In-House Summer Selling Challenge: Week 3

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From Rebecca:

Well, it seems Mr. Green did have a card up his sleeve! It’s not over yet, though. There may still be a chance for me to win this thing.

I’m so confident that I’m not even going to list anything this weekend. We’ll see how this all pans out at the end of the month.

Maybe this 109-degree heat is making me think crazy thoughts!

From Robert:

So, as Rebecca alluded to, the figures (in terms of both total number and value of sales) have swung my way this week. I took advantage of a spike in demand for a particular product (wouldn’t you love to know?), and a connection I had, and started listing like crazy.

This busy week left me with two points I’d like to share:

First, listing format and timing are huge. I sold several of essentially the same items this week. Because of listing format (and probably others factors that affected visibility in search results) and timing, I saw $40 fixed-price listings close without a sale, while an auction with a $20 starting price for the same item went for more than $60. I’ve learned a lot this week about attracting shopper traffic. It’s clear this is as important as any other element in the successful online selling formula.

Finally, it’s a lot of work communicating with buyers, tracking who has paid and who hasn’t, packaging, shipping, leaving feedback, fielding questions, managing active listings, and all of the rest an active eBay seller has to do. I truly appreciate what Rebecca and other successful (serious) sellers do. It’s easy to hear about a great find that was turned around for a tidy profit, and take for granted all the work in between (not to mention those transactions that took more time and effort than the profit—if any—justified). It’s also easy to forget about the insertion fees, shipping fees, listing enhancement fees, final value fees, payment processing fees, and myriad other costs that a seller has to incur.

I’m tired, but maybe that’s the same 109-degree heat talking. Have a great weekend!