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Sorry I’m late….it’s been one of those weeks.
Week Sept 22-28, 2019
Items in store: 4446 Listings for 6343 Items
Items Sold: 85 transactions for 98 Items
Gross Sales: $5870.80
Highest Price Sold: $230 …. Florsheim Shell Cordovan wingtips
Lowest Price Sold: $7.50….Tie
Average Sale Price: $59.90
Cost of Goods Sold $339, Plus consignment payout, roughly $840
Number of new items listed this week: 74 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $747
Repeat Customers: 11
International: 29%Scavenges of the week.
Florsheim Shell Cordovan Wingtips, $9, sold for $230 in under 12 hours.
Burberry Norfolk Jacket. $6
Brooks Brothers Black Fleece Sport Coat. $6
Schott “Cycle Rider” leather jacket. $25
NWT Massimo Dutti Lambskin Leather jacket $10Just barely missed my $30K gross sales goal for September by $721. On the other hand I did beat my prior record month by $160.
Podcast Comments:
Promoted listings
As you mentioned, we can now see which items are promoted in the sold listings. You can also see them before-hand when the offers come in, by going to the “listings with open offers from buyer” page and then sorting using the promoted listing quick filter (blue oval buttons). This way you can see if the listing is promoted before you start your negotiations.Combined Shipping
If a buyer would like combined shipping for multiple buy-it-now purchases, ask them to click “request total from seller” on their shopping cart page. You will then receive an email notification which will allow you to send a revised invoice with the new shipping amount. Note: I believe you have to have the “allow combined payments/shipping” option turned on in your shipping preferences to activate the “request total from seller” button on the buyers screen.Week Sept 15-21, 2019
Items in store: 4446 Listings for 6343 Items
Items Sold: 116 transactions for 124 Items
Gross Sales: $6258.14
Highest Price Sold: $499.99 …. Korean War Parka…but still awaiting payment, seems unlikely.
Lowest Price Sold: $2.99….Shoe Laces
Average Sale Price: $50.47
Cost of Goods Sold $378, Plus consignment payout, roughly $840
Number of new items listed this week: 138 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $682.63
Repeat Customers: 9
International: 15%Scavenges of the week. The North Face McMurdo Parka, Golden Bear Leather Jacket, Sulka Dinner Jacket.
Still on track for a record breaking month, though I lost my lead on my $30K goal this week after a few returns were backed out of the sales. I’m optimistic as ebay usually hammers the extra ebay bucks rewards pretty hard at the end of a quarter, which will hopefully keep sales coming in.
Week Sept 8-14, 2019
Items in store: 4428 Listings for 6328 Items
Items Sold: 92 transactions for 99 Items
Gross Sales: $6920.01
Highest Price Sold: $350 …. Henry Poole Suit
Lowest Price Sold: $8.99….Necktie
Average Sale Price: $69.90
Cost of Goods Sold $385, Plus consignment payout, roughly $840
Number of new items listed this week: 81 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $896
Repeat Customers: 8
International: 35%A little light on new listings this week. My wife had minor surgery which pretty much took up two days of both our time.
Scavenge of the week….Deadstock M-1951 Fishtail Parka $9.97, sold this morning for $499.99
Runner Up… Peter Millar Leather Jacket, New with tags. $9.97Still on track for a record month, and should pass 2018 sales by early October.
With nearly 10000 feedback/month, it seems they are selling a little more than 500 in 90 days. If you look at their feedback left for others, you can see they left feedback for nearly 34000 buyers in the last 30 days. So they are selling 1100+ items a day
I know it was unique to PA at the time, but I’m not sure if any other states followed suit. in 2008 the Auctioneers felt that eBay was stealing their business, and they were trying to fight back. I think they must have figured out finally that auction-going eBay sellers are actually keeping their business alive, rather than hurting it.
In PA, yes.
I did consignment on ebay in the first couple years I started selling. Then in 2008, the PA auctioneers won a dispute against eBay that resulted in a ridiculous state law requiring all online sellers who were selling for commission to get an auctioneers license.
Well, an auctioneers license requirements were absurd for someone just selling junk on ebay. Something like 18 months of classes, a long apprenticeship at an auction house, learning to do the chant and everything. So I simply stopped selling for other people.
In 2016 a good friend of mine in NY was having amazing success with his consignment business, so I decided I was just going bite the bullet and go to auctioneer school. Might meet some cool people and great contacts. So when I looked into it, I found that they had just revised the law and added a new section to the law to include “online trading assistant” which no longer required the crazy unnecessary training, but rather just a few official registration fees and documents like announcing the business name, registering as trade assistant, becoming bonded and paying $200. What a relief, I was kinda starting to like the idea of the auctioneering….but I don’t have time for that.
Shortly after I became licensed to do the consignment, I started having major back trouble. So, for fear of overselling my physical abilities, I never made an official announcement or ad for my services. Most the consignors I have, have reached out to me either just out of curiosity to see if I sell stuff for other people too, or by word of mouth.
+1
If we end up getting a part time apartment next year, I will need to drop ours to 3 day handling. I’m curious also to hear how a slower handling time would effect sales. Obviously I would lose TRS+ discount, and also would become ineligible for Guaranteed Delivery program.
That sucks. We missed a cruise vacation due to Hurricane Matthew, the cruise still went, but we couldn’t get into FL to get on the boat. It was a total shock, especially when you look forward to something for months, or maybe even a year or two. I think it’s important to quickly pick up the pieces and try to throw together a backup vacation plan as soon as possible. When it happened to us, I sent my wife to a small overnight yoga retreat that she was having to miss because of our cruise. I spent the time organizing a pet friendly road trip to Up State NY and Niagara, we ended in the Finger Lakes at a tiny little AirBnB efficiency cabin in the woods, where our dog could run free on acres and acres of horse paths. It ended up being our favorite vacation ever, and we will likely be headed back to that same cabin for our 4th year next month.
Week Sept 1-7, 2019
Items in store: 4408 Listings for 6303 Items
Items Sold: 109 transactions for 121 Items
Gross Sales: $8071.09
Highest Price Sold: $393 …. Kiton Suit
Lowest Price Sold: $4.99….Shoelaces
Average Sale Price: $66.70
Cost of Goods Sold $360, Plus consignment payout, roughly $840
Number of new items listed this week: 95 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $0
Repeat Customers: 13
International: 29%Almost a new record for the week. Great start to September as far as sales go, though I didn’t get close to hitting my listing goal this week. I tweaked my back Monday and lost two days of productivity. Grr.
Picked up a new consignor this week. Sounds like it may be a fellow thrifter/reseller with a death pile cleanup-type situation, so we’ll see what he sends.
I have used it occasionally since it recently became free, but I usually just use completed listings for my stuff. I do like that I don’t have to leave ebay now to use it, maybe I will get more use out of it now.
You can find eBay’s Terapeak dashboard on the seller hub under the Research Tab.
Mine used to be called “The Something Everything and More Store” but when I switched to mainly clothing I noticed that by a strange coincidence I could abbreviate the name and still keep it relevant. Also when I purchased my domain name, http://www.theSEAMstore.com was a lot easier for potential customers to type than http://www.thesomethingeverythingandmorestore.com lol
It’s doable, but first I would like to pay off my mortgage and pay for my wife’s expensive masters program. We may have to rent (or purchase) a second home for 3 years while she is in school. I’ll have my plate full with those things for a while. I wish we could do it in the opposite order, buy a space and downsize the house, but with only 4 months until her classes start, thats not much time to work out all those details, and I don’t want to add stress to her life during school with essentially two major moves.
Also, Health insurance and self employment tax eats up nearly 50% of our monthly profits. Ooof.
