I am so ashamed that I have neglected writing for a whole week! I also have neglected to do one ounce of thrifting although I have been so busy with other stuff. First and foremost are the Spring Seller Update that came out from E-Bay on Tuesday. Boy are some people up in arms! I don't see the changes as being so bad. What people are really mad about are the fee changes. They are going to start charging FVF (Final Value Fees) on shipping costs. Many people vow to leave the site, call an attorney, blah blah blah, etc etc etc. I see it a few ways.
First, business, businesses, laws, rules, regulations and the like consistently change and will never stop changing. You either adopt and adapt or you find a job. If taxes go up, you don't like it but you change. Social media is the new marketing, you don't like it but you do it. Smurfs are the new hot item, you hate smurfs but you sell them anyway!
Second, it will make all those nasty sellers finally pay the price. I buy on E-Bay as well as sell. I never ever buy from someone who lists at $0.99 and then has $25.00 shipping for an item that does not justify the charges. They are cheating the system and if I do it right, why don't you. Finally E-Bay is leveling the playing field.
Third, I don't like that the fees are going up but I have successfully combated that (tell you how in a sec) and understand the costs that I have to deal with in order to sell on the largest and most well known e-commerce site. I could go elsewhere but I pay the fees because I have the traffic here. I could go elsewhere and list for free and sell without commission but why do that if inventory isn't going to move? If you were going to open a store that sold high end fashion items for a lot of money, you would not mind paying high rents because the return in an affluent area is much better than a flea market where nobody would buy your $500 purse or $3,000 dress.
Now to let you know what I've been doing and how I combated those fees...I opened an E-Bay store. It basically evens everything out for me. I pay a monthly fee of $15.95 but fees are cheaper, I get 12 free pics per listing and an actual web address store front. Its been a pain in the neck to get it organized but I'm glad I did it when I had 75 items listed and not 500!
Besides that, I met with one of my consignors to pick up another load of inventory, visited the rents, worked my part time morning job and started listing clothes. I haven't sold clothes yet so I can't wait to see how it goes. I have tons to sell too. I've gotten so many donations and picked up a bunch at curb alerts last year so I have plenty of inventory.
I hope to get out this weekend though. It's supposed to be around 60 degrees this weekend so I'm hoping for a handful of tag sales to go to. Lets hope for the best! Cheers!
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