posted on July 23, 2004 02:15:24 PM new
Pugster888 - estimated 1 million items sold. They appear to sell mostly 99 cent charms for bracelets, and charge $2 for shipping.
Any guesses on the profit margin they are making ? BTW, someone must be paying a licensing fee for the Snoopy, Scooby Doo, Disney and other trademarked items.
$2.99 for the item shipped.
35 cents listing fee.
15 cents eBay sales fee.
37 cents Postal fee.
30 cents packaging costs - more less ?
40 cents for the charm ? maybe more/less ? These charms may be made in China or India and cost much less than 40 cents each. But the shipping to the US would cost something.
2.99 minus $1.57 = $1.42 profit on each item ?
Other deductions from profit:
Paypal fees
Listing fees for items that did not sell after 2 listings
Handling costs for 1 million item volume.
Could one person or a husband and wife handle 1 million item sales volume or do they have employees ?
998 pages of listings including those ended in the last 24 hours. 432 pages of current listings.
posted on July 23, 2004 02:22:40 PM new
I have no clue how they are making their profit, but the charm craze will come to just as hard an ending as beanie babies did. Sure hope they have a backup plan. I already know people who used to buy them. They've grown out of it now and are on to other things.
Cheryl
God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country. - Benjamin Franklin
posted on July 23, 2004 02:40:00 PM new
they are stainless steel with enamel ,they are less than 40 cents each.
-sig file -------we eat to live,not live to eat.
Benjamin Franklin
Do they send out payment-received and order-shipped emails? (Actually, they claim they do. I wonder.)
Do they process refunds right away?
<heh heh>
So what's their sellthrough? I'm not gonna compute it, sorry. Seems to me that five auctions ending with no bids would pretty much blow away any profit they made on the sixth. The vast majority of the sold items seem to be going for one 99 cent bid.
--
[ edited by iareateacher on Jul 23, 2004 02:59 PM ]
[ edited by iareateacher on Jul 23, 2004 02:59 PM ]
posted on July 23, 2004 04:11:46 PM new
Really quite amazing. They have a 99.7% positive feedback. They must be doing something right.
Life Is Too Short To Drink Bad Wine
posted on July 23, 2004 04:27:05 PM new
I often wonder the same thing about DVDs,yea I know some of these sellers pay $1.50 per DVD plus shipping,and I pay $2.00 because I don't buy as many at a time. But I also pay for mine and I do not get them on credit,or use a credit card. The interest they are paying on their inventory is the part that gets me,plus they also pay all the E-Bay fees. But after all they ARE a Powerseller,I am not, I am a small seller who is making great profit in another category.
posted on July 23, 2004 04:33:41 PM new
they are probably direct importer/wholesaler or relative of direct wholesaler/importer.
In our wholesale district,you see a lot of these cheap junks sitting in bins and retailers come and pick up as much as they want.
-sig file -------we eat to live,not live to eat.
Benjamin Franklin
posted on July 24, 2004 05:05:15 PM new
I see in one of the flea market merchandiser-type mags that one supplier is offering steel Italian-style charms for 49 cents each. He's probably not a direct importer, so...
Flea market vendor sells them for 99 cents each.
His supplier sold them for 49 cents.
Importer sold them for 25 cents.
Factory sold them for 12.5 cents.
There could be a broker level between factory and importer, but I'm keeping it simple.
I assume pugster's cost is about 12.5 cents apiece. Add another 1 cent for freight if you like.
posted on July 25, 2004 06:03:27 AM new
I see this all the time and wonder if the seller thinks about the fees associated with their listings.
I'm sure there are many of you out there that have seen a seller have hundreds of items and only sell 10-25% of their merchandise. To top it off, they add all the bells and whistles (i.e. gallery pictures, sub-title, buy-it-now etc.).
posted on July 25, 2004 06:40:54 AM new
these sellers at one time did well,starting it at one penny or 99 cents and watch the bidders bidded higher.
Then either the thrill is gone or competition moves in or bidders dont see why they have to bid high as the stuff just keep coming.
back years ago there was this fad of chinese made limoge style boxes and sellers will launch 1000 of them in a month ,maxing out on their credit cards.Where are they now??
-sig file -------we eat to live,not live to eat.
Benjamin Franklin
posted on July 25, 2004 07:33:57 AM new
Pugster sells in other venues (like Amazon) as well as on pugster.com.
They may be using eBay sales to drive repeat buyers to the website.
As for profitability, I'm sure they've run the numbers and are convinced this is a winning business plan. It could just be that they're affected by the summer slump like everyone else. Other Top Ten sellers have said they lose money during the summer months but keep listing to maintain a high profile.
I agree with triple-zero that the merchandise is crap. I couldn't sell anything I didn't believe in.
posted on July 25, 2004 08:46:45 AM new
As for profitability, I'm sure they've run the numbers and are convinced this is a winning business plan. It could just be that they're affected by the summer slump like everyone else////////
????????????????????????????????
YOUR SECOND CUP OF COFFEE IS ON ME!!!!
-sig file -------we eat to live,not live to eat.
Benjamin Franklin
posted on July 25, 2004 09:11:39 AM new
Don't be such a SNOT, teacher. Stop is trying to point something out to you. Not EVERYONE knows what a business plan is, and I would bet that 90% of the sellers on ebay have never even heard of one. Most are inexperienced sellers who have no business sense whatsoever. So cool it!
Edited to add: Not "everyone" is in a summer slump. I, for one, have yet to hit it and am maintaining my powerseller status as well as my sell through rate. Perhaps what you need to do is to speak for yourself.
Diane
[ edited by bizzycrocheting on Jul 25, 2004 09:13 AM ]
posted on July 25, 2004 09:24:34 AM new
Before you lose your posting privileges, Diane, here's my response to your unfortunately ill-thought-out message:
Not EVERYONE knows what a business plan is
No, but you can bet that everyone in eBay's Top Ten knows it. Pugster is sitting in third place.
An entrepreneur does not invest lavishly in a scheme unless the revenue projections make sense. Spend money without running the numbers first and you're quickly an ex-entrepreneur.
Pugster's business has about as much to do with your little pea-sized corner of eBay as Amazon does with the little old lady down the street selling a few used romance novels at her garage sale.
Other than the venue, you and other small sellers have nothing in common with the big guys. So stop posturing.
Not "everyone" is in a summer slump.
As I said before, some of the biggest sellers have admitted that they lose money during the summer. Your sales, important though they are to you, don't even show as a blip on that radar.
posted on July 25, 2004 09:30:26 AM new iareateacher SMART!!! I would think that minus a few duplications, they now have a MASSIVE customer base with endless e-mail addresses, names, etc. One uses this to develop a customer base on a web site, and then who needs eBay.
As fads change, you can expand your web site to other items that folks who would purchase these charms would buy and sell to such a massive customer base plus new customers who come to your web site.
NOW, I have no idea if this is what is happening with this particular group, but it would be the smart thing.
We use one niche auction site not only to sell on, but to drive customers to one of our web sites, and that one niche auction allows links to one of our auction sites, and that one web site keeps my self, my husband, and 2 employees in “good soap.” We have other web sites, but none which do the business of the one which has customers driven to it from a niche auction site. This has been going on for 4 to 5 years, so I know such works.
We are now listing on other niche auction sites who allow links to our web sites, and personally, I don’t care whether the items sell on these niche sites or not, they drive customers to one of our specialty sites, and that is where the real profit is made.
*********
We have seen, like others, many sellers come on eBay, sell a multitude of items at almost no profit, drain the market, and in a short time disappear, never to return, because they had so little business sense to see that although they were selling, with their total business expenses they were losing money.
IF we are posting on eBay and encounter one of these “give away sellers,” we just don’t post competitive items against them for a while and let everyone buy them out. Once the seller disappears, we move back into the market.
It seems to me rather foolish to try to compete with a “give away” seller.
posted on July 25, 2004 09:46:25 AM new
Agreed that they will try to "cross over" their customer base to other products as the Italian charm fad cools off.
I just noticed this on their web site:
We have our own huge manufacturing plant, and we serve many other companies with our products.
Their cost may be even lower than 12 1/2 cents each.
posted on July 25, 2004 09:54:04 AM new
Hi all, a few years ago my friends daughter started selling dog items by breed at a very inexpensive price.She first started with key chains, then also took in charms They were very nice made of pewter and had a red stone above the name of the dog breed. She was telling me from ebay alone she was doing very well she based everything on volume. Sometimes she said she only made 30 cents on an item. She also said that 7 out of 10 ebay purchases came with requests for other breeds, animal clubs contacted her direct and this just brought on other business. She had her mother to help her she would pre-pack separating by breed ship in a small bubble mailer when a purchase was made all they had to do was address a mailer. Her mother also told me that this was very tedious took up all her time. Now her daughter has gone into dog specialty items and sells only from a web site.
I don't get even....I get even better Jimmy Hoffa
[ edited by lattefor2 on Jul 25, 2004 09:58 AM ]
posted on July 25, 2004 10:17:51 AM new
Teacher (yeah, right, that's a laugh) ... I have read post after post where you have been nasty, rude and made comments totally uncalled for. You came into this forum not too long ago and seem to believe that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Only YOUR opinion matters. Let tell you something, as for my "little pea-sized corner of ebay", I'm the one laughing all the way to the bank. Can you say the same? I think NOT (oops ... came so close again!).
As for suspensions ... Now I know where some of our REAL TEACHERS in this forum have gone. It seems you have nothing better to do than to get everyone suspended simply because they don't agree with you or your opinion.
I have absolutely no use for people who sit around and threaten. Do what you feel you must but DO NOT threaten me again.
posted on July 25, 2004 12:09:20 PM new
Hi Iareateacher, she left ebay either the end of 2002 or 2003, she is now doing printed t-shirts, canvas tote bags, invitations, letterheads etc, anything that you can put a dog breed on, most of her business is either repeat or word of mouth. She told me now when she sends an order out she does include as a gift a little charm or key chain of the breeds the person ordered.She would have liked to try to stay on ebay but she said the competition was getting ridiculous and not only were people stealing descriptions they were using her pix and sometimes her picture went missing.people She attributed all the business to her website from the onset of ebay, asking people to please visit her store in ebay auctions and promoting her store and website in emails, winning bidder notices. She also had an ebay store.I believe she told me when she started ebay they allowed you to promote your web site, I know she started on ebay in its very early stages.
reenie
I don't get even....I get even better Jimmy Hoffa
posted on July 25, 2004 12:15:01 PM new
Yes, eBay did allow you to promote your web site for quite a while at first. I don't recall exactly when that changed.
But that's interesting what you say about repeat business. Still, since she's not on eBay any more, I wonder how she attracts new eyeballs. Old customers stop buying, go to that big dog park in the sky, etc. and they have to be replaced.
posted on July 25, 2004 12:31:10 PM new
If you have your own sales website include its address in with the item you ship on your invoice etc., also include a coupon/discount offer on items at your site.
Using paypal at your site helps too.
There are more sellers than you might think that are driving buyers to their own sites from their eBay sales.
I bought packaging once from an ebay seller, and on his invoice he included his own site and discounted prices. Never had to purchase from him through eBay again - and everything was much cheaper.
Stop is trying to point something out to you. Not EVERYONE knows what a business plan is, and I would bet that 90% of the sellers on ebay have never even heard of one. Most are inexperienced sellers who have no business sense whatsoever. So cool it!
).