Recent Ebay Sales - 4/2

This time next week we will be sitting on a beach in Grand Cayman! Today we are starting to pack which is always fun. 

I had a wonderful & encouraging email from another ebayer this morning. She left me her user ID and I so badly wanted to reply. Except I somehow deleted the email from my phone. I'm so sorry and I hope she emails again! :) 

She asked a few great ebay questions that I atleast wanted to reply to here in my blog. 

Q. Have you ever gone without sales for a period of time? 

A: Yes! I think every ebayer has. I have a store stocked with about 500-600 items usually. I can go a few days without a sale. It is fairly rare though.  If my sales have slowed, I usually put my store on 'sale' mode. Ebay allows store owners to create sales. You can put the sale on the entire store or just pick up a few items. Usually a 20% off sale gets things going again. 

I try to list atleast 50-70 items a week which also helps the store from 'going stale' as I call it. 


Q: Do you use auction style, fixed price and a combination of both? 

A: For those that don't know, ebay allows you to pick two different styles of listing. One is to put your item on an auction for 1, 3, 5, 7 or 10 days. This allows you to start the price and allows others to bid. The other option is to use a 'fixed price' listing for 3, 5, 7, 10 or 30 days. This is a cheaper option and supposedly it doesn't get as much attention as auctions. You put your 'happy price' on the listing and when it sells, it sells. There is no bidding. 

I usually use fixed price listings. For my level of store, it costs just 5 cents to list an item for 30 days. (Auctions can cost about 50 cents to $1 each) I can list it and forget about it until it sells. If ebay offers a listing sale (usually a sale where everything is free to list), I will try auction style.

Auctions work well for items that are deemed 'hot sellers'. These would include items that are hard to find. 

My items are usually Talbots and Ann Taylor skirts and dresses. They are nice items but they aren't super special one-of-a-kind items. If I put an Ann Taylor skirt up on auction, it may get one bid or possibly two. So it usually sells for the opening bid. If I put the same skirt in my store, I will probably get a bit more for it. 

I hope that helps! (And please feel free to email me again...I promise not to delete it!)

Selling on ebay full-time is a lot of work. But does allow for a flexible schedule. Most days I work about 10+ hours. Remember to allow for things like insurance, taxes (those darn things!) and time off (i.e. vacations and sick time).  

Sometimes I have to push myself. It would be so easy to just stay in bed but there are items to be packaged and mailed. There are items needing washed and listed. There is money to be made! 

Here are a few items that have sold: 

1. Boston Proper red paisley rayon dress, sold for $21. 

2. Chico's turquoise shorts, sold for $25. I took the time to research these and found they were still available on the Chico's website. However, they had sold out in this size & color. I think that helped sell them and so I priced them a bit higher than normal.

 

3. Ann Taylor yellow & pink floral dress, sold for $29. 

4. Skecher's mens leather shoes, sold for $25 within a day of listing. These were just sitting in my hubby's closet. He also gave me two more pairs to sell.

5. Boden dark purple dress, sold for $28. It had a small flaw and probably would have went for more if it was perfect. Oh well. I'm still pleased with the sale.

6. CAbi black jacket, sold for $20. 

7. Ralph Lauren black dress, sold for $21.50. 

8.  Sag Harbor navy blue floral skirt, sold for $19. Sag Harbor wasn't ever a brand I picked up. However, I have sold a few at a decent profit and so I am now picking them up.

9. Evan Picone black & gold lace cocktail dress, sold for $33. 

10. The last Target Swimsuit! It sold for $17. I purchased about 8 of these from Goodwill for $4 each. The first few sold for $25, the others for about $17-$20. Overall I made over $100 profit and these were super easy to list.

I just had an email from ebay congratulating me on my 1,000th sale for the year. That was just on my store ID. I have sold some items on my non-store ID which means I sold over 1,000 items in three months.