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Totally understand.
If you want to track them, then I would set up a spreadsheet so that you only have to enter the Inventory Quantity and the Number of Sales each week. STR will then calculate for you. And you can pick if you want to report a Weekly STR or a Monthly STR.
I would never say the numbers don’t matter much, unless you are doing something for fun. If it is business, the numbers always matter.
And yes, you have to have some interest in what you are selling. No question. But I also never thought that selling clothes would be interesting. Once I ran the numbers and saw that it was profitable first, THEN I started doing it on my own. If it wasn’t profitable, I wouldn’t be doing it as a business…I would do it as a hobby.
For me, if it is part of the business, the numbers have to be good first. Then I can see if I like it.
Mark: For me, I may THINK I know something about the business, but until I can prove it, it can’t be relied on. That is why I stick with the numbers. Before I started tracking the splits lately (Clothes vs Hard Goods), I would have said that the STR is lower on clothes, but the ASP is higher. But that has not been the case lately. So is that a seasonal issue with Jackets & Suits picking up? Or are there smaller items we are purging from stale inventory that is bringing the Hard Goods down? I have the data now to see what is driving it.
I also want to keep this data to understand what our future looks like. I forecast our year (actually, the current year and 2 future years). Right now I do that on just the top level STR and ASP, but I am looking to expand that and forecast Clothing, Hard Goods, and Shoes separately. And my forecast is also my tool that I use to run What-Ifs. By having the data and the splits, I can see what happens if we bring on an employee, how the numbers look if they do 6 items per hour vs 10, or if I pay $12/hr or $15/hr.
I think that looking at your STR and ASP are essential, as they are the benchmarks for what your revenue is. Though I think that seeing the Average Profit is telling as well. That is where you can see where you are really going, and what a change in the business will do for your bottom line. So, to answer your question, I would track STR, ASP, and AP (Average Profit).
These numbers don’t take long to get to. For those numbers on a weekly basis, it should take 10 minutes per week. With my breakouts, it takes me about 20 minutes to calculate.
“Just curious as to what your accountant\scavenger brain thinks about all of this.” — Accountvenger Brain…I’m going with that…
Completely agree with Cyndi on that point. She works with a business consultant since this IS her full time business, and they are 100% right. I come from a business background, so I’m already wired this way, but I also spent a lot of time in Manufacturing, so KPI’s are HUGE. “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.”
As to my numbers…Excel is my other significant other. I spend as much time with Excel as I do Veronica. But the basis for many of my numbers is SixBit and eBay itself. SixBit has the most, but I still have to augment the data to provide it meaning. For most of the ones you are discussing (STR and ASP by Category and Platform), I download the past week’s sales from SixBit into Excel, add a column for the Platform and Category, and then plug in those values. After that, a few pivot tables and I have what I need.
The best way to answer your question is with a question: What do you want to know?
I drill down into these three categories so that I can see how they impact the business, what to do more of, how long things sell, etc. And I want the breakout of Etsy to see what it’s overall return is for the extra time and cost to list there.
I used to have many more categories when I was on EAT, but I have just started to break things down again recently. I’m thinking to break down clothing more like I had before (Shirts, Pants/Jeans, Suits/Sport Coats, Jackets). My downside right now is time and effort to get there, but it is something I want to know. It gives me the ability to see how long I am investing my capital in certain areas (STR) and what the payoff is when it sells (ASP). To your point, it could tell me to focus on one area over others (though one week ain’t enough data…need much more), but that is why I’m tracking it.
PS – We aren’t getting out of Hard Goods unless we get a divorce…that is Veronica’s baby and what she loves! But…seeing these numbers does have her looking at her purchasing in a different light, to see what she can do to increase her ASP. Just like I am doing with looking for what I can get into (we have some new markets we are looking at) and what to get out of.
Congratulations on the upcoming retirement and your beginnings in a new adventure! Very cool!
“but I overcame technology and triumphed in the end.” — Best line I have read today, and man…have I had THOSE days…
Geoff: Well done on the growth of the inventory value you have listed. That is huge!
Week of 12/24-12/30
Total Items in Store: 1,644
Number of Items Listed: 88
Number of Items Sold: 58
(Includes 0 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 15%Total Product Sales: $1,507
Cost of Items Sold: $366
Gross Profit for Week: $878
Highest Item Sold: $100 – Rock Revival Feeney Jeans
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Veronica wins for the year 27-25.eBay Clothing
# Listed: 953
# Sold: 32
STR: 14%
ASP: $28.32eBay Shoes
# Listed: 91
# Sold: 4
STR: 19%
ASP: $48.73eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 691
# Sold: 26
STR: 16%
ASP: $18.43Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 121
# Sold: 0
STR: 0%
ASP: $0First week after Christmas…and every platform except eBay is silent. We just had a TrueGether sale today (1/1), but amazing how of all the platforms, eBay and Amazon are the two that keep chugging along.
Dealing with an interesting case right now. A lady in Canada purchased a sweater in early December, and when she receives it, she says that she did not know that there was a knit band on the bottom hem. The photos on the mannequin hint at that, but since it is so tight, you never see the band. She files an item not as described case with eBay, and we accept it. Because it is in Canada, I can’t purchase a return label for her unless I go through Canada Post directly. I told her (after she sent very snotty and snarky messages about how we were deceitful and fraudulent by not taking a picture of the band collar, which we ignored) that if she will return the sweater and pay for the return shipping up front, I will give her a full refund, including the return shipping, once we receive the sweater.
A few days goes by, and suddenly I get a message from eBay that the case is closed…because she opened up a PayPal “Not Authorized” case. Now I’m pretty ticked off. I contact eBay, and they were shocked that she was that brazen to try this, but said I have no bad marks or issues on their end. The tracking was automatically sent from eBay to PayPal, so I call PayPal and they closed it immediately in our favor.
Then a few days later, we get a message saying “hey, I sent this back, and shipping was $12, so let me know when you send that to me. And I tried to upload the tracking to eBay, but the return case was closed. Isn’t that strange?”
Through grit teeth, I only I told her it closed because she opened a PayPal case.
She said “oh, eBay must have done that…I didn’t”.
I just said that IF I get the sweater back, I’ll pay for everything I said I would. I will keep my word.
Really? You have a feedback score of 12. We have over 5800. And you are going to lie like that and think we would buy it?
I wanted to go off and let her know how horrible her actions were, and that by trying to scam us out of the sweater with PayPal (if she won, she would have the sweater AND the money)…but I kept it professional and only to the facts.
As many of you have said on this forum…keep it to the facts and remove the emotion. Works very well in a case that is VERY much possible of spiraling me into a universe of ticked off from which there is a long return to normalcy…
Welcome and glad you are posting your numbers.
For your STR, if you want to calculate your week, it was 5.19% (4/77). That means that you sold 5.19% of your inventory that week.
If you want to see what that would be for the month (I always use monthly numbers, so that monthly STR and weekly STR are on the same basis), your week was 22.26% (((4/7)*30)/77).
Going to listen to the podcast later this Christmas. Want to get my numbers up before we shut down for the holiday…
Week of 12/17-12/23
Total Items in Store: 1,670
Number of Items Listed: 72
Number of Items Sold: 75
(Includes 2 Etsy, 3 Bonanza, 2 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 19%Total Product Sales: $2,036
Cost of Items Sold: $359
Gross Profit for Week: $1,486.81
Highest Item Sold: $150 – VTG Sears Western Shearling Suede Leather Coat
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 27-23.eBay Clothing
# Listed: 871
# Sold: 41
STR: 20%
ASP: $29.87eBay Shoes
# Listed: 81
# Sold: 4
STR: 21%
ASP: $27.47eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 718
# Sold: 28
STR: 17%
ASP: $22.39Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 114
# Sold: 2
STR: 8%
ASP: $37.42We are looking to grow more into shoes, so I decided to start breaking those out in our numbers. I am interested to see what the STR is on our shoes.
We started using Shippo late this week to handle our shipping. So far, love it! This is a free partnership though eBay (Google “eBay Shipping Partner Platform”) so it doesn’t cost anything. We can print labels at any time, and then put them on the SCAN sheet for the post office later, which speeds up our process. We can have our Etsy orders pull directly to Shippo, and I can manually add the Bonanza and TrueGether sales to Shippo as well, which puts them all on the same SCAN sheet. The best parts for me are that we can pay for the shipping on our PayPal debit card, so 1% cash back. Also, Shippo has the Commercial Plus Pricing (like eBay, but better than PayPal and Etsy), so those shipments will be cheaper going forward. And they don’t bill your shipping until you reach $100 ($25 on your first orders). Only downside is having to put in the dimensions on EVERYTHING, and the dimensions don’t pull over from eBay, but we can work around that.
Had a funny story this week. On Thursday, we noticed at 6:30 that our packages had not been picked up. I went to check the mail to see if they had come around and sure enough, they had. I grabbed our bin of packages and drove to the post office. They close at 6:00, but I just drove to the back to see if I could get someone to pick up our packages. A man was walking out and I explained what I was doing, and he had me pull around to another door to drop off the packages. When I told him that they missed our pickup, he asked what our address was. After I told him, his face fell and he said “That was me that missed it”. He said he saw our note in our mailbox (permanently affixed to the inside door) to check the porch for packages, but he didn’t see any. I told him you have to walk up as we keep them hidden from the street view. He apologized but I told him no worries, I’m just glad that they are getting shipped.
What are the odds that HE would be the one that I would run into to get these dropped off? A Christmas Miracle!
“and my post master confirmed that the GPS location at the last scan was at her house. ”
How did you get the GPS location of the last scan? Did you call your local post office?
For me, the take away was…provide great customer service!
Some things don’t change, no matter what business…or decade…
