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05/31/2018 at 3:35 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 362: Scavengers Are Always Prepared To Clean Out A Basement #41391
I was confused about how to keep my Top Rated Status for Free Returns so I called ebay.
Carlo in the Returns department said that this is only for items you list now and going foward. I was confused on this point, I thought it was like 1 day handling, you had to update past listings. He said no, just offer free returns on new items that you list.
He also said that ebay will reimburse you for the label that you send to the buyer for the free return. Now that is something I haven’t heard anyone mention before. Has anyone heard this?
Mark
05/30/2018 at 1:57 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 362: Scavengers Are Always Prepared To Clean Out A Basement #41289I have had success with old software and hardware. I am a computer guy and remember a lot of this stuff. Not all of it is good, but I usually know what I am looking at. I was at an estate sale of a guy who had a ton of old computer stuff. I went through the whole basement and took anything I could find of value. I found zip drive tapes still in the package. I found a lot of software that sold. I didn’t make a killing, but it was cheap and I did make a profit. Yes, the more complete it is the better. I still have a lot of disks to go through.
Mark
05/30/2018 at 10:43 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 362: Scavengers Are Always Prepared To Clean Out A Basement #41275Doublythumbs,
The only down side on the Strat-o-Matic games is the number of cards you have to count for each team.
Then you have to list of the parts that are in them. So big deal, just time consuming, but it is worth it!
Mark
05/30/2018 at 9:30 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 362: Scavengers Are Always Prepared To Clean Out A Basement #4126705/20/18 – 05/26/18
Total Items In Store: 2,382
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $60 (around)
Total Sales: $ 754 (651 for ebay + $103 on Bonanza and TrueGether)
Highest Price Sold: $ 200 (Strat-O-Matic Game)
Average Price Sold: $ 37.70
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 44
Number of Items listed this week: 0I went up North in Northern Michigan for a long Memorial Day weekend – what a good time. Had some good sales while I was gone and picked up some nice items. My best find was a Vintage Fisher 202 Futura Series Stereo Receiver with a wood top for $6. I am going to list it for $175.
The wildlife was great up North. I saw Turkeys, Sheep, Deer, Ponies, Horses, and a porcupine (first time for that). We stopped at an Amish Bakery and an Amish Farm. Real nice people with seemingly simple lives. The guy who owned the farm had the job of making shoes for the horses – what a great job. We usually stop at an Amish hardware store – they have unique utensils there, but we didn’t stop there this time. If I could only get them on ebay.
The Strat-O-Matic Game was the last one I had. I had bought a number of games and cards in 2014 for $14.50 and I let them sit till Brian mentioned how well they sell. So I listed some then some more. With this last sell, I have grossed $872 (w\o shipping) on these. I will buy those again if I ever see them.
Has anyone else noticed an uptick with Bonanza lately? I made 4 sales for $162 in May on Bonanza. I only had 3 sales for the year prior to May.
Mark
Mike (in Atlanta),
“I have close to 300 shipping boxes on our Excel inventory sheet, both USPS and FedEx and can grab and go with close to a perfect fit most of the time and if not then down size one to fall under the wirgt mark to save a little if only a few ounces over.”
I was meaning to ask you where you get all boxes from. I am assuming that you mean 300 unique size boxes. USPS doesn’t have anywhere close to that many different boxes, so I assume a lot of these are yours.
I have close to 40 unique boxes (total incl. USPS) and I thought I was doing well.
Please share where you get yours and how much you pay for (or free).
Mark
05/24/2018 at 7:50 am in reply to: New Catalog Based Search & Ebay's Re-Structured Business Model Plans #40896Habnab,
Lol, don’t worry, we will positively spotlight to the masses even though you are late!
Mark
Alert: ebay is having issues with Fedex labels right now. Avoid using Fedex labels until they get this worked out.
I get the error: “There seem to be some issue processing your request” – and yes the message says, “seem” instead of “seems”.
I got this error after creating the label and when I try to do a reprint label. The ebay rep said it is a known issue now that they are working on.
Mark
My wife and I got a kick out of sending a package to Mankato MN.
We are Little House fans, and that is the big city they always used to go to on the show.
Mark
Brian,
I was watching the Pawn Stars, Season 15, Episode 15 where this guy brought in 80 Beatles records – most of them were sealed. The appraiser, I think was Clint from Hounddog Records, said that a sealed record is worth up to 15x as much as the same NM record.
Mark
Jay,
I read sone of the preview of the book. It does sound interesting. Sounds like this guy made it big in LA.
Mark
I found a good link for Jay to start up his food truck business:
Mark
05/13/18 – 05/19/18
Total Items In Store: 2,395
Items Sold: 13
Cost of Items Sold: $40 (around)
Total Sales: $ 414
Highest Price Sold: $ 60 (Vintage Leather Bag)
Average Price Sold: $ 31.85
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 23
Number of Items listed this week: 37This week was good till Tuesday when sales started to fall off the cliff. They are slowly climbing back up the cliff, but slowly. I did a new sale where I take 15% off if they spend $35 or more to try and drum up business.
Sunday and this past week was a great time for me to find some great Hockey equipment. Not sure why, but just found a lot of unrelated sales with Hockey equipment for cheap. The hockey stuff seems to sell well for me.
Mark
05/19/2018 at 11:29 pm in reply to: File Exchange v. Wonder Lister/Six Bit/Other eCommerce Management Platform #40436I looked into getting a VA at one time. From what I was reading on the web, some of them were awesome, but a lot of them were not good at all. As I recall, the person had to go through 3-4 VA’s or more to finally get a good one. A lot of the VA’s would just disappear. I was not willing to go through all that drama. But if you did go through the work and found a really good VA worker, it would be well worth it.
Mark
05/19/2018 at 10:52 pm in reply to: File Exchange v. Wonder Lister/Six Bit/Other eCommerce Management Platform #40434I see the pros and cons of what Jay says and the pros and cons of what Troy says. I seem to agree with both of you.
I agree with Jay that data entry is hard work and you lose efficiency as time goes on. I also agree that tasks work better when done together.
I agree with Troy in that it is much “easier to look for two sets of skills” when looking for people to do the work.
My take on this is that it depends on the actual person that you have to work with and what their particular skills are. Some people are good at multiple things, some are not. I am glad that my current lister can do it all. The process is much more efficient than when I separate out the tasks (outside of my house). However, I am not sure I could easily find another person like that without a lot of hand holding. If I were to get another person, I would start them on photography and then see if they can do other things well. It would be ideal to get someone with ebay experience, but that may just be a pipe dream.
When I look at the future of my business, if I were to get much larger, ideally I would want people to be interchangeable. For example, have 3 people: one photographer, one lister, and one shipper. But cross train them so that everyone knows how to do the others job. In my low season, the focus would be on listing, in the high season, the focus would be on shipping. So in this model, you would be able to easily shift people around to the work needed at the time. Not sure how that would work in real life, but that is how I picture it now.
Mark
05/19/2018 at 7:23 pm in reply to: New Catalog Based Search & Ebay's Re-Structured Business Model Plans #40400If ebay moves away from “vintage pyrex and used shoes” as it is being called here, does that mean that the demand goes away? No, the demand will still be there. Either ebay fulfills that demand or some other platform will. Sellers will just have to move their items to the best platform(s) for these types of items. If ebay wants to lose that piece of the market, someone else will snatch it up. We are already seeing many sites that specialize in certain types of items. This may pave the way for Bonanza, Truegether, or some other platform in the future.
The scary thing would be if the demand for these types of items goes away. That is possible, but I don’t think it is likely.
Mark
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