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Mark: Sorry for the long delay in responding. Really busy before we drove up to Montana, and been focusing on ranch stuff and time with the family..
Our process is pretty straight forward. When it comes in the door, we separate the items into groups (Clothes are hung up, Shoes gathered for cleaning, Hard Goods ready for cleaning). The clothes are subcategoried: Dress Shirts, Casual Shirts, Short Sleeve Shirts, Outdoor Shirts, Fishing/Hiking Shirts, Suits, Sport Coats, Jeans, Dress Pants, Casual Pants, Shorts. I like to do these in groups of at least 10, as then I am in a groove doing the same thing and it goes faster. We will create the listing, adding the price and the SKU at that time (we have a Google Doc for the SKU that we share, as a backup to SixBit of inventory as well as help us know what the next # is to use). SKU is written on a paper tag with a string to attach to the item
After that, clothes and shoes are given to our photographer. On clothes, he does the steaming, photos, and folds and puts in clear poly bags with the SKU tag taped to the outside. SKU also has location for ease in putting away when we get them back. When he does the photos, the first photo is the SKU tag so we know what listing to add the photos to. When we get the items back, we put away, add the photos to the listings, and schedule them in SixBit.
So, we don’t put the items into SixBit until we list them. This means we have “uninventoried” items in the house, but I don’t worry about catching that up until December for Tax Time. Then, we will create a quick listing in SixBit with the Title and Cost so that we have good info for Tax Time.
I’m a bit nervous about the clothing game as well, and this Amazon bit is a part of it. I also have my youngest son buying clothes from cheap China sellers for $5 new + Free Shipping on Amazon and some other sites (talk about disloyalty! π )
The clothing game is definitely getting harder and harder to maintain decent margins on the used side, and lots of players in a lot of categories now…
Mike: Funny! π
We were coming back from the mountains this weekend and saw a full McDonald’s bag on the side of the road…and looked at each other and chuckled…
Mark: I understand and appreciate all this! One suggestion if your clothing is shirts, pants, sweaters, suits, or sport coats (anything but heavy jackets)…
Store them in clear poly bags with the SKU taped on the outside. More compact, can put in bins/boxes/file drawers. Easy to ship that way…
The only listed clothing that we have on hangers are leather jackets and the like. Even suits and sport coats do well (when folded right). I learned the “right” way to fold a sport coat jacket, and works like a charm. All protected in plastic, then in a plastic bin, just waiting to ship (takes 1 minute to ship our clothing).
Steve and Jay: Good points. Just interesting as this goes against what we hear so much from eBay, that Free Shipping will increase sales. I never see their data, they just say “our data shows it increases velocity”.
Well, my data says it don’t… π
Just want to get as many other people to tell me if I missed something, so I don’t make a decision on bad data…
antarestar: Price is possible, but I wouldn’t think so. Most of these items have a fairly tight range in price (except maybe the suits I checked). Plus, with the numbers of items in the data sets, I would think that evens out. The smallest set had 1,516 active listings, the largest had 608,955 active listings, and the average for the 20 data sets was 46,147 active listings (I was staying as generic as possible to have large volumes of actives and solds).
The average was 38% of the active listings were offering Free Shipping. On the Solds, the average was 29% of all Solds had Free Shipping.
You make me wonder if the universe of listings using Free Shipping…are they the same as the listings that charge for shipping? Are they the same quality, same level of seller, same price (considering)…
Just trying to punch holes in the data that I pulled. Why would the STR be better for Charged Shipping Listings than for Free Shipping Listings?
I used to do Free Shipping for clothing, then switched to charging last year…and didn’t see a drop in sales. My thoughts have always been that for items that can be filtered on listings (left side), like Free Shipping, that it would be a boost in sales if we offer it (as we stay in the universe of listings a buyer is searching for when they use that toggle). That Siren Song of scratching out some more sales.
But I would think that if that was true…that my test would have shown that the STR on Free Shipping listings was better than the Charged Shipping listings. So either the data is right…or I missed something in my logic on the analysis and it is something else that is messing with the data.
08/28/2018 at 2:12 pm in reply to: Question on the Hassle Free returns and Supporting Photos on a Return #48106Mike: My take is this…
Call eBay and get guidance on the deadline, stating that before you accept the return shipping charges on a damaged item, you want to see if you can just give them a partial or full refund to resolve, but the buyer is being unresponsive. Let them know that you are trying to provide quality customer service (with a possibility that they don’t have to ship, you can just refund), but you are not getting any response from the buyer.
Second, this is why we still want to see the issue before we move forward. If the item is busted, why do I want to pay return shipping AND a full refund?
Almasty: I love your last part, about just ending and relisting your items to give them a fresh start. I think that might boost your sales a bit just by showing these as fresh new listings. I would be interested in seeing if that helps when you do that after 4-6 months.
Amatino: Yeah, at that level, relisting isn’t a killer. Once you get to 1,000 items, it really became a time suck for us. Glad we relist with SixBit. We are wrapping up a relist session now (we turn off the auto relist every 3 months or so so that we can take a fresh look at listings), and at 60-80 items that end per day, it can still be a grind if there are a lot of tweaks we want to do with titles, pricing, etc.
Agree Jay. Is there a boost and an advantage? Yes. Is it a Unicorn Catcher? No.
Joe: One thought. Start using ShipRush for your eBay shipping. Free, and it keeps all your shipment data. SixBit or Wonderlister keep your tracking as well. Even the Easy Auction Tracker software ($50/year) will keep your tracking info so that you have it.
Ostap: I don’t like to force everything to end on just those days, as I know that Cassini likes consistent new listings. It is something that I could test, but I like the consistent daily sales.
Jay, as I always say, lots of small gains are where it is at. The Unicorn is too elusive, but if I find some nice gains everywhere, it is worth it. We don’t get rich with a 2% cash back card…but we all use them, right?
Jay and Simplico: I love this topic. Shocker, right? π
I believe that BOTH numbers are important to know and understand. First and foremost, profit on the item after it sells. You HAVE to know that number at the time you are purchasing (remember, you BUY your profit). If you aren’t clearing good money for your time to list and sell, it isn’t a profitable activity.
But the weekly CASH FLOW is very important as well, for anyone looking to make this a viable part-time gig, and darn sure if it is a full-time business. You HAVE to understand what capital it will take to invest in the business for inventory, labor, and storage before the business is supplying solid returns. This is why I believe in STR and ASP tracking. By knowing your Average Selling Price and your Sell Thru Rate, you can reasonably predict the cash coming in. By knowing your Average COGS, you know your cash requirements to buy more inventory to ramp up.
This is what I do in my forecasting model. If I predict that we will list 150 items each week, I have to 150 items each week. If my average COGS is $5, then that is $750 I have to plan to spend each week. How long will it take to get that money back (plus profit)? This is where you forecast your Revenue by taking your current inventory level times your STR to get the numbers sold, times ASP to get your revenue. Repeat into the future as far as you need.
I like the forum being just the COGS on the items sold, but that cash flow discussion is vital to anyone getting serious. When we decided to get a photographer…the forecasting of the cash was key…
That has always fascinated me as well, just the huge time suck to get it.
I worked for a scrap recycler at one point…the automation is amazing. Lots of money in that stuff, but a grind and at the whims of the market. Your buyers have to be top notch.
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