Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Store #1
Total Items in Store: 8735
Items Sold: 139
Cost of Items Sold: $213
Total Sales: $2758.12
Highest Price Sold: $500 (Hach pipesonde probe)
Average Price Sold: $19.84
Returns: 6 (clothes and one appliance part)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Nice to come back from a week vacation and see good numbers, still havn’t listed anything other than remotes and books since mid December. Have about 200 items waiting to be listed, just short on time since switching books to 100% merchant fulfilled.
Top seller was a Hach Pipesonde Water Probe, for $500, we purchased this along with two pallets of other water testing equipment from Fairfax Water Authority surplus auction. Spent $175 on two pallets, this piece was the highest priced item and overall the two pallets have made a little over 3k in the last year. Other high sellers were a Beachbody DVD Set for $175 and a 60L Suit for $100.
Interview with the new employee didn’t pan out, so back to the drawing board on that front. Looking forward to catching up with work after taking such a long break, things are once again transforming from death piles to death mountains.
I like how you said you had two scheduled meetings, keep it business oriented and away from hobby-esque if she is going to switch to full time. I have helped a few people get started full-time on ebay just to see switch it to a part time hobby on the weekend or only when yard sales start up. Come up with a plan on how many hours per week she wants to put in, what you expect to get out of those hours. Keep in mind summer sales are typically lower, so don’t let her get discouraged if amazing numbers do not happen in the three months that shes off.
Suttonparks,
Are you going to do a thru-hike or section? I just read AWOL on the Appalachian Trail (before I sold it) and I would love to do it when I retire, cant see taking off 4-5 months right now.
Fred, you have been killing it lately. Are you still 100% clothing? Impressed with your growth.
Ebay
Total Items in Store: 8993
Items Sold: 149
Cost of Items Sold: $213
Total Sales: $2489.32
Highest Price Sold: $65 (Firefighter pants)
Average Price Sold: $16.79
Returns: 5 (clothes and one app part)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $80
Number of items listed this week: 65 (all remotes)Decent sales, really haven’t listed any items since before Christmas. Been busy converting our Amazon FBA to merchant fulfilled and it’s taken away all of my extra ebay time. Top sellers this week were a pair of firefighter pants for $65, Fireplace poker set $48 and a Size 6X Blazer for $45.
The good thing about converting over to merchant fulfilled is that the books carry over to our ebay listings. We did not cross list our FBA items to Ebay in the past due to the way our software worked, it always had problems shipping from FBA to ebay customers.
Off this whole week for our anniversary, we have a getaway cabin in the same town that Jay and Ryanne live near. Have an interview set up for when I get back to work, I am hoping it works it out, it will be nice to get back to the huge pile of items waiting to be listed.Congrats on hiring your first employee!
Retro,
January is always our highest grossing month on Amazon for books. Classes are starting up and people are purchasing textbooks/research material. Every January I end up selling books that I have had listed for over 4-5 years, some as old as 8 years.
Don’t forget to claim the mileage on your taxes. 2016 rate is .14 cents a mile, it adds up if you donate continuously throughout the year.
Experiment update in case anyone is thinking of switching from FBA back to merchant fulfilled. I didn’t list anything until the 5th, so results are from 5-10th.
Listed 770 previously FBA bound items. Sold 220 on Amazon (15 on other sites not counted) for a 28.5% sell-through rate. Lower than my typical 35% via FBA. I did enjoy that almost instantaneous sales versus waiting the normal 5-7 day shipment/processing time. Comparing to February rate hikes, self-shipping will save $396 in fees.
Starting on 1Jan17 I will list everything locally for two months. This should give me time to see how the new fees affect FBA sales and what the other sellers are doing to react to them. If enough of them are simply raising their prices to compensate for the fee hike then it would make sense to send them back in.
Temudgin,
Since most of its FBA I usually do not see the addresses. When I run my monthly reports I like to look up the top sellers and if its interesting I will map it out.
Im retired, the BAH in the area is $2,262 a month. One of the highest rates, and enough to validate taking some classes. The GI bill and post 9-11 Bill are both solid bills however, they know most members will not use them. I finished two degrees while I was in the Air Force, when I went to pass the bill on to one of my children they wanted me to re-enlist for four more years. So ya I would only be taking it for the money, which I would then use to pay off the tuition my daughter is racking up at VCU.
Ebay
• Total Items in Store: 8120
• Items Sold: 109
• Total Sales $2581.74
• Highest Price $100 Textbook
• Average Price Sold: $23.67
• Returns: 12 (clothes, PC game)
• Cost of Items Sold: $115
• Cost of items purchased this week $368.60Still going good even with slow days on Sunday and Monday. Top sellers were a math textbook for $100, Washing machine control board $75 and a tie between a huge tug boat model and a pair of Nike Lebron shoes $65.
Bought a lot of crap this week, 426lbs of kids books, a huge cart of mens boots, two gaylords(large cardboard containers) of toys and two large containers of electronics. Its all loaded in the van from last Thursday and I will hopefully get to it this week sometime.
I kinda laughed out loud when I heard the caller about his wife. My wife does not work with ebay or amazon and she didnt understand why I put in so many hours working in D.C. and then so much work on Amazon in my off hours. She became a lot more understanding when I showed her I could make more money selling on amazon than I was making after 14 years in the Air Force. That, and I got everything out of the house, it was taking over our entire bottom floor.
Goals for 2017: Develop another stream of income separate from online selling. Continue to foster a relationship/partnership with two small charities (I have already started some of the groundwork) Find an employee to replace my sole employee who moved out of state back in November. Possible start going back to school, just for the free check from the GI Bill. Maybe take volleyball classes or underwater basket weaving.
Just finished running our amazon numbers for December, it was a good month.
All numbers are net.
Large charity partner $21,451 45% split to us
Small library partner $981.49 50% split to us
Small library partner $1296 50% split to us
Small charity partner $1005 %50 split to us
Our own product (books,board games, dvds ect) $9505 100% usAntique booth netted $650 for the month.
Jay- You are going the right route, your helper would more than likely fail the IRS contractor vs employee test if you labeled her as an independent contractor. Then you would be hit up for back employment tax. Plus, as you pointed out she would feel better being treated as an employee rather than on her own as a contractor and trying to figure out her own taxes and filings.
Kinda similar, I had someone buy a singer sewing machine for 200ish. They sent me a several emails almost immediately stating I was to hold off on shipping until I hear from them. Some kind of problem with the local USPS office.
And then nothing for 4 months, I tried contacting them again after a week and then two weeks and never heard anything back.
Sewing machine is still boxed up waiting to go.
