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The box monster was the main reason I switched from selling anything and everything to just selling clothing. I love the package type/size consistency. Easy to plan for, easy to store.
Week July 7 – July 13, 2019
Items in store: 4157 Listings for 6171 Items
Items Sold: 69 transactions for 75 Items
Gross Sales: $4184.31
Highest Price Sold: $205.50 …. Edward Green Shoes
Lowest Price Sold: $12.84… Tie Clip
Average Price Sold: $55.79
Cost of Goods Sold $235, Plus consignment
Number of new items listed this week: 108 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $113
Repeat Customers: 11URGENT eBay tech issue…Heads up:
Just bought 5 shipping labels totalling $63.56. When the paypal receipt came through I saw I was charged $127.12, exactly double for 5 labels. Reported the bug, awaiting an answer and a refund.
Everyone keep an eye out to make sure you are being charged correctly.
I haven’t received the full frame camera yet, so I’m not sure how I will have it set up. The ideal EF lens for it is OUTRAGEOUS, so I will have will have to wait until I thrift it…..and I will…eventually.
Currently I just use the standard 18-55mm kit lens on the cropped sensor cameras. The articulating arm and zoom allow me to get pretty much any photo I need at any distance. The only down side, is the zoom is the only feature not controlled by the mac, so it has to be done by hand….which is the long reach I am hoping to eliminate.
The photos are automatically stored in the pictures folder on mac. The photos are named by Date/timestamp so if I am shooting on two macs they put themselves in order automatically upon import. I usually just use iPhoto for basic edits and maybe cropping that I couldn’t get quite right on the camera. Then it’s just drag/drop into my GarageSale templates.
Similar to my strategy. I want to grow my store to 7000 items by January 5 (26 weeks). I have 6104, and need 896 more. 896/26 = 34.5. So every week if I list at least 35 more items than I sold the week before, I will reach my goal.
This Side by side layout allows for me to utilize both cameras at the same time for full shots or flat lay, depending on the shots required. This is also useful for two photographers, using a hand-off system.
I have a Canon EOS Rebel XSi set up in portrait mode. Thrifted this DLSR for $6, and it had under 5000 clicks when I found it! Overhead for flat lay photos is a Canon EOS Rebel SL1, which has a few extra features (mainly 1:1 shooting capability) that make it my choice over the XSi for this position. The new camera full frame will likely be moving into this position when it arrives.
https://imgur.com/Ka3914u
https://imgur.com/BYTMshiEach DLSR is tethered to a macbook pro with a USB cable. Using the Canon EOS Utility, the camera can be operated in live view mode and adjustments are made easy with on-screen controls. When the subject is ready the shutter is actuated simply by pressing the spacebar.
https://imgur.com/ddmOscm
https://imgur.com/IciFPGAFinal shots after minimal editing.
https://imgur.com/0rxCqfl
https://imgur.com/Cgp87gwLol, I’m not so golden. I tried to add photos to my post 6 times and nothing.
I got it. It wouldn’t add the pics if I used the img tool, so I just copy/pasted the URL directly into the reply field.
Sure, I can put something together. Someone remind again me how to add photos here.
Week June 30 – July 6, 2019
Items in store: 4092 Listings for 6104 Items
Items Sold: 62 Items
Gross Sales: $3653.08
Highest Price Sold: $250… Edward Green Shoes
Lowest Price Sold: $2.75… Shoe Laces
Average Price Sold: $58.92
Cost of Goods Sold $193, Plus consignment
Number of new items listed this week: 70 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $75
Repeat Customers: 6Pretty slow this week, but could be worse for a summer holiday.
I decided to buy another camera this week. My main camera has over 200,000 clicks and has just started getting a little quirky. It straightened up with a little cleaning, but it’s only a matter of time at this point. I have a backup that can fill-in in a pinch, but it’s missing a couple of my favorite features for tethered shooting, and I often need to use two cameras at the same time. Ideally, I would have 3 cameras, one on vertical, one overhead, and one free-hand.
Since it was time to buy, I decided to upgrade to a full frame camera. Full Frame cameras can be ultra pricey, so I picked up one up secondhand on ebay, hopefully it will workout until I can manage to thrift one. The idea is that, when used overhead in my customised photo booth, the full frame camera can be mounted at a lower height than the cropped DSLR, making it easier for the user to reach without over-stetching/straining/twisting their back. It the moment, I have to really stretch to reach it at some settings, and my wife has to get on a step stool and reach. Neither of which is ideal. Can’t wait to see if this improves things. I will likely have to do more cropping during post editing, but I suppose a little added crop time is a good trade off for less back pain.
Week June 23 – 29, 2019
Items in store: 4091 Listings for 6108 Items
Items Sold: 68 Items
Gross Sales: $4232.54
Highest Price Sold: $391… LVC Leather Jacket
Lowest Price Sold: $12.39… Tie
Average Price Sold: $62.24
Cost of Goods Sold $225, Plus consignment
Number of new items listed this week: 97 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $330
Repeat Customers: 10Yesterday we made a dry run to the school where my wife will be earning her master’s degree. The program doesn’t begin until January, but we wanted to get a feel for what the 65 mile drive was like during the AM and PM rush hour. So, we headed out at 6AM and headed home at 5PM, with thrifting filling the time from 9AM-5PM. Once school starts, I plan to head down with her once a week and hit the shops while she is in classes. I usually thrift all day on Fridays, so switching to Mondays will be a big change. I will have to have all my weekends packages ready to go on Sunday night. The stores may be a bit more cleaned out from the weekend, but the area is more urban and the thrifting should be better.
Still trying to grow the store to at least 7000 items by the end of the year…only 892 to go. Growing the store is easy this time if year, but it will surely get a bit tougher when fall rolls around.
Just barely missed my $20K sales goal for June, but I’m still on track for the year at the half way point with just over $125K so far.
They are SKU’d chronologically and numerically, so I just keep them in order through the entire process and also when they go into inventory storage. I like to do the photos first, because that’s my best light for identifying flaws that need to be mentioned in the listing.
Indeed, the nice thing about this is there are hundreds of ways to make it work for your own personal style, schedule and work flow. No way is wrong.
I like everything about it….except the upcoming new subscription fee. They upgraded all their templates designs to be ebay compliant and mobile friendly, but just list with plain white description….since ebay hides them on mobile and no one reads them anyway. Lol. Plus, after that mess a few years ago, I’d rather not have any code in my descriptions at all.
Main advantage for me, Speed of listing. Once you set up your main Master templates (I set mine up with a seperate pre-filled template for each type of item I sell) listing is just titles, drag/drop photos and field hopping for item specifics. The nice part is you can jump in and out of working templates quickly with clicks, arrows and tabs. Since the templates live on your Mac until you launch to ebay there’s no load time, and you are instantly in the next working listing. No need to save and exit one ebay draft and then load into another one. This makes it possible to group small tasks on batches of listings, which increases speed. I will typically work on about 15-30 listings at a time, usually in groups of similar items.
Here is the flow for 15 Sport Coats
-Prepare items and take photos.
-I may make a few basic photo edits in mac ‘photos’
-In GarageSale, I select my Master sport coat template, which is pre-filled with my sport coat shipping rates/options, and a generic description with blank measurement field, and make 15 copies. These 15 copies are my Working templates.
-Next I drag up to 12 photos into each of the templates. The photos upload almost instantly….depending on my mac storage at the moment.
-Next, I title all 15 items based on ebay’s titling recommendations.
-Next, I measure all 15 jackets and put the measurements directly into the awaiting Working templates, and filling out any basic details or damage notes in the description.
-Next, I do the item specifics for all 15
-Next, I price everything.
-Launch.Beyond that, there are a ton of other features for inventory, shipping, messaging, smart group tracking/reporting, bulk live listing updating etc. I really should use more of these other features, but the listing speed has always been the main draw for me.
