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Hi Ryanne & Jay – Thanks for the podcast this week. I listed while I walked in the hills near my house at sunset.
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4355
Items Sold: 64
Total Sales: $1343.18
Cost of Items Sold: $195
Average Price Sold: $20.99
Average Cost of Item: $3.05
Highest Price Item Sold: $79.95 Men’s Puma SL Street Scuderia Ferrari Shoes
Number of items listed this week: 76
Hats sold this week: 43 (67% of sales) worth $723 (53% of sales $)I had a pretty good week. I enjoyed seeing the sales rolling in at the time of year. (It happens every year but it always surprises me that so many people are still buying given that Christmas happened so recently).
Notes on this weeks show:
– wheresmycoupon.com gets you to your shipping supplies coupon too
– I heard “pallet of nickels” as “pallets of nipples” and I wondered how many nipples you’d get on a pallet.
– a number of youtubers do videos in those Amazon returns type stores eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jFzMAg0k4 (jump to 1:45) I’d visit if I had one nearby but, like Jay said, that kind of stuff doesn’t interest me much either.
– Empty Boxes. When I get boxes, I toss them in a pile until I have created Box Mountain in my garage. If I see hikers in my garage looking for a trailhead up my box mountain I know it’s time to do something about it and I spend some time cutting them down. I have a whole shelf rack that I use for large broken-down boxes. I organize them based on the longest side (eg: shelf 1 has 12″ boxes on the left and 14″ boxes on the right, shelf 2 has 16″ boxes on the left and 18″ boxes oh the right etc). I taped a tape measure down the leg of the shelf unit so that I can easily hold up a box to it to measure it.I’m out of your coffee so I’m going to order a new bag tonight
I hope everyone has a good week.
The book was supposed to be gag gift… “Too bad you didn’t read this while you were working here….” but I just saw it as more stuff I didn’t need and I decided to flip it quickly while it was still the latest edition.
Thanks for the podcast.
My numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 4355
Items Sold: 40
Total Sales: $1224.94
Cost of Items Sold: $161
Average Price Sold: $30.62
Average Cost of Item: $4.03
Highest Price Item Sold: $154.95 McCarthy Presidential Campaign Poster
Number of items listed this week: 58 worth approx. $1696
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +23%
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 186I thought it was going to be a slow week but I was plesantly surprised by a pretty good week. Much better than the same week last year.
I think it’s funny that the chili dog mention seems to have the most comments from listeners here. From a vendor perspective I think it would be hard to keep that one on the menu. Chili would have a pretty short lifespan unless you were just going to heat in a microwave which doesn’t seem like a great idea.
I got a chuckle from the mention of selling Christmas presents. I don’t remember doing that ever but…. when I retired recently I was given a book by some of the people I worked with. It was a technical book about the job I was leaving so it’s not something I had the slightest interest in so I immediately listed it on ebay and only felt a little bit guilty.
When I’m thinking about sending a counter-offer, I consider how I’d feel if the counter was not accepted and I just missed a sale. If I’d have regrets and be bothered by losing the sale, I accept their offer and don’t counter. If I wouldn’t care (because their original offer was way too low or it’s a new item with lots of interest etc), I’ll counteroffer and if it’s not accepted I’m fine with that.
Thanks for the podcast R&J.
Here are my numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 4337
Items Sold: 62
Total Sales: $1322.96
Cost of Items Sold: $233
Average Price Sold: $21.34
Average Cost of Item: $3.77
Highest Price Item Sold: $89.95 Lot of 8 Villeroy & Boch Festive Memories Salad Plates
Number of items listed this week: 61
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +22%
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 219
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 108
Hats sold this week: 34 (54% of sales) worth $616 (46% of sales $)I had a surprisingly good week considering that sales slowed down towards the end after shipping deadlines passed.
[Knock on wood] I only had one package that really went awry. I shipped it via First Class on Nov. 27th and it was delivered on December 19th after getting stuck with no movement for 2 weeks. I refunded a very patient customer before it started moving again.
New ebay feature: I may have missed the discussions in the forum somewhere but ebay rolled out the new cheap shipping option, with tracking, for shipping sports cards this week. It is discussed in detail on the ebay for business podcast : https://community.ebay.com/t5/The-eBay-for-Business-Podcast/Episode-121-FireSide-Chat-w-Sucharita-Kodali-of-Forrester/ba-p/31429980 (jump to 17 minutes in). It sounds like it will cost under $1 to get tracking for sports cards that are under $20 and they hope to roll out this feature later for things like postcards.
Since it’s nearly the end of the year it’s probably time for end-of-year numbers to appear. This is what my 2020 monthly sales looked like (see the purple line at the top) compared to past years:
I hope everyone takes time to enjoy the holidays.
I don’t know how many people are doing this on a regular basis, but I have had huge success with parting out small appliances and other items for parts. Many items can be sold for parts for three times or more than the item can be sold for. Especially heavier items.
@gargolfer – yes, this topic has come up a few times. I do it quite often though it’s not a big part of my business. The other day my mother-in-law was going to throw out an old Dyson vacuum cleaner. I grabbed it. I could have got it working but nobody needed an extra vacuum so I pulled it apart and have successfully sold a number of parts. It’s certainly much easier to ship a little piece or part than it is to ship a whole vacuum. Same with things like food processors where the base weighs a ton but the rest of the bits are easy to ship.@annaesthetic23 now that I dont have a 9-5 job I’ve been taking large loads of packages directly to the post office. I only schedule pickups when I expect that I’ll only have a couple of packages because of the reasons @julie-b mentioned.
I used to drive around my neighborhood dropping my small packages in all the neighborhood curbside bins to avoid scheduling pickups but my mail carrier told me it was easier for him to just pick them up from my house (as my packages were blocking mail).
@retro-treasures-wv – I believe that the Sunday USPS deliveries you’re seeing are mainly Amazon packages. I heard that Amazon negotiated a deal that included Sunday deliveries.
Thanks for this week’s podcast.
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4338
Items Sold: 56
Total Sales: $1605.47
Cost of Items Sold: $307
Average Price Sold: $28.67
Average Cost of Item: $5.49
Highest Price Item Sold: $199.95 TASCAM 8 Track Mixing Console
Number of items listed this week: 71Sales were slow mid-week but I had a couple of high-value sales and then a rush of sales at the end of the week which boosted my sales 20% above this time last year.
So far, (knock on wood), I’ve been pretty lucky with the USPS shipping debacle. I’ve had one package that entered limbo-land. Murphy’s law, meant that it was a a $100 musical program (rather than one of the many cheap hats I ship). The buyer was very patient but after 10 days without any tracking updates, I issued a refund.
The only thing I find slightly annoying about this shipping slowdown is that the USPS jacked up the prices temporarily. Wasn’t that increase designed to assist with the expected crunch?
On a more positive note, is anyone else enjoying the subtle, but helpful change in the single-label shipping flow on ebay? When I press the button to create a shipping label, I’m now seeing the print options come up immediately (instead of having to click and print button, see the label and printing the pdf print button). It saves a couple of clicks which is nice since I go through that flow numerous times each day.
I could definitely see how some people, without the structure of a 9-5 job, could have difficulty adjusting. Being suddenly forced to retire must be very tough for many people. On the other hand I’ve been thinking about it, and working towards it for years so I have lots of things to do to keep me busy for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for the info. I’ll look for that next time this issue comes up.
Can you actually print a media mail label through pirate ship. I’ve had the same problem that @cdils mentioned a couple of times. I’ve ended up using PayPal.com/shipnow but the most recent time I checked PirateShip first and couldn’t see a media mail option. (I’m not a frequent Pirate Ship user).
Thanks for the podcast. I ended up listening to it twice because the first time I had it playing while I was assembling a shelf system in my storage unit and I missed bits and pieces here and there. Ryanne – Jay made you promise to use Pirate Ship last week. You should have made him promise to do shipping with you this week!
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4316
Items Sold: 56
Total Sales: $1617.18
Cost of Items Sold: $180
Average Price Sold: $28.88
Average Cost of Item: $3.23
Highest Price Item Sold: $194.95 Canon DM-GL2-A Mini Digital Video Camcorder
Number of items listed this week: 76 worth approx. $1763
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +22%
Hats sold this week: 37 (66% of sales)I had a good week buoyed by a number of high-dollar (for me) items as well as a solid number of low value items. Garage/estate sales have been hard to find so I’m running low on high value inventory.
Since I retired from my day job, I think I’ve become a bit more like Jay. I’ve been really diligent about maintaining a weekly and daily to-do list. I’ve found it super helpful to get though all the little tasks I want to do. I’ve also taken the advice of a FIRE Redditor and tried to set weekly goals in categories such as Learning, Fun, Health, Culture (as well as household chores and eBay goals). Last week my Learning goal was to learn how to use a sewing machine. That was interesting as it’s the only device in the house that I can think of that I didn’t know how to use. This week my health goal is to try and climb the equivalent of 400 flights of stairs in a day. A couple of weeks ago my “culture” goal was to watch the original Star Wars movies that I had never seen before. Now I’m working through the Harry Potter movies that I’ve never seen before.
I hope everyone has a fun and profitable week!
I’ve been using the report download on this page. It seems to have Sale Tax for all transactions: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales?referencePeriodFilter=LAST_MONTH&benchmarkPeriodFilter=LAST_MONTH&selectedMarketPlaceIds=EBAY_US
I find it pretty painful to try and reconcile the ebay numbers with my own calculations. I try and do it monthly but there always seems to be a difference.
Hi Ryanne and Jay. Thanks for the podcast.
Here are my numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 4299
Items Sold: 52
Total Sales: $1521.22
Cost of Items Sold: $255
Average Price Sold: $29.25
Average Cost of Item: $4.91
Highest Price Item Sold: $184.95 1946 New York Yankees v San Francisco 49ers Football Program First AAFC Game
Number of items listed this week: 86 \
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +21%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 489
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 230
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 55I had one of my better weeks of the year from a sales $ perspective. It was helped a lot by the 1940s football programs that I picked up at a garage sale for $20 a couple of weeks ago. I’ve already sold more than $450 worth of programs from that lot.
Comments about this week’s show:
– I got a couple of those old FedEx charges. They appeared on my invoice and I checked them against my records. They were legit and matched the estimate when I created the label.
– That was a good tip about using the shipping supplies coupon. Another alternative : I mentioned this on another forum post. You can find your ebay shipping coupon here: http://www.wheresmycoupon.com/ (It’s also on the Flipper Tools site). I think I learned about that on a previous S.L podcast.
– I’m surprised you have so few shipping business policies. I have lots and lots eg: calculated first class, calculated priority, calculated fedex, free policies for each of those types of shipping, flat rate priority for various boxes, variations with different international shipping policies etc.
– I’m the same as you guys with pirate ship. I tried it a couple of times, it didn’t save me money so I stopped checking. It’s not cheaper for first class, it’s not cheaper for flat rate boxes. It’s a bit of a niche IMO.I hope everyone has a good week.
