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11/14/2019 at 1:55 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Iroquois dishes, Costco step stool, Cole Hann Boots #70650
This sale is a study into why one should do some research prior to taking photos. I did get it for free.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/183790402433This summer, I traveled to visit family in Pittsburgh and picked up a large number of items from a family friend to sell on commission. The wife passed away at the beginning of the year. I won’t do commissions except for close friends like this. I finally got around to listing stuff two weeks ago, the sales are now coming in. I give him 50% after all the fees are taken out.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/184014915412
http://www.ebay.com/itm/184020320161
http://www.ebay.com/itm/183926336811My two big sales ($33) of the week were very diverse. The first is an autographed Rob Zombie CD booklet that I bought from Tower Records in 2006 as they closed their physical doors and tried to make it online. I found it recently when my husband and I were cleaning up some bookshelves. I was able to find the receipt in my email. Since I originally bought the CD together with the autographed booklet, I estimated the cost at $8.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/184000297762The other is a set of two vintage turquoise Pyrex bowls. I don’t go to the Goodwill much, but I was there to buy my daughter some stuff for Halloween. I did pay up for it, about $15 for the two, but I thought the market was still big for these. I guess I shouldn’t complain about a 100% markup, but I’m used to more.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/18398754683311/14/2019 at 1:32 pm in reply to: Anyone know who this is?? He’s depicted on a bunch of paper weights.. #70648Nope. “The image you are requesting does not exist or is no longer available.”
When I click to follow the link, I get “Zoinks! You’ve taken a wrong turn.”
11/14/2019 at 1:24 pm in reply to: Anyone know who this is?? He’s depicted on a bunch of paper weights.. #70646Your imgur link seems to be bad. It’s showing an error message.
If PayPal provides you with a tax form, it will show how much you did in sales for the year. I believe that it subtracts out the shipping costs and PayPal fees, but double-check. I think that eBay fees are taken out as well.
Then, it will be up to you to get your profit down to as close to zero as possible. The cost of goods sold (COGS, what you paid for the item) is one of the deductions. If you don’t remember exactly the amount you paid, but are sure that your husband paid more than what it sold for, then you can use the profit from that sale as your COGS. If you have absolutely no idea, then come up with something reasonable. Start a notebook or spreadsheet for this year and do you best to track your costs.
You can deduct any supplies such as boxes, packing tape, etc. Go through receipts or eBay/Amazon orders to get those.
You can deduct the standard automobile cost (I think it is $0.52/mile) for the trips to the post office, FedEx, etc plus any other business use of your personal car. If you bought bubblewrap at WalMart, then the trip to get there can be counted.
There are many other deductions that require more research. You should be able to get to zero without too much difficulty. Just keep better records for the future. I suggest not showing a loss. Don’t take advice from me without verification, but I believe then that the IRS will expect you to show a profit a few years down the road if you try to deduct a loss in the beginning.
11/12/2019 at 10:17 pm in reply to: What should eBay do to build seller trust in the eBay marketplace? #70589@mallybills – I just tried a few examples, and the correct policy did come up. Perhaps this is an area where eBay has improved lately, or I just didn’t think of a good example. I’ll try to remember to come back to this later if I run into an issue.
I was thinking about something else – I’m not sure whether this would go under seller or buyer experience, because it affects both. eBay has all these item specifics and has been adding more. Sometimes I don’t what to pick because I don’t know different types of styles or time periods or whatever.
A good example would be a women’s dress. Style is a required item specific, but I’m not into fashion and don’t know all the differences. Looking at one of my listings, what is a mermaid or fit & flair dress? I could guess, but I really don’t know. I usually select something simple like a cocktail dress. I don’t want to google each style until I find the correct one. Could eBay have some type of reference to help select the correct answer?
11/12/2019 at 9:32 pm in reply to: What does eBay need to do to improve the eBay experience for your buyers? #70584Off the top of my head, many buyers don’t know how to “request total from seller” when they want to buy more than one item from a seller’s store. Or, they don’t just don’t want to deal with it. Since PayPal will no longer return the fee on a refund, this is more important.
I know that some are wary of buying breakable items. A number of buyers have reminded me to pack carefully. I bought several bowls once, and one broke because the seller did not pack well enough. I’m not sure how this gets fixed, though.
I’ll add more if I think of something else …
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This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by
Sharyn.
11/12/2019 at 10:14 am in reply to: Baller Busters: exposing scammers who lie about how much money they make #70553Very interesting article, and something that has been discussed on the forum several times. I have an Instagram account, but I don’t really log in much. I’ll be interested when he/she starts a website. Who knows, perhaps it will help to reduce the number of people getting away with this scam?
There are a few ways to think through it and make the decision. Just going by included listings, you can calculate how many listings over 50 you would need to justify the starter store. Without a store, a listing fee is $0.35. The starter store costs $4.95/month. Divide the subscription cost by the listing fee, and you would need 15 listings over the free 50 (65 total) in order for the additional listings to start costing you more than the store fee.
As Julie B mentions above, there are other benefits of having a store beyond the fees for additional listings. You may want to consider a store just as you reach 50 listings, and you plan to remain at that level or above.
As the store grows, you continue to calculate how many listings it would take to go to the next level where the cost in extra listings justifies the additional cost of the higher subscription. Continue to take into consideration the other benefits as well.
How many listings do you currently have?
I am so sorry to hear about your grandma passing, Amatino.
VL, I am glad you are well into your recovery. That doesn’t sound like fun, but can you imagine what life was before antibiotics?
When I said that I was not going to list much last week, I meant it. I listed two items.
My son was off school all week. He has been doing archery on and off since he was about eight (he is now 15), and he recently really got much more interested in improving. He is currently taking lessons at our archery club. I promised him that I would take him every day for practice. We ended up driving out to Lancaster Archery on Thursday, and I bought him a new, intermediate level bow, which is his gift for the holidays and his upcoming birthday.
I also went to eBay Upfront in Brooklyn Wednesday night. Big week, lots of fun.
I’m going to get much more done this week, but I’m not sure how much. My daughter just called, and I need to pick her up. Her college is shutting off electricity to her dorm in order to make some emergency repairs, so she needs to be out until tomorrow evening. So, the week is starting off screwy. We shall see.
I think I’m very good at buying at good value. I don’t think I’m as good as picking out really desirable merchandise. That is one of the reasons I feel my sales are low in comparison to other sellers. On the other hand, I see how Jay & Ryanne are doing with 8500 items compared to my 1500 items, and my store seems to track. So, my slow sales are a combination of me needing to be a better buyer along with all the possible explanations discussed in this week’s podcast.
BTW, I’ve been listening to / watching all of the Shampoo & Booze podcasts & videos. I don’t have any rentals, but it should be something I think about for a future business. I hope that Ryanne & her sister are getting some customers for their services.
Week of Nov 3 – 9
* Total Items in Store: 1525 eBay, 37 Etsy
* Items Sold: 19
* Cost of Items Sold: $31.92 + $24.28 Commission
* Total Sales: $307.45
* Highest Price Sold: $33 tie: Rob Zombie signed CD booklet; 2 Vtg Turquoise Pyrex casseroles no lids
* Average Price Sold: $16.18
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 2I think that my highest sold tie is a pretty funny combo. Shows how strangely diverse my store can be.
If a buyer is a DIY repair sort of person and they need to reupholster some car seats, they would need to buy several yards. If a buyer is a repair company and they want stock of different upholstery fabric, then they would want the whole spool. So, what are you most likely to get on eBay? That is the question, but I don’t have an answer for you.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to ship something more than 50 pounds. I shipped a carpet at 80 pounds once, and that was a bear! (I’m also a short, small sort of person, so that doesn’t help).
I suggest you sell by the yard, but offer a discount for multiple yards. Let’s say you have 25 yards in a roll. You would set it up as something like 10% discount for 2 yards, 15% discount for 3 yards, and 20% discount for 4 or more (or whatever you want). Count a yard as one item, so you would have a quantity of 25. When you get down to say 3 yards, one would think that eBay would drop the 4 yards or more discount, but you might want to update the discount when it gets to the end.
Make sure to leave a yard or so off so that you can cut slightly larger than the purchased length.
As far as shipping vs pickup, you can do both. You can put local pickup as an option along with the regular shipping options. Just make sure to put in the description that “Local pickup is in Midland, MI”. I always add “in a shopping center or similar public area” because I don’t like to do a pickup at my home.
When someone buys with local pickup, make sure to message them right away and ask when they will be coming to your town to pickup. As Jay & Ryanne have mentioned in the past, some people just think it’s a free shipping option and don’t realize that they have to pick it up. Then, you have to cancel and they have to repurchase with shipping.
11/10/2019 at 9:59 am in reply to: Question: Do you have "Cleaned" statement on used clothing/shoes listings? #70412I used to clean all the clothing until my store started to get bigger. If something looks clean, I don’t bother. Most of my clothing listings don’t say anything. I wonder why Retro’s listing was targeted. There are so many clothing listings on eBay, and I’m sure most don’t say anything.
11/09/2019 at 2:49 pm in reply to: What should eBay do to build seller trust in the eBay marketplace? #70389Just to summarize what people have said so far, the general areas where seller trust is lacking is in software changes, transparency on policy, site status, and other planned changes, and customer service.
The good things that eBay is working on right now are the new seller help page and improvements to seller protection including consideration of a seller’s past performance.
I would add that eBay should have a better link to their policies. When I’ve had a question regarding policy, I’ve had to search my question on Google to get the appropriate link within the eBay site.
I’d also like to see a chat function for help. Almost every decent size website has chat. It is sometimes more convenient than calling plus you get a “in-writing” log of your discussion.
11/09/2019 at 2:36 pm in reply to: What should eBay do to build seller trust in the eBay marketplace? #70388From my recent trip to eBay UpFront, I found that they do have a stop to software changes on November 8 (that would have been yesterday). That just isn’t early enough. The summer slump has ended less than two months ago, and sellers are working on getting sales back up and organizing for the busy season. This is not the time to make a software change, especially a big one like item specifics.
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