Do you have or want to open an ebay store? Look here!

[dustinjtrr 0]

hey azdecals.  do you use a cutter or is your vinyl actually die cut?

I do have a question about how all of you ship things out on ebay.  What method of shipping do you use?  What do you put everything in?

Ummm... To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what the difference is.  I didn't come up with that language myself. I searched for other decals and the 5 or 6 running decals that I found that were cut from vinyl all said "die cut".

I think that infers its a neat lineedge, instead of a "cut" that some folks might associate with scissors?

I just sold 3 of the same decal this month.  Hey... I might break even on the store cost this month. :-)

I'm about to offer the stickers cheap, ~1-2 dollars.  I don't see how folks can offer the shipping so cheap, USPS thru Paypal is ~1.70.  You could just mail them using stamps, but how do you get the delivery confirmation?  Or do you just not worry about getting ripped off?  Then there are the fees to cover, which I usually do thru the "handling" fees.  Your time to take it to the mailbox (the mailman don't pick up in my AO) the fees, the envelope, the paypal fees.  I mean even at a $1 for a sticker there is still overhead, cost and waste (weeding)to cover.

azdecals

die cutting is different than using a plotter style cutter.  die cutting is essentially like a big cookie cutter press.  you have dies which would be the actual cookie cutters in the shape of whatever you wanted and the press that would push the dies into the material and make the cut. 

i don't think it's the case that anyone is actually going to call you on it, or that it really makes a difference either way.  I was just going to ask some questions about how you make your dies if you were actually die cutting.

[Print Star 0]

What is the advantage of having a store as opposed to just doing several listings each week?

There is a guy on there selling for 2.00 for a 4-6" decal shipping included. He has sold 2000 steeler decals on one auction.

[JoeCamaro 11]

Regular listings cost 35 cents just to list it, plus whatever the percent of the sale when it is sold. Store invetory costs 3 cents to list plus plus whatever the percent of the sale when it is sold.

You save a lot when doing store listings, but Regular listing are the ones that show up when people search. So you can have a lot of store inventory listings and a few regular listings to bring people to your store.

[Print Star 0]

Thanks Joe!

That makes a lot of sense. I just listed my first decal for sale on ebay about 2 minutes ago. I'll let you know how it does!

[BannerJohn 1,324]

I have been doing okay on ebay as well...Would be doing better without the fees :-[Average $6-700 a month in fees Like said above, the problem is people are looking for cheap, If someone sees the same decal 2 bucks cheaper..which one do you think they are going to pick.. Honestly i will tell you this. I have been selling 5" decals (on the longest side) for $3 plus 1.50 shipping. Yes its cheap but i guess you can say the "walmart philosphy". Keeps the cash flow coming in steady. I would say average about 6 or 700 sales a month. I send out about 20 a day. Some people dont agree with the way i do this, cause its cheap but there are plenty of other people selling the same thing for the same price. Simple to me

20 decals a day is $60

$60 times 7 days a week is $420 a week

$420 a week times 4 weeks a month is $1680

1680 minus fees is about 1000 profit a month

250 a week isnt bad for ebay i say. EXTRA INCOME

This november and december i made about 400 per week profit.(Best months yet for me)

Just my .02

There are always people who say I sell too cheap. I can't get it through their THICK HEADS that I'm not competing with locals, I am competing with other ebay sellers and have to keep my prices in line with them. There are people on ebay selling full color wide format banners cheaper than I can sell vinyl banners. The only advantage I have over them is my high feedback (1500+,100%) and my low shipping. I see them offer cheap banners but charge $40 shipping.

Ebay is a volume business. You sell cheap but do a lot of selling. Remember that in most cases,you are not selling a one-of-a-kind item. If your price is too high,there is always someone out there who will beat it.

I have made my living exclusively on ebay for more than 3 years. I am happy to make $20 an hour, I never made that doing anything else.

[Rob28x 0]

Regular listings cost 35 cents just to list it, plus whatever the percent of the sale when it is sold. Store invetory costs 3 cents to list plus plus whatever the percent of the sale when it is sold.

You save a lot when doing store listings, but Regular listing are the ones that show up when people search. So you can have a lot of store inventory listings and a few regular listings to bring people to your store.

One thing to remember though, is that final value fee's are more for store inventory, so depending on the sale price of the item, it may actually cost you more to sell inventory then a listing, and it doesn't help as much to draw people to your store. For example:Items under $10 if sold as an auction are only 8.75% final value fee, but same item sold in your store is 12%. I have some stuff as store inventory only, but more popular things I list as fixed price auctions.

[azdecals 3]

I hadn't been paying too close attention to the fees.  But the statement that stores are more expensive isn't always true.  It depends on the cost of the item you are selling.

I offer my marathon decals for 3.99.

So in my store, it cause 3 cents to list it and .47 cents if, err, when it sells.  So if I sell that sticker in my store it's a .50 fee.

Now if I put it up on a regular auction then it's a 35 cent fee to list, and 35 cent fee when it sells.  for a total of 70 cents if it sells on an auction.  If I do fixed price the sale listing increases to .83 cents.

So for some stuff it's cheaper to sell it in the store.

The paypal fee is an addtional 2.9% +.30 cents.  So for the 3.99 (not counting shipping) it would be .41 cents.

If I sell it out of the store and get payment thru payal my 3.99 sticker cost .91 cents to sell (not couting shipping)

azdecals

[James605 7]

AZ Your right but there is some major drawbacks to listing in a store also.. Heres an emaple that i learned when i first started on ebay.

You list a marathon decal in your store. I do a search for marathon decal. Chances are i wont even get to your decal because store listings are listed LAST after everything else. Now you do a fixed price listing for a marathon decal..I search for it, this time it will be on the front page,or very close to it... Now this is more expensive but form experiance i would sell 3-4 decals a day from my store IF THAT..I listed in auctions and fixed price. Now i dont sell less than 20 per day...NOTHING else changed, same listings, same titles and words,price...Only thing different was it was an auction instead of my store...Ebay is all about the first couple pages... Think about it, if you look up "red vinyl" your not going to sit and go to page 39 to get it, you go to the first few pages and thats it, maybe im wrong but thats how i have always seen it done.

[Guest fivestar]

Ebay got too expensive for me, well that and I got too busy locally to have the time to put into it.  I was actually thinking about 6 months ago of getting my youngest daughter to keep up with the ebay selling then I never did it.

[Print Star 0]

AZ Your right but there is some major drawbacks to listing in a store also.. Heres an emaple that i learned when i first started on ebay.

You list a marathon decal in your store. I do a search for marathon decal. Chances are i wont even get to your decal because store listings are listed LAST after everything else. Now you do a fixed price listing for a marathon decal..I search for it, this time it will be on the front page,or very close to it... Now this is more expensive but form experiance i would sell 3-4 decals a day from my store IF THAT..I listed in auctions and fixed price. Now i dont sell less than 20 per day...NOTHING else changed, same listings, same titles and words,price...Only thing different was it was an auction instead of my store...Ebay is all about the first couple pages... Think about it, if you look up "red vinyl" your not going to sit and go to page 39 to get it, you go to the first few pages and thats it, maybe im wrong but thats how i have always seen it done.

So do you think it would be best to run 3 day auctions every couple of days instead of like 10 or 30 day auctions? that way you are always close to the first couple of pages when searched for ending soonest.

Do most people search for auction ending soonest? I do usually.

[James605 7]

So do you think it would be best to run 3 day auctions every couple of days instead of like 10 or 30 day auctions? that way you are always close to the first couple of pages when searched for ending soonest.

Do most people search for auction ending soonest? I do usually.

:thumbsup:I was waiting for someone to say ask that...Yes you are absoluty right, from my exp. Thats what i do now and have sold so many decals..Like i said above. all i did was change to this style instead of the cheap 30 day store listings and sales TOOK OFF

[JoeCamaro 11]

I will have to consider that. Even tho I have goo sales with mixed listings.

What I do is I have my store full of items. Then I have about 2 designs of each category in regular listing format and I have a "Visit my ebay store" link on each listing.

[Guest fivestar]

Why not just list the same items ever day for a week then relist with an auto lister then after the first week you're always in the "end within 24 hrs" time frame?

You'll never run out of product, so that shouldn't be a problem.

[JoeCamaro 11]

That would be really expensive I think.

[Guest fivestar]

Not if you continually sell them.  It's all about volume when you're selling small profit items.

[Primal Rage Outdoors 0]

I sell alot on Ebay, but does anyone here agree that their fees are way outta control, they would still make millions if they just charged a listing fee, plus what they get in paypal. I have read all kinds of reports from people complaining about this. Juz my 2 cents

[JoeCamaro 11]

Yes, I agree.

[Print Star 0]

To avoid some fees you can sell the 3.00 decal for 1.00 and charge 2.00 shipping. That is assuming you were offering free shipping. I don't think they include shipping in final value fees, YET!

[BlackMesa 0]

I sell alot on Ebay, but does anyone here agree that their fees are way outta control, they would still make millions if they just charged a listing fee, plus what they get in paypal. I have read all kinds of reports from people complaining about this. Juz my 2 cents

Yes, there fees are out of control.  Between them and Paypal, I'm somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% profit from what I sell on EBay; hence the reason I jumped at the chance to get a store on Auctiva.  I'm not going to close up shop on EBay though.  I'm going to use EBay to get my store selling.  I noticed that a lot of people closed up shop on EBay once Auctiva opened up, but Auctiva flobbed up the opening pretty bad and pissed off a lot of people.  I don't see why people who are trying to make a living unlike myself would close down EBay Avenue when the other option just wasn't there yet.

[James605 7]

To avoid some fees you can sell the 3.00 decal for 1.00 and charge 2.00 shipping. That is assuming you were offering free shipping. I don't think they include shipping in final value fees, YET!

DON NOT DO THIS!!!! Yes i was thinking just like you are...So i did the same thing you just said. and guess what happend...I got SUSPENDED for "fee avoidance". I was a nightmare trying to get my account reopened also..

On the bright side..I did get away with this for about 2-3 weeks...save a couple $$$..But lost the account for 3 weeks.. lost about 10 times wht i saved by doing that...

[Rob28x 0]

So this Auctiva, I went to www.Auctiva.com and it seems to be tools for listing on ebay?

[JoeCamaro 11]

To avoid some fees you can sell the 3.00 decal for 1.00 and charge 2.00 shipping. That is assuming you were offering free shipping. I don't think they include shipping in final value fees, YET!

DON NOT DO THIS!!!! Yes i was thinking just like you are...So i did the same thing you just said. and guess what happend...I got SUSPENDED for "fee avoidance". I was a nightmare trying to get my account reopened also..

On the bright side..I did get away with this for about 2-3 weeks...save a couple $$$..But lost the account for 3 weeks.. lost about 10 times wht i saved by doing that...

Plus at least I hate when I get an item for $1.00 and $5 shipping, when I know it is not worth that. People know that shipping a decal doesnt cost $2 or $3 dollars.

Joe

[Primal Rage Outdoors 0]

At one time you could have a banner in your listings that went directly to your personal web site, but of course they stopped that because they weren't making any money from it, Ebay although a great ave for making money, certainly takes more than it needs. You would think that with the state of the economy someone with the funds and knowledge would open an auction site with much lower fees. I would bet that it wouldn't take Ebay long to play nice to help the consumer out. and they say Microsoft is a monopoly !

[JoeCamaro 11]

There are other auction sites, but ebay is the best known. If the other sites promoted, then it could make a difference.

[Primal Rage Outdoors 0]

right, if Yahoo auctions did better promotions, it may also help them recover economically.