We all have frustrating moments as reseller/sellers on Amazon or eBay. I like to try to take these with a grain of salt, do what I can to deal with them and move on. Part of that process is sometimes creating a meme to vent 🙂 I also have fun when celebrating a great moment
Have any of your own or any favorites you have found?
I mentioned in a previous post that I like to sell products on multiple platforms. There I talked about how I liked that Bonanza is “supposed” to remove items that have already sold on eBay. I have had an item where that did not happen and the item sold on both. I of course emailed the buyer on Bonanza and explained the situation and canceled. Not much of repercussions on bonanza so nothing to worry about.
That wasn’t the bonehead mistake though. I also list some higher end items that I’m selling on eBay to Amazon as merchant Fulfilled.
Well I had a nice Wii Guitar Hero guitar with game that had been sitting on eBay for awhile so I went ahead and listed it on Amazon on well, for a higher price of course. As time went on I forgot I had it there and had put it on sale on eBay and just last week took a best offer and shipped it on out. Glad that I had finally sold it and no longer taking up room in my office.
Of course last night I get the email “your item sold, time to ship” from Amazon. Of course for almost twice the offer I finally accepted. I cringed as I went to my seller dashboard to cancel the order as ‘No Inventory’. It hasn’t shown up yet in my performance but I take this double selling a little more seriously than Bonanza.
Don’t get me wrong its not the missed money that was the mistake (but it hurts a little) its the ding that may arise on my account so I put this out as a warning that if you list an item on multi platforms and it sells on one MAKE SURE YOU REMOVE IT FROM THE OTHERS!
This happen to you?
While sourcing for eBay and Amazon by garage sales and flea markets You will often run in to some very interesting items. Here are a Few I have found recently. (click images for larger view)
What interesting things have you found?
September is here and Q4 is around the corner (I hope) So time for the August Income Report.
Amazon didn’t improve much over last month, just a few bucks more. Was doing quite well but only averaging a sale a day at most. Could be because I have been concentrating a bit more on eBay. I like the instant payment instead of waiting 2 weeks, even if I can get more. Have to work on that a bit and kick start Amazon again.
This is a screen capture showing that with only $110.51 (just a bit more than last month) of goods purchased (59 units again this month) they were sold on Amazon for $1,179.97 with Amazon taking their cut of $314.84 and I was paid $865.13. So after cost of good is taken out I had a gross profit of $754.62. Return On Investment was down a bit more this month at 682.9%.
Ebay went down a bit as well this month. Not as many big homer items (i.e. lego sets) did have a few more sales from Bonanza as well but not enough to stay with their Gold program. Cost of goods was $118.88 and got paid $1,858.60 which after fees and shipping costs I netted $1,279.13. Return on investment of 1076% which is down just a bit over last month again.
Still better returns than Amazon.
Adsense payment came this month and it was my best yet at $228.41! This is with niche sites and 2 youtube channels. The niche sites are doing really well right now, gonna have to go back and do some more posts on them 🙂
So lets take a look at all the streams I have besides the photo studio.
Online sales: $2618.15
Websites: $363.51
Adsense: $228.41
Merchant Accounts: $0
Total: $3,210.07
Secondary income dropped this month by about $700 which I can understand cause my sourcing went down. Only one FBA shipment and many weeks of just staying at home. Lot of it was health reasons but I need to push through that and get out there more during the week, even if I only find an item or two thats better than nothing. I have found a wholesale source that I may be pulling the trigger this week (small order) Problem with wholesale is that the margins are smaller and need to sell more. Like a $9-10 item that will sell $18-20 will give me a $5-6 profit after fees, So I need to see in volume. These items I would be doing on eBay because Amazon is selling at stupid prices. We shall see.
Still shooting for that elusive $4k month for combined secondary income.
So what about you, what are your goals for Nov? How did you do in Oct?
Didn’t go out much during the week but did pick up a few items at thrift shops. Todays garage sales were not great either but did do well at the swap meet. I am either becoming very selective on what I buy or there is just a lot more junk out there. Either way its not how much you buy but the quality of the items. High margin and fast movers!
Just a quick little video showing something I learned today when I found a nice Starbucks Venezia City mug today.
September is here and Q4 is around the corner (I hope) So time for the August Income Report.
Amazon was slow again and did less than the privies month, both in items sold an dollar amount. More bread and butter books and games sold rather than home run items. Im still feeding the beast and hoping for a great 4th quarter.
This is a screen capture showing that with only $119.93 (less than last month again) of goods purchased (only 61 units this month) they were sold on Amazon for $1,644.78 with Amazon taking their cut of $369.23 I was paid $1,275.55. So after cost of good is taken out I had a gross profit of $1,155.62. Return On Investment went up again to 963.6% from 533.8% last month. Source items from thrift and garage sales instead of retail has helped quite a bit (and lowered stress) even got in a few estate sales.
Ebay went up quite a bit as I source more with ebay in mind now as well as Amazon. The eBay report even includes some sales from Bonanza. Cost of goods was $110.04 and got paid $1690.68 which after fees and shipping costs I netted $1,303.23, Return on investment of 1184.3%.
Better returns than Amazon but a lot more work as I have to ship everything myself and store it at home. Even out did my Amazon sales this month.
Adsense balance was at $143 for August so got paid 🙂 My adsense comes from website ads (even from this site) as well as youtube channels
So lets take a look at all the streams I have besides the photo studio.
Online sales: $2,966.23
Websites: $688.60
Adsense: $143.16
Merchant Accounts: $304.99
Total: $4,102.98
So if I take all my secondary streams I meet my goal of $3.2k, but I believe I stated my goal was just for online selling so kinda missed. With trends I most likely will not get an adsense payment this month and the merchant account payment was higher than historical, but I am hoping for Amazon and eBay to pick up some steam. Im going to be conservation and keep Septembers goal for all secondary income at $4k and push for the studio to do at least $4k as well, that showed keep the stress off for the month.
Still need to look closely at wholesale and online sourcing just in case thrifting doesn’t improve. Just haven’t got around to it yet.
So what about you, what are your goals for Sept? How did you do in Aug?
Damn its already August, but Im ready for this Summer to be over with. Tired of the heat and humidity. July was alright income wise, its supposed to be slow online sale wise. Amazon was down a little but ebay was up of course being a full month of listing. So lets see how it breaks down.
Amazon was slow again, Summer, but picked up towards the end of the month and had a few home runs. I continue to send in once a week, well I did skip one week cause the sourcing wasn’t as good.
This is a screen capture showing that with $242.57 (less than last month) of goods purchased (only 76 units this month) they were sold on Amazon for $2061.24 with Amazon taking their cut of $507.11 I was paid $1,554.13. So after cost of good is taking out I had a gross profit of $1294.80, which was only $3 less profit than last month so that is great. Return On Investment even went up to 533.8% from 346.6% last month. Source items from thrift and garage sales instead of retail has helped quite a bit (and lowered stress)
Ok started tracking ebay sales in the spread sheet so here is the July’s total for 47 items. Cost of goods of $75.13 and got paid $1017.26 which after fees and shipping costs I netted $711.17, Return on investment of 946.6%.
Better returns than Amazon but a lot more work as I have to ship everything myself and store it at home.
Adsense balance is at $72.53 for July so wont be paid till next month. Looks like hydroponics youtube channel dropped a bit, need to get the garden going and get some more videos up there.
So with all that I finally cleared the $3K benchmark so happy there. Supposed to be ramping up for the Q4 season which is supposed to be the good months for sales so this month’s goal for online stream will be $3,500.
Still need to look closely at wholesale and online sourcing just in case thrifting doesn’t improve. I think being in San Diego there will always be garage sales but if I want to grow I have to find other sources of inventory.
Also this report is just for the online streams. I also have the photo studio of course and the web design/hosting business as well (which did a little over $700 last month) I may consider putting that in the report in the future, it is another stream besides the main business. Have to think about that.
So what about you, what are your goals for Aug? How did you do in July?
In case you missed it, I had the honor to appear on eBay radio for a short interview. It was on Tuesday July 22nd and was only about 10-15 mins long but was enough to get my anxiety up a bit 🙂 Just takes about sourcing your inventory, couple tips on selling and listing, and a brief mention on photographing your products. If you missed it the link to the recording is below. Also check out some of the other great guests such as Steve Raiken and Charlene Anderson that appeared at July 22nd ebay Radio Archives.
My Interview:
Let me know if you have any questions below and Ill do a post on some of he subjects.
I see and hear this question a lot; “where should I sell? Amazon or Ebay?”
To me its not an either or, its not a ‘vs’ issue.
While they do overlap in areas each to me is unique and have their own areas to sell that don’t do quite as well than the other. It would benefit any reseller to take advantage of both.
To me there are many pros to selling on Amazon FBA that make some items better to be sold on this platform. Basically if it has a barcode I am scanning it for Amazon, especially if its a new sealed item. Compared side by side most items (not all) will fetch a higher price on Amazon FBA. This is even compared to items that are sold Amazon Merchant Fulfilled. There is just something about the item being fulfilled by amazon that gets buyers to spend the extra money knowing that its coming from Amazon. Plus all the Prime members are getting that 2 day free shipping, they will pay extra for it just for that. Even used items that are in good shape, especially books do well on Amazon fetching a higher price that the same thing on eBay.
Another thing I love about FBA is that once I have gathers a late collection of items I just put them in a box (or two) then ship them off Amazon and thats the last I touch them. Its supper easy to list 50+ items in an hour then box them up. From that point Amazon deals with the storage, orders, shipping of each item and the customer service. I just get my ‘Paycheck’ every other week.
Now there are some cons of course. Amazon handling the customer service means instant refunds if a buyer requests it and you won’t know why for up to 45 days if ever. BUT most of the time it was a scam and buyer never returns the item you do get reimbursed so not totally a bad thing. On that note I had a return because the item was damaged during shipment from amazon to the buyer, I received a reimbursement for the item. Not the price I sold it at but more than what I paid for it so I made out anyway. That wouldn’t happen with eBay, you would be SOL.
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Now there are some items you can’t sell on Amazon and for all those items I use eBay. For instance clothing, for Amazon you have to jump through a lot of hurdles to get approved for the category and items have to be new. Also items that may be used with out a box or vintage or unique items, they all would be better suited for eBay. I compare many of my finds to see who would offer the better price and sometimes eBay will win out. Take for instance the card game I found ‘Cards Against Humanity’ at a Goodwill. It was new and still wrapped but the wrapping had a tear. With Amazons rules I couldn’t see it as new, I would have had to list ‘Collectible Very Good’ which brings down the price I could ask. So I listed it on eBay instead and received $29 for it, $4 for shipping so I still made $25 which was the new price on Amazon.
With amazon everything has to be packaged well for storage. You have to box your mugs, shrink wrap this or bubble wrap that, stick a half doz labels on it. With eBay you only have to do this when you are ready to ship to your customer (and no stickers). This also leads to some of the cons of eBay. YOU do all your own shipping of each item. YOU have to store everything until it sells. These two things on their own take a bit of your time, then there is the listing. With Amazon everything has to have a barcode, with this you type in the items UPC code and everything is there for you. Photos, description, etc all you have to do is select condition and price it. Done! Ebay’s listing can take a bit of time. You have to take your own photos, then describe, categorize etc etc. you be lucky if you can get 4-5 items done in an hour.
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They both can be a pain in the ass in their own unique ways and you will always find someone bitching about one of them. You have to learn to work with the cons and make the pros work in your favor. Some like to just stick to the one platform they are comfortable with and thats great for them. I always think what would you do if that one platform went away? You would be screwed. So I would rather work with both for that ‘Multiple Streams of Income’. While Im out looking for those new items for Amazon I don’t close my eyes to those items that may sell well on eBay, in fact Im am trying to learn about more things I can sell so I can expand my inventory. If one niche isn’t selling well at the time, hopefully I have inventory in another niche that is doing well.
Don’t close yourself off to the other platform, it doesnt take that much work to expand and it could benefit you greatly in the long run.
Do you only sell on one platform or both? Why?
When I don’t have photo sessions on Saturdays I spend time out and about hitting garage sales and rummage sales. Today I ventured away from my local area and heading towards the coast to hit up some rummage sales and had some luck on my side. Enjoy the haul video from today and yesterday.
