In-House Summer Selling Challenge: Week 4

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From Rebecca:

Things are looking up for Robert in our summer selling challenge. I’m not out of the game yet, though. It’s going to be a busy week and a half, but I think I can make the final score pretty close. In terms of actual items sold, I can beat Robert hands down. But in terms of total dollar amount, he may come out ahead in the end. Only time will tell… heh heh heh (evil laugh).

All this selling made me think about how much money in fees we will have paid when the dust has settled. I was able to list a lot of things in the first part of July when the free-insertion-fee promotion was going on, but I know Robert didn’t start his selling push until after that promotion ended.

A quick check on my current eBay invoice shows I’ve racked up about $50 in insertion and final value fees so far, and there’s still the PayPal fees I need to tally up. If I wanted to get real specific, I could calculate the amount I’ve had to pay on postage and shipping supplies. My bottom line is dwindling before my very eyes. I had better get a move on.

From Robert:
This week, two things happened that have substantially changed my eBay selling activities. One, I’ve had a lot of unrelated responsibilities competing for my time. Two, as opposed to spending my time looking for inventory or listing products, this week has been all about order fulfillment.

I made more than 20 sales last week. Now I need to ensure products are shipped on time and reach their destinations in a timely manner. This requires time, some expense, organization and keen attention to detail.

As for the contest, I’m cautiously comfortable with a substantial lead over my counterpart, both in terms of total items sold and total value. But, like I say, I’m cautious.

Rebecca seems all too comfortable, and I don’t think she’s the giving-up type. I’m inclined to think she might have an ace up her sleeve. Whether that means she has several listings in her Auctiva account scheduled to hit in the 11th hour, or that she has one highly valuable item that she’ll post in the last days of this contest, I’m not sure. But I think something’s coming.

As for any tricks up my own sleeve, I have a handful of moderately priced items I recently purchased for the purpose of resale. After doing some research, I think there’s a good likelihood they’ll sell for a relatively substantial profit.

As we get further into this contest, I’ve noticed that selling has been very cyclical for me. At first, I was just focusing on getting sales; now I’m focusing on shipping and order fulfillment. Are these cycles typical? Or do you concurrently juggle sourcing, listing, packaging, fulfillment, etc.? Do you have any tricks to share on how you do it? I’d love to hear them, and so would your fellow online sellers.