Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
Ah man that sucks!
I have had a lifetime receiver and boom box in my ebay office for a couple years. I don’t use it all that often so maybe I’m dodging the kill signals. Who knows!
Yeah I stopped after work to drop off my packages. This post office has a very large parking lot…I couldn’t get to! There was a line of cars on the main city road to get into the parking lot!!!
I happily will take the ding on “tracking uploaded on time” to not wait in that mess! I stopped by another post office that was closed on the way home and dropped my small items into the mail chute. I’m gonna run over there around 8:30 this morning to see if I have better luck.
This is a mess and a half. I’m really dreading dealing with the fallout, but I’m not willing yet to extend handling time or stop selling.
I always look at their tiny little trucks and think “No way am I burdening them with picking up all my packages.
It is sad that USPS hasn’t upgraded any of their trucks to adapt to high volume package delivery. I don’t know how they manage it. I see a USPS truck every single Sunday around my neighborhood delivering packages. That is NOT cost effective at all.
So I went through all my sales and identified all of the still undelivered packages. I crafted a message and sent it to all affected customers explaining the situation and asked them all to message me if they still have not received their item by next Monday and we’d take it from there.
Hopefully this staves off the angry messages demanding their items…
Here is the text of my email if anyone wants to copy/paste and do what I did:
Hello,
I’ve been made aware that USPS is having severe issues with shipping delays this month due to increased volume and labor shortages. As such, I’ve went through all of my shipments to identify any items that have not been delivered yet. Unfortunately, this item is one of the items that has been caught up in the delays.
I do apologize for the delay. I ask that you please remain patient as this will be delivered as soon as USPS can clear their backlogs.
If your package has not arrived by Next Monday the 21st, please let me know we will take it from there. At this time opening a case will not speed things up any faster. If for some reason it does not show up, rest assured you will be made whole.Thanks,
Retro Treasures WVMy listing/shipping station and photography station are standing desks. I never sit when I’m doing ebay.
My desks I bought when Elder Beerman went out of business so I can’t really recommend it.
I can give you instructions for a super easy standing desk though:
Buy a 36″ hollow core door blank at local big box building supply door – usually $50 or less. Get some 2×3’s to build the frame.
Cut 2×3’s to match the outer perimeter of the door and screw door panel down onto 2×3’s.
Now cut the legs to the length you need for comfortable standing height and screw them into the inside of the 2×3 frame at each corner. If you want you can stain and poly the top.
One other option is to screw the back side of the top frame directly to wall studs and then just use 2 front legs.
This was how all the desks were built at the first place I worked doing AutoCAD fire protection design. It worked great for large standing workstations that required rolling out architectural drawing sets. It is cheap, light, and a huge desktop surface area (36″x80″)
Here’s an example of a cheap door slab that is already primed:
So about $50 for the desktop and 3 2×3’s to make it.
I recommend 2×3’s as they are cheaper and weigh less than 2×4’s , and are straighter than 2×2’s.
And here’s a really overkilled design that uses pocket holes. You can do this without the pocket holes but it won’t look as nice.
https://www.ana-white.com/woodworking-projects/hollow-core-door-desk
Items in Store 1437
Items Sold 33
Total Sales $1,423.00
COGS $127.00
Total Profit $1,296.00
Average profit $39.27
Average sales price $43.12
New Listings 5
Had some big ticket sales this week that boosted numbers. Yay! Listing time was cut short as the honey-do list took precedence this week. I have a 2 week vacation coming to finish the year and it really sucks that we can’t travel for it. I suppose I’ll get some listing done during that time.
Yeah this definitely says “hobby” to me much more than “profitable business venture”.
Kinda like doing all those crazy chemical processes to strip gold from old electronics.
Nothing good comes from engaging with these types of people. Just let the convo die.
If you really need to respond, then here’s what I do:
I type out the entire message I want to send, then I delete it. It gets the thoughts out of my mind and into written form. This typically works for me. I’ve used this same method on social media and on forums such as this.
In scenarios like this it is usually worth taking an hour or two to do some deep dive research. Try to identify the expensive pieces, identify whole sets to see if you can put together a whole set, etc.
Once you’ve taken the time to identify everything a clear picture of your path forward will emerge. It is different for every mixed lot.
Usually my investigation leads to a few individual items listed separately, a few complete sets assembled and listed, and then a loose lot of the leftovers all listed together.
The one time I made this mistake, USPS shipped the package to the buyer via parcel mail and made it postage due at delivery! I talked to the post master and there is NO handoff to fedex at least at my local post offices.
Now I double check every single label – even free priority envelopes and packages. I also write “FED EX” on my fed ex packages in big black sharpie just to make sure I don’t mistakenly drop them at the post office.
Once you play with pirateship for a little while, you eventually just intuitively know when it is cheaper.
Shipping recently took another turn because Fed Ex and UPS have all the sudden become VERY competitive with USPS on smaller item shipping costs.
I just shipped a 2-3lb item that was going to be $13 USPS but was only $8 via fed ex.
Since I sell 1000+ items a year, it is definitely worth the time to always be willing to update my shipping flow to save money. It can easily add up to several thousand dollars!
Walmart will tell you tough crap after 30 days, so you should too.
If they complain, just tell them they can always list it for sale themselves, and can even use your pictures to sell it. I’ve done this a few times.
Items in Store 1465
Items Sold 39
Total Sales $1,144.00
COGS $100.00
Total Profit $1,044.00
Average profit $26.77
Average sales price $29.33
New Listings 25
No big dollar sales this week, but shipping was definitely annoying.
Nothing much of importance happened this week on the ebay front. Just cranking along, thinking about what I want my goals to be for next year.
It is capitalization sensitive for custom label.
Diamond just showed up one day. It definitely isn’t from stays. I only have 6 stays this year.
I think I got diamond because of how much I’ve charged to card. It was supposed to be just Gold status for general use of the card.
I pay every bill I can use a credit card on, all of my business expenses, groceries, auto repairs, vacations, home expenses, etc.
Have I charged more than $40,000? Between my business and all other expenses that accept Amex? Oh yeah for sure. Shoot I have between $16-20k just in inventory purchases and shipping costs every year.
-
AuthorPosts