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I have read the official announcements and everything I have seen this far leads me to believe this is great news. Maybe in a few years a best offer will be immediately paid, and perhaps no more PayPal siding with a fraudulent buyer who skirts EBay taking hours of sellers time to fix. I think eBay does a really good job keeping the marketplace clean an remarkably honest- i trust EBay a lot more than PayPal to oversee the financial transactions.
With the increased platforms available for both buyers and sellers it makes a lot of sense that EBay would look for ways to yes make more money, but also lower costs to sellers overall. I don’t see any reason not to take EBay at their literal words in the announcement.
Jay – I spoke with Ebay last week on the guaranteed delivery dashboard. There is no guaranteed dashboard at the moment. There was once available briefly, it is no longer visible, and according to Ebay – “at the moment you will only see anything on Guaranteed delivery if you miss one.” According to the rep, who asked the technical team, ‘the dashboard is in the works’ and will be visible to all in the future. At the moment you would see like a defect if you miss a guaranteed delivery (not clear where exactly). I also find that some of my listings do not qualify and i have no reason why, and some do. To me it sounds like Ebay is not giving up on it, just rolled it out prior to it being baked.
From a sales perspective I had a great week for me last week as it seems that my growing inventory paid off last week anyway. Like the sentiment shared by others, however, it has felt like sales have fallen off however towards the end of the week volume wise and this weekend overall. Sunday and today have been dead.
1/28/18-2/4/18
Total Listing in store (beginning of week): 1034
Total items (including multiple item listings): 1145
Value of inventory listed beginning of week: $39,097.38
Value if inventory listed end of week: $39,059.31
Items sold: 28
Weekly sell through (based on number of listings): 2.71%
Total Sales: $1,731.87 (shipping backed out)
Average price: $61.85
Cost of items sold: $798.02
average cost of item sold (pre fees): $28.50
Gross profit: $933.85
Highest item sold: Vintage Kitchen Table — sold: 580.17 cost (with free shipping approx 315)
New items listed: 124
Asking price of new items listed: $1,693.80Correct – Ebay DOES NOT take your lowest dollar amount shipping option to sort by cost, it uses your first option. Ebay will (in theory when it is working) use your fastest option for the guaranteed delivery.
Correct – smart post is a disaster at the moment. I would take it off.
If no one responds maybe give good translate a try. You can download it on your phone and it may be able to pick up the charterer
terminal99 – not as good to just listen to as you kind of have to watch the video. However, Will who you may remember R and J interviewed, is as knowledgeable as anyone for sure. He goes less into the business side of things but he does somewhat – which is helpful for sure. Old school and fun to watch.
craigslisthunter – guy is a bonafide legend among the people that are into his podcast. He has a very different business model than R&J and most of the people who post here – it takes a higher capital requirement and his costs are higher. But now is a really interesting time to check out his channel b/c he just started a store from scratch meant to show people that the business is possible for smaller folks and its interesting to see even if you have been selling a long time. Guy just loves the business and is the absolute best at what he does.
Personally, when i first started getting into these types of things i always thought craiglisthunter was the best podcast and model – so i definitely recommend it. Then I listened to (i think all) of SL – you are not going to find another one : ) I don’t even think R & J realize how good their stuff is. But definitely check out CLH — it is a different model. High sell through, high returns, high capital requirement. (second best business model, first is low capital requirement and high return which SL helped me learn.)
I believe the answer is yes – if smart no longer is the cheapest and it is first, i believe your listing will be sorted by smart post still. I guess Ebay would be the folks to ask for certain, but personally this is what i have operated assuming.
it doesn’t fit on his stand, oh well it will sell again but he doesn’t want to pay the 20% restocking fee and has sent it back already, can he still leave bad feed back if I don’t succumb to his request?
— Steve – if it were me I would 1) contact ebay and ask them / even tell them i feel like a buyer is holding feedback over me about the restock fee and then 2) deny the buyer and charge the 20% fee. The buyer bought something from you under your terms and is now looking to break them.
Personally I have had good luck standing my ground as long as I make sure to follow Ebay policy exactly and work with Ebay before there is a problem when it gets hairy. I have had bad feedback taken off instantly following this approach.
This issue needs to go to the executives at Ebay in a way that asks them ‘what are you going to do’
Service Request number (I am not sure if that is what Ebay uses but that was what i was using as lingo). Basically my take away is — always get a SR / Reference number on any conversation with Ebay about anything important. It enables a coherent dialogue over time, apparently.
Put another way – if there is no reference number it did not happen.
I got a second reference number today after my call, for example, which i will use to clarify that all of my smart post is to be credited, as defined from just the one incident i called in for originally. My own notes, in excel, with SR number is my new best practice.
So I called Ebay again on the fedex issue — giving them my SR reference number the rep was able to pull the issue up right away and knew what i am talking about. The Ebay rep confirmed specifically that
“Ebay would credit my account for the shipping difference” on the smart post issue for ‘all of the items effected.”
What I wanted to pass on to others: when i asked why ebay is not making a seller announcement about the issue and providing guidance to all on this: “we cannot do that because we should not be paying the difference in shipping” — that they were making an exception for me apparently because i am asking for it.
So the bottom line is Ebay knows there is an issue on fedex smart post and people are on their own dealing with their bug. I would encourage anyone effected by smart post who has lost money on the issue ebay is having to specifically ask Ebay for credits for the issue and to ask ebay for a SR Reference number. Getting the SR number is key anytime you want something to be “on the record” and it makes sure the reps are logging and keeping notes that can be used later.
ok i just took fedex smart post of all my listings as i keep on getting dinged and i am just not going to assume ebay will fix all of it post fact. I really wish EBay would get their STUFF together – to the point on the podcast there is not even an announcement (though i am positive they acknowledge its an issue) and shipping packages to people is sort of a big part of their business after all.
I have a lot of shipping to do today and just hoping the FedEx issue is solved. Its funny I was oblivious to the whole ‘can’t buy 1st class issue’ which is probably for the better, come to think about it probably because I don’t really do the calculated first class – I just handle first class fixed price.
So I do business policies – which is great – and up till now I have just been to stubborn to take the fedex smart post option off – though I probably will today if it is still causing headaches. But to the point on the podcast – yes it is really just that easy. Also – I have a MESS of business policies with so many I don’t use. I simply just don’t worry about it – the way the policies auto sort it puts the ones most used at top so it is pretty easy for me to find what I am looking for. It makes for endless features and it is really easy to manage in bulk. If/when I have an employee I feel like it will be easy just to say which business policy we are using and even if they used the wrong one it I would be easy enough to change. I take global shipping off or add it just like that and do all sorts of things all the time – its nice.
Week was funny – slow in the beginning. Still recovering for my inventory debacle last week – have been selling off some coin inv in bulk and actually taking a loss on some of it so long as my accountants say i can as i spent the money grading the coins a couple of years back before i was running the business as it is today. Had a very good sourcing week. Bought a large lot of Car service manuals, a porcelain bird collection, some more coins, very nice stereo speakers for a song. Have been listing everything in my house we don’t use as well – have told my wife anything in our basement is fair game and I think she did a double take when she saw some of her old stuff up on Ebay.
Also – following last weeks mess with my third party I have been working on my posting just through ebay and revisited what I had been doing with file exchange and just doing it instead through ebay bulk editor. Hacking around Sunday AM I was able to get 20 up just in a couple of hours so it will be interesting to see how fast I get over the next week or so as I am focused full time on refining… It looks like listing VIA spreadsheet model right in organic Ebay is now very viable and I am excited to see how it goes. I hit 1,000 listings and have my cross hairs on 2,000 —
1/21/18- 1/28/18
Total Listing in store (beginning of week): 967
Total items (including multiple item listings): 1040
Value of inventory listed beginning of week: $37,635.55
Value if inventory listed end of week: $39,097.38
Items sold: 34
Weekly sell through (based on number of listings): 3.52%
Total Sales: $682.40 (shipping backed out)
Average price: $20.07
Cost of items sold: $364.79
average cost of item sold (pre fees): $10.73
Gross profit: $317.61
Highest item sold: Wholesale Lot of NGC Certified Coins: 21 coins silver & clad Franklin, Kennedy.. 115.84
New items listed: 100
Asking price of new items listed: $2,144.23
Cost of new items listed: 202.77
average ask of newly list: 21.44
average cost of newly list: 2.03So from your conversations with Ebay, you are not being told that you will be made square regarding the shipping cost?
Im my relatively limited experience i have found that if you get up to the right level (the “Advanced Team” the team that assists with file exchange) they can fix things in an instant often times, whereas the normal reps will bump into each other not knowing how to get anything done. The trick is getting to that advanced team. The only sure fire code i have to get there is to ask to talk with someone about file exchange – otherwise the reps seem trained to not pass you to the higher end resources.
Anyway – i would bet money that says the team that knows how to do file exchange also would be able to fix the issue you are having. I don’t think it is a matter of anchor support versus non anchor support – it is getting to the reps that are almost as close as being the technical developers as they are service people. Just the other day they were adjusting a bug i had on the seller monthly limits and my screen was literally changing while i was looking at it –
