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No i have never scanned slides before, and judging by the video i just watched, i do not think it is an idea scanner for slides (does not have a special holder, or you cannot remove the top to make transparent.) If someone has used the Epson artisan 10 for slides and can say it is good then i am happy to do it – but my guess is it is not a good option now that i looked into it.
I have not head anything about what they are doing with the buyers – are you saying that ebay is going to them with the new shipping rate?! My hope is that Ebay would essentially eat the loss if that is what it comes down to, not sticking the buyer or seller with the shipping difference. But yea i agree it is a bad glitch – especially since the entire business is shipping things to people!
The way i understand it is that ebay charges your paypal account after the delivery with smart post. If i were a betting man they will not reimburse us if we use a different service, but who knows how it will play out. Personally i am sticking with SP as what the seller choose and having faith that ebay will follow through.
For me the GSP works well and i have GS turned on, and as an alternative service i offer priority mail. What should happen is a buyer will be directed to GS but if it is not available then calculated priority will be offered.
I spoke with ebay about the smart post issue and have been ‘guaranteed’ with a sr number that i will only be charged what the calculator is coming up with. It is a known issue, and the root of the issue is fedex and ebay are disagreeing on rates in the new year.
hi Ryanne –
not sure if my scanner is high quality enough but i use it for my raw coins and it does the trick for me. It’s an epson artison 710. I have a few coins in my store that you can check out if you want to see if it may work for you norfolkgoldandsilverRegarding a barter – i have been meaning to send you guys a tip anyway and would be happy just to scan them for you
I spoke with Ebay about the Smart post issue — the rep i spoke with said it is a known issue and they “guaranteed me” with a SR number that I would not pay the price that the shipping label was spitting out, that i would pay the calculated dollar amount that the ebay calculator was coming up with. According to that Ebay rep, FedEx and Ebay are having a disagreement about pricing in the new year.
over the past couple of days i have been printing my shipping labels ‘losing’ money on shipping on the assurance by ebay that i will be charged the correct amount when the package arrives.
I’m a skeptic to any theories like this. EBay cares about the buying experience, I highly doubt they have spent a lot of resources incorporating some sort of metric in their algorithms that rewards sellers if they buy something on Ebay. It just does not seem to make sense if you try to imagine what their goals would be in their search engine.
I think it is normal to try to associated some cause in our minds for an event – for example sales dried up for me at the end of last week and over the weekend – and it seemed like some of the sellers i stalk also slowed down. Was it that the animal spirit took a dive with the govt shut down? I have no way of knowing but my mind naturally looks for a reason so i can put together a story. The sample size i have access to for my example is way to small to draw any sort of real opinion though.
By the way — totally hilarious you guys found a box if ICP hats. Jay please let me know how they end up playing out, i hope you get a couple of big hits out of it if for no other reason than it will keep you using their lingo in the pod casts a little longer. Too funny.
Yea – i was avoiding using the name because i actually like the company, though it is all fair, auctiva.
Had a challenging week. I had been using a third part software to assist listing, but mainly to enable me to automatically lower pricing on certain listings following unsold months. Long story short, I undercovered a ‘bug.’ My listings stopped automatically riposting – so had to relist a few hundred listing and go through inventory to TRY to make sure i do not have dups.
Back to vanilla Ebay for me. The silver lining in all of this is i took away that i was over complicating my processes. I worked Sunday and found myself listing a lot faster with just ebay Ebay by also cutting out other stuff i was doing that was not altogether necessary to list (like tracking in a spreadsheet what i listed.) Sales slowed down for me — having a portion of my store down likely played a role. Despite the weird week my total inventory per dollars went up as i continued to post some higher dollar auction buys.
1/14/18- 1/20/18
Total Listing in store (beginning of week): 968
Total items (including multiple item listings): 1083
Value of inventory listed beginning of week: $33,417.51
Value if inventory listed end of week: $37,635.55
Items sold: 15
Weekly sell through (based on number of listings): % 1.55
Total Sales: $ $604.77 (shipping backed out)
Average price: $40.32
Cost of items sold: $122.24
average cost of item sold (pre fees): $8.15
Gross profit: $482.53
Highest item sold: Vintage Receiver (sale $300, cost $29.50)
New items listed: -58
Asking price of new items listed: $4,218.04
Cost of new items listed: $1,553.25
average ask of newly list:
average cost of newly list:Have not had a chance to listen to the podcast yet as doing some family activities but looking forward to this evening. Matched last weeks sales on an item sold basis. Made some large purchases at a local auction – which could have been a lot larger as I bid pretty high on some art work however lost out to some phone bidders. Nonetheless got some higher dollar items I am excited about in the inventory which I believe I bought well.
1/7/18 – 1/14/18
Total Listing in store (beginning of week): 967
Total items (including multiple item listings): 1088
Value of inventory listed beginning of week: $30,223.22
Value if inventory listed end of week: $33,417.51
Items sold: 28
Weekly sell through (based on number of listings): % 2.90
Total Sales: $837.22 (shipping backed out)
Average price: $29.90
Cost of items sold: $232.92
average cost of item sold (pre fees): $8.32
Gross profit: $604.30
Highest item sold: Cello Case sold $395 cost $150
New items listed: 28
Asking price of new items listed: $ $4,954.95
Cost of new items listed: $1,148.25
average ask of newly list: $176.96
average cost of newly list: $ $41.01Ryanne – my brother printer just broke and i have thermal printers on my “to do” list – it looks like you made the transition (fully?) exactly as I am considering. This post is from a while ago so not sure if anything has changed. Are you printing all of your labels today via thermal Dymo 450: USPS, FedEx smart post through 450 directly; UPS, Fedex through PayPal using the Dymo 450? In other words you have complete stopped printing with the brother?
If this is accurate do you find printing through PayPal using the Dymo cumbersome? I assume not if you are still using the same process.
congratulations on the 1000 listings – I hope to join you this week.
My numbers for the week continue to trend in the right direction. I have started getting into tracking my inventory dollar amount versus sales etc.. in more detail which i will start incorporating (i did last week for the month). It is actually no easy trick pulling that info accurately out of Ebay — one of the dashboards says i have north of 45,0000 in inventory however in reality it is only 30,000 ish. I had to break out File exchange to avoid manually adding it up. (I still wish I could find a way to use file exchange that makes sense for this business — the imaging issue kills it for me but if anyone has a trick i would love to hear)
I also am working on getting a little more sophisticated on reporting on sales costs etc.. on an per item basis, as well as looking at more efficiently tracking my time to eventually incorporate as well. Watching how guys like Tsalt do things on the reporting and numbers side has taught me a good amount and I plan on continuing to refine analysis.
I fell short on my goal of hitting 1,000 listings before the New Year. I am however pleased at my progress. My focus gong forward in 2018 is:
-Continue to build efficiency and “hack” all of my business processes to make my business more efficient – for the time being as a “one man” operation with some assistance from my wife — bring my listings per week to 140 is a concrete goal in this regard. Outsourcing complex shipping items is another recent addition to my processes that should prove to be huge
-continue to hone my craft /skills at picking. More top dollar items, spending relatively less — creeping that average dollar per sale up.
– 0 death pile policy. I do not have unlimited cash — and it plainly is not efficient having inventory sitting around unlisted. I know list everything prior to sourcing. I find that there literally is great sourcing opportunities everywhere – so i can afford to let opportunities pass until all of my items are listed.
-continue to hone my sell through rate / maximizing sale price on a relative basis to hit my sweet spot which is ideal for my business and needs. I am phasing out best offer and using only buy it now – with automatic reprice after a no sale every month. I plan on staying with this process for the entirety of 2018 to analyze after the fact.On a side note — I am having a blast! It is so refreshing working for myself. I am glad I have found this community online – it really is a great group of folks and certainly helps just having a virtual sounding board as no one in the real world really gets what i am doing. Happy New Year everyone.
12/31/17 – 1/6/18
Total items in store (beginning of week): 945
Items sold: 28
Weekly sell through: % 2.96
Total Sales: $759.69 (shipping backed out)
Average price: $28.42
Cost of items sold: $110.00
average cost of item sold (pre fees): $3.93
Gross profit: $685.69
Highest item sold: Oil Painting end 19th Century signed Vase with Purple Flowers oil lamp 1899 sold for 85.00; cost 1.45
New items listed: 59
Asking price of new items listed: $2,286.68
Cost of new items listed: $ 139.43
average ask of newly list: $38.76
average cost of newly list: $2.36
