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Just my two cents worth….
I try not to fall in love with difficult things to ship unless there is a really good profit potential. As an example, I occasionally find very cool coffee mugs. But I would never buy one that only sells for $10 or so, since they are fragile and a pain to ship. But if I found a Tiffany lampshade, and it cost me $25 more to ship than I planned, that is OK, and I would not ask the buyer for more $.Because of the ebay discounts on shipping, it is easy to make an extra dollar or two on each item shipped, even after taking out ebay fees. That savings pays for the few times I am charged more than I planned, plus pays for shipping supplies.
Having said that, I appreciate the comments on this thread. I ship very few fragile items, and am always wanting info on the best way to save $ shipping. So, thanks.
For me, the easiest and safest way to set up a sale is to choose a percentage, then individually choose each item. By checking the “choose everything” box at the top of each listing page, I can uncheck the few items I don’t want included. Pretty time consuming for mega-stores, (for my 500 listings it takes about 10-15 min.), but it feels like I am more in control of the process.
I have a theory on garage sales: There are two types. The first are the annoying people trying to get the highest price on their goods. The second group are people who just want to get rid of their items at any low price.
When the second group moves their items to ebay, look out below!
There are people on ebay running a business (us) and there are people cleaning out their closets (and/or) “hobby” sellers. Sometimes we just have to wait out the hobby people for the prices to return to “normal”.
Hey Retro, a couple of ideas.
If you go full time ebay can you get down to one car? My wife and I are semi-retired, and dropped our second car 4 years ago. I figure we save $300 to $400 a month (depreciation, gas, repairs, etc.)-that is a lot of money over 4 years! We rarely both need to use the car at the same time, but if we do, I rent a car. $35 or so, but it only happens a couple of times a year. Or, Uber. Big savings.When my wife travels without me, and I cook alone, I try to fix enough of one thing for 2 more meals since I am already cooking. I will grill 3 chicken breasts, for example, instead of one. Then, I just microwave when I want chicken again. Nearly as easy as eating out. My wife makes huge pans of lasagna, freezes 1/2, and we get 3-4 meals out of one preparation.
Something that gets lost in planning for going to ebay full time, is how much money can be saved downsizing your house payment. Like J&L, can you move to a lower cost of living area, perhaps finding a home better suited to ebay in the process? We did that 4 years ago, and save about $300+ a month on payment, plus have a nice unfinished basement for ebay.
Also, once you start ebay full time, you might reconsider how much $$ you put into retirement savings. Perhaps once you have your “dream” job, ebay full time, you can cut back some. It all adds up.
Good luck!!
Week of Nov. 6-12, 2017
Total Items in Store: 474
Items Sold: 26
Cost of Items Sold: $66
Total Sales: $730
Highest Price Sold: $75 (twice)
Average Price Sold: $28.07
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $42
Number of items listed this week: 15
Sold prices do not include shipping charges (we do not offer free shipping).
Had a great week selling snow boots and other cold weather items. Ave. was held down by unloading 6 “junk” items: $5-9 range-glad to get them out! Only hit 50% of listing goal due to unexpected other tasks. 1/3 of inventory was priced at 15% off sale to get things moving.Well, J&R, you have made my day, talking about my dual store question on the blog!! My 15 minutes of fame-haha!
No documentation on losing the listings, only past experience. I usually list for 30 days, and let all “up north” listing expire before driving south for the winter. If I don’t re-list for 90 days, they disappear. The same thing happens when I leave FL. What I usually do is visit the other home every 7-8 weeks or so, and relist for 3 days. I only sell a couple of things, but the 90 day clock starts ticking again. This works as long as I remember to make the trips.
I realize I could put on list until sold, but it easier with 30 day when I need to let them expire twice a year. I would rater not have the hassle and expense of two stores, either.
The bigger problem is having to cart stuff, that isn’t seasonal, back and forth. Ideally, I would keep the winter stuff down south, etc. But the problem is that most of my winter stuff (clothing) sells before Christmas.
I work from home, and don’t have anyone I trust (with a key) who I would consider shipping for me when I am gone. I may have to consider getting a climate controlled storage unit and a helper.
Lots of good ideas from the forum-thanks. Let me know if any of you want my autograph! Haha!
PS-please let me know if Jena figures out a better way to do it.
My wife and I checked different websites and both said Friday was the holiday day off for USPS. As a result, we did not ship on Friday. Now we have missed two days. I re-checked and found the same information online, again. Very frustrating since I now have about 5 items that will be late shipped.
We snowbird down south, and i want to move as much inventory as possible before leaving in early Dec.
4 days ago, my sales started slipping. I put a 15% off sale on all winter clothing and it has exploded. I hope to get rid of nearly all snow boots, down vests, gloves and jeans before shutting down the store second week in Dec. So far, so good.
Sigal, we always shut down around the 2-3rd week of December. We have made plenty of $$ by then, and don’t have to worry about USPS taking too long to deliver before Xmas that way. We usually take some spring type inventory with us to FL, and gear up again around mid-Jan. It is a very welcome breather to relax during the holidays! But I know other sellers sell straight through and have good luck.
I use windows 10 with chrome. Same problem for the last week. Sometimes only 1-2 photos will load, then it freezes. Sometimes freezes on the first download. I have to save to draft, refresh the screen, and come back sometimes it works, sometimes it freezes again. I can get through it, but it doubles the listing time.
Volatile usually means risky. But it is interesting to watch, JFH,
Maybe just me, but it is sure nice to own things you can touch, with a very long track record of holding value. Gold and silver (physical, not shares) and real estate (including your home) all come to mind. People have needed shelter for thousands of years. The same with using precious metals as instruments of exchange.
Nothing wrong with mutual funds/ETF’s. Nothing wrong with FDIC insured CD’s or T-bills. All have long track records even though you can’t really hold them in your hand.
And one of the best investments any scavenger can make is to buy more inventory and list more, even if it requires hiring listing help.
Think of the overhead heating and cooling that large space. For 4 years, we have lived less than 1.5 miles from a large mall. I remember shopping there once during this time. Lots of teenagers hanging out, and quite a few mall walkers-most of those aren’t really spending money.
I have heard the pricing per sq. ft. of mall space is very, very expensive. Makes ebay fees look very good!
Some womens jeans will just give a waist measurement. Rare, but it happens. Look at the length of the zipper. The men’s zippers are usually nearly twice as long as womens.
For sizing, if the size tag says 34×34, but the waist is actually 36, we put it like this 34 (36)x34, then write in (36 actual measurement along with 34 in the description where it says bottoms size. We also measure rise, inseam, and cuff width, but that is just us. Some people STILL do not read the measurements.
We have an image of measured jeans in our description. Here is an example: listing 152741713424. Feel free to steal if you like it.
Beautiful item. But isn’t that a summer type sale? I would wait until mid-summer before cutting the price. I had a denim vest I really wanted to unload this month and cut the price by nearly 50%-I really wanted it out. But it wasn’t unique and nearly this nice.
Sit on it awhile longer. The weather might be vest friendly in TX now, but it isn’t in the North and most of the Midwest.
