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Thanks @kentucky-picker. It’s certainly a great feeling waking up knowing that I can choose how I want to spend the day.
Yes, given the uncertainty right and lots of people struggling financially, I would expect holiday sales to be lower this year.
Here are my numbers for my first week as a “full-time” ebay-er:
Total Items in Store: 4177
Items Sold: 56
Total Sales: $1246.72
Cost of Items Sold: $187
Average Price Sold: $22.26
Average Cost of Item: $3.35
Highest Price Item Sold: $94.95 Bose Wave Music System Radio Stereo w/ Remote
Number of items listed this week: 73 worth approx. $1593I probably spent roughly the same amount of time on ebay last week as I did when I had a full-time job but I got lots of other projects completed and got in some volunteer hours in at our local food bank. I also rented a storage unit for ebay overflow. Sales-wise it was another good solid week. I see a lot of people online complaining about slow sales. It will be interesting to see when holiday sales start picking up this year.
Hope everyone has a good week!
That doesn’t match what I’m seeing. Since Monday I’ve seen that buyers have been paying the same increased shipping cost that I’m being charged for shipping as you would expect.
Thanks @ChristineR. It’s going to be interesting to see how things go. I’ll spend a bit more time on eBay but I’m also going to do some community service and a bunch of deferred maintenance around my house so I’m not expecting to ramp up very quickly.
Hi Ryanne & Jay
Thanks for the podcast and the congratulations. I listened to the show outside on a sunny Monday afternoon while washing hats (instead of sitting in front of a computer like I’ve been doing for several decades).
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4160
Items Sold: 43
Total Sales: $1282.13
Cost of Items Sold: $117
Average Price Sold: $29.82
Average Cost of Item: $2.73
Highest Price Item Sold: $294.95 Hallmark Keepsake Frosty Friends 1980 Ornament
Number of items listed this week: 68 worth approx. $1586
YTD Sales: $48204
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +19%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 480
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 362
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 136
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.03%
Hats sold this week: 32 (74% of sales) worth $575 (44% of sales $)My biggest sale of the week is a bit of a BOLO for anyone that is interested in such things. I found a box of “Frosty Friends” Christmas tree ornaments at an estate sale. I’d normally walk right past that kind of thing but I hadn’t found much at the sale and I idly looked a couple up on ebay to discover that they might be worth a few bucks. It turns out they are quite collectible & valuable – especially the oldest ones. I paid $35 for the box and I’ve already sold close to $600 worth of these ornaments.
I liked hearing the discussion about your car. My wife is getting embarrassed about the car I drive. The clear coat (paint) is peeling like it’s had a nasty sunburn. To me it’s a badge of honor :- driving a car I’ve owned for 14 years. When I replace it, it will most likely be due to pressure from my wife rather than social pressure from friends or neighbors. Not driving new cars is one of the contributing factors for me being able to ditch my day job to do ebay.
By the way, Jay, my wife and I do have a plan to eventually leave the Bay Area and head north out of the state but my wife’s elderly mother is in the area so we’ll be staying here for now, to be able to help her out.
I hope everyone has a great week.
Be careful. As a new seller on eBay selling high-value items you will be a magnet for scammers. They will try and convince you that they paid and will hope that you ship the item without receiving payment. Only ship when Ebay says it’s time to ship. Call ebay if you’re not sure what’s going on.
Does anyone know how managed payments works with taxes? I switched in mid July and I’m reconciling the last couple months to have all my paperwork ready for January. I am assuming that I will no longer have to write off sales tax, shipping and eBay fees and that eBay will only 1099 me for what they have paid out to my account. Does anyone know if this is correct?
Ebay’s 1099 should show revenue received which is likely to include sales tax just like the one from PayPal. It’s up to you to prove to the IRA what your taxable profit is so you’ll still need to be keeping track of expenses like shipping and fees. This is the best report (download) I’ve been able to find for getting a breakdown of fees & sales tax in one place: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales
I’d be really cautious about re-listing no matter what an ebay rep might tell you. Relisting items that have been taken down is the quickest way to a suspension from what I’ve seen on online forums.
I received an shipment of USPS PFRE in the last couple of weeks. It took about an month to arrive.
Thanks for the show Ryanne & Jay.
Here are my numbers for the week :
Total Items in Store: 4099
Items Sold: 56
Total Sales: $1303.42
Cost of Items Sold: $213
Average Price Sold: $23.28
Average Cost of Item: $3.81
Highest Price Item Sold: $124.95 Minolta X-700 MPS Black 35mm Film Camera
Number of items listed this week: 38 worth approx. $1120
YTD Sales: $45103
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +20%
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 294
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 113It was a good week from a sales perspective after a couple of quieter weeks the two weeks before this.
The low-light of the week was a message from a disgruntled camera buyer that started off with “I don’t mean to be rude” followed by 3 paragraphs of reasons why I’m a terrible person for selling him a camera. I held my tongue and responded with a brief “Very sorry you’re not happy. Please return it for a full refund.”. And then I put him straight on my blocked-bidders list.
I got a new bag of Costa Rican Broadporch coffee last week. If you could find a way to bottle that first whiff of coffee smell that you get when you open the bag for the first time, you could make millions of dollars. It never fails to impress.
I hope everyone has a good week.
I’m not sure that I can report that buyer since they admitted accidentally switching that adapter. If they had tried to fight it I would have escalated.
I’m still leaning towards an intentional switch. It’s just too convenient that they had an identical broken one which was returned. The likelihood of someone taking a replacement out of a box and then throwing it away seems very small. Anyway, I’m happy that it worked out this time.
Nice find. I hope you do well with them.
I only ship hats first class but I guess if you really want the insurance you could use priority for those expensive ones. (Calculated priority shipping will be expensive for buyers). A 10x8x4″ box (or larger) is big enough for even wide brim hats.
As others have said, measuring snapbacks isn’t necessary. We usually say in the description that it will fit most heads. (Vintage snapbacks are actually not always big enough for an XL size head like my big melon head).
Look on the inside of the back snapback strap for faint writing which will often say “Made in USA” or have a brand pressed into the plastic. Keep an eye out for K-Products brand hats and mention that in the title if you find one. They can fetch a premium.
Watch out for crumbling foam or a crumbling interior lining. They are still sellable often with defects but it’s something that you’ll want to disclose.
I don’t spend much time playing with Promoted Listings (or any sales campaigns) anymore. It’s pretty much list it and forget it for me. The only thing I do these days is every couple of months I’ll end the current promoted listing campaign and start a new one to pick up my new listings.
These days I focus on the offers-to-watchers feature which has far more tangible and immediate results for me. I hope ebay gave a nice big pay raise to the bright sparks that proposed and implemented that feature.
I promote everything I can at 1%. It seems like a worthwhile price to pay for extra exposure. The reporting shows you the number of sales that were made via those clicks and it seems worthwhile.
It’s highly unlikely that using that promoted listing feature caused a drop in sales. Ebay would kill that feature off in a heartbeat if there was any proof that it caused a loss of sales.
