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I’m not sure how often this happens to others, but we rarely have the case where someone pays and the asks us to hold. When they did, we complied with their request. As long as we are doing our job on the other 99% of our shipments, one “late shipment” should not be an issue. EBay doesn’t ask us to be 100%, but 95%, so customer service takes priority. I would rather they have a great experience and shop again, than worry about one “late shipment”.
John, your Amazon numbers are crazy! If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of net profit % do you average each month, after COGS, Returns and Amazon fees? We stopped FBA as the margins were too low and fees too high, but we know some people kill it there.
Just listened to the podcast, and liked your conversation about the scan sheets. We moved to this so that when Guaranteed Delivery happens, we make sure we are covered and have a scan and won’t have to pay a refund for shipping if we handle timely.
Ryanne: We are like you, doing our shipping at different times of the day, but we only print the labels at 10 am each morning. The way that we use the bulk shipping to get the Scan Sheet, we pack the item up, write an item description (short), the buyers last name, zip, and the weight on the package, but we don’t ship yet. The hard part is done when we want. Then at 10 am, we do the final shipping, packing the items that sold overnight, and then print all the labels and the Scan Sheet at that time. Works for us!
Week of 3/26-4/1
Total Items in Store: 1,480
Items Sold: 74
Number of Items Listed This Week: 63
Total Sales: $2,112.76
Cost of Items Sold: $348.92
Highest Item Sold: $90 – Vintage Gone With The Wind Style Hurricane Lamp (Veronica wins this week)Sales remain strong for us, in fact, March was our best month ever at $9,306 in sales, and we hit our best rolling 90-Day sales quantity, 791.
We missed our goal of listing 100 items per week. I didn’t get as much listed as I wanted, though Veronica was still strong. I moved my activity to more photo and prep, as my contract job asked me to hang around for 2 more days next week in case they need me, and they are OK with me putting listings on eBay while I am there. Gotta love being paid for the same hours twice!
More rainy weather on the weekend, so our only sourcing was still in the thrift stores. We will be prepping more this week for some time off next week. We are going to visit our oldest son in college and will be able to see him pitch while we are up there. So 3.5 days of low work output, but we hope to get some new listings up and do some sourcing while we are there.
That is why we love this job!
Completely agree about consistency. I track our sell thru rate each month, as well as the new listings we do each month. Every time we increase or keep our listings the same over last month, our sell through rate is strong. If we list less than the past month, our sell thru rate goes down. End of the day — JKL – Just Keep Listing!!!
We have had this happen twice, but the shirts sold within a day of each other. We used Jay’s advice, had the first mail to the second and reimbursed the shipping and gave a couple of bucks for the pain. Worked fine.
Talk with your buyers and you should be fine.
MEF: One other item that will help your sell thru rate…always list. I have tracked our numbers each month, and with only a couple exceptions, when we generate more listings than in the previous month, our sell through rate increases. When we list less items than in the previous month, our sell through rate decreases. The only exceptions we have are in November (always an increase with the holidays) and January (always a decrease with the holiday hangover).
Though we are full time, we have been somewhat sporadic due to my contract work, which sometimes is 0 days a week, sometimes 2/wk, sometimes the whole week, and our listing numbers show that variability. But without fail, the one thing you can control is how much you list. And our numbers always show that the more we list, the more we sell.
To get to your level, it will take a LOT of listing, but it can be done. I’m forecasting to be consistently over the $10k/mo revenue line starting in Sept of this year for the first time, but our average selling price is around $21-$22 per item (before shipping cost), so we need bigger volume or bigger pop per item to get bigger in 2018.
Keep cranking and let us know how you are doing. Hope you get there! We love to see goals and hard work produce success!
MEF: You definitely have the mindset and the thoughts about the numbers to make this work. To your original point of whether to upgrade, I would see what you pay in your basic subscription fee plus your individual listing fees (the ones above your store limit), and when you are paying more each month than what you would with the next level up, time to level up. If you aren’t already crossing that line, you will be soon.
We have the Premium store now, and on the yearly subscription we pay $60/Mo. With the extra listing fees above 1,000 we are around $90-$130 per month total. The anchor store is $300/mo at the base, so we can’t justify it. We just keep looking at that number until we need to hit it.
As for the full time and forecasting, I would look to a spreadsheet solution where you forecast each month:
your beginning listing inventory
plus new listings
less sales
calc ending listing inventory (which carries to the next month)
sell thru rate (percentage of beginning inventory that sells)
average sales priceThat should forecast your revenue per month. Through on your expenses (using your listing activity above times an average purchase price per month for inventory costs), and you can see how things will look. Update each month with your actuals and you can refine your business and your forecasts.
We don’t print the packing slip at all. Saves time and money, never had an issue. We only print the label and the Scan Sheet (Parcel Pickup, so we get all items officially received by USPS with one bar code).
Retro: I would love to abolish withholding taxes. Have people receive their full paycheck, but then have to write a monthly bill for Federal Income Tax, State Income Tax, FICA, and Medicare. What an eye opener that would be for many…
But that same psychology works in your own favor. You learn to live with what you have, so if you remove these large expenses before you can spend it (taxes, Christmas, auto repair, etc) as well as save for investment/retirement, you adjust your daily life to match. And then when large expenses come up…you have the cash to cover them, rather than borrow/credit cards.
The biggest lesson we can teach future generations…is discipline…
I agree Eve. I do our taxes myself (as an old accountant, I feel that is my duty), so I estimate what I think the business will do, our personal income/deductions, etc. with TurboTax, and we pay quarterly. But I also have a separate account that I transfer money into monthly to cover the quarterly payments, so each bill is always covered (something I do also for Property taxes, Home Insurance, Christmas, Medical, Auto Expenses, etc., but that is another topic).
I look again at our estimate in December to see how close we are, adjust the Q4 payment (if I need to even make a payment), and we are covered. I do the taxes each year in the first week of February (my goal is to be done by Valentines day every year), readjust the monthly transfers, and continue on. I try to be at $0 or owe a small amount, but have a little extra sitting in the separate account I accrue into monthly so that if we have a miss, we have some padding.
It happened to us a few times, and it depends on if your FedEx location remeasures the dimensions and they have larger dimensions than what you entered. My recommendation is to first try rounding up to the next inch (for buffer) and see if it continues to happen. After we did that, we didn’t have any more issues. After that, try to talk to your FedEx and challenge them on the measurements. Last…try a different location for dropoff…
To help those that have not heard the eBay Radio podcast on the Guaranteed Delivery, click on the link below. You can listen to the “EBay Radio Show”, Episode 674 – Segment 3. This was the first lengthy discussion of the program. Also listen to the “Ask Griff & Lee Show”, Episode 452 – Segment 2 (starting about 15 minutes in) and Segment 3. That provides a great review of the program, discusses a bit on how eBay will calculate the delivery time, states when eBay will refund the buyer, etc.
Some finer details seem to still being worked out (and still will between now and July), but the overall basis of what the program will be and what they are going for is laid out.
To help those that have not heard the eBay Radio podcast on the Guaranteed Delivery, click on the link below. You can listen to the “EBay Radio Show”, Episode 674 – Segment 3. This was the first lengthy discussion of the program. Also listen to the “Ask Griff & Lee Show”, Episode 452 – Segment 2 (starting about 15 minutes in) and Segment 3. That provides a great review of the program, discusses a bit on how eBay will calculate the delivery time, states when eBay will refund the buyer, etc.
Some finer details seem to still being worked out (and still will between now and July), but the overall basis of what the program will be and what they are going for is laid out.
Yes, the zip code usage is based on what was stated on EBay Radio on how they will calculate the shipping time.
Yes, that may mean that the filter usage may skew to the urban areas. But it will have to mean that the buyer is in an urban area, and is choosing to use the filter. If the buyer doesn’t use the filter, all results show up.
The reselling game is already skewed towards the densely populated areas, as that is where more items can be found, and more buyers are located. This change may increase that, but the main item to be seen is how much buyers use it. If most buyers don’t care, it won’t change much. If it has an impact, we as sellers have to adjust.
My wife and I are looking to move once our boys are in college, but we have made sure to look at locations that are driving distance to large cities, so we can source. As long as reselling is our business, that is what we have to focus on.
In the end, changes will happen. Our job is to react to that change.
