11

[Simon]

Thanks for the show Ryanne and Jay

Here are my numbers for the week:

Items Sold: 49
Total Sales: $814.23
Cost of Items Sold: $85
Average Price Sold: $16.62
Average Cost of Item: $1.75
Highest Price Item Sold: $34.95 New Holland hat
Number of items listed this week: 103 worth approx. $1540
YTD Sales: $26421
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +15%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 449
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 336
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 126

There was a definite slow-down for me this week. 20% fewer sales plus no high-value items. Yard sales and estate sales are still fairly scare here so I’ve been confined to buying off ebay and from a local auction house that usually doesn’t have much stuff I’m interested in (though I did source from them the last 2 weeks).

My wife and son have both taken a liking to Broadporch coffee so I can see more purchases coming in the future as the 3 of us are going through it quickly. (We normally just buy the mega tins of ground coffee from Costco so this new coffee is a bit of a luxury purchase for us).

I had a return come back to me via a freight-forwarder from Jamaica this week. I really didn’t expect to ever see it arrive as it was only an $18 remote and I didn’t think anyone would go to so much trouble to return an item. I can’t imagine that a freight-forwarder does free returns.

I presume that by now you will have seen today’s scandal involving ebay employees intimidating a couple that ran an ecommerce blog. Does anyone know what blog it was? The must have had some interesting articles. Story.

Hope everyone has a good week. Sell trash. Be free.

[Simon]

Related to the topics of returns, once a return has been open for about a month, the tracking number seems to disappear from all screens. This may be a problem now that buyers have extra time to return items so I’d recommend copying that tracking number into your notes in case you have to prove that the item was never returned. (This shouldn’t be necessary but I read about a case online where a seller was asked to provide the return tracking number to prove their case.).

I currently have a return that was opened on April 21st. I still don’t have a way to close it. It’s 36 business days since it was opened by my calculation.

[Simon]

I participated in a local online auction this week. I was mainly interested in some expensive Department 56 Christmas decorations. I paid up for them but made sure I was setting my max price where I could still make money even though there will be some work involved. I won 17 lots. Since I had to pay up for them I’ll probably list them and price a little higher and be prepared to wait until near Christmas to unload them if I have to. The only downside of that plan is the space to store them. They are pretty bulky. The profit margin for online auctions is definitely not what I’m used to with my other flips.

[Simon]

Thanks for the show and belated Happy Birthday Jay! Your birthday celebration sounds a bit like me. When I had my milestone 50th birthday my immediate family and I got fancy take-out hamburgers and we ate them in the local park. That’s all I wanted as a celebration.

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 3921
Items Sold: 61
Total Sales: $1306.59
Cost of Items Sold: $166
Average Price Sold: $21.42
Average Cost of Item: $2.74
Highest Price Item Sold: $132.5 SONY Walkman WM-D6 Professional Cassette Player Not Working. For parts / repair.
Number of items listed this week: 66 worth approx. $1147
YTD Sales: $25607
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +17%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 441
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 383
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 331

My big sale of the week was a old Sony Walkman which had a funny story attached to it. A week ago I was doing an evening walk around my suburban neighborhood when I came across a free pile on someone’s lawn. I grabbed a few things and the Walkman was among them. As you can see I made from the numbers above, I made $182 from something I got for free that didn’t even work.

To the topic of your podcast this week, I guess I’m the opposite of Jay. I’ve always been motivated by money. In the last 25 years, I’ve focused on paying the bills and raising my family. I haven’t spent any time trying to find a job I really enjoyed, I just focused on being employed and earning a good salary. I have had to grind through years and years of jobs I didn’t enjoy but I’ve always had interests outside of work and I never let work interfere with my home life so I’ve had balance even if my day job didn’t really interest me. As much as I like the idea of “following your passion”, I don’t think that’s a life that many people get to experience.

I hope things seem brighter in the world this week. Sell trash. Be free.

[Simon]

Thanks for the podcast!

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 3925
Items Sold: 66
Total Sales: $1189.15
Cost of Items Sold: $163
Average Price Sold: $18.02
Average Cost of Item: $2.47
Highest Price Item Sold: $63.71 Biotechnology Text book
Number of items listed this week: 94 worth approx. $1589
YTD Sales: $24300
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +16%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 452
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 342
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 192
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.68%

It was another decent week. Pretty much the same as the prior week and definitely down from the super-high levels of a few weeks ago.

It’s funny that you talked about shipping costs for the coffee because I got another 2lbs this week and I noticed that it came priority but not in a flat rate envelope like I would have shipped it. With packing material, that would weigh just over 2lbs. I hope calculated priority shipping wasn’t used (3lbs priority shipped across the country would be a lot more than $6).

I think that feedback still has value on ebay. Imagine if you’re going to buy a new phone. I wouldn’t ever buy something expensive from someone with just a small amount of feedback. Even knowing that ebay will have my back as a buyer, I don’t need the headache. And for new eBay buyers, they have no idea what the process would be if they buy from a bad seller so they are naturally going to prefer buying from someone with some visible feedback history.

Hope everyone has a good week. Stay safe and healthy.

[Simon]

The US does actually have customs / import duties. When you come back from an overseas trip, for example, you have to specify what you’ve bought abroad. If it exceeds your allowance you’ll pay duties. eg: if you bring more than 1 liter of alcohol, more than 200 cigarettes, more than $800 in other goods

Long read if you’re really interested: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/kbyg/customs-duty-info

[Simon]

It sounds like you’ve been doing the right thing :- media mail when you’re allowed, first class shipping for things under a pound, padded flat rate for things over a pound that fit.

My rules of thumb….
– Between 1lb and 2lbs calculated priority shipping is probably fine. Sometimes regional A boxes will be cheaper than calculated priority shipping but you can’t put regional shipping boxes on your listing :- just use it when you it makes sense.
– Above 2 lbs, flat rate boxes are the first choice. For anything above 2 lbs that doesn’t fit into a flat-rate box, I’ll put Fedex Ground on the listing and ship with priority shipping on the rare occasion that priority is cheaper.

I agree on the suggestion to start using business policies. They are a bit of a pain to set up but they are the way to go long-term.

[Simon]

I didn’t hear a reason mentioned Jay. Elsewhere I’ve heard it’s due to ApplePay but I don’t have any first-hand sources for that.

[Simon]

Thanks for the podcast Ryanne and Jay!

Here are my numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 3897
Items Sold: 50
Total Sales: $1251.06
Cost of Items Sold: $234
Average Price Sold: $25.02
Average Cost of Item: $4.7
Highest Price Item Sold: $249 Technics SL-1350 Direct-Drive Turntable
Number of items listed this week: 95 worth approx. $1834
YTD Sales: $23111
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +17%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 445
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 390
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 200
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.28%

Another solid week for me. Pretty much the same as the previous week. I barely have anything except hats to list (as that’s all I’m able to source) so I’m happy that sales have stayed at the current level.

Jay asked for a source for the information about ebay not being able to support coins, bullion etc under managed payments. That topic is addressed at the 41:15 mark of a recent eBay For business podcast. People currently selling those items wont be forced into Managed Payments yet and they are still working on a way to support those items. This podcast episode is actually worth listening all the way through. They address shipping delays, other info about managed payments and talk about what’s going on with ebay customer support.

[Simon]

Something I should have asked when I posted my numbers… Has anyone else had a decent uptick in international sales. 8 of my 71 orders went international. I’ve switched from GSP (and direct shipment) to EBay Standard Delivery for smaller/inexpensive items like hats and I seem to be getting lots of sales. I presume there are plenty of bored overseas shoppers too but the percentage of international sales is higher than I would have expected.

[Simon]

Here are my numbers for the week:

Total Items in Store: 3853
Items Sold: 71
Total Sales: $1200.33
Cost of Items Sold: $128
Average Price Sold: $16.91
Average Cost of Item: $1.81
Highest Price Item Sold: $49.95 Lot of 6 – 13″ Apple Mabook Pro empty boxes
Number of items listed this week: 67 worth approx. $1019
YTD Sales: $21840
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +18%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 453
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 379
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 268.5
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.84%
Hats sold this week: 60 (84% of sales) worth $971 (80% of sales $)

Sales were steady this week. About the same as last week from a $ perspective though I’m not selling any high-value items currently. It’s been 2 months since I sourced anywhere except Ebay.

On the podcast topic, I’ve had a least a dozen full-time jobs in my career and quite a few more bosses than that. I can only think of 2 bosses that I thought were horrible. Both at the same company. Not surprisingly that was probably the worst job I ever had (during the 2008 recession so I was lucky just to keep a job). Most of my bosses have been fine. My current boss lives in another country and I only meet with her for 45 minutes every other week.

On the topic of work, I’m still trying to decide whether I should stick to my plan of retiring from my day job next month. It seems weird retiring in the current environment. My company announced that we don’t have to return to the office for the rest of the year and my work-from-home situation is very easy-going. I’m not sure what I’ll do.

[Simon]

Thanks for the show. I listened while I hiked around the hills near my house before some unusual May rain arrived.

Before I forget, ebay does allow you to tell them you’re a reseller to avoid sales tax. You can do that by uploading a resale certificate (or whatever your state uses) here: Paying tax on eBay purchases.

Once they accept your documentation, nothing you buy on that account will have sales tax added. (With the new rules, sales tax for many states is now based on the buyer’s address alone, not the seller’s address.) You cannot pick and choose which purchases will get sales tax excluded so you’ll want to use this on your sourcing account. Strictly speaking I’m not sure that the tax-free account should be used for anything except stuff you resell. For example, I’m not sure that shipping supplies, should be purchased tax free but maybe there’s an accountant that can chime in on this topic.

[Simon]

Thanks for interesting podcast.

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 3858
Items Sold: 60
Total Sales: $1154.22
Cost of Items Sold: $143
Average Price Sold: $19.24
Average Cost of Item: $2.39
Highest Price Item Sold: $62.97 Odyssey White Hot Golf Putter
Number of items listed this week: 67 worth approx. $1395
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +19%
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 349
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 222
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.56%

My sales numbers came down this week to approximately where they were 5 or 6 weeks ago. As others have said, this might be an indication of things starting to return to normal.

Regarding the podcast, You’ve given me something to think about with Managed Payments. It feels like it’s going to safe to switch. Despite what they ebay said in the beginning though, it doesn’t seem like it will actually save us any money in the end does it. From a fee perspective it sounds like it’s much the same.

I was interested to hear about Jay’s ideal retirement (hanging out in his own coffee shop). Did Ryanne say what her equivalent is? If it was said, I might have missed it.

[Simon]

Jay – It’s Joe DeMarco, Crazy NY Driver : https://www.youtube.com/user/crazeenydriver/videos

I dont recommend him in-particular as someone to watch but he’s been around forever so he’s just on my Youtube subscriptions for when I’m busy doing my listing and want something to watch.

[Simon]

When does John Deere come up as being a problem? I have 13 John Deere hats currently listed. I’ve sold 2 in the last 90 days. I’ve never had a take-down / vero notice on any John Deere hats.

[Author]

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