[T-Satt]

Week of 2/11-2/17
Total Items in Store: 1,843 (Up 32% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 86
Number of Items Sold: 66 (Down 10% YOY)
(Includes 1 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 2 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 15% (Down 7% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $1,542 (Up 24% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $327
Highest Item Sold: $65 – Columbia Padded Shoulder Shooting Jacket
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and leads the year at 5-2. (the Xbox sale last week for Veronica fell through, and Troy had the next highest sale.)

eBay Clothing
# Listed: 1,088
# Sold: 55
STR: 22%
ASP: $23.69

eBay Shoes
# Listed: 116
# Sold: 1
STR: 4%
ASP: $25.00

eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 639
# Sold: 9
STR: 6%
ASP: $22.32

Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 155
# Sold: 1
STR: 3%
ASP: $12.90

On the business front, overall sales have picked up a bit from the past week, and so far this week has been good as well. But while our STR is down 7% YOY, our ASP is up 37% YOY which accounts for the overall growth in revenue. Hard goods continue to struggle, which I still hold is related to the FedEx SNAFU. The drop from 17%-20% range down to 8%-9% is the same week as the SNAFU. Just too coincidental. We rarely sell anything now unless it has flat rate shipping.

On the personal front, listings are a little down as I continue to prep for the Colorado Trail. I did a day hike to shake down my pack, 8 miles in 3 hours with a pack weight of 47 lbs with 4 days of food. Did a reassessment of gear and pack is now down to 40 lbs, and will probably shed 4-5lbs more with new sleeping bag and tent before the trek starts. Practiced some hiking hacks and I have been making one-pot meals with the stove and cook kit to make sure practice is there, and I’ve started sleeping on the basement floor to test out sleep systems (pads & bags). Now, if the snow would stop and the weather get warm again to get more miles it would help! Good news is that with this job, I can hit trails during the week when the weather is good to avoid crowds, and hunker down and list when it is cold.

[T-Satt]

So, here is a quick test on our sales. All shipments are from 80020

Package of 12x12x10, 4 lbs:
to 74137: SmartPost – $17.03, Home Delivery $12.51
to 60411: SmartPost – $18.29, Home Delivery $15.07
to 13053: SmartPost – $24.43, Home Delivery $20.26
to 16830: SmartPost – $25.02, Home Delivery $21.26
to 94597: SmartPost – $18.29, Home Delivery $15.07

For a box 12x12x8, 4 lbs:
to 74137: SmartPost – $11.84, Home Delivery $12.17
to 60411: SmartPost – $12.50, Home Delivery $14.77
to 13053: SmartPost – $15.57, Home Delivery $19.38
to 16830: SmartPost – $16.16, Home Delivery $20.38
to 94597: SmartPost – $12.50, Home Delivery $14.77

Obviously there is a DIM component in there, but it really does not make sense that those 2 inches are making that big of a difference…

I’m not sure this is fixed yet…

[T-Satt]

Yeah, not good.

Interesting too that my Concierge person that was working on this for me sent me a message that it wasn’t fixed. It is just very wonky right now. We will be doing our shipping soon and I will run some more tests on our account. Not sure if it is account by account, or some other metric whether it works or not.

[T-Satt]

World perspectives are always shaped vastly by experience. While we debate these issues, I wonder what people in third world countries would think of our “issues”.

We are all on this forum in the top 1% of income in the world. We are the upper class, squabbling about these issues, when they struggle for things we take for granted.

We never really appreciate how good we have it, in the world today, and in comparison to history. I try to find great joy every day that I am here, where I am, with what I have. Most of the world would give anything to have my “troubles”.

[T-Satt]

That “stuff” in this case is money. Any compulsory entitlement is just that. Someone exists, therefore they deserve the money to pay for their entitlement.

[T-Satt]

Amen to that Jay. That is what I have been looking into, raising the ASP, but the effects of buying less, lowering STR, and spending more time sourcing. A lot of moving parts…

[T-Satt]

When I finish, it will be. I love that I have the opportunity to do this. If all goes well on the Colorado Trail, the Appalachian Trail is up next…

[T-Satt]

See, and that is where we disagree. I do not believe that healthcare is a human right. Much like other entitlements, I do not believe in the philosophy of “I exist, therefore I deserve stuff. Others must give it to me.”

I believe “I exist, and it is my responsibility to provide for myself. If I choose to be in a group and follow the group rules, I get the responsibilities and benefits of the group.”

I don’t believe in equality of outcome, I believe in equality of opportunity.

[T-Satt]

That really goes to the heart of the issue…how to pay for it. Canadians have a much larger tax burden than the US does to be able to afford that coverage. It is not easy to break out how much of the increase in taxes is direct to health care, but it is in there.

That is the main crux of the argument…how to pay for it. Will health care be compulsory or voluntary?

Philosophically, my question is this: Whose responsibility is it for health care? Government or individual?

[T-Satt]

No problem. I had thought that as well as that was what I had heard third hand. But it didn’t make sense that the DIM was the issue on SmartPost, when Home Delivery was cheaper. They are both on the same DIM calculation (from what I understood), so why would the slower method be more expensive? So to me, the SP cost was wrong (and compounded by the issue that it was not the price passed on to the buyer).

So I would recommend that all Trash Elves do some testing as well. Take a current sale that you have and check what the cost would be if you shipped via SmartPost. If it seems to be back in the range of last year, it should be fixed. You can also check it against the 2018 rate table at http://www.efulfillmentservice.com/shiprates/fedex-smartpost-2018 to make sure that it is appropriate.

Anything that is really large won’t match that rate chart, but most items 16x12x8 or so should work

[T-Satt]

100% agree Jay. That is the big issue that I have with the bugs. I never like it when they show up, but I understand that sometimes they happen. I just never know when they are fixed.

When we had the issue last year where buyers in Puerto Rico couldn’t pay for our items because eBay thought they were International Shipping on our account, the issue went on for a couple of months and we never heard anything about it. Then suddenly, we get a sale from Puerto Rico and everything is working fine. We never were contacted that the fix had been made. It just was.

I always appreciate that eBay gives us the ability to contact them about issues that we are having so that they can get fixed. It is just painful to ever find out WHEN they are fixed…

Great at RECEIVING the information, but not at GIVING the information.

[T-Satt]

Jay, you make a good point about your straw man you call Freedom Man. He makes all the bad choices, and we all have to pay for it. But even if we go to the “utopia” of Single Payer system…Freedom Man will get the same result. He can make all the bad choices, and because we are a caring nation, we all pay for it. So…nothing changes.

Yes, if your straw man makes poor choices, he gets a poor result. As he should. Will he get help? I’m sure he will. We are also a charitable nation, giving money to those in need. There is a large amount of charitable giving in this country. And it is VOLUNTARY.

My only point is that I believe that health care is between me, my doctor, and my insurance company. I should get the coverage that I deem fit for me and my family, not forced by law into something I don’t choose. I don’t believe that in a nation of over 300 Million people, that a small group of people can make the right choices for all of us in regards to the type of insurance that we need. We are too diverse of a nation, with different needs, values, and resources.

Should Freedom Man be held accountable for his poor choices? Yes. We all are, every day. Finances, relationships, careers, health…we all are the sum total of the decisions that we make.

[T-Satt]

Mallybills: Thanks for the update. I was doing my own checking yesterday, and was coming to the same conclusion. Once the bug hit, the calculated cost was much higher than the past year, to the point where Home Delivery was always cheaper (but more than what was charged to the buyer). So periodically, I have been checking items by seeing what eBay would charge if I shipped via FedEx rather than USPS, and yesterday, for the first time, our calculated rate for SmartPost seemed appropriate.

I can also see that one of our shipments of Hard Goods today going to New York has the correct SmartPost rate (comparing eBay’s rate to the SmartPost rate on efulfillmentservice.com).

The good news is that I will turn FedEx Smartpost back on for our listings. That lower rate is huge for us getting sales. As an example, the buyer of this item today lives in New York, for a package 16x10x4, 8 lbs, the FedEx SmartPost Rate is $15 (and checking efulfillmentservice.com, they show $14.94), so the rate looks correct again. The buyer of this item paid Parcel Select through USPS (since we stopped offering FedEx) at $26.37. That difference between Parcel Select and USPS of $11.37 I know has been killing our sales for the past few weeks on Hard Goods.

Thanks again for the update. Very much appreciated.

PS – To take a small tack from Jay’s comment. Is there a possibility that when we call eBay with an issue, that when that issue is sent to an eBay team to be worked on, that the issue is given a ticket number that we can track? I have worked in a few large corporations, and when we log something with IT, we get a message with a tracking number on our issue, and we get automated updates on where the issue is (working, fixed, pending, etc.). Is there a way that something like this can be done with eBay? It would be very helpful for sellers to know when there issues are fixed.

Thanks again!

[T-Satt]

Paul: What were your numbers during this week last year? And how does this year compare? What were your sales trends during these weeks in prior years?

Dig into that data before you make too many decisions.

You can still do what you need short term, but knowing what your seasonal trends are will let you know if changes are normal or signs that a change is needed.

[T-Satt]

I just saw on the previous posts you are in SF Bay. Wow, I commend you for living there. I did some consulting gigs there in my (distant) past. Some nice parts about it, but too many people and too expensive for our taste. As it is, Denver is getting bigger each year. The good news is that I can be out and in the mountains fast…

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