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These are the shelves I use:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FZDT5OE/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1I fit 4 of the cheap walmart tubs on each shelf. I’m VERY happy with these shelves – they are cheap and pretty easy to assemble.
12/04/2017 at 11:54 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 337: If You Build It, You Will Have Storage #28051Time. I’ve been busy all week since I went back to work on Wednesday. I got a TON of work done over the holidays because I had large blocks of time. Now I’m back to an hour here, 30 minutes there. It’s hard to turn the “drive” on and off like that. When I just have short bursts I have to give myself a very specific task, otherwise I end up just standing there and visualizing what I need to be doing. Paralysis by analysis if you will.
Once I’m in the zone I prefer to stay there until the job is done. Hard to do with 5 other people in the house that rely on me. I also need to spend quality time with my family on the weekend too.
12/04/2017 at 10:40 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 337: If You Build It, You Will Have Storage #28027Total Items in Store: 891
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $91
Total Sales: $594.50
Profit: $503.50
Highest Price Sold: $100 Pair of Dr Comfort Shoes
Average Price Sold: $29.73
Average Profit: $25.17Decent week – no listing happening still.
I gotta get my heater mounted in the garage this week because winter is finally coming. Getting the garage set up has hit that nitty gritty point where progress is grinding to a halt. I have sold off a few arcade machines that weren’t making the move to the gameroom and will have cleared all the games from the garage by the end of the week. That is a huge progress, but I feel like I’m way behind. I think I’m underestimating how much work is truly involved in undoing 10 years of accumulated junk. I still haven’t set up my photo and shipping stations, and have not started the overhead storage. Truth be told, I’m still on the fence as to my vision for the ebay garage setup. I hate that I’m missing out on listing toys for the holiday season but I need to finish this project or I never will.
I’m bogging myself down in the details
I’ve always considered the freak sales on these and Disney black diamond VHS tapes to be some sort of money laundering thing.
11/30/2017 at 1:28 pm in reply to: How does your employee list for you?? What is their process? #27746Our method is to create the draft listing on the computer. The listing is fully complete except for photos and saved as a draft.
Once the listing is finished as a draft, I’ll open the draft on my phone, take the photos directly in the app, then publish the listing from the app.When my wife and I are listing together, I’ll be doing the listings and she’ll take pictures. I can create complete listings for shoes and clothing faster than she can crank out the pictures. Since the ebay database updates in real time, the drafts are available on the phone for her as soon as I finish them.
There are so many things you cannot do on the phone that I need done, sales tax and SKU are the two big ones. Why they aren’t in the app beyond me – I’ve asked ebay tech support and they don’t have a good excuse. Those are critical features!
11/30/2017 at 10:48 am in reply to: How does your employee list for you?? What is their process? #27726I have been experimenting with training methods on my wife. She tends to get overwhelmed and bogged down easy in the process.
The things that bog her down are:
Coming up with titles
Shipping
Pricing
Shipping
and lastly, shippingWith photography I tend to just let her go and develop her own methods and speed. She has had some great ideas for posing shirts and shoes.
So here are some of my ideas to help get the most out of a helper until they get more skill.
1. Have them tag items with a number rather than come up with a title. Dan from New Vintage NY does this with his helpers. They can create a draft with the number and get right into the meat of the listing (dimensions, condition, weight, item specifics). I can come up with a title very quickly through experience. Can be done when I am reviewing the draft. I don’t want to pay someone to learn all the keywords in describing shirts & shoes.
2. Have them provide basic dimensions and weight of the item only. No decisions on box sizes, how much weight to add for dunnage, what shipping method to use. Again, through a ton of experience I can pretty much look at an item and know what packing material to use, how much it will weigh, and what method of shipping is best. Why pay someone to waste precious minutes figuring it out and likely making a bunch of mistakes. The only stipulation I would add here is have them check to see if the item will fit in a flat rate mailer. That’s a simple yes/no data point.
3. Give them detailed guidance on what photos you want taken for common styles of items. I have a specific order I take photos for shirts, pants, and shoes and hats. It keeps the process flowing smoothly and quickly. Teach the method to them so they don’t meander in their photo taking. There should be an optimal average time it takes to photograph each item that they should be held accountable to.
Lastly, have them create listings on a computer instead of the phone – it is MUCH faster. There is so much lag when switching screens on the phone app. On a computer it is all one screen. They can switch to the phone to take photos after the draft is made.
Also, have you went back and checked the forums that were discussing the original sale? I’m sure they’ve had a field day with the auction too.
He probably already had it sold. The real irony here would be if the person he had already sold it to was the Japanese buyer that won the auction. Wouldn’t that just be great?
In regards to wall insulation, I was going to blow in insulation. It just requires holes to be cut in the wall which is no problem. After thinking it over though, my money was better spent on a vapor barrier and insulation in the attic. I don’t think I’ll get much bang for my buck on the walls. I can always revisit wall insulation if I need to.
Go to a craft store and by an acrylic clear coat called “Krylon Triple Thick”. You spray a very light mist on the back side of the backglass, and try to press any large pieces down so they adhere to the glass. You have to go light the first pass so all the flaking pieces don’t blow off when you spray. After that dries you really lay it on thick – hence the name . If the art is badly bubbled and/or cracked, then you can wrap the whole thing in saran wrap. Press the saran wrap down to insure all the art sticks well. Set it aside for a few weeks and then unwrap it. It won’t be perfect but it should be preserved as good as it can for the rest of the machine’s life.
Here’s a youtube vid giving a better idea of the process.
Picked up several Hugo Boss suits the other day. Score! I have 6 suits and two blazers to list now. I need to get on it so I can have a decent small sample test going on.
Don’t cheap out, and don’t deal with cheap customers.
If an item isn’t worth the buyer paying for 1st class shipping, then it isn’t worth selling.
If an item can’t sell with free shipping for enough to easily cover 1st class shipping costs, then it isn’t worth selling.Keep those two thoughts in mind and you’ll avoid so many headaches.
When I get in-depth questions such as these I will eventually respond to the buyer and say something like this:
“There is a high likelihood that you could be unsatisfied with this item. I take my customers satisfaction very seriously and I’d hate for you to be disappointed so I recommend you shop other listings, or perhaps brand new options for this item.”
I’ve cracked that response out a few times. I love when potential buyers clearly identify themselves as a problem before there is a real problem. Saves me a lot of headaches and return shipping costs.
I used the 24″ wide insulation precut panels. They didn’t have 24″ width in rolls. It worked out well though because the length was exactly 3 panels for each space. All of the house wiring is ran across the trusses, so it was a real pain in some cases to work the insulation under the wiring.
I decided not to insulate the walls. The foam board under the siding will have to do.
The 240V 5000W garage ceiling mount heater I got will be more than sufficient to keep it toasty in there. The garage is 420 sq ft. A new store near us called Rural King had a great black Friday deal on the heater – was only $58! Normally $150.
Total Items in Store: 903
Items Sold: 12
Cost of Items Sold: $33
Total Sales: $282
Profit: $249
Highest Price Sold: $40 Silver Jeans
Average Price Sold: $23.50
Average Profit: $20.74I have an unpaid item that I didn’t include – $100 pair of shoes. Ugh…
Pretty bad week – no sales Friday-Sunday on ebay! That was weird. All the sudden on Monday I have a bunch of sales. Apparently folks only shop while at work. Lol.I took off two days this week to give me a really long weekend. I wasn’t allowed to take off last week because so many other folks were. I took off the time to really focus on the garage conversion to my ebay room and completion of the den (former poorly converted ebay room) to a gameroom.
I insulated the garage ceiling, got a 5000W heater, and cleaned out a bunch of junk. I was able to get all of my games moved into the now totally awesome game room. I’ll snap some photos to post next week once it’s clean – still misc crap lying everywhere as I finish the garage.
Due to all the work going on, no listing happening. This needed to happen, so I’m fine with no listing happening.
Have a great week!
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