Episode 70 || Cashing in On End of Year Sales

[doug@ebay]

This week, our Cashing in On End of Year Sales continues. In the Main Story eBay seller Richard Cooley shares his strategies for capturing last-minute buyers for end of year sales. On Inside eBay Jeremee Pruitt, Director, Category Management at eBay, takes us into the mind of the holiday shopper. Jen Deal is back with What’s Hot focusing on Winter Gear. We’ll also cover topics of conversation from the eBay Community in The Buzz. To have your questions answered on eBay for Business, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.

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eBay Seller News Announcements (ebay.com/announcements)“New "Partner Fee” 
It’s the thieving season 
“Are sellers allowed to inflate shipping charges or change shipping method after buyer pays?” 
Share your holiday shipping selfie 

Hosts

Griff, Alan Aisbitt

Guests

Jen Deal (eBay Staff), Jeremee Pruitt (eBay Staff), Richard Cooley (eBay Seller)

This week on the eBay For Business Podcast:

"It's a good time to get all your inventory off the books before the end of the year. Try to turn what you can. The best way and one of the best assets that eBay has going for itself is auctions. If you have items sitting for Buy It Now for a long time that aren't moving, try to flip them back over to auctions."

"There's three mindsets that we'll talk through. First one being end of season sale. Sometimes you hear this as clearance, but it's really the ability for great values for the buyer and the seller to move through prior season inventory and get ready for the new season inventory that will be coming out."

" And every season there are new things to list on eBay because those demands and needs change. We may be exiting the holiday season but it's still winter. There's still things to buy and still things to take care of. So we wanted to give you some refreshers."

I'm Alan.

And I'm Griff and this is the eBay For Business Podcast. Your weekly source for the information and inspiration you need to start, run and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace.

And this is episode number 70.

That's right Alan. And this week we continue on our December theme, Cashing in On The End Of Year Sales.

eBay seller and friend of the podcast, Richard Cooley returns to talk about what he does to capture those last-minute buyers.
He sure does. And we'll also talk to Jeremee Pruitt. He's new on the podcast. He's from Sam Bright's team. We've had Sam on the show before. Jeremee's gonna take us into the mind of the holiday shopper.

Good. I've always wanted to go there.

You get your chance.

And Jen Deal has another, "What's Hot" segment, this time on Winter Gear.

Keep your eye out for...

BOLO.

BOLO?

Yeah. Be on the lookout!

For Winter Gear?

Yeah. Winter Gear is so hot right now.

Like Hanzel.

Obscure reference.

All that and more. But first it's time to listen in on what eBay sellers are saying on The Buzz.

Well, each week here on The Buzz we talk about the eBay community where thousands of conversations happen. We pulled some of our highlights from last week. What's up first Alan?

First, I should remind everyone that they can find links directly to the threads. We are highlighting this week right in the podcast transcript for episode 70 at ebay.com/podcast.

Thank you so much for that reminder. So what's up first?

Up first is a post entitled new partner fee and it was posted by brheinz2012. The poster says, “ha anyone else noticed on this month's PayPal transaction history, you will find a new partner fee? It has no description where it is from or who is charging it, but PayPal advises it is charged by eBay or an associate of eBay regarding the collection of sales tax.” The seller goes on to say “it appears as though it could be the equivalent of the amount of sales tax collected when you make a sale in a state that requires that sales tax be collected and deducted from your PayPal account.”

Okay. That's an interesting topic. What were some of the responses?

This response was posted by buyselljack2016 who wrote , “Bingo. As of November. We pay the processing fees on sales tax paid by the buyer." And poster chapeau-noir chimed in with "and we have to sort it as a separate line item on our 1099 because it's now all bundled together in the PayPal system. Poster pink.fish.rule said "funny how we're always partners when it's costing US money.”

That's a very good observation.

Yeah, and electrolaman offered a suggestion. "It looks like it is time to increase the handling charge a little more if we're now paying a fee on tax collected. I only had $97 in these partner fees, but it looks like that cost me, I$97 multiplied by 0.029 equals $2 81. So not a lot, but one less hamburger per month."

I'd be outraged.

That's a very cheap Hamburger. Be careful what you're eating now.

Where are you getting it at, White Castle?

"And a bit more account work to deal with this new thing that will affect the last two months of the year."

And it went on, right?

Yeah. chapeau-noir responded "along the same lines I was thinking." She's now craving a hamburger. "It will take my mind off all that dang parsing for taxes."

And finally myboardid had this bit of reality to share: "slightly less than 3 cents per transaction. Hardly worth even thinking about, let alone changing all your listings to add the handling fees."

Well that's a dose of reality right there.

Yeah, sure is. Somewhere in the middle. I mean 3 cents a transaction.

It can add up if you're doing a high volume.

Add up quickly. Yeah. So yeah, you have to think about maybe if you are going to invest, time investment, if you're going to go and update all your listings, is doing that for $2, $3 a month worth your time? So a decision for sellers to make.

Is this an eBay fee or a PayPal fee?

It's a PayPal fee.

Right. So they're charging us and we have to pass the charge on?

Yeah. It used to be, it used to be all bundled in the total cost, but there was a change and I believe we posted a Seller News Announcement regarding this at the time. There is information up on on eBay about it.

I think this goes away with Managed Payments though as a line item charge.

Could do. Yeah. I mean when it's all under control.

We will have to wait and see.

It's all within eBay and we control and we can, decide how the payments are structured.

So what's our next thread, Alan?

Our next selected thread is titled, "It's the Thieving Seasons."

Oh no.

It was posted by hexelmaedchen.

Maedchen? That's German for maid. It means evil made. Oh Hexel.

Oh dear!

Hex is a witch.

This poor poster.

Okay, here we go.

It's the thieving season. What does she have to say?

“Buyer bought an item after she talked me down in the price. It was in like new condition with all the tags attached. She sends me a private email saying all the tags were missing. And of course that would bring down the price considerably. If I don't go along with a big price reduction, she will send me my item back. She also says she wanted to work it out without eBay since she is a seller, of the same items as I found out.”

Oh brother, this sounds like a not so good buyer.

Not so good. Griff you usually don't equivocate.

Well it's the holidays Alan and I'm trying to be more positive. More up. Oh nice.

I see you playing against type.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, can I read the first response by the way?

Knock yourself out.

Okay. So the first response was written by gracieallen01 and she offered "your buyer may want to "work things out" without eBay to keep off their radar. Or perhaps because she is already on the radar. I would tell her to do it by the book as she would know, that's how it's supposed to be done on eBay. To which hexelmaedchen responded. "I know there is a button somewhere to report a buyer to eBay, but I can't find it. Any ideas?"

And the poster fern*wood came to the rescue when they replied. "You just find it under more actions on my "sold items". There's a little report, this buyer link in the dropdown box and they go on to add. "By the way, I love your items. Hopefully this buyer will disappear once they see you aren't working with them and their shakedown buying method."

Nice. Good.

That's really well put.

Good advice by Gracieallen01 and fern*wood.

This is a perfect example where a seller should not be swayed and should not be coward.

Yeah. It seems like the buyer was trying to take things privately, sort of cover their tracks, so yeah, I'd definitely encourage sellers to try and push it all back to member to member messages.

The buyer doesn't speak German obviously because you wouldn't mess with hexelmaedchen.

No, I mean you're going to get a spell cast on you.

I would not mess with hexelmaedchen.

Now, the worst that can happen is that because the buyer said, I'm just going to return the item without the tags. I would say as the seller, go ahead, make my day.

And when you get the item back, just give them 50% of their refund.

Oh, there you go.

That's the old Griff. Snark that we like to see.

Speaking of snark, there's a good one coming up. And onto our third, but not final threat and responses. Alan, can you read it?

Yeah. This one is by eBay poster geofizz1 is titled, "Are sellers allowed to inflate shipping charges or change shipping method after the buyer pays?"

Hey, can I read this one?

Yeah, you should.

Okay, so the original poster writes, "I recently purchased a small item and the auction page stated that the shipping would be $3.78 cents for first class package. I received it today stuffed into a Christmas card. (Well, it's the thought that counts) which they paid 70 cents postage for. It wasn't damaged, but my question is, are sellers allowed to do that or must they refund the difference? It was not an expensive item and $3.08 cents is a small amount, but I would like to know for the future. I personally would never do that, but that's just me." They go on to say "and I have received items with cash in with the item because it cost the seller less to ship than I paid. I don't buy much. I did just start selling again after a long absence and I always charge exact postage. On rare occasions I will add 50 cents handling when I build a listing. My question is do bidders see that 50 cent handling fee is separate on the listing page?" No they don't, but we'll see what anyone says "or does eBay roll it into the calculate shipping fees?" but there was more to this Alan.

Yeah, He then adds, " I know there are some that are going to say, Hey, you agreed to pay 3. 78 shipping and yes I did. I know I have recourse in feedback and I can choose not to deal with them again. I just want to know what the eBay policy on this is?"

I'm going to say this is definitely a bad buying experience.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. The the first poster gwens4saleitems* had this to say, "sellers shouldn't, but they do. I saw a listing the other day for a coffee mug selling for 6.99 with $12 shipping. Now, if that was a mug I wanted desperately, I may have thought about buying but I would not have been happy with the shipping costs."

Yeah, and then nobody*s_perfect added "if the carefully packed mug weighed over 16 ounces, then the actual postage could actually be $12 or more."

Interesting.

Yeah.

oz_in_ohio employed a little snippet of snark.

I love snark.

"Hi Gwen. If you don't like the people's shipping charge, then fly to the nearest airport and pick it up personally. That way you will save the shipping charge. Have a nice day."

Nice.

Too bad we don't have Brian Air here. Then it would only cost you about a hundred bucks.

Exactly.

And finally lja440 had some words of wisdom, "that seller won't be around long. Shipping it as a letter and charging package rates will lead to a lot of false INRs just because the buyer is peeved. And then the seller would have to refund the total amount paid because they have no tracking and no proof of delivery." That is really wise observation. Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

You shouldn't do this.

You shouldn't do it.

Now if you're going to say, if it says First-Class Package, it should be. Not First-Class Mail cause that's not offered as an option. If the buyer is paying First-Class Package, you should be delivering it with First-Class Package.

Oh for sure. And you are charged fees on the total cost anyway. I know back many years ago, sellers used to put up their shipping costs high so they would save some money, but that changed a couple of years ago. So I don't really see the incentive for the seller to to do this. I know they're going to get money, but we know buyers love free postage. They definitely don't love expensive postage and then they definitely don't love receiving something not as advertised. And you're kind of doing all the wrong things there. So I think it was um, yeah oz-in-ohio and lja440 hit the nail on the head, that they won't be around for long.

There's always the possibility, and I don't want to scare anyone because people are basically good, but in a scenario where the buyer actually gets the item and is savvy about how eBay works because it was first-class letter, the buyer can say, I never received my item.

They can.

And then item not received as they said. And then the seller would be on the hook for that item.

So seller's interest...

Listing items and then shipping them in a First Class Mail as opposed to First Class Package, You are taking on a lot of risks.

So yeah, for sure. Yeah. Just be transparent with your buyer because it will come back to bite you. The buyer might come back to bite you.

The buyer will take a plane flight, come to your town and bite you.

eBay will bite you. Something like that.

You'll get teeth marks.

And now onto my favorite thread of the week. It's posted by eBay and it's headlined. Share Your Holiday Shipping Selfie. Before we start, you know that I love the company. I've been here forever. I'm usually not one that like really gushes over some of our promotions, but this one I just, I just adore this one.

That's good.

So can you read what we posted?

Yeah. We posted your holiday hustling. You've got a long to do list including getting your sales out the door. We want to see you in your hustle. While you're dropping off those packages you can win great giveaways in our #shippingselfiesweepstakes. And that is a hashtag all one word, #shippingselfiesweepstakes. All you need to do is snap a selfie at your drop off and share it here in a thread for a chance to win. For multiple chances, you can snap and share a selfie a day until December 14th.

So I checked the thread this morning. That's why we included it here. Lots of sellers have posted selfies already with their packages ready to ship and some are quite impressive.

Some are pretty funny actually.

And I have a favorite.

Yeah, me too.

But never mind about us. What did other sellers have to say about this?

pink.fish.rule posted, "My drop off is at my front door. LOL. And no, I'm not hauling this lot down to the PO just to take a selfie or getting out of my jammies."

To which someone named alan@ebay.com responded.

I heard he's very wise.

He said, hi pink.fish.rule. You can share a photo from wherever you like. And that just opened the doors. Have you seen, there's like tons of photos now.

There are so many random photos. I love it. Like, yeah, as you said, you just don't know when you, when you open up a thread like this, what you're going to see, but it's all, it's all very good natured, good, good spirited and some really hilarious photographs. Some people are having fun with it and actually really impressive was to see the amounts of sales going out. Right. You sometimes don't realize the amount of work sellers have to do to get all of their inventory out to buyers, especially at this time of year when the weather is bad. Road conditions are tough and they are driving down to the post office. To see all of that come to life on community was really nice. And yeah. Thanks everyone for sharing. And I hope the winners like their prizes, there's some really good prizes.

What are they?

Oh, okay.

I didn't see any list of prizes.

As far as I'm aware, the main prize is a trip to San Jose. Yeah.

Really? Can I win that? Oh wait a minute. I'm here already.

That would be a terrible prize for you. I'd get in a cab.

We'll send you to the East coast. Yeah. And I'll never get a break from Griff. So the main prize is a trip to San Jose.

All-expense paid?

Yeah. Airline and one-night hotel, I believe.

Oh, it's just one night.

I think so. I think it's just one night.

Yeah. So that is the main prize. And then there are smaller prizes of eBay gift cards.

And some of the photos so far, I mean there's like stacks and stacks of 50, 60, a hundred boxes. That's one load. These seller's are really hustling. But there's one that I love and it's a, it's posted by bigdeals.etc. And should I describe it or just have people go and see it?

Do a little description.

So it's, I'm assuming that it's a setup. It looks like 50 or 60 boxes just strewn on the floor and leading out into a hallway. And I thought, man, after my own heart. It looks like my, my house.

Yeah. He's right in the middle of it, trying to get, trying to get the boxes out the door. Literally.

Just go to the discussion board and you'll find that thread cause it's pinned on the top of the selling board. And it just says...

The thread is called Share Your Holiday Shipping Selfie.

There you go. Share Your Holiday Shipping Selfie.

Selfie with a hashtag in front of it.

Oh, little a pro tip. I think for a selfie you should be in the photograph as well. That's kind of the vibe that we're going for.

So not just the packages?

Not just the packages. Get your face in there.

Get your face. We want to see, your face.

We want to see sellers, we want to see your faces.

I take them home and collect them.

You're not supposed to say to say that.

I put them on the wall.

Wow.

My precious.

I will think twice about uploading a photograph. I'm joking. He doesn't, he doesn't do that.

I don't. And Alan, we'll have a new net of fresh thread catches on next week's Buzz.

Nice. We certainly will. Now it's time for The Main Story.

This month on the podcast we're talking about a lot of end of the year, things that have to do with business. Before we were talking about in the realm of shipping, getting things out the door. But this is a time of year where a lot of businesses look at inventory and say, I want to get this inventory out the door before the end of the year. Joining us now is our local regular, big volume seller, Richard Cooley. Welcome Richard.

Hi Griff.

Nice to have you back. Is it true that you.

In my estimate, it's somewhere around there.

You could buy a house in Silicon Valley almost for that.

Almost.

Well thank you. We want to remind our audience you sell high end footwear.

It's been a heck of a ride, yeah. I do mostly high-end footwear, do a lot of the fashion items. We do handbags as well. The handbags were our original bread and butter. We've kind of deviated more towards footwear over the last few years, but we're trying to get a little bit more back into the hot handbag market.

What kind of footwear?

Designer footwear. Designer men's shoes. A lot of women's boots this time of the year. We actually store our footwear according to season, so we do a lot of sandals in the summer. And then this time of the year we're doing more winter and warm boots.

Seasonal merchandise. And does that make a difference with inventory? I mean, do you look at the end of the year and say, if I've got sandals left, it's time to get rid of them?

The way I look at it is that if I have boots left, let's get rid of those.

So it doesn't matter. You just want to move the inventory.

Yep. You're always thinking about liquidating inventory because that's how you run a business really. But it's the end of the year. What happens when that inventory doesn't sell and do you plan for that contingency and if so, what are your tactics for getting rid of it?

I do. It's a good time to get all your inventory off the books before the end of the year. Try to turn what you can. The best way, and one of the best assets that eBay has going for itself is auctions. If we have items sitting for buy it now for a long time that aren't moving, try to flip them back over to auctions. Maybe start at what you bought it for and then see if it's going to sell for that. Sometimes when I have stale items sitting there in inventory, we'll run a big promotion. We'll list a couple of hundred of them at a 99 cent auction. Just take the risk that they're going to sell for that. But then a lot of times, uh, you know, they'll catch some traction and make a little profit off of that.

Can you predict what kind of margin you will make or not make or how much you might lose from your past experience with auctions or is it always a surprise?

It is really kind of funky to track because of the nuances with bidding and what time of year people are bidding on different items. And that's one of the reasons why we are selling boots at this time of year because I still do rely quite a bit on auctions. Auctions for boots right now are going really hot. This is pretty much the best time of the year to sell boots in the footwear market. We're seeing a big boost in luxury brands. Brands like Ugg, warmer brands like that. I know that if I put them at auction, I can basically set it and forget it. It's almost like I don't even have to look at what they're selling for because when you're buying in volume and you're selling in volume, you can rely on the market dictating the price and getting a good price out of what you're selling it for.

Right? So as a business person, you don't have the time or the inclination to sort of focus in on individual transactions and say, Oh my heavens, I lost $10 on this listing. My life is over.

I wish I had that luxury.

This is a common thing that small sellers with little business experience will do.

And that's, I mean, that's something that that I would advise to just let it go. I mean, you have to spend money, eat money to make money. You can't let those problems, you can't let those faulty returns, those individual losses eat at you. You have to just take it as a learning experience, help it ramp up what you're doing and then motivate you to maybe make a little bit higher profit on your next next transaction.

You mentioned returns. Do you see a rise in returns at this time of year?

I do see a rise in the cost of returns because of the weight of the footwear because we're selling heavier items.

Boots!

And I'm definitely, that isn't one thing that I'm kind of seeing a little bit more where I'm not watching transaction by transaction, but we're seeing a little bit more of a hit on the cost of shipping, return shipping for those.

Are there any tactics for managing that cost?

Yeah, I do actually have a tactic for that. It's kind of my little hidden secret that I don't know if this works for other people.

Well I am all ears!

I'm here to share all of our secrets Griff. So I stage all of our auctions. We do auctions and buy it now, but all the auctions are staged. So I'll have them staged for the next day, so they're sitting in my stage in inventory. What I'll go through and I'll manually pick out all of the ones that I think are going to sell for good money, some of the higher end items. I'll click on those, select them in bulk, edit those out and do free returns for those items. Let the other ones have 30 day buyer paid returns, but the higher end items do free returns, get the extra visibility out of it and get the lower final value fee. And that is my trick for managing the returns.

And how does that work? Excuse me. I'm not quite making the connection here about how that can help manage the cost.

That way I'm not paying for the returns for everything.

Oh, I see.

So I'm only paying for returns for higher end items, so I'm only taking the risk on the higher end items.

Does It make a difference in your return rate if you're comparing to a time before where you may not be doing that?

During the summertime when we have lighter items and I'm doing more free returns, I mean we were doing up to probably 80 plus percent items for free returns. Right now I'm probably doing 30%. For me, when there's a higher rate of free returns, I definitely see an uptick in returns.

I'm going to ask you a question. It's about returns and it's about the belief that many sellers have that if I don't offer free returns, the buyer is going too, if they want to return it, state that it's not as described.

I see comments about that a lot on your page for example, and the great thing is eBay has become so much more seller friendly now contrary to popular belief that now they're actually backing up sellers. If there is a faulty return, then you do have the opportunity to amend that and adjust the cost accordingly. So that's no longer a worry as long as you're a top-rated seller.

I think a lot of sellers don't realize that. If we do have a buyer that exhibits this kind of return activity over time based on seller reports, we actually can take action against the buyer. And that can range from anything from a warning to restricting their ability to return anything to, if it continues suspension from the site.

Fortunately, it's a small percentage of people that are doing that, but those 1% of buyers that are doing that are giving all the other buyers a bad rep and yeah, I mean, thanks to eBay for stepping in and helping sellers take care of that problem.

Well, I'm glad it's working. I don't want to spend this time congratulating ourselves. But you said before you were staging items, I want to make that clear to our audience. That means that they are scheduled?

Yes. So I just schedule them a day ahead of time. If they're auctions, I like them to end at a certain time of day. So our auctions, we pretty much run to end at between about 4:00 PM and 7:00 PM Pacific time.

We hear a lot of sellers do that.

Yeah. And that's, I mean, we're Pacific time. We have lower shipping. We do weight-based shipping so we have a higher volume of sales on the West coast just because we're on the West coast so we time our auctions that way. And I actually do even more auctions, here's my hot tip of the day Griff. Sunday, late afternoon, 3:00 PM until about 7:00 PM. That is the one thing that I've been kind of keeping an eye on over the years. I feel like I don't have the numbers to back it up but I do see an uptick in sales on those Sundays. So we, we list some of our higher end items. We list a higher volume of items on those days.

These are mostly women's boots, right? Actually probably 80% women's. We do a fair amount of men's things as well.

I'm trying to picture in my mind what the demographics doing at that time on a Sunday. And if it's this, if it's this time of year, the husbands or boyfriends are watching football, the wife isn't interested, she's off in the other room. She's on her laptop or her phone and she goes ah football, I guess I'll buy some boots.

Those mobile sales are seeing an uptick at that time. I always imagine they are watching the real Housewives.

Do you buy on eBay?

Of course.

Do you buy mostly on mobile?

I do. Probably 50/ 50.

50 /50? So I've tracked mine. Yeah, mine is like 90/10 right now.

Wow.

On mobile. I'm in bed at night. It's four and I can't sleep at 4:00 AM, I got to buy something. It's you know, it's my sleep therapy.

I'm biased just because I'm on the computer so much. But yeah, I would probably be there as well.

Do you use any eBay tools to run sales at this time of year?

Sure. Yeah. I use the markdown sale. So we are marking down some of the more stale inventory and then the send offers to buyers. I mentioned that last time. That is my favorite. That's fantastic.

That one, if you're a higher volume seller, even lower volume seller, stay on top of that. Hit that everyday. Click that. I missed yesterday and I had 85 waiting for me to send out. It's like you need to just stay on those. Even if it's one or two that's a chance to make that sale that somebody's just sitting on.

I can't think of another marketplace that actually utilizes buyer interest in that way. And I know as a buyer on eBay, I actually love getting those notices. So this says the seller is lowered the price by 20%. More often than not, I probably go back and look at it and if I've gone to look at it, it's going to start me thinking, Oh, that's a good deal. I'll buy it. So even if I'm on the fence, it's the kind of push that I need to be off the fence. Yeah, I think they're great.

It's a beautiful marketing opportunity.

What about promoted listings? Do you use those at all?

I do. I'm pushing a little bit more promoted listings. We talked about that last time. I was kind of taking a little bit of a back seat to it because the reason, I'll say it now is because they are only getting, you're only getting the single view. Where before if you were doing promoted you are getting the promoted view as well as the, what's that called? The organic. Organic. When the organic was taken away so I was a little worried that that might affect us and I didn't see any different. So yeah, I'm pushing back into doing more promoted. I mean it's, for the small cost, even if you're only doing a few percentage points, it's worth getting it to the top of the page.

I'm using them, but I'm trying to be really tactical about it. So it's only listings where I'm sure number one, that because of the competition for the item or the amount of stock, I'm going to get placement. That's the first one for me. B, is that the price is still competitive. I see a lot of people sponsoring items where the price is like five times what other people are selling. It doesn't make sense. It's a bad experience. The next one is where I know I can easily absorb the small percentage I am going to pay if it sells from there. Oh, and by the way, just so everyone knows what Richard was talking about when you were mentioning about the view not being an organic. That's in best match? Because your item, your promoted listing won't always show up as promoted. If it's not showing up as promoted, it's in organic.

Okay!

Yeah. So it's not disappearing.

See, I learn on these podcasts as well.

Well, I'm glad you stopped by then.

So another tip that I would have, if you're finding some of the more stale inventory, move it to an auction.

Yeah, that's a great idea.

Move it to an auction. Just take a chance. I mean, even if you're, if it's sitting there for a long time, six months, a year, I mean, do you really want to sit on that or do you want to just turn it? Even if you're going to take a small loss or if you're going to break even, try a 99 cent auction, see what happens. Run a batch of them, you'll get more visibility. Maybe you had more people visit your page by doing that.

And if somebody does get some high end shoe for just a few dollars plus shipping, they're going to say, I'm going to save this seller. This seller is nuts!

Why do you think I have so many followers?

Followers add up to sales.

Right.

That's a great example of thinking of those potential inventory transactional losses as investment in future customers. What do you do about the January rush? Well, I jumped ahead. Do you have a January rush?

I do. You know post-Christmas there's always an uptick in sales, especially pre-owned items, which is our market. I see a big uptake right after Christmas. Even the following few days, I feel like people are just ready to shop. I mean they might've been expecting something for Christmas or you know, looking for some, some new shoes that they didn't get. So we're, we see a good uptick in sales after Christmas, early into January. People are inside too on their computers, on their phones. So there is a lot of mobile shopping happening during that time.

Me. I am doing it.

As am I.

And no one's buying gifts anymore for other people. They're buying for themselves so they're back. I feel deprived. I've spent all these hundreds of dollars on my loved ones as much as I love them. What about me? What about my needs?

They got to do something with those eBay gift cards.

Spend them on eBay, of course. We talked a little bit before we started about this new law, and I know this is a different topic, but you mentioned that this is important to talk to. In California, I'm going to let you talk about, it's called ab5.

So I'm obviously not an expert on this, but this is something I've been following and I think is probably important for sellers not only in California but other regions to note. Especially higher volume sellers that do have employees in independent contractors so that the ab5 law in California is now making into law a little bit more of a finite detail of who is considered to be an employee versus independent contractor. It's changing the status of pretty much most independent contractors to become employees now. So if you are hiring somebody and you have them termed as an independent contractor, you might need to take a look at your state law. Look at the regulations for that. Most of our employees are employees. However, we do have some people that have done work for us that have been termed as independent contractors and because of AB five we are changing their status to employee. We want to make sure that we're following the regulations. I think that's an important one for higher volume sellers that have employees and contractors. Just to take a smart look at, make sure you're ready for it. Make sure you are on January 1st, 2020 ready for any changes so that you're not caught up in any audits.

So for our California sellers, this is an important consideration. It's a state law, not a federal law, but what happens in California tends to move East. You want to stay on top of this, and this was all driven by Uber, if I remember correct.

That's correct. Yep, Uber drivers, making them into employees. Uber is fighting it. There are some loopholes for writers. I know that like newspaper writers, truck drivers, there's going to be some loopholes, but then there's also going to be, I don't see any eBay selling loopholes going in so basically its worth taking a look at. And making sure that your terminology for your workers is accurate.

Most of the inventory you sell is pre-owned?

Yup.

And there has been a misconception, and I confess that I've, I've held this misconception for years that at this time a year pre-owned sorta takes a back seat to brand new inbox. But that seems not always to be true or it's no longer the case as we speak today.

I think for me it has not been the case for quite awhile. I think it's just a market that people haven't recognized really seen as how hot it actually is. I mean it's, it's where eBay really started. I mean eBay was a cyber garage sale from the start and it's, I mean it's where the bread and butter has been. The best way for people to find those really high end items that they're looking for is something that somebody else previously owned and they're done with it and now it's your turn to take it. You know they're not going to pay full price for it, but you can still get that really high end item and save a little bit of your money. Yeah, we definitely see, you know, I'm thankful for the, for the hotness of the pre-owned market for sure.

$1 million in eBay fees. I can see exactly why.

Right.

So if you're a seller and pre-owned items, don't discount this time of year that it's not something you, I can't take advantage of it. I sell pre-owned. That's not true. It's a lot of following the trends, but also how you present and manage the way you promote and discount and list the items that's going to make a big difference.

Right. Just because you're not thinking about buying a pre-owned item for someone for your Christmas gift doesn't mean somebody not thinking about buying your pre-owned item for their Christmas gift.

So I'm big into watches, so if somebody bought me one of these wonderful old Timex's, that is pre-owned. It would be like the gift from heaven.

There you go.

And I'm using, I'm not saying I'm using the podcast as an opportunity to beg for gifts, but Hey, you know, there's the perks of having a podcast.

I am feeling a little pressured here in the room with you Griff.

It's all right if I don't get a Timex. It's okay. I will be fine.

Richard, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to stop talk with us. It is the busiest time of year for you, right?

It is. I barely made it in here, right at the time. I had 3:00 PM on the dot.

But you were happy to be here and we are happy to have you. Richard Cooley's sells on eBay. As we said, he's a really high volume seller, sells in the high end footwear and luxury handbag market and categories on eBay. He's a local seller here in San Jose and we love it when you can come in and thanks again Richard.

Thank you Griff.

Understanding the mind of a buyer, what they look for, where they look and what compels them to purchase can prove invaluable to a seller, especially during the holiday shopping season. Jeremee Pruitt is director of Hard Goods with a focus on business and industrial and home and garden. And Jeremee is here to help us discover what drives the typical buying shopping behavior. Welcome Jeremee.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

We're nearly at the end of the year and the holiday shopping season, but buying doesn't stop on the 26th of December, does it?

No, definitely not.

So help us understand the mindset of a post-holiday shopper based on what we've seen in past years. What drives their buying activity?

Yeah, so there's about three, let's go three mindsets that we'll talk through.

Sure, yes.

The first one and then there are no particular order by the way, the first one being end of season sale. Sometimes you hear this as clearance, but it's really the ability for great values for the buyer and the seller to move through prior season inventory and get ready for the new season inventory that'll be coming. So it's very much a deals mindset. Common. You'll see up to 70% off. So great values for the buyers. And maybe they didn't get the item that they were looking for as a gift and they've been spending a lot of time making purchases for others. So now's a good time to buy a great value for themselves. Some primary categories in there, would be clothing, shoes, accessories, handbags.

So what's the second mindset?

Number two would be health and wellness. Customer mindset shifts a little bit into, they've had a lot of guests over, they've been entertaining, there's been a lot of food and they're shifting into a, I'm going to get healthy for the new year.

The January's that show up at the gym for one month. But those gym memberships costs money. And if they're buying active outerwear or they're buying accessories like weights or even an elliptical machine, like maybe even a Peloton, which is really popular this time because of that commercial.

So some categories within that would be vitamins, health care, vision care, blenders, juicers, air fryers. As you think about the healthy kitchen. Fitness equipment as you mentioned, and then kind of primary there would be running gear and yoga.

If you've got access to this sort of inventory, start sourcing it now before it's too late. What's the third mindset?

Third mindset is storage and organization. So in other countries they have, I believe it's UK that has boxing day that kicks off on the 26th, right? So it's like packing everything up and getting everything organized. So lots of new gifts in the house, lots of new items that were purchased through all of the big holiday sales. Now you've got to kind of get ready for the new season. You're packing up your holiday ornaments or putting things away. It's a little bit of that cleanup and get organized. Some different categories you'll see in there are cubes, totes, shelving, closet organization, and then also moving into kind of the home office with office supplies, software and even laptops. We have great values on laptops that sell even through this post-holiday season.

So like we said, it just doesn't end. And it's mostly for themselves, right?

For the most part. Yeah, I believe that's kind of the mindset. And then I actually have a bonus version. So in my, in my areas with business and industrial, we see quite a few of the buyers being business buyers. And there's a couple of things going on in the business space. I wanted to make sure that we didn't leave that out. There's two kind of components primary in there. One is the budget season close out. And then the next one will be tax prep. So the first part of that is, businesses tend to have budgets that are either quarterly or annually.

And at the end of the year if they don't spend it, they kind of lose the money. So they are, you know, fulfilling the rest of their budget, whatever's left. The second part of that would be the small businesses are reconciling their kind of yearly transactions and figuring out what their profit looks like and what their tax liability is going to look like. And there's a benefit for small businesses, and I'm not a tax expert, but there's something in this tax code called section 179. And it allows them to buy equipment and if they put it into use by the end of the year, they can actually fully write it off that year versus amortizing it over a longer time. So again, they have to check with their tax advisors and such and get all of the specific details. But there's definitely an increase in that type of equipment towards the end, the last two weeks of the year.

Does that law apply to anything that's a business equipment or supply or something that you need to run your business? So for example, could it be business furniture or shelving that you need to stock?

The nuances are in the, in the law itself. So I can't kind of advise on exactly what. I'm sure they can check with their tax advisor and you know, review the legal aspects of all the categories that are eligible.

It's another reason why if you are in business that you should at least have access to a tax attorney. A lot of sellers don't. And you might be missing out there. How long into the new year does this post holiday shopping continue?

I think this really moves in through probably the beginning to middle part of January. And then we'll start to see the shift after these kind of primary themes moving into tax prep on the consumer side and the tax refund that's coming and then the Valentine.

What would you suggest an eBay do to plan to take advantage of the post holiday shopping season? I would suggest understanding these mindsets and making sure that your inventory is set and available and marketed and positioned in a way that kind of aligns to this mindset.

And that means this is the perfect time of year to extend what we would consider at the time sort of holiday shopping, markdown deals, promotional events to think about continuing a version of these, maybe even ramping it up as we move into January.

Absolutely.

Is it the right time of the year for a lot of sellers to think about aggressively liquidating inventory?

I believe so. I think there is that, I want to clean out my inventory to kind of move through the goods that I'd like to move on from and free up shelf space for the new inventory.

Well, Jeremee, I want to thank you so much. This was great.

Thank you. So thanks for stopping by. We'll check in with you again and find out how the holiday shopping season went. Jeremee is the Director of Hard Goods with a focus on business and industrial and home and garden.

This week, Jen's back and we're going to pivot a regular segment from What's Hot to what's cool to sell in winter gear on eBay here in the new year.

Hey Griff. Really appreciate that you go along with my jokes. So have you noticed that it's cold outside? Well, it's relative here in the West coast because cold for the winter for me is like summer where I grew up. But yeah, I guess it's cold. I don't know.

That's true. I do call it California cold. A couple of months ago or several weeks ago when I was back East. It was a lovely, what I call the California cool day, about 50 ish degrees. And then a couple of days later it was 22. I was reminded of what cold really meant.

Yeah. None of us own winter coats here. No, no. But I did go very prepared with a double layer parka.

Oh, good. Okay.

Yeah. So, but today I do, because it is cold everywhere else. I want to touch on cold weather items that sellers should be listing over the next several weeks.

Let it go. Let it go. Yeah. I'm not, what's her name?

Idina Menzel.

The true voice. Right.

So anyways, enough with letting it go. Okay. So tell us what's, "What's Hot" in cool gear?

Let's talk about fashion first.

I love fashion.

Uh, yeah. Thinsulate gloves or gloves specifically with the touchscreen capabilities...

Because we can't take our hands off our phones.

Absolutely not. And you need to know what that temperature is. The balaclavas, you know, like the full face masks for those, really, really cold areas.

People living in Minnesota.

Yes, and the three names for the one thing, the beanies, the toques and the knit hats. Always popular.

Very Canadian.

Very! Brands such as Columbia, the North Face, Architect, are very popular sellers on the site. Base layer items for men, women and children. And then cold weather crew and hiking boots or socks for men and women are really popular at this time. And then electric and disposable hand warmers. So I didn't even realize there were electric hand warmers.

Yeah. Yeah.

But those exist and they're selling.

I have a whole bunch of those at home that I bought a somewhere it was going to sell them on eBay, but I decided to give them away to homeless people this year.

Oh that's great.

I think it's probably something they could use even in the West coast, gets cool at night.

Definitely. Definitely.

Also keep in mind the cold weather gear for runners and hikers or campers. People are looking for these things and it's not just for winter sport users like skiers and snowmobilers.

That's very true.

There's people who live and work outside.

Yeah, exactly. And speaking of living and working outside. Well, there are things called vehicles that are outside all the time. We don't actually talk about parts and accessories a lot here, but this is an area where their business actually starts to peak around this time of year, because it's kind of starts with the things that they need to winterize they meaning people in general and car enthusiasts , need to do to winterize their cars. So things like cold air intakes, auto remote key starters, the maintenance things like ice off spray de ICERs and other similar cold weather vehicle fluids like antifreeze and starting fluids. Those are popular sellers on the site and then often in winter vehicle covers are needed or seat covers and then warmers are wanted.

These are probably easier to stock up on in the warmer months when people aren't thinking then, you probably can get them for lower prices some places?

Probably. Then save them for the winter.

That's a good idea. That's a smart thing to do. Well, this all makes sense and the one category of course that gets overlooked is seasonal health and beauty. Case in point, I need moisturizer.

Yeah, you sounded a little dry right there Griff.

Look. I'm sagging.

So actually this is a great point. Cold medicines, vitamins, tissues, Vicks rubs and lip balms are also in need of cold weather gear. So other than taking care of your car, you should be taking care of yourself.

Yeah. And alongside that there's also things like home and garden products, room heaters, heated blankets, humidifiers. Oh weatherstripping. Of course. That's big. Keeping all the drafts from coming in through those leaky windows and doors. Anything that's kind of home improvement for holding in the heat during the winter, that's going to be hot. Exactly. And every season there are new things to list on eBay because those demands and needs change.

So I know this is a fairly basic list, but mostly it was a reminder to sellers that, you know, we may be exiting the holiday season, but it's still winter. There's still things to buy and still things to take care of. So we wanted to give you some refreshers. And before I go, I also want to mention the new fitness and athleisure trends we're expecting to see in the new year.

Oh, really? New trends.

Yeah, because each year brings us an opportunity to reflect on our resolutions and possible goals of health and fitness. But the trends of the time actually influenced the types of products sold that associate to those dreams.

I'm intrigued.

Sure. So let me give you some insights that I've pulled from the American College of Sports Medicine. They do an annual survey every year looking at the industry and what's going on there. And for 2020, HIIT which is the high intensity interval training and group trainings will continue to be popular. But there's a few other trends that are moving upward. Things like fitness program for older adults.

Ooh, my demographic.

Okay, well I'm getting close to that too, I think. But this kind of prompts the thought for if you're an older adult working out more than maybe you're looking at products like sportswear without compression, different braces, whether it's for your knee or your wrists or things for soreness or arthritis, things like that. So you know, categories that when we say athleisure, we were maybe thinking about Lululemon or yoga gear. But if fitness programs for older adults specifically are becoming more popular, then we need to think about the products associated to them.

Of course.

There's more health and wellness coaching happening. So this might prompt for smart fitness watches, healthy cookware, blenders and juicers or whatever your coach is going to tell you to do to change your lifestyle. Training with free weights is becoming more and more popular because there are more CrossFit and functional training workouts coming out, so things like barbells, kettlebells, dumbbells and medicine balls are coming back with insurgence and then, believe it or not, there are things that aren't even tangible that create the need for products to be purchased, which are plant-based diets. For example, intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is such a trend that they actually teach this to college freshman.

Wait a minute. Intuitive eating? I eat when I'm hungry. That's actually exactly what intuitive eating is. You eat when you're hungry and you stop when you're full.

Groundbreaking.

They're teaching this in college so somewhere along the way...

They are teaching this in college?

They are.

All is lost. It's the end of days.

We're very, we're being very articulate. It’s what today's generation is about.

Intuitive breathing is next.

Hey, adulting is hard.

Adulting is hard. I know. I'm still practicing so I can do it right someday.

Well, yeah. So you know, so when you think about eating, you might be thinking about kitchen storage, like how do you store this kind of food? Or how do you keep your vegetables from spoiling so quickly.

Easy, don't buy them.

That's going against what works saying. Um, but you know, appliances and supplements are things that will be prompting that and then fascinating, but DNA testing kits are the, so that's a popular thing like 23 and me and Ancestry are making DNA kits more and more affordable. Okay. It's not so much about figuring out who your baby daddy is, but more about the consideration of hereditary health issues that may be passed down. And so like for example, if you're prone to diabetes, you might change your lifestyle and be more healthy. This leads to you looking at things differently in purchasing the items associated with health and exercise.

Okay.

It's not a stretch really.

You see the look of disbelief, hard to convey that on a podcast. But okay, DNA testing kits. I'm game. Great, let's go buy one! I want to know where I come from.

Yeah. Well again, a really where a lot of this is as you kind of look at what people are interested in and then you, you realize that what they're interested in they're going to start buying around that.

Of course.

Right, and so the last thing I want, speaking of buying...

I got my DNA tested and I made my will out the next day. So you know what it said.

Well there you go. Well, speaking of buying, the one thing that I did want to mention is that Google bought Fitbit for a cool two point $1 billion.

That's a nice shopping buy.

That's right. But that means that the market for fitness trackers, smartwatches, heart rate monitors and GPS tracking devices are not showing signs of slowing down.

It doesn't surprise me at all. I'm going to buy a piece of wearable technology as somebody who's prone to prone to diabetes, I want to check my blood more regularly. Rather than doing the test strips, you can wear a little monitor that syncs up to your phone and constantly monitors your blood sugar. It's like your mother and the cell phone saying, put the cookie down.

Step away from the cookie.

You're at 180 put the cookie down and go eat something healthy like protein. That's what we should have, is a wearable device that has your mother's voice in it.

Oh, that would be, it tells you what you're doing wrong.

Or maybe that'll prompt a uptrend in therapy.

You're going out dressed like that?

Jen, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much. We'll see you in the new year.

That's right. Happy new year everyone.

We're as always talking to Jen Deal. our wonderful Marketing Team colleague who is always up to speed on "What's Hot" on eBay.

Well, it's the end of 2019 can you believe it? Time flies when you're running a business on eBay, doesn't it? And as promised earlier this year, our new Senior Vice President of eBay's North America markets, Jordan Sweetnam will rejoin us on the podcast for the first week of 2020. He wants to check in and he wants to give us a wrap up of 2019. Beforehand though Jordan wants to hear directly from you. He wants to know what is top of mind for you and he wants to address your questions on the podcast. Interested? I thought you might be. So here's how you can ask Jordan a question. We're setting up a new discussion board on Community and the link is ebay.com/jordanama. That's ebay.com/Jordanama. AMA stands for ask me anything and starting on Monday, December 9th and all the way through Friday, December 13th you can submit your questions to Jordan at that link. Now Jordan is going to respond to the top five questions both on the board and he'll also respond on the podcast. So vote up your favorites and then tune into the podcast. Episode 72 on December 31st to hear from Jordan directly. Sellers, 2019 could not have happened without you. So let's take a moment to reflect on the year that's been at eBay.

The party's over. It's time to call it a day. (Griff singing).

Don't quit your day job, Griff.

I won't, trust me. Shall we commence with the boiler plate?

Absolutely. If you want to join the fun here on the eBay for Business Podcast, call us on (888) 723-4630.

Yeah, that lonely number is (888) 723-4630 and you can call it anytime of the day, any day of the week. Whenever you feel like it. Please do leave a question or comment and we just might put it on the air.

And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com that is podcast@ebay.

Alright, time to clear the throat. (begins singing) What good is sitting alone in your selling room? Come hear the sellers kvetch life is a seller meet up old friend. Go to a seller meet up today.

Why every week does this happen?

(signing continues) Come share the tips.

Griff, Please! (Alan pleading).

Come learn to sell, come join the fun. Start celebrating. Right this way your profits are waiting.

Please stop singing. I'm not paid enough to deal with this. Are you finished?

Apparently.

Good. I'm sure I speak for our dear listener when I plead. Do not do that again.

Okay, sure. You got it. As for the rest of you, interested? Of course you are. So to find a local meetup hootenanny in your area, visit www.ebay.com /meetups. What? You don't know the word hootenanny?

You're just cracking me. I haven't heard hootenanny in a long time.

Now you heard it again. And if there is not a seller meet, have scheduled in your Metro area, well you know what you could do? You might consider moving, but probably the less hassle is to start your own eBay local seller meet up. Yeah, and it's really easy to start your own meetup.

And don't forget to tune into our weekly live video stream on the eBay for Business Facebook page every Wednesday at 12:30 Pacific. Go to facebook.com/eBayforbusiness.

And right after the live stream you can hop on over to the eBay community for our weekly chat. Starts every Wednesday at one o'clock Pacific. Go to ebay.com/communitychat and select weekly chat with eBay staff and we will be happy to see you and answer your questions.

That's it for this episode.

Roll the credits:

Head of Community and one-time Buzz contributor Brian Burke, Special Correspondent Jen Deal, Associative Executive Segment Producer, Doug (Smith)Temecula, Marketing Strategist and Liz Austin. Did I say Doug Temecula. Doug Smith, sorry. My esteemed cohost and uh, a Paragon of patience. Alan Aisbitt. Editor in Chief and our friend Griff.

This is the eBay for Business Podcast and it's produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

I really enjoyed that.

Yeah, you did?

I did actually, Yeah.

The singing part?

I did. Yes.

You didn't seem to enjoy it.

Well the script told me I needed to, but actually I really enjoyed it.

(laughter) oh good, okay.

So next week a little more singing.

Next week we can have, I do a bit where it's Ethel Merman sing Cher's greatest hits.

[living-lotus]

Thank you - super helpful information sharing from eBay Sellers!