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I listed 26. These were all jewelry for the one family friend that I do commissions for. I took the photos in 2018, but ended up not listing them at the time. Long story. Anyway, they all meet the November challenge.
I did some significant sourcing last week with online auction pickups on both Saturday and Sunday. I’ve got to focus on getting these listed rather than continuing with smaller jewelry items, so I’m not sure whether I’ll be listing many more items meeting the November challenge.
I agree. The craziness and uncertainty has definitely affected sales. Much different compared to the the first half of the year where people were getting incentive checks and needed a place to shop.
On the other hand, I usually slow down or stop sourcing in the fourth quarter, but I have pickups from two different online auctions this weekend, and I’m thinking of going to an outside auction tomorrow. Lots of good deals in the months before Christmas, which never happens.
When you first sell something, eBay puts a hold on the payment for some period of time.
You should have a second method in your account to buy labels when you don’t have enough in pending payouts; like a credit card or PayPal.
I haven’t noticed any older listings reverting back to the unedited photos, but I haven’t really checked either. However, I have recently been creating similar listings for jewelry. When I take the latest one and sell similar, the new listing reverts the photos to the unedited versions. I’m just deleting them and putting in new ones, but I notice the change.
I’ve noticed a bunch of annoying glitches recently. For instance, if I have a draft, and I go to make a copy of the draft, I get an error message and the new one doesn’t show up. All I have to do is refresh the page, and there it is with no issues.
Fourth quarter seems to be eBay’s favorite time to mess with the software.
Just an idea, but perhaps you should try to re-open your old PayPal account with the old email address. Maybe you would find the money there?
I should say that I agree with junque-redux, you should consider uses for your own household. You probably wouldn’t get caught selling it on eBay, but why take the risk?
And I briefly considered getting Lasik over ten years ago because I accidentally put the dependent care amount in the health care account and vice versa! I begged and submitted several requests, and my company finally fixed that for me!
Health savings accounts are money taken out of your paycheck before taxes, and you have to use it for medical expenses. Because it is pretax money, the deal is that you have to use it before the end of the year.
kaninekleenup – My uncle told me that during the pandemic he had an issue obtaining a certain type of over the counter pain relief medication. It was one of those extra strength Advil or Tylenol, maybe for migraines. I don’t remember the details, but he said it was selling for outrageous prices on eBay. Maybe you can’t get those prices now, but you probably could still do well. I think that you can sell over the counter medicine that isn’t open, but google that to make sure.
The other options I can think of are knee braces, humidifiers, glucose testers, and so forth if those are allowed by your spending account. Then maybe asthma related products because of the breathing issues with COVID.
I always thought “toile” was pronounced “twoy-lee” rhyming with doily, but dictionary.com says “twahl”. (click on the speaker symbol):
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/toile?s=t
There is a clean-out company in my town called “Do Not Throw It Away”. They will come and charge you to take stuff away, but it depends on the items you have “We price by item not by volume because your belongings have value.”. What I understand is, if you have sellable items, they will charge you less. So, if someone wants to clean out a house and doesn’t want to bother with a sale, then they will come, charge you to clean it out, and then sell the stuff.
Anyway, OK week for me. The more valuable items were on commission, so the COGS are a bit high.
Week of Nov 1 – 7
Total Items in Store: 1378 eBay, 32 Etsy
Items Sold: 14 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $16.75 + $57.38 Commission
Total Sales: $305.38 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $66.50 for Blue Goddess Sajen sterling pendant (commission sale), $28 for vintage hot plate (non-commission)
Average price: $21.80
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 38I listed 38 last week.
While I didn’t really have anything specific for the November challenge, I did list a picture frame decorated with roses. That should count.
Last night, I gathered more of the jewelry I have on consignment. That should do well towards the challenge.
I’ve been buying bubblewrap from ghalys.com. I get the 700 ft length in the 12″ small bubble. They are the cheapest I’ve found anywhere, and I’ve had no problems with the product.
Have you tried them, and what are the issues you are having?
In your listing (the draft), do you see a section under “Store categories” called “Variations”? If you do, then the listing has variations enabled. Did you Sell Similar using one of your own listings, or did you copy someone else’s?
In order to get variations in a listing, I usually have to start from a blank, fresh listing or sell similar with one that already has it. Recently, I created a listing with variations, and I had to find the right category to use. If the listing already had variations setup with data, then you probably can’t save it to the collectables category or others where they don’t allow it.
Steve – I was absolutely loved that Conan the Barbarian movie when it came out. I was a teenager in high school at the time, and I’m sure that the young Arnold had something to do with it.
We were in PA this summer and made some time to go to the local Goodwill. I found these leather Harley Davidson chaps for about $15. I didn’t realize until I got home that the pant legs were cut off at the bottom. I listed it best I could explaining the issue. It sold at $44.50, and the buyer was happy with the fit. It could have sold at twice the price if it didn’t have that issue.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184418600843
This vintage vise sold for $35, and the buyer requested that I ship it directly to Iceland. I offered the Pirate Ship simple export price plus a bit for insurance, which came to $25.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184506521336
I purchased several bins of denture related items about two months ago. I found a number of different grinding bits and related tool pieces. I wasn’t about to sell those for actual dental use, so I gathered a bunch of that stuff and put it in a plastic sorting bin. It sold for $37.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184484624294
I bought this portable water purifying system last year, but didn’t list it until recently. I paid $1 or $2, and it sold very quickly for $34.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184503498377
This was a nothing sort of sale; just a novelty tea infuser “Statue of LiberTEA” that came in a box lot with a bunch of more interesting stuff. It sold for $10, and the buyer kept asking how she could buy more. I did find their website, but it looked like they were looking for an investor.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184373399174
I mentioned this sale in my podcast post. A Canadian collector of Scotch whiskey pitchers bought 12 of them for $97. I paid about 25 cents each. The buyer said that they all arrived safely and was impressed with my packing techniques. He did realize belatedly that the Imperial was a US bourbon company and not the Scottish one he was thinking about. I’m sure he’ll find someone to give it to.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184513200989
A few years ago, I bought a bunch of Rotary Club flags that I thought would be collectable, but this is the first to sell. It was from the Beirut club, and it sold to someone in Belgium through GPS for $26. I only paid about $1. I went through the ones still in my inventory and reduced the prices.
You aren’t obligated to contact them, but I wouldn’t resell it right away. I’ve heard that a person can open a credit card dispute up to a year afterwards, so maybe that is a clue. Once a year goes by, you can relist it without any concern for the original buyer to claim it.
If it bothers you, you could just refund the money and relist it right away.
How do you know that the buyer has a new account?
Update to the Canada shipment: UPS was super fast, but the buyer had to pay a C$39 broker fee in addition to the import fees. I googled it and found that USPS does not charge any additional fees. So, doing C$ to US$ in my head, he paid maybe $8 more in shipping because of that fee. I don’t ship direct often, but I’ll stick with USPS in the future.
This week, I had a large order from a Canadian buyer. While I love the GSP, I am willing to ship direct for certain countries, and Canada is certainly one of them. While doing all work to get him the best shipping price available, I found UPS Standard to Canada to be an over $20 savings, so I selected that as the option. When I went to buy the label, only USPS and eBay standard showed up. Ends up that even though we can now buy domestic UPS labels directly on eBay, the international options still have to be purchased on their website.
What was frustrating was the call to customer service; the rep kept telling me that the options on the listing page aren’t guaranteed, only estimated and suggested. This made no sense to my question as to how to buy the label. After going around in circles a few times, I realized that I just needed to buy a label from their website. This was from a US based rep too!
Anyways, sorry about the short rant. I also had a decent week buoyed by the sale to Canada.
Week of Oct 25 – 31
Total Items in Store: 1354 eBay, 32 Etsy
Items Sold: 20 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $38 + $24.60 Commission
Total Sales: $517.97 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $97 for 12 Scotch whiskey pitchers
Average price: $25.90
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 51The Canadian buyer was interested in purchasing several Scotch whiskey pitchers from brands he didn’t have in his collection, but wanted to keep the price down considering shipping. I told him that I would give him a big break on any pitcher in my unlisted inventory, so he ended up buying a total of 12, which only included a few that were listed, for the very humble price of $97. Shipping was just under $70. I only paid 25 cents each, so I’m happy, he’s happy.
