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I just checked my clothing returns. In the last 18 months I’ve had 13 returns on clothing.
1 was because there was a stain I missed.
1 was a false INAD that I fought and got refunded the shipping on.The other 11 were standard returns due to fit. The buyers all happily paid return shipping and I don’t refund original shipping.
I don’t have a great way to easily identify all clothing items in Godaddy bookeeping for that time frame, but just using keywords I see 315 clothing sales in the last 18 months. So I have just over 4% return rate for clothes. That sounds worse than it is though. I’ll gladly take 13 returns in order to sell over 300 items.
Yep just had this happen yesterday on a vintage coleman water pitcher. I had it on sale and didn’t realize I had free shipping on it. A buyer in Washington low balled $8 for it. I declined it without thinking. They offered again at $12 and I looked at the item. It was on sale for $14 free shipping. Shipping to Washington would have been more than the BIN price at the size/weight. Ouch!!!
So thanks cheap stranger. You gave me the time to decline your offer and relist the item out of the sale.
In most cases it isn’t a problem, but do remember that if you do not have the manufacturers permission to use those stock photos then they can have you taken down with a VERO claim.
I used stock photos with some Smartwool socks and they took all my listings down that had the stock photo. I don’t use stock photos at all now. It sucked recreating those listings.
Items in Store 1121
Items Sold 16
Total Sales $429.00
COGS $50.00
Total Profit $379.00
Average profit $23.69
Average sales price $26.81
New Listings 8Ugh, this holiday weekend sales sucked! I did a 40% off sale on all items that were older than 1.5 years. 320 items were part of the sale and I sold 1 single item. I also got multiple insultingly bad offers on sale items that I declined.
One item I had to cancel and relist to get it out of the sale because a buyer in the northwest corner of Washington was making offers – the item had free shipping. I would have lost money! Thank goodness that person was sooo cheap that they didn’t just use Buy It Now for a whopping $2 more, which would have still been less than actual shipping.I only sold 3 items total over the holiday weekend.
Turns out this is a trend. Last year I sold 2 items over the 3 day memorial weekend. In 2017 I sold 5 items. In 2016, 4 items.
I’m pretty sure I ran a sale last year as well.
In other news, I expanded my DIY repertoire of skills by replacing my front porch steps this weekend. The stringers and step boards were rotten on one side which had become dangerous. The steps were also poorly designed – the top step was only 3″ lower than the porch. We got used to the studder step required for the top step when entering leaving.
The new steps are properly designed with even steps of the proper height/depth all the way up. The problem: We still have that muscle memory of the old steps that we have to unlearn! The first step when leaving is a doozy when my brain is still expecting only a 3″ drop.
This is fascinating data!
Doubly is WAY down this week and you are way up. Similar stores in literally the same location, but with a drastic swing in sales. Interesting.
We got a TJ Maxx at our mall just over a year ago. They are loaded with Nike, Ralph Lauren, Guess, Lucky Brand, etc. All at a fraction of the price of other stores in the mall.
$14.99-19.99 is their sweet spot. It definitely makes me nervous as a used clothing seller. My Ralph Lauren mens shirts don’t sell at all anymore.
Seam, your numbers always appear too good to be true. I’m quite envious!
I love looking through your sold listings.Thanks for being so transparent about your processes and your willingness to answer questions.
Avoiding yard sales is one of the reasons I started to take ebay more seriously about 6 years ago. My wife would want to do a yardsale. I wouldn’t as I would be the one out there in the heat most of the time and I’d be the one to pack it all back up. All for $80-100 in sales. NOPE!
So the last time we ever considered a yard sale I picked out a handful of items we were going to sell and listed them on ebay. If I did good I could just take the rest of the junk to goodwill and not do the yardsale. I made well over $100 on just a handful of items and off to goodwill I went!
It’s funny because shipping is the thing that kept me from doing ebay. Now I am an uber shipping nerd and it is one of my favorite aspects. Lol!
Yep, I never engage with shipping complainers.
My canned response is “I input the actual weight and dimensions of item for the shipping calculator. Shipping cost is what the post office charges. Thanks.”
There is no point in arguing a black and white open/shut issue. You have facts and reality, while they operate in lala land. You can’t ever win that argument.
I’m also not a big fan of pre-packaging. I did that when I first started and had a quick turnaround on items. I maintained an inventory of 80-100 items – all prepackaged ready to go. I still have 2 of these pre-packaged items sitting on a shelf in inventory. Lol!
I like to inspect items before I pack/ship. If they are pre-packaged I feel like I am rolling the dice, especially if the item has sat for 16 months or more.
Your idea is sound and likely the best idea for most people, but if you have well established processes and have good self control then it really doesn’t matter if you use rented storage for listed or unlisted inventory.
Personally I would argue that rented storage is better for unlisted inventory. That way all of your listed inventory is near to your shipping station at all times.
Then you have a small staging area for a couple days worth of unlisted inventory at the home/office that you replenish from the rented storage. All new unlisted inventory gets cycled into the rented storage.
Of course, the problem with this method is that pesky self-control thing. I think you guys definitely do no fall into this category though.
Yes but it is still VERY important to have ample light. Otherwise your cell phone camera will be forced to overcompensate with slower shutter speeds and higher ISO. Without good lighting, your pictures will get slightly blurry and grainy.
iPhones are optimized for shooting in good natural light. They have a fixed aperture and will try to hold low ISO at all costs. So shutter speed is priority until you get to the limit of handheld phototography and then ISO goes up.
It really is a brilliant automatic system if you think of the technical aspects that allow such an amazing camera in such a small package.
But to say lighting isn’t important with a cell phone camera is not accurate at all.
Take this item for example:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Byrd-Cloth-Vintage-bucket-Cap-Fortrel-Polyester-Dobbs-hat-wrinkle-crease-free/173868492981?hash=item287b5ea8b5:g:omgAAOSwSldcvdxl
The first two photos are grainy due to high ISO. Crank your lighting up and alot of that graininess will go away.It’s actually not too bad. The male mannequin is hollow plastic so very light. I just prop it up against the back of my photo area or lay it down flat. I don’t bother with the stand. Pants go on and off pretty easy.
I use clothes pins for larger sizes to make them fit the mannequin.
As for a quick way to photo pants, don’t worry about stuffing the legs. Just fashion a form for the butt/crotch area. It can be as simple as a grocery bag stuffed full of more grocery bags. My wife has done the in the past for the “butt shot” of jeans. It works very well.
Ha! I was just thinking about the bike drop off thing this past weekend. Figured maybe I could mount a bin on the back of the bike to make runs. I have a pretty easy bike path to the post office that is actually well over a mile shorter than by car as there is a bike/walking path to cut into the next neighborhood that exits to the main road right next to the post office.
I don’t really like doing carrier pickup. The carriers are already stressed to the max and even working on Sundays now. Doing alot of pickups they run out of room and have to make more trips back to the post office.
I got an offer on a pair of shoes within minutes of listing for double my list price from a 0 feedback buyer.
I countered with the actual price and added a message stating “you offered double my asking price”.
Never heard back from them. -
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