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Don’t get bogged down in the details. “good enough” is good enough.
Skip things that require intense research unless you have a bunch of similar items or it is worth a ton of money. Research should take a couple minutes at most.
When you feel unmotivated to get started, force yourself to do the task you least want to do right in that moment.
My philosophy for success is that if I mentally tell myself “I don’t want to do this” for anything, then I MUST do it. Now.
Work in batches. Group like items together so you can get in a groove. Only do the listing stage – everything but photos. Then in the next session just do the photos for all of those draft listings. Then lastly get them stored away in inventory all at once. It is more efficient for a single person doing everything to work in batch assembly line style.
Well the problem is ebay business EXPLODED in that time frame, so how would we show a decrease in business?
I applied last time. It was a confusing process, the grant money was gone, and I ended up with a $1000 loan and I’ve never seen any additional info that the loan will be “forgiven”.
It really is, but I was miserable since I was only being use to about 10% of my capability. They were happy with me sitting around doing nothing most of the time as long as I was ready to go when needed, but I was not satisfied with it.
It sounds great on paper to have a high paying job where you do very little, but I can assure you it is soul crushing.
There’s many people who have worked here over 40 years. It’s a small town family business that got bought and turned into the main parts supplier for a multi billion dollar global pump company. The small town feel of the place never left – everyone even still calls our facility by the original name around here even though technically it hasn’t been that name for over 20 years.
And no, I’m not quitting my ebay business. I enjoy it too much. Where else can I find a hobby business that I love that also generates me a large amount of cash every year?
Here’s the worst part – it WAS getting better there for a bit. Especially with the chat logs. It was a temporary improvement. Once the CSR’s realized that there are no consequences for not following through with anything, they went back to going through the motions.
I’d rather believe that then the alternative – that ebay’s CS plan is to intentionally not follow through in order to get people to accept poor customer service and still do business there. This is a real thing!
https://hbr.org/2019/02/why-is-customer-service-so-bad-because-its-profitable
I thought your “argument” was very constructive and you guys clearly have a great relationship. It’s part of why your podcast is can’t miss listening every Monday! 🙂
Here ya go:
Been there, done that, have the T-shirt.
One time I actually got them to follow through with their promise and I got my money back. It was a two month ordeal and it was NOT worth the effort or stress in the end – it was a principle thing. I documented it all here in a thread somewhere.
Now I’ll try once or twice, but I’m used to the constant lying and misrepresenting. I just move on if they pull their usual crap. It is wrong and I hate it and what I’d really like to do is go to my state attorney general and get a class action suit going, but I have more important things to spend my time and worry on.Items in Store 1498
Items Sold 24
Total Sales $1,121.00
COGS $64.00
Total Profit $1,057.00
Average profit $44.04
Average sales price $46.71
New Listings 1
Items scavenged 25
Sourcing Allotment 2
So last week my day job work issues were resolved. I got my promotion and raise. The site managers also hired the person I recommended to be the manager of the department I support. I feel MUCH better and have a renewed energy for my work. I have a clear future at my workplace now and I think I’ll be here for many years.
With that burden lifted, I’ve been able to take stock of just how much stress I’ve been under for the last few months. With the situation at work combined with my wife’s pregnancy, I’ve been under a TON of stress. I’ve been eating more and exercising less for a few months and it shows. I need to focus on myself this week and realign my physical needs.
As for ebay, I had some GREAT sales this week. The highlight was a Pendleton western jacket for $275. I would have loved to get more since I had it listed for $400, but I was hungry for a sale. I had 2 $200+ sales and 1 $100+ sale.
I also made a CRAZY purchase. Goodwill had a mobility scooter for $100. This was the style for a person who is paralyzed. I debated the whole time I shopped whether I should get it. It’s so big and HEAVY. Well I did. Luckily that store had several young men working there to help me load it. When home I disassembled it in the back of my van so I could get it out. I’ve already parted it out and started creating the parts listings. I’ll make $600-700 off of parts easily.
Speaking of parting out, our dryer died again this week. I’ve fully rebuilt this thing once and replaced heater parts several times. It was many years old when we moved in and I’ve kept it running for 8+ years, so it was time to get a new one. Once the new one was installed, I tore down the old one and kept all the parts I wanted to sell. I have started making the listings and I’ll make a couple hundred parting it out. The only thing broken was the heating element burned out again.
So I didn’t officially list anything this week, but I did spend plenty time parting out two big items. I’ll start seeing the fruits of that labor this week.
Ryanne,
If you are stressed out, then do this: Have helper come every other day instead of every day for a while. Put your store on vacation for a week, but keep “casually” shipping so it doesn’t back up.
This will reduce your load and you won’t feel obligated to do as much on ebay. You may find this is enough to get over the hump and you’ll be ready to hit it full on the next week.
Ebay is not my main income and I definitely put it on the backburner sometimes. For instance, this week I barely did anything – no listing and just shipped when I absolutely had to to meet handling time requirements.
Does list perfectly manage the listings after created? Let’s say you sell something on one platform – does it cancel the listings on all other platforms?
There is no glare. It is more of a matte finish. Very durable and it can be cleaned and even touched up with white shoe polish if it gets dinged. I replace my backdrop about once a year if it gets to many dings from bulky and/or sharp things.
Oh and I have a coffee update for you. So my wife started drinking coffee a while back to aid digestion. I started drinking it too so I could share the experience with her.
So fast forward to her current pregnancy. She quit drinking it immediately due to the caffeine content. Then one of her morning sickness triggers she developed was…you guessed it – coffee. The smell of it makes her instantly nauseous.
So I can no longer have coffee at home. I still drink it at work, but I have been working at home or on vacation for 6 of the last 10 weeks. I tried brewing in my garage with pour over, but no dice. Even the slightest hint of smell is a no-go.
Items in Store 1521
Items Sold 30
Total Sales $962.00
COGS $274.00
Total Profit $688.00
Average profit $22.93
Average sales price $32.07
New Listings 66
Items scavenged 18
Sourcing Allotment 22
COGS were high because before Christmas I bought a couple clearance Switch controllers that came bundled with a game. My intent was to sell the 3 extras to fund the one I gave to my kids. It worked out and I recouped the cost of the gift, but I was hoping they’s sell for a bit more. I waited 2 months for the higher prices, that was long enough, so I lowered to compete and sold all 3 this weekend.
Sales picked WAY up this weekend after I did a bunch of listing. I was off work all week due to the severe weather knocking power out at our plant. I could have done more, but I was just not in the mood to work most of the time. Spent lots of time with family and hung out in hot tub alot. Man, I kick myself repeatedly for not getting one of these portable hot tubs sooner! Soooo nice.
My local goodwill will be closing here in a couple weeks and will repopen mid-april. They are MASSIVELY expanding their store. They are located in an old strip mall and they took over the next two empty storefronts. The existing store will become their donation and processing facility and the new space will be the retail store. It will be one of the biggest goodwill retail spaces in the area once complete. I’m so excited! Now if only they would do tag sales it would be perfect.
Note on podcast, I definitely loved the interview episodes! I’d love to listen to a couple a year if you were interested in doing them again. Troys interviews were especially interesting. I wish he was still here.
