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[T-Satt]

Yeah, but one week back to normal isn’t a trend yet either. Last year, our activity keep our Summer the same as our spring. We were doing fine until June, when our sales dropped by about 30%. July is looking to get back there, but still slower than I would like…

[T-Satt]

@Jay: Yeah, and the Devil has been busy…

[T-Satt]

Week of 07/08-07/20
Total Items in Store: 3,278 (Up 32% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 137
Number of Items Sold: 99 (Up 43% YOY)
(Includes 3 Etsy, 5 Poshmark, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 13% (Up 1% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $2,867 (Up 57% YOY)
Sales Volume Variance to Prior Year: Up $794
Sales Price Variance to Prior Year: Up $247
Cost of Items Sold: $512
Cost of Labor: $234
Highest Item Sold: $249 – Tecovas Boots
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 17-13.

Clothing
# Listed: 1,894
# Sold: 65
STR: 15%
ASP: $24.39

Shoes
# Listed: 787
# Sold: 23
STR: 13%
ASP: $48.59

Hard Goods
# Listed: 597
# Sold: 11
STR: 8%
ASP: $14.93

EBay
# Listed: 3,278
# Sold: 91
STR: 12%
ASP: $28.90

Etsy
# Listed: 222
# Sold: 3
STR: 6%
ASP: $16.22

Poshmark
# Listed: 814
# Sold: 5
STR: 3%
ASP: $37.60

Getting back to normal. Very solid week, and glad to get it, as we have a lot of bills coming due for travel to NM for my father’s memorial service, and both boys getting their wisdom teeth pulled.

Been doing some road warrior stuff. Drove almost from Canada to Mexico a week ago…

Had 2 offers on TrueGether, accepted both, no payment. Bonanza is non-existent at this point…

[T-Satt]

@Jay: Follow-up regarding eBay removing the Secondary shipping option (removing Priority options). I got own rep to come back and see that this is a bug, and it is on their bug list. So there is that.

They also have added the bugs that I found on the Awaiting Payment page. The left column isn’t showing when an item has an UPI (Unpaid Item) case opened. And, items that have UPI on them, the drop down still shows that you can open an UPI again. AND, when an item has the UPI timeframe passed, you can’t close and relist from Awaiting Payment anymore. You have to do this from the Resolution Center.

So, sending in lots of bugs to Ebay and Etsy in the past week…

[T-Satt]

@Mike: No, mostly just the volume is what took it time to get relisted.

Since we had the Auto Relist turned on, when SixBit pulled the items down, it automatically relisted them. But when it has that many to handle, it was only sending about 1 per minute. I think it just overwhelmed our computer as well as the SixBit Agent to be handling that many items.

We did the Etsy bit, but a word of caution. The good news is that your items that are $35 or more are eligible for Free Shipping, and they have a tool that you can use that will change the listing prices for you in mass. So if you had $35 + Shipping, and your average shipping cost was $10, it would change your price to $45 + Free Shipping (at least, that is what the buyer sees).

Your ACTUAL Etsy listing (and what pulls into SixBit) will show $45 + CALCULATED shipping. The “Free Shipping” on your shop is like a filter that changes what is on the actual listing (calculated) and displays it to the buyer as Free.

I have had some discussions with Etsy on this bit, and they agree that if you are going to change the price at the listing level, you should also change the shipping type at the listing level as well.

PS – And if you want to change back to calculated shipping…you have to change the prices back manually. They agreed, you should have let me go both ways, but oh well…

[T-Satt]

@Mike: Prays for you and Susan. I’m sure it will all work out, and love her attitude. Can’t change the hand you are dealt, so just lean in and get through it.

So, your SixBit issue is that something sold on eBay and did not come off of Etsy? If so, I haven’t run into that one before.

The only item we run into is keeping Poshmark and SixBit in sync. Morning ritual now is to keep them in line. Thank god for SixBit to do that. I don’t know how I could keep eBay and Poshmark in sync without it.

[T-Satt]

@Jay: the relist was basically an accident. When we turned on the SixBit feature of Custom Duration, we decided to use 58 days (to end the item in 58 days before eBay determines it to be “stale”).

Well, we had a lot of items that were on for longer than 58 days since submission, so they dropped off, and SixBit relisted them 1 at a time over about 48 hours.

So I think the massive drop hurt us because our store suddenly had little to offer (since things weren’t for sale). Plus, it just seems like it killed us in their ranking algorithm to drop that massively. And we know that eBay likes sales. When you sell, you then sell more. eBay has stated this before, that stores that are selling get a push up in rankings. So little to sell, means less sales, so we dropped.

I’m still trying to figure out what really caused the huge drop. It really came out of the blue. We saw the same huge drop in clicks on our promoted listings page that Retro (I think) stated that he saw this week.

So far, now in July, we are back to normal, but having a sudden 50% drop in clothing sales for two weeks to return back to normal is just weird. In all the time I have tracked this data, never seen that before…

[T-Satt]

Week of 07/07-07/13
Total Items in Store: 3,239 (Up 32% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 137
Number of Items Sold: 78 (Up 26% YOY)
(Includes 1 Etsy, 8 Poshmark, 0 Bonanza, 1 TrueGether – Who Knew??)
Weekly STR: 10% (Down 1% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $1,881 (Down 31% YOY)
Sales Volume Variance to Prior Year: Up $705
Sales Price Variance to Prior Year: Down $1,556
Cost of Items Sold: $403
Cost of Labor: $236
Highest Item Sold: $49 – Cole Haan shoes
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 16-13.

Clothing
# Listed: 1,874
# Sold: 44
STR: 10%
ASP: $22.14

Shoes
# Listed: 758
# Sold: 21
STR: 12%
ASP: $28.73

Hard Goods
# Listed: 607
# Sold: 13
STR: 9%
ASP: $23.31

EBay
# Listed: 3,239
# Sold: 69
STR: 9%
ASP: $22.59

Etsy
# Listed: 223
# Sold: 1
STR: 2%
ASP: $24.82

Poshmark
# Listed: 758
# Sold: 8
STR: 5%
ASP: $37.13

Crazy week. Volume came back, and yet no high sales. Highest sale was for $49. Wow. Not worried about the drop in sales $ vs YOY since last year this was the week we sold the $1000 print to China.

Jay, great talk about the stuttering, and you handled it great and with class. We have someone in our family that can struggle with this as well. Amazingly, when they get up and do speeches in front of good sized crowds….flawless. It is definitely something that has a neurological base, so each case is probably different. But you are full of class. Well handled.

[T-Satt]

@Mike, Country Lane, and Timo: Sign me up for a SixBit sub-forum as well. If I could ever get off my @$$ and figure out why my live streaming sucks we could have a Master Mind set up for that, were we could share screens on issues, tips, etc.

Mike, I use the Google Remote Connect rather than TeamViewer, but same process. While I was in Montana, I could remote in (laptop, though I have used the phone before) and work like I was at home. Love it.

[T-Satt]

Week of 06/30-07/06
Total Items in Store: 3,225 (Up 34% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 90
Number of Items Sold: 58 (Down 28% YOY)
(Includes 0 Etsy, 5 Poshmark, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 8% (Down 7% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $1,729 (Down 13% YOY)
Sales Volume Variance to Prior Year: Down $545
Sales Price Variance to Prior Year: Up $292
Cost of Items Sold: $281
Cost of Labor: $0
Highest Item Sold: $260 – Hugo Boss Suit
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 15-13.

Clothing
# Listed: 1,874
# Sold: 33
STR: 8%
ASP: $29.32

Shoes
# Listed: 741
# Sold: 19
STR: 11%
ASP: $29.55

Hard Goods
# Listed: 610
# Sold: 6
STR: 4%
ASP: $33.28

EBay
# Listed: 3,225
# Sold: 53
STR: 7%
ASP: $28.56

Etsy
# Listed: 226
# Sold: 0
STR: 0%
ASP: $0

Poshmark
# Listed: 750
# Sold: 5
STR: 3%
ASP: $43.00

Had a bit of a comeback, but with the July 4 holiday, slow sales.

[T-Satt]

Mike: Veronica and I are so sorry to hear about Susan. We will be praying so hard for her. If you need anything, ANYTHING, you know how to reach me directly, both email or cell phone.

So sorry we just heard about this, but you two will be in our hearts everyday right now!

[T-Satt]

Week of 06/23-06/29
Total Items in Store: 3,201 (Up 35% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 1
Number of Items Sold: 48 (Down 37% YOY)
(Includes 1 Etsy, 1 Poshmark, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 6% (Down 8% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $1,238 (Down 39% YOY)
Sales Volume Variance to Prior Year: Down $744
Sales Price Variance to Prior Year: Down $37
Cost of Items Sold: $213
Cost of Labor: $0
Highest Item Sold: $75 – Skechers Boots
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 15-12.

Clothing
# Listed: 1,864
# Sold: 34
STR: 8%
ASP: $22.92

Shoes
# Listed: 731
# Sold: 8
STR: 5%
ASP: $38.71

Hard Goods
# Listed: 606
# Sold: 6
STR: 4%
ASP: $24.88

EBay
# Listed: 3,201
# Sold: 45
STR: 6%
ASP: $25.46

Etsy
# Listed: 223
# Sold: 1
STR: 2%
ASP: $29.85

Poshmark
# Listed: 760
# Sold: 2
STR: 1%
ASP: $31.46

This is the week that we did a reset on our listings in our store. Bad move. You can see that our sales dropped to half of what they were in the previous week. Not doing that again. We were also down on listings as this is the week that Veronica came up to Montana to help my Mom and I sell some items in the 50 Mile Yard Sale.

This was week 1 of the kick in the gut…

[T-Satt]

At Retro: Interesting on your notice of the drop in clicks and impressions on Promoted listings. Ours was the same (and I mean like a cliff). Now, we had a SixBit reset of our listings (store dropped from 3,200+ to only 700+ active, then items relisted and we were whole again in 2 days, so I thought this was the reason.

PS – I have a bug list into eBay on the # of Impressions the Promoted Listings screen shows. It is inflated by about 300%-400%. Compare the Impressions on Promoted Listings to Impressions on Traffic. Traffic is the accurate one…

[T-Satt]

@Jay: Exactly! You know what you are buying when you pay for the labor.

From a business sense, it should always be to either buy more Revenue (through higher volume) or more time for other business. As long as the time you buy back is to make more money (through other ventures), then it is a net financial winner. You are spending money to make more money.

Now, you can spend money to make life easier (more relaxation time). Hey, Hike Your Own Hike. But just be realistic about what you are buying with those labor dollars…

[T-Satt]

@Mark S: Completely agree with your reasoning when you are full time on another job. Employees can increase your revenue because they are expanding your volume of inventory and listings.

And to both you and Jay, yep, you have to watch the numbers. You will most likely have a margin loss with employees as you are adding costs to each listing. But you should be making up for that (and more) due to the higher volume of listings that you are generating. And you have to know how long it will take for those higher sales to pay off. The higher the velocity of sales (higher Sell Thru Rate), the faster that you will get the benefits of more listings. The lower your STR, the longer it takes to get the payoff.

At the end of the day, an employee’s cost is increasing the cost of the inventory that you have listed (in a true accounting system, it would be added as an inventory cost). So the best way to think of it is as if you are paying more for each item you buy. That helps your thinking when sourcing. So for me, I make sure to add $2 to the price of every item I buy, since that is the cost of our photography.

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