Maybe media mail is doing better.  I know some people are reporting better cd and dvd sales.

I deleted some low dollar old recycled stuff on Ebay, tried giving 25% of my shipping discount to the buyer and upped my promoted rate on the items they suggested it for to 4-6%.  None of this worked.  I sold an item CA to AK and they undercharged the buyer by $3 so I took off the pass through of my discount.  I just want to break even on shipping after fees and supplies (I used mainly recycled supplies).  Then I like to discount my items in ways the buyer will notice like coupons and sales.

eBay is fully pay to play now. They might as well go ahead and admit it.

of course my PL listing views is up – i expected that. One of the theories i found online was that unpromoted listings were being hidden from search if buyers used filters.

Well my organic listing views on ebay are up 40% and my external organic views are up 98% week over week. That is a WILD swing and in my opiniom could only be explained if that theory that my listings were being hidden was true.

Sold items is up 90%

i’ve sold 55 items since turning PL back on and 31 have sold with the PL fee.

i know this is only a weeks worth of data but i feel confident to say that ebay was actively screwing me since I didnt have PL turned on. The only real question is : is it a ‘glitch’ or a ‘feature’?

Ebay is playing with fire right now. They can say their profits are up and everything is great, but a reckoning is coming.

but hey, i’ve sold a ton more items which was the outcome I desired. Hopefully that trend continues. I want to hit 100 sales in a week at some point in the next 2 months and I want to close out strong to cross my arbitrary goal of $100k in pure item sale price in a calendar year.

I haven’t come across that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people are using a sort of hybrid listing format now. Where are you seeing this being discussed?

Well, you’re constantly doing stuff, so that’s keeping it all going. Good luck with your death piles. Funny how Jay coined that back in the day and resellers just use that term now.

I’d like to spend as little energy as possible second guessing ebay. They just make it impossible. Which brings us back to ownership/management. It doesn’t look like they’re all on the same page, mainly because I don’t think the owners really know what they want. One thing seems clear, I don’t think it’s going to get any easier for us. Of course, this is all just me stating my relatively uninformed opinions 😉 That being said, barring one or two of the other platforms capturing massive market share, ebay is still the big boy on the block; so, at least for the time being, we’ll probably have to keep selling there.

As to the “return on ad spend” (ROAS) , it has always been difficult to know how accurate that is, but it is now completely impossible, because under the attribution rule that went into effect in January, ebay made a complete disconnect between advertising and sales….there does not need to be ANY connection between the buyer and an actual ad.

As to Instagram, I’ll be learning as I go…..it might not work, but if it works, I’ll be happy to get a bunch of sales with no ebay fees. I will try to post about my IG experiment as I get time….

I think Ebay is getting help from lives and past help from focus categories, though I heard trading cards are slowing.  It’s tough because vintage home decor is not their priority and likely there is a fair amount of saturation going on so one would need to be promoting more maybe?  I agree it’s a problem that you can’t tell if promotion is working or not.  I’m doing my little experiment, but if it doesn’t even work on the items they suggest, I’ll just go back to the minimum after Christmas.  I’m still burned that after January I could see my same percentage was getting me less promoted clicks.  I thought some people would stop promoting in protest and it would get a little better.

During my last seller call, they suggested a clearance category.  I made one, marked down items, tried running a 50% off sale.  None of it worked.  I recently marked down some more items and added them.  It would be interesting to see what would happen if I marked them back up and promoted them high.  I did not take time to revise the stale stuff.  Some of it sold off on other marketplaces.  I’m thinking of pulling down some things in January in case they are dragging down my store. Right now I’m going to focus on listing fresh inventory and putting some unlisted stuff on Vinted.

Good luck in Q4.

Yes, I can relate. It sounds like I will probably have to diversify platforms. I’d like to sell more locally too. Right now, it’s not happening at all, but if it does, I’ll probably drop in to say hi. I still try to peruse new posts every once in awhile.

The thing I don’t like about promoted listings is that, in the final analysis, it’s hard to know if they actually work. Correlation is not causation, etc…And I don’t like that it can be another de facto ebay tax. I’ll just have to see if I can get sales the old fashioned way when I start up again. 😉

ebay reported Q3 results the other day and they had a strong quarter by the sound of it. …. but I think a lot depends on whether you are selling in ebay’s focus categories and/or are you using Lives, which they are heavily promoting. So, my guess is, some sellers had a great quarter, and many of us didn’t.

Hopefully, we will all have a great Q4!

I haven’t entirely ruled out eBay Lives , but if I try it, it won’t be till next year….too much on my plate as it is. But keep us posted how things go…the Trash Elves are rooting for you!

Some of my negativity comes from the fact that I am still digging out of the sourcing hole I created for myself.  I got those things at a good price but still have things I wouldn’t buy any longer.   I do still enjoy reselling.  I’m very grateful I started cross posting with software.  It’s frustrating on Ebay when you are top rated, are promoting each item, know how to pull the levers and drop prices but things still don’t sell well there.  Poshmark is becoming more and more of my sales.  I plant to tackle pulling off some old low dollar stuff in the new year.

Ebay has sent me a few suggested items to promote higher.  I’m trying a few just to see what happens but they haven’t sold yet.  I have enough margins on most of the used items.

This really did feel like a validation of all the hard work I’ve put in over the years.

I have been assigned a coach, The $10k funds should show up next week, and I have no idea what the ‘pro level streaming kit’ will be. They said I should have everything by the end of November.

I guess I have to at least try selling on ebay Live? I have no idea how I should approach it. I’m hoping my older children will take an interest and help me run it. I’m prepared to hand the keys to them and let them make good money on it. I actually quite a coincidental conversation with a local guy I sold some golf clubs to on FBMP the day after I found out I was getting this grant. He sells golf clubs on whatnot. He is very successful and has grown it organically with no social media. Just the whatnots. Maybe I could do very well. We’ll see!

In the meantime I gots to get to spending this cash next week!

It is what it is in regards to ebay at this point and I’ve done everything in my power to make the best of it. Listing desirable, quality items with reasonable shipping costs WAS good enough and now it’s not. Allegedly there is a quirk (I think ebay considers it more of a feature) in the search engine that hides unpromoted listings when buyers apply filters. Now that won’t be an issue.

If my impressions, click throughs, and sales rapidly rise then I’ll happily eat the extra fee. My margins can handle that. If not, then ebay is in far more trouble than anything I can influence.

His production value is also great now that he has a producer/editor.

It’s not all doom & gloom, though there is something off with ebay. I think all these other sites are taking away market share from them much more significantly this year. My Posh, depop, and Mercari scales are scaling rapidly, while my ebay sales are declining even though I’m listing more than ever. My pricing, shipping costs, and quality of items/listings is better than ever. I don’t do promoted listings at all as I have been phasing it out slowly for over a year. I pretty much haven’t had promoted listings since around April/May. I can’t tell you what it is, but something is significantly off with ebay since the beginning of September.

My first half of 2026 was going great on ebay. It was the best 1st half ever. August was trending similar to last year. I was looking forward to absolutely blowing everything I’ve ever done out of the water. Then once September hit the trend line completely did a 180 and October is even worse.

Overall I’m having a record year. I’ve still sold more items this year on ebay than last year, but I am on a downward trend there. I should be selling 100+ items a week right now but ebay is holding me back. It is frustrating!

Meanwhile my monthly sales on sites off ebay (posh, mercari, and depop) have been growing linearly all year at a rate of 13 sales per month and now making up around 60% of my total items sold per month.

TLDR; Get your eggs out of the single ebay basket and spread them around. You’ll end up with alot more eggs!

Thanks for the update. I check every once in awhile but it’s been a ghost town here. It’s a little crazy to me that people don’t take advantage of the forum, but I guess the podcast was really driving engagement here. Well, kudos to Jay and Ryanne for keeping the doors open – and to you for being the only regular poster left (at least that I’ve seen). I wish it could get a little more active but truthfully, I haven’t really had the time either. I was never a share-my-numbers guy, but people here always had an answer for me if I had a question and I tried to contribute when I could.

I wanted to get back into reselling a few months ago, but didn’t have the time. I think I’m closer to it now, but we’ll see. You’re painting a relatively dark picture, but that’s just reality these days. I was the only one talking about shipping prices becoming a problem back in the day, but it seems people are understanding it more now. I think local selling is a good idea, but, yeah, it’s a grind. I have to look into marketplace. Craigslist seems more than half dead these days.

I have checked out a few videos from Justin Resells. He seems about as serious as you can get for a PT seller, or even a FT seller, but I don’t have an opinion yet on how useful his videos are to a seasoned seller.

Well, I just wanted to write something to contribute and I guess to let you know at least one other person is reading what you’re writing. I lived in SB in the late 80’s BTW. I miss La Super-Rica ;). My last visit was like 2009. Time does fly…

Vinted is a cool place to unload things.   No issues for me so far on the selling end – knock wo0d.  On the buying end some crap descriptions but I paid practically nothing for my two mistakes.  They are hanging with .99-3.99 shipping for now.  I plan to keep listing some unlisted inventory here.  I probably should move low dollar Ebay here but not sure I will deal with that.

Mercari still slow but some sales now and then.  I like this platform better than Vinted and Ebay.  Their Fed Ex Smartpost rate is pretty good up to 5 pounds and they are holding the 10% fee.

Poshmark is now about 40% of my sales.  Hope they hang on to the 6.49 shipping for a while longer.

I’m pretty much deciding going forward that at least 20% will go to the platform & shipping supplies and there is downward pressure on prices on every other front.

I’ve been working hard to get the hoard down but there is still more to go.  I also find sourcing less rewarding.  When I go thrifting there is hardly anything worth buying to flip.  Since it has less appeal I am going to keep focusing on letting things go and listing.  It is much much easier to resist buying.  If I get rid of more things, I will focus on higher end only.   I was surprised at my success selling clothing.  It’s all in the right brand I suppose.

Pop up markets are pretty taxing physically and it’s only worthwhile to go to the ones with major foot traffic, which for me are out of town.  I’m only keeping a couple of these next year.

Overall, reselling I think is getting much, much harder with lower margins.  I feel urgency to get rid of things.  Also, a lot of people are using AI, which is supposed to make listing better and faster.  I find it is not that much faster except on Vinted.  However, since Ebay is less of my sales now I plan to try starting listings in Nifty more often.

I hope everyone is having a good 4th quarter.  Long live the trash elves!

PS. I’m listening to the Pure Hustle podcast and Selling on Ebay podcast.  If you have any other good ones, please let me know.

PPS. I’m hearing good things about Facebook.  LMK if you are selling there.

Congrats to the SL member winner!

Ebay will be doing their winter check in on October 29th, and part of that show will be the announcement of the 10 winners of the Up & Running grant.

Rumor has it that a long time Scavenger Life member might be among the winners. It might be worth giving it a view.

I had some leftover household yard sale clothing I listed yesterday and two items sold immediately – my old REI brand clothing, so that was awesome.  That would never happen on Ebay.  My son’s Notre Dame sweatshirt went to England for .99 shipping!   Someone on Youtube said that if you list clothing then some people will check out your other listings and bundling is big.  I haven’t had that just yet.  The lightning fast speed of listing is really compelling but my iphone has a lot of trouble with close ups on their site. After the free shipping is over, I doubt I will be using this site much.  In the meantime, it’s a great dumping ground, even if only a quarter of my listings are selling.  I got through a whole Ikea bag of clothing yesterday!

Thrifting is just not fruitful so I am making some headway in my remaining piles.  I’m a little bummed to find flaws in some of the stuff I bought along the way…  There is a LOT left but Vinted is helping me process more of it.  A good deal of that lot I will donate if it doesn’t sell I think.   I’m trying to find all of the one off items and incomplete sets to throw on there.  I should really put some larger items on there.

Ebay had a little pick up but nothing like what I would normally be having this time of year.  Poshmark got really quiet and I think may be taking a pretty big hit from Vinted as they share younger buyers.

Someone posted the other day in a group “I’ve just had enough of Ebay’s s#$t.” and I think a lot of us are feeling that way.   I still love selling Ebay and I’m grateful for the sales I get but I’m feeling discouraged about not being in their focus categories, the whole live catch up distraction, and the changes they have clearly made to the algo this year.  It’s frustrating and really hurt my sales while I’m just doing the same things, taking lower prices, and paying higher fees.  This time of year usually things are really picking up for me on Ebay. :/

@mycottage there are some really talented Instagram sellers.  I’m even tempted occasionally and I know their prices are high.  One I like even shops in antique stores for her drops so she is getting some big prices on Insta.  I feel humble about being a decent but lesser photographer, stylist, etc.  I’m also not super skilled with the Insta features.  It’s so simple to find a cool piece and photograph it separately to sell on Ebay.  How people get a big following on there to begin with idk.  My posts only get about 200-300 views.

Regarding the economy, I always fear that after the after-Christmas splurges it will fall off a cliff when people get their bills and winter is here. This year I am feeling that way for sure.

I’m still grateful for the forum here.  The Facebook groups are full of whiners and show offs one upping the whiners.  I don’t want to pay for a private forum and I think a lot of those have the get-rich-quick guys.  I’ll stay in as long as it’s still up. 🙂  I miss the SL podcast but happy for R&J in their coffee shop & rental success.

I think that’s one reason ebay is pushing livestreaming…because it brings in some factors similar to actual thrift store or yard sale shopping. It’s also why I think IG and other social sites appeal to buyers….if I’m buying something basic for the house, fixed price ebay is fine. But if I’m collecting or decorating or whatever, with IG you can get caught up in seller’s displaying their hauls, in chatting with other collectors….for many, it’s a whole lot more fun than just scrolling or searching through ebay. Over the years whenever I had a chance I tried to convince ebay employees to give sellers more ability to communicate with buyers, which is now one of the things ebay touts with livestreaming….but ebay has long feared doing anything like that because they are afraid sellers will get to know their regular buyers well enough that they will start selling off ebay. And of course, in doing so, they’ve helped to push sellers off the platform entirely, to sites where they can communicate with buyers and actually build a business.

Anyway, I could go on, but Q4 is coming fast, so I’d better get back to work here LOL

I did a little AI research and it said someone estimates 60% of Ebay sellers are paying the minimum percentage and stubbornly staying on that.  I wonder if Ebay is trying to squeeze and get people out of that mindset.  Many sellers are moving on from Ebay supposedly instead.   Some Facebook sellers speculate that Ebay Live is taking a toll on BIN sellers.  Shipping costs are definitely an issue as well.

Today I listed a bunch of clothing from our house and used Nifty AI.  I still need to redo the titles but it was relatively fast.  I think it handles clothing better than vintage items. I promoted the clothing at 6%.

With way too much unlisted inventory here and really slow sales, and despite some of my favorite library book sales and town wide yard sales coming up, Better Half and I have decided we need a buying moratorium until we get this stuff listed (or taken to out of house storage)…Won’t be easy, I admit, but hopefully we can stick to the plan.

I’m probably going to cut some corners on my listings in order to list faster, and might start fooling around with AI to list some stuff (although NOT with ebay’s AI descriptions, which are pretty awful)

But it is frustrating….listing activity has usually prompted sales, but I’m not sure it’s doing that as much anymore….of course, maybe if I increased my PL rate, that might help. And if I get desperate enough, I guess I will.

Just got to keep on plugging…..but the days of just keeping the pipeline full….not too sure they aren’t over….

I don’t like selling clothes but I think I can price it lower because I don’t care about it.  I’ve actually had really good luck with the clothing I’ve put up.   It’s interesting.  I’m just selling some things I got for myself on clearance that didn’t work, some $1 flea market finds, and a few of my kid’s things that were hanging around.  The citywide garage sale clothing sold super fast for me (Johnny Was brand) and I just sold a tote bag from that garage sale day for $100 (same brand).

The thrifts are just not good lately and I need to give up the ghost on that and spend that time listing.  It’s nice to get out of the house and convenient but between the prices, the picking over and Goodwill sending things to corporate, it’s just not worth it.  Someone got to the Halloween before me this week to boot.  Sigh.  I still have a weekly flea market that is ok.  There is plenty here so today will be a big work day.  I should be thankful the thrifts are not good because I am truly making progress on the piles.  Plus I have 4 markets by December to unload stuff.

I agree, sooner or later, Vinted will make changes that will reduce or remove some of the advantages it has now…might as well take advantage while you can…

I did get ten new listings up on ebay today, so maybe that show of activity will give me a boost with the algo.

I have bought about 8 items on vinted and sold 3 so far.  A lot of sellers said they got a big selling boost when starting but I’m definitely not seeing that.  I priced with the anticipation of making offers to the buyer later, but now I’m thinking to just price it cheaply to begin with while you have their attention.  OTOH, under $10 I’m wondering if it’s even worth my time to ship fragile stuff.  Right now I put some mildly damaged bad vintage buys on there, also some textiles, etc. just to get my thrifted money back.  Some flea market finds I got very inexpensively.  If it’s fabric, at least it’s easy to ship out.  I am getting a little bit of a feel for what does better, like brass and vintage kitsch completed needlepoint works.  Hopefully I’ll sell off some more things before they start charging shipping.

I don’t care for the app design and the sellers I bought from did not mention flaws.  It is hard to see in the pics on the phone and easy to miss.  It’s also a time suck.  The platform must be getting really loaded up with stuff since it so fast to list.  I think there are a lot of resellers on there now with strong prices so I have bought less recently.

Good luck @retro! I heard somewhere that live selling is actually selling a community rather than the goods.  I definitely think there is something to that.

At this point, I have no plans to try Live shows, whether ebay Live or otherwise, but I might give it a try at some point.

@retrotreasures, best of luck with the interview!

Regarding ebay Live, I was approved for it I believe early this year. I had no desire to do that and didn’t feel my inventory really fits the mold. I have no idea why ebay approved and recommended me for it. The ebay grant this year revolves solely around ebay live. Worst yet, you had to do a video submission to even apply this year. Ewww! I prefer my anonymity on the internets…

I talked with my older kids about it, and I decided to go ahead and apply. I did my video – the first online video I’ve ever done where I actually put myself on camera. My plan is if I get the grant I’ll start up an ebay live with my oldest kid as my employee. She’ll run the socials and ebay lives. It will be her own little sandbox. Maybe I’ll join in, maybe not. Who knows! As a Xennial who has lived my whole life in a constant state of rapid change, what’s one more change and adaptation?

I made it to the interview rounds and have my interview later this month. Boy I sure would like that $10k!

Books, homegoods, games, media, sporting goods etc all sell well on Posh.

ebay is still king in regards to ASP and overall volume of sales. 50-60% of my items sold are on ebay.

Yes, photos of rulers are wildly deceptive, especially with the lenses in a phone. Any time I’ve ever took a photo of a tape measure I have to adjust the angle of the camera to make sure the photo shows what the actual measurement is. The dry erase laminated sheets work perfectly.

Don’t feel pressured to sell in categories you don’t want to. You sell the stuff that crushes my motivation. Sure I will dabble here and there in art or fragile home goods, but that is as far as I go. It has to be a truly special item that I find pleasing in some way. One of my favorite items I’ve ever sold was a large vintage decoupage portrait of a young lady on a piece of wood. It was just such a captivating photo – the eyes just seemed to stare into my soul. Apparently the buyer agreed as it sold for $200+ many years ago.   Generally though I don’t enjoy sourcing, listing, or shipping these things. I have to mentally slap myself when I start to consider these bulkier or fragile things while sourcing. It just ain’t my bag!

If you don’t truly enjoy clothing/shoes, then just dabble. Maybe dabbling could turn into more down the road. I started with dabbling in shoes. Now I have well over 1k active listings and am currently sourcing/listing/selling 30-50 pair a week.

I’m guessing people are using Pirate Ship because buyers think it is the cheapest, whether it is or isn’t….but I’m not going to rush into it. The IG learning curve will be steep enough without it LOL

Regarding Ebay it sure is hard to know what to do to make better sales.  My preference is for shipping to be a wash after materials (mostly I recycle) and then I offer various discounts to buyers adding up to about 20% max unless it’s a stale used item.  But I do get messages now and then about shipping costs and I also feel like in 2026 my items aren’t really getting seen with this level of promotion.  At my couple of online store reviews the tutor was really pushing the coupon, newsletter, and making a clearance section in my store.  He didn’t really push more promoting.

ebay has a Webinar scheduled for this Thursday about ebay Live…I suspect they are going to announce that they’ve expanded the categories and have opened Lives up to more sellers…they clearly want to push a Very Live Christmas this holiday season. I’m going to try to attend the webinar, mostly just out of curiosity.

I too am considering increasing my promo rate for the Holidays.

I use calculated shipping on ebay with a 50 cent handling fee and a 20% discount from the rate charged to the buyer (recently increased from 15%). I might increase that rate again….or maybe even just give up the full seller discount and pass the savings on to the buyer….shipping is crazy expensive. ebay would be wise to provide some sort of real reduction for the Holidays, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’m also thinking of providing an ebay coded coupon —5, maybe 10%—to anyone who buys an item on IG. Run the coupon through the end of the year. (Of course, coupons stack into any regular discount sales I run on ebay, so I don’t want to go too high….just hoping the coupon gets them to at least look at my ebay store.

I have some of that pottery , I was buying it years ago, but have no idea where it is stored LOL

Will definitely keep my eyes open for more. Thanks for the tip.

I’m still trying to figure out just how I’m going to handle IG. For now, I’m planning on taking PayPal and using PP labels to ship, but I might end up opening a Venmo account as well. Also, on ebay I have one day shipping, but I see a surprising number of IG sellers have 50 to 10 day handling times, and I’ll probably go with something like that, but try to ship much faster. I’m definitely not going to promise one day handling, if ebay actually gets busy for Q4, I could find myself in trouble with that (I do all the shipping for both of us, so even if I have no sales, if Better Half has sales, I need to get them in the mail.)

I also see a lot of people using Pirateship. I don’t have an account with them…have you used them? (I have also seen sellers saying I ship through Pirateship, but if you prefer, I’ll list the item on Vinted and shipping will be 99 cents….Gotta love resellers’ ability to adapt LOL)

No sales on Vinted unfortunately.  It’s a time suck but I’ll be looking for a few more things to source.  Handmade quilts are super hard to find here but those have strong prices even on Vinted.

A youtuber I love is starting a trend for Nemadji pottery and I’m trying to pick some up inexpensively.  I’d like to take some to the Fall markets.  I found one I’d like to keep for myself in a rarer color and the shipping was $20 USPS ground from the East Coast on Ebay.  It’s a 6″ vase.  I reached out to the seller and she said her measurements are correct but she’d refund any overage but wow.  Ebay really, really needs to work on the shipping cost.  It has me thinking about passing on a portion of my shipping discount for 4th quarter.  (Either that or upping the promo rate a bit.)  I need to look at my 2 and 3 pound labels and see if I can do a flat rate on either, but I think nearby buyers would be put off.

There is a lot of content on Youtube and Facebook about Ebay sales being way down in 2026.  Their numbers were ok for shareholders because I guess of inflation, the fee bump, and an uptick in trading cards and motors focus categories.  But with some of the AI listing tools, live selling, and Gen Z there is a lot more stuff coming online, which will push vintage prices down.  They really need to think about making some changes soon.

I put up a short reel and a post with a few items I’m going to include in an Instagram Claim Sale on Wednesday night. Hopefully, this preview will act as a teaser to whet buyer appetites LOL My understanding is IG basically shows the reel to non-followers, and the post goes to followers feeds. (Of course, whether anyone will actually see it, I don’t know, but IG does have analytics, so I can check later.)

My ebay Labor Day sale is ending in a few hours, with nothing to show for it. As you said, Labor Day weekend is probably not the best time to run a sale, since a lot of people are busy actually doing things, rather than shopping online.

Here’s hoping I get at least a sale or two from IG, but even if I don’t, I’ll keep posting more stuff. If ebay were going great, I wouldn’t bother.

I just bought an original watercolor painting on Vinted for $8 today.  You have to look closely which is a little trickier on the phone.  It’s very Wild West though you can tell some people are experienced resellers.

I listed about 10 items today and it was lightening fast.  No sales yet.  I have a bunch of items favorited so I can see what’s moving.  It seems like the completed needle works I mentioned, kitsch, plus certain home decor items are popular.  It’s a bit hard to know how low to price because I’m expecting people to negotiate and they can ask for 40% off.  I’m putting in one offs, things with small flaws, things my daughter commented on, and things I got super cheap or regret getting.  I have a pro iphone and had to turn off a setting so it would do close ups inside the Vinted app.

I’m definitely going to continue to cross post on Ebay because the prices are good when I do get sales.  I may or may not try bumping promoted on certain items to 6% or so to see if it helps if I have the margins.  Someone said they went to 9% and sales improved.

Good luck with Insta.

I remember I was excited—well, a little bit—when ebay first introduced their “Social Tool”…and I recall talking to an ebay team member about it, and she too was excited….all sorts of plans, what do sellers want? etc etc. And then….ebay seems to have basically forgotten about it, and it is poorly designed etc. (I suspect the same thing will happen to the new bundling tool).

I’m not about to abandon ebay, but I’m definitely looking at alternatives. ebay could still announce some new changes that will make me say “Wow! These could be game changers!” But so far….I’ve pretty much given up even hoping that ebay will really do anything that will excite me (as opposed to, maybe exciting Live sellers or Trading Card sellers….)

So, I’m selectively listing some stuff on ebay this afternoon, and tonight I’ll try putting up some things on IG. And I’ll keep  pushing both and see what happens.

I wasn’t aware of the Vinted limitations. Will keep that in mind. I’m thinking it might be good for sourcing right now….not that I really need more stuff. LOL

Keep on plugging!

My daughter (20 yo) says she is seeing a ton of online advertising for Vinted.  From what I gather, completed needlepoint and crewel is doing very well.  I’ll throw a few more listings on each day while the free shipping lasts.

Labor day weekend the retailers have great sales so I do remember that it is a tough holiday.  However, I only have two Ebay sales and I ran a 10% coupon, plus a 5% sale, made offers and listed.  A lot of long timers on Ebay Facebook groups are saying they sales are way down in 2026.  Some comments vary on the month of change.  For me it felt like visibility was poorer since January and I saw that in my promoted clicks traffic numbers.

Ebay management really has blown it.  They made a big deal about AI to the public and then a bunch of executives unloaded their stock.  Meanwhile they just have let all this buyer growth slip through their fingers and created ill will with sellers.  I’m so glad I started cross posting last year.  Unfortunately Nifty doesn’t have Vinted yet and Vinted doesn’t want software posted items.

I’m currently running a sale on ebay for Labor Day, 20% off a lot of stuff. So far, one absurdly low offer, that’s it. I have always felt ebay has neglected ebay Stores and Store Sales, and of course, now they want us to pay per click to advertise our stores or sales.

I’m going to try to list a few things on ebay this week…we picked up some decent stuff over the weekend at a town wide yard sale….but I’m also going to bite the bullet and put up my first IG direct sales….I’m not expecting much, because I’m just starting there, I’m hoping if I start posting now I’ll be able to develop a bit of a following by Q4.

With Q4 comin up, ebay sales should increase on their own, but I just don’t have much faith in ebay’s efforts on our behalf. IF I were doing ebay Lives and selling, say, Pokemon cards, yes, I would probably be all in on ebay. But my gut feeling—could be totally wrong—is that for a lot of my stuff (not all of it)—buyers aren’t looking at ebay the way they used to….they are on IG, or depop, maybe Vinted, etc. ebay has thrown away so many opportunities to be THE place to shop for this sort of stuff, and at this point, I don’t think they will ever get that market back….it’s just too diversified now, and I don’t think ebay is really interested in it.

I would love to remain ebay only, but I’m not ebay’s preferred type of seller….

I need to think about what I have on hand that would be really helped by free shipping – low dollar, lightweight items and relatively larger items maybe under a pound.  Vinted also showed me what items I had liked that ended up selling.  Some items are moving SUPER quickly.  It gives me a little window into what the young people are interested in and willing to pay for.  The algorithm seems to be pretty good at deciding what new items to place on your home page.  I wish I could cross post there but by the time they are added by Nifty, the free shipping offer is probably going to be gone. There are a lot of obvious resellers on there.

I don’t have a lot of followers on IG, but I’ve decided I’m going to try some direct sales on there…Of course, there’s a learning curve….I wish I had started months ago. Going to a small town wide yard sale this weekend, if the weather cooperates. This one runs hot and cold, but I usually do come home with some decent stuff. It tends to draw a lot of resellers though, so a lot of competition.

Glad to hear sales are picking up a little…I would really like a strong Q4, but ebay has been so sluggish, I feel I’ve got to really start pushing. And frankly, the state of the economy is worrisome….I do think buyers are going to continue to buy, but I don’t think it would take much to get a lot of wallets snapping shut….

The app is super simple and meant for casual sellers.  NO seller fees at all, currently FREE shipping, a small buyer fee.  They will ship anything under 4 pounds and I think a 12 12 12 box and even larger is ok.  You can also easily make a bundle.

There is a lot of haggling.  It might be a cool place to source because it’s super fast to list.  I imagine people are just throwing a lot of bins and garage sale stuff on there quickly and willing to take a pretty low price.  Some probably live in areas where they can get things less expensively than here.  The descriptions are terrible, categories are minimal, and you really have to look though a bunch of junk.  I’m looking for original paintings for example and I have to wade through a bunch of unrelated stuff. However, these are likely young people who might miss something or undervalue it.

If you are thinking of opening an account, don’t use your business name.  Supposedly if someone reports you as a “commercial seller” you get booted off the site.  I have to wait 30 days to change mine.  I didn’t know that when I opened my account.  Also you don’t want to be sharing on social media.

Also young people invading estate sales is on national news.  They mentioned the new term old lady core.

It’s interesting that you like the AI lister on Nifty so much.  Maybe it’s because I’m selling fewer clothes but I always have to rework the titles.  I do like the keyword function and I have copied someone’s prompts to control the description.  I use it sometimes for brand new items when I have stock photos.  It also got some of my measurements wrong when I used a ruler in photos so I might steal the white board idea – that’s a great idea.

Ebay seems to be doing ok working the focus categories and dialing up the advertising revenue but their shipping charges and fees are really inappropriate.  The newest thing is some sellers are getting a message that Ebay will automatically opt them in to pass on the seller’s shipping discount to buyers – while Ebay is still charging a fee on shipping!  What the what?  I guess they will continue to try to whittle down the margins of anyone not paying attention.

Poshmark has been great for me but the combo of offers-driven sales at 20% is rough for my new items.  I’ve always liked Mercari and I’m really hoping they make a comeback in 4th quarter.  They are holding at 10% seller fees and if they gather steam hopefully they can hire back some CS staff.  The District platforms I tried pretty much became live selling focused platforms and didn’t really take off after a certain point.  I’ve heard mixed things about Vinted but would consider trying some lower end stuff there if added by Nifty.  I’m looking out for more information about Facebook’s app.

I really am not so interested in clothes or running around to garage sales but I did go out on our Citywide garage sale day.  I got some high end clothing – Johnny Was – from a lady who lost weight on GLP1 and it all sold really fast and was super easy to ship.  Kinda made me think about garage sales in a different light.  I also got some free Ralph Lauren wallpaper that sold immediately.

I totaled my Sienna minivan at the beginning of July. That sucked, but there is a silver lining. Since it is a toyota it holds it’s value. I paid $38,500 in 2021 right before the chip shortage. The dealer was desperate for a sale so it was an awesome deal on a new van. My total payout was $39500. Yes, I got MORE than I originally paid even after 5 years and almost 60k miles.

The crappy part is the short time frame to get something else. I’ve adapted to so much chaos and change this year that I was inspired for more change, so I heavily researched EV’s. At the very last minute before my rental ran out I found a Chevy Blazer EV that was a dealer demo at local dealer that only had 4k miles. It is warrantied as a new car and qualifies for new car loan terms. I paid $29500 and they gave me a free Chevy V2H capable Powershift Charger. I don’t really want that charger so I listed it on ebay. This is a $2k charger! Mind you this is a loaded $56k MSRP SUV. I had cash in hand but since I got new car financing so I financed $25k and put the rest of the payout in a high interest savings account at 4.2% APY. I’ll end up making money putting it in a high yield savings vs paying cash and I’ll keep that huge chunk of cash on hand in case we move or add on to our house.. I can easily pay the $540 car payment with ebay funds as I have with all my other vehicles.

I’m installing my home charger this week. I get a $300 credit towards the $500 price of the charger and I’ll get a 30% cheaper rate on power to that charger as long as I avoid 8am-8pm on weekdays. A full tank of power will cost under $7, or about 3.5 cents per mile. My Sienna Minivan was around 13 cents per mile. There is also a FREE public charger at the Library that is a 5 minute walk from my day job location. The maintenance manager just installed an outdoor port for me to use in emergencies and in the winter at work – also for free.

If you have not explored EV’s yet, I highly recommend it. I was in the dark and since I live in coal country, ignorant people like to demonize it and quote outdated info. These cars are the future and the future is here. The battery will outlast the car, and there is practically zero maintenance. The next gen battery technology will be even better. There are sodium Ion batteries on the horizon the does away with rare earth metals like lithium and cobalt.

I LOVE my Blazer EV. It is super roomy, super comfy, and has sports car AWD performance. All the bells and whistles that came with this one in particular were just icing on the cake. My commute is 50 miles round trip a day, which is perfect for an EV.

Prices are dropping quickly, especially on used cars. A couple days after I bought this one, the local KIA dealer called me and offered $33500 for a brand new EV6 Wind. They don’t sell well in WV, so that was a really great deal. That’s also an incredibly nice car I recommend you check out if in the market. I’m keeping an eye out for a cheap Chevy Bolt for my daughter.  Nice ones with 60-80k miles can be had for sub 15k now, but I’m hunting for one significantly less than $10k. While I hate buying a 100k gas car, I’d happily buy a 100k mile EV. It’s likely good for another 100k with no maintenance other than tires and still have 80% or more of the original battery life.

But I did it and here I am and I’ll show some numbers as to why cross listing is essential now. List and forget is completely dead. Note that all numbers are sales price only, no shipping and before fees. It’s easier to compare apples to apples this way.

In 2025 from Jan 1 to 8/25 I had 939 sales for $44805 My store had 2989 items on 1/1/25 and 3641 on 8/25/25. My average store size was 3143. I averaged 46 new listings per week over this time.

I started cross listing slowly in late December and ramped up throughout Q1. I completed flat rate business policies switchover in March/April. Nifty also refreshes all my ebay listings with a 5% price reduction so my store is fresh – no stale listings.

My store had 4006 items on 1/1/26 and 4055 items on 8/25/26. My average store size was 4040 this year to date. I have averaged 63 new listings per week this year to date.

So almost 1000 more items on average, no stale listings, more new listings than ever before, and shipping was streamlined to a flat rate model of $5.99, $7.99, $9.99 and $12.99.  You would think my ebay store would be experiencing amazing growth, right? Well…not really.

To date this year I’ve had 1157 sales for $41862 on ebay alone. That is some SCARY anemic growth compared to the work I’ve put in to grow. It’s not even growth as I’ve been selling off old stale inventory for cheap.  I did all that major work just to maintain where I already was. It is terrifying to think how bad my sales would be if I had made none of these changes.

Now when it comes to cross listing I use Poshmark, Depop, and Mercari. This year to date I’ve sold 875 items for $21582. Items that have sat forever on ebay sell quickly on the other platforms. And a reminder – I only have about half my ebay items cross listed so the sales velocity is higher on these sites.

I’ve narrowed my focus going forward on clothes, shoes, and small misc items that are 1cuft or less in size, so everything I list will be cross listing compatible.

I averaged 34 sales a week last year through August and this year I’m up to 60 per week. I’m averaging 74 sales a week this summer. I’m a little scared of how many sales a week I’ll have in Q4 this year. I expect to break 100 several times. Shipping is SUPER annoying right now. I fully expect to cross $100k in sales this year (sale price only – before fees and shipping/tax not included.) That is only possible due to cross listing.

So what other benefits are there to nifty?

Store refresh automation: It’s automatic. Items on every platform get refreshed with no input from me.

Auto offers: I used to spend time every day sending offers. It’s all automated on all platforms according to the rules I have set up. There is alot of customization for this to work however you want it to work. You can even set up a delay for how long to wait until the offer is sent once a person looks at your item.

AI listing: Simply put, it is awesome once you are used to it. I now pay my two oldest kids to list for me. Currently I’m not really listing except for occasional items. My daughter lists clothes and misc items. My son lists shoes. When listing clothes she photos the items and has a dry erase template she writes down the measurements on and takes a photo of the template. I have every possible measurement on two templates.The AI tool integrates the measurements into the listing description and item specifics. It only incudes the measurements that have written entries. You can create custom rules for the lister to follow . You just add notes and prompts into a template and it follows the rules.  Once the listing is generated the kids do their own proof read and then do a price search on ebay or terapeak. The recommended prices on nifty are a work in progress. I don’t recommend using them. They’re right only about 50% of the time. Once they are done they mark their drafts as ‘ready to list’ and then I do the final review and post them live. I pay them $2 a listing with a $5 bonus if they do 20 listings in a day. It takes them each about 1.5-2 hours to list 20 items so they are both making $20+ an hour. IMy daughter is saving up for college/car and my son is taking flying lessons and saving up to pay for his lessons (expensive!)

Side note, they’ve both scored high enough ACT scores to get a free ride to college. Higher scores than I had even. Nice!

Sorry for the side quest – back on task!

The listings that nifty generates are quite good quality. It hits so many excellent keywords, there are SEO optimized keyword sections in the item description, there are endless AI templates to help streamline shipping options.  I’ve time trialed myself doing shoe listings with AI. I can do 15 pair in an hour start to finish, including basic cleaning. This is robust listings – far more detailed than the basic listings I used to do that didn’t even have a description other than “see pictures for details & condition”.

Bookkeeping: Nifty has some excellent tools to analyze your metrics. You can track your COGS (I’m not using this yet – another huge up front undertaking), your inventory SKU’s, and whatever else you want. I don’t know how anyone could use Poshmark or Depop to manage inventory. Depop doesn’t even have a SKU system and Poshmark is very rudimentary. I do all inventory tracking direct in Nifty, which then pushes that info out to the different platforms. So if ebay ever glitches with the SKU system, I am safe. I can just do a full refresh on nifty and it will completely fix all my ebay listings.

Ask Otto: Nifty has it’s own dedicated AI chatbot that is VERY useful. You get a certain amount of free credits to interact with OTTO each month, and after that it will start consuming your monthly credits. I’ve added some metrics to my weekly numbers this year to track clothes and shoes sales more accurately, as well as tracking cross listed vs ebay sales. I have been doing all this manually – so each week I would log each sale and mark it as ebay or cross listed, and then mark each sale as clothes & accessories, shoes, or other. This week I described to Otto what I have been doing and it generated the same report automatically. I double checked the classifications of my sales and the numbers and it was perfect. It got every sale properly classified. Now I have a report I can run each week I can trust that will generate my metrics without me having to spend 20-30 minutes logging data.

And the newest tool that Nifty just launched is AI bulk cross listing. Man I REALLY wish this was around when I started. Now if you have a bunch of ebay listings you can bulk cross list to all platforms. It does take 1 credit per item same as fully generating a listing, but I get 1000 credits a month on my pro plan. More than enough to do all my listing and do some bulk cross listing. I’ll make sure to use up my credits each month on bulk cross listing the rest of my items until I’m all caught up. Going forward all my new listings are already cross listed so there is no extra work to make more sales.

TLDR, I pay $90 a month to make an additional $600-800 a week this year without any extra work once it is all set up.  That’s an impressive ROI. I can entrust my teens to do ALL my listing and their listings are very high quality. I just spend 20-30 minutes a day proofing up to 40 listings. The rest of my time is spent with shipping and inventory management.

I did have one thing sell twice but I suspect that was user error.  I also had something I couldn’t find and thought I might have sold but I think maybe I decided to throw it into the garage sale.  On the whole it’s been very reliable and I wouldn’t be cross posting without software.

I feel like I’m getting a lot for the money.  I wish there was a reliable way other than Terapeak to decide on prices.  Then AI listing would be more valuable.  I’m still doing sell similar mostly on Ebay.

BTW, I’m still posting on Pinterest, which is quick.  I also kept using my under a pound flat rate which gets me Google hits.  I get an average of about 9% of my clicks from outside Ebay.

So, you are pretty happy with Nifty?

My issue with the Ebay promoted fee is that I’m not convinced that I’m really getting anything for it and I’m apparently getting less for more money, further liquidated by some sellers going all in on pay to play.

One thin I’m thinking about is a variant I guess of the list without PL for 30 days tactic….I’m considering offering items directly on Instagram…payment through PayPal I guess…for the first ten days (or whatever number)…with a notice that the item will be going into my ebay store at the end of ten days (at a higher price). Even if I don’t sell very many items that way, it will hopefully increase the number of people clicking through to look at my ebay store to see what I already have listed.

I do think people are buying our kind of stuff, I just don’t think they are shopping on ebay as much as they used to. Add to that the fact that ebay clearly is pushing eBay Lives and certain favored categories, and I think it might be worth trying to push before my stuff goes up on ebay (or at least some of it…some things I’ll probably still put up on ebay first.)

The promoted fees don’t add up to a lot for me at this rate but I’m curious what will happen if I drop it.  I stubbornly refuse to pay a higher percentage.  I would if I had gotten most of my items very inexpensively but I also sell brand new items and sometimes pay up a bit for vintage.

Gemini says this:

1. The “2% Anchor” Camp (Estimated at over 60–70% of independent sellers) Following the 2026 “any-click” attribution rule change, massive cohorts of everyday sellers shifted their strategy. Because any random click can trigger an ad fee on an organic sale up to 30 days later, keeping ad rates high is a massive risk to margins.The Logic: Sellers use 2% as a “participation fee” to prevent the eBay search engine, Cassini, from burying their listings.

The Pushback: Platforms like EcommerceBytes note that eBay has been aggressively prompting sellers with notifications warning them that competitors are using “8% to 15%” ad rates. Despite this pressure, the community consensus on Reddit and eBay community boards remains clear: “Stick to 2% to survive the margin squeeze”

2.The “Dynamic & Priority” Camp (High-Volume Power Sellers)Large-scale retail sellers and liquidators frequently bypass the 2% strategy…

I guess I if most people are paying the participation fee then I’d better be careful not to drop it.  I’ll be in no man’s land potentially.

I suspect there are multiple reasons for slow ebay sales, much of it tied to ebay’s refusal to recognize just how effective their competition has become, and much of it tied to ebay’s inability to focus on anything beyond ad revenue, ebay Lives and ebay sales centered on a relatively few categories (trading cards, designed handbags, etc).

I think the only way I’ll be able to keep this up is to go nulti platform and to push social media, Waiting for ebay to wise up is a losing proposition.

I agree I haven’t done very well on Ebay since January.  I’m kind of a boom and bust lister and I feel like changes were likely made in January that hurt my visibility.  During the first three months I could see that I was getting fewer promoted clicks for my same low percentage.  I refuse to go higher.  I’m going to stop promoting now on brand new listings.  Nifty doesn’t promote when they relist so I can do it manually then in bulk as they get refreshed after 30 days.

I think I mentioned that I have Nifty refresh my listings very often now.  I think it helped on Ebay after I changed it to every 30 days (from 90 or 60 before).  My guess is that they are really pushing down stale listings. I haven’t been good about updating my old ones.

ebay apparently had a strong Q2, but you wouldn’t know it from my sales. ebay is definitely putting its emphasis on Livestreaming and its focus categories, especially the higher end stuff like designer handbags, watches etc. But for a lot of what I sell, I’m not sure ebay is top of the buyer’s lists anymore….and ebay is doing too little to change that. So as much as I kind of hate to complicate things by going multichannel, I think I probably have little choice. How do you handle taxes for multichannel?  Do you combine all your revenue and expenses as one business?

One thing about multi channel and using social media….while it will be extra work (especially due to the learning curve)…it might revive my reselling enthusiasm, which has been on life support with ebay. I still see so much potential at ebay, but it’s been ages since they’ve really done anything that made me say : “Now, this might be a real game changer!” So, maybe trying new stuff will revitalize things?

Crosslisting was awesome for me.  I’m not sure about Depop.  I’ve heard that people are pretty frugal and service is not good.  However, I had two sales on Ebay I’ve had to cancel very recently after the software has been super reliable.  I think it might have been me doing something wrong.

I used to not watch much tv for many years but I watched Making a Murderer and it made me think of the old podcast discussion.

Since ebay’s purchase of depop has gone through, I’m thinking about trying to list some stuff there….while it is geared towards clothing, they do allow other stuff as well, and I’m going to see if I have some stuff that might fit the depop vibe. I’m hoping ebay itself might make it easy to cross list but even if they do, I suspect it will not be till next year at the earliest.

Multiple platforms and social media are goals for Q4, but I’m not pushing any of that really until I get the place reorganized. That isn’t just the inventory, it’s also improving the shipping station and photo station. I figure that will take up most of August. (I’ve cut back on sourcing, which is hard to do at the height of yard sale season, but I’ve still managed to pick up a few decent things. Also, just did a little sourcing on WhatNot…I’ve never been big on online sourcing, but between time constraints, the cost of gas, and not getting any younger, it is making more sense.

I too an trying to lose weight. No drugs. I seem to have hit a plateau right now, but I think if I can add in more exercise it might move the needle again.

Here’s to better sales soon!

I’m not sure Mercari has kept up either but then that’s on them.  Most of my Mercari listings are Fed Ex Economy.

So heads-up, eBay’s Calculated Shipping tool is still messed up on the rural zip codes. When a rural buyer checks out, eBay continues to charge them based on the actual light ounce weight (like 4 oz). But when we print the label, the USPS back-end forces the maximum 15.99 oz rate, leaving us sellers to swallow a $ loss per package. eBay owes us a fix on this.

Check your shipping metrics closely because eBay is still quietly draining our profit margins on these lightweight orders.

To make matters worse, keep an eye on your heavier packages this week. On Saturday, July 25, USPS quietly rolled out another Ground Advantage rate hike, adding a $0.10 surcharge specifically to all 3-to-5-pound packages. Make sure to adjust your listings manually, because eBay’s calculator seems to be failing us right now.

Since a large portion of eBay buyers live in rural areas, look out for your margins. I’ll definitely be lowering the custom discounts I offer to buyers after this.

Watch out for USPS Ground Advantage under 1 pound. USPS just unified ounce-based pricing for these light packages sent to rural Zip codes, matching recent hikes to non-contiguous and military destinations.

The hit is real. On June 15, I shipped a 4 oz package to APO 09114 for $5.72. Today, 30 days later, that exact same label costs $7.46—a massive 30.4% spike.

With non-contiguous, rural and military rates getting this aggressive, flat-rate shipping is risky. Double-check your listings or switch to calculated shipping to avoid these surprise costs.

Hope everyone is having a very good summer.  I’m settling in after taking a big break.  My inventory is down to low 700s listing from a high of 1200.

I wanted to share that I am getting more Ebay sales after changing my software to refresh listings every 30 days instead of 90 or more days.  This is while not really listing many new listings at all.

Poshmark is now 1/3 of my sales dollarwise, with Ebay 2/3.  Mercari is pretty dead but I get a sale now and again.  I have some low dollar stuff going on over there.  They do run special deals from time to time so I’m hoping to sell off old things.   My 2025 profit was the same as the year prior, though I thought I worked more.  A bit disappointing but I am having to discount and take lower offers to make sales plus I am paying for software.  One more bit about Poshmark – fees are higher but I’ve had two packages not track at USPS (I’m going to the counter daily now) and Posh stepped up for refunding both myself and the buyer.  I’d rather Ebay charge a little more and do this.

I’ve had to update shipping on some lower dollar larger items in Ebay due to the USPS dim weight divisor change.  You are still ok 12 x 12 x 12 but I do have some larger platters and bowls that could get me in trouble.  So far I have changed them to Fed Ex or Fed Ex Economy.  I heard on a podcast that Fed Ex had matched the old USPS DIM weight divisor but I don’t know if they will continue to do so in the future.   Shipping costs are such a big factor these days.

The thrift stores lately are just poor selection, which is ok since I have lots of death piles still.  I am letting myself go to the small local weekly flea market.  For the second half of 2026 I will be working to get the piles down.  Had a big yard sale and cleared a bunch of stuff out.  After that I really haven’t done anything but ship for a month or so.

For the rest of the year I have a ton of used linens, good profit china, and decor items to sell.  At our citywide yard sale I didn’t buy much but bought a bunch of Johnny Was tops from a lady who lost weight on GLP1.  They were too big for me but they sold really well and I got to thinking maybe a few high dollar clothing items wouldn’t be so bad to add to the mix.  So easy to ship.

I’m on a calorie deficit (no drug) weight loss journey after neglecting things for a while.  I’m about 15% to my goal weight.  At my age it’s easier to change what I am eating and not eating but also trying to get more exercise as well.

https://www.valueaddedresource.net/surprise-usps-ground-advantage-rate-drop/

https://www.valueaddedresource.net/usps-july-2026-competitive-rates/

I think this may be in preparation for the DIM weight changes. I tried running some calculations and the new dim weight divisor of 139 makes the 12 12 12 safety net obsolete.  Also if I am doing this right, even a 7 7 7 package is DIM 3 pounds, while I usually use that size for a two pound package, or even less than 1 pound.  They are also getting rid of the ounces under a pound so might as well put all on flat rate shipping up to a pound (I already did this on some items).  I hope Ebay is negotiating a good deal with all of this stuff coming down the pike.  I have a variety of items including lightweight stuff, lots of things from 1-3 pounds.  Some are large.

For this interim period before 7/12 I’ve changed my business policies to pass on the discount to the buyer and I’ve put on a $1.50 handling charge to pay for packaging materials.  I’m hoping I get a sales boost with more competitive shipping.  I realize I’ll be sucking up the fees during this period but hoping to get rid of some  stale stuff.  I’ll reassess in July.

i

My impressions are WAY down in the last three months.  Ebay is 63% of my sales for the year, and surprisingly that is the same percentage as for the last three months.  So that would suggest that my lack of listing and other economic factors /pricing is perhaps lot of the issue.  I have had to make much better discounts to get the sales I am making on Ebay, pulling all the strings. I’m TRS, have flat rate shipping under a pound, running my weekly permasale, making offers (sometimes 33% if an old listing).   Looking back through my sales it does not seem as though the extra photos needed on my listing quality report are a dealbreaker.  Overall, I am selling less stale inventory (even with a deep offer) on Ebay but some is selling off on Poshmark.  Mercari is pretty dead overall.

I am definitely getting fewer promoted clicks since the attribution change in January but more promoted sales.   If that’s true to most sellers who kept the same rate then I wonder if someone could successfully challenge the fee structure.  It’s smart to not promote at first and then do it when you end and sell similar but I kind of just like keeping it simple.  Should change this since it would be simple to add after the software refreshes.

I read that Ebay sales overall are doing better than a lot of small sellers like me are reporting.  It’s focus categories so maybe the live sales are providing a boost?  The notifications are annoying.  I saw a commercial on HBO (10 seconds) and it was almost nonsensical.

@mycottage we don’t have a seller circle here either.  I’ve been looking at Facebook groups, which is 90% of the people with soft sales and 10% of the people lashing them. Not many people looking at their traffic reports but some anecdotal evidence that Cassini likely changed in January along with the promoted fee change.

I had back-to-back-to-back bad months (March/April/May) after a great start to the year sales-wise. I’ll accept some “blame” for needing to step back for a bit earlier this year to focus on something else, but a little time off can’t explain the kind of drop I saw. I’m not selling in categories that benefit from posting to other sites, unfortunately, so it was a matter of doubling down and continuing to “list through it.”

June feels better, but I’m in the same boat of still of it being sluggish and inconsistent. I don’t mind if a week is “bad” then gets saved by a sudden jump one day, but obviously would prefer it to be more spread out and reliable. Slower times of the year give me opportunities to look into ways of speeding up different parts of the sourcing/listing process, so I can’t complain too much about that.

Curiously, I jumped on eBay’s offsite promotions offer they were running to see if that aided sales. The rough numbers are 2:1, which is apparently the average ROAS for pay-by-click ads, LOL. Can I dump in $1k and make $2k? Hmm…

Also, the whole eBay Live thing is so crazy. Meanwhile, eBay’s other advertising efforts all seem to be focusing on finding “unique” items (the kind of stuff some of you are probably selling!) but if you load up the app you’d think it’s all Pokemon/Magic/etc. Maybe that’s just my algorithm but that’s a common thing I’ve seen across different sites where people talk about eBay.

I find economical factors affecting sales interesting. Largely I think it helps sales of my kind of inventory, but I do like to split the items I list between “wants” and “needs.” A buyer “wants” a DVD copy of their favorite movie for their collection, while another buyer “needs” a part for their vacuum, etc. That’s just my approach, though.

Since the beginning of February I’m averaging 25 sales for $600 each week combined on Depop, Poshmark, and Mercari using Nifty… even though less than half my items are cross listed. That number is trending up the more I cross list. I do all my new listings and I try to do 100 old ebay items each week.

For the year I’m averaging 51 sales a week, which means ebay is only accounting for 50% of my sales and that percent is trending down. I currently have 4100 ebay listings and less than half of those listings are cross listed.

Another rough project I took on at the beginning of April was switching to business policies and flat rate shipping on ebay. The goal was to sell more items based on reasonable shipping costs. I modeled my rates based on Depop’s rates, so $5.99, $7.99, $9.99, and $12.99 for anything other than huge items.

I was hoping that business policies would get my shoe sales weekly average up, but it didn’t. I was still only selling about 12 pair a week. So 5 weeks ago I started a concentrated effort to cross list shoes – at least 20 pair a day. Over the last 4 weeks my shoe sales have doubled to an average of 24 pair a week.

So I say all this to say that ebay…is not good. I have fixed my shipping. I have refreshed my entire store so no stale listings. I am listing more than I ever have before in the first half of the year -averaging 51 new listings a week so far. Something has changed, something is wrong.

I do all that and I’m selling just as much stuff off ebay. Even worse, stuff that has sat for years on ebay sells like hot cakes on the other platforms.

My sales are trending up in alignment with my increased efforts everywhere else. Why is ebay flat?

Anyways, I’ve laid all the groundwork in the first half of this year to make a real run at $100k gross sales (sale price only – not including shipping) this year. Hopefully ebay starts to pick up as well so I can get there. My second half sales are always much stronger than the first half.

One last note, I shipped 66 items last week and I am on track to ship 70+ this week for the first time ever. That is ALOT of shipping and ALOT of work for a part time gig.

I am finding that being part of a community helps my morale—-just like back in the day here as trash elves—-there are no local ebay groups (now called “circles”) for me, but I am part of the RVA circle which is based around Richmond VA, but has members all over the country (and international, too, if I’m not mistaken. Most of their meetings are online, with one at the leader’s home that is for the locals, but is also streamed live, so anyone can attend even that one.

I recommend it….

I feel like my lead photos and titles are pretty good.  AI suggested changing the brightness a little bit, changing the prince slightly, etc.  I’m going to focus on listing new items for a bit and then test that out.

I tried to look at my traffic report but it won’t let you go back more than 90 days.  I’d be curious to see what it looked like compared to last year.

I’m ending this mid-day Sunday so still a little room to run.  Ebay has been pretty dead.  I haven’t listed much now for  about a month.  I’m certainly hopeful that sales pick up again on Ebay once I get going on listing.

I did a lot of cleaning out and had a big garage sale netting about $500.  I had a whole rack of items I bought a little damaged, damaged in storage, or no longer want to sell (with a cord).  Boy did it feel good to get rid of that stuff.  I’ve been running donations all week in chunks to get the 25% off Goodwill coupons.  Just one or two more small loads to go.  The goal here is to get a car back into our two car garage.  I got a great deal on my Costco rolling storage racks so I hope to be able to keep both of them.  My son has a giant item in the garage that he is not ready to let go of yet unfortunately.  My husband will be quite happy if we get the car in this week.

I’m down to about 775 listings with some multiples.  I did create a clearance category and should probably go ahead and do mark downs and move some items over there.  I knocked a bunch of prices down on Mercari since the fees are lowest but none of those items sold unfortunately.  Mercari is pretty dead.

Poshmark had been dead while they were making some changes, but it has been better in the last week or so.   I didn’t realize that Nifty AI software was no longer relisting on Posh for a while.  Once I fixed that setting, sales picked up again.  Posh does not want items over 60 days old.  They also don’t want you selling on other platforms.  I pretty much just ignore their nonsense changes and I haven’t been suspended yet for ending “excessive” items early that sell elsewhere.  I’m super top rated on Poshmark – it’s easier to be there than on Ebay.  Even if you have some out of stock issues it goes away within 90 days.  And I ship very quickly for them.

So I’m at the tail end of my big clean out.  There is much to list.

In my neck of the woods, thrift prices have all gone up substantially while the stores are more picked over than ever.  When I do take a look I hardly buy anything.  I’m poised to make good progress on my death piles now and it’s all organized.

Overall I feel like a seasoned reseller but still need to work my backlog for a while before I start going to estate sales (and maybe garage sales).  I find myself taking lower offers to try to stimulate my account and say goodbye to old listings.  The rest of the year will largely be about trying to get rid of the piles.  I do let myself go to our local flea market, which is pretty much self limiting.

I’m still waiting to hear about the new retail location downtown, but word on the street is that the rent will be super steep.

Hope all is well and you had/are having a great holiday weekend.  R&J – I haven’t been shopping as much but will send a box your way soon.  Take care.

PS. If anyone is familiar with the gulf coast area, let me know.  We might be taking a trip down South in October.  The East Coast is crazy expensive.

I have created a sale category in eBay but haven’t done anything with it yet.

Definitely glad I ran my numbers.  Hard to believe Ebay sales were this much.  It was very very dead this past weekend.  Poshmark came up with new listing metrics and my sales have pretty much died on there.  They are making a bunch of changes, including making unpopular listings older than 60 days inactive.  Not getting a lot of offers from buyers either so I feel like maybe my listings aren’t being shown a lot?  I realized that for some reason my Nifty AI had not been refreshing my listings on Poshmark so I got the email from them last week about inactive listings.

I haven’t been listing a lot while I had some family and friend time plus the giant garage sale prep and unlisted sort.  Still a ton of work to do but it feels really good.  Probably sales won’t be great until I get through this big clean out.

Poshmark has really dropped off for me.  Interestingly, Posh has revamped their site and are now offering specific insight about activity for each listing.  I’m not changing anything for now but I did update my auto-offer % by 5% on Poshmark.

Ebay sales were pretty much on the weekend when I was running a sale and listing new items.  I seem to need to be doing both of those things to “wake up my store”.

I’m in clean out mode and doing garage sale prep.  Hope to purge a bunch of unworthy unlisted stuff.  It will feel good to get more organized and pare down a bit.  Still many things to list.  I haven’t been sourcing much, which I also feel good about.

I had another package go missing at USPS this week.  I do have a receipt this time but tracking shows no scan.  It’s frustrating but wasn’t valuable.