ADVICE, Guidance...I LOVE selling, but I've got to make enough money to get by...

[retromodernmarvels]

Hi, I could use the guidance & advice of some experienced eBay sellers.

I am fairly new to selling - I got started getting somewhat serious about giving selling on eBay as a way to earn a living a real go last October.  As I've gone along these past few months, I have had some sucess & found a great  deal of joy in doing this.

 I sell mostly vintage Mid-Century Modern collectibles (chrome canister sets, decanter/bottles, pottery, frameable ads, etc.) items as well as some modern items.  I feel that I am gaining a wealth of knowledge of what types of items to look for & buy & I am gaining speed in streamlining the actual listing process.  My sales have grown some over the past months, but fluctuate greatly.

I love having a business that is mine, I love the bargain treasure hunting & research & I especially LOVE the freedom of not being tied to a desk 40 hours a week.  Being a eBay seller has given me a great deal of happiness in working for myself & my daughter & husband have been so much happier too (it really is true that "a happy wife is happy life :~)...), so I REALLY don't want to give this up....

However, money is very tight right now & I have to find a way to kick my business into high gear & make a living in order to continue selling as a business & not go back to being a full-time slave to a desk 40 hours a week.  

I need to know what tools might be best to make the difference & give me the most "bang for my buck".

Any ideas, strategies, advice on what I can do to make this work would be more than appreciated!  

THANK YOU,

Dena 

RetroModernMarvels

[jacobswoodworking]

Let me at least say a few things to advise you some.  My wife and I started in March 2013 and started small.  We did the practice of purchasing some items on Ebay and attempting to sell them back for a little more.  We did that some but then we attempted to go to some yard sales and look for something that was low priced high in quantity and stuff like that.  We did get some wooden stamps and they were in excellent condition.  Now we did get some of those items sold back out and did make something off of them but some times we would not get anything for sales for a long time.  I then started looking at Craigslist to look for items large in quantity and to make deals with that.  We did invest into 35 video games that were old in nature but we were able to push them right back out and sell them international and that helpe us make something there. 

We then applied for a credit card and decided to use that for business purposes.  That was a mistake on our part now thanks to the interest and payments.  We did make some purchases from a liquidation company and that has cost us badly in some cases. I will be happy when that stock is gone and we will certainly not purchase anything else from that company.  

In August we found a map service that allows you to post the locations of sales and that continues to grow without a key stroke on your part at all.  We did do the research of each sale and typed that in so the service knew where the previous sales had been geographically.  We did that using the download reports from paypal.  You can get a lot of information and sort it out in excel so you can make some records simple.  That is how I was able to get all of the tax records accurate for 2013.

We also did add on a new service at start in March 2013 and that is for a sniping service.  We have used that countless times and it does work for our benefit.  We do pay $5 each month but it is well worth it for getting supplies like labels, boxes, peanuts, and padded envelopes.  We do use it for other items but primarily we focus on supplies and other items.  The service puts in bids with 5 seconds left and it will do it at anytime of day so i can wake up in the morning, pay for the item and have a good nights rest during the bidding.

Let me also suggest finding a starbucks coffee store.  They carry very good boxes and I have heard that they are very good boxes for sending items.  I read that a few months ago from this group discussion I think and I do go there occasionally for boxes.  I am limited to one day each week that they have the boxes available in my case for the location near me.

The other decision my wife and I made was to get registered with the state and federals.  That opened up alot of other suppliers for us and we did have to pay to have that.  One benefit now is not having to pay sales tax on purchases.  Some of the stores we buy from do not charge sales tax and that does add up during the year.  Catch is that we do have to collect sales tax for the customers we sell to in our state but with ebay 99% of the sales are outside of our state.

We do go international and that has helped us out with some sales.  The advantage to going international is setting up the sales to charge what the actual shipping is based on the buyers location.  If you have top seller status and get discounts for expenses, then you will be able to make some money off just the sending of the merchandise.  Just this past week the shipping charged a customer x amount and we had to pay "y" amount and inspite of the sale being for one penny, we made the money on the shipping which was more that one dollar in amount.  

I will close for now and I do not want to have too too much for you to handle.  Let me close by suggesting the program turbo lister.  I have used that program and it is free and that is how I can get listings up very fast.  Take care and good luck.

[mrobind42]

That is good advice about the boxes. What is sniping? I haven't heard of that before. I haven't ever bought from ebay to sell on ebay either, there is really not enough profit margin. Having a credit card for business purposes is a good idea, but you have to be deligent and pay it off every month so you aren't paying credit card interest on top of fvf and paypal fees plus having to provide free shipping so your listing will come up in best match. 

This is what I have learned from a dear friend/fellow seller, it has helped me a great deal:

As someone said...know your product and know it well. Be able to answer any question about it.

If you deal in what my main products are...stay out of outlets. You are not getting a better deal. There is no such thing as a Coach, Fossil, or Michael Kors outlet. They are factory stores. Coach factory is priced the same as the retail lines and then they run what seems to be huge sales. They do have a larger selection of keyfobs than the retail lines. Michael Kors Factory lines rarely have sales and they are priced fairly close to the retail lines. Factory and Retail are NOT the same. If you are going to go into designer anything, shopping the retail stores during the holiday seasons is the best way to go (with the department store card, Just remember to pay it off every month)

Ship light and ship fast. Morning shipments will arrive faster than late afternoon shipments.

Know your competition, and know them well. Then outdo what they do. You have to be better, faster, provide the over the top customer service, better guarantee's, and keep evovlving. Try new things, but don't go overboard until you know they will stay

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@jacobswoodworking wrote:

Let me at least say a few things to advise you some.  My wife and I started in March 2013 and started small.  We did the practice of purchasing some items on Ebay and attempting to sell them back for a little more.  We did that some but then we attempted to go to some yard sales and look for something that was low priced high in quantity and stuff like that.  We did get some wooden stamps and they were in excellent condition.  Now we did get some of those items sold back out and did make something off of them but some times we would not get anything for sales for a long time.  I then started looking at Craigslist to look for items large in quantity and to make deals with that.  We did invest into 35 video games that were old in nature but we were able to push them right back out and sell them international and that helpe us make something there. 

We then applied for a credit card and decided to use that for business purposes.  That was a mistake on our part now thanks to the interest and payments.  We did make some purchases from a liquidation company and that has cost us badly in some cases. I will be happy when that stock is gone and we will certainly not purchase anything else from that company.  

In August we found a map service that allows you to post the locations of sales and that continues to grow without a key stroke on your part at all.  We did do the research of each sale and typed that in so the service knew where the previous sales had been geographically.  We did that using the download reports from paypal.  You can get a lot of information and sort it out in excel so you can make some records simple.  That is how I was able to get all of the tax records accurate for 2013.

We also did add on a new service at start in March 2013 and that is for a sniping service.  We have used that countless times and it does work for our benefit.  We do pay $5 each month but it is well worth it for getting supplies like labels, boxes, peanuts, and padded envelopes.  We do use it for other items but primarily we focus on supplies and other items.  The service puts in bids with 5 seconds left and it will do it at anytime of day so i can wake up in the morning, pay for the item and have a good nights rest during the bidding.

Let me also suggest finding a starbucks coffee store.  They carry very good boxes and I have heard that they are very good boxes for sending items.  I read that a few months ago from this group discussion I think and I do go there occasionally for boxes.  I am limited to one day each week that they have the boxes available in my case for the location near me.

The other decision my wife and I made was to get registered with the state and federals.  That opened up alot of other suppliers for us and we did have to pay to have that.  One benefit now is not having to pay sales tax on purchases.  Some of the stores we buy from do not charge sales tax and that does add up during the year.  Catch is that we do have to collect sales tax for the customers we sell to in our state but with ebay 99% of the sales are outside of our state.

We do go international and that has helped us out with some sales.  The advantage to going international is setting up the sales to charge what the actual shipping is based on the buyers location.  If you have top seller status and get discounts for expenses, then you will be able to make some money off just the sending of the merchandise.  Just this past week the shipping charged a customer x amount and we had to pay "y" amount and inspite of the sale being for one penny, we made the money on the shipping which was more that one dollar in amount.  

I will close for now and I do not want to have too too much for you to handle.  Let me close by suggesting the program turbo lister.  I have used that program and it is free and that is how I can get listings up very fast.  Take care and good luck.

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[jacobswoodworking]

The sniping is  a service that you enter the item number and type in the maximum bidding you will pay and the computer server will put in the bid for you with for example 5 seconds left or 10 seconds left.  The subscription price for us is $5 per month and it works with ebay well.  It does not send an email to user if you have a low bid, not that I know of so if you have a low bid, you will lose unless you keep an eye on the item itself or if you watch the snipe window on the browser.

One other item that we have stock of is baseball cards.  We did invest $100 into 10,000 baseball cards, we are working on inventory but have not posted many of the cards if at all.  We did find that through craigslist and there is a lot of baseball cards that change hands on ebay to say the least.  Postcards do well and we bought 500 international ones for under $20 last year.  They do well international sales way.  We have sold some from Iowa also.

We have purchased some books in the area and the rule for that is to buy a book under $1 at least.  The last set purchased was 96 for $40.  The first few sets we got were for an average of $1 each and we do not make as much on them but will be happy when we get the other books out later on.  Music does well also and some people get rid of their CD's once they have the music stored on computers, thumb drives, etc.  Some music does still sell on Ebay and also half.com

[jacobswoodworking]

The sniping is  a service that you enter the item number and type in the maximum bidding you will pay and the computer server will put in the bid for you with for example 5 seconds left or 10 seconds left.  The subscription price for us is $5 per month and it works with ebay well.  It does not send an email to user if you have a low bid, not that I know of so if you have a low bid, you will lose unless you keep an eye on the item itself or if you watch the snipe window on the browser.

One other item that we have stock of is baseball cards.  We did invest $100 into 10,000 baseball cards, we are working on inventory but have not posted many of the cards if at all.  We did find that through craigslist and there is a lot of baseball cards that change hands on ebay to say the least.  Postcards do well and we bought 500 international ones for under $20 last year.  They do well international sales way.  We have sold some from Iowa also.

We have purchased some books in the area and the rule for that is to buy a book under $1 at least.  The last set purchased was 96 for $40.  The first few sets we got were for an average of $1 each and we do not make as much on them but will be happy when we get the other books out later on.  Music does well also and some people get rid of their CD's once they have the music stored on computers, thumb drives, etc.  Some music does still sell on Ebay and also half.com

[cdonk1]

I have found that since ebay uses Best Match for search listings , it is actually more important to have a better title than description.  Not that a description isn't important, but your title is what will drive people to your listing in the first place, since ebay now uses Best Match first in determining where you will result in the search standings on ebay.  It is true that the description will help sell the product to the customer , but if you can't be found through the best match by a potential customer , how will you be able to sell the customer if they can't find you?  Descriptions have to be good enough to sell the customer on buying the product, but even more emphasis needs to be put on having more customers  find you through having a great title...

More traffic=More Sales.

You can use terapeak keywords through ebay(which is what I currently use for every title I make on ebay) or there is another free title builder called title builder(which I haven't used yet) at www.title-builder.com

Another thing that I do is find items that have sold more than once in 60 days and keep selling them repeatedly untill my supplier runs out of them.

[reallynicestamps]

Is there a great tool, app or system that you or anyone else is having big sucess with that you could share with me?  I need a good way to track my inventory, manage my time & speed up my processes.

Because I use a Mac, I use Open Office for spreadsheets. I also keep firmly in mind that the current minimum wage in Ontario is $11.00 or 17.3 cents a minute.

Some problems come up that are annoying, but solving them costs too much. Best example, fussing about Unpaid Items. I just take a deep breath, file the UID and move on.

For speeding up processes, practice, practice, practice. There are those who advocate ‘dumpster diving’ for packaging materials. At 17.3 cents a minute is it cheaper to use found materials or to buy new (on eBay to get the positive feedback  )

There are templates available for recurring items. I keep an OpenText  folder with all the book descriptions I have every used, alphabetically by author. Since it takes about 10 minutes ($1.73) to research and write a new description this has proven useful. But you sell a vastly different product.

I also have my Terms of Sale as a cut and paste document, along with a few phrases I use often, for example, many of my dress patterns would appeal to women whose  traditions include modest clothing. I have a set phrase that gets cut and pasted into the applicable descriptions.

I pack my items very carefully & it ends up taking up a lot of time....any pointers there too?

Standardize.  The fewer types of packaging you have to choose from, the easier the job. Are you familiar with those ‘adjust a size’ boxes sold by ULine and other online stationery suppliers?

However, if you can arrange to be the 'trash collector' for a local business, you may get a consistent supply of similar packing materials. If your municipality is like mine, businesses must arrange for their own trash pickup and it is not paid for by their business taxes. So you are reducing a large expense.

Any good sucess stories of how you "made it"....or at least knew that you could make enough to survive doing this?

I went into this when I realized that I did not have a pension and was already 55. I don’t make a living at this, but I do have a substantial nest egg at 67 and will be retiring from my day job (which does have a pension) next month.

When I crunch my numbers, I can see that eBay will continue to be a substantial income stream as long as my eyesight and typing skills hold out. 

[mackenzie6049]

Well said...as in most things in life, it [ays to do a lot of research for sure!