Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
02/15/2017 at 12:17 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 297: Being Frugal vs Running A Business #12597
I have the same question as Linda and Beth, namely, *why* does it have to flatten out so quickly, before storage becomes an issue? Is there an intuitive example of why this happens for reselling?
For example, if your business is picking cherries, and each worker can pick 10 boxes a day, then every additional worker adds the same incremental revenue & profit. You’re going to have to reach a really high number of cherry picker workers before the curve starts to flatten out, but of course it will happen eventually b/c they’ll be a bottleneck/lineup of workers waiting to put their full boxes of cherries into the truck or storage facility, so each incremental worker will no longer be able to produce 10 boxes a day in time to go home at 5pm, b/c they’ll have to allocate some of their time to standing in line. Now if your business is baking cakes and you have only one oven, then that curve is going to flatten out pretty quickly, b/c you can add tons more workers, but the oven can only bake X cakes per day.
So usually the flattening out of the curve happens b/c of a process/resource bottleneck of some sort. What’s the bottleneck in the case of reselling? Or is there some other factor that is causing the flattening out? Why wouldn’t the 50th pair of shoes sell for $50 just like the first pair of shoes?
To make my post even longer, I’ll say that I can see a flattening out *eventually*, say when you have such a huge inventory that you need to walk half a mile down the aisle of the huge warehouse to grab an item to ship. Then the additional time spent storing and gathering up inventory will eat into your time so much as to become a real cost, thus eating into profits. But I don’t see that happening for inventories of size <10,000. What am I missing?
I would answer that kind of question roughly like this:
“This is a difficult question, as different people smell things differently, and also have different levels of sensitivity to smells. Here’s what I can tell you:
1) I store this item in a bin/box/closet. When I open this bin/box/closet, I don’t notice any smell (like I sometimes do if an item does have a smell, which then gets concentrated when stored in an enclosed space).
b) It does not have the strong moldy/musty smell that I have noticed on some vintage items in thrift/antique shops.”It’s also a little easier for me to answer this question, since I am *very* sensitive to smells of various kinds, so I also mention this to the customer, as a way to imply that if I don’t detect the smell, then it’s not there.
WHiteNileVintage,
That sounds really frustrating!! Sorry to hear this is happening to you. Were any of the 5 reps you spoke to in the Appeals Department? The first INAD return I had, didn’t get resolved in my favor, and the whole thing seemed crazy to me since the INAD reason was phrased very strangely. I ended up speaking to two different Appeals Dept reps. The first one was completely unhelpful, and just made me more upset. So I called right back and got another one. The second one was really professional and reasonable. Although he didn’t change the resolution, he did give me a “courtesy refund” for a reason that isn’t relevant here.I wouldn’t give up until you had spoken to at least 2 or 3 Appeals Dept reps. You have to ask the rep that picks up the phone to connect you to the Appeals Dept.
I feel for you. The buyer here seems to be unreasonable (in not accepting the solution of you sending two more pieces), and these types of situations make me extra paranoid about pointing out even the tiniest flaws when I’m listing (which takes a lot of time), but technically if the two pieces are missing, they have a right to the return. (even if it’s buyer’s remorse hiding behind INAD). It’s actually kind of tough call for eBay, IMO. They (and we) cannot afford to lose buyers in this age of Amazon. If this isn’t something that is happening to you all the time, I would just eat the cost and move on (after bugging the hell out of the appeals dept).
I would make sure to include the term “marketing”. What you’re doing when you create a clear, descriptive and alluring title and description and photos, plus the pricing research is all product marketing. Also the packaging decision of figuring out what items to sell individually and which to group in lots. Even the decisions about what things to source and not source are all marketing activities. In fact, I’d say that what we do is more marketing than it is sales, since we hardly spend any time actually interacting with potential customers, or cold calling, or following up on leads, or producing forecasts, etc – the typical activities of a sales person. I suppose the time spent responding to best offers would be categorized under “sales.”
call eBay
02/10/2017 at 12:19 am in reply to: Would you ship nice casual shoes in a padded flat rate envelope? #12200Thanks for the minority vote input, Terri. That’s the strategy I’ve been using so far, but I think I’m ready to try PFRE for casual shoes. I really like your method of saying in the listing that you can ship in a box if they want – I may try that, too.
02/09/2017 at 5:10 pm in reply to: Would you ship nice casual shoes in a padded flat rate envelope? #12178that makes sense. Thanks for the additional info.
02/08/2017 at 7:01 pm in reply to: Would you ship nice casual shoes in a padded flat rate envelope? #12096Thanks, folks, for the input and advice. You gave me the extra push I needed to take the plunge. I am going to list with PFRE! woohoo
Well, it was worth a try. I love discovering new obscure high-end designers/makers even if, as you say, the name doesn’t actually matter in the end.
02/07/2017 at 6:27 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 296: Are You Keeping Up With Your Inventory System? #12000thank you b_p, I’ll check it out.
02/07/2017 at 2:50 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 296: Are You Keeping Up With Your Inventory System? #11978brooklyn_procurement,
Would you be willing to share the name of the company you found to help with sales tax?
thanks
02/06/2017 at 6:32 pm in reply to: Snow delays causing sales to show up in late shipment report #11932So much for
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”I recently had the same situation – two times. I just shipped late and didn’t worry about the consequences to my late shipment rate, since almost all of my shipments normally ship on time.
Just now I went and checked the detailed report of my seller ratings, and it turns out that only one of the delayed shipping transactions was being counted by eBay. The one that wasn’t counted was a GSP sale, which makes me wonder if somehow GSP sales are tracked differently by eBay…
the clothing is also typical Ukrainian or other eastern european ethnic wear.
This is definitely an eastern european, maybe Ukrainian, scene that depicts christmas carolers. Ukrainian carolers always carry a big star like that, and dress up as animals and other characters. Russians may have the same tradition, I’m not sure.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/375346950168157286/
From brama.com, a ukrainian website
Caroling required extensive preparation. Each group had a leader. One member dressed as a goat. Another as a bag carrier, the collector of all the gifts people would give them. Yet another carried a six-pointed star attached to a long stick with a light in its center, which symbolized the Star of Bethlehem. In some places the people even had musical instruments, such as the violin, tsymbaly (dulcimer), or the trembita (a wooden pipe about 8-10 feet long, used in the Carpathian mountains by the Hutsuls).Caroling was not a simple singing of Christmas songs; it was more of a folk opera. The carolers first had to ask for permission to sing. If the answer was yes, they entered the house and sang carols for each member of the family, even for the smallest child. Sometimes they even performed slow ritualistic dances. They also had to present a short humorous skit involving the goat. The custom of the goat accompanying the carolers has its origin in the pagan times when the goat represented the god of fertility. The skit showed the goat dying and then being brought back to life. This also symbolized the death of Winter and the birth of Spring. The caroling always ended with short well-wishing poems, appropriately selected for each home.
-
AuthorPosts