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[Simon]

Yes. I still put lots of hours into the ebay business.  It doesn’t really feel like work most of the time so I haven’t been tracking my time very closely but I’d guess I probably put in 30 – 40 hours spread across the week so it’s probably close to full-time hours. My wife still helps with creating listings for hats and doing the photos for hats.  I take care of everything else (sourcing, shipping, pricing, customer service and inventory management).  My wife probably puts in 20/hrs+ per week.  We typically seem to list 70 – 100 new items every week.

[Simon]

Thanks for the podcast.  The subtitle of the episode could have been “Tears of Joy”.  I enjoyed hearing Jay’s description of the first 15 minutes of the day in the coffee shop.

Here are my numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 4537
Items Sold: 83
Total Sales: $2036.56
Cost of Items Sold: $645
Average Price Sold: $24.54
Average Cost of Item: $7.77
Highest Price Item Sold: $250 AMORC Rosicrucian Illuminati Twelfth 12th Degree Monographs
Number of items listed this week: 98 worth approx. $2287
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +26%
Hats sold this week: 54 (65% of sales)

I’m sorry that other people had a slow week of sales.  It was a very good week for me.  Selling 83 items in one week is a new record for me.

Congratulations on the successful opening of the coffee shop. I hope it continues to be a great destination for locals and tourists alike.

[Simon]

Congrats on finally opening the coffee shop. I hope it turns out to be everything that you dreamed it might be.

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4522
Items Sold: 76
Total Sales: $1589.1
Cost of Items Sold: $272
Average Price Sold: $20.91
Average Cost of Item: $3.58
Highest Price Item Sold: $106.21 Bolex Paillard D8L 8MM Movie Camera With 3 Lenses, Case, Manual Vintage
Number of items listed this week: 92 worth approx. $-740
YTD Sales: $22500
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +25%

I had a decent week this week with a pretty high volume of low-priced items and I’m still tracking at 25% higher sales year-over-year which is surprising give that last year was a really good year with all the at-home-coronavirus-bored-shopping.

Comment on the podcast. For buyers to combine multiple orders and request/get an invoice, you actually need to switch off “require immediate payment”.  Given that change could greatly increase non-payers, it doesn’t seem like something I’d do.

I hope every has a good week and that lots of coffee gets consumed in Luray this week.

[Simon]

Thanks for the podcast R&J.  I’m excited for you guys that the shop is so close to being open. (Maybe it’s already open as I type this?)

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4541
Items Sold: 62
Total Sales: $2370.26
Cost of Items Sold: $461
Average Price Sold: $38.23
Average Cost of Item: $7.44
Highest Price Item Sold: $423.96 NAD 2700 Monitor Series THX Power Amplifier
Number of items listed this week: 72 worth approx. $1627
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +28%
Hats sold this week: 49 (79% of sales) worth $854 (36% of sales $)

From a $ perspective I had my best week in 6 years of selling on eBay thanks to some high (for me) dollar stereo items that I picked up at a couple of garage sales.  The amplifier mentioned above went to a freight-forwarder so, fingers-crossed that I don’t hear anything more about that transaction.

Thanks for the tip about the tax invoice (mentioned on a different thread in the forums too).  That looks like it will be handy for my monthly book-keeping.  Of course, when it comes to ebay, there are other things to keep track of.  Sales, refunds, returns and cancellations come to mind as numbers to record regularly.

While snooping on the broadporch website to see if the Luray location was open yet, I noticed there’s a 3rd “test” location.  Is that going to be your next project. 😀   (See this screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/O8CjLwT )

I hope everyone has a fun and profitable week.

[Simon]

Do you see anywhere that eBay is showing taxes as being shown as seller gross profit?

I don’t typically see ebay refer to “profit” anywhere.  One of the few places that still show taxes included in a total is on that main sales screen: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales

Any time I see any total on any screen in ebay I wonder what is included in it and I’ve spent many hours pulling my hair out trying to reconcile things.  eg: Sales totals :- does the number include shipping? does it include taxes?  does it include orders that were cancelled?  etc   In the last year or so, eBay has added so many reports/downloads/summaries it has really added to the complication.

Thanks for the link to the invoices page Jay.  I hadn’t noticed that extra tab on that screen for invoices.

 

[Simon]

The sales tax details (for tax paid by customer, remitted by ebay) seems to have been removed from most places on the ebay site now.  I was looking for it tonight.  I found it in a report download but nowhere else.

Do you have a link to the tax invoice? I don’t think I got that message but I’d like to take a look and see what it includes.

[Simon]

If you pick up any electrical item you’ll see a number of symbols on them.  In the U.S, most products have an UL symbol.  Depending on the item you might see an FCC symbol.  These things indicate that they meet U.S health and safety guidelines.  The CE symbol is a similar concept in Europe.  (Many thing imported into the US will also have the CE symbol as they are sold worldwide). It sounds like the E.U might be introducing more enforcement.   The CE certification doesn’t apply to all products but it does apply to anything with a potential safety aspect like toys and electrical.  CE info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking

I don’t know what would be required in the case of a pre-owned product (eg: without original packaging) under the new guidelines.

[Simon]

Sorry to hear about your difficult week. That sounds pretty terrible.

[Simon]

What does “all reportable payment transactions” mean?

I would take that to me payments received from customers.

I use my own records for doing my taxes because, surprisingly,  it’s almost impossible to reconcile exactly against any of ebays numbers. As long as you are not claiming your revenue is below the number totals on 1099s that you receive, there’s no reason for the IRS to question you.

[Simon]

Thanks for the podcast R&J.

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4531
Items Sold: 73
Total Sales: $1546.91
Cost of Items Sold: $253
Average Price Sold: $21.19
Average Cost of Item: $3.47
Highest Price Item Sold: $129.95 Sunfire True Sub Super Junior Passive Subwoofer
Number of items listed this week: 63
Hats sold this week: 57

Sales-wise this was another solid week for me.  On par with this time last year when sales were really humming so I can’t complain.

I also got my tax return completed this week.  I’ve always done my own taxes.  These days I do tax returns for both my kids too. I’ve used FreeTaxUSA for the last couple of years.  It’s very easy to use.  (I used Turbo Tax for about 25 consecutive years prior to FreeTaxUSA).

Speaking of financial things, I find it challenging to keep good business records with Ebay constantly changing things around.  In the past I used Sales reports, then I used the monthly invoice and now I need to pull numbers from several places.  Does anyone know where I can find my TopRatedSeller discount total these days? It used to be on the monthly invoice.

Regarding Promoted Listings (and the fact that R&J dropped it recently), ebay provides some pretty detailed stats about the effectiveness of promoted listings in terms of views and sales.  Paying 1% seems like a trivial cost for more sales.  1% only equals $10 on $1000 of sales.  Considering I’ll send out around 150 offers every week at 15 – 25% off my original price to try and make a sale,  paying 1% for promoted listings sales seems like great deal.

I hope everyone has a great week.

[Simon]

ebay’s 1099 apparently do NOT include sales tax that was collected and remitted to the states by ebay.  Source: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/ebay-form-1099k?id=4794

[Simon]

1099s report revenue info.  I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that next year’s 1099 will be any different to this year’s 1099. We’re still going to have to document all expenses (including ebay expenses) on our tax returns.

[Simon]

Thanks for the podcast R&J

Here are my numbers for the week:
Items Sold: 64
Total Sales: $1315.52
Cost of Items Sold: $194
Average Price Sold: $20.56
Average Cost of Item: $3.04
Highest Price Item Sold: $59.95 Panasonic DVD VCR Player Combo
Number of items listed this week: 89 worth approx. $1945
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +25%
Hats sold this week: 51 (79% of sales) worth $929 (70% of sales $)

The changes to distribution of 1099s that was mentioned in this week’s podcast is applicable to the 2022 tax year so people wont see those till 2023 and many people are going to get a nasty shock. I was interested to see discussions in various places online about that.  I’m surprised by the number of people saying that small sellers shouldn’t have to get 1099s, it’s not fair etc etc.    I think of all the people working in minimum wage jobs that pay taxes and dont get a choice.  Ultimately, if everyone paid their fair share of taxes (including the ultra rich and large corporations), taxes would be lower for all of us. Steps down from his soapbox.

We had a few garage sales around nearby this weekend and I bumped into regular garage sale (buyers) folk that I haven’t seen in the last 12 months.  I feel a very gradual return towards normal in the air.  The first offices in the Bay Area reopened this week including Uber.

My big sale of the weekend was some high end stereo equipment that I bought from a rich person garage sale.  I paid up for it but I’m hoping the returns will be good.

I hope everyone has a fun and profitable week.

[Simon]

It is really really difficult to reconcile 1099s with our own records but here’s what you should look at:

The revenue number on the 1099 includes :
– sales cost of the items you sold
– shipping paid by the buyer
– sales tax paid by the buyer (including the sales tax that ebay manages and pays to states on your behalf)

I haven’t yet figured out whether the 1099 figures includes orders that were cancelled or orders that were returned & refunded.

[Simon]

@martyholthaus – I was making a joke. In this week’s show Jay mentioned the conspiracy theory that ebay throttles accounts. I was observing that R&J’s sales have been consistently around $1400/wk so eBay must be throttling them at that level.

[Author]

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