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That’s interesting. I haven’t seen many complaints in the reselling forum. Normally there’s a huge freak-out if even the most minor thing is changed. I would have expected to see that kind of thing already if lots of people had been pushed into the new tool.
They have definitely improved the new listing tool since the early days. It’s usable but it’s different.
My main complaints are :-
1) the lag & page refresh when you touch any of the item specifics for the first time.
2) some item specific selections are hidden. eg: for hats, there is a “Features” item specific are a bunch of checkboxes such as “lightweight” “adjustable” “wide brim” etc If you check more than 1 checkbox it just shows the first selection with a “+1” after it so it is displayed as “Features: Adjustable (+1)” This could be problematic if you do a a “sell similar” and can’t see everything that has been carried across from the old listing.I’m also sad that the “reset” option has been removed from the image editing tools. It was helpful to be able to undo changes
Thanks NC!
Jay – Yard sales never completely stop around here but they get pretty sparse at this time of year and driving 50 – 100 miles to hit up a few “I’m selling my Kohls and Ross nick-nacks and lovely photo frames” sales isn’t usually worthwhile.
Hello all,
I didn’t realize that people were still posting week numbers until I wandered back into the forum last week. Here are my numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 4830
Items Sold: 60
Total Sales: $1427.24
Cost of Items Sold: $313
Highest Price Item Sold: $199.95 Yashica T3 Film Camera Point & Shoot <– purchased for $3 from a church rummage sale yesterday
Number of items listed this week: 77 worth approx. $1836
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +26%
Hats sold this week: 44I made a mistake with my sourcing. I acquired so much stuff a couple of months ago that I slowed down my sourcing and focused on listing. Now yard sales have all but paused for the holidays I’m stuck with almost nothing but hats to list which is boring and not as profitable as yard sale finds. I won’t make this mistake next year.
It looks like I’ll end my year with sales 25% higher than last year. A nice, but not huge, increase over last year considering this was my first full year as a full-time ebay reseller.
I hope everyone’s holiday period is going well. I never see a huge spike but things are reasonably good. By my estimation there’s another 10 days of sales before the Christmas lull will be upon us.
I’m sad that the podcast is ending but I’m extremely grateful for all the time and energy you put into it over these years. I’ve been listening along since 2015 and it was the two of you that made me understand that eBay could be a profitable side business. When I first started listening I had no idea that anyone would ever list 100’s of items.
For years, the two of you helped ease my Monday morning commutes as I shleped off to my day job and you inspired me to think beyond the 9-5 world and plan for a day when I could ditch that world.
So thanks for everything you’ve done for me and the community. We will certainly miss you.
I’ve been using eBay Standard International Delivery for about 18 months now. I use it on low value items and it works very well. You get tracking all the way to the destination and the item itself is insured (but the insurance doesn’t refund the shipping cost). I’ve made a couple of insurance claims and was paid quickly. It’s much cheaper than GSP for the buyer so you’re likely to get more sales. For high value items I still fall back to using GSP.
With eBay Standard Delivery, shipping up to 8oz is $11 – $14 depending on the destination. Over 8oz, the shipping charge jumps to $21 but it’s no very weight sensitive. Up to 2lbs seems to be only a little bit more more expensive than 9oz for example.
Yes. This is happening to us also. My wife starts drafts on her computer (starting with a pre-filled template). She adds in all the remaining item specifics. Then she switches to her phone and takes photos through the app. After taking photos, many items specifics disappear which is super annoying. This has been happening to us for at least a few days, maybe 5 – 7 days.
Thanks for the podcast R&J. Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4672
Items Sold: 65
Total Sales: $1249.74
Average Price Sold: $19.23
Average Cost of Item: $2.6
Highest Price Item Sold: $59.95 Nikon Series E 50mm 1.8 Black Pancake Lens
Number of items listed this week: 72 worth approx. $2014
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +28%
Hats sold this week: 48 (73% of sales)I had a pretty average week. There were no high value sales for me this week so my total sales number reflects that.
Regarding this week’s topic, I don’t feel trapped at all since I’ve taken control of my time and given up the 9-5 life. If I didn’t have savings in the bank, being a full-time reseller would be more stressful and maybe I’d feel trapped trying to feed the reselling machine.
I hope you get your accounting stuff sorted out. I’ve been using the spreadsheet approach since I started. I’ve been tweaking my spreadsheet for years and it does what I want now. I should probably be using a proper accounting tool but I can’t bear the thought of going through that pain to switch over. I doubt I’d get many benefits from switching.
Regarding Jay’s comment about the eBay community forums, he should take a look at some of the big Facebook reseller groups. They are absolutely teeming with tales of woe. Scammers/switcharoos/mean buyers etc. Anybody that spent time reading those forums before starting to resell would assume it’s going to be a nightmare to sell online.
I hope everyone has a good week
Thanks for the show R&J
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4666
Items Sold: 83
Total Sales: $1725.81
Cost of Items Sold: $266
Average Price Sold: $20.79
Average Cost of Item: $3.21
Highest Price Item Sold: $139.95 1970 AFL Championship Chiefs / Raiders Game Program
Number of items listed this week: 130 worth approx. $5591
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +29%After taking a vacation week, the week before last and seeing a dramatic slowdown from not listing or sending offers, my store came roaring back to life last week. Sending out offers on several hundred listings bought in lots of sales (32 sales in one day – a new record) and I made an effort to get lots listed – 130 items (my biggest week of listing ever).
I didn’t put my 2 cents worth in last week’s discussion about niche’s but I’m one of those people with a big niche (hats). Having a niche definitely makes it easier to improve and optimize processes. Everything from knowing what to source through to having the correct shipping supplies. But, I’d be bored to tears if I only ever bought and sold hats. I could sit at home all day sourcing and listing hats but I enjoy in-person sourcing (who doesn’t) and I buy lots of other interesting and profitable things through garage sales and estate sales. Hats gives my store a good foundation but it’s all the other sales during the week that determine whether my week is good or just meh. It also keeps me interested. Cameras have become a secondary niche for me.
I hope everyone has a fun and profitable week.
When I first started reselling I took things very personally. Now I kill people with kindness even if I don’t really mean what I’m saying. I often construct responses with elaborate witty comebacks and biting sarcasm in my head but I generally don’t end up sending those to the buyer. Instead I just type very simple polite professional messages. eg: “My apologies. I’m sorry you’re not completely satisfied. Please return for a full refund.” Separating “personal” from “business” makes life much less stressful.
The expert on postcards around here is John from Popeye’s postcards. I think his forum name is something like Spinach Eater. There was even a Scavenger Life episode about him : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULcZ5ZZ7xc
Hi R&J – I’m glad you’re back and creating podcasts.
I took a week off and did a trip to Oregon with my wife. My store was on Time Away (but still open). I didn’t list anything and I didn’t send out offers. As a result my sales tanked to less than 1/3rd of the previous week.
Total Items in Store: 4619
Items Sold: 22
Total Sales: $457.95
Cost of Items Sold: $58
Average Price Sold: $20.82
Average Cost of Item: $2.64
Highest Price Item Sold: $89.95 Ricoh Caplio GX100 CameraI’m back to normal scheduling this week and am listing lots of new items. I will also send out bulk offers tomorrow (on about 300 listings) so I expect this week will end up much better than last.
Jay – regarding your question about whether your drop in sales my have been related to downgrading from an Anchor store to a Premium store, I did the same downgrade around the same time as you. My sales didn’t change in a noticeable way. From eBay’s perspective there’s no real reason why their algorithm should favor one seller over another based on their store subscription. eBay makes most of its money from making sales. It will always push the items most-likely to sell and store subscriptions don’t factor into that.
Because I was on vacation, I didn’t attend eBay Open but while I’ve been listing, I started listening to the recordings which are now available on eBay. It’s worth clicking around and listening to any topics that might interest you: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHVEVK6whrNbg_vbVUhwFsproCtkCYEoU
I remember trying web interpret a couple of years ago. When my thousand listings turned into 4000 listings I got a bit freaked out and switched it off. I couldn’t figure out if I was about to be slammed with insertion fees for thousands of extra listings. I didn’t particularly like the loss of control.
Hi R & J,
Hope you’ve recovered from that mountain of packing.
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4642
Items Sold: 65
Total Sales: $1717.61
Cost of Items Sold: $264
Average Price Sold: $26.42
Average Cost of Item: $4.07
Highest Price Item Sold: $123.5 Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera Alpha 1 – for Parts/repair
Number of items listed this week: 61
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +31%
Hats sold this week: 42 (64% of sales) worth $709 (41% of sales $)I had another solid week. I had some lucky bulk camera-related purchases at garage sales recently and I’ve been busy listing those. They should do well for me.
Random question for anyone: When you send out offers you can now send a coupon along with your offer. Does anyone have any good suggestions for what kind of coupon might be effective to send in that situation?
There’s a new change on the eBay site that I saw today:- On the Feedback Left for Others page, there’s a new “Follow up” link on the right side of the page. I believe it is supposed to be you can leave additional follow-up feedback for a transaction. (I’m not sure when I’d ever do that). Anyway, the link doesn’t do anything for me right now.
I’ve been a bit lazy recently. I listen every week but I haven’t posted my numbers for a couple of week. So better late than never, here they are now.
Total Items in Store: 4667
Items Sold: 68
Total Sales: $1441.18
Cost of Items Sold: $202
Average Price Sold: $21.19
Average Cost of Item: $2.97
Highest Price Item Sold: $124.95 Pioneer Elite Audio/Video Multi Channel Receiver VSX-01 TXH
Number of items listed this week: 100
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +32%
Hats sold this week: 56 (82% of sales) worth $1035 (71% of sales $)Unlike many people that posted this week, sales continue to be strong for me. I presume it has a lot to do with my ability to spend lots more time on eBay. My wife and I continue to list between 60 and 100 items every week which presumably has a lot to do with our good sales.
As @BethGreen mentioned above, I was curious what would happen if you extend your handling time AND do Time Away. It sounds like it doubles your handling time. That doesn’t seem good. I wonder what the technical reason is that Time Away doesn’t work with GSP. I can’t think of a common-sense reason why that would be true.
R&J – I hope you get to do some good trash picking in during your trip. I ordered some Broadporch expresso beans this week. They arrived today so I’m looking forward to opening the bag and having that first cup tomorrow.
