how to wind down on ebay

[keziak]

We have planty of people come here to say they quit ebay or are about to. Are any of you still operating here but winding down business? I am having trouble formulating a plan to cut back on Ebay to give me more time for Amazon (I sell books and media) as well as live a life. I worry that if I quit entirely I will regret the loss of the $X I make here a week. I don't know if I can increase my sales on Amazon to offset that loss. 

The pluses of quitting ebay are pretty major: more time for other things, much less of an "ebay house", possible opportunity to finally get caught up working with the inventory cluttering up the place. Probably the answer is starring me in the face: is all that worth more than the $X I can put in the bank from operating here?

If you are also winding down, how do you puzzle this out? 

[mike_jayroe]

Compared to this time last year my sales are way down. The items (95% of them) I have been trying to sell since April 1st of last year. Currently they are under auction but will time out very soon. I will list them one more time as but it now with prices reflecting a 90-95% loss of what I paid for them brand new decades ago. If they don't sell this time< I will just assume nobody wants them and will give up trying. I guess before Halloween gets here I will shut down my e-bay account, and also my account on Alibris used books and just try yard sales. If that don't work then the items can lay around the house until I drop dead of old age.

Just can't justify checking this site every couple hours looking for sales.

[laststopgeneralstore]

Why do you have an eBay house? Why not get a storage unit?

How would quitting eBay all of a sudden give you an opportunity to finally get caught up working with the inventory cluttering up the place?

I think you're right about the answer starring you in the face.

Get up earlier and work later to get everything caught up. All of a sudden quitting isn't going to speed up what your not already not doing. Getting ahead isn't easy and requires sacrifice and the 4 letter word that we do all our life to not be able to do it for less time than when we were alive doing it.

Have you actually sat down and audited the real legitimate amount of time you actually spend "working" on eBay and amazon separately? I'm talking about only the time worked minus all other disruptions aside from lunch and bathroom breaks. We all know that we lose 5 minutes here and 2 minutes their when a message a phone call comes thru or if you have social media and scroll thru that.

No, sit down and audit the exact amount of time that you actually spend on eBay & amazon then come back around and see if it's worth leaving. Most likely you're not spending as much time as you think you are but it seems like a lot because you either don't want to do it, distracted or both.

With all that being said, I'm a rip of the bandaid type of guy but only if I have something else already set up and it makes sense to do so.

I'd say in your case it doesn't make sense to do so since you could just work more to get all of your "death pile" listed.

[keziak]

thanks for your thoughts! I actually already get up 1.5 hours earlier than before in an effort to get more done. 

I've often thought like you do that actually tracking how I spend my time would be eye-opening. I do let myself get distracted with listing but I am somewhat more focussed since being on my exercise program.  Much room to improve. For example what am I doing right now? Not listing. 

I am positive that quitting ebay would free up gobs of time to work through my backlog (which is at home AND at my unit) to list on Amazon. For example so far today I had a hard workout then have been working on Amazon listing, not writing auctions. Normally I spend all day Sunday on auctions. I have stuff that needs listing but I don't feel the love. I am not sure I am being realistic about whether most of it will sell. 

I probably need to take nowandthensfabric's advice, maybe handle the rest of August with minimal ebay work and see if I am right about getting more done and making more on Amazon [which is a very expensive place to sell but they bring in the buyers better than ebay].

[iart]

Many sellers have come on here and admitted that they kept just under the old $20,000 threshold to avoid taxes. Many more posted in here when the new rules came out that they would stop selling here. If you go to FB, you can find some sellers dumping products that they had had for sale on eBay.

Wait until the 1099s come out next year. Most sellers don't know about the new rules. These boards will LIGHT UP! Wait... lol

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@lawnmowerpartsstore2 wrote:

If you are selling stuff around the house and after all of your deductions, you do not have a profit, you do NOT pay taxes.

As the IRS agent sends you a notice to come into their office to go through your deductions with a fine tooth comb....

But, but Ebay said

IRS agent says: no problem. We just need to see your receipts.

Seller: But i don't have any receipts any longer as it was just items sold from around the house.

IRS Agent: Well in that case, did you bring your checkbook because here is now what you owe plus penalty's and interest.

Have a Nice Day and we will now keep a close eye on your future tax returns.

Keywords: Keep all receipts

---

[keziak]

Over on Amazon they did the same thing as Ebay about verifying identity and the theory out there is that a lot of sellers are gone if they are not in a position to do that. For example in my area I would see many people in the same family or group scouting for books but since the verification program I haven't seen them. I don't know if they don't have legal status, that's none of my business. But a little less competition doesn't hurt.

[carolynnq]

I'm doing the opposite: winding down on amazon, though I won't totally stop selling there. I used to have 1700 items on amazon and 200 or so on ebay. Now I've got about 500 on each. I closed my professional selling account a year or two ago.

It was always useful using both. There were books I could buy on ebay for $150 and sell for $400 on amazon and vice versa. I still find that books like Easton Press and Legal Library Classics do better on eBay. I still have some on amazon but I'm moving them to ebay. And ebay is useful for selling lots.

The constant price alerts on amazon are tiring to deal with. And I've known a couple of people whom amazon has shut down their accounts for being "tied" to other accounts and it's pretty near impossible to discover what account amazon thinks you're tied to. On the plus side, it's a lot quicker to list most books on Amazon.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

Historically, the way to grow media sales on Amazon is to list many more items.

Whether that is still possible is open to question.

IN 2008, I stopped selling on Ebay and closed my own website because Amazon volume made them a major distraction.

During the lockdowns I put my Amazon iistings on vacation, and listed about 1/4 of the number of items on Ebay. I have never turned by Amazon listings back on. Been meeting my Amazon goals on Ebay with fewer listings up until July and August, and spending far less time doing it.

Obviously, the books and other media products I sell differ from yours and most other sellers, but being different is IMO, an advantage.

[mam98031]

I'm not sure I understand @keziak .  If you sell a decent amount on Ebay, how would not selling on Ebay help you?  Meaning if you are selling stuff, which clearly you are, that would / should decrease your clutter / inventory.

If you have the need to downsize that inventory, just keep on selling and move it out.  When things get under control with your inventory, then may be the time to figure out how to slow down so there is more time for your personal life.

Some of the ways that may help would be to list more lots of stuff.  I've done that in the past when I was cleaning out some stuff and it worked pretty good for me.

[keziak]

I can't list a lot more on both sites, don't have the time and energy. When sales boom on Amazon it takes me a lot of time each week shipping orders. I'm having to decide which is more productive, Amazon or ebay. I do generally make money here and I worry about my overall income if I give up ebay money. But I ask myself could I make that much more if I used "ebay time" to boost my listings on Amazon. I got a ton listed yesterday by  ignoring ebay.

I like all the ebay features for making sales, Best Offer, combined shipping, etc. I use ebay for selling all my lots. The fees are less onerus and the buyers more pleasant to deal with. I've been here since 2000 and it's scary to think about quitting. Maybe like others have suggested I can scale back what I list here and try to keep my hand in, a little.

[mam98031]

I didn't say list a lot more, I said list more lots.  Multiple items in one listing.

How would you be reducing your work time by spending the time you currently work on your Ebay stuff and instead use that time to spend working on Amazon?

I'm only quizing you so I can better understand.

One thing you might do to help yourself on Ebay is change your handling time to 4 days.  I don't think they demote you in the search returns unless you have a 5 or more day handling time.

Scaling back is a good idea if it still allows you to make Ebay worthwhile for you.

[lonebuck-books]

I did this several years ago except the opposite direction you are doing it.  I closed down Amazon and went full on eBay.  It took me several months (actually a couple of years) to completely divest myself from my Amazon "store" as I had a lot of inventory in Amazon warehouses and not a ton on eBay.  Some of my FBA inventory I recalled and put up on eBay.  Stuff I didn't think would be worth listing on eBay, I slowly lowered prices until they either sold or crossed a threshold that I had where I just had them disposed of through Amazon.  Once my inventory was gone, I stopped checking in on my seller page.  The only hitch was there were a few items that Amazon lost in their fulfillment centers over the years that finally showed up in my inventory 2-3 years after I closed it down.  I had to deal with those as they wanted to charge storage fees.  

For all of those about to tell me how stupid I was to do that, you can just move on.  I had my reasons for leaving Amazon and don't regret it one bit.  I still have a valid Amazon seller account in good standing and can if I ever want, go back and sell there again but I honestly don't see myself ever going back.  eBay had it's problems but Amazon's seller hostile headache producing system makes eBay look like professionals.   I've always said that Amazon's FBA is kind of like Hotel California, 'you can check out any time you want but you can never leave....'  It's easy to get out if they suspend you but it is a lot harder if you want to leave on good terms.  

[fashunu4eeuh]

Hi @keziak 

You will probably still want to keep your account open after deciding on quitting selling. But for those who do not, like most everything on eBay, there is a policy on how to manage if seeking account closure. See link below. 

https://www.ebay.com/help/account/changing-account-settings/closing-account?id=4199#:~:text=Generall....

[keziak]

sorry for the blooper, we agree about lots. I've always auctioned a great many. I have a lot of inventory that I will also need to lot up....or discard which I would hate to do.

As for time, I only mean that I have a choice: spent X hours on ebay listings and Y on Amazon=Z hours. Or shift the Z hours more towards Amazon, less towards ebay. I've already changed my life significantly this year to do other things so I do not have to keep complaining that all I do is work. But I still have work hours.

[keziak]

Speaking for myself I would not call someone's business decisions stupid. Different approaches work for different people. Amazon is a snake pit and very hard on third party sellers. It's just that they bring me the buyers for my single title books and ebay does not. On ebay I'm mostly about auctions. They are time-consuming to list and bulky to ship. I make money at it but perhaps can make the same on Amazon if really  push the listings there. Well, I'm going to experiment this month. Maybe I'll have something to report come Sept. 

[mam98031]

Well if you are going to be in business, you will always have work hours.  Unless you hire at least a part time person to help you.  And maybe that would be the answer.