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Only time I adjust any listings is over 16 months. But I’m pretty behind in updating them. I do see a few sales on the days that I go ahead and end and relist old items.
I can’t think of any across the board changes I made to keep the 16 month warning from appearing.
We don’t have the 16 month note anymore. We haven’t had it in many months. Don’t know exactly how long it hasn’t been there but it was back during March that i noticed it was gone. So I have been sorting by age and just ending and revising by the age myself.
Update: eBay has also refunded the buyer on our behalf. So the annoyance turned out great.
Moral: Call eBay with issues
Total Items in Store: 3130
Items Sold: 24
Cost of Items Sold: $30
Total Sales: $825.54
Highest Price Sold: $100 (Vintage Carhartt coat )
Average Price Sold: $34.39
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $36
Number of items listed this week: 54Slower week. Only 24 items sold! This week better so far. I remember when I had 1500 item store a few years ago and thought I’d be rich by the time I got to 3000 items. Surely if I was making $1000 a week with 1500 items I’d be making $2000 a week with 3000 items — Not true. Actually my weekly sales are a few hundred more on average from then. But the fast growth slows down, as others said at the time. Newer stuff makes up at least 2/3 of my sales, with long tail being about 1/3. Key is to always be listing. Since it’s all about listing, and I can only list so many myself, to scale up may require a “helper”. To be continued…..
1/19-1/25 2020
Total Items in Store: 3100
Items Sold: 33
Cost of Items Sold: $42
Total Sales: $1222
Highest Price Sold: $122 (WWII Pants)
Average Price Sold: $37
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $62
Number of items listed this week: 66I was waiting for this episode, since I noticed the free shipping test awhile back! 😂
We had been ahead of last year until after this week. Now behind because last year on this week we had double the sale numbers. Really feels slowish but it’s ok. I’m getting back to listing more, as I should. Gotta feed the beast.
We do have intentions to move to the rural areas near St. Louis. We like the country and I’ve lived a lot of my life in rural Missouri, so do want to get back there. But won’t go far from St. Louis due to our friends and her family being here. Also the estate sales in STL are lovely.
Jay –
Both Rita and I are home together most of the time. She will leave in the evenings for lacrosse and I will leave in the day for scavenging, and she sometimes comes with me. Our friends all live in and around the city. We are both introverts though, so like being home and being quiet.
Total Items in Store: 3067
Items Sold: 32
Cost of Items Sold: $40
Total Sales: $1163
Highest Price Sold: $99 (Vintage Letterman Sweater)
Average Price Sold: $36.44
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $42
Number of items listed this week: 65eBay feels sort of slow, but I checked and we are about $1000 ahead of last January to today’s date. So gut feeling of slow was wrong.
About the podcast…I (Ryan) started selling like Dan when I was in college in the late 90s. I had a friend who could get golf clubs at wholesale price and I would sell them on eBay. After college got a job in finance but sold on the side selling vintage clothes (which is still my go-to). From 2006-2009 I had an eBay car sales business with my ex’s cousin. I was the eBay portion of the business. We sold muscle cars and the like, but when the economy went down in 2008 and 2009, the business, which was over leveraged and on shaky ground, collapsed. I went back to finance but still doing eBay on the side.
eBay became my primary source of income in 2012. I met Rita in 2015 and within a few months we started an eBay store together. I do 100% of the listing and 90% of the sourcing. Rita does almost all of the shipping. She also coaches lacrosse and knits and spins yarn which she sells locally and on Etsy. We both also do some carpentry work and I do some landscaping and tree work, mostly because I like getting outside and working with my hands, and the cash payment is nice. But that work is maybe 5% of my income.
I came from a scavenger family. I grew up going to auctions with my grandparents. My grandma was an antiques dealer. My grandpa bought and sold everything, mostly tractors and tools and property. My dad had property and bought and sold everything. So, if they were still around, they would actually like what I’m up to for a living.
Finally, I live in a city (St. Louis), but the city is low cost. Lots of estate sales and tons of great rural thrift stores. I prefer small rural thrifts.
1/5-1/11
Total Items in Store: 3034
Items Sold: 33
Cost of Items Sold: $28
Total Sales: $1031
Highest Price Sold: $83 (Vintage Carhartt Vest)
Average Price Sold: $31.24
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $30
Number of items listed this week: 79Finally had the time to list this week. Hopefully that continues and equates to increased sales in the coming weeks.
One of the callers mentioned living in a rural area and traveling once a week to a more populous area to source. I live in a city and do all of my thrift store shopping in the surrounding rural areas. I go to estate sales in the city. I guess it all depends on your part of the country.
Jay –
Our sides jobs are:
*We both do some carpentry and the like. Currently we are doing some renovations on a house Rita’s step dad owns
*Rita spins yarn and does other fiber arts and sells that on Etsy and to local folks
*We maintain and clean a 2-family Airbnb for some folks who live in NY. We are in St. Louis
*Rita is a high school and youth Lacrosse coach
*And whatever other weird side gigs pop up
12/29-1/4
Total Items in Store: 2988
Items Sold: 29
Cost of Items Sold: $28
Total Sales: $983
Highest Price Sold: $95 (Wooden German Incense smoker)
Average Price Sold: $33.89
Returns: 3
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $67
Number of items listed this week: 37New year resolution…post our numbers every week. I’ve gotten out of the habit of it. This last year was consistent for us. December was not great, actually about 20% under 2018. But this year starting well, and the entirety of 2018 was good. I just gotta keep listing. We do other side jobs and sometimes throughout the year those side jobs become the primary job.
I see it from the Seller Hub page on eBay. Very bottom right corner under the “Growth” heading…it says “Invalid / Missing product identifiers”. Out of 2900 items it says I have just under 800 in this list. I’m doing other work through today so can’t really mess with it until tomorrow. But apparently eBay is correcting the size issue.
A message on eBay says they are aware of the problems and working on them. A friend of mine called eBay and they told her the same thing. That the size issue is an error and will be fixed. Hopefully that is true, I have 800 that say they need to be fixed.
The buyer misread the description. It’s describes correctly so shouldn’t be INAD. But the buyer is saying they want all the customs and taxes refunded too. Obviously that is t happening and doesn’t happen with Global shipping. I also though don’t want they to keep a nice Korean War shirt for free.
