Average Retail *Starting* Wage is $15-Are You at Least Making That Selling Online?

[katzrul15]

Our numbers that will close out 3rd Quarter are pretty dismal.

2nd was not much better - 1st quarter was terrific, but Holidays boosted Jan.  Feb was fine and March began an abrupt decline in sales/revenue.

We clearly are not making $15/hr.  Is anyone?  Have you taken the time to calculate the number of hours put in resourcing, sorting/prepping items, database entries for inventory,  researching, creating listings, shipping, dealing with customers, returns, inquiries, etc. ??

Pretty sure our average hourly rate is dismal at best right now.

Add item resource costs, supplies and taxes due on quarterlies and this is not a side hustle - it is side "hustled".....hustled into thinking this can be profitable??

Our CPA is starting to question why we are working so hard at this for so little return?  We're starting to wonder too.  😫

[yuzuha]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@yuzuha 

Exactly. Especially when the whole business model---from what to source to shipping---is BASED on efficiency. I find it entirely believable as well. 

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I personally shifted AWAY from one-off used items towards crane game prizes once I realized how much more efficient I could be in terms of listing and shipping them. They store easily-- just stack the boxes up on top of each other, no need for totes or storage boxes or anything like that, which makes it much easier for me to pull them when they've sold. They all ship in the same size boxes-- either 12"x10"x8" or 10"x8"x6", so no needing to keep multiple box sizes on hand for them. The packing procedure is exactly the same for each one.

And the sourcing itself is easy as pie, as most of them take me under two minutes to win (which I can do literally anywhere as I play via apps-- I've won prizes while waiting in line at the grocery store before) and then I just have them shipped right to my door. All in all, it means that my ROI on those particular items is quite high when you consider how much I get for each one versus the amount of time it takes to acquire, list and ship them.

[2013grotz]

Had to write a few thoughts as I've kept reading this thread...

I mention my "closet" and really that's the biggest barrier for me right now time-wise.  It's not so much putting things up for sale, it's determining if I *want* to sell it.  The question of books (and the roughly 300 of them I have here) is the foremost question, since I picked every one of them up at one point because I had some interest in it.   Or read the book once and forgot what it was about.  But there's DVDs I haven't watched in years and CDs I haven't listened to in years to add to that too.  Of course, all of it is from going out to thrifts, garage sales, and other stuff and picking up things that interest me.

The DVDs and CDs are easy enough to deal with (view or listen, form opinion), but I really need to figure out a way to vet these books so I can see if they are something I want to read or not.  Always a problem to keep up on those.

To bring this back to eBay, I find it hard to put my vetting time on stuff I had interest in as "ebay time".  But I do find it hard to "get" a lot of those items very quickly.   I can look at the books and other stuff I get that I know right out of the gate I have no interest in (mainly from bulk buys to get some of the things above) and list those pretty quickly.  That said, once I have a batch of items ready to make it worth my time to set up things to list, I can turn out probably 40-60 listings in an afternoon.  The time crunch problem comes when I get one-off items that I have to research and figure out what they are first before I can get confident enough to list them.

But like I said, if I want to distill everything out, I make a lot more than $15 an hour.  Problem is that ebay doesn't afford me enough billable hours (maybe 30 minutes in the last week) to make it worth my while any more than buying an occasional pizza or McDonald's meal every so often.

[chapeau-noir]

I don't mind the fact that it takes me a little longer to list something overall - I'm efficient about operations, but presentation is also important to me. I may be able to write a listing in a couple of minutes (and not just "George shirt.  Condition is used.  Shipping is first class") and I ship efficiently, but merchandise selection, preparation and presentation take a little longer, which is perfectly well with me.  Not getting into that 'race to bottom' in that respect, either.

As I said above, there's no one true way to do this and attain a decent income.

[katzrul15]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

I don't mind the fact that it takes me a little longer to list something overall - I'm efficient about operations, but presentation is also important to me. I may be able to write a listing in a couple of minutes (and not just "George shirt.  Condition is used.  Shipping is first class") and I ship efficiently, but merchandise selection, preparation and presentation take a little longer, which is perfectly well with me.  Not getting into that 'race to bottom' in that respect, either.

As I said above, there's no one true way to do this and attain a decent income.

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We are all about presentation as well - if I list a $229 lego set, you can bet there are more than 2 pix.  Same thing with an in-demand collectible vinyl - and I tend on higher value items (we do not sell much under $24 at all any more) that are $100+, to over-describe, under-promise and over-deliver.  We have custom packing/shipping labels and we think presentation of the arrived product and the pix ARE important.  We get a lot of repeat buyers as a result.  I do not want to dumpster-dive as the other posted stated they do - we do not sell anything that we would not buy ourselves and we are much tougher critics on something than a typical buyer.

It takes a lot of time to go thru a pallet, a stack of vinyl, a stack of legos - I am not going to leave money on the table - we will rarely be the cheapest at listing and we are not the highest.  I have stated before, we are typically middle of the pack and that is fine with us.  Like you, I am not interested in the "race" to the bottom.

And our goal is to sell 30-50 items per month on here at much higher prices (typically $50-$500 per item) not 300 widgets at $6.99 + shipping.  When you sell higher value items, it does take research, detailed descriptions and detailed pix.  You also answer a lot of questions from buyers before the sale - especially on vinyl to insure it is the correct pressing, release date, record label, etc.  

With the new listing tool, even with templates and sell similar (yes, have been here since 2004 as a Seller, so not inept at listing), it takes much longer than it did before, even on multiples.  And we do edit/crispen our pix - that also takes time.

1638 items sold this quarter thru FBA with Amazon - almost no work, except to acquire the product, create the FBA listing and ship the jumbo boxes off - they do all the rest.  Perhaps that is really the answer - stop resourcing items that cannot be sold on Amazon and just tinker with the 2 accounts on here.  Also, having 2 e-Bay accounts is a pain.  We get thru the holidays and the smaller account has to idle.  Just not enough hours in the day.

[eunster1313]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

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@pvcliff wrote:

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@dnasilver wrote:

Nothing wrong with pie. I have my Ben and Jerry's right after breakfast. Nothing like a good dessert to get the day going.

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We call all sweets pie, kind of like Cliff’s Texas relatives call all soft drinks “coke”. We had pie for breakfast today (blueberry muffins) and will have pie (chocolate chip cookies) with lunch. We will have chicken cacciatore for dinner, and for pie we’ll have tiramisu.

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@pvcliff 

I like that idea - to "me", PIE is the pinnacle of all things sweet and then homemade ice cream.  Combo'd and I am undeniably happy!  We might as well talk about pie - this thread ended up derailed anyway and PIE is good, no matter the kind!

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[patmos-8]

I'll just respond to a few points because you're either purposely making a strawman of my claims or you're not paying attention. 

I cross-list to one other platform, not multiple.  With the browser extension I use, the whole process takes around 10 minutes daily, a negligible amount of time.  I explained that very clearly.   

My VA generates around 10x revenue compared to what I pay her, both in actual revenue and time saved.  My CPA did the math.  I'm in the process of hiring a second right now.  That's why I only listed 30 yesterday, as you so aptly pointed out.  I was screen-recording the process for my new VA and didn't want to overload him with info.  

As I've also explained, I have another eBay store as well as another platform on which I sell.  Looking at the sales volume on this store alone and trying to guess my profitability is futile.

My COGS is $1.13/item.  I buy in bulk and the whole process takes two hours, once every Saturday morning. 

Never claimed to be an expert, and still don't.  I just claimed to be someone making significantly more than $15/hour, which I am.    

I honestly couldn't care less if you don't believe me.  To be totally candid, I find it kinda flattering.  But the absolute surety of your disbelief is a little puzzling, seeing how you're missing so many vital pieces of the puzzle that would be required to arrive at such a strong conviction.  

[skeletonstore]

Nope but then again I have too few listings to make such money.  I could sell better than some with more things to sell or better things though.  It's amazing how many people either have no idea how to list or even have lots of experience but waste too much time researching and trying to narrow things down to the penny.  Home Depot has a lot of brands they actually have manufactured for them.  One popular item routinely sells for 100% retail yet they never raise their prices.  Are they stupid?  No. They don't care.  Their goal was to make a certain amount on the item and they're not going to dwell on the item.  They only care about selling,  not dwelling.  If a customer has a problem they just make them whole as quickly as possible and move on.  IMO wasting too much time on one product is fruitless when the average consumer is impulsive. If the item is only worth a few bucks then you're better off listing 100 of them an hour rather than 1 an hour. This site and others are mostly based around a fresco style of selling where a person is literally adding catalogs at a time not 1 item.  They squash your marketplace with volume. It's a blitzkrieg.  Picture and price, that's all you need.  You know how much you paid for the item.  You know how much ebay wants. You know how much shipping will be.  Bing bang boom. 

[farmalljr]

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@patmos-8 wrote:

I'll just respond to a few points because you're either purposely making a strawman of my claims or you're not paying attention. 

I cross-list to one other platform, not multiple.  With the browser extension I use, the whole process takes around 10 minutes daily, a negligible amount of time.  I explained that very clearly.   

My VA generates around 10x revenue compared to what I pay her, both in actual revenue and time saved.  My CPA did the math.  I'm in the process of hiring a second right now.  That's why I only listed 30 yesterday, as you so aptly pointed out.  I was screen-recording the process for my new VA and didn't want to overload him with info.  

As I've also explained, I have another eBay store as well as another platform on which I sell.  Looking at the sales volume on this store alone and trying to guess my profitability is futile.

My COGS is $1.13/item.  I buy in bulk and the whole process takes two hours, once every Saturday morning. 

Never claimed to be an expert, and still don't.  I just claimed to be someone making significantly more than $15/hour, which I am.    

I honestly couldn't care less if you don't believe me.  To be totally candid, I find it kinda flattering.  But the absolute surety of your disbelief is a little puzzling, seeing how you're missing so many vital pieces of the puzzle that would be required to arrive at such a strong conviction.  

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Just another reason why I don't believe you. You aren't going to source pre selected mall brand clothing for 1.13 each piece. It's going to take more than 2 hours to launder it, because no one is selling you laundered used clothing for 1.13 each piece. 

Hey, you can chime in and claim anything you want. If what you said were actually truth, you could sell training to people and make more money, have more time, then you do now.  Makes no difference to me. I know how much I roll every year. I also know about selling online. I watch many people who are mediocre to experts that do ecommerce, all the time. If what you claimed was possible, someone else would be talking about it, but they aren't. Anyone can talk a good game. But you aren't offering anything to prove your claims. If you are actually making and doing what you claim, good on you. You would have figured out something others have struggled to find for years, with MUCH experimentation. These people have way deeper pockets and more manpower than you or I. 

[katzrul15]

@farmalljr 

Earlier in the thread he/she they got it for free by dumpster diving.  So which is it?  Story has changed so much and yet the thread is here for easy reference??

[yuzuha]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

Earlier in the thread he/she they got it for free by dumpster diving.  So which is it?  Story has changed so much and yet the thread is here for easy reference??

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He said he got the carpet remnant for free by dumpster diving, not the clothes.

[mam98031]

Minimum wage is no where near $15 in most states yet.  The Federal minimum wage is $7.25

https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx

[katzrul15]

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@mam98031 wrote:

Minimum wage is no where near $15 in most states yet.  The Federal minimum wage is $7.25

https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx

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Never mentioned minimum wage.  The average national retail starting wage is $15 (target, tj maxx, wal-mart,  etc)

Amazon warehouse workers are going to $19.

[mam98031]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

Minimum wage is no where near $15 in most states yet.  The Federal minimum wage is $7.25

https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx

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Never mentioned minimum wage.  The average national retail starting wage is $15 (target, tj maxx, wal-mart,  etc)

Amazon warehouse workers are going to $19.

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True you didn't.  You said "starting wage".  There are so many places that do not yet pay employees $15 per hour to start.  They likely far exceed those that do offer $15.

[sakic92710]

Per hour????  I cannot even get that rate per day!  "eBay sales" could almost be an oxymoron now!   lol   September began in silence & ended in silence.  I feel as though 1 more refund for slow mail or 1 more return will be enough to say **** it!  I'm done!  I had 2 sales this week & it wasn't enough to cover a refund I had to give for delayed USPS snail mail.

[farmalljr]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

@farmalljr 

Earlier in the thread he/she they got it for free by dumpster diving.  So which is it?  Story has changed so much and yet the thread is here for easy reference??

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What this poster is trying to do, is make it sound like they are using Chris' system, doing things his way, but doing it way faster than the actual expert (meaning Chris).  From his photo, I can tell he is packing and numbering just like Chris does. 

Big difference is, Chris would tell you, after his own experince with VA's that you should not use them, because they screw up and will eventually cost you your account. That IF you use a VA the time you "saved" costs you anyway having to proof each listing to be sure they are right.  IF this guy is doing what he claims (selling similar) what is the VA doing? VA's can't take photos. VA's can't sort and measure either. VA's can't pack and ship. The only use is creating listings, which they claim they are doing themselves from sell similar. 

Chris also buys mall brands in bulk. But Chris was upfront telling viewers that cost him a premium.  He buys HUGE bulk and way more pieces then Mr. Speedracer and pays substantially more. Even if you were buying all the clothing from storage unit buyers, you aren't getting the inventory that cheap, sorted and washed. Not in a million years. I too buy my records in bulk from a certain clean out guy, and I get them "cheap". But when you figure that 80+% of them are garbage and the time to sort, I am not buying records for 10 cents each. 99.9% of little 45's and 78's are dumpster fodder. I'm lucky if 20% of the 33's are sellable and there is a market for them. Same goes for clothing, IF they are buying them from storage unit buyers. I've bought storage units in the past, and I know all about that. The reason people abandon storage units, is because most all of that stuff is junk and not worth what the unit costs every month. And that clothing DEFINATELY needs washed.