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Jay, I’m not sure if that question about individual items was for me.
I currently have 3017 active listings on eBay and Shopify store, 2805 also listed on Amazon, many have multiple quantities (~30,000 total). Having multi-quantity increases the work of keeping inventory in sync manually, although the pain of errors might not show up as soon.
I ship an average of 60-70 orders per week with an average order size of $25-$30. My COG is under 10% but I report on a cash basis I don’t have a weekly or monthly breakdown. My overhead costs are very low and I currently have no employees. I can easily see how much I sold each day/week/month from a spreadsheet I use, that is enough sales information for me but not meaningful to anyone else I think.
I found ecomdash worked the best for me to manage inventory, I started using them 5 years ago when my inventory was 1/3rd of what it is now. I upload new products to them by csv, generated from the same master spreadsheet used for cross-listing. They get sales information or other quantity changes from the various marketplaces and push the new quantity out to the other sites. I like that their sync interval is every 10 minutes, other services do that once an hour or even less frequently.
I use a daily order pick list I generate from ecomdash to pull orders, that list also shows the remaining quantity allowing me to do an instant inventory audit on multi quantity items when quantity is getting low. I find and correct 1-2 discrepancies per month. I used to spend (waste) time trying to figure out why, but now I generally just update. When I have dug into inventory discrepancies in the past, it was almost always errors on my end such as sending a replacement or putting a return back in stock without adjusting, inputting the wrong initial quantity, etc. I get an error report if an inventory change fails on a specific site, which has happened a few times on eBay due to site issues.
Overall I have been very satisfied with ecomdash. Last year I did a trial with a competitive service, it did not come close to measuring up. The monthly cost is sales quantity based but very economical in my opinion. They also have a function for listing new items and pushing them to multiple marketplaces, but I already have a good system for that. Also, an order shipping function that I might start using once I find time to dig into the details compared to ShippingEasy.
I have posted items to multiple marketplaces for 8-10 years now. As this has evolved I learned to start out a new listing by focusing on what is common across all sites so I don’t have the problem of converting an existing listing to force it to work on another site. For instance, all my photos are square and 1000 x 1000.
As far as tools, I recommend you check out ecomdash/ I have used it for years to manage my cross channel inventory but they also have the capability of pushing out listings to multiple sites. They actually describe themselves now as a Multichannel Selling Platform instead of an inventory management system. Cost is tiered bases on monthly sales. The headaches it eliminates and time savings are well worth it for me.
Don’t forget to factor in the extra work you will have in maintaining inventory if you are listing the same product on multiple marketplaces and have limited quantity, and also the potential issue of overselling before you can adjust. At some point, it becomes impractical unless you are willing to pay for an automated inventory management system. I’m basing this suggestion on my own experience, I eventually started using ecomdash to manage my inventory and the reduced headaches is worth their monthly fee.
You can select Economy Shipping without specifying a carrier, or Expedited Shipping, etc. To me, that’s better than showing a specific carrier and then shipping by a different one (although I used to do that and never had any blowback from it).
Amazon has done a better job in this area by setting up customizable location range band based shipping policy options. I found it a little difficult to set up at first but as I worked with it it became clearer and I like it. I expect eBay will soon do the same since there is seller demand for it and they tend to follow whatever Amazon does.
The still photo of the dogs at the end of the video is beautiful! I hope you save that as a memory. Funny, my dog was asleep in the next room and let out a little yip when the dogs were playing and barking.
Today is the last day for 4th quarter free shipping supplies if you have a store and haven’t done this yet.
I placed mine earlier today instead of waiting until the last minute, lol.
If you saved the original “Your eBay item sold!” email, their email address is in it. I save all of those by moving them to a separate folder in my email interface.
It’s information you might want for other reasons too since you can only see orders back 90 days on eBay and occasionally might need to see when something sold, or if this buyer has bought from you before, etc.
This is what I use to be able to safely reach items on the top shelf ( 7 ft) in my storage area. 3-step rolling step ladder
…you have already listed the presents you received that you don’t have any use for.
Merry Christmas!
Yes, unpaid items can be aggravating, for sure. Anymore I just don’t allow it to bother me (most of the time), and there would have to be some overwhelming reason for me to cancel. I don’t respond to the crazy emotional excuses (those aren’t the kind of buyers I want anyhow) and just let the unpaid item assistant run its course, make sure it is relisted, and move on. I minimize the time I have to waste on these loser buyers.
I agree with requiring immediate payment as soon as the seller accepts or the buyer accepts a counteroffer. I may be remembering wrong but it seems I saw something from eBay in the past few months regarding doing something about this
