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[Mississippi Pickers]

Putting things on hold (sort of) for a very couple months. We are the perfect epitome of Murphy’s Law.

So we have this new life and we are just starting to make headway into the world of resale and are pretty much on a shoestring. Looking back it was obvious what we should have done but well then again time travel isn’t possible yet. Our finances lay in ruins a few months ago and we have slowly picked ourselves up and started making decent money again but we made a mistake, we never put up any emergency money.

We no longer have credit cards so there is no “just put it on the card option”. Anyway, we have these two cats and last week one of them got really sick. None of the vets around us will take payments so we needed cash. Fortunately we had just enough, about $150.00 to take the boy in and get him treated.

We didn’t know until today if the treatment would work or if he would need additional treatment which would be much more money, like $400.00, bloodwork, x-rays, the works. Thank God it worked and looks like he is on the mend but we still have a cash problem so we are putting the brakes on our spending for 8 weeks in which time we will be able to put up enough cash to handle any future emergencies.

Yeah I ain’t gonna lie, it hurts to have to stop pushing hard but we have to do what we have to do so we no longer have the threat of not being able to get our babies treated due to lack of onhand cash. I will still be able to do whatever the sales on ebay allow me to do which will still put us in a forward moving position but at a much much slower pace for the next 2 months anyway,

So August everything will go back to normal and we will be able to purchase and list over 100 items a month once again. It’s a set back but in my mind well worth it for the peace of mind that comes with having an emergency fund. #alwayshaveanemergencyfund

[Mississippi Pickers]

Thanks Temudgin ! and Thank you for your service too !

That is very useful information. I think as long as I am not willing to do FREE returns whether I take returns or not, I am going to face the higher possibility of an INAD to get that free return shipping so I might as well keep going with the NO RETURNS for now.

I noticed in that article that I am being compared to other sellers who have NO RETURNS rather than being compared to everybody so that is really interesting. They also have to price the way I do and deliver the way I do for them to be a peer so that reduces the amount of people I am being compared to dramatically.

I also notices that it is based on your number of items you have sold so looks like if we are really starting to crank out the sales like over 300 per month then we will be held to a higher standard but it goes away every 3 months so just have to be really careful i guess at that point not to get sloppy.

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated !

[Mississippi Pickers]

I’m not that great at anything really, I try to be truthful and accurate.I thought it might have something to do with the fact I am below a certain number of listings? Maybe if you go over some magic ebay number your held to a higher standard? all these crazy thoughts go through my head Jay.

[Mississippi Pickers]

Good luck !

[Mississippi Pickers]

Jay I have not had a single return since I implemented the NO RETURN POLICY back November 1st of 2018. No INADS, nothing. I know I could just be lucky and it could happen and if it does then I feel like it would have happened anyway whether I had this policy or not.

I will let you know as I progress at a snails pace it feels like,lol

[Mississippi Pickers]

It’s kinda funny you were talking about wishing you could just refuse returns sometimes, lol, yeah I never mentioned it but when I started my store back I came back with a NO RETURN POLICY. Now I can’t predict the future but this far it has not lowered me in search rank and we continue to enjoy a high STR and believe it not I have not had a single issue with people getting mad about it. I also have 2 day shipping and this also has not caused any problems whatsoever.

As we scale up will those things become an issue? I dunno but I will let you know =)

I go to the post office on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and that’s it. Oh yeah also I don’t do free shipping either, lol. I know you guys are probably thinking well your doing it all wrong, and yeah might be but thus far it’s not been an issue so I dunno.

When I get closer to 1000 listings I will let you know if I had issues that made me change or if I still have the same policies in effect.

#WaitingForTheHammerToFall
#ShouldBeInteresting
#WhatsAHashtagDoAnyway

Later!
Tony

[Mississippi Pickers]

Hey BigSally, Thank you! I Love that philosophy! so true 🙂

Congrats on a great month!

I thought this was going to be a worse month and well, you just never know till it’s over.

[Mississippi Pickers]

As I write this I am a little embarrassed that I did not make my listings goal of 300 this month but that was due to incredible sales in March. I did manage to hit 275 as of today but that 25 short will have to be made up next month so my work will get much more serious in April or it’s going to be way too hard to catch up.

Part of the problem was crap was selling as fast as I could list it in some cases. A few times I had offers within an hour of listing the thing. Not a bad problem to have but kept me from reaching that 300 easily, I should have made a harder effort but at my age it’s not that easy to double down anymore. I can understand the grey goat’s frustration at keeping up the listings and I am 5 years younger than he is.

Nonetheless I am pushing forward. I had to take a couple of days off to prepare my taxes for the accountant but I just finished so next month is a clean slate and a new opportunity to shine. I am so happy with how we did this month but I know not everyone had such a good month so I am reluctant to jump up and down too much on here, just seems impolite I guess.

This will be my last entry for a while, I can’t really see any benefit in just restating the same info month after month so I will report back if anything changes. The numbers are insane for us, no time in our stores history have we managed to do so well in a single month. Taking our time and looking things up before buying them and only buying things we KNOW we can sell has really paid off.

Here is how we did

For the Month of March
Started with 225 listing and ended with 275 ( yeah I know )
We sold 37 Items and Grossed $943.00 with shipping included
Without shipping we grossed $718.00
That gave us a 15% STR and an APS of $19.43
On top of this we sold $450.00 in hard goods ( 2 old Atari 2600’s NIB ) locally giving us a whopping $1168.00 in sales for the month.

I am so pleased with our progress this go round, happy happy. The future is looking bright 🙂

I was looking for a 8% STR and got 15%, unreal.

For April I am still just trying to hit 8% STR and $15.00 APS, keeping it real
Listing goal for April is 400, oh yes I will do it 🙂
Budget for new products in April has increased to 60.00 per week and Max purchase price is holding @ $3.00 per item unless it’s something really special.

I can’t think of anything else to report, just that everything is going great. I will check back with this journal in a few months unless there is a drastic change to give an update, I’m thinking quarterly.

Love you guys, gotta go listen to the podcast now 🙂
Tony
#ICANTBELIEVETHISISREAL

[Mississippi Pickers]

Wow, that is a lot of good information and I really appreciate the time you took to reply. You have answered all my questions and given me some things to think about, like winter/summer off season clothing effects on STR. I am just amazed at how DIALED in you are on your business and that is what I am hoping to achieve at some point.

We are still in the early stages, just below 300 right now and we are maintaining a 10% STR average which isn’t as good as I would like but not horrible either. Thanks for offering your help, I will definitely have more questions as we progress so I will e-mail you when the time comes.

Thanks again !
Tony

[Mississippi Pickers]

Speaking on the subject of ebay taking the money out of your paypal or whatever when you make an offer I think this is one area where Poshmark excels because that is exactly what they do. When someone makes an offer on poshmark they are immediately charged once you accept the offer. Come on ebay it’s time to grow up already.

[Mississippi Pickers]

Thanks Jay and T-Satt,

1 bucket of coffee coming up 🙂

[Mississippi Pickers]

Just passed our monthly STR goal of 8%. We are currently sitting at 9% STR ( this will only increase from here) and our current APS is 19.10 ( this will fluctuate until the last day of the month) and so the goal was 8% STR and 18.00 APS, I hope we can at least meet the APS but you never know until it’s all over.

I have to hit 300 active this month to hit our yearly goal, 50 to go. I need a motivation drug, lol

Later
Tony

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mississippi Pickers.

[Mississippi Pickers]

ok so I misunderstood what you guys were saying about the first class, I had to go back and re-listen to that part again, I thought they were showing you the wrong price, not the customer. Doh! Anyway, I got it now.

[Mississippi Pickers]

ok well I finally found something and bare in mind this is a notice from USPS dated January 2019. The commercial parcel price list does still include up to 15.999 in business first class pricing. Here is a link …

https://pe.usps.com/resources/PriceChange/January%202019%20-%20Notice123.pdf
and go to “First-Class Package Service Commercial​—Parcels”

If anyone has any information on any changes to ebay policy I am VERY interested. It’s frustrating when you just don’t know. I mail quite a bit in the first class 14 to 15.999 range so this will impact my business pretty significantly.

Like a say I am still able to print in this range and it’s got me a little worried about my parcels either getting returned or delivered with postage due.

Any information appreciated
Thanks !
Tony

[Mississippi Pickers]

I have been trying to find any information on any possible changes in usps business first class shipping removing the 14 to 15.99 ounce parcels. I can’t seem to find anything on ebay or usps.com about any changes and I am still able to print first class 15 oz parcels so now I am worried they are going to get rejected somewhere along the way after hearing your problems printing these type shipping labels.

Have you guys found any official information from either ebay or usps?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Mississippi Pickers.

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