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Picking Pair: You are right, many ways to get things done, so what is the right way for you?
If you want to see how your process looks, just start jotting down the start and stop times on each of your tasks, and the number of items you work on in that timeframe. Track that for a few weeks, and you will get an average time you spend on those tasks. Then, you can see if you want to improve it, implement the change, and then track again. And see how you liked the change.
I started setting up Draft listings instead of using listing sheets. Works great! While I was here at my contract job today, I was able to list 24 items in just under an hour. So even when we get employees, we could use this (or a similar) process, as well as seeing that it can work while we are on the road.
Retro: Agree 100%
Do you have an auto-decline on your offers? If so, and they made three offers that were below your auto-decline, I think the Reply with Offer goes away.
I listened to the podcast this morning, and wanted to talk about the extrapolation of a business. There are valid ways that you can calculate that if you sell 50 items for $500 profit, you can sell 100 items for $1000 profit. There are invalid ways to do it as well.
I spent 20+ years in manufacturing and cost accounting, and forecasting was 50% of my job. Before I decided to quit and move into reselling full time, this type of math is exactly what I did to prove that it can work. I had to, the mortgage payment and feeding the kids was on the line. The largest factor for accuracy is the data you are using. If you have one type of item you have sold (say just one style of iPhone case), and you sold 5 of them, extrapolating to 1000 would not make sense. To your point Jay, at some point, the market is saturated for that style of iPhone case.
But if you expand your category, your data is better. I sold men’s shirts part time on eBay for almost 2 years before I started to extrapolate the data. If I sold just Brooks Brothers shirts, my market data is too narrow and the extrapolation is not as valid (can’t source enough, market saturation, not enough demand). But if I sell 30+ brands of dress shirts for 2 years, the data is better. If I add casual shirts, and western shirts, and pants, and coats…you can see how your market is expanding and extrapolation is more valid. You are able to source the items since you have a wider net, you are getting a wider variety of buyers, and your seasonality is smoothing out.
Also, the above are commodity items, so extrapolation can work much better (depending on brand and style), since there is a larger universe of buyers for these items, versus unique collectibles. I went for more commodity items in the business because I liked it (I stay away from Women’s Clothes as I just don’t care) and because it was a different model that what Veronica was doing, collectible items like what Jay & Ryanne do. Doing more of the same didn’t make sense for the business, as that lacked diversification and her items have a much lower sell thru rate. I wanted items with a 20%-35% sell thru rate, so that cash flow was more fluid and it is easy to store the inventory (filing cabinets are perfect for shirts).
To your comment Ryanne, you have to make the job you enjoy. You like the eclectic collectible items, so that is your main focus. With your ability to store inventory on your property, that is very feasible. But it also is reflected in your low sell thru rate (you guys are about a 4%-5% sell thru rate), which is why it takes 6000+ items to generate the revenue that you do, vs say Amazing Taste that has a 80% sell thru rate. Different businesses, different results. It is all in the business that you want. One is not better than the other, just what you want out of the business.
So for anyone that wants to forecast (which I do all the time), make sure you have a good set of prior data that you have sold first, and make sure you are using reasonable forecasting assumptions. Do what makes sense for your business. For us, I forecast our business based on inventory level, sell thru rate (which gives forecasted sales volume), average selling price (forecasted revenue), and listing activity (forecasted purchases and adjusts inventory levels). I use the last two years of data good information to base my assumptions. It hasn’t failed us yet and actuals usually surprise us to the good (better than expected). And I do this for the entire business, both my clothing and Veronica’s collectibles, and it has proven pretty reliable for us.
So it can be done, you just have to make sure that you understand your business well, use good data, and change your business when the patterns start to change.
Week of 4/23-4/29
Total Items in Store: 1,514
Items Sold: 74
Number of Items Listed This Week: 125
Total Sales: $1,929.20
Cost of Items Sold: $400.19
Highest Item Sold: $180 – HEXBUG VEX IQ Robotics Construction Kit from a Radio Shack Store Closing Sale (Veronica wins this week expanding her lead for the year 9-7).Month of April 2017
Total Items in Store: 1,507
Items Sold: 333
Number of Items Listed This Month: 349
Total Sales: $9,443.64
Cost of Items Sold: $1,943.42We finally broke through the 1,500 inventory level for the first time. And April turned out to be our biggest sale month ever.
Veronica FINALLY had a good day on Friday at the yard sales. The morning was GREAT weather, so we filled the back of our truck with inventory and also a lot of packaging (the neighborhood had their trash day on Friday, so boxes and bubble wrap was out at the same time). Yard sale season has officially started here in Colorado! Of course, then it snowed Friday afternoon and Saturday, so we just listed instead.
FYI on the SCAN sheet, since I have talked about it so much, there are some issues to watch out for. We had a person cancel an order after the label was printed, but before it was picked up. If you do that, you HAVE to pull the SCAN sheet from your bin. If the USPS scans that sheet, ALL the labels are accepted, including the one you plan to void. But if it shows as accepted (from the SCAN), you cannot void. We caught this before it was an issue, so we didn’t lose any money, we just hoped that the shipments for that day are scanned by USPS at the Distribution Center in time.
We also had one crappy day on shipping (Monday), as eBay timed out generating the labels. After 20 minutes, no labels or SCAN sheet. So we went on to other tasks, figuring that we would ship a little later in the day. Then 30 minutes later….PayPal tells us that the shipping charge went through. 21 of the 23 labels we asked for were in eBay, so we had to match up which ones went through, reprint the label (which for some reason had vastly different formatting, so we had to manually cut and tape the labels on the package since it didn’t match up with our adhesive labels), and complete the shipping. So the printing and attaching labels task, which would take 10 minutes, took me 2.5 hours. Not a good day…
Regarding how you do it all with kids, jobs, and eBay? All about disciple and schedule. Schedule your time, and keep to your schedule. And laugh whenever you can!
05/01/2017 at 3:57 pm in reply to: Ebay Shipping Information, Statistics and New Freight Program #17316Understood, and that is to protect the seller if they accept too quickly or have an auto accept. However, we have had numerous cases where they will make an offer and ask for free shipping, or reduced shipping, and we will accept and correct the invoice before payment. Just adds something else to negotiate on.
05/01/2017 at 3:54 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 307: Getting Ready to Sell While Traveling #17315I would call back and try again. I think you got a bad rep. If you show that they were threatening negative feedback to get a partial refund, that is feedback extortion.
PS – Always offer to provide a full refund if they return in your messaging. That always helps in dealing with eBay, as they see you are willing to accept a return, and the buyer is threatening negative feedback to get a reduced price.
I just checked mine on mobile, and it is showing. I can see that they have updated the mobile app, as now all the result titles start with “Brand New” or “Pre-Owned”. I have not seen that before, and I used the app just a few days ago.
05/01/2017 at 2:37 pm in reply to: Ebay Shipping Information, Statistics and New Freight Program #17305We always weigh every item before listing, that way if we get an offer that asks for Free Shipping, we know what the cost would be before accepting.
Jay: +1
05/01/2017 at 2:09 pm in reply to: Ebay Shipping Information, Statistics and New Freight Program #17298I agree that on commodity items, Free Shipping may be a boost. We all know that eBay pushes Free Shipping all the time. And the filter on the left side is a concern.
For clothing, I was a big proponent of Free Shipping for a long time. This January, I switched over to charging for shipping, but I didn’t see any drop in sales. In fact, it seems to have increased. I notice that I get more international sales now that the shipping is separate from the price (since I don’t do Free Shipping internationally).
Like GTC vs 30 Day, this is a big topic that seems to have no resolution, as it is very tough to prove the increase. Outside of polling your customers to see what influenced their buying decision, all you can do is run a test. And I think that would be to have 100 of the same item, 50 on Free and 50 on Charged, and see what the sell thru rate is.
05/01/2017 at 2:00 pm in reply to: Unpaid Auction Item, Buyer offering to pay listing fees. Do I accept? #17297Just let the unpaid item case close, and you will get your fees back. Let the buyer know that you appreciate his concern, but you don’t need him to pay you anything for this.
Jay, I agree in spirit with all that you say, especially on the last paragraph. But there are ways to get to an answer that PickingPair is looking for. And the answer is…it depends… 🙂
I can speak to our business, as that is what I know. Others will have to track and speak to their business, as that is what they know, and that is what is real in their business.
The best predictor of your future success…is your past success. I come from a manufacturing and cost accounting world. We measured everything, found metrics that we wanted to manage and improve, and used that data to predict and forecast the future.
Before my wife and I started this business full-time, my wife was doing this as a hobby. She will admit that she had no inventory control, no accounting and idea of profitability, no idea on what her time was worth, her profit per hour, etc. Or at best, she had a guess on where she was. When I came in to track and provide that data and some management tools, our world moved from hobby to business. It had to, as this is now how we pay the mortgage and feed the kids!
To that point, I track my time spent on each task. I have a spreadsheet where I track the time to perform a task and the number of items I worked on in that time frame. I work in men’s clothes, so that is where I come from. Here are my numbers per item:
Shopping (includes all drive time): 5 min
Prep: 2.4 min
Photo (includes creating draft listing): 11.25 min
Photo Edit: 3.75
Listing (adding photos, research, quality check): 2 min
Shipping: 3 minThe best thing that I can tell you is to track your numbers on each task, keep them on a spreadsheet, and you will start to get an idea of what you numbers are like. Everyone will be different, based on what they source, where they source, quality of photos and listing, etc. But by tracking your process, you can see where you can improve. I tweaked my process a week ago, and shaved about 8 minutes off of my total listing time (photo, photo edit, listing).
And always look to improve! Google, YouTube, forums, etc., will always have new ideas. Some may work, some won’t, but always learn new tricks.
I checked our listings, and no issues on our side. Sales by day are more choppy in the last week, but that could just be buyer activity.
I agree with all above. We have done some consignment, with our percentage ranging from 25% to 50% AFTER all shipping and fees.
Pros are as stated, building inventory and cash without any cash investment (so the ROI on cash is infinite). The Cons are what is the ROI of your TIME, and can you keep a solid relationship while this goes on. The written agreement is huge on this.
If you can go through the items, separate out for garage sale/donation items that sell for less than what you want to make per hour. For example, if you expect $40/hr and you can photo and list 4 items per hour, you could set $10 net profit (your cut based on the % you will keep after shipping and fees) as your line for what to keep, so that you are working for $40/hour. Factor in shipping time for items that take longer to pack into your listing time. The car should be a separate item completely.
Also, make sure that they understand that what they paid for each item, or what they think it is worth, does not matter. The eBay market sets the price, and they have to know that up front. Communicate that clearly.
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