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12/31/2018 at 8:09 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54202
Mike: Amen brother! That is why I love this forum, I have learned a TON from all the good folks in this community.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go FAR, go together.
12/30/2018 at 3:37 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54168Ok, for Expenses, let’s do the following:
COGS
Labor12/30/2018 at 3:06 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54161Yeah, let’s do that.
On Jan 1 I will post our full year numbers. So that we can see some comparisons across stores, let’s have everyone post as much of the following as they can.
1. Yearly Sales in $
2. Number of items sold in the year
3. Number of listings on Jan 1 2018
4. Number of listings on Dec 31 2018
5. Number of new listings made in 2018I can calculate the monthly average STR and the ASP from the top 4 items.
Anything else that people want to look at?
12/30/2018 at 2:55 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54158Yep…and all three are on our agenda for 2019. Gonna see how we can grow this thing out. I will keep the numbers split out for everyone to see: eBay/Etsy/Poshmark/Mercari. Truegether and Bonanza are too low to really have their own subset, and we don’t do any work on them since they sync up with eBay.
12/30/2018 at 2:50 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54157Amen Jay!
Wow…
Makes me think of this video…
Priceless…
I would pay good money to own one of these!
12/30/2018 at 12:22 pm in reply to: Ebay not counting Dec 5th as Postal Holiday in Late Tracking Uploaded Metric #54147Yep, we got dinged too. We are only at a .7% rate with those, so if they fix it, great, if not, great.
12/30/2018 at 12:20 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54146PS – Thanks again for the time on the podcast Jay. I love talking with you on how we do stuff!
12/30/2018 at 12:19 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 392: No Alarm Clocks – We chat with Troy aka T-Satt about the eBay Lifestyle #54144Week of 12/23-12/29
Total Items in Store: 2,674 (Up 63% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 40
Number of Items Sold: 64 (Up 10% YOY)
(Includes 1 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 1 TrueGether, 0 Poshmark)
Weekly STR: 10% (Down 5% YOY)Total Product Sales: $1,702 (Up 13% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $304
Cost of Labor: $149
Highest Item Sold: $88 – Wolverine 1000 Mile Brown Leather Canvas Wingtip Brogue Oxfords
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week and Veronica wins for the year 30-22. So, she has won both years we do this competition. 2019 is a new year for me! Clothing
# Listed: 1,671
# Sold: 42
STR: 11%
ASP: $25.28Shoes
# Listed: 456
# Sold: 11
STR: 10%
ASP: $31.59Hard Goods
# Listed: 547
# Sold: 10
STR: 8%
ASP: $26.61Etsy
# Listed: 153
# Sold: 1
STR: 3%
ASP: $59.88Poshmark
# Listed: 115
# Sold: 0
STR: 0%
ASP: $0Funny listening to the podcast when we get to talking about knowing your numbers, both in your business and in your life. As my older son is at the house for Christmas break, we are going over this more and more for his own situation. So important to teach our kids how numbers work, so that they don’t get into debt for dumb things, or pay fees that they don’t need to, etc. Financial education is so lacking right now…
Almasty: Great points. Love it.
I think the biggest barrier is the time to crosspost and managing the backend. Many don’t see the value in the time to crosspost, and maybe don’t have an efficient way to do it. I love SixBit for this, as we can crosspost either to Etsy through SixBit or manually to Poshmark/Mercari in about 2 minutes. Because Sixbit has all of the data on our computer for the listing, including photos, crossposting is a breeze. This is a benefit of owning your own data…
The backend is another issue, as people can’t remember what is listed where. This is why I love SixBit on the Etsy side, as it pulls things down from eBay for us, and why I use the SKU field in eBay to show -PM for Poshmark crossposting and -MC for Mercari crossposting. I also put the SKU in the Item Description on Poshmark/Mercari postings at the bottom. Helps us find the item and tells us all the places to pull the item down when it sells.
I look at it this way. EBay is still the Big He Bull of used items (Amazon being the king of new). So they still have the largest audience, so we HAVE to list there. To me, this is important to get our items to as many of the people possible.
Then, there are the subsets of people who shop on other platforms first: Etsy and Poshmark being the biggest, and I think Mercari is gaining ground. So for us, we are now crossposting to reach a wider audience. So everything goes on eBay, then we start crossposting the items that make sense: Etsy for Vintage, Poshmark for clothing. Everything is starting to go on Mercari now, just to see what works.
The key is how to crosspost efficiently, and how to have a process to easily manage the backend on listings. If your processes work, you can manage this well.
12/30/2018 at 10:51 am in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #54139Mark: Good luck on the SynCommerce. Let us know what you find.
But they won’t have Mercari or Poshmark since those platforms don’t have an API.
Mark: No other multi-platform tool will have Mercari or Poshmark because they don’t have an API that programs can use. I asked SixBit to get there with Poshmark at eBay Open, they looked into it, and there is not an API. Any crossposting there will have to be manual.
Now, from my experience, the crossposting only takes 1-2 minutes per platform, and if I do both Mercari and Poshmark at the same time, it is about 2-3 minutes per listing. Copy and paste, and those platforms are very simple to list on.
12/30/2018 at 10:06 am in reply to: Has anyone found shelving units that will fit 3, 30 Gallon containers/shelf? #54132Mike & Mark: Just saw the discussion on doing Etsy listings from SixBit. I’m going to start crossposting to Etsy myself on my vintage clothing to get more familiar with this.
Doing my first one, I can see that the “Populate From” button on the Etsy tab will bring over the Item Description for you. You can also customize what to do with the Item Specifics. I told it to make my Item Specifics my Tags (as Etsy calls it) and it did that for me as well.
There is still some tweaking to be done, because item by item and category by category, there are unique items that Etsy is asking for that you have to tell it what you want. But very quick.
Side note: just found out that Etsy limits your Tags at 13. You know me and Item Specifics… 🙂
It seems like many sellers are now “sourcing once, listing thrice.”
Love that line. Imma gonna steal it! 🙂
Of course, we now have some things on 6 platforms…
Mark: Great analysis on the value of crossposting. I had a couple of thoughts while reading this:
Yes, the 2 minutes that you spend crossposting to Etsy is only 10% of the time you spent listing on eBay, so the ROI on that platform is much better. You are getting an incremental sales bump of 60% for only a 10% investment of time. This is the great part about crossposting, as you are going from a 4% STR on just eBay to a 6.4% STR on eBay AND Etsy. Now, only time and your actual numbers will tell if you will fully realize that 2.4%, but it is well worth it to try.
One downside to that though: the hour that you spend crossposting to Etsy (the slower platform) is also an hour that you could have used to get more listings on eBay (the faster platform). This is the conundrum. You can’t spend that hour twice. So my advice to fix that is to slowly spend time crossposting in hours you wouldn’t normally list. So for me, in the morning when I am doing my admin work, I spend a little time on crossposting. I’m expanding my reach and keeping the same amount of listing time as before.
One other issue that of time in general. Now, your process is 20 minutes long to get things to eBay. Adding crossposting, your time invested in listing is now 22 minutes long, as you have to add the 2 minutes to crosspost to Etsy. So now the game is: How can you hit both platforms in 20 minutes?
Basically, I’m saying that to fully realize the benefits of crossposting, you need to still list the same amount of items each month. You can’t let the 2 minutes to crosspost allow you to list LESS each month. This is always Jay’s point: You are spending your time crossposting instead of listing.
So, to get your full realization, you need to list the same amount that you did before, only now on two platforms. If you can improve your process to list AND crosspost in 20 minutes, now you have something!
Lastly, on your $/hr discussion, that can be a bit confusing. Yes, the extra 2 minutes should yield extra sales and improved velocity, and about 5X return on your time sounds right. But a $4.56/hour rate calculated this way can make folks think that this is all we are making by doing eBay (half of minimum wage).
The time factor is off when using a month of sales divided by all time to list your total inventory (several months). If we stop listing altogether, we get an INCREDIBLE $/hr. All profit, no listing time (though you do have to ship).
I agree with your analysis though: What is the ROI on my time spent crossposting? Doing what you did does just that, showing that spending the time to crosspost is a valuable way to spend your time. This is the type of analysis that shows where time SHOULD be spent. This is also the reason I want to spend more time sourcing and less time listing. Sourcing properly is the name of the game when going full time.
Listing, Photography, and Shipping at this level are all $15/hr jobs. Sourcing properly is a $60/hr job…
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