2022: last year on ebay or not?

[keziak]

I'm going to be 60 this year and I am questioning many things about life, both work and otherwise.  There are so many things I want to change, like emptying my storage unit (huge job) and setting some hard parameters for returning to work at my main library commission this Summer. But the big one is:  does it make sense to stay on ebay when I am never going to make much more than I do now, and it's not good money considering the work (and weight of many boxes of mail)?

It's not that I hate Ebay. Despite everything I like selling here, it's warmer and more diverse than Amazon which has all the warmth of a vacation in Antarctica. But I make more "over there" and might make a lot more if I took my ebay time and used it to just list on Amazon like my friend does - the woman who works a few hours a day at her business and shakes her  head over my hours. Whose mail is a tub or two of bubble mailers, not U-carts of boxes like I take to the P.O. most days of the week.

I'll make less money if I quit ebay but I'm not "paying the mortgage" anyway and my investments make me a huge amount more than I  ever make selling online. 

So maybe it boils down to: make less money but take the time saved and go lie on the beach, so to speak?

[fern*wood]

I think you are on the right track.  Downsize the store and go from there...baby steps.   You state you envy your friend with tubs of bubble mailer items to ship---then work on finding small items to sell.  I realize books are what you do, but work away from them gradually.  Switching up what you sell might ease the time involved and physical burden you feel but allow you to still have this "job" to do.

[keziak]

We're both booksellers. I ship plenty in bubble mailers but just a whole lot of Amazon and ebay orders that need to go in boxes so my mail is much bulkier than her's.  Takes more time to pack, too.

[flyandance]

If you can make money, then stay. If you don't need the money, I can always have good use of extra or simply donate some to some very poor people in Africa or something. People are starving everywhere now a day. 

[fern*wood]

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@keziak wrote:

We're both booksellers. I ship plenty in bubble mailers but just a whole lot of Amazon and ebay orders that need to go in boxes so my mail is much bulkier than her's.  Takes more time to pack, too.

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Then switch up your listings so they can go in small shipments like that.  Since you don't need the money, I'd do whatever it takes to make this not so painful if you want to continue.  Keep it simple and gradually move the needle. 

[keziak]

I suppose it comes down to: is there a point to doing this, or is it just busywork?

I sat down and did some online work on my ebay inventory and it's all a mess. Just a lot that should not be listed, or I don't want listed any more.  Another important job to add to the mix.

[chapeau-noir]

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@keziak wrote:

I suppose it comes down to: is there a point to doing this, or is it just busywork?

I sat down and did some online work on my ebay inventory and it's all a mess. Just a lot that should not be listed, or I don't want listed any more.  Another important job to add to the mix.

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That actually may be  good starting point.  That's how I started clearing out the inventory that was no longer worth the time or trouble.  I went through inventory on all four platforms where I sell - just down the list.  I had a spreadsheet open and just copy/paste each item onto it so I had a record when I went into storage to start pulling the items.  I used that for entering costs so I could write it off as a loss for whatever that would get me on taxes, and making sure I had all the right items.  As I wrote off each item, in it went to the donations bag.

Do that, and you've killed several birds with one stone - removed it from inventory, cleared the stuff out, logged it and boxed it up.

That also gave me a really good idea of what I had left and where I stood with it, refreshing my memory as I sell seasonally so not all items have been running (in fact, I've got almost nothing left here).

[lacemaker3]

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@keziak wrote:

... But in therapy today my therapist set me back on my heels by saying I am looking at retirement/downsizing from a position of fear and loss, not liberation. That sucks, brain! 

...

I think I am doing the same thing. Did your therapist have any suggestions on how to change your viewpoint, or change how you're dealing with it? I could use some suggestions.

[keziak]

I suppose the first thing to do is realize that is the pattern. So often I will talk to her and she'll cut through the crap and give insights that never occured to me, and I'm introspective. Turning the thoughts around, not so sure right now. There are cognitive therapists who help people with changing patterns in the mind.

For myself, I have a deep fear of spending down our nest egg because we were poor for years, and I think of my kids as needing an inheritance (she also questions this). I have a feeling of loss thinking of no longer having a business that has dominated my life for decades.

By the way, hubby has none of this. He will cheerfully spend the money (perhaps we'll travel) and except for maybe keeping a SMALL hand in, is more than ready to say "buh-bye" to his job and spend his time hiking.  I also need to focus on the pluses of getting off the merry-go-round at some point!

[coastaltechsolution]

I hopefully see another (at least) 10 years on eBay for me 

[keziak]

I feel like I may still have 3-5 years of heavy-to-fairly-heavy work. Maybe by then I will have raised my asking prices enough that I simply deal in fewer books to be easier on my knees.  I'm very strong in my upper torso but my knees purely hate carrying weight down stairs.

[chapeau-noir]

@keziak  Going back to your DH saying that lots are stupid because the per piece price is low, I think he may not understand how merchandising works, or at least that aspect of it.  One of the best ways to get rid of low-value like items is by lots.  It's faster, easier and as long as the packing is manageable, much more efficient. 

[keziak]

Thanks. He often has opinions about my business which have good intentions but are kind of lowering, like if I drive any distance for inventory I am just spending too much on gas. But it's OK for him to drive an hour each way to work with various clients.

[chapeau-noir]

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@keziak wrote:

Thanks. He often has opinions about my business which have good intentions but are kind of lowering, like if I drive any distance for inventory I am just spending too much on gas. But it's OK for him to drive an hour each way to work with various clients.

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Yeah, maybe he just doesn't understand merchandising very well because he's making the wrong equations 🙄 .  I'm not grumpy by nature but I don't have much patience with attitude, however well I think of the person.  Put-downs by people who don't know what they're talking about usually just make me roll my eyes and leave the room.  Got better things to do than listen to **bleep** (can you tell I've been through this lol).

ETA: LMAO - they BLEEPED my extremely mild word - oh, where is my fainting couch?  I'll just leave it.

[moondogblues]

"I'm a gardener who doesn't garden, a reader who doesn't read, a poet who only works on old poetry not new work.  As I age I want those roles again in my life. "

I am quite a bit older than you but have been struggling with much the same issues.  I have had an extremely interesting life...published writer/poet...ex-carny...30 years telecom every thing from manholes to engineer.  So much more, a lot weird and a lot wonderful, a true child of the Sixties.  San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Cruz....music, and all the extras.

So crafter/writer/corporate flunky (Pacific Bell, Qwest, Global Crossing, MCI/Worldcom)...and then after being laid off three times became what I always wanted.  Musician and songwriter.  (And also opened a B&M Art Gallery and Antiques shop in town.) But two and a half years ago the pandemic put a stop to that.  And our gigs, and our Flea market business.  So now I mostly needlepoint (and sit on the couch), and collect ACEO's, and garden when it's warm, read cookbooks and experiment in the kitchen and try not to dwell on the world falling apart or my advancing age.

I have to say that I also donate to the Humane Society, especially to no kill places.  This is important to me.  Maybe now is the time to think about meaning in our lives.  As the time becomes shorter the things that we still can do have more impact.  I will have to think on this also.  Because I will hate to think that my songs, my crafts, my creations may all end up in a dumpster.....my collections also.

One heart rending story that I heard when I was in a collective back in California was a woman who's Mom had died and she was going back East to get a few things she cared about.  Unknown to her the other kids had hired a 'clearing out' firm and when she got there they had a chute up to the attic and she could hear the vintage glass being smashed as it came down into the truck below.

That image haunts me.

[moondogblues]

"ETA: I'm very identified with the world of work.  It's nothing for me to work 12 hour days, day after day - it still doesn't phase me.  Yet I've come to the conclusion that the work I had been doing not only is not  really needful to keep food on the table as it used to be, but at this point, despite my endurance, I may be just blowing a giant amount of my life away over something that I'm just used to.  NOT being a worker bee is really tough for me, or shall we say, the change of venue to put my energies into is creating a crisis of confidence. I know where I want to go. It's like @katzrul15 signature line - you don't have to see the whole staircase, just the first step."

I worked two jobs when I was in my late teens in order to open an Antique Store.  I worked an enormous amount of overtime when I was with Pacific bell, and my Social Security pay out thanks me for it.

One of the hardest things I have ever learned is to be STILL.  Especially in the garden.  Don't leap up and pull a weed, or plant yet another bulb.  Just be still.  And smell the green and watch the birds... and the wind in the trees.  I still have all the urges to DO SOMETHING, but after a lifetime of having to do and do and do, I now have the strength to just be still.