Category: eBay Theory

2021 The Year Of The Turtle Take 2

January 23rd, 2021
2020 had every prospect of being a great year, and in some respects it was. Mostly though it was a fully fledged cluster bomb that impacted everyone in some form.

I have been listening to the Tony Robbins book Unleash The Power Within lately which I have found quite insightful.

And one part of the book he mentions strategy and goes on to contrast this with the metaphor of making a recipe. As resellers many of us possess the basic ingredients, that is, the knowledge of how to buy and sell something to make a profit. Assembled in different ways but more or less the same.

If you aren’t following a recipe or sampling your food during cooking there’s a good chance it is going to end up tasting like crap.

I saw a few examples of this over the course of the last year that some don’t seem to have any actual strategy or the strategy was not well thought out.

How can you know what you were doing is working without some sort recipe and then tasting the food?

So what’s my strategy for 2021 then? Well 2020 was supposed to be the year of the turtle and you can read that rather large blog post here if you like for some comparison. The gist of it was that I wanted to slow things down a little bit to spend more time with my little one and improve my sourcing and listing habits.

Time definitely got busy this year as the little one got older. This was evidenced by my struggle to complete the monthly summaries which I ended up having to give up just purely for the time fact it was taking to create them. At the end of 2020 which was one of my goals (that took all year to do) was to streamline my process tracking. The tasting of my own recipe sticking with the metaphor.

Finally this Dashboard is up and running with December 2020 being the first trial month already pushing out some interesting insights. Having this kind of information makes it easy to work out where your time and focus should be going. In my case in December I spent way too much time I’m sourcing activities and not enough time on the listing. This is left me with a lot of items to list a list again same as last year.

In many ways I’m almost starting from the exact same place as the beginning of 2020 with the only two key differences being I now have a storage unit and I have basically automated my tracking workflows for all eBay sales and time tracking.

Get Rich Slowly 2021 Reselling

My mission statement for this year:
- Clean up time leakage.
- Conduct efficient sourcing.
- List on average 5+ items per day.
- Invest in other peoples time.
- Always put in the work.
Consistent Listing

This is a two-part approach between managing existing processes and then also looking at others that can add value and reach and time.

Improving throughput

A good example would be to continue to improve the storage unit set up and layout including the creation of a specific packing table area and custom light box set up for listing. I have intention of creating a lightweight tubular steel set up that can be installed (and later removed) fairly easy for low-cost. There’s a lot to be said for having everything in its place and being able to find it when you actually need it. This has been far less of an issue since moving to the storage unit but still on the odd occasion I have an instance where I can’t find some scissors or sellotape or something like that which holds me up.

Once I get the listing box setup perfectly I am sure there will be a marked increase in throughput. As I am recording time, number of items listed I will be able to measure this improvement.

As an added bonus listing picture quality will also increase and also allow easy photography of larger items. Side note: Larger items are not usually an issue but not being able to do this easily adds another barrier to the listing process (have to take item somewhere else to photograph currently).

Get Listing

The next part is straight forward. Just get more items listed. Nothing other than a habit needs to be formed here.

Additional Listing Exposure

Much as eBay promoted listings offer a paid way to get more eyes on items listed I have (in conjunction with @CaptainOpShopNerd (Insta) been working on automating new listings to social platforms.

One platform is already completed and working well. Will seek to improve this over the course of the year. If it can be automated and isn’t too much trouble then this really could be a big boost to traffic and possibly sales.

Smart Sourcing

This year I fully intend to make good on a concept I’ve already touched on before being sticking close to home and visiting the shops that I know consistently provide good returns.

I plan to do one big mission each month with the Aussie VHS Thrifter. In 2020 it became apparent that these are actually usually productive and we had some big days combined with minimal spend and some great returns.

As well as learning things along the way from each other there’s also the benefit of doing all the sourcing in a focused block of time.

We have a mission coming up down south regional in the next week and I also intend to finally push out my reselling item sheet of things that I’m looking for and get these to stores. I’ve used business cards in the past but haven’t really had much success or callback but there’s nothing to lose with these Op Shops because they are so far away.

Pprint some A4 sheets and basically tell them I’m looking for bulk buys.

In this way it might still make it potentially worth driving the four hour round trip to pick anything up.

I do have online sourcing as a viable sourcing method as well however I still have a tonne of items to list so this is on the back burner for now.

Don’t be so greedy

This year I really do need to get some cash flow moving. It is quite apparent after the listing challenge I set for myself in September I have a lot of inventory value tied up not doing anything. This combines money that’s actually been spent to buy the items (cost of goods sold) and also the potential profit.

This year I am going to be far less greedy with some of my returns just to generate that turnover of stock and up cashflow. There should be a couple of benefits to this one of which will be increased sell through rate (which the eBay algorithm will love) and then there’s the actual cash flow as well is currently needed to help support an expanding young family (mine for clarity haha). I won’t be making as many 10x sales but as long as my hourly rate is still better than that the day job I’m quite happy to do so.

Divert some cash flow into other assets

It’s become quite apparent that my limiting ceiling of time really has been reached.

I was already aware of that which was why I transitioned into using subcontractors to help me with clothing listing. I have a finite amount of time and I’m probably not going to be able to get any more for a little while without some severe family issues resulting.

Life is all about balance and I feel like I’ve got the balance pretty well spot on at the moment which the notable exception of health which needs addressing.

This then leads to an interesting question. How to continue to grow the business without quitting my day job?

For many the end goal is to leave behind the 9-5 a job they hate and go full time. A lofty goal well worth aspiring to.

My situation is a little different.

I work in a job I actually quite enjoy, it pays well and its close to home. It’s taken many years to find such a thing.

For the moment giving up that along with its incumbent security it provides for my family does not make logical sense. Part of the design of this business was to ensure my own income stream for later in life and to ensure I could always call on reselling when needed, not relying on anyone else and be removed from other elements of workplace discrimination in later years such as ageism.

This doesn’t necessarily mean I still can’t grow, indeed I looked back at Jan 2020 for some comparison. Sales were up and total listed stock value was up over 30%. Even on my part time basis the business is still growing slowly.

So back to the question then, how?

I have thought about this for sometime over the last few months. If time is limited (which it is) then it makes sense to get others to work for me. Obviously I have started with subcontractors but even that is also semi finite with throughput tied to sourcing the items to put through this process as well as turnover the stock being listed in this manner to help pay for the subcontractors.

Investing in other peoples time

The more I thought about time the more I realised the sole point of this is actually making my money work for me, not me work more for money.

After some of the immediate family cash flow has been met and fixed by eBay in combination with a revised budget I will be looking to start taking a large chunk of eBay cash flow and diverting it into the stock market.

With the stock market people elsewhere in a business are putting in the work and time which I don’t have. If money from the eBay reselling business is invested wisely the experience will be positive and provide access to growth that I cannot achieve with Reselling without quitting my day job. I have had a fair bit of experience with the stock market over the years having made and lost a substantial amount of money for most people’s perspectives. I am still learning everyday in this realm and I am not proclaiming to be an expert by any stretch.

This was one of the sticking points of having so much inventory not listed, something which I am often guilty of. Sure I might be able to take a $10 item and turn it into $100 but if it’s not listed it’s not making any money and in fact any value is slowly being eroded.

The point I am making is that the step to investing here has been thought through and considered to provide growth by using other peoples time.

Over the next few years this will be the general concept.

Once I’ve gotten on top of the death pile then sure I can go out and spend money on sourcing and reinvest into the eBay business to keep things turning over (and growing slowly). The idea is not to have any death pile at all. This will be the motivation to get everything listed promptly. Other than the monthly sourcing mission with the Aussie VHS Thrifter, no more sourcing until the death pile is sorted.

Should I track here what I buy? Let me know your thoughts. Could be an interesting reflection in coming years to see what sort of decision this was. Let me know in the comments.

Health And Wellbeing

This one is pretty straightforward. Nothing much is changed in this regard I had grand plans at the start of last year to really knuckle down and look after my health. I started off pretty well and then Covid19 hit and things sort of went out the window and routines got mucked up in and I didn’t really take advantage of some of that time as well as I could have.

Towards the end of 2020 was much the same with holidays coming up I kinda gave up on caring as much.

This year is about getting back on track and preparing for my upcoming journey towards old-age. I’m still young 38 don’t get me wrong but I’ve talked about this before we are planning for health now that relates to health later is a very good idea for both health and financial reasons.

I’ve got a new regiment of super foods to consume coupled with various vitamins and minerals.

The remedy to repair the damage is:
- Do exercise
- Eat better
- Sleep better
Learning

It’s only the first few days of 2021 and already I’ve finished two books which to be honest I am quietly impressed by. I spent a lot of time last year listening to podcasts, many many podcasts. As a result I accrued several audible credits which I plan on putting to good use over the coming months. I have already downloaded six books with these credits ready to roll through. A lot of these are self-help or focus in someway around life improvement/business.

Conclusion

2021 is shaping up to be an exciting year.

Although the only metric I have locked down is the 5 listings a day I have a feeling that even my turtle growth plan is going to reap excellent results.
The Storage Unit

September 29th, 2020

My last post was all the way back in May and I said I would investigate a storage unit.

Well in June I pulled the trigger on that and got a little 3 x 3 unit at a new facility which had opened up just up the road.

It’s a 5 minute drive from the house and also on the way home from the day job without really requiring and time lost in a detour.

Did I mention there’s 3 Op Shops within a 2 minute drive? It’s a good spot.

The Original 3×3

As an added bonus due to the new opening and trying to attract tenants the first two months were at half price so this became a very good deal.

I can’t explain the sense of relief of getting all of the stuff out of the spare room and at various points around the house and out of the back shed and collate everything into one spot. The house now is the house and functions as it should. I know for sure that my wife appreciates the disappearance of clutter.

It was necessary with bubbas arrival I just didn’t realise just how much.

I can fully seperate eBay and home life (physically anyway) and there’s some great mental peace from being able to come home after being at the storage unit and just focus on family time.

It quickly became apparent after a few weeks of moving in there that potentially I needed even more space. The way I had it set up it was functioning okay but I found myself constantly shifting boxes around and around and around to try and either fit sourced items into the unit or to find stuff to pack to ship. It quickly became frustrating and my brain which loves patterns was screaming at me that this wasn’t working efficiently or effectively.

Early Simple Work Desk

So two months later at the beginning of August I upgraded to a new 7 x 3 unit right on the corner tucked out of the way with an odd shape of a rectangle which then tapered down to a point making a small triangle (see photo below). I was able to set the small triangle area up as the workspace for taking photos and packing stuff and as soon as I had done this I already knew that it was gonna work quite well. Luckily for me, the facility was still running the startup promotion and by upgrading I was able to get an additional two months at half the price again making a total of four months half price in a single year. I’m assuming this probably isn’t supposed to happen but I will take it nonetheless.

The 7 x 3 Unit

The extra space made all the difference. I was able to segregate box’s into their own little areas by type.

I was able to setup a dedicated spot for packing materials and a workstation. (See below). This area will be custom built out over the next year with some assistance. More on that later.

Note the use of the lights. They run on batteries as power is only down the hall and available during office hours which is a bit restrictive for use. These little lights do the job for now.

Initial Corner Setup

Over the next couple months I spent a decent amount of money on inventory and preparation for a big Q4 including my largest lump sum purchase of some 300 Japanese manga books.

And although I had all my listed items stacked in boxes that were fairly easy to access I found that the death pile was slowly creeping across the floor and had serious potential to quickly get out of hand. I decided at the same time I brought the books that I needed to make the investment for the future now and finally get some racking. Like a shark I was going to grow to fit into the surrounding environment, might as well have some good structure to it.

The Unit Filling Up

I was able to find a few local deals on both Facebook marketplace and gumtree for racking. It became a question of whether I wanted to go for heavy duty warehouse type setup or a simple Bunnings type set up. In the end I decided to go for the Bunnings type setup with the caveat that I wasn’t going to pay Bunnings prices.

I had seen several racks in the past that people wanted to get rid of on Marketplace and Gumtree so knew would only be a matter of time before I could find a good deal in my area that would suit.

In a cruel twist of fate the following day after deciding this I actually went into the local Bunnings and they had a rack fully put together on clearance for less than half price. Brilliant I thought, this is meant to be it’s a sign, I went to the counter and asked about the rack and was told that I had missed it by mere minutes.

Later that night I ended up searching on Facebook marketplace and came across a business which was closing down nearby and managed to buy 4 racks at $80 each. This later turned into 6 racks after a person had bought 2 from the same person but later did not show up. I took the Ute and a rubber mallet (essential) and dismantled and then reassembled all on the same afternoon. This took longer than I had anticipated even with the rubber mallet making swift work of disassemble/ reassemble.

Everything is now on racks with plenty of room to spare.

The First 4 Racks View From Outside

The death pile has turned into a death rack. And in it’s highly different form instantly provided some motivation to get stuff listed. For me, something about seeing what’s in front of you versus what’s on the floor and hiding under things in bags and boxes that are basically out of sight out of mind was a strong motivator.

There’s still a long way to go with this setup but the bones are there now. It turns out I have a connection that can help me get further new racking at a deep discount to retail. Next on the list will be a dedicated packing station.

There’s still some vertical space that requires some careful planning and design. Slow moving and fairly light items like games and puzzles would be perfect to tuck away up high. For now these reside in a new spot on the top shelf.

Things have changed a lot in only a few short months and at times it’s often felt like I’m not seeing the growth I was hoping for.

It took me a while to see that expansion of infrastructure is also growth and a necessary precursor to sustained long term growth which is where the medium term goal is. There is also a time component to achieve this which must be spent at some point.

If you haven’t already, maybe it’s time to think about a storage unit?
January Summary 2020

January 31st, 2020
The Overview

Welcome to the first Reselling January 2020 summary. This year’s going to be epic.

Straight up if you have read these summaries in the past you will immediately notice a difference in how the figures are presented. I’ve spent a bit of time massively improving some internal systems which as an added bonus spit out these nice summary figures which can be tailored to analyse a number of different business aspects.

In the Year Of The Turtle post regarding goals I had left things somewhat vague other than a minimum listing target. After creating the reporting dashboards I decided to set up my own personal scorecard and give myself a grade each month. For now the grade is based on the overall goal to pay off my investment property in 5 years or less, after which the rent proceeds from this house should allow me to take things semi full time while allowing epic amounts of time with bubba.

Realistically I need at least $1000 net each month to be applied across to the investment loan. To succeed fully this will need to be even more but I have five years and this seems like a great place to start.

So therefore for 2020 the score card will be set like this with totals for the month:

$500 or less: D – Colour Red. If I end up here for the month I probably stuffed something up badly like overspending on either inventory, other expenses or subcontractor costs.

$500-$1000: C – Colour Orange. I would call this range the OK range, not great but towards the top end heading towards the $1000 mark is close to where I’m gunning for.

$1000-$1500: B – Colour Yellow. Minimum target met but a little bit like a B at university, have put in some solid work but could still be improved upon.

$1500-$2000: A – Colour Green. At this level consistently the goal will be easily achieved and ahead of schedule.

$2000+: G – Colour Gold – A throwback to the primary school gold stars. Above this level for this year will make me very happy.

All of the above will have either a + or – added to the grade as well to define which side of the range the result sits on. For example a C- would be $500-$750 where as a C+ would be from $750-$1000.

Also to note is that the total net figure will also include recovered cost of goods sold. I have already outlaid thousands of dollars over the last year and a half on inventory, it Is time now to recoup some of my initial investment here and move it across to the investment property.

So without further ado, behold, January’s figures:

A couple of notes:
- The store value and total listings is compared against October 2019 values as I did not calculate Novembers and Decembers due to time prioritisation commitments with the new bubba.
- The other business expenses for this month are definitely out of the ordinary and include additional shipping associated with the bush fire relief (covered further below) and the purchase of a couple of office supplies including a new desk. All tax deductions of course.
- I am aware that this is 30 days and that January has 31 days, this for me is a rolling scorecard and at the moment I don’t feel like I am deriving any extra value from spending the extra time to go back an modify formulas for one day. If anything the results will always be a little better than what is posted.
The Magic of Tracking

This month I started logging time in the interest of continual business improvement. I think it will be very useful to be able to reflect where tweaks could be made to improve profitability or identify potential time sinks in all areas of the business. Indeed there was an interesting discussion on The Australian Resellers group page recently on just this question – What defines a part time seller?

This month across all aspects of sourcing, listing, packing and shipping I have spent:

28 hours for the month which equates to 7 hours per week which in my view is definitely part time.

Sales Update

It was a very slow start for January, closely I suspect (hope) due to lack of free available funds by many people contributing towards the ongoing bush fires.

Looking back against Jan 2019s figures of $723.15 net on 30 sales against 421 listings with a total listed value of $15889. The Jan 2020s results have been, in contrast, quite average considering I have just popped over 1000 active listings with more than double the total store value.

However, considering that I sold 0 high value items, (that is anything over $100) for the entire month I guess I should actually be pretty happy with this result.

Another factor which may have played a part could be the non-existent listing in December effectively flowing through into early January.

A Failed Sales Run

Tried to run a store sale with a rule, 15% discount on all orders over $40. This would have been my largest sale dollar amount to date and after I created the Sale + Markdown event only 1 listing showed in the sale initially! I check back 2 days later and there were 7. Well below the 326 that should have been in the sale…

I actually followed this up via an eBay chat and was informed that, if the same items were in the previous sale that has just ended then they would have to wait 5 days before being automatically added to the new sale… My previous sale had been 8% storewide so this was definitely true.

Something to keep in mind for future sales.

Changing The Store Name

I finally got around to changing the store name and updated the cover and icons with the new icon set. I’ve listened to Pure Hustle Podcast a lot and distinctly remember them saying with their interview with Sell Quick Ship Quick that it wasn’t a good idea to make huge sweeping changes across the store. Sure enough there was a slight lull but picked straight back up afterwards.

Business Fun For A Great Cause

It was my great pleasure along with the support of my wife and good friend from work that we were able to support 2AussieThrifters and their live YouTube bushfire donation fundraising event with a painting and drawing respectively being put up for auction and raising over $300.

This took place on the 12^th Jan 2020 over several hours and featured fellow resellers live from around the world coming together and offering their own items up for auction on the live stream with all winning bid amounts being applied to one of 3 different charities, all of which are directly involved with the ongoing bushfires across Australia. Together as group the total raised was a massive $12,000+ for the cause.

You can see the replay on the YouTube link below, skip to 4 hours 35mins 30secs to see my appearance along with my beautiful wifes Painting and friends drawing.

Skip to 4 hours 35mins 30secs to see my appearance along with the beautiful Painting and drawing.

January Business Improvements

A reorganised packing station is working well, being able to find things easily unsurprisingly leads to improved efficiencies with packing and shipping times.

Buying stamps in bulk has led to some notable improvement with time savings by not having to go into the actual post office.

Setup a new tracking system for the business which will pay dividends in both visualisation snapshots of the business and record keeping for both analysis and tax purposes. I’m still tweaking various workflows but am pretty happy with how it’s come together. Come tax time I will be able to have everything for the year organised very easily which will be in sharp contrast to last financial year where it took hours to get everything organised.

Previously providing the monthly updates were quite time consuming, with the way the tracking system is setup now I can get a snapshot at the months end accurately and extremely easily. All of the figures you see in this months report are from the dashboard of this system.

More on this system later in the year as I believe it could really help others across a number of different areas. Will spend the next few months with further testing and making it even better.

Finally got around to completing the business cards and getting them printed. One afternoon I was, for want of a better word, inspired and just sat down and smashed the whole design out. 2 sided, gloss finish, 100 cards for just under $40 delivered. One side with the usual stuff like logos and contact details, the reverse with a segmented list of reselling items I’m looking for. As previously written about I know most of the local managers, I cannot really see any downside to handing these out, especially when I already have so much stock on hand. Lets see how much sourcing comes to me over the next 6 months. The cards themselves came back from the printer and the text was slightly blurry due to the font sizing. Not totally unreadable but needs fixing for the next run.

So far I have used them twice, one when talking to a staff member in a Vinnies and the second time I handed one to a guy I know quite well at a local Salvos. I am being super selective where handing these out. I think its important to make sure those relationships are firmly established before attempting this. One of the reasons for starting to actually roll this out is that after some reflection it is becoming increasingly clear that sourcing from some of these larger chain stores is becoming an inefficient use of my time. If I get a couple of calls in 6 months about this it will be worth it I am sure. Guess will see how it pans out.

Also it is critical to note that I am NOT doing this at all at the local “honey holes” I spoke about during my 2020 plan, the items I find at those shops are already awesome and cheap to boot. Don’t shit where you eat.

Sourcing Theory

Well this area was supposed to be non-existent, as previously stated I have heeeeaps of items sitting in the death / money pile. But like many a reseller, I broke my own rule and took some sourcing opportunities where they were effective use of my time.

I had a small mission on December 31^st 2019 which was actually quite fun as the stores were empty owing to New Years eve. I recommend going sourcing on this day, staff were friendly, places were empty. Thoroughly enjoyable. In my mind this was technically still 2019 so I wrote this off as my last hoorah at the time.

The remainder of January featured some truly selective sourcing. The following are about as efficient and effective as I think I could possibly get (aside from digital sourced with delivery). I spent a grand total of $157 on a massive 115 items in only 7 hours. This is part time sourcing truly at its best. I estimate there’s easily well north of $700 in value.

Opportunity #1

I had to visit the local tip one weekend on the direction of my wife. Whilst there I took the opportunity to peruse the tip shop they have as this required no extra time to do so. I actually left my wallet at home thinking I wouldn’t need it, always the way. After quickly looking around I came across a good condition Gilbert Rugby body armour set and several vintage PC games. I’m guessing someone had thrown out a big box of these and the guys at the tip had rescued them. Anyway, I had $10 in my pocket, so when I walked up to one of the guys and said how much for all this? I was fully expecting to have to put a few things back. Today was my lucky day however and $10 took it all including over 20 vintage games (all later determined in good condition aside from a couple of broken cases, 1 was a bootleg), the Gilbert gear and a vintage QLD drink holder from the 70s, 80s or 90s (determined from a combination of the phone number and the use of Golden Fleece on the holder (a vintage petroleum brand). For a visit that had to happen (going to the tip), I was very happy to walk away with well over $400 worth of resale value (20x$20 games, excludes the drink holder and Gilbert Rugby Gear). So far I have sold one game for $20 and the drink holder for $45. Well into the money here.

Next time I’m bringing more cash money.

Opportunity #2

I finished work one day having to go to a shop to buy some items (work related). It was on the way home and literally around the corner was a clearance outlet, less than a 1 minute drive.

20 minutes spent and came away with a couple of tennis shirts, 3 hats (including 2 Guinness flat hats) @ 50c each, and 5x 8 Track Tapes! These blew me away, first time I have seen them in physical form – ever. Anyway they don’t appear super valuable but should return an easy $10 profit each. I cherry picked the best 5 of 10 available.

Opportunity #3

The day job resulted in a reconnaissance mission down south through some country towns. Conveniently through towns I have been meaning to get to for a long long time as obviously being so far out, fellow resellers are in much lower numbers and therefore potential treasure likelihood increases.

I utilised my lunch break to peruse a couple and was not disappointed coming away with some bread and butter items along with a couple of gems such as an ACME Sydney 2000 hat and a Pokemon 1996 Bum Belt Bag (Fanny Pack – American). Prices were very reasonable to boot.

Opportunity #4

I wrote about my local “go to” Op Shops in my 2020 goal post The Year Of The Turtle. One Saturday I needed to get out of the house and have some introvert time alone to recharge. After a 5 minute drive I was happily browsing through a shed full of books on a “fill a bag for $5” mission. They also happened to have some bags handy so I found an oversized tote and set to work filling it up. After I had found all I thought would be useful I went inside only to be told that they were closing in 5 minutes. I quickly managed to find 2 pairs of shoes.

For 32 items I spent a grand total of $12.50 which included a $4 extra donation which was all the change I had in the utes centre console. There may have been some other treasures hiding in here as I actually ran out of time when the shop closed at 13:00pm…

Opportunity #5

On a Sunday there was a garage sale less than 100m from my house. I scoured my entire house and could only manage to find $4 in loose change. I considered not going as what could I possibly get for $4? However as it was so close I thought why not. I was pleasantly surprised with the prices when I arrived and I ended up buying my first ever NERF item, an elite pistol with a large supply of ammo. This had $4 on the bag when I saw it so I thought yes I can probably make $10 from that. As I went to pay for this however I spied a Magic The Gathering logo at the bottom of a stack of puzzles. This turned out to be a Plainswalker Board game and had $2 on it! Now I was torn as I now had to get the game but still wanted the NERF gear. I asked the lady if she would take $4 for both and she said yes…Cha Ching.

Listing Theory

Began working through the death / money pile, spending the first couple of weekends of January heavily hitting taking photos for mainly books and media. It’s a good feeling to finally begin to at least start to get on top of it, particularly when it’s obvious there’s literally thousands of dollars sitting there ready to be sold.

My goal for the moment is simply to list more than 3 items per day on average and 5 per day as the stretch target. I’ll be honest I still struggled with this for most of the month but got pretty close to the stretch goal at 4.93 average per day. Finding time, an hour here or there can prove extremely difficult with the little one. It basically needs to be when she’s asleep so I don’t miss out on the magical life events.

I came across on Daily Refinement’s Insta feed an interesting poll that was run about listing which gave a nice summary breakdown, obviously the sample size is a little small.

I could list over 50+ items per day if I had all the photos ready and did nothing else for 10 hours straight – no interruptions. This little screenshot got me thinking what might be possible on a full time basis. I think I could achieve 30 listing per day on average and without burnout (which is a key consideration). This is based on 3 hour window of a larger 6 hour window. The other 3 hours being for sourcing and photos etc… Could work. Not really applicable for the next few years but interesting none the less.

Problem Childs

Had a couple of low balling peanuts and stupid offers this month.

Had a lady buy a spoon only to send me a message asking if it had been used (listing was for used). Then afterwards sent me a message asking for an additional 50% off as it was used. Cheeky, then she spammed me with messages to cancel the transaction after I said I would be cancelling it!

One to add to the block list for sheer entitlement. Super annoying that this costs me that PayPal fee for interactions such as this.

Thankfully, that was the extent of negativity this month.

Health Update

A new addition for these summaries but I am serious about getting my health in order this year after letting it go over the last couple. Afterall what good is making lots of money reselling if it destroys your health and relationships.

There’s a lot of data around about the increasing costs of healthcare as you age. I am looking to find ways and methods now to stave off poor health and disease later. Ideally I’d like to live past 100 with relative good health all the way. After all I have a little bubba to care for now. She is great motivation for getting my ass into gear.

The below chart illustrates some average costs by age group in USD for generic spending and also in relation to some common illnesses / diseases.

Its plain to see that the longer one can prolong exposure to age related disease the better from both a health AND a financial perspective.

So where to start then?

My initial goals are:
- Eat Better.
- Exercise More.
- Sleep Better. I have already posted about sleeping better here.
- Lose 20kgs for the year which is the first time I am documenting this number. This will take me down to 76kg a weight of which I have not been in over 10 years. So Starting weight of 96kgs.
Weight however, is not the primary focus, its about eating healthier, exercising effectively, spending more time with loved ones and living longer, the weight loss is a bonus from the process but a useful metric (one of) to be able to track.

For the month of Jan I lost 6.36kgs, yes 31.8% of my total goal already and not a bad way to kick things off, but a lot of that will be water weight and results from here on will slow to a crawl.

How?

The Keto Diet and 100 Pushups Per Day, that’s it.

The books I have read this month in relation to this are specifically are Genius Foods by Max Lugavere and Beyond Training By Ben Greenfield.

I expect the next months progress to be much slower obviously but this is a great start with some rather unexpected benefits resulting in a Reselling Secret Weapon, more on this in another post soon.

Plans For February

A new side project. January also birthed an idea for a Merch side project which I will be working on that relates to the reselling world. This will appear on my Insta feed (and here) when available. Might roll into March depending on supplier shipping.

Consider scheduling additional 3 day weekends with accrued annual leave, perhaps once a month where a single day can be dedicated to getting as many items listed or photographed as possible. I was actually doing this over a year ago before we received the news about the bubba whereby I then immediately began hoarding leave. These 3 day weekends are great to get focused blocks of work done whilst still feeling like you have a weekend!

Increase exercise for the Health mission, specifically adding a minimum of 20 Burpees to the daily routine in additional to the daily 100 pushups.
2020 The Year Of The Turtle

December 28th, 2019
Get Rich Slowly

It may seem somewhat counter intuitive but this year I want to slow the growth down a little bit to spend more time focusing on my newly expanded family with the addition of a little one just recently.

Growth for the sake of growth is not necessarily directly correlated with increased sales, profit or happiness, it took me 20 odd years to realise that time is just time, and much more valuable than money.

My own growth this past year whilst not exponential has been pretty steady and I’ve gone from only around 100 listings at the end of 2018 to almost 1000 at the end of 2019.

Rapid growth can also have some other problems particularly relating to cash flow. Some good examples are companies that grow too big to fast without implementing the systems required to effectively achieve sustained growth along with the cash flow required to support it. This growth explosion can often come at the expense of the company with resources stretched too thin or decisions made on anticipation of business contracts which fail to come to fruition. Chaotic growth can cause business failure, particularly with small and medium sized.

I felt this year I have done a reasonable job of managing cash flow with only 2 months of the year being negative due to inventory purchasing, and only slightly so. There’s also been a fair amount of infrastructure been acquired. Items like thermal printers and rolls, post office box, a second phone number, accounting consultation fees, tubs – many many tubs, bulk purchases of satchels to save on cost per item but there’s still a cost up front. All of these things add up probably towards $1000 I would think. In 2020 there will be far less of these which will improve net profit. That saving alone is the equivalent of 2 extra house payments.

Sales this year have been up and down but definitely improving each month. Cash flow has been the same (up and down) and I have spent very heavily on inventory at times, so much so that it might actually be possible to hit my upcoming listing targets for 2020 without even sourcing for half a year (or more).

That’s how big my money pile of unlisted items currently is.

There’s hundreds of items ready to be listed and sold. Just gotta do the work.

If your reading this it may seem like madness to have that much stock, you gotta list things to get paid, your leaving money on the table and all that jazz and yet, this is only partially true.

Maybe you even think it is just laziness, procrastination, hoarding or a combination of all three.

Nope, none of the above.

You see, I had always planned this to occur at this point in time like I had before, when I first started reselling, to have a huge cache to fall back on. On this occasion however it’s all about the upcoming time availability and not the money. I am literally not going to have the time with my family commitments to get much physical sourcing done over the year and honestly of course I would rather spend time with my beautiful wife and daughter.

There will still be the odd sneaky look here and there naturally, I’m only human after all! I am lucky to have 2 locals op shops that can provide cheap quality stock when I need less than a 5 minute drive away. I can also work in some lunch time loot missions during work hours when convenient.

The other interesting point to make here is that because of this upfront effort in sourcing so much in 2019 leading up to the birth I anticipate that actual net profit for 2020 is likely going to double or more.

This is due to the available time I will allocate to reselling being focused on listing instead of sourcing, the flow on effect of this change is minimal inventory expense. In 2019 I have maybe had the ratio of time utilisation at 70% / 30% in favour of sourcing. 2020 will see the inverse of this with sourcing dropping to 30% or less of my time available .

I’ve learnt a lot during this past year and tweaked things as I’ve gone on the fly. I’ve tried new niches and ideas and gotten some things right and others wrong. I do learn best from mistakes and this business is very forgiving initially with low cost of entry to play the game.

By stepping back a little bit in 2020 I think I can get further useful systems implemented, tested and reviewed to make even more effective use of my limited time. I am a pattern person by nature and have a real passion for process improvements, indeed my university degree focused on just this, information systems. Even in my own little reselling world I have identified several areas I can already improve upon in 2020.

My mission statement for this year:

Clean Up Time Leakage

Conduct Efficient Sourcing

Always Put In The Work

Consistent Listing

What is the figure that I need to hit each day? Really it should equal either the steady-state turnover of the store or sustained slow listing growth.

Being that I’m still just under 1000 listings and paying for 1500 with the store it makes sense to try and get to this max number quickly and then scaleback if required.

I sell on average between 2-3 items per day (when listing consistently). Therefore I need as a minimum to list this amount per day to keep a steady level, ideally sitting right on max free listings if possible. So extrapolated out that’s 1100 listings for the entire year just to spin the wheel.

Really I need to bump this up to 5 per day minimum which equates to 1825 for the year to get some low solid growth.

The initial plan is to set the minimum target each day of 5 listings and then anything above that can either be added to the target of 1500 to get there a bit quicker or scheduled for future days to ensure that new items are getting listed each day to satiate the mysterious eBay algorithm.

Branching out into other platforms needs to become a priority this year also, I have seen too many posts lately about how a couple of small isolated incidents have canned peoples eBay accounts. This is not just isolated to eBay either with Etsy also setting some ridiculous service metrics to be abided by or face suspension potentially triggered by only a couple of misdemeanors.

These platforms also have to look after the sellers or they will go elsewhere.

My competitive advantage vs peers relates to my speed of listing using technology shortcuts including auto complete, templates and use of additional software such as auto hot key to semi-automate listing.

It makes sense that I spend more time cross posting to Etsy, Facebook marketplace and Depop. Indeed I already have Etsy and Facebook Marketplace scripts competed so I can quickly build a listing and replicate it across multiple platforms.

There are other pieces of software such as List Perfectly which can assist with some elements of cross posting but of course they come with a pricetag and limitations tied to price tiers. I get more or less the same functionality as some of these software packages for free as well as other aspects such as the hot strings and other scripts that can help. Still it may be worth a trial of this (or others) service to give some insights on potential improvements to my own script functionality.

Halfway through the year I realised I could shave a few seconds of the way the existing script was operating at the time and I calculated this equated to an extra two listings per hour which doesn’t seem like a lot but when you’re spending hours upon hours listing things it really matters to the bottom line. It’s the equivalent of an extra $20 an hour (assumes $10 per item net profit). That’s $7280 over the year.

Another example from 2019 was setting up startup launchers which make getting into the listing frame of mind easier by removing that initial friction. For example my computer takes only seconds to turn on and get to the desktop thanks to the SSD. I can then double click the auto hot key script then use a single shortcut combination to open all the browser windows and folders I need to get listing instantly.

My current launching script opens instantly and logs into:
- EBay template page
- Sizely template page
- Australia Post business account page
- Working folder containing photos
Sourcing Theory

Peratos Principle

There’s a theory you may or may not have heard of called Peratos Principle which says: 80% of your results come from just 20% of your efforts.

The most common examples I have seen used for this principle relate to business customers. By focusing on your best customers whilst simultaneously culling your least valuable (in time commitments or problems for example) you can markedly improve your business results.

This same principle can be applied to reselling. I have been to a huge number of different Op shops over Perth city in 2019. It became apparent that a select few tended to yield either better high value items on occasion or were consistently better priced than others.

So you can probably guess where this is heading. By focusing on just these high yielding shops in 2020 I can dramatically reduce my physical sourcing time whilst still maintaining good returns.

Digital Sourcing

It makes total sense for procurement to be completed without leaving the house.

In 2019 I set up search shoves automated using Auto Hot Key. The script when triggered automatically searches Facebook, Gumtree etc using predetermined search strings running all queries instantly. This all allows quick survey of relevant results without wasting time with the inputs.

2020 will also be more of the same but expanded upon to capture more specific niches and key words. I will also be adding some additional text expansion to assist with procurement questions.

The other addition for this year will be online auctions. I will be very selective with what I pick up but it is an option.

Garage Sale Sourcing

I will potentially check out convenient local sales if driving by.

I will however complete both days of the garage sale trail coming up in 2020. 2019 was a great example of what could be achievable when routes can be planned with efficiency. I only did the one day in 2019 and came away with a full ute load for minimal cost.

Network Sourcing

Another aspect I will explore will be sales leads by networking with op shop‘s and other previous contacts made. This was originally the reason I wanted to get business cards made up so I could get some deals coming to me. Over the last year and a half I have gotten to know quite a few people who work at some of the op shop‘s including managers and some know that I am a reseller and some may correctly assume. I’m still a little bit undecided whether I will make this known at the op shops I intend to frequent for the year but this will be very relevant for ones that I may happen to pass by for example during a lunch break on a work day in a suburb that I wouldn’t usually go to. I can certainly see less harm or risk coming from doing this this way. I’ll add a side note here that I have set up a separate Skype number that relates just to the reselling business, and this way I can still use my own phone and the number will go to it.

Patterns Identified In 2019

Inventory Management

It became apparent over the course of the year that I was running out of space in the room I was operating out of.

I spent up big when the stock was there, but found myself begin to forgo larger items due to space issues.

It got so bad that I was literally stepping over stock to even get to my computer or exit the room. This of course also meant that when I had to find something to ship I knew what tub it was in thanks to the SKU system but I still had to move a whole bunch of items including unlisted stock also in tubs to get to it which is hugely inefficient.

I felt physically pained when having to do this and having to continually move multiple tubs to access one costs precious time. Every time I faced this problem it wasn’t a huge time sink in isolation but the cumulative easily aggregated into at least a couple of hours of dead time. Dead time is the devil to be vanquished.

Some plans for 2020 include:
- Transition more items into the shed. I can still fit another few tubs here.
- Install a new racking system outside that I can put tubs on. I’m thinking of using this as my death pile/money pile to give me a visual reminder of what needs to be listed and also stop me from more sourcing until this is done.
- Implement regular consolidation of existing tubs to maximise tub usage and therefore overall physical inventory footprint. This can be easily done visually, consolidated then the SKU updated. I’ve been toying with a digitised way to manage this but more on this another day.
Streamline Packing

Another process I identified during the year that needs tweaking was improving my packing processes. This thought mainly revolved around the efficiency of getting items picked and packed to just be better organised with where required tools and equipment are located and how work spaces are set up. I cannot convey how frustrated I have been sometimes when looking for a pair of scissors that have been misplaced by someone and not returned. This results in walking around the house trying to find where the scissors are and failing that trying to find an alternate pair, as crazy as it sounds I’ve probably spent over two hours this year just gone looking for some combination of scissors, tape, boxes, eBay tape, dymo labels, measuring tape, etc…

The fix, well a few fixes actually:
- Wall mount some hangers where the common tools will hang. Like the back of the door.
- Create a secondary emergency caddy as a backup.
- Ensure that point 1 is remedied ASAP should items become missing.
- Pre Printing Thank You Labels. As it sounds, simply have these printed from the Dymo ahead of time.
Of course being better organised also has the benefit of identifying earlier when stock levels are running low on consumables. An example is bubblewrap which can be brought in multiple places nearby but usually at a higher cost along with the required time value to go and pick it up so it makes sense to better plan ahead this year and order early.

Another goal for the coming years to see if I can source a cheap supply of bubble wrap and other packing materials. I have seen some previous posts on some of the reselling groups which may have some good leads on this, for example places which carry a lot of parts, car service centres, bike shops, etc…. may have excess materials that can be sourced for free or minimal cost. Anything that can be found in this matter will be a direct cost savings to the cost of goods sold.

Going Green

The rehoming items often second hand is great. I love the idea of rescuing items that might otherwise become trash. Even more so that I can get paid to do it. The packaging of these items to get them to where they need to go does however create a lot of plastic waste.

So I’ve been researching how I can improve this aspect of my business.

There are compostable bags, etc that can be used and even bubble wrap.

More research is required but I will be making this a priority this year to get some some (if not all) of these implemented. Looking to create a sustainable business.

More on this soon.

Get Help

At the moment I am just one man band on a part time schedule with the reselling due to full-time work commitments. I am a little envious of other reselling couples who it is obvious to see have some synergies in their work processes and practices to get things done. This coming year I would like to get some extra help with the business. I already started in 2019 to outsource some of the photos for clothes and other items which has already helped a lot but this is still a cost as I am paying a sub contractor to do this.

If only I could convince my wife that this could be a viable alternative to traditional work which would still allow her to stay home and look after our baby girl….

So she doesn’t know it yet and she probably won’t read this post either but I’m going to try and get her involved this year in someway, likely taking photos to start with for easy items such as media, books etc and then go from there. I guess the other thing that would probably help me a lot would be the odd trip to the post office or even helping with shipping.

Indeed this is part of my own five year plan to grow this business enough, to a point where perhaps she could go back to work full time and I could stay at home do the school drop off‘s etc and fit all the reselling in between a school day. That right there is the end game.

Health And Wellbeing

This one is pretty straightforward.

Whilst working away doing FIFO I was a nice trim 80 odd kilos doing double boot camps and eating whatever I wanted to. Fast forward to the job back in the city which has been predominantly desk bound for the most part combined with minimal exercise and a couple of really nasty flus this season has left me overweight and extremely unfit a combination not experienced since the early 2000’s when I used to smoke and drink too much combating undiagnosed depression at the time.

Now I have some extra motivation to get this area of life in order as within a year I will be chasing my little one around!

The remedy to repair the damage is:

Do exercise

Eat better

Sleep better

Just as I need to make time for my own business as in the reselling I also need to make time for my own health each and every day to work out a balance that works for myself and the family. Easier said than done but I’ve already started.

Collaboration and Innovation

So there’s a couple of collaboration projects I will be working on this coming year, details are sketchy at the moment.

I also have some meetups with fellow Resellers planned, the first of which will be late January.

I’m planning to get more YouTube content created as well but yet to see where I can fit this in just yet.

As far as innovation goes high on my priority list is creating some google forms which can function as registers of sourcing, returns completed, inventory consumables purchased etc… the point of setting this up is to make tax time far simpler. A google form can be easily used on mobile and can make that record keeping that little bit easier.

Conclusion

2020 is shaping up to be an exciting year. Although the only metric I have locked down is the 5 listings a day I have a feeling that even my turtle growth plan is going to reap excellent results.
Should I Fight A Reselling Return Or Case?

November 27th, 2019
Over the last few months I have seen a few posts within various reselling groups about dealing with returns and potential scams and how best to navigate these often unique situations.

I’ll admit in the early days when I was first getting started hitting my first return was a little stressful. Initially I didn’t even offer returns as an option. Fast forward a year and I’m happy to say I get very few, I make it a point to try and take quality photos and add quality descriptions to every listing.

As I have written about before I can quickly and easily do this with my Auto Hot Key hotstrings. You can read more about that here.

Even so with all my extra details I still have had a couple of curly ones including a buyer who claimed I had sent him a fake book and who threatened to cross the Nullarbor to bash me. This particular case I defended with honour (as the book was not fake) and the result was a small financial loss on the postage but in my own opinion a colossal waste of time. You can read about that saga buyers book remorse here.

Then there was the time I found an RM Williams Jacket at a Salvos and later sold it for over $100 plus postage. I remember receiving the offer on a Saturday morning and it was a great start to the weekend. Later however I received a negative feedback just before the 30 day return window and had that successfully removed. Cold hard logic and again correctly describing the item helped. This was actually easier to deal with than the fake book as I didn’t have to deal with the buyer. You can read about how I got that negative feedback removed here.

So with a little context given I now provide my own view which will likely be polarising and even piss a few people off but stick with me, you might have an epiphany or at least something to mull over when future requests arrive.

I’ll use an example of my own.

I had a Sims game I sold for about $10 I think it was, it specifically stated in the listing title PC only (as the original game would have had the MAC code also). When I initially picked this up sourcing I had missed that the MAC code was gone so sold it as just the PC version (after all it could still be used).

Anyway I received an offer, took it and sent it. Some time later the dreaded return request appeared on my eBay app after I had arrived home from work with the usual accompanying stupid message.

I’m pretty sure the buyer thought it had the Mac code… It’s funny how often the stupid returns correlate with lower value item sales…

Now what would you do here? Here’s what I did:

I took less than a minute to be done with it. I instantly refunded, wrote this item off as a loss and got on with my evening spending time with my family. No further thoughts required.

Total loss? $4.5 most of which is still tax deductible including the cost of the item, fees and shipping.

Total time spent: The 1 minute to deal with the issue.

Is Your Ego Owning You?

It seems many people would rather give up their time (which is a finite resource) to fight with a buyer often for a measly few dollars.

But it’s the principle of it many say! Oh the calamity!

I was wronged and I must wage war at great personal cost just to win, just to prove a point, just to say ha, I told you so, I was right.

If you need to be right your Ego is owning you at the cost of your very own time.

This is madness. This isn’t life or death or some other cause even remotely worthy of martyrdom.

Are you really that selfless you fight to protect others from scams or bad buyers?

Perhaps motivation stems from a fear of loss (financial)

But consider again is it: I AM RIGHT!

Check your ego.

Risk Management

If you could win every time you would be trading stocks surely. Even the best stock traders on the planet lose regularly, it’s part of the process.

There’s even scams and shams in this world too, penny stock pump and dumps, insider trading, bot trading, shell companies. All part of the game. Navigating this world is extremely convoluted and infinitely more complicated that a reselling return request.

Losses by successful traders are indeed planned for with effective risk and money management and the same principle can be applied to reselling as a business.

Returns and dodgy buyers part of the cost of doing business, incorporate it into your modelling, you can write the loss off.

Choose which battles to fight. Don’t waste your time fighting for trivial amounts. Your time comparatively is almost always better spent on a resource generating activity vs debt recovery. With reference to my own example, not that I actually thought about like this (as I knew it would be a waste of time) there needs to be a calculation of its worth spending time on to go through the whole returns process including the inspection and relisting.

Assuming I can make on average a conservative $50 per hour (approx 83c per minute) from my reselling activities by actually listing current inventory on hand, how much time can I allocate to this return before it becomes ROI negative?

At $10 sold I am already in for $4.5 including shipping and fees (which doesn’t factor in time listing either). I have $5.50 profit to play with leaving approximately 9 minutes to deal with this before it becomes counter productive Vs listing other items on hand.

When thought about in this manner the decision is easy and the emotion / ego can be removed.

Obviously a higher value item allows more time to deal with an issue without becoming a negative return. However, consider that the resolution time value is always an unknown variable also. As an example my own experience with the fake book buyer, I spent time :
- Replying to this buyers messages on several occasions, including having to deal with physical threats.
- Multiple chat queries with eBay representatives for direction / confirmations / and protecting my account.
- The return when it finally arrived to visually record the opening of the item (Scam Protection).
I probably spent more than 3 hours in actual time with fighting this, the equivalent of a loss of $150 against a $50 sale.

Some of you reading may be thinking but somebody’s got to fight the good fight, keep people honest, after all these same buyers will continue do do this to sellers right?

That’s exactly what I chose to do in the fake book scenario but my motivation stemmed from protecting my account against the claim I had sold a fake item. Would I do that again in the same situation?

Hell No. I should have just refunded and moved on. I would have still had to contact eBay to protect my account but I would have saved a huge amount of time and angst.

I arrive at this conclusion because there’s another element which is not talked about at all, it’s a concept extremely difficult to quantify and value eroding.

Mental Bandwidth The Ghost In The Return

There’s measurable time itself spent dealing with a return as per the example above, replying to multiple messages, consulting with eBay, waiting for eBay, physically checking returns, relisting, etc…

However a truly sinister villain exists hidden within the mental bandwidth chewed up by thinking about the return itself.

Mentally sifting through a myriad of different scenarios, possibilities, outcomes all to determine the best course of action. The problem is in my opinion there are often too many variables to consider involving the buyer and eBay and while the brain is engaged with the management of the return it is not being used for other productive endeavours such as creation of value.

The lying awake in bed thinking about it, how is the best way to reply to this message whilst still remaining professional should eBay read these messages (which they will). What happens if old mate did try something physical, he had my return address after all (whereby I soon transitioned to a PO Box), was my family potentially in danger? Probably not but thoughts were required to assess this and potential responses.

This hidden cost also has a value but again hard to accurately quantify. With the fake book example I know I spent a lot of time thinking about all of the above.

I estimate that there would have been likely another 3 hours of thoughts processed during this saga at varying times that spanned multiple days. There’s another $150 loss vs listing. That’s a $300 theoretical loss so far.

Lastly, all of this mental bandwidth is processed with a negative overtone which of course bleeds into the rest of the day(s) like an infectious disease subconsciously impacting the day to day life of you and the people around you.
October Summary 2019

November 5th, 2019
October from a stats perspective was definitely an improvement over September with the overall figures coming in at $1004.31 net profit from 66 sales.

Profit was up, sales were up but inventory procurement doubled against September coming in at $493.40 resulting in an overall net positive cash flow of the month of $310.91.

I was expecting to see more of an increase in sales heading into Q4, and the overall result is OK but it seems like there has been a direct impact from the eBay Glitchgate during this month.

Take the middle of the month for the first example where after eBay pushed the update sales died (to zero) and didn’t really recover for the best part of 5 days.

This was then followed by a second strange lull at the end of the month that had significantly less coverage across socials. Whilst logging into the eBay My eBay page I received an error message that showed along the lines of: there is a technical error involving populating the reporting on your account. Funny how this also corresponded with no sales during the time this was present. The moment I noticed this I jumped on the eBay chat to see if there was an error on my entire account but I was assured it was all in order…

I remain unconvinced this was the case as if by magic once this error notice disappeared from the dashboard sales started slowly rolling in again…

Listing Theory

So this month I managed to add an additional +105 listings which is honestly the most I think I have added in a month. Really this is the equivalent of 171 listings when sold items are included with items listed to replace. This is the equivalent of around 6 per day which, realistically should be easily achievable for a part time seller such as myself.

I did find though by modifying my listing routine I achieved a lot more success with getting actual listings up. I batch processed photos for hard goods into one Saturday (or half of one) and combined with photos and measurements from the outsourced clothes I found I had plenty to keep me listing.

Started getting up at 5am, an hour before I would usually to get ready for work anyway and smashed some listings out. This meant on a few days I was able to get more than 10 listings completed before even leaving for work. It is a good way to start the day and also reduces friction on the back end of the day with taking away from family time.

I will be continuing in this manner moving forward.

Post Glitchgate I spent some time revising listings that were affected by item specific issues. Frustration ensued when it was apparent there was no easy way to amend these without having to use a third-party software. I refused straight out on that principle.

In the end I managed to combine a task that needed doing anyway that also doubled as a way to identify affected listings.

What was this task? Well it was simply updating the SKU to reflect the item storage location as well as the Cost Of Goods Sold.

Originally, I just had the item location in the SKU but post tax season after speaking to the accountant I realised I could make an easy way to download the cost of goods for all active listings if I just added the cost. This of course was a requirement to complete this year just gone return and was a pain in the but.

So now my new SKU might look like: MA8 #2 $5

Which is just Bin Number | Label Within The Bin | Original Cost Of Goods Of Item

Then its as easy as downloading the report for all active listings to excel and separating the SKU. More on how to do that in less than a couple of minutes in an upcoming Video.

Anyway, so seems I was modifying each SKU to capture this I would receive an error every time I encountered a listing that was missing an item specific. It wouldn’t let me update the listing without it. Easy simple way to work out what needed amending while at the same time improving a business process.

I still have a few of these left to do but have made good process.

Sourcing Theory

The plan for October was to reduce the spending aside from the Garage Sale Trail.

This didn’t quite work out and I actually doubled my spend from the previous month.

Again, I still have a ton of items to list. I can literally see 6x 50ltr tubs full of stuff that needs my attention. I’d like to think I’m good for a while.

My attention for the next few months is going to be getting items listed and optimising processes.

Garage Sale Trail 2019

So this was my first year doing the Garage Sale Trail and honestly I actually really enjoyed it. There were loads of places to go and I spent a total $144 in 6 Hours. I ended up leaving early and starting down south away from the city and i think this paid dividends at least for the initial first 4 or 5 where I had zero competition.

To assist in planning an efficient route I ended up creating a video on the Friday night about how to plot out your own personal trail map using google maps. This could be used for any Garage Sale weekend route also though. You can watch it below. Quite a few people found it very useful with the ability to plan routes or allocate different colours for different start times etc…

I managed to get some really good deals on the day with some highlights being:
- A whole box full of PS2 games and 2 PS2 consoles controllers, eye toys etc… for $20.
- A guitar hero and rock band haul for $40 which included some vintage books and other games etc…
You can watch the full haul in the YouTube below.

Outsourcing

This month my outsourcing took a detour away from clothes (as I hadn’t sourced many) and included an expansion into hats. I was a little unsure if this was a good idea or not, after all this is adding an extra cost again to the base Cost Of Goods Sold but the photos came back better than I had expected and again it helps me get all the stuff listed.

Play to where your strengths are.

Mine are definitely the sourcing and listings sub systems of the overall reselling process.

To put it bluntly it will never sell if its not listed. Therefore even if it costs me some potential profit to get this done it is money well spent.

If you missed the outsourcing concept a full explanation can be found in the month of August Summary 2019.

Auto Hot Key

Nothing too ground breaking with Auto Hot Key this month however I did make a handy little script which helps automating the printing of Dymo labels I use as part of the outsourcing process. Its seems trivial but the script will print a number and then wait and then print another number all the way up until 25. This then saves me time by me not having to manually do each one and wait for it.

Handy, Yes but worth it in time??

Well to actually get this to work properly was very easy with a simple loop. Of course there will be times where this might not function as intended and you would need to restart from a specific number. This proved to be much more annoying to get to work. Finally after I had gotten there I considered was this time well spent?

I actually got angry with myself temporarily as I realised I could have got another 10 items listed in that same time but after a while it dawned on me that I was still learning and still infinitely better than sitting watching TV.

Strange how the mind can punish you like that.

Plans For November
- Finish The Business Cards – Still. I have a graphic designer giving some assistance here with a new concept logo.
- 10 listings a day (or more) for the entire month.
- Continue to revise listings to qualify for the top rated seller benefits.
September Summary 2019

September 30th, 2019
You can now also watch a YouTube version of these Profit Summaries from September 2019 onwards.

September from a stats perspective was pretty poor.

I started off the month with a roar like I intended, listing more than the 10 per day that I was intending to average and then got the flu which hit me like a sack of potatoes keeping me bedridden for more than 24 hours and then several days following of a general terrible feeling. I probably spent the best part of 2 weeks recovering.

In some ways this is what the store would be doing were it only on auto pilot

This was followed by a change of priorities immediately once feeling better to getting several jobs around the house completed for the impending little one in December. I can honestly say I have got more done around the house in one week than probably the last 2 or 3 years.

I channeled my inner eBay demon (I wonder what that would look like) and worked my ass off till 9:30pm each night to get things completed.

3 weeks of effective downtime obviously impacted sales a lot as listing was very limited after the first week but I still managed a positive cashflow after inventory and outsourcing expenses which is great. Reflecting back on 2018 at this time September returned a little less in profit (against waaaay less inventory mind you) and October was dead before a big upswing into November and December.

One interesting point was the $ value listed rose by a massive $4388 against 70 new items listed equals ASP of approximately $63 average. Higher quality items with better returns.

Sourcing Theory

Selective September was the theme for this month. With limited time due to the aforementioned I made good use of the times I did call into an Op shop.

I was lucky enough to even come across a massive chunk of inks on clearance in a Woolworths one afternoon that someone appears to have possibly mucked up on the pricing. I say this as I attempted to call past other supermarkets in the area. All had clearances on some inks but nothing like I stumbled across. Right place right time!

We visited several Op Shops looking for quality baby items and often found a hidden gem each time. This belt below was at a Salvos under a counter at the back. Unless you took the time to complete a crouching squat you would never see it.

I think I have reached a critical mass as far as inventory goes now ahead of the little one arriving which means going forward I will be limiting sourcing, with two exceptions:
1. If the network contact from August contacts me again.
2. I will be heading out on the Garage Sale Trail in October 19/20 https://www.garagesaletrail.com.au/
Other than those I am almost certain I have enough items to get listings to 1500 which is my short goal.

Outsourcing

The outsourcing continued this month again with the clothes photography. If you missed this concept a full explanation can be found in last months August Summary 2019. Thus far I have sold enough from each lot of 25 to retrieve my expense cost. More if you consider the tax deductions for the expense. So its been great really, I have currently 75 items of clothing that are ready to be listed and now that I have gotten through the initial couple of lots where I had some marginal buys I am feeling pretty good about it. I have noticed that I am thinking a lot more about this when picking up clothing items when out sourcing as the outsourcing directly impacts the cost base I find myself being super selective.

Auto Hot Key

I haven’t written about Auto Hot Key for a while now as I have been coasting along with things working well. This month however a new team member started at work (the day job) and in the process of training some new innovations became apparent. This team member seemed excited by the idea of Auto Hot Key so it was installed and they commenced their own basic learning of this.

I installed a watered down version of my own script with some useful functions. Others I removed as I wanted this team member to create a few scripts themselves before moving into the more advanced ones I had created.

I wanted the learning and discovery to occur else there won’t be the motivation (as someone else has simply done it for you).

As an example, imagine in your new job you have a particular task to do every day which requires a few different windows to complete. Every morning you come in, turn on the computer and click through to open each window maybe using a bookmark or shortcut on the desktop.

Like starting any new job, sometimes the fastest way to improve your productivity effectiveness is to simply know where to find things that you need quickly or better – instantly. It’s often the navigation slowing down everything initially and simply improving this frees up time in actually learning the new role.

This formed the idea around the startup scripts whilst I was completing training of the new team member.

The concept and execution is simple.

There is a task A which requires 6 specific spreadsheets to be referred to. All of the web addresses these relate to (google sheets) are loaded in and coded to a shortcut key, say Crtl+Ctrl+G. Hit that key combination and all 6 launch at once instantly.

We repeated this process across three very different tasks, each with separate hot keys opening different variations of windows and programs. The effect was remarkable. The next day this team member after only two days of training was able to come into work and complete the first task of the morning without any assistance.

Another innovation I found useful was 3 key email replies including sending the email itself. There are times that you simply need / want to thank some one or indicate you have received information. Perhaps you need to forward an attachment and write the same text each time.

Now it can be simply use the keyboard short cut Alt+R (reply singular) or Alt+L (reply all) then type “]rr”, the shortcut string and Auto Hot Key inserts the pre-scripted prose and uses the keyboard short cut Ctrl+Enter to send the email.

Bingpot.

How does this relate to reselling? Well I use the same concepts to launch my eBay GUI, eBay itself, Sizely, the folder my pictures reside in all from a hot key. I can be literally listing (assuming I have the photos already) in less than a minute from turning the computer on. Removing some of these barriers helps immensely from a motivational perspective.

I also have a previous post about using this for sourcing on Facebook marketplace using specific search terms and tying them to a one click script (which can also be hot key). That post is here.

Plans For October
- Finish The Business Cards
- 10 listings a day (or more) for the entire month.
- Explore future options relating to Amazon. With Aus Posts pricing changes effective 30 September 2019 it appears as though getting inventory to Melbourne may become feasible cost wise.
- Update listings to qualify for the top rated seller benefits.
Save Money With Australia Post Business Account

August 26th, 2019

I had previously seen a couple of posts on the Australian Resellers Facebook group about using the AusPost business account which gives discounts on shipping for bulk volume.

As I was really starting to get some volume numbers adding up in May I finally got around to checking this out recently and was pleasantly surprised:

#1 That it was easy to setup and #2 connecting to eBay and importing orders was very straight forward.

I was up and running in less than 5 minutes. On logging in I was immediately drawn to the Band Savings amounts which list the discounts that are applicable if you send X amount of packages per week. I found out that I could print 1kg Satchels in place of 3kg satchels. 1kg Satchels are unable to be printed through the eBay platform so this alone will save me quite a lot of money over the course of year with those items which sneak just over 500gms.

My initial excitement was dashed however as there was a long lead time of 8 weeks for what band I was to be placed in. I attempted to bypass this wait time by appealing to the friendly lady on the other end of an AusPost chat line. With my already decent volume it was more economical to print labels through eBay whilst waiting for my discounts to take effect I posited. I was not successful. She did suggest I could simply pay for everything through AusPost straight away at the higher rate which would mean they could review it sooner and ergo I would obtain the discounts sooner, however I declined on principal of not paying more just for that privilege, and simply waited it out.

Saving $$$

The wait was worth it and at the end of the review period I was thrust into Band 2 gaining access to immediate savings.

As you can see in the below photo a simple $1.36 discount to another major city with a 1kg Satchel. It may not seem like much but extrapolated over a year and that’s the equivalent to a return trip to Bali from Perth or more than $2000 in interest of my house loan (including the savings over the full term) saved.

1kg Satchel Savings Other City

500gm Satchel Savings Other City

Other Unexpected Benefits

The savings aside a couple of other benefits also appeared. As you are directly within the AusPost business platform the page will attempt to auto-validate the address. I have been pleasantly surprised on a few occasions where this has picked up an address error And potentially saved painful time-wasting problems later.

The other feature I am really liking is the quick access to tracking which shows all updates in the history very quickly.

Applications To Reselling

As the reselling business volume grows I am hoping to move up the tiers to take advantage of the scaling discounts. The savings of course can either go straight into the profit bottom line or can be factored into pricing to become more competitive.

Either way if this is something you are not currently doing, there is money being left on the table.

The full savings rate table can be found here on the AusPost website.
June Summary 2019

July 3rd, 2019
June was a crazy month.
- Best profit result to date coming in at $2035 for June across all platforms.
- Implemented a Thank You note for all purchases.
- First 2 Etsy Sales, one of which was over $100, great for a shop with 0 feedback!
- Managed to successfully have a negative eBay feedback be removed. This has its own post and can be found here.
The plan for June, was again List. List. List. Unfortunately (solely from a listing goal perspective) I failed as I kept selling items and barely managed to keep up and maintain the listing total over 700. At the 30th of June 2019, I had 725 active on eBay.

As you can see above, the trend of this reselling business is definitely heading in an upward direction and interestingly it appears to have taken 8 months of effectively “spinning the wheel” (and even a couple of months of negative cash flow) before things have taken off in the last 3 months of the financial year. If I was to overlay the total number of listings on top of this graph also there would also be a direct correlation with increased number of listings equaling increased sales. An easy way to think about this is assuming the same sell through rate of 10% of total listings then 100 items listed would equals 10 sales, 1000 items listed equals 100 sales!

Sourcing Strategy

Inventory procurement this month was a little more reserved vs May. In fact, after 10 days of the month I had spent only $55. By the months end however I had grown this amount to $380 mainly due to a last big spend up on a day trip mission down south.

I was extremely picky but still managed to come away with some great items. There is definitely experience assisting in this regard, lessons learned from previous sales. It could also be my conscious reminding me gently that I have lots of items which need listing. Buying things that I might make $5-$10 is not going to help.

Closing Down Sale

One of the local op shops closed down and had a sale spread over the month. I went several times over a couple of the weeks and picked up a large lot of band T Shirts, some video games, among other things including a bunch of free genuine printer ink worth about $200, could not believe my eyes when I saw that sitting there and that no one had grabbed it already.

In the final week this store had a $2 everything sale, and when I saw this advertised as I pulled up in the car I did not hold much hope of really finding anything left. Sure enough the store had been raided well and truly with many shelves totally bare and yet even in desolate landscape I still managed to find 5 things which people had not seen any value in. My favourite find, a pair of vintage sewing scissors which I paid effectively 25c for (after using the last of my store credit) I sold 1 week later for $100. There was also a set of vintage sewing patterns which I haven’t listed yet I hope to get around $100 which was marked $35 down to $2.

One point I will make here is if you come across these closing down sales make sure you get in early and spend up. If you wait until the end where things are at 50-75% off you will find that quality items will already be gone. This is what I did with the T Shirts, the store manager had been saving them to make a big music themed display, now that the store was closing she put all of them out at 25% discount (and they were already reasonably priced). I managed to negotiate even further on top of this (built on a long standing network relationship with the store manager) and ended up with a huge stack of T Shirts for $27 and a free Nirvana flag thrown in on top.

So great sourcing here with the only down side being the loss of a built up network relationship and a local store. 😦

The Bins

I made two separate trips to the bins this month and they did not disappoint. No $500 single item finds as such but I found several quality items at fractions of the cost they would usually be in an op shop, even found a pair of Levi’s! (At this bins price paid is based on weight).

The estimation is being able to generate close to $1000 in total sales from a spend of about $23.

Garage Sales

This month I actually took the time to stop at a couple of garage sales. It is something I have been meaning to do a lot more particularly with climbing op shop prices but they can be hit and miss. This time I was lucky and one that was only a couple of minutes from my house had a lot of deceased estate items. From this I was able to purchase a few old Jaguar Car items with I promptly listed and sold within a week. I got more than 10x my money back with limited fees (split local and eBay) and still have a stack of old vintage Tea Towels to list (yes you read that right) which are 100% pure profit.

eBay Arbitrage

I had another crack at some eBay arbitrage this month. I ended up buying a bulk lot of football pins, a couple of scout badges and some odd ball items. Within this bulk lot was a Kirby Game Boy cartridge and a horse shoe. Between Kirby , the 2 scout patches and the Phillip Island patch I should get most of my initial investment back. What I like about this is that the other items are super easy to list and storage space is next to nothing.

Other Expenditure

The overall cash flow although good could have been even better still. While I was making good sales I thought it prudent to take the time to reinvest some of the profits back into improving critical infrastructure including a huge stack of tubs for inventory storage, poly bags, bubble wrap and wrapping paper. Expenditure on next month for all of this should be very minimal.

Other Savings

At the start of last June I signed up for the Australia Post Business Account. This account has given me the ability to print 1kg and 5kg Satchel labels which, frankly, has already saved me over $30 in June by itself. I will be writing a separate post on this in July as there were some unexpected outcomes which deserve more detail.

Listing Strategy

This month I made a concerted effort to do a lot more cross posting across Facebook Marketplace and Etsy. Although I only had 6 sales across these platforms the total profit was $285 or more than 10% of the overall monthly total. I will be making much more use of Etsy in particular going forward with lots of vintage items still to list. Dual listing across eBay and Etsy only adds probably an extra minute or two in time as all the details entered are still in my Auto Hot Key GUI and I can use Auto Hot Key to fill the listing in both eBay and Etsy. If I had 2 screens I could probably make this even faster still.

The only downside of having dual listings is having to remember to de-list from the other platform when it sells! Having 2 simultaneous sales of the same item would be a problem. I could perhaps create an Auto Hot Key script to automate this process in the future once I have hundreds of cross posted items. For now its not much of an issue.

General Improvements

Network Sales

A Network Sale to the legends 2AussieThrifers

This month I also added a new category to my tracking, network sales. This is as it sounds, sales achieved through building a network of people who I think or know would be interested in items that I pick up.

This month I sold the above Bootlegged SNES Games complete with boxes to the Aussie reselling legends 2aussiethrifters (find them on Instagram @2aussiethrifters). I knew from watching their YouTube channel that Brad was an avid collector of Nintendo. As a thank you for the great content he had been putting out I offered these to him first and we agreed on a win-win deal, the best kind of outcome. He also ran an unboxing video of these at the start of his huge RM Williams Mega Haul which was epic.

Why is a network important? Well because I often sell things which are collectable or sit within a certain niche and I can offer items to these network contacts first.

There can be a number of benefits to doing this including:
- Hopefully speed up the sale (Save Inventory Space),
- Perhaps bypass having to even list it on a platform (Save Time),
- Save money on fees (Keep More Profit),
- Get repeat purchases (Make More Money),
- Get information from collectors who are often experts on a particular subject. For example, I know a guy who I can contact anytime for prices on a group of niche items. He will tell me what it retails for and if he wants to buy what hes willing to pay. (Build Knowledge, Make Sales)
Network sales this month amounted to $100.

Thank You Label For Customers Combined with SKU Update

This month I implemented a very simple Thank You label to be added to outgoing orders. It is super simple with just a thank you for your purchase along with a smiley face.

Built on top of this implementation I also decided it was time to upgrade the use of my SKU system. Previously I would just list the bin # and that was that. When a sale occurred I could simply walk to the bin and fish through what was in there to find the item. Over the last couple of months I have collected so many pairs of Levi’s and RM Williams Jeans that this would simply not work anymore as I could have more than 20 of the same type of jeans in the same bin. So the easy fix is pretty obvious, Bin # Item Letter. Example A1 # D.

So now I have one label which acts as both a thank you and helps optimise my inventory. The only thing that remains now is to perhaps create some graphics for the label. Perhaps the SKU could even sit inside the graphics so it blends and becomes part of the picture itself.

Sell Through Rate (Or Perhaps Store Turnover Rate)

This month I came across an interesting statistic called a sell through rate. It is calculated on total sales divided by the total number of listings and it gives a percentage of turnover of an item. Seems I don’t have items the have huge multi quantity the store turn over rate is probably a better name for this, in my case total store listings against total sales gives a total percentage of turnover. There are a few opinions around on what is considered good, Sub-Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Flipping/ has some good reselling reading with most comments I browsed through on this topic averaging between 8 -17% which give an approximate idea on what a good through rate is. I’m not really concerned with that as I imagine these are heavily relative against the type of items being sold for each store owner leaving comments. However I do think this might be an interesting metric to keep a track of and see if I can get this trending upward by testing out some ideas. For this month I sold a total of 80 items on eBay against a maximum listing total of 751. Therefore the approximate store turnover for the month was 10.67%.

The Stats eBay

June was a cracker, what can I say. There was no huge spikes to speak of, there was just a lot of consistency across the month.

This month holds the new total profit record coming in at $1660.69 in actual profit (after fees, COGs, shipping).

The number of listings increased briefly to over 750 and then came crashing back down to 700 after several quick sales. This was the same story as May, I was selling as many things as I was listing which translates to – I am not listing enough to continue this growth. This is evidenced by the big red mark of the total store value actually dropping by $350 this month.

The Stats Facebook Marketplace

The expansion into other platforms for diversification continued (a previous post about this concept can be found here).

I only had 4 sales through Facebook Marketplace this month but they were solid. During the month I found a couple of nice items at low cost that are perfect for this platform. I expect July cash flow to be much better here.

The Stats Etsy

Welcome to the team Etsy. I have had a couple of multi quantity listings up on Etsy for a while. Here and there I have sold a couple of things. In June I decided it was time to really start making use of this platform so when I came across a couple of high value items I cross posted on both eBay and Etsy. They both sold soon after within a week, one on eBay and one on Etsy.

Bad Stuff

One return this month for “item does not fit” which was no problem as buyer paid return postage and once relisted this sold again a few days later. All in all, nothing unusual here.

Plans For July

“No Buy July” has a nice ring to it, so that’s whats happening.
- I have 800 listing spots I’m paying for that I need to fill. I also have several 50ltr containers packed with clothes that need to be listed. This really does need to be the month when I get this done. I already have approximately 40 items photographed and ready to be listed which is a great head start.
- As part of this, @2aussiethrifters laid down a listing challenge which was great timing. Just another way to keep accountable for getting through those items that need to be listed.
- Post First YouTube Video. The account has been created, have found some music. Have spoken to some people about some useful software to help get content made. Now all that remains is to sit down, create some tutorials and get them posted.
- Create a Reselling Business card to distribute. I came across a couple of instances this month where I missed out on some easy profit. More on this soon.
- Add some style to the Thank You Labels.
A Success Story In Removing eBay Negative Feedback

June 21st, 2019
Over the course of my relatively short reselling career (spanning 5 years on an ad hoc basis for most and really ramping up since September last year) I have had roughly 5 negative feedback from buyers.

All have been my own fault, something that I had missed or overlooked when listing resulted in an unhappy customer and then that dreaded fall from grace of 100% positive feedback.
Sometimes the buyer would contact me after leaving this negative feedback, sometimes not.

In all previous cases I have provided a satisfactory remedy back to the buyer through either partial refunds, full refunds, or full refund plus keep the item. All of these had been on items for less than $50 so I simply learned the required lesson and chalked this up as a cost of doing business (education). After a happy resolution the next step was to send a remove negative feedback link to the buyer through eBay (Called a Feedback revision request) and after they accepted this the negative feedback was gone.

Last month, however, I noticed on my seller hub a negative feedback. My stomach became sick instantly. I had received no contact about this so it took me by surprise. It related to an item that I had sold approximately 2 weeks after the initial sale date that was priced in the hundreds of dollars. The stakes were a lot different compared to the previous occasions.

Needless to say I was annoyed.

The feedback stated that my item was very dirty, overpriced and could that they (the buyer) could have brought the same item in a thrift shop for almost 10 times less than what it sold for.

Ah the irony of that…

Anyway, I had an instinct or gut feeling that this particular buyer did actually in fact want to keep this item but wanted it at a discount, and subsequently chose to use negative feedback as a pathway to achieve this.

This is of course is pure speculation, but here are my background thoughts on this:
- This item was unique (or very limited production) and rare being old vintage, an excellent combination. Other than having a couple of marks on it (which were fully disclosed in the listing both written and with photos) was in great condition. It’s the type of item you might not see advertised for sale again for a long long time.
- Comparable sales of other similar but newer items of same brand, category told me that I was spot on with my initial pricing and to complete this sale I had actually taken an offer of approximately 40% discount to my original asking price due to the marks on it. At the time I did this I was even hesitant in accepting this offer as I likely could have achieved a better price but chose a fast turnover instead.
- I had 30 day returns on this listing, returning was always an option for this buyer.
- The feedback left had 2 separate references to price, being overpriced (funny because they made the offer in the first place) and able to buy in a thrift shop for $X which I knew to be untrue as I had already paid 4x the figure stated in the feedback (and even I thought I had gotten a bargain at that price at that time).
Therefore as above, I concluded that the real motivation for the negative feedback was price paid vs perceived value.

This is the true nature of a sale, that is, value must outweigh the price.

Perhaps my own view of perceived value for this item is skewed or biased as I have been doing this a while now, I considered this argument then discarded it after using a peer test, that is, would another customer having this same item in the same condition generate the same result (a negative feedback)? The answer, I thought, was no. There would be many people that would be super stoked to own this item in its current condition with some minor marks.

Still, was there anything else I could have done to move the value to this customer upwards? Yes, I believe there was, perhaps the packaging could have been improved and was not to their liking (**There was not a lot of physical room to improve it**) or a simple thank you card could have made the difference (**Something a recent continuous improvement iteration has implemented using thank you labels on all new sales**)

So with the above reasoning I chose to do nothing but wait and see if a return or case eventuated. This of course meant having to sit with this feedback blemish on my account for another 2 weeks until after the return window closed whereby I could contact eBay directly for an appeal and request removal of this feedback.

The Appeal Request To Remove Negative Feedback

The following is a summary of the chat transcript with my thoughts in italics. I currently have a feedback score of more than 500 and have been a longtime eBay member (10 years now), this may or may not be a contributing factor to the outcome.

Initial Chat Request: Noticed I have Received A Negative Feedback, Would like it to be removed.

Thoughts: Just a simple to the point request, all the details will be sent through in a while.

eBay Rep: Welcome to eBay Plus Premium Service! This is:

Thoughts: This may or may not have any influence with this appeal but being a member of eBay Plus which costs $49 per year provides actually some great benefits for sellers such as almost instant customer service (you being the customer). Being a member of a Premium Service may just bring you that – Premium Service. This has been mentioned a few times on some of the podcasts I listen to regarding stores based in the US, whereby Anchor Store holders (the highest tier) have a different team of eBay specialists who provide support for these accounts. Perhaps a similar thing applies with eBay Plus?

Me: The request is in reference to item 16XXXXXXXXXXX

Thoughts: You want provide the item number straight away. Make it easy for the consultant to complete their interaction with you. I’m not sure what metrics they work to but I imagine time would be one of them, therefore anything you can do upfront to save the consultant time will be appreciated. I have been thanked every time I have done this. Help them help you.

eBay Rep and Me: Greetings back and forward

Thoughts: I always ask the eBay Rep how they are and on this occasion I added that I had just had several quick sales which I thought was great. This may seem trivial but treating people with respect goes a long way, make anyone you talk to feel like you actually give a shit, because you actually do right – you do want people to have a good day. The reference to the sales was both truth and a extremely subtle reminder that sellers are a big part of the business.

Me: Provided a list of points why I believed the feedback should be removed.
- Firstly I accepted an offer of $X from a list price of $X, a large substantial discount to the original asking price.
- I took great care to ensure this item was clean when listing.
- I was also very clear in my condition details that the item had a couple of marks on it and referenced this fact against the listing photos.
- The buyer chose not contact me.
- The buyer chose not to utilise the 30 day returns which are available.
- And finally the buyer has chosen to make the offer at the price accepted so it cannot be over priced.
- Lastly speculation on buying something at a thrift shop is just that speculation and not based on facts.
Thoughts: Again, I prepared the above before engaging in the chat to save time. This also has the benefit of being able to organise thoughts coherently. I did submit each line on the list as its own entry during the chat. I stuck with facts only and made it clear that the buyer did have remedies available to them but made a choice not to use them.

eBay Rep: The eBay Rep then took a couple of minutes to review the listing and removed feedback with the reason that I had listed the item condition clearly within the item condition section within the listing.

Me: Thank you to the eBay Rep.

Summary

And there you have it.

Plan ahead with the item number and your points of argument to save time during the chat.

Deal in facts, your ego is irrelevant. Put your best lawyer brain on to argue for your claim.

Be courteous to the eBay Rep always (no matter the outcome). Remember you are operating within eBay’s system. If you did something stupid or forgot to do something altogether then own it, learn from it and move on.

Review this experience to improve your business. Could you have done anything different to prevent this from occurring in the first place or occurring again in the future?