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01/25/2020 at 3:29 pm in reply to: How to list an item when you can’t find any info about it’s very existence? #73283
Antique Frog,
That’s a good point (and pun)! I don’t remember the pamphlet showing a dead cat anywhere, so for some people, reading it might have the opposite of the intended effect. 🙂I must not have learned my lesson, b/c about a few years later, I got zapped when trying to fix a curling iron while it was plugged in. D’oh!
If you go into Communication Preferences in Settings, there is a setting on whether you want to get an email when you receive an offer from a seller (“offers to buyers”). I was getting tons of these offer to buyer emails for items I was just watching as a seller, so I turned it off. Now these offers just show up under the alerts bell when I’m on the website.
re: the question of whether the ebay pendulum is swinging in the buyer’s favor or the seller’s favor these days, I actually had a very positive experience with ebay today as a seller with a *maybe* false INAD. Sold a Kate Spade bag which the buyer said was inauthentic “b/c they know Kate Spade bags”, but didn’t provide any proof of this, and opened a return. Since I got the bag for just a couple of dollars and I’m no bag expert, I decided I didn’t want to risk having to pay for return shipping, so I refunded the buyer the price of the bag (not including original shipping) and let them keep the bag. They then opened a case, which ebay resolved by refunding them the original shipping from their own funds and not charging me, which I think is great! I then blocked the buyer and am going my merry way. Note: they did this even though I *do not* offer free returns.
01/24/2020 at 11:29 am in reply to: How to list an item when you can’t find any info about it’s very existence? #73244Antique Frog – you are so funny!
Thanks for making me remember this awesome safety pamphlet we got as kids in the 1970s – second photo of this etsy listing:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/725861102/vintage-soil-conservation-pamphletsFor some reason the middle pictures of the page on the top right have always stuck with me. Probably b/c they were cool but never made sense to me – there’s no way I would get zapped if I did that with the vacuum cleaner cord (for some reason it was always specifically the vacuum cleaner cord that I imagined). I think they should have colored the cord black (as in the uninsulated section of cord in the 1st picture) instead of pink, which would have avoided much wasted energy thinking about this periodically over the years. I wonder if the illustrator ever imagined his/her work would have such a long-lasting impact on someone. (OK, this paragraph is an example of someone working ebay alone and not having anybody to talk to!).
I second the motion on over-researching being okay at times – you learn stuff you can use later. At least some of it, anyway. Plus it’s fun!
I never have. But the ones I’ve gotten have not been hairy or smelly or dirty.
01/20/2020 at 6:19 pm in reply to: Item listed AS-IS FOR PARTS in every possible place, buyer wants to return… #73120That’s right – false INAD cases do not get removed ever. Even if the buyer realizes that they made a mistake (I got an INAD once b/c the buyer thought the belt to a jacket was missing, only to find it later, but they couldn’t take that INAD back). The only recourse left to the seller is to refund less than the full amount, and that may only be available for those who offer free returns – not sure. But the INAD will still stay on your service metrics for 3 or 12 months, depending on your sales volume.
For research nerds that love all the details:
The man has a traditional Kozak hairdo called a chupryna:
https://www.ukrainiandanceworld.com/single-post/2014/09/05/ChuprynaAnd the woman, as is traditional for married women, has her head wrapped in a scarf like this:
https://portal.lviv.ua/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/105000_original.jpgNot sure what’s going on with the upside down jug.
It’s Ukrainian (cyrillic alphabet). It says “zhyttia sklalosia”, which literally means something like “life has worked out well”, just not as awkward sounding. I guess if you have a wife you love and you are eating a huge pierogi (that’s actually the Polish name for it; in Ukrainian a pierogi is a varennyk), life is good. Yeah, actually, that’s probably a better (though less literal) translation: “life is good”.
Ashtray – LOL!
Mm – now I’m getting hungry for some fresh varennyky with sauteed onions and sour cream, but none to be found! 🙁
Here’s the cyrillic:
життя склалосяAre you sure those are offers sent to you and not offers you sent to watchers that were ignored by them?
01/16/2020 at 12:24 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: 3 tier starburst server, 1000 slides, Headphone volume contr #72993Some of my best sales of 2019:
Lot of 3 apricot skincare products. Paid $4.50, sold for $50 in 1 day.
Crabtree and Evelyn perfumed oil. Purchased for $1.50, sold for $80 in 3 days.
Antique amber glass light bulb cover. Purchased for 25c, sold for $60 in 3 months.
Lindberg rimless eyeglasses/frames. Purchased for $1. Sold for $100 in 3 months.
My best sale ever! Vintage lighted Santa scene. Purchased for $10, sold for $400 in one day.
But actually, it’s simple: you’re the seller, you’re supposed to remit, ebay is just doing you a favour by taking care of it.
No, mostly not. All the new state sales tax laws that are coming out that everyone has been talking about say that *ebay* (the marketplace) is supposed to collect and remit the tax, not the individual sellers. So they are following the law, not doing us any favors. No way they would be doing this if they didn’t have to.
That said, they are doing some of us a favor for some of our in-state sales. Before all the latest hullabaloo, some states did have laws making sellers collect and submit taxes for taxable in-state sales. Ebay now collects and remits those as well as the inter-state sales taxes, so that I do consider being a favor. But that’s just a small percentage of my taxable sales.
“Take an expert in any category that requires some level of higher education or niche knowledge “
I think that’s the crux of your point that I missed before. Since I’m most familiar with the example of Steven Schultz and vintage stereo equipment (and not as familiar with what you do), I can wholeheartedly agree that Goodwill would find it very hard to compete with him in that category. But as a whole, my observation is that type of item is a very small percentage of the donations that they get, and that for at least 90% of their stuff, they could fairly easily replace today’s self-employed resellers with their own army of cleaners, photographers, listers, and packers. Luckily, there is still plenty of stuff that one can get for cheap at yard sales and auctions.
If they can somehow manage to take away my job while managing to do about 10% of the work, good for them.
My point is that it wouldn’t be too hard for them to change their approach and do 100% of the work, thereby eliminating many independent reseller jobs and turning them into listing jobs. Almasty has posted a link higher up in this thread to an article that describes one Goodwill franchise doing exactly that.
01/13/2020 at 11:02 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 444: Is Cross Posting The New Reality? #72917almasty,
Thanks for clarifying your thinking. What you describe does indeed sound very stressful and exhausting, and I’m sorry that that’s what you’re continually going through. I myself (small seller of only 3 years) have only recently come to the realization that big changes in the market may come sooner than I am ready for, which is very different from my feeling up till now, which was “Yay! I’m so glad I found this reselling thing. I could be happy doing exactly what I’m doing now, forever.” My ability to adapt to changes larger than just annoying tweaks to the ebay platform and new fashion trends is going to be tested sooner rather than later, I think. 🙁I also agree very strongly with your point on (not) sugarcoating. I just think there’s a way to explain that some resellers’ behavior is causing problems for other resellers without insulting anybody. But that’s close to impossible to do in a vent session, so I hear ya.
Good luck in keeping your cash cow niche!
how cool! Thanks for sharing your story, WabashValleyRelics.
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