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12/30/2018 at 8:16 am in reply to: Sad story I heard this week. Makes me thankful to sell online! #54123
Absolutely Jay. Build Your Own Business.
If you want to just keep a small steady income without employees, then build that. If you want to focus your efforts on just the parts of the business you like and hire out the rest, then do that. If you want to develop an eBay business that can run with little of your own effort, so that you can take the profits (and time) and build another income stream, do that.
Ultimately, we know that eBay won’t be our only business. We want to have the ability to travel and run our business from the road. We also want to do more charity work where we can give back to our community. Achieving both of those goals is requiring us to think about how we grow this business, allocate our Time and Treasure, and what tasks we each take on.
2019 will be an interesting year, and 2020 even more so…
Thanks for the update!
It is a good lesson in life… Always have a Plan B. As poker players would say, always leave yourself outs.
This mindset gets you through just about anything. A second (or third, or fourth) stream of income is way better than just a salary (even Jay and Ryanne have extra income streams). I have food in the basement, just in case we get a cold snap. Got food and clothes in the car, just in case I need it. I try do have duplicates everywhere, because 2 is 1, and 1 is none.
So now, you have to go all in on the eBay side and make sure it is where you need it to be.
And then get working on a NEW Plan B income stream…
For us, the accountant is me…since I have a degree in it…
Can’t really avoid that mark right now!
bcfo: Using SixBit, some parts of the crossposting is automagic, and some parts aren’t.
The title, item description, photos, and shipping specs all come over. You have to enter the tags and some other items, but the rest is solid. The best part about SixBit is how it manages the backend for you. When something sells on one, it is removed from the other.
Crossposting to Etsy from eBay using SixBit takes about 1-2 minutes per listing.
Doubly: Sorry to hear about your situation, but this is exactly why you have build your life raft (eBay). If it happens, you can do this. And you have all of this community to assist in any way we can.
Christine and Jay: Great conversation.
Part of the reason that we are cross-posting now is to broaden our audience, but also some risk mitigation. eBay is the biggest and most consistent, but that doesn’t mean that it will stay that way. If Posh or Mercari grows into something big, it would be good to be early in the game on them. Plus, anything that can diversify our income is good. Having only one stream is all or nothing. As the saying goes: I’d rather have 100 people paying me $1 than 1 person paying me $100.
12/27/2018 at 3:41 pm in reply to: Sad story I heard this week. Makes me thankful to sell online! #54056“I think the more direct question I have is: why are we scaling? To just make more money? To do less work personally because our workers are now handling the tasks we dislike?”
For us, the answer is yes and yes. We want to increase the net income in whole dollars that we are making now on eBay, and also to have a team that can do the parts of the business that we don’t want to do. For me, I would like to do less listing and more sourcing (though I want to stay on pricing right now, as that helps me see what the market is so I know how to make good buying decisions). For Veronica, that is doing less sourcing but listing higher value items.
In the end, we want to get this income stream up and generating a solid income stream with less time devoted to it so that we can start income stream #2. Still in the works as to what that one will be, but I have the strong suspicion that real estate will be involved (in one form or another).
Amen on surgery recovery…that is VERY fresh on my mind right now…
12/24/2018 at 1:48 pm in reply to: Sad story I heard this week. Makes me thankful to sell online! #53957Just like all things in life, you have to do them in the way that fits you…
Outside venture capital will bring in a TON of extra requirements, headaches, and problems. I saw that first hand in the Oil & Gas industry. In the end, the VC’s were much less interested in assisting us than they were about just killing us to have us make their metrics. That deal should never have gone down, and one that I would have never taken.
So you have to do it and do it right, both numbers-wise AND for what you want out of it. The business only owns you if you let it. When you start full time, it totally owns you (you guys remember those days), since you have to do everything. Then you can scale and add employees, and you lose some margin, but make up for it either in volume or you have more time for other ventures (like having someone do your shipping for you when you are on vacation…)
But part of my concern overall isn’t just on how we scale…but how we compete with the others that have ALREADY scaled and are just using eBay as another channel. Now, if you are only focused on vintage collectibles, then you are in a niche that doesn’t have that type of competition. The risk there is that what is collectible now isn’t collectible forever (tastes change, and I’m sure that there are items you can think of that used to sell well that just don’t anymore as the market has dried up).
So I look at scaling on both sides: How can we get more $ for our time (back to that $/hr conversation) and also how can we compete with others that HAVE scaled, so moving into eBay is very easy. Like us going to Poshmark: only takes 60 seconds when you already have an eBay listing…
12/24/2018 at 10:48 am in reply to: Sad story I heard this week. Makes me thankful to sell online! #53948Completely agree Jay. That is the benefit to this business, better margins.
Only downside to this business…very tough to scale. Ebay is great for part-time income or for a solo (single household) shop. Beyond that, you are in regular retail and eBay/Etsy/Poshmark/Mercari/Amazon are just sales channels to sell through
PS – FWIW…
Disregarding the benefits of the free shipping supplies, the math breaks down like this:
Upgrade from Basic to Premium at 450 Listings, and from Premium to Anchor at 3,400 listings. This is for total listing fees (new and relisted items).
If you move a little earlier for the perks, so be it, especially if you are committed to staying in the game. I’m thinking we will move to Anchor sometime in Q1 of 2019…
Mike, as always, love the perspective!
I always say that if the listing fee is an issue, your margins are too thin…
“I have been wondering which of my listings is “sponge-worthy” “
That just made my morning…
Week of 12/16-12/22
Total Items in Store: 2,706 (Up 62% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 60
Number of Items Sold: 75 (Flat YOY)
(Includes 3 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 1 TrueGether, 0 Poshmark)
Weekly STR: 12% (Down 7% YOY)Total Product Sales: $2,162 (Up 6% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $379
Cost of Labor: $150
Highest Item Sold: $90 – Zanetti Italian Double Breasted Mens Suit
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 29-22 (Still playing for pride!)Clothing
# Listed: 1,687
# Sold: 46
STR: 12%
ASP: $29.09Shoes
# Listed: 463
# Sold: 12
STR: 11%
ASP: $29.73Hard Goods
# Listed: 556
# Sold: 14
STR: 11%
ASP: $27.52Etsy
# Listed: 154
# Sold: 3
STR: 8%
ASP: $31.55Poshmark
# Listed: 112
# Sold: 0
STR: 0%
ASP: $0Taking a bit of a break with family in town for Christmas. Loved the podcast while I walked the dogs this morning. The hike is coming, gotta get ready!
Guest host…I liked that! Glad to help! Just call me The Numbers Guy! 🙂
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