Net Profit? what net profit?

[jeeplvr2000]

Ebay sellers would benefit greatly if they itemized every cost associated with their sales. I just did it right down to the last penny and was sickened by what ebay is charging sellers per sale. With taxes, insertion fees, seller fees, and shipping, profit margins on ebay are nearly worse than just giving the item away. I honestly don't know how some people sell items for under 20.00 unless they're getting them for free. My seller fees with shipping on just one of my items is substantially more than the build cost of the item. My choice is to raise my price and sell nothing. Am I missing some ebay selling secret here?

[yuzuha]

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@varebelrose wrote:

" I honestly don't know how some people sell items for under 20.00 unless they're getting them for free. ""
Your profit is made when you acquire inventory for resale. I used to regularly sell ball caps here with free shipping for $9 to 12 and made a solid $3-6 profit on each. Not much, true, but a hundred sales like that adds up quickly. The same can be done with all kinds of items. My goal always was to shoot for 1000% profit on every <$20 sale.

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And some of us ARE getting those items for free/close to free. I have a whole ton of breweriana items, for example, that I got for free from the reps at various beer/wine/spirits tastings. Even if I only sell them for $6-7 bucks each, it's all pure profit because they cost me nothing to acquire.

[varebelrose]

" how long did it take you to photo, and do the listing per item???"

12 full photos on a wig mannequin, front, back, sides, brim, inside. Take pictures of ~20 at a time, sorted by type (NFL, NBA, NASCAR, Etc.), then use template or "sell similar".  Maybe a grand total of 5 minutes each, a few minutes more time to package when/if sold.

Additional time/cost for any that were not spotless and needed a run through the laundry.

But it was also something I could do as a hobby, in shorts while enjoying a cold beer, not a full-time job or essential income. I totally understand it will be different math for someone who relies on this to pay their mortgage.

[dbfolks166mt]

     What salecalc gives you is your profit before taxes. To get your net profit you would need to take out the income taxes you pay(ed) that is if you show a gain. This would be the figure you would use to calculate your ROI percentage. 

[katzrul15]

@varebelrose 

Thank you!  We too have a bunch new with tags we pd $1/per.   Need to raise our price a little or drop free shipping.

Thx, again!

[nuclearomen]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

@varebelrose 

Thank you!  We too have a bunch new with tags we pd $1/per.   Need to raise our price a little or drop free shipping.

Thx, again!

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@katzrul15 ...so today I sold 2x of a item that when I sourced I also figured the box size needed to ship, which I couldn't get, but got dimension pretty close 12x4x6 (needed 12x4x4) - so anyways, turns out when I made the listing I used 12x4x4 box and weighed the item packaged at time of listing creation... that was 14 oz. - First Class Mail. Item price was made out in reflection of cost item, FVF, Transaction Fee, Price of Box, Mylar Bag, and First Class Mail - well, I lost money on both sales... that bit larger box bumps the weight up to 1 lbs - 3oz (1 lbs 5oz - always add a couple of ounces to total weight) - Priority Mail - there goes my profit. Yeah, it was/is little profit item - don't make much a few bucks but I made nothing - lost money. So when I enter them back into stock I now have to up the item price and change the shipping method. Oh well...first time I lost profit on item in like 2 years. 

[varebelrose]

If you have a pair of electric scissors it would take about 20 seconds to cut that 12x4x6 box down to a 12 x4x4. I always tried to minimize the excess cardboard if it would save postage.

[nuclearomen]

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@varebelrose wrote:

If you have a pair of electric scissors it would take about 20 seconds to cut that 12x4x6 box down to a 12 x4x4. I always tried to minimize the excess cardboard if it would save postage.

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na, and it would take more then 20 seconds lol... taking an already existing box and trimming the dimensions down requires bit more work...to do it right anyways. The weight is due to the boxes are double walled, heavy vs the lighter weight single walled boxes. Not really worry about it. I lost couple of bucks from those two sales, true, but I sold other things this weekend more then made 300+% profits on.

[cincoc1]

I hear you. I`ve had a nice run for several years selling my things and selling for others on commission. Now I have to drop my commission clients because I can`t make a profit on them. Ebay has gotten greedy

[kh-stanley1]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.