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Mark: Yep, I agree.
This is why while we will stay with everything on eBay, we are looking to go where others are shopping as well. So women’s clothes are gettiing crossposted to Poshmark (and some high end mens clothes, but they don’t seem to move quickly there), vintage items also put on Etsy, and going to add Mercari to the mix soon. Grailed hasn’t really done much for me, and I probably don’t have the right items for it. I may still put some more listings there (since it has no listing fees), but it might fall by the wayside.
Ok, when using SixBit to crosspost to Etsy:
There is a “Populate From” button to autopopulate the Etsy Listing with data from the eBay listing. This will bring over the Item title, Item Description (Mike-this is new! Veronica is very happy!), Price, and Shipping Options. As for manual inputs to the Etsy listing, you have to select Category, Attributes, Tags, and Materials. Make sure you have the shipping dimensions in the Etsy listing (Etsy requires LxWxH, and this will auto-populate if you have it in the eBay listing). Your product field you have to select who made it and when it was made.
Overall, Veronica still confirms that her time to cross post to Etsy is 2 minutes per listing on the outside. She is probably more like 1 minute, so a 1-2 minute average is fair.
The best part is the backend, where if one item sells on one platform, SixBit removes it from the other. So you don’t have to worry about a double sale, or constantly wondering if a sale on one platform has to be removed from the other. You can cover this manually with the Custom Label field (I do this for PoshMark listings), but mistakes can be made. We had one a few weeks ago (sold on eBay but not removed from Poshmark) and almost had another. I developed a process to double check, but with SixBit, we don’t have this issue with eBay/Etsy sales.
For us, well worth the $30/mo to add Etsy. We have $3,600 in Etsy sales this year, with $330 in extra charges for SixBit, and no stress on the backend accounting. Worth the investment.
With the sizes of Etsy Stores that you two (Mike and Mark) will have on Etsy, well worth it. We still haven’t crossed 200 Etsy listings yet (one goal for 2019), and it is worth the money. For the same investment, you guys can get 1000s of listings cross posted. 1-2 minutes per listing to cross post, but worth it.
12/04/2018 at 11:05 am in reply to: Winchester38's Journal – A Journey To Full-time Reselling #52638Excellent progress! Anytime you can have the discipline (and the mindset) to live frugally, you have less stress and more freedom. Not that you want to have limiting beliefs on what you can do, but having the knowledge that you can do with less is very freeing.
Keep up the work! I’m inspired by your journey!
Week of 11/25-12/1
Total Items in Store: 2,706 (Up 59% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 116
Number of Items Sold: 101 (Up 10% YOY)
(Includes 5 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 1 TrueGether, 1 Poshmark)
Weekly STR: 16% (Down 7% YOY)Total Product Sales: $2,720 (Up 13% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $448
Cost of Labor: $100
Highest Item Sold: $80 – Ralph by Ralph Lauren Lambswool Sport Coat
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week (YEA!) and Veronica leads for the year 28-20 (I’m just playing for pride now!!!)Clothing
# Listed: 1,672
# Sold: 58
STR: 15%
ASP: $25.75Shoes
# Listed: 434
# Sold: 112
STR: 12%
ASP: $25.90Hard Goods
# Listed: 600
# Sold: 26
STR: 18%
ASP: $29.52Etsy
# Listed: 172
# Sold: 5
STR: 13%
ASP: $39.45Poshmark
# Listed: 100
# Sold: 1
STR: 4%
ASP: $23Finally back to the full time numbers. Was a better week than last week, and I can say that our November was slower than our October (November Sales of $10,611 vs $13,048) and slower than last November ($14,548). I know that we had less listing activity this month with me having two hunts and Veronica being down, so that may be part of it. But, I have been seeing a on the Seller Hub that the eBay Market is down YOY in the Shirts and Jeans categories. We also talked a few weeks ago where other sellers were seeing the same lower trend in many of their categories.
I thing Poshmark/Etsy/Mercari are taking a bite into the used/vintage markets, and I think that many clothing retailers are lowering their prices for new items to such an extent that people can buy new, and on Amazon, for so low, why would they buy used? I am looking to get out of some sections of the clothing market (shirts mostly) next year unless the ASP is higher, and we hope to replace that with some other items. Plus, I want to expand into more new items, as those get better $/hr and looking to buy in bulk.
Gotta look at how the market is and adapt a bit. Some things may come back, but having fresh roots is always a good idea. I’m always trying to put ourselves out of business, so that we can make changes when we need to.
12/03/2018 at 2:59 pm in reply to: Promoted listings experiment RESULTS: Reducing all promoted listings to 1% rate #52597Interesting. We have stayed at a flat 7% for promoted listings across the board. Only a small percentage of the items sell with the promoted listings, but I feel that when you get one sale in a category/brand, you get more organic sales through better placement in best match.
Welcome!
–So, what level of store do you have (how many active listings?)
–Are you a List It and Forget It or Tend the Garden type with your listings?
–Where do you normally source your items?Yes, Veronica has some elbow and mostly shoulder issues when she has a big packing day on Hard Goods. No good fix for it yet, except more stretching and more exercise to combat it.
I NEVER use the gun anymore, just the desktop version. Pull what you need and tape the seams. Now, I usually don’t have a box bigger than 16x12x8 at this point, but I’m much better just pulling off what I need and then going forward.
Amatino: Ouch! I never want to make anyone discouraged!
Of course now, we hired out that job. And well worth the money….
Amen on the community. I’m on here sporadically (maybe too much), but since it is just Veronica and I at the house, it is nice to have an “online water cooler” to talk about work related issues with others in the same space.
Ya just can’t talk STR, ASP, and GTC vs 30-Day with the “normal” folks…
Proud to be unemployable…and love the community!
So, big swings. Below are our eBay numbers (I’m away from the house so I can’t see the rest):
Thanksgiving – 12
Black Friday – 19
Saturday – 6
Sunday – 13
Cyber Monday – 21
Tuesday – 7So, Cyber Monday may be up, but it also could have robbed from Tuesday (though Tuesday and Wednesday are usually our slowest days).
But we are actually down right now to last month by about 20%. Maybe the early birds hit eBay in Oct-Early Nov and then all the other Amazon/Specific Sites/Malls for a while. I know that we tend to peak betweeen the weeks of late November- early December for our best weeks of the year, but it changes which week each year.
Try the Pomodoro Technique when listing or photoing. Gives you a short break after focused work (but must stay short!). Get a kitchen timer (or your phone).
Work hard and focused for 25 minutes (no distractions at all – no phone alerts, no email, nothing). After 25 minutes, take a 5 minute break. Then do again. After 4 rounds, take a 30 minute break.
Works well to stay focused.
Actually, I’m outside of Denver CO. Mike is in Atlanta, so maybe he knows of someone…
If you can get someone that will do this on a contract basis per item, that would be the best. That is how we are doing our photographer now. Works on his own schedule, has his own studio, just perfect. And he works his butt off.
I will second the notion of speeding up scavenging. We are looking to improve this side of the business in 2019, looking for bulk buys, liquidations, and online auctions. If we can offload the low end work (listing and photography) and spend more time on the high end work (proper sourcing and pricing), then we gain more $/hr. Plus, we want to be able to take more Saturdays off from sourcing (these are huge for us now since places are 50% off on Saturdays).
Julie: Our solution on that for clothing…professional photographer!
Only half joking on this. His setup uses a flash of light that whites out the background and shows true colors. I’m going to ask him to help us set this up in our home studio for items I will do on my own. Try that route for answers…ask a pro.
Amatino: That is the EXACT one we have!
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