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We are on the same schedule Mike. I don’t see 10pm very often. When we have friends over, they start laughing at the yawns….
My last Controller job had a 50 minute drive up to Ft. Collins (without traffic. With traffic was 90 minutes). That was why I was up at 3:15 and out the door so I could be at the office at 4:30am and get work done before the staff arrived at 8:00. I crank well in the mornings.
I have done biphasic sleep before and really like it. Up at 2am, work until noon, nap from noon to 2pm, awake until 10pm, sleep until 2am. I am very efficient in that morning session, and my 2 hour nap was always more like 1:15. I found out my first sleep cycle is 45 minutes, and my second is 30 minutes. I would wake up at 45 or 1:15 every time.
Only downside is moving in and out of biphasic sleep. Hard to source all day when you want to nap at noon…
Daniel: All good thoughts. Our take has been that we already have put work into the item to get it listed, so if we can net more than what we would get at a garage sale for it, it is worth it. For some of our long items that aren’t moving and we would like to get rid of, we run a clearance sale from 50% to 75% off.
Paul: I contend that we all have a Magic Time where we are most productive. For me, it is early. I haven’t used an alarm clock in years, still get up between 4am-5am every day. And I have to hit my big items first thing. Later in the day…not so good…
“He’s great out of the gate, but not much for stamina…”
My son’s are night owls, and will sleep late and then work until 2am.
Katie: That seems to be similar to what I have heard from some other sellers regarding Poshmark. The crosslisting is pretty easy.
My concerns before going down this route are:
1) Since there isn’t any link to your eBay store, when something sells on Poshmark, I would have to manually end on eBay (and vice versa). SixBit doesn’t interface with Poshmark either. At the level of movement that I’m looking for, managing the inventory could get hairy. As of now, when something sells on Bonanza or TrueGether, I manually enter the order in SixBit to reduce inventory (and prevent SixBit from relisting). It is a small issue, but enough that I want a process around it.
2) It seems Poshmark is very social, and requires a decent amount of time to get traffic to your items. I haven’t done it, so I’m only going on what I heard, but it seems a bit more time consuming.
Right now I’m hoping to get more information on Poshmark and get some processes to deal with these issues, then we may have our second person working with us in September, which would free up some time for us to start expanding to Poshmark.
Keep us informed on how it is going!
Poshmark is something I am interested in. Please let me know how it goes:
1) How long does it take to cross-list?
2) Men’s, Women’s, or Both?
3) How fast do items seem to sell?
Nancy: It works when the item is heavy but smaller. FedEx works on Dimensional weight, including SmartPost (as of this year). So the weight is calculated by taking the length x height x width and dividing by 139.
So the bigger the package, the more the cost.
Most people realize that this can happen and are very nice and helpful.
I would call eBay on the issue and ask about the labels. Otherwise, just have them pay the cost and you can reimburse.
We have traveled a lot and used various WiFi in hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, libraries, and casinos to access eBay. Never had a problem.
I agree with Jay. We have had similar issues before we went to putting SKU numbers on each item.
Try asking if they would mail to each other, and you can send them the money via PayPal to cover them, plus a little for their time.
Mark: I hear you. We were a little caught off guard when they announced this, but once I started running numbers on the potential cost, it just wasn’t very much money to worry about.
I am a whole lot more concerned with finding more quality items, getting them for a great price, and getting items listed as efficiently as possible.
Simon: 100% agree. As long as the INAD is a true INAD. We have had some issues reversed.
Jay: I just remembered. When we had the GSP issue, the buyer had said the broken item was INAD. When I contacted EBay, they made sure that this would not impact us at all. The message we received was the buyer was being fully reimbursed, we were not impacted at all, and we would have no negative impacts on our account.
So, eBay is really keeping in line with Amazon.
“What can I return? — You may return most new, unopened items sold and fulfilled by Amazon within 30 days of delivery for a full refund.”
80% of eBay is new items, so that would mean that eBay’s policy is focused on the big sellers on the site that sell new items. We are just caught in this change (if people choose to be). Plus, most of the big sellers are using FBA so that they have access to the Prime members.
eBay’s Free Returns policy is mostly focused on the big sellers. We are caught in the change, and have the decision to do it or not.
Interesting on Amazon. The last two returns I had on Amazon were free. I didn’t pay a dime. And the last purchase I made on Wal-Mart.com I returned to my local Wal-Mart. Got every dime back. Just an anecdote, not data, but maybe I’m lucky.
One thing that always stays in my mind is that when I return something to a store, I get every cent back. As eCommerce grows and takes over more and more of the Brick & Mortar businesses, the “industry” is getting merged. Amazon and eBay are not just eCommerce businesses, they are retail businesses. Heck, Amazon just bought out Whole Foods. They are FULLY in the retail business.
I think of our business is the same (retail). If I want to have the advantage of the much higher margins and much larger reach that eBay provides over opening a retail B&M store, sometimes I have to take some smaller losses. If I can have more goodwill to my customers to make sure they return to my store, or at least eBay, then I’m helping to grow the customer base of eBay. If I have to invest a small amount of money or time to help grow my (and eBay’s business), then it will be worth it.
A quick back of the envelope on what our potential cost of Return Shipping would be in a given average month using our current numbers:
Total Sales: 350
ASP: $25
Total Revenue: $8,750Assumed Return Rate (Double what we are at now, just to cover an increase in returns using Free Returns): 5%
Total Returns: 18
Cost of Returns (Inflating to $8 to cover a much higher rate than now, since most returns are First Class items at sub $4): $8
Total Return Shipping Cost: $144Return Shipping Cost as a Percentage of Revenue: 1.65%
So, my take? How much time and effort do I want to spend to eliminate a 1.65% cost to my business (if return rates double AND return costs double)? Or do I want to focus on the other 98.35% of my business? I’m not saying that it is nothing, but in the end, I should only give it the amount of time that it is due.
We can all run our businesses the way we want to, and our successes and failures will be a reflection of that. I’m not saying I’m right, or that others are wrong, I’m just saying that this is the math and decision making that we are doing in our business.
Just my two cents… or maybe $144…
