First quarter 2024 was rough - USPS seemed to have lost it's mind/grip on reality about mid-February and even now is still having issues. USPS Ground Advantage is settling in, and eBay International Shipping is stabilizing.
Second quarter 2024 (Apr/May/Jun) had continuing USPS issues, which rolled over to eBay Standard Letter issues, which concerned customers who saw no tracking (standard USPS) and hadn't gotten their purchase yet (standard USPS & eBay Standard Letter both), leading to more time spent calming customers and keeping track of packages than normal.
So how did your second quarter go? Sales up/down? Trending up/down? Customer purchasing patterns continuing or changing?
Share what you are comfortable sharing.
-Bob.
@debbiet22 wrote:I just have been putting in more time and effort to increase sales. It's been helping with those unexpected expenses.
Bob - sounds like you have plenty to do at work. Time for retirement? I am not great about keeping my desk area tidy either. But I did just totally clear and sorted. Thinking about getting a touchscreen all-in-one computer. My granddaughter has one and she loves it. My laptop is about 5 years old. I need something that runs faster.
My big push at work right now is a three-prong approach -- sending Offers, especially on older listings when they pop up on the list, Clearing out a LOT of stale, unsellable inventory (some things just don't sell on eBay or they're expired - toss'm!), and adding new listings every day. And by new listings I mean a mix of old listings that have been cancelled, inventory confirmed, listing+pricing reviewed, and posting scheduled (let's me cover the weekends) as well as new, we-haven't-had-this-before stuff. It's doable... as long as I keep to my 'schedule'. Mornings for shipping and relists, pre-lunch for afternoon pics, post-lunch checking for Send Offers, then most of the afternoon processing those pictures and listing the inventory. Pulling dead stock happens constantly - if I see something while I'm putting new stock in the racks, I'll pull it, set it aside, and then process it out of the system (kill listings, delete inventory, mark Item as sold out) and either hand it off to the retail folks or just trash it.
That touchscreen takes a bit of getting used to - I set up a 20+ in HP all-in-one for my granddaughter during the summer of the lockdown and again the following summer. She had schoolwork to finish and the system was from a bulk lot, so I had very little invested. My newest laptop, which I'm not using as much as I should, has an 8-core process and two SSDs - one plugged directly into the motherboard, the other a standard 2.5in drive. The mobo drive is super fast and the system boots in seconds! And with all the data on the standard SSD, things just run well. My biggest issue with making the switch from my old dual-core is the fact that I built, last year or so, a desktop system with the same specs but a faster CPU. I tend to do that... I enjoy working on PCs and will build out something just to see if I can, and then don't know what to do with it or can't find the time to properly use it. My doctor says it's part of the ADD or HFA -- intense focus mixed with extended rabbit-hole jumping. It wasn't this bad when I was programming -- the job was less physically straining and more mentally challenging. Now I go home with a sore back, shoulders, and arms and a thousand different plans racing thru my head. <sigh>
If you have to space, a desktop all-in-one can be a nice upgrade. Touchscreens are common but not guaranteed - need to confirm that. And ask if you can run a second monnitor, an extension of the desktop, not a mirror - regardless of how wide that touchscreen is, more desktop is seldom a bad thing. And 21-24" monitors are coming way down in price, so it's affordable too! That new desktop I built is set up for four monitors in a 2x2 layout... except the upper screens are a bit harder to read for a long time. The screens are crisp and bright... it's having to lift my line-of-sight up to them that makes it harder.
I do a desktop purge about every 18 months. Everything except the computer comes off the desk, the desk gets a good cleaning (as do the monitors) and then I re-organize the desk. Anything no longer deemed needed will either the stored away (I have a lot of desktop tchotchkes is storage), filed away, or thrown away. It always looks good when I'm done, but after a few months I start putting off doing the purge again for another year or so... hence the 18month cycle. 🙂
I schedule my listings to all end 7-10 days before Christmas. Very little I have would be considered a giftable purchase, and since most are mailed USPS, I don't want to run the chance of loss or delayed delivery, both of which have been an on-going problem at work since '21. Then, after all the mess is cleaned up (the kids are ok, it's the grands that leave a mess! ), I'll spend a few minutes to get things reposted. Using SixBit, none of my eBay stuff is very hard to do, which means I can either do more of it or spend more time doing other things. Which is exactly what automation is supposed to do. 🙂
-Bob.
