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Gompers: Kohl’s pricing would match up with the CFR I cited.
As to enforcement..eBay is a big target. Yes, technically it is US who are doing the sales, but if there is government pressure, eBay would have to do things to ensure that it isn’t being done on their site.
Just like the VERO program. So that eBay doesn’t get sued, every VERO claim from the vendor is upheld until the seller can prove they have the right to sell. eBay has this policy to protect itself.
Jay: Like all things, I think doable but hard. I see a decent number of articles of people doing this full time on Poshmark. Only a cursory look at this point, but I’ll bet you can.
People do Etsy full time too, and we see a slower STR there.
Retro: I think that might be hard to prove. I think they would either compare your prices to your past prices, or at least to reasonable prices for used clothing.
I ain’t no lawyer, but I would think a judge or jury would not side with your argument. If that argument was true for your used items, then it would be true for used cars. And I don’t think that a used car that was listed for it’s original price but now “reduced” to 50% would hold water.
Looked into this a bit. That may be it…
Code of Federal Regulations:
§233.1 Former price comparisons.
(a) One of the most commonly used forms of bargain advertising is to offer a reduction from the advertiser’s own former price for an article. If the former price is the actual, bona fide price at which the article was offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time, it provides a legitimate basis for the advertising of a price comparison. Where the former price is genuine, the bargain being advertised is a true one. If, on the other hand, the former price being advertised is not bona fide but fictitious—for example, where an artificial, inflated price was established for the purpose of enabling the subsequent offer of a large reduction—the “bargain” being advertised is a false one; the purchaser is not receiving the unusual value he expects. In such a case, the “reduced” price is, in reality, probably just the seller’s regular price.(b) A former price is not necessarily fictitious merely because no sales at the advertised price were made. The advertiser should be especially careful, however, in such a case, that the price is one at which the product was openly and actively offered for sale, for a reasonably substantial period of time, in the recent, regular course of his business, honestly and in good faith—and, of course, not for the purpose of establishing a fictitious higher price on which a deceptive comparison might be based. And the advertiser should scrupulously avoid any implication that a former price is a selling, not an asking price (for example, by use of such language as, “Formerly sold at $___”), unless substantial sales at that price were actually made.
(c) The following is an example of a price comparison based on a fictitious former price. John Doe is a retailer of Brand X fountain pens, which cost him $5 each. His usual markup is 50 percent over cost; that is, his regular retail price is $7.50. In order subsequently to offer an unusual “bargain”, Doe begins offering Brand X at $10 per pen. He realizes that he will be able to sell no, or very few, pens at this inflated price. But he doesn’t care, for he maintains that price for only a few days. Then he “cuts” the price to its usual level—$7.50—and advertises: “Terrific Bargain: X Pens, Were $10, Now Only $7.50!” This is obviously a false claim. The advertised “bargain” is not genuine.
(d) Other illustrations of fictitious price comparisons could be given. An advertiser might use a price at which he never offered the article at all; he might feature a price which was not used in the regular course of business, or which was not used in the recent past but at some remote period in the past, without making disclosure of that fact; he might use a price that was not openly offered to the public, or that was not maintained for a reasonable length of time, but was immediately reduced.
(e) If the former price is set forth in the advertisement, whether accompanied or not by descriptive terminology such as “Regularly,” “Usually,” “Formerly,” etc., the advertiser should make certain that the former price is not a fictitious one. If the former price, or the amount or percentage of reduction, is not stated in the advertisement, as when the ad merely states, “Sale,” the advertiser must take care that the amount of reduction is not so insignificant as to be meaningless. It should be sufficiently large that the consumer, if he knew what it was, would believe that a genuine bargain or saving was being offered. An advertiser who claims that an item has been “Reduced to $9.99,” when the former price was $10, is misleading the consumer, who will understand the claim to mean that a much greater, and not merely nominal, reduction was being offered.
The change to the sale frustrates me, because I don’t know what “problem” they are fixing.
All retail outlets run sales. Sales are proven to work, otherwise, retailers wouldn’t use them. Just like the $19.99 vs $20 pricing structure. If it didn’t work, retailers wouldn’t continue to use it.
We usually only run sales when things are slow to boost interest, and it has always worked. We don’t do it a lot, but the frustrating part is that they add a restriction to something that isn’t needed.
If sales work, and more people buy, then that would be more FVF to eBay. How is this a good change for either us or them?
I’m really surprised that the larger sellers on eBay (the REALLY big boys) are accepting this.
Rather than tinkering with things that work…how’s about we fix the things that are busted?
My two cents. Off the soapbox. Rant over.
bcfol440: Good to know! I got our PM account set up, and will probably start looking at doing listings there either later this week or early next week.
Do you know of a best “getting started” blog post or video that you would recommend for a new Posher? I’m starting to look at some know, but thought I would ask others if they have any recommendations.
Jay: ShipRush is free through eBay. No cost at all…
Yep. Those are the main reasons. It was nice when setting up ShipRush to add Bonanza. I wish that it had TrueGether on there. You can actually add PayPal as a shipment collector, but I’m not sure how that would work.
It is also helpful to know when we ship that all shipments are in one place so that we don’t miss a shipment. In Q4 when we will be doing a lot of shipments (last year we had sales on 4 platforms in one day multiple times) it is nice to have one single place to make sure all shipments are done.
Week of 6/24-6/30
Total Items in Store: 2,365 (Up 51% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 150
Number of Items Sold: 76 (Up 17% YOY)
(Includes 6 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 14% (Down 4% YOY)Total Product Sales: $2,019 (Up 57% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $397
Highest Item Sold: $150 – Chippewa General Utility Copper Caprice Bridgeman Boots
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 15-11.eBay Clothing
# Listed: 1,505
# Sold: 44
STR: 13%
ASP: $22.38eBay Shoes
# Listed: 265
# Sold: 15
STR: 24%
ASP: $34.62eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 595
# Sold: 11
STR: 8%
ASP: $30.30Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 167
# Sold: 6
STR: 16%
ASP: $51.51May 2018
Number of Items Listed: 546 – (Destroyed our Record of 477 from April)
Number of Items Sold: 323 (Forecast: 292)
Monthly STR: 16% (Forecast: 13%)
Monthly ASP: $23.85 (Forecast: $21.17)
Total Sales: $7,704 (Forecast: $6,177) – Increase of 13% YOYSolid week, strong month (for June). Our Total Revenue for June was $9,452, flat to May, but a 39% increase over June 2017 of $6,777. Our plans are working with the increased listing and selling with our photographer. Still light on cash flow as we are spending more on inventory, but shaping up to be a strong Q3 and Q4. Just have to get through July…
Lots of changes started this week. We moved over to ShipRush instead of Shippo since eBay is dropping Shippo. ShipRush is MUCH more robust and better than Shippo, even if it takes more to learn. ShipRush has a lot more features than Shippo that has actually sped up our shipping (and it links with a LOT more sites, including Bonanza). Only downside is that we can’t use our PayPal debit card, so I’m going to get a cash-back card for the business to keep that extra money coming in.
I created our Poshmark account with plans to start cross listing clothing there very soon. So Veronica is taking on all cross listing to Etsy and I will take on all cross listing to Poshmark.
Some of our sourcing has been a little dry recently, so some new strategies are going into place next week (hitting different types at different times on different days).
Interesting. I’ll have to keep my eye out.
The only one I know of in Denver is the warehouse, and we didn’t do well there. The others are Thornton (close to us), Boulder, and Parker.
Thanks for the heads up!
LOL!
We go through Poly’s like water. Using at least 60 a week right now during a slower time…
The STR that I report is in units (units sold / units listed).
I have a separate calculation where I do it on $ ($ sold / $ listed) for an overall picture. I prefer the units STR with the ASP so I can see Price vs Volume Variance. Using just $ doesn’t help to break out the Price vs Volume Variance.
