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02/27/2020 at 7:14 am in reply to: Customer Opens Case with their Credit Card after failed Ebay and PayPal cases #74477
I’ve had a case like this. Paypal rep outright told me over the phone that this was an open/shut case in my favor. Low and behold, a few weeks later they took my money and the 20 fee. You are screwed with a credit card reversal. If you call in and raise a stink, they may give you a one time credit. I did that a couple years ago. This time I just didn’t have any energy left for it since I had already fought the ebay fight and the paypal fight. I let it go.
Some people are just not good people and have no qualms ripping people off. For $20, the dollar I spent on the item, and the cost of shipping the problem went away. I’m ok with that.
I’ve used it. Not a great tool, but handy in a pinch.
Here’s a listing I pretty much had to use it on due to the size of the set:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/26464498074802/26/2020 at 1:28 pm in reply to: ebay Spring Seller Update is this Wed Feb 26, Town Hall Feb 25 #74428That’s all fine and dandy, but what about when a seller waits until day 29 or 30 to open the return?
02/26/2020 at 7:37 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 451: How Longtail Are You Willing To Go? #74407I cut out carbs except veggies/nuts, Walked consistently, don’t snack/graze, and restrict my eating window to a few hours each day.
It’s generous of you to take a return. I would have told him that he has a software issue he needs to figure out and good luck. No way I’d give a return in this case.
It would definitely be nice if vacation mode would override all handling times to your designated return time AND properly communicate the expected shipping date to the customer at checkout.
eBay is TERRIBLE at communication to customers. This is where Etsy, poshmark, and Mercari and owning ebay. I bought something on Mercari recently and I was shocked at how much better the communication to me, the novice buyer, was.
02/24/2020 at 8:56 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74314What an awesome story! I’m happy to hear you are able to work towards being financially independent!
I fell victim to the recession back in 2009/2010 and lost my job. Bigger contractors moved into the territory my employer worked and started taking bids from us. I was low man on the totem pole. We had a small child and my wife was pregnant. Using the aid programs available to us (unemployment pay, WIC, health insurance for pregnant women/children, Food stamps,etc) I was able to maintain everything I had worked for until I got a new job 6 months later. I’m VERY thankful those programs exist. In the end I got a new job that paid DOUBLE what my old job paid.
02/24/2020 at 8:46 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 451: How Longtail Are You Willing To Go? #74313Items in Store 1506
Items Sold 27
Total Sales $728.00
COGS $90.00
Total Profit $638.00
Average profit $23.63
Average sales price $26.96
New Listings 38Ah well it was a good run! I made over $1k in gross sales per week for 11 weeks straight. I haven’t listed anything this month and it caught up with me finally. I started to get back on the wagon yesterday with plenty of listings and immediately sold a rock band drum kit I listed.
I mixed it up a bit yesterday and did some retail arbitrage at TJ Maxx. There are some hidden gems there if you go through the clearance racks. Yes COGS are higher than thrifting, but I like to have a mix of new stuff in my store as well.I’m going to try and buckle down with some serious listing this week.
In other news, another cool benefit of having a large ebay inventory is that when I lose weight I can shop in my own store! I threw out 2 more trash bags of big guy clothes this weekend, including ALL of my shorts. I knew I had a tub of Ralph Lauren shorts to list this spring so I hit it up. I was able to pull out a couple pair of size 38 shorts that fit right now, and a pile of size 36 shorts that I can technically wedge myself into but will fit perfectly in about a month. I never thought I’d be wearing size 36 pants ever again in my life, yet here I am.
The “print labels and ship” button on the overview page was broken for me – it was showing the old shipping page. I messaged ebay for business and they pointed me to the orders tab and “awaiting shipment page. That one was correct. I informed them which link was broke and it is now fixed this morning.
So if it still isn’t working for you just go through the orders tab and you’ll get the correct shipping page.
Yes, you ABSOLUTELY want the number pad. If you sell clothing you will be inputting ALOT of numbers. I also manage all my spreadsheets on laptop.
The only reason you wouldn’t want a larger laptop is if you will leave it docked the majority of the time. In that case you’ll be using external monitor, keyboard, and mouse anyways.
Buy with confidence. Get one with a SSD drive in it so you don’t really have to worry about a hard drive going bad. They also run faster with an SSD.
Do you have paid leave saved up from work? If you are looking to quit anyways, maybe you could take 1-2 weeks off and be “full time” during that time on your ebay business to get a feel for it.
If you don’t have paid time off, you could request a leave of absence or figure out a way to use FMLA.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmlaA used one! Laptops for everyday use (non-gaming) have not really improved in 10 years.
All of my computers at home are from 2010-2011. They all run the latest operating systems and do everything I need them to.I recommend a business class laptop (like an HP elite or a Dell) with a metal case from early 2010’s with at least 16gb ram and an I5 or I7 processor and the full size keyboard with number pad.
They can be had on ebay for less than $300 with windows 10 on them and I guarantee they’ll be better than any budget plastic piece of junk you can get at Best Buy.02/18/2020 at 11:29 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74098My travel deduction was the miles + $900 in hotel costs this year.
I source a couple hours each day in a metropolitan area on these trips.
The purpose of the trip is 100% business based – I get better inventory when I go to metro areas for a few days.
So basically mornings are spent working and evenings are spent with family.
Bringing the family and going to the zoo and staying at a fun hotel is just a perk.What I do not deduct is a true vacation. Let’s say we go to the beach for a week. That is a personal vacation. If I make a trip to scavenge on the vacation I can claim the miles for that specific trip, but I cannot claim the whole vacation just because I did a bit of scavenging. My wife doesn’t understand this one at all – she tells me I should claim our
whole vacation no matter how many times I tell her I can’t.Another example would be if I went to go make a business purchase that happened to be at the beach and decided to stay for a week since I’m already there. I could deduct the mileage and expense of the trip there and let’s say a single night of the lodging since that would be required before heading back. The rest of the lodging nights would not be deductible.
What it boils down to is what I said before – read the code and then read LOTS of CPA interpretations of the rules to get a good grasp. Then figure out how to properly apply what you learned to your own business. Then document thoroughly so you can justify your actions if you are audited. When in doubt, ask yourself this: “Can I reasonably explain this to the IRS if they ask?”
02/18/2020 at 8:01 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 450: Chatting with Troy about Other Jobs, Cross Posting, Numbers, Hard Goods! #74088Vehicle expenses, Scavenging weekend trips, Home office deduction, etc.
When you are a sole proprieter with a home based business, pretty mnuch EVERYTHING I spend money on becomes deductible in some way.
Some examples:
I had just over $5k in mileage deductions this year.
The home office deduction lets me deduct a percentage of all of my home expenses. That adds up huge.
This year I added a door to an exterior wall in my ebay space – deductible.
The scavenging weekend trips are a joint business trip/family mini getaway. I come back with a car full of inventory and we also get to have a bunch of fun as a family.
It’s all 100% legit. Taxes is a game – the more you understand the rules, the better you are at playing.If I made substantially more, I could even pay my kids a salary as employees. I have 5 kids so I could tax shelter up to $60k a year directly into their own college funds and/or IRA accounts. I say “could” because I would have a hard time ethically justifying that in my situation. I likely would not do it unless I was actually paying them by having them do real work.Having said that, LOTS of folks totally “pay” their kids up to the standard deduction so it is tax sheltered profit. That’s probably one of the most abused tax laws because the kids can “gift” the money right back to the parent, tax free!
Had a fun one this weekend.
Buyer asked me to measure the cuff width on a pair of jeans priced at $30. I got the measurement for him, he said thanks, then made an offer. His offer was…$12. I declined and he sent a new offer of $17. I declined again and he sent a message that said “Do you want to make a counteroffer and we can negotiate from there? Might be a good idea”.I replied “I would have been happy to if your offers were worth countering.”
He responded “That’s fair” and then made a reasonable offer. I countered and he accepted. I did check his feedback left for others before I accepted his offer.
Sometimes things work out for the best.
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