@shopnyc - wow, long time in NYC, I'm envious! Some time ago, I lived on Long Island and commuted to my job in Manhattan. I was crazy enough to love it so much that I thought I should be paying them to let me have an office in the sky LOL. I loved every minute there....now I think I would feel differently because the city has changed so much.
More recently, I lived in another large metro area, but still had a car, so I hear you on the adjustment....now my driving is measured in distance vs. time...I am acclimating, slowly.
Later this morning I will head to one of the big farmers markets in this area, so at least I will get some walking in there.
When I lived in the other city, I always applied for airport shops, since I lived close to a huge airport, but never got them...I had a feeling they had long time shoppers they used for those, but still kept posting them.

I also recently lived in Florida...shopping was lucrative there - not as many shoppers in the area I was in....I found one crazy route where there were like 10 Circle K gas stations within 5 miles of each other. I have never found those kind of clusters in the north. Same with restaurants.....probably because we don't have as many tourists and visitors here.
I can tell from reading the various posts, that msing definitely varies dramatically from location to location.

@ServiceAward
Thank you for all the helpful insider tips....
I've had pretty good luck so far, I think...probably because almost nothing I buy there is urgent for me, they mostly fall in the category of nice to have on hand....and I try very hard to avoid clutter, so I am choosy I guess.
but I have one more question if you don't mind....
you mentioned having items sit on the site for quite awhile....does eBay charge you any ongoing fees just to keep a listing active? or do they only collect a fee when you sell?

I do have a few things I would like to sell, so I need to learn how to do that...

@sueac101 - wow you have a lot of experience with merchandising. I've always wondered how that pays
in comparison to mystery shopping.
I think I've written the story here before, but I only have one experience with merchandising.
In the early 90s, I rode with a friend who used to do a route for those, all around the state....miles and miles. In addition to payment, he also got reimbursed mileage, all meals and hotels. This was pre-internet, so I don't remember how he got into it. His trunk was full of boxes of inserts and flyers and I helped him at each grocery store. It's hard to picture a similar arrangement now, but maybe they exist.

@BarefootBliss wrote:

@ServiceAward
Thank you for all the helpful insider tips....
I've had pretty good luck so far, I think...probably because almost nothing I buy there is urgent for me, they mostly fall in the category of nice to have on hand....and I try very hard to avoid clutter, so I am choosy I guess.
but I have one more question if you don't mind....
you mentioned having items sit on the site for quite awhile....does eBay charge you any ongoing fees just to keep a listing active? or do they only collect a fee when you sell?

I do have a few things I would like to sell, so I need to learn how to do that...

Whether you pay an insertion fee depends on several factors. First, if you choose to do an auction, you will pay an insertion fee for most listings. If you have an eBay store, which likely would not be factor for you since you are only trying to unload some personal stuff, then you do get a handful of free auction listings each month but only in certain categories. Since eBay shifted to more of an online store with items on the shelf instead of an auction format, there is little reason to do an auction. I rarely do them. Maybe 2 or 3 times per year. The only reason why I would do an auction would be if all the following are true: I don't know the value of an item, I cannot find any sold comps for it, it is a rare item, and it is something in demand. Otherwise, from a selling perspective, I could be leaving money on the table. Plus, there is always the issue of buyers who do not pay, then you have to relist. Also, many buyers just want to buy what they want when they want. They don't want to have to compete with other buyers, wait a week, and still may not end up with the item. Some sellers are still stuck in the 2000s and refuse to move away from auctions.

If you list an item in the Buy It Now format, you get 250 free listings per month, meaning you do not pay any insertion fee. There are a few exceptions, like if you are listing a vehicle. For those of us with stores, we get additional free listings per month, depending on what level store we have. I think I get about 1000 free listings per month. Why would I pay for more free listings than the number of items I have listed? Because I like the ability to end stale listings, then relist them under the sell similar option. This creates a new listing without me having to do any additional work. eBay rewards those sellers who consistently list. After a while, listings will go stale. By ending the listing and choosing to sell a similar item, this will generate a new listing with all the data from the old listing. I can adjust something if I feel the price may be too high or my title may not have the correct keywords. This will not only show eBay I am listings "new" items, which will boost other listings in the search, but it also boost the item I've just relisted so it is no longer stale. I do this process several times per month, and having more free listings than the number of items I have in my store gives me the flexibility to do that. The downside from a selling perspective is that you lose any watchers you have and the data on the number of views an item has received. I'm willing to give up that data for the chance I get the eyes of a fresh buyer interested who may follow through. If someone has watched an item for 3 weeks and they've not bought, they have moved on to another seller or they merely were "window" shopping because they like the idea of buying that particular item.

If you list an item as Buy It Now, it will automatically renew after 30 days. Every time it renews, it will count toward your 250 free listing allocation. The only time it could mess you over is if you list 130 items on the first day of a month with 31 days in it, because those 130 listings will renew on the 31st day of the month, generating insertion fees for 10 of the listings. You probably aren't going to do that, so it shouldn't be a concern. If you ever decided to have 225+ items listed at once, then I would subscribe to a Basic store. It is around $20/month and it pays for itself. Plus, you get a $25 coupon for free shipping supplies every 3 months.

When items sell you do get charged a fee. The fee is based on the cost of the item, shipping, and sales tax. The % of the fee varies and it is too much (and confusing) to detail here, but plan on 13%-15% of the total sale. If you choose to advertise, you'll pay more, depending on what percent of advertising fee you selected. I normally promote all my listings at a 5% rate. That's just my default. When an item sells, I know roughly 20% is coming off the top to eBay. I don't offer free shipping except during Christmas, so when I price an item, I know I have to account for 20% going to eBay, plus my cost of goods. Since the buyer pays shipping, I don't have to factor that into the item price, which lets me list thing cheaper than other sellers. I've tried free shipping, calculated shipping (where shipping is based on item weight and the USPS zones), and flat rate shipping (where everybody pays the same shipping regardless of where they live). I have found the flat rate model works best for me. It has actually generated more Zones 1-4 buyers, even though my shipping cost is based on Zone 8. I suspect eBay was giving buyers in Zones 1-4 bad estimates when I was using calculated shipping, because most of my business was from Zones 5-8. It's now flipped, and I am making a nominal amount off the shipping charges as a result. This works out well since it is enough to cover my supply costs. When USPS raised rates in July, many sellers had to raise their costs. I didn't touch mine, because I was already making a little bit off each sale. I might lose 50 cents on a buyer from California, but that's no big deal because I'm not getting as many buyers from that area now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2024 07:54PM by ServiceAward.

@BarefootBliss wrote:

@sueac101 - wow you have a lot of experience with merchandising. I've always wondered how that pays
in comparison to mystery shopping.
I think I've written the story here before, but I only have one experience with merchandising.
In the early 90s, I rode with a friend who used to do a route for those, all around the state....miles and miles. In addition to payment, he also got reimbursed mileage, all meals and hotels. This was pre-internet, so I don't remember how he got into it. His trunk was full of boxes of inserts and flyers and I helped him at each grocery store. It's hard to picture a similar arrangement now, but maybe they exist.

When I started it was pre-internet days, everything was done by snail mail. I got started in it when I took a neighbor to the state employment office, while waiting for her I was looking at the job boards and saw an ad for a merchandiser for Huffy, the bicycle company. It was their merchandising division, so didn't do bicycles. at the time I had just closed my hobby store and was looking for work anyway. I called them and did a phone interview and was hired. The job paid $7.00 an hour, plus mileage, plus travel time between the stores. And if we had a reset that was not close to home, and it would be a 12 hour or more job they paid for a hotel for the night. I had a route that went from Ontario, Oregon to Mountain Home, Idaho. Which was 125 miles one way. I mostly did K-marts on a weekly basis. Then later we got Albertsons for jobs and as the area grew, we got more stores. When I started, you were not allowed to work for any other merchandising companies at the same time. After about 5 years it changed, and you could work for more than one company at the same time. At one time I was working for 10 companies. When I quit due to health problems, I mainly was doing the Boise area and a few surrounding cities. Unfortunately, the pay rate has not gone up with the times. One company I worked for never gave raises started out at $10 hour and when I quit 15 years later it was still $10 hour. I heard that they just raised the pay to $15 hour.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2024 09:56PM by sueac101.

sueac, thank you for sharing your story.
On a side note, it just proves what I've noticed over the years....working, for the most part, is just not as lucrative as it used to be...

Well.. I did a thing. One I swore I wasn't going to do, but 6 months of begging for rides in a car with no AC in the hottest part of the year, wore me down. I traded in the POS Jeep on a running car.. Lets see how this goes. I'm independent again, I have AC, and the car only has 55K miles on it. I'm not unhappy..

@Morledzep wrote:

I'm independent again, I have AC, and the car only has 55K miles on it. I'm not unhappy..

I'm not unhappy Hopefully, you've been able to do a lot more on your own terms!