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Ok, I appreciate the comments.
I bought this at a community yard sale. The lady I bought it from, said she painted it, but was more than willing to accept $1 for it. I agree it probably is from some kind of a kit.
The apples and oranges referred to comparing $1000 of pretax work income to $1000 of Ebay income. I apologize if I was unclear.
I agree with you on the shipping expense, however, the way in which you are presenting it distorts your COGS. If we all offered free shipping, it wouldn’t matter, but since many of us do not it creates some confusion.
Ah, the magic of statistics.
This may be the classic case of comparing apples to oranges.
I have a few concerns..
You group your fees and shipping together. The number seems a bit high. Do you offer free shipping? If that is the case, it would be more appropriate to add the shipping expense to your COGS. This of course would increase your COGS.
Where is your car expense derived from. It is real costs, or just the computation from the IRS mileage chart. Would you take a car expense write off if you had a normal job? Are you actually putting more miles on your car now vs a regular commute. My guess is no, except now you have the benefit of a tax write off and probably no higher actual car expense.
Speaking of write offs, there are others that benefit us, Cell phone, internet and office supplies to name a few. These are for items we probably already spend money on.
Regardless of statistics and spread sheets, the number that really matters is the amount that gets deposited to your bank every month. At the end of the day, I believe the $1000 a week in your example benefits the Ebayer more that the traditional worker.
Please let men know if I’m missing something.
Shipping is a major part of selling on Ebay. If you can ship efficiently, you can keep more of the money an item sells for. Also, I believe, if an item is packed well and shipped quickly, customers are much more likely to give positive feedback. These are a few brief rules I go by.
1. Ship on time.
2. Pack it well.
3. Consider alternate carriers based on the item shipped and destination.
4. Print your own shipping labels. The online discounts are too big to ignore.
5. Get an accurate digital scale. Guessing on the weight is risky and not cost effective. The last thing I do, before printing the shipping label is weigh the package.Regarding weights there are a few questions I ask myself, due to the rates.
Is it 8 oz or less?
Is it 1 pound or less?
After that the postage due increases with each pound.
Using poly mailers, light boxes and light packing materials all help to keep the weight down.
Regarding size:
Is it oversize for USPS?
Length X Width X Height must be 1728 cubic inches or less.
12x12x12=1728 or 16X12X9=1728
It’s that simple.
No, it sounds like it got kicked out of GSP for some reason.
You may want to call Ebay on this one.
Shipping Priority to Japan shouldn’t pose a major risk, but the choice is yours, and you’ll probably have to fill out a customs form.
As soon as the item is paid for, a feedback is left automatically for the buyer. Some buyers, especially new ones can be resentful, if you don’t leave timely feedback.
Since we can’t leave a negative, there’s no reason to hold back. Also, it happens automatically, so it’s one less task to think about.
Is there a reason you don’t want to just ship through Ebay and keep it simple?
The rates are the same as above, with tracking on first class mail.
To be clear..there is no FREE tracking on first class letter mail using stamps. There is free tracking on First Class Packages.
I’m in the same boat… except I have over 1900 items in my store.
My sales have never been great, but I keep thinking list list list.
So far April has been a wreck.. less than $400 so far. March was a little better and February was really low. Of course the more listings I put up, the more I pay in listing fees at 10 cents each.
I don’t know what the answer is.
It’s tempting to just lower the prices to make them move.. but these are unique and I think could be a pipeline. I am willing to lower the price on multiples though and will probably move in that direction. $300 a month on a regular basis would make me a happy guy..
After this next batch, I need to give it a break listing this stuff. I have a bunch of women’s tops that I’m really not familiar with listing and quite frankly, I’m burning out on listing these clothes. I’m going save the remaining tubs for another time. My office is looking like a T.J. Maxx store and I need to move all this stuff out.
Thanks for the input Jay..
UPDATE…………..
It’s been a bot of a learning process, but WOW almost 2 months have gone by..
I originally spent $600 for this hoard of clothing. originally, I was hesitant to list the cost, but now it’s no big deal.. it is what it is.
I now have just over 250 individual listings (Many with mutltiples) for this haul. To date, I have sold about a dozen items for about $210. Most of my listings have been done in the last 30 days. My guess is that I have in excess of 1000 items total, but I really don’t know the exact number. It may be higher. I’ve seen it all, but not listed it all yet.
About 5% or so of the items are damaged (stained) and some have defects (misaligned decals). I’ve been trying to catch these as I go, and I have a reject box that I can address later. I believe there are water stains on many that will wash out.
Most of the T-Shirts are priced at $16.95 and the sweatshirts at $20 to $25 plus shipping.
My store just crossed the 1900 item mark. The problem is that my sales have been dismal. I haven’t crossed $2000 a month in sales this year. Outside of using markdown manager, I have not been doing any type of promoted listings. I’m wondering if this is the wave of the future and a very crafty was of increasing listing/sales costs.
My next step on the shirts is to create a promotion “by two get the third for 50% off”. I have been waiting to see how well they would sell, but now that I’ve got so many listed, I think it’s time for the promotion.
I also have the clothing listed as “preowned” and then in the comments note that it’s never been worn. I do this, because so much of this stuff is wrinkled, has no tags and has been sitting in storage so long. I’m wondering if I should list it as NWOT. I don’t want to give the impression that this is freshly made coming off a container ship from China. Maybe after running the promotion, I’ll reconsider.
Thanks for all the positive comments I have received. I really thoughy by now my store would be making $3000 a month. Time will tell.
There’s no simple answer to this question.
You need to know, the lump sum you will be paid now, versus what you would be receiving monthly at age 62. There are plenty of future value calculators online you can use to see which option pays the most.
Your concern regarding the stability of the pension is valid as well. Based on this, I would strongly consider rolling over the pension into a qualified retirement plane, such as an IRA.
Once in the IRA, or similar plan, your options are endless. The simplest solution may be, to invest in an index fund, such as the total stock market index. You could do this with a very low expense investment company such as Vanguard. This is one of the simplest buy it and forget it methods. Your investment will increase or decrease with the general market.
Beyond this, your options are many. Without knowing any of the specifics, I think rolling the money out of the pension would be my recommendation.
Good luck.
Congrats on the weight loss…
Several years ago, I ended up in the hospital with blood pressure issues. I was put on more blood pressure meds and was told to reduce salt intake and exercise. I was getting very big.
Vowing never to return to the hospital, I radically changed my diet and virtually eliminated my salt intake. This meant no fast food and almost no processed foods. I religiously read labels and became obsessively aware of sodium content in foods.
I meant to exercise, but rarely did.
Much to my surprise, over the course of about 18 months I lost 50 lbs, going from 260 lbs to about 210 lbs. I really didn’t even diet, I just avoided the processed foods. Without realizing it, I made a lifestyle change.
Since i quit trucking, I have the opportunity to ride my bike or hike everyday. I agree with you, it takes time. To get in a decent workout takes anywhere from 45 min to 1 1/2 hours each day. Since Christmas, I have put on about 20 lbs and feel sluggish and fat.
The beauty is I know the formula., I just have to focus and put in the time. I listen to my IPOD while I ride my bike and just go.
I’m still on the blood pressure meds. It’s hereditary and if I have to take the pills forever.. that’s ok. My numbers are good and at times very good.
Regardless of what you do to exercise, being consistent is the key.
It sounds like you’ve figured out a plan that works. I applaud you on your efforts.
Keep us updated..
Update:…..
Monday 3/27 Tracking shows package was delivered.
No tracking activity after that… also no activity to the return case.
Tuesday 4/04 I called Ebay and the case was closed in my favor.
Listening to your experiences with returns and grumpy buyers, really gave me the insight on how to handle this case.
Thank you for the podcast….
I tried Lyft (Similar to Uber) last year.
It’s a great service for the rider, but the money just wasn’t there for me to bother. There were just too many $3.50 rides.
I worked about 6 hours and grossed about $60 (before the Lyft cut was taken out). I also had to pay for gas. Then of course there’s the wear and tear on the car.
Uber is already experimenting with driverless cars, so I’d be surprised to see much of an increase in driver pay or control in the near future.
Then again I guess there are people who love to drive for them. I’d love to hear some real world everyday numbers from them.
