So the holiday season has begun. What are your plans for the month and/or the season (thru Jan 15, 2023 per most carrier surcharge programs)? Is this a good season for you, are your products for a different season, or is you inventory season-agnostic?
What Say Ye All?
-Bob.
@debbiet22 wrote:Bob-like you I am amazed at what a person can amass over the years. I saw that with my parents and I am still going through their stuff and it has been 2 years. Right now I am working on going through the last 2 totes from an auction so I can have empty totes for another auction I am bidding on. I am hoping to get some serious wins.
Bob-sounds like you are making steady progress on emptying your house. Sure hope you get the new job, just keep us posted.
Let us hope for a good selling season this year. Happy selling!
Now I'm starting to be 'pushed' by the broker to hurry up and just get everything out. Easy for him to say - none of it belongs to him! The boys are getting things moved on the weekends and I'm getting better at getting things done during the week - if I leave an hour early, I can get quite a bit done and still survive on the short paycheck (enough that I've considered keeping it up even after the house sells 🙂 ).
I was talking with my mom this afternoon - she's still just as active as ever, thank goodness! I am NOT looking forward to settling her estate and dealing with all the stuff in the house. We both agree that the hoarding instinct comes more from mom's side of the family, but Dad did it too - just more organized about it. 🙂 I may just relocate to MN for 6 months to clear things out.... tho I'm not sure I'd be comfortable in my parent's home with both of them gone.... too many memories, even if I didn't grow up in that particular house.
Anyway - Sunday afternoon is going to be a push... we've got smaller furniture all over that needs to get out, the Christmas bins and everything else needs to come down from the attic, and we need to restock both the storage units to open up space. I don't want to have to rent yet another unit -- those things are expensive! I might have to check out some of the newer facilities to see if I can get a better 'introductory' rate.
Keepin' on!
-Bob.
@meme6253 wrote:Hard To Make Goals & Plans With Such A Broken System!, & Bad Economy, Fingers Crossed At Best!
True, but without some kind of plan or at least an organized idea, it becomes difficult to emphasize what is working and try to fix what isn't. Yes, eBay's site has it's issues, but there are ways to work around many of them. For example, I haven't used eBay SYI listing form in well over two decades - and that includes the years when I was self-employed and selling on consignment. That was back when PayPal had not yet been acquired by eBay, when shipping charges were common and free shipping almost non-existent, and when the US Postal System was much more functional.
There are a lot of challenges, and a lot of ways to deal with them. I found out last month that listing my elongated coins as Fixed Price instead of Auctions actually increased sales. So I've been making sales this month from something I tried last month. I still run new stock as Auctions - I don't always know what might be rare and valuable, and auctions are good way to find that out. In fact, my consignment client required me to list their inventory at Auction first, which was no big deal back then, but I didn't fully understand why. Until I listed some weird (to me) sneakers/running shoes. Auctions started at 25% of MSRP as supplied by my client (national distributor working directly with the manufacturers) by contract, and the few auctions that generated multiple bids seldom went much over 30% of MSRP when they sold. Except for these weird sneakers - they sold between 60%-75% of MSRP, and always with multiple bids and 4 or more bidders.
The economy is unevenly good/bad. My wife and I are doing quite well and even manage to put money into our retirement accounts each month. My sons, both mechanics, are currently making 1/3-1/2 what they did just 3 years ago. My daughter, the CPA, out-earns both her parents, combined. So not everyone is hurting to the same degree.
I plan to continue with Fixed Price listings, likely thru the end of the year, and Auctions for new stock for the first 2-3 listings. I'd like to get back to the point where eBay earnings covered eBay expenses - which include supplies, 3rd party software, and the every-increasing eBay fees. And when I move a bit beyond that, I may even re-open my eBay Store.
But for now, one step at a time. 🙂
-Bob.
Quick update: personal sales are stable if low, sales at work are off and now falling slightly. I continue to list new inventory at work, as well as working on 'correcting' listings that were posted too fast and don't have good keywords, Item Specifics, and in some cases not even a description. Definitely keeps me busy, but the low sales worry me - at some point, eBay income will not cover eBay expense, including my paycheck. 😞
On the moving front, things are proceeding but not as fast as I'd like. We did have good temps this weekend, but work schedules kept the boys out of Memphis Saturday. Sunday we did get a few things accomplished (like emptying the attic so we don't have an "aw s**t" moment when we think we're done and someone remembers that the attic has.....a lot. Bringing it all down to the livingroom is a chore, but it does give me a better visual on how much more storage volume I need.
The one fly in the ointment - the gates at the storage facility would not open. I suspect that, due to power outages related to Fri/Sat/Sun storms, the PC controlling the gates (you enter your code, it confirms you've paid your rent and tells the gate to open) either got zapped, lost power and didn't reboot, or lost power and did reboot but didn't restart the gate control process as it should have. Monday will tell.
I will continue leaving work 1 hour early each day to get movement accomplished. It also gives me a quiet period to review what's being stored and determine what is no longer needed. But at least I won't be bored! 🙂
-Bob.
