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11/17/2020 at 2:54 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 488: Remember When Life Was Boring? #83514
It seems like you just bought a year or so ago, so I doubt refinancing would do much for you. Since you’re in WV, I’d recommend a friend of mine:
https://www.loandepot.com/loan-officers/rdegroff
He is legit awesome at his job and won’t BS you.
We did have some conversations about what the process would have been like if I didn’t have a full time W2 day job. It wouldn’t be easy that is for sure, especially if you don’t have a long track record.
11/16/2020 at 3:06 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 488: Remember When Life Was Boring? #83486Yes the rates went up…for us. Ebay has chosen to not increase the rates to the customer. I have brought this up to customer service 3 TIMES. They just don’t care.
11/16/2020 at 8:33 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 488: Remember When Life Was Boring? #83467Items in Store 1499
Items Sold 34
Total Sales $1,354.00
COGS $139.00
Total Profit $1,215.00
Average profit $35.74
Average sales price $39.82
New Listings 39
Last weekend, I was dangerously out of space in my inventory building. I took an hour and reorganized and magically I had plenty of space. Yesterday I was dangerously out of space in the garage/office. I spent an hour or two cleaning and organizing and magically I have a TON of space.
The lesson learned: STAY ORGANIZED!!!!
Sales were excellent this week – no slowdown here. I do have one sale that is concerning. I have a large paper shredder that is listed pickup only, with a description that says customer can arrange their own shipping. After I accepted their offer I messaged them to arrange shipping – no response. Then yesterday they paid. I messaged again, still no response. I’m hoping it is just a weekend thing and that they will contact me today once they are “back in the office”. I REALLY want that thing gone – I took a significantly lower offer than list price.
I’m having trouble finding time to work on listing since the time change. Typically on the weekend I wake up at around 6-6:30 and my family doesn’t wake up until around 9. This is the bulk of my listing time each week. Since the time change, I have been sleeping in until 8 on weekends and most of the family is awake BEFORE me! So instead of working for a few hours I’m rolling right into cooking breakfast. We’ll get this thing sorted out eventually.
Next week I’m off from work, but we decided not to book another vacation due to the uncertainty of increased virus going on. At any time states are gonna start locking back down. around here we joke that they’ll wait to lock down until High School football season is over. We’d love to go to columbus to see the Zoo lights, but that will have to be a last minute decision.
Either way, I’ll have plenty of time to get some serious listing done.
11/11/2020 at 10:00 am in reply to: Item is bought and paid for but wait….where is the shipping charge/payment? #83367This is why I exclusively use the chat function now. They email you a transcript after every chat so I have it on record.
11/11/2020 at 7:28 am in reply to: Item is bought and paid for but wait….where is the shipping charge/payment? #83365So last night I had another one. A pair of rollerblades to Hawaii. Buyer got free shipping and when I checked the purchase shipping option, fed ex was “free” for me too. Oh you know fedex will bill me so don’t buy that free bullcrap!
I reported it again. After the rep tried to tell me I had free shipping on the listing (I didn’t) they did look in the bug report and technical does have this as high priority to patch. It appears to be only Fed Ex shipping options to hawaii and Alaska that are affected.
They told me I should expect a callback within 24 hours, and that they will credit me shipping on this order so I can still fulfill it. I will be shocked if they actually call me back – they never do.
Use the calculator in the listing to figure your worst case scenario for each box, add the numbers, and then charge flat rate shipping at that price. Put a note in the listing that item will come in two boxes.
Also, in shipping restrictions you will need to exclude Alaska and Hawaii or use the new tool that lets you charge a surcharge for those two states. I’d just exclude them though.
Once in the chat you request to chat with an agent.
11/10/2020 at 8:39 am in reply to: Item is bought and paid for but wait….where is the shipping charge/payment? #83308I wrote a post about this last week but the forum ate it.
Buyer in hawaii got free shipping on a very large and heavy item. I talked to ebay and they kept telling me it was because I had GSP on this item. I kept asking what GSP had to do with it and they said Hawaii and Puerto Rico were in GSP.
I told them that was not true, and even if it was that it wouldn’t give them free shipping. They said they’d look into it, but obviously they haven’t.
They’ve been messing with sipping in 4th quarter and that is INFURIATING!!!
They have not raised rates to match the new rates so I’m eating that cost. The shipping selector is all buggered. I even had an item yesterday where the buyer selected and paid for Fedex smart post – I don’t offer smart post!!! How did they select it???
There is a chat function that you can use on the website or the app that is vastly superior to phone support. You even get a text transcript of your messages for your records. If you haven’t used it, you should.
Yep, episode 475.
Maybe I’m inventing this in my head, but I swear I’ve heard someone on this site either call into the podcast or post on the forum that they used an old church. This sounds very familiar.
Items in Store 1494
Items Sold 24
Total Sales $974.00
COGS $87.00
Total Profit $887.00
Average profit $36.96
Average sales price $40.58
New Listings 2
Holy crazy returns week, batman!!! I had 6 return requests this week. We’ll see how many actually come back. The weirdest one was a sealed new in package video game. I bought this at walmart in clearance section so I know the original source. The buyer claims (several weeks after purchase) that when they opened it a completely different game was inside the case. I tried to write them to clarify and didn’t get a response.
I also had another amazing “gut feeling” thrift store run. Sometimes I will be running an errand with no intentions to go to a thrift. Then all the sudden I’ll get this irresistible urge that I MUST do a quick trip. I always listen to this unplanned urge because I always find the best stuff when this happens. True to form, I go to the toy section and find a TON of 80’s toys. The highlight was an original Voltron Castle of Lions. It is missing just a few minor parts, but will still fetch over $200. I’ve went through all of it and total list price will be over $1000! It is INCREDIBLY rare to find old toys like this anymore.
This week should be quite productive on the ebay front. My wife and kids started to get sick on Friday so I have to work from home this week. My wife and I will get a corona test today or tomorrow at HR’s guidance. I don’t think that is what they have, but protocol is that if anyone in household has symptoms then you can’t come to work until it is proven its not Corona.
My advice: Don’t do it.
Will you make money? Most Likely.
Alot of money? Probably not
Will the work input justify the profit output? Almost definitely not unless you happened upon a “unicorn” sale.
Just go cherry pick the good stuff. Then you don’t have to deal with the low profit items, broken items, long tail items, and outright trash. Odds are good that even at a unicorn sale you are better off cherry picking.
leave the bulk buys to the folks with the staff and infrastructure to handle the volume.
11/06/2020 at 8:59 am in reply to: Alert: some USPS shipping methods not updated the cost to customer for Holidays #83198I missed your post while I was out of town.
Did you contact ebay to try and get it resolved?
They told me they would try to have it resolved within 3 days, and if I document the incorrect charges they can credit me the difference.
It is just considered a large flat rate box. It’s a rip-off too and I don’t recommend using them.
In the past I’ve used them and resized them a few inches as needed. If you resize them then you can use them for regular priority. Unfortunately, not all post masters know this and will charge you the large flat rate if they so choose. This happened to me once and I never used them again.
Here is what I do instead for board games. Get yourself some long skinny rectangular priority boxes, as well as some of the long skinny regional rate 8 boxes.
You will use two boxes per board game. Seal one end of each box. Put your item in one box, then slide the second box down over the item and the other box. You’ll need to press in the corners of the bottom box a bit so the top box will slip over.
Slide the top box all the way down as far as it goes, then tape up where the two boxes meet. I also like to run a strip of tape all the way around the long way to make sure the two boxes don’t separate.
This slip over two box method can be used on any longer item with any style box. I’ve even done it with 18x18x18 boxes.
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