. They are destined to be a mediocre marketplace unless they make some changes. See the link below:

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/ebay-statistics/

4. There will be a dominant niche online marketplace for clothes and fashion. Poshmark seems to be on their way there, but the 20% fee may not sit well with everyone.

5. Etsy and Facebook Marketplace have the lowest fee (6.5% for Etsy, and 5% for Facebook Marketplace). That, combined with their strength of users should catapolt them in the next 10 years.

I think Etsy and Facebook Marketplace are a good place for me to start with cross listing. Etsy has already confirmed that. Can’t wait to see what happens when I get all 1800 items listed on Etsy and a presence on Facebook Marketplace.

I have also spent some time mapping out my road map for getting cross listed on 3 other marketplace sites for next year. So, Etsy first, Facebook Marketplace second, and then these other 3.

Mercari is not one of these other 3 platforms. What I read about Mercari is scaring me off. Can someone with experience on Mercari tell me what they think and have experienced there?

Mark

[Mark S]

12/04/22 – 12/10/22

Total Items In ebay Store: 4720

Total Items In Etsy Store: 255 (all 5 items sold when I had around 200 items or less listed)

ebay Items Sold: 17 $941.85 / Net $821.39
Etsy Items Sold: 5 $303.59 / Net $244.94

Total Gross Sales: 1245.44 (including eBay\etsy fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $ 1066.33 (minus shipping, and taxes)
Items Sold: 22
Highest Price Sold: $ 125 (Tape Recorder and a hat – both sold for $125 each)
Average Price Sold: $ 48.46
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 74.93

Number of items listed: 17 ebay, 38 Etsy

Gut Sales Report for the week: I didn’t realize I sold so much this week. Way better than I thought.

Focus for the week : Still trying to get my 1800 vintage listings on Etsy. I have only 255 listed on Etsy so far.

Scavenge of the week: Found a new pair of Lucky Brand Jeans – new ones still sell for good money.

Thoughts for the week: Well, I was way off on my projections of how Etsy would perform in terms of STR. I was way too low! I projected that items on Etsy would sell only 60% of fast as on ebay.  Right now my Etsy STR is about 700% of that of ebay. That is true for all items on ebay and also pretty much for only vintage items. I have had a sale on Etsy everyday since Tue Dec 6th.

So, I am trying to figure out why my Etsy store is doing so much better than my projections. Here are my theories:

1. It is the busy Christmas season. But, it is the busy Christmas season on ebay as well. Maybe just the right people for my items are looking at them on Etsy.
2. I Added tags to all my Etsy Items.
3. My Etsy store is a new Etsy store and no negative marks yet. Maybe Etsy is bumping me up in rankings to get me started.
4. It could be due to the specific items that I am selling. What I am selling is better suited to Etsy. Games and briefcase seem to be selling well for me on Etsy.
5. Etsy is an all new platform for me and my STR that held true on ebay does not hold true for Etsy. Etsy it is a totally different set of eyes looking at my items and it is like starting all over.

Let me know if you have any theories.

I tend to think that the reason is a combination of all of the above. However, I think #5 has the strongest influence. This is how my ebay store was when I first started. Things had a high STR at the beginning. Then over time, my STR fell more and more. I believe the same thing is now happening on Etsy. I will just enjoy the much higher STR on Etsy while it lasts.

My projection for Etsy was an extra $700\month after I got all 1800 items listed. I think now that the actual amount could be $1000-$2000\month for a limited time. Then the Etsy STR will head back closer to $700 after some period of time.

But, if this is the case, that is really good news. That means that I should probably see something similar happen on Poshmark for my shoes and clothes. But, I will not know till I try. I have my hands full with listing on Etsy right now and learning how everything works on Etsy.

Then it will be off to Facebook MarketPlace. I really think my doubling my ebay sales by listing on other platforms is just within reach. I just have to put the time in to make it happen.

Mark

[Mark S]

Mike,

It is so good to hear from you again! It feels like talking to a long lost friend.

Great to hear how things are going and what you are doing.

I did some research before going with LP and it seems like we came to similar conclusions.  I discovered just like you that Sixbit only posted to Ebay, Etsy and Shopify.  I wanted to go to Etsy, Poshmark, and Facebook MarketPlace to start. And LP is nearly $100 cheaper per month – that is a lot. I think that LP is closer to what I need. A sports car is great and so is a SUV. You just have to pick the right one for your situation and in this situation I think LP is best for me. I have about 2000 listings of clothes and shoes that want to get on Poshmark. I think my brands would sell well there.

The one feature I would like to see from LP is the ability to automatically end items.IN a listing party, I think they showed us a beta version where they give you a list of items to list. I would like the option to a) do it manually, b) pick from a list  and c) just auto end the items. Please request that if you have their ears.

Please stop by the forum when you can. I always enjoy your posts.

Mark

[Mark S]

You can now see all of your orders in ebay for the past 2 years.

Tonight is the first time I have seen this.

Mark

[Mark S]

Retro,

List Perfectly has a Chrome Extension. In the settings for that extension, there is a general tab. IN the general tab, there is a checkbox that has, “Modify images before upload”. You check that box.

Here is the List Perfectly docs that say what that does:

Extension Settings

Just a little bit down in the url above, you will find:

<li id=”extmodimages” aria-level=”1″>Modify images before upload.

<li aria-level=”1″>☑️ CHECKED (Recommended):  When you upload Listing images, List Perfectly will resize them into a square shape (1:1 ratio). We do so by adding white borders and NEVER cropping your images!
<li aria-level=”1″>⬜️ UNCHECKED:  When you upload Listing images, List Perfectly will leave them as is, in whatever shape and size they are in. Please be aware that when you crosspost, the platform may edit, resize, or crop your image according to their listing guidelines.

So, it looks like your problem is now solved.

Mark

[Mark S]

Jay,

I am using List Perfectly.

I copy my listings from ebay to List Perfectly. Then I select the listings I want and have List Perfectly copy most of the information to a platform (etsy, Poshmark, FB Marketplace, Mercari, Grailed, Depop, etc).  List Perfectly opens a window for you and most of the information is there in the Etsy listing  – I just have to manually complete the listing.  For Etsy, it is 3 Etsy specific fields, category, shipping, and optional tags.

So far, I just copied my vintage items from ebay to List Perfectly. This makes it less confusing. When I am done listing those 1800 to Etsy, I will copy my Shoes and Clothes listings from ebay to List Perfectly. Then follow the process to manually list those to Poshmark. I will have about 2000 Shoes and Clothes listings for Poshmark. That will take another 60-70 hours (no tags to enter will make it faster).

So, it works well, you just have to be organized and have a plan as to how you are going to do it and then just do the grunt work to get it done.

Mark

[Mark S]

11/27/22 – 12/03/22

Total Items In ebay Store: 4725

Total Items In Etsy Store: 200

ebay Items Sold: 15 $605.33 / Net $510.5
Etsy Items Sold: 2 $91.57 / Net $61.98

Total Gross Sales: 696.90 (including eBay\etsy fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $ 572.48 (minus eBay\etsy fees, shipping, and taxes)
Items Sold: 17
Highest Price Sold: $ 60 (Sweater)
Average Price Sold: $ 33.68
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 74.93

Number of items listed: 31

Gut Sales Report for the week: Yeah, I made my first sale on Etsy this past week. ebay was real slow for the week for this time of year.

Focus for the week : Still trying to get my 1800 vintage listings on Etsy. I have only 200 listed on Etsy so far.

Scavenge of the week: Found a nice Patagonia sweater\jacket for $5. I think I can get $90.

Thoughts for the week: Getting my Etsy items listed is a grind. But, here is what I keep telling myself. I will make about $9,000 a year after this is done. It will only take about 60 hours of concentrated cross listing to do all 1800 listings. That means that I can think of it as getting paid $150\hour for doing it. And, that isn’t just for 1 year, that is for this year and every year after that. So, that is good news to me and it keeps me motivated to finish this and move on to doing Poshmark.

Mark

 

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