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I’ve been sending these on Friday with the thought that is when many people get paid and have some discretionary income they may not want to spend later in the week.
This morning I sent 7 offers with a 12% discount and right away sold one for $83.42 (free shipping). The buyer paid right away, it will cost me around $20 for shipping and fees, a reasonable return for an item I paid $10 for 4 years ago.
I discovered that eBay will include watchers who have already purchase the item from a multi-quantity listing. One of those I only found out about when I opened a non-payment case and then received a cancel request from the buyer saying they had already bought it from me, which we can’t do. At least he didn’t ask for a refund of the difference.
Now I am filtering those somewhat by not sending offers where there has been a sale on eBay in the past 30 days. I can do that fairly easily by doing a title search in email since I keep all of those sold messages for awhile.
Not really suited to run an eBay business, but I use my Kindle Fire 10 to keep up with the needful when I’m away from home overnight or longer. I’m going to have it with me anyhow because I like to read in bed until drowsy. It does have a decent camera and probably could be used to run the eBay business, but I would want a bigger screen and more power.
If I were going to go exclusively with a tablet, I would make sure it has plenty of RAM and a fast enough processor. Tablets usually don’t have a lot of storage space; you might need to make use of an external drive or cloud storage. I have a Windows 10 tablet that I don’t use because it isn’t powerful enough and is cricket-chirping slow. I would probably go with an Android-based OS for what you are wanting to do. A Chromebook tablet isn’t going to cut it for this in my opinion. I don’t use Apple anything, personal preference.
I have a Bluetooth keyboard with a touchpad mouse and use that when I have much to do on the road. A stand is nice too when you just want to watch a video, etc..
Bill
I don’t sell delicate things (fortunately in my opinion). I do think a lighter weight kraft paper could be helpful for that.
We use crumpled paper ropes too. Hadn’t seen the crumpler gadget before, I’m not even sure it would work on 50# paper, but it’s not that hard to do by hand as you said. I sell automotive parts primarily, while they aren’t usually fragile some are heavy enough to tear the box up if not secured. I’ve had a few orders come back as undeliverable and even after the round trip they are still pretty tight.
I was just thinking, I hope I didn’t rain on the R & J parade, they seem very pleased with the new peanut dispenser. Every business is different though.
Like Mike, we are using 50#, a 24″ x 900′ roll was around $30 I think last time I bought it (Amazon). I’m sure it would be less if I had a local source, but I live in a small town (1100 people) which is not close to any really large cities.
Appealing to your scavenger instincts, look for plotter paper, it comes in a roll and usually is heavy enough to work fine for packing.
I’ve heard mention of packing peanuts on several episodes and wanted to comment that I hate getting packages with loose packing peanuts. They tend to stick to everything and if a ceiling fan is on they run away to the corners and hide. Ever notice that most (all?) major online retailers have stopped using packing peanuts? I prefer using crumpled brown wrapping paper and reusing packing pillows. If I do use packing peanuts I put them in a plastic bag that is tied closed.
My 2¢
You can embed product photos in the listing as long as they are static (no links). I use embedded product images in many of my listings and host them on my domain, but many people use photobucket.com.
I sell NOS auto parts. eBay user sent me a message today from a listing for a connector pigtail, one the is used for multiple applications on GM cars. He had not bought this part or anything else from us.
“Any idea what this part connects to? We lost a piece trying to do some maintenance and need to find a replacement for whatever this part plugs into.”
Thanks for that.
I’m pretty sure I will be OK, but as we continue to live longer the chances of running out of money can become more likely.
I don’t worry much, but being old, poor, and alone is definitely at the top of my short fear list.
I have to start taking required distributions this year from my 401K and IRA which are in investment type accounts. If the remaining balances don’t generate as much in earnings as what I’m pulling out, that starts a slippery slide to running out of retirement funds, hopefully not before I’m gone.
Thanks, Jay.
My inventory is new old stock liquidation items. I usually buy all that is available and seldom find more to replenish. Many of these are long-tail items, giving them a nudge is often good, the send offer function is a new way to do that. I’ve been trying to avoid sending an offer to someone who might have recently bought that item from me and skip those with less than the original quantity. Now that I think about it, I could just look at recent sales and if over xx days send an offer.
I would be “nice” if eBay was more transparent about the selection of these items, but that is just the way it is.
