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I haven’t seen any hard facts/data, but I suspect that:
1. Being top rated pushes your listings higher in search results.
2. All else being equal, some buyers may choose to buy from a top rated seller over one that is not.Is it worth the extra work to make sure you remain top rated? Depends on the individual and their items IMO.
With the above said, I’ve got a second account that only sells low dollar (<$25), small, light items that I send via letter mail (ephemera, patches, pins, etc). Keeps my main account top rated, and still allows me to sell/ship the small stuff for the price of a stamp.
For me, the savings are negligible, it’s the optics, and potentially higher search ranking that make me want to keep my TR status.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by
Winchester38.
I met Alex last spring (we were both vendors at an antique sale in Edmonton). Nice guy, loves to chat.
I’ve watched some of his videos, and it seems he’s grown a sizeable following in the last few years.
01/21/2019 at 11:35 pm in reply to: Starting back full time, and working towards hubby quitting his job #55550Thanks for sharing your story! My wife and I are in the beginning stages of buying back our time, primarily through online selling, and frugality. Super inspiring to see others making it work!
01/21/2019 at 6:56 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 395: What Lifestyle Is eBay Supporting For You? #55545January 13-19, 2019
Store 1
Total Items in Store: 1,556
Items Sold: 12
Gross Sales: $376.31
Cost of Items Sold: $25.60
Highest Price Sold: $72.99 (motorcycle parts)
Average Price Sold: $31.36
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $25.15
Number of items listed this week: 41Store 2 (CAD)
Total Items in Store: 663
Items Sold: 9
Gross Sales: $205.92
Cost of Items Sold: $3.15
Highest Price Sold: $100.00 (vintage patch)
Average Price Sold: $22.88
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 23Amazon.ca sales: $545.31 (CAD) (Approx $136.33 net profit)
Amazon.com sales: $1,929.35 (Approx $482.34 net profit)Slower than usual in our main store last week. Fortunately, our second store and amazon were both up, so same same, but different.
No real obvious reason for the main store being slow, but these weeks happen. I spent yesterday and today out buying (local thrift store had a big sale on), and now have four or five large IKEA bags full of stuff (mostly clothes) to try and list over the remainder of the week. Hopefully increased listing will push sales back up to normal levels.
I’ve been noticing the same when listing through the app in the last few days. Terribly annoying…haha
Well, we’ve walked away from the deal, and are back to searching for a property.
Jay, we had offered $155k for this one. It was listed at $179k, but comparable properties pegged it’s value closer to $165k. After some back-and-forth dancing, the sellers wouldn’t sell for less than $175, and we just couldn’t justify overpaying.
Steve, to answer your question, we’re hoping to end up with at least two acres. If whatever property we end up buying doesn’t have an area that’s ideal for ebay/amazon/storage/packing/listing/etc, we’ll likely look to build an additional building to house the business.
Back to shopping…
In the meantime, and back to the topic of ebay, we’ve passed the 2,200 total listings mark (1,551 on one account, 654 on the other). Should be able to hit our original target of 2,300 before the end of this month.
Thanks for the shout out on this week’s podcast!
Trying not to get our hopes up, but we just put in an offer on a home. Sent two separate sets of in-laws to view it for us, and had them FaceTime us through. Made the offer conditional on me flying out to view it in person once we’ve got an accepted offer in place.
Smallish place on 3.5 fully treed acres. Small, desireable, quiet community about 30 minutes from the nearest city, 30 minutes from the US border.
Fingers crossed we strike a deal, and I’m on a plane before the week is out.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by
Winchester38.
December 30 – January 5, 2019
Store 1
Total Items in Store: 1,528
Items Sold: 25
Gross Sales: $769.28
Cost of Items Sold: $80.20
Highest Price Sold: $129.99 (men’s jeans)
Average Price Sold: $30.77
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $119.35
Number of items listed this week: 63Store 2 (CAD)
Total Items in Store: 649
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $101.30
Cost of Items Sold: $2.00
Highest Price Sold: $23.99 (vintage patch)
Average Price Sold: $14.50
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 48Amazon.ca sales: $557.00 (CAD) (Approx $139.25 net profit)
Amazon.com sales: $1,094.00 (Approx $273.50 net profit)Doing my numbers every week really brings things home. It felt like a slower week, but we actually did well by our standards. I was pushing to get more listings up on both accounts last week. Almost entirely bread and butter items. Not sure if the activity helped sales or not, but I’ll take it. Going to push harder this week.
Amazon numbers are up, with some shipments that were sent early in the new year starting to hit the warehouses. Having the additional income streams is really helping to buoy our numbers and lessen stress about going full-time online.
No notable scavenge of the week. Bought lots of bread and butter items, but nothing that was a definite home run.
I buy stuff like this when I can get a deal. Just this week we sold a pair of 1970’s ceramic lamp bases for $75 that we got for $2 a year and a half ago.
Not on eBay, but at an antique auction last summer, I bought a GIANT cast iron mangle (clothing wringer) that came out of a turn of the century hospital. No one else bid on it because it was huge, and weighed a few hundred pounds. I paid $5 for it, and sold it the next morning at an antique sale for $100. Had to roll it in and out of my trailer, but otherwise it was an easy $95.
Jay, its a date. Sometime in the summer maybe, once we’re landed, and figure out which way is up!
Tomorrow, we’re sending a family member to view a home that was just listed for us. Fingers crossed it goes well enough to warrant a weekend trip back across the country to view it in person!
Ugh. The feeling of not being able to find something stinks.
I’ve got my inventory system pretty much down to a science, but this morning, had to look through a clothing rack twice to find a t shirt that had sold. Happens very rarely, but when it does, it is ALWAYS a black t shirt.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by
Winchester38.
Been a bit since the last update:
I am unofficially done with my day job. I won’t be officially done until late February, but I’m running out the clock with some time off. Working my butt off to get our stores ramped up, and to pad out my Amazon sales in anticipation for when the career pay stops coming in, and for when we make our move east at the end of May.
While we were back east over the holidays, we saw a few houses, talked to a few home builders, and looked at some land. Not sure if we’re going to build or buy yet, but exploring all of the options. Most excitingly, and ebay related, I’ve been starting to shop prices on building an office/warehouse/storage building. Looking at stick built, steel, etc. If we end up buying a property that requires us to build an ebay building, the plan is to have it fully self-contained (minus plumbing). Heated/insulated, with dedicated areas for storage, listing, photographing, and packing. In a perfect world, it would also have a roll up door so that I could pull my truck in for loading/unloading purposes, but that might be asking too much.
Fell slightly short of our listing goal of 2,150 listings by the end of December (entirely due to travel). We’re sitting at 2,152 (1,509, & 643, respectively) as of this moment. Still pushing to hit my original goal of 2,300 by the end of January.
Starting to work on finalizing our numbers for 2018, in preparation for a visit with our accountant in late March. Looks like we did roughly $30k on ebay, and around $24k on amazon (both gross). Hoping to get these into the range of $50k on ebay, $60k on amazon for 2019.
In personal news, we’ve booked two trips in the coming months:
My wife is travelling to Vancouver Island for work at the end of January, so I’m using some travel rewards and my new-found weekday freedom to join her. I’ll have a few days to explore new-to-me thrift stores, and possibly do some retail arbitrage while she’s working during the days. Planning on taking my postal scale, laptop, and Dymo in hopes of sending some FBA shipments in (assuming I find something worthy).
We’ve also booked a two week trip to El Salvador in mid-March. We’ll be spending most of the trip with some good friends of ours, and are looking forward to some much needed down time. Coincidentally, we’ll be there for my 39th birthday, so I’m dubbing the trip my “Freedom 39” trip.
01/09/2019 at 4:54 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 393: Happy New Year and Returns Happen #54838December 30 – January 5, 2019
Store 1
Total Items in Store: 1,488
Items Sold: 23
Gross Sales: $629.27
Cost of Items Sold: $47.20
Highest Price Sold: $75.00 (vintage lamp bases)
Average Price Sold: $27.36
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $58.58
Number of items listed this week: 23Store 2 (CAD)
Total Items in Store: 607
Items Sold: 3
Gross Sales: $32.97
Cost of Items Sold: $0.75
Highest Price Sold: $16.99 (vintage patch)
Average Price Sold: $10.99
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0.50
Number of items listed this week: 0Amazon.ca sales: (CAD) $213.00 (Approx $53.25 net profit)
Amazon.com sales: $616.00 (Approx $154.00 net profit)Happy New Year all! I’ve been a bit scarce around her as of late. We were on Canada’s east coast for two weeks over the holidays, and then in the Rocky Mountains for new years. The end of our trip had us hit five provinces in six days. It’s nice to finally be home, and working again.
As a result of our holiday travel, listing numbers were WAY down. Fortunately, even with extended handling time, we did alright sales-wise.
I am unofficially done with my day job. I won’t be officially done until late February, but I’m running out the clock with some time off. Working my butt off to get our stores ramped up, and to pad out my Amazon sales in anticipation for when the career pay stops coming in, and for when we make our move east at the end of May.
While we were back east, we saw a few houses, talked to a few home builders, and looked at some land. Not sure if we’re going to build or buy yet, but exploring all of the options. Most excitingly, and ebay related, I’ve been starting to shop prices on building an office/warehouse/storage building. Looking at stick built, steel, etc. If we end up buying a property that requires us to build an ebay building, the plan is to have it fully self-contained (minus plumbing). Heated/insulated, with dedicated areas for storage, listing, photographing, and packing. In a perfect world, it would also have a roll up door so that I could pull my truck in for loading/unloading purposes, but that might be asking too much.
I set up a separate account for lower value, un-tracked items. We had quite a few, and didn’t want to impact our TRS status. Mostly embroidered patches, and small ephemera. Generally, these sell for under $20 (usually around $12-13), and we just drop them in the mail with a stamp. We’ve had very few “go missing” (two, I think) and have sold probably 500 of them this way.
Jay said: “How did your family react? I bet that’s a big, happy piece of news for them.”
They were VERY excited. They’ve both got some health issues, so having us closer to home will be a big help for them at this point.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by
Winchester38.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by
Winchester38.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by
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