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01/07/2019 at 9:53 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 393: Happy New Year and Returns Happen #54683
Yeah no doubt. Don’t be afraid to “keep it real” here!
If you want you can share your store and some folks here can give you some feedback.It is definitely discouraging to go a week without a sale. When things are in a slump, I’ll sometimes go dig in my unlisted inventory and try to find an item to list that I know will see quickly.
Maybe accept an offer I normally wouldn’t.
Do some “gardening” of my listings.
Point is, as long as you keep learning improving and listing, slow sales is temporary.
01/07/2019 at 9:42 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 393: Happy New Year and Returns Happen #54682Items in Store 1074
Items Sold 20
Total Sales $680.25
COGS $53.00
Total Profit $627.25
Average profit $31.36
Average sales price $34.01
New Listings 55Saturday I set a fire under my butt and did some serious listing. I bought a lot of 18 new in box Transformers action figure sets and got them all listed immediately as well. I had to do it quick before my son saw them. Lol! I paid $100 and should net $400 profit. Very quick and easy to list via UPC. Just another pipeline added to the business that will pay me over the next year or two.
I’m not sure what my goals are this year. With a new baby due in April my energies are more focused on my wife and helping her feel comfortable and ensuring she STAYS pregnant until April. It is frustrating to still be stuffing ebay into the random cracks of my life but I make it work. And honestly, who wouldn’t want to make $500+ a week just using the spare minutes throughout the week?
At work we finally finished the relocation of the engineering department to another building – complete with all new cubicles. I was working out of boxes and on folding tables for a few months which made it difficult to do ebay during my breaks and lunches. Now I have a bigger cubicle with more desk space so I have brought in my collapsible photo cube and will be doing more ebay at work. My boss doesn’t have a problem with it, which is nice.
So I guess my only two 2019 goals so far are to do more ebay at work and to stop treating my car as death pile storage. Keep on swimming!
01/04/2019 at 3:38 pm in reply to: For Vintage Toy Geeks – Lookie what I found (To Use Retro's words) #54518Vintage toys and electronics are what I started with on ebay. When I started they were EVERYWHERE and very cheap. Then they dried up. Now when they do show up the prices are high.
That’s a cool toy! I hope you get what you are shooting for.
01/03/2019 at 11:09 am in reply to: Listing items you are completely not interested in listing #54447Do what you need to in order to keep your operation running smoothly and clear the mental space that these items are taking up.
Me personally, I like to list the items I dread. I’ll psych myself up when I feel that these items are bothering me and just go all-in on listing the items I dread listing the most.
I have NEVER regretted this action. I feel better after doing it, and every time one of these items sell I get a positive mental boost.
12/31/2018 at 1:21 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54231They aren’t donated – Goodwill purchases the new goods they sell around here. They STILL have a bunch of new Star Wars Last Jedi Merch from that barnfire of a movie.
12/31/2018 at 1:19 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54230It took me over a year to stop waking up after midnight expecting a work call…
I used this method last night for a blazer that had known flaws. It’s an awesome Pendleton women’s plaid blazer, but it does have a few spots on it. I went ahead and it listed cheap since I had already done most of the listing work before I saw the flaws.
Anyways, got an offer and accepted it. Buyer paid promptly. I sent them this message:
Hello. Thank you very much for the purchase. Before I ship this, I just wanted to make sure that you are fully aware of the condition. Please respond so I know that you were aware of the flaws in the item. It will save us both a lot of trouble if you get the item and are not happy.
The person replied back quickly stating that basically they didn’t read a darn thing, and thanked me for pointing it out to them. I cancelled the sale.
I will used this tactic from here on out. Thanks for the tip!
12/31/2018 at 7:31 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54199Items in Store 1039
Items Sold 14
Total Sales $439.00
COGS $34.00
Total Profit $405.00
Average profit $28.93
Average sales price $31.36
New Listings 14Well sales took a nosedive this week, which wasn’t too surprising. I cancelled my Bonanza store last week. I sold an item on Bonanza that I hadn’t had for some time. I looked at my store, and there were TONS of items listed for sale that were long gone already. Sorry Bonanza, but 1 sale a month is not worth the headache an issue like that causes.
12/31/2018 at 7:23 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54198Troy I can TOTALLY relate to the on call 24/7 story.
I have taken a call while refereeing a youth soccer game.
I have woken up at 1 in the morning to take a call and go get on the computer to work for 2 hours.
I have spent an entire visit to a science museum with the family…on a conference call with work on a holiday weekend. Some people wear those kind of experiences as a badge of honor – “Look at me! I’m soooo important!”. Me…I thought they were humiliating.The only reason I’m halfway sane at my current day job is because when I leave at quitting time I am able to “leave it at work”. I established at the beginning I wouldn’t be on call and that I would get my work done in my standard 40. They offered me a corporate iphone in my first year. I told them absolutely NOT. They never asked again.
They opened a case this morning and it was promptly closed in their favor to get them their $16.15 in shipping back. I called to appeal.
I laid out the case, the CSR checked with their supervisor quickly and came back with the judgement:
The buyer was wrong and was abusing the return system. They refunded me $7.50 for the return shipping, and then considered the $16.15 as damage that the buyer caused to the item when they didn’t return the cover or the battery.So the case was reversed to me, the defect removed, and I got an even better refund of $23.65!
I wish they all turned out this well.
Since you originally posted your method, I had the most blatant false INAD I’ve ever had (seller claimed item didn’t work that was sold as-is/broken/for parts or repair). I did exactly what you said.
I told the buyer outright I know they are abusing the return system. I told them I would only refund original cost minus return shipping if they sent it back. They waited until literally the last hour of the return window to print the label and send it back. I refunded them in paypal and confirmed what I did through another message.
I never heard a peep out of the buyer once. The “issue refund by” date was 2 days ago, so I guess I’m good to go.
Also, this buyer didn’t return the lens body cover and kept the battery. I reported them for both reasons. First time I’ve ever reported a buyer.
One other thing I got from this call was we had a conversation about refunding original shipping.
If you talk to an ebay rep about original shipping, they will tell you that no matter what, you have to refund original shipping. It doesn’t matter if you have free returns, INAD case, or standard buyer remorse case, ebay claims you must refund original shipping.
Here’s the catch – Nowhere in the rules does it say you have to refund original shipping for remorse returns. Also, in a remorse return there is a checkbox for refunding return shipping. I never refund original shipping and ALL of my remorse return buyers are a-ok with that.
I pointed these FACTS out to the helpful ebay rep, and he admitted it is not an official rule, but it is an internal memo – they have quite a few “unwritten rule” memos according to him. Their official memo states that the checkbox is only intended for when a buyer returns the item in an altered condition.
He did tell me that I’m not doing anything wrong and that I’m free to keep doing it but eventually ebay will change the rules to make it impossible to avoid refunding original shipping.
So this entire issue is set up as a conflict because ebay don’t even follow their own written rules. a multi-billion dollar international company that can’t identify and resolve such a basic flaw in their returns system…
We talked about Pareto analysis on here recently. I would bet big money that if ebay ran a pareto analysis on their Customer service case root causes that “not refunding original shipping” would be over on the left of the chart. Low hanging fruit indeed!
And for the record….forcing sellers to always refund original shipping is NOT an acceptable resolution… that’s a cop-out.
Ah that’s terrible to hear about your employer. My father-in-law is in administration at WV State. They’ve went through an accreditation scare there too but made it through.
To be honest, we have waaaayyy too many 4 year universities in WV compared to our population, job opportunities, and funding availability. I went to Marshall and transferred to WV Tech to finish my degree in Engineering. Marshall was decent, but amateur hour compared to better, larger schools in other states. WVU Tech was….well….I liked my teachers! I had 10 people in my graduating class of Mechanical Engineering. The facilities and funding at Tech while I was there was TERRIBLE.
I think that eventually a couple smaller state schools are going to have to close for the betterment of the rest. The Mountain State University accredidation issue was pretty ugly. Based on what you are saying, I agree that you are on an inevitable path. Keep on listing and I wish you the best of luck!
Did the buyer open an INAD case, or a standard return?
If they opened an INAD and the CSR told you to ignore it, then the CSR is very, very wrong. The case will close and the buyer will be auto refunded and you’ll get a defect.
12/26/2018 at 9:14 am in reply to: Sad story I heard this week. Makes me thankful to sell online! #53999Yeah I passed my FE exam on the first try my senior year in college. My first job, I was the only degreed engineer in the whole company. I was overqualified (and underpaid). There was a recession going on – I took what I could get.
Once you get out in the real world you realize that usually the smartest technical people don’t even have an engineering degree! They worked their way up to the level they are at. It has been that way at every place I have worked.
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