posted on January 3, 2008 01:51:06 AM new
the time to list, sell, package, mail, and lead a life while selling on ebay, and other sites?
This has been my first busy selling season, and I have had difficulty doing what is necessary to sell online, plus homeschool my stepson, plus whatever.
posted on January 3, 2008 02:37:46 AM new
Don't forget the time spent in buying inventory. I find it overwhelming at times. I cope by pushing shipping times to the max - damn the stars! Keeping a 30+ day backlog of listings to relist, when necessary. It's a rat race, for sure.
posted on January 3, 2008 04:20:32 AM new
VERY BUSY LATELY...definitely need to list and sale price more. TIME...goes by fast somedays. I tried that POWER SELLER challenge...came within .5% of doing a 10% increase over last year. Between boy scouts, school activities, baseball/basketball practice, cooking, cleaning, shopping,.....seems like an 80hr/week job. BUT...I am my own boss, NO corporate BS of budget cuts, sale numbers that never even come close, LAZY help - NO help, etc. I look at this business as BOTH a "job" and a HOBBY. I love finding the "deals" out there and turning the profits. Being able to work at midnight or 4 am...or NOT at all. Trying very hard to never go back to that CORPORATE BS. Hopefully with gas prices and everything else going on...eBay - Amazon - other online areas...sales will continue to grow.
posted on January 3, 2008 07:46:18 AM new
Buying inventory isn't time-consuming for me since I have an exclusive contract, hence a steady supply. I send a rather large check; a week later I have big boxes on my doorstep. I like to supplement the big boxes with jewels from other sources but that's not work, that's just plain fun. Two or three trips a year to L.A. to see my friend in Santa Monica usually pays off with bulging bags of sterling silver gemstone rings. Driving the 101 corridor through Central California is one of my favorite things.
As for the day-to-day stuff, you need to establish a routine and stick to it. I used to delay shipping a few days -- listing brings you money, shipping doesn't -- but that created email that had to be dealt with, so the actual time savings was nil. Now I ship 40 packages a day, no more, no less. I established a limit on the package quantity because without it, the job seems never-ending. It's important to have a point at which you can say, "OK, I'm done for the day."
Listing is in the mornings from o'dark thirty to noon, more or less, because that's when my people bid. Noon to 2 pm is lunch, shopping, etc. Shipping time is usually 2 pm to 4:30 pm, and I watch a movie to keep me awake. Netflix is a business expense here.
I don't cook -- I discovered years ago you can pay people money to do it for you -- so after we get back from dinner we sometimes put on one of Michael Palin's travelogues. I sort jewelry, work on my web pages and juggle cats.
posted on January 3, 2008 07:51:41 AM new
I think the trick is to ALLOW yourself not to "do it all". You just can't. Once you make the allowance you can figure out where you ration. I decided that housework was the thing I didn't do
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1) You might also want to devote a certain portion of each day to developing a passive income stream.
2) Also, planning is "free" (you can do it while doing something necessary but boring). You might want to think about your goals for your business five or ten years down the road. Most people with small businesses only realize a big gain when they sell their company. Do you plan to sell yours? What can you do now to create maximum value for the day when you do sell it?
posted on January 7, 2008 09:29:36 AM new
With working at night,it's hard. But I will have most of my debts payed off by June and will probably quit my job and go back to E-Bay full time. I hope to have my inventory built back up by then,this last sale really wiped me out. But then I had a lot of consignment too.
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posted on January 7, 2008 09:29:45 AM new
With working at night,it's hard. But I will have most of my debts payed off by June and will probably quit my job and go back to E-Bay full time. I hope to have my inventory built back up by then,this last sale really wiped me out. But then I had a lot of consignment too.
**********************************
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posted on January 7, 2008 11:40:45 AM new
I use what I call the Forrest Gump Method.
When I need to work I work.
When I need to eat I eat.
When I need to sleep I sleep.
When I need to well you know I go.
Soooooo much nicer then twelve hour days making some else rich.
After 9 years my wife is showing an interest in what I am doing because she is getting sick of the bs involved in working for someone else so that will help.
posted on January 7, 2008 02:07:12 PM new
For those of us who have pain induced insomnia (x 1999), the feeBay hobby is a GOD-SEND, as it gives me sumptin to do in da middle of the night other than moaning or listening to FAT-ASS snore loud enough to rattle the walls (no joke)...
I do most of my DESIGN in the "wee" hours, and then launch them during normal business hours...
Iffen ya only WASTE 2-4 hrs/night in dream-land, time mgmt is...EAZY-PEAZY...
But it would be NICE if ole CHUNKY-BUTT would at least pretend to keep me company at 3am, instead of rolling over & letting one of his infamous WMDs rip...
posted on January 7, 2008 06:03:54 PM new
Selling can be a real drain sometimes. But I tend to keep going. I did lay off for a month around Christmas, and it's awfully hard for me to get back in the groove now. Also, after those great celebrity Christmas cards, which spoiled me for other stuff, it's hard for me to get motivated to list things that won't do well.
When I am listing and selling, though, I spend a couple hours a day on it (which includes e-mails, shipping, etc etc etc ). I would like to have 20-30 items per week listed, but that isn't happening for a while. Gotta get off the couch and away from the football games, I think!
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