Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
Supposedly, ebay will be announcing something around this towards the end of June….some sort of incentive for sellers to drive traffic to their own listings from social media. But we have no details yet.
06/15/2020 at 1:18 pm in reply to: ebay execs accused of cyberstalking the Steiners (ecommercebytes owners) #78448I just had that question from a buyer. Just respond with a price you’d be happy with. It doesn’t have to be your actual lowest price. If your buyer counters with something even lower, but you are willing to take it, or can meet somewhere in between, go ahead and do it.
I think ebay overstates the case when they say you MUST have a white background. I think it would probably be better to describe a white background as a “best practice”. And as someone suggested, it could be that a white background is necessary for new items, but not necessary for older stuff.
I’m not much help…I use wire shelving (on wheels) and a combination of bankers boxes and banana boxes. I get the banana boxes for free at WalMart and local grocery stores. Haven’t had to get any since the Virus struck, so I’m not sure if they are still handing them out or not. I do add cardboard to the bottom of the banana box, and also under the lid. For that I generally use flattened 12pk soda boxes. A bonus is, sometimes they include the heavy brown paper that was in the banana box….this is good for crumbling and using as padding for shipping packages.
-
This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by
MyCottage.
Many sellers have shipping costs beyond exact postage. I doubt they’d be happy with your “exact postage” requirement, since they are factoring cost of shipping supplies and perhaps shipping department employees.
Frankly, I only offer free shipping on a small percentage of my items. For much of what I sell, I don’t think my buyers are sorting by Free Shipping. One thing I like about Terapeak is it breaks down the percentage of solds by free shipping/not free shipping, so you can see if, say, 90% of the solds were sold with free shipping, you might want to offer it. If 10% with free ship, probably not.
Also, you are NOT forced to charge the highest shipping charge. Many sellers who offer free ship base it on the midway point…..figuring some sales will be less, some more, but they’ll likely even out.
The fact is, Amazon offers it because survey after survey (as well as actual sales in many categories) prove that buyers prefer it. And that’s why ebay and etsy push it too.
I’ve concluded that, for most of my used and vintage, it’s not usually a major factor with my buyers. But I suspect for commodity items, it is much more of a factor.
05/30/2020 at 1:30 pm in reply to: Whoa, what? Walmart to start selling used clothing and accessories online??? #77941Jay,
That’s exactly it. Many people don’t want to be bothered with the work that goes into listing and selling on ebay, Poshmark etc. They’d rather send the stuff in to ThredUp andget whatever they get for it. Same as people who’d rather drop stuff off at GoodWill and take the tax deduction rather than try selling it themselves (And many people around here DO try selling it first, at a yard sale, and take only the leftovers to GoodWill.)
If literally everyone said : I’m going to try selling this myself….sourcing would become much harder for those of us who are trying to source their castoffs…..
05/30/2020 at 1:27 pm in reply to: Whoa, what? Walmart to start selling used clothing and accessories online??? #77940Jay, the photo and article will give you some idea of the scale they are talking about. Even your average “large” ebay clothing seller doesn’t begin to compare:
ThredUp, whose second-hand goods will start appearing at Macy’s and JCPenney, just raised a bundle
05/29/2020 at 8:59 pm in reply to: Whoa, what? Walmart to start selling used clothing and accessories online??? #77926Also, I don’t really foresee the day when WalMart will want thousands of small used clothing sellers on their site…..just too many headaches.
05/29/2020 at 8:46 pm in reply to: Whoa, what? Walmart to start selling used clothing and accessories online??? #77925Jay, ThredUP is an online consignment business. While they obviously have expenses, paying for inventory is not one of them. They deal in high volume, and across multiple venues, and so fas as I know they deal only in clothing and accessories…..probably have a very clear listing protocol in place, pricing data available, etc. Basically, all the efficiencies that come with being able to scale. Like most consignment businesses, they review the consignments that come in and don’t take everything (and I’m pretty sure they advise people not to even bother sending certain things.) Just a guess, but I would guess the people doing the actual work (photos, listing, etc) aren’t raking in big bucks for their efforts.
So, it’s entirely possible that it makes economic sense. But it’s also possible that they have received venture capital and are losing money by the bucketful until they become profitable, so long as the investors keep the faith. I haven’t really looked into them that closely.
Off the top of my head, I see at least two advantages that are built into their business model. The same people who consign to them probably buy from them as well. So, built-in buyer base. Trust. Buyers coming to ebay are faced with thousands of sellers to choose from, some of them very trustworthy, others pretty awful, and not always very easy to decide who is who.. Why make the choice when you can just choose from ThredUp’s vast selection of “curated” goods?
But I also think small sellers can survive alongside ThredUp.
05/29/2020 at 11:34 am in reply to: Whoa, what? Walmart to start selling used clothing and accessories online??? #77917Oops. Should read: I think this is is just evidence that many people, especially younger people, no longer feel the stigma in buying USED that many used to feel years ago.
05/29/2020 at 9:56 am in reply to: Whoa, what? Walmart to start selling used clothing and accessories online??? #77911I had read about this elsewhere, so hadn’t read the linked article. Now that I’ve read it, I’d say they left out some significant facts: 1. The Business press has been commenting for some time—-and that is pre-Virus—about the rise in demand for used, especially used clothing. While price is one factor, other factors include : much broader selection, often better quality, environmental concerns (especially among younger buyers, who believe new fashion is much more damaging to the environment than recycling the old.)
So I frankly doubt that WalMart partnered with ThredUp primarily because of the Virus, nor did they do so because of widespread economic hardship (a good bit of ThredUps merchandise is MORE expensive than some of WalMarts new stuff). As I said above, I think this is is just evidence that many people, especially younger people, no longer feel the stigma in buying new that many used to feel years ago. It is now mainstream for many people (something, by the way, which really began with ebay.) (I started buying used long before ebay came along, and I can remember when many people back then wouldn’t step foot in a thrift store, nor even a nice consignment shop. But once more people started selling online, well, more people started sourcing at thrifts, and most of those people pretty quickly realized that they could source and buy for their own use when at thrifts….)
So this change is less about “desperate times” and more about the mainstreaming of an activity that has become one of America’s favorite pastimes—-thrifting, flea marketing, junking….call it what you will….Many, many financially well-off people thrift these days. Didn’t used to be that way.
05/29/2020 at 12:18 am in reply to: Whoa, what? Walmart to start selling used clothing and accessories online??? #77906Thred Up is on ebay, with almost two million listings. WalMart has a lot of third party sellers, and now Thred Up is one of them. What does this mean for small used clothing sellers? It means the DEMAND for used is soaring as Used goes mainstream (can’t get much more Mainstream than WalMart.) At the same time, it means sourcing for small sellers might become more challenging. And it means small sellers need to be adaptable.
CraigNH,
Well, just to be clear, they aren’t wrong, the buyeer can choose a time frame. But, unless the time frames have changed, I think 24 (or maybe 12) is as low as it goes.CraigNH,
I think ebay uses 2 time periods to determine the duration they show you. This is a holdover from the days before all Fixed Price listings became Good till Cancelled. So, if your listing is about to “expire” (but, actually roll over as a GTC), ebay uses that time frame…how many hours before it expires/rolls over. I’m guessing your listing had an hour left before roll over….and then , once it rolled over, that triggered the actual time frame chosen by the buyer, so, the one hour suddenly becomes many more hours.
Hope this makes sense.
-
This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by
-
AuthorPosts