Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I had a guy ask if I took offers on an item this weekend. Messaged back, “Depends on the price but fire away.” Gave me a decent 25% off price + shipping but talked down the quality of the item and mentioned how important careful packing would be. Those are kinda red flags for me but I send him an offer for the amount listed and assure him I pack well.
He doesn’t buy the item and 24 hours goes by. Then I get an email today saying that he is about to buy the item but he’d like free shipping and boy it is in bad condition and you better pack really well…. So I ended the listing, relisted it, added him to my block list, and then sent a message saying I didn’t appreciate the last minute switch of terms and I’ve removed my offer.
He then sent a flurry of messages, which I didn’t read that I’m sure were not sweet love notes! That is my personal policy to keep my sanity. The moment I block you I never read another message from you. It hurt to lose a potential $80 sale but when people degrade me or the item, I want nothing to do with them.
Just double-checked, the reason for the return was listed as: Doesn’t match description or photos.
When I processed the return, it I did it on my phone and it had a toggle switch (which was off) that said refund original shipping and I didn’t select it.Ah, you are right, that is worded strangely. That’s fine that I don’t get the money (since I do have the item) I just wanted to relist as fast as possible. Oh well, I guess I will wait and see it resolve in 10 days.
I just started with GoDaddy and noticed this also. I’m probably going to manually eliminate these by reclassifying them and get the Sales Tax line down to zero. I have few enough returns that I can just handle it at the end of each month. I do wish they’d figure out a way to do it for me though.
What I Do like with GoDaddy is the totals Sales I got for 2019 was without all the sales tax added in, as opposed to my PayPal tax form that does have it (and is discussed elsewhere on the forum). So The GoDaddy number is the one to “go” with on my schedule C.
Although I should be reading about his process and how it could improve mine, all I could look at was his cute cat and that stunning green Chandelier!
… you are more excited about selling an item for $10 which has sat in your inventory for 3 years than the one you just listed and immediately sells the next day for $30.
Glad this worked out in your favor! If you haven’t already, add that buyer to your blocked bidders list.
Hi Gopher Jim, because you said this “I would rather get a box/bin full of stuff and be forced to go through it than to try to identify something of value.” I wonder if going to an auction and picking up a cheap box lot or two might be a fun way for you to start learning and researching items. What many of us do is we find a lot that we know has one item in a box lot that can give us a profit and then anything else of value in there is gravy. Looking up and researching things you might never buy on their own is a great way to build knowledge.
Quick example: a month back I bought a big box of old restaurant ware dinner plates (assorted patterns) for $8 at an online auction nearby. I bought it because there were some U.S. Navy plates that I knew would sell for $30-40. I knew this after doing some quick research on ebay/terrapeak. I didn’t even look at the rest of the items. Well, when I won it and picked it up there were a bunch of other cool plates. We kept three for our house, I listed 3 sets of plates including the one mentioned above (which sold for $40: https://ebay.us/G8ev5l) and I took the rest to my local consignment store. They took almost all of the remaining plates, and I’ll make $2-3 a plate on those. So all-in I spent $8, have already made $40 and will probably make $120 total when it is all said and done. And most of those plates were patterns I had never seen before and I did the research once they were home. But know I have some new knowledge for when I am out at garage sales or at thrift stores.
I’m on extended handling mode as I’m out of town for the holiday weekend. My 880 listing store had one sale on Thanksgiving and one on Black Friday. I usually average 50-60 sales a month minimum so yeah, crickets for me so far. I am sending out offers while I’m gone trying to spur some sales.
This is my thought also (sales are good but not good enough relative to the increased work the past few months). I am trying to write up a longer piece about this and will post elsewhere if possible.
I never was one to go crazy overboard on price, but I have been forcing myself to put a higher price tag on things this past year. My latest strategy is to go about 20% higher than a comparable sold item. I often after two weeks start sending offers to watchers in the 15-20%. And if the item has been around for a year or so, I’ll consider up to 50% off offers, and I’ll pretty much never say no to a 25% or lower offer from someone. It seems to be working pretty well.
I have the following items:
Brand New Oxwall 690 Pegboard Display Hooks 50 Pcs Assorted Wall Storage Shelf
New old stock in package but I assume you want them out of package
Antique Lufkin Folding Boxwood Ruler Model 3752b England Carpenter Tool 36 inc
If interested I can ship one or both out tomorrow with your label.
I’m going to make a quick suggestion, but before I do I will state that I don’t have an inventory system yet for my 850 listing store, and probably should. However I’ve made other inventory and sku-like systems before for personal and work use and I wanted to chime in.
My suggestion is to make a very generic numbering system that can be easily adapted in future for any storage configuration and have a master list taped up in your storage building for your helpers.
Example: Label everything in a XXX.XX system. Each 3-digit number corresponds to a region in your building or a type of storage. If you need subdivision, use the 2-digit number (like for bags like Ryanne was talking about.
So 100.00-199.00 is one category of storage – say your shelving. Maybe you have only 24 shelves so those numbers are 101.00 to 124.00. On a master list you write 100-199 codes = Shelves.
Maybe 200.00 – 299.00 are bins, do the same thing. If bin 205 has three bags in it with smaller items you skew it 205.01, 205.02, 205.03 on the bags and 205 or 205.00 on the outside of the bin. On your master list you write 200 -299 codes = Bins.
And so on (Maybe clothes racks are 300s, artwork is 400s, etc). They beauty of this is if you change your storage system you can update easily. For example let’s suppose you want to convert all your shelves to bin storage. Your 101 shelf becomes a 101 bin. If you need more than one bin for the stuff on that shelf, now you make the outside of the new bins 101.10, 101.20, etc. (up to 9 bins). You can then still put bags in them (up to 9 in each) and have 101.11 be one bag, 101.12 be another. On your master list you now write 100-299 codes = Bins. Your helper locates general area where the bins are, the specific bin/shelf/rack/jewelry box/whatever and if needed, drills down to the specific bag to find the item.
This gives you maximum flexibility, a master list you only have to update when you change systems, and you don’t have to change skus if you go from shelf quadrant 1, shelf 5 which is code Q1Sh5 to a bin system that would be sku bin119.
Hope that makes sense and is helpful to think about.
Another solid month, 2nd best this year. I finished the summer having listed just under 400 items and I’m pretty pleased with that.
Total Listings in store: ~875
Items Sold: 62
Net Sales: $2008 (2nd month ever over $2K!)
Highest Price: $130 (FreeStylin’ BMX Magazine Nike cross promo book, bought for $7 at Goodwill)
per sale avg: $32.38
Returns: Got the one return back, and had to give a partial refund as person who said there was a piece missing in an item – did get positive feedback from that buyer though so that was good.Went thrift store hopping this weekend and got a bunch of cool things, no home runs, but a lot of doubles and triples! Those pay the bills also now I have to find time to list them.
Hope everyone’s store is warming up and the weather gets cold and we hit holiday season!
First off thanks for shout out Jay, glad to help on promoted listings.
Second, I looked at my top rated discount on the August invoice for my July sales at it was $17.10. I sold gross, $1730 in July, my fees are usually just under 10% so say about $173. 10% of that is $17.30 a difference of 20 cents. So mine looks pretty right on for being actually 10%. I’m also confused by the 5% number and would love more discussion about this.
