Mom Life & Reseller Life Quick Update

Life April 2, 2018 Leave a comment

Happy Easter readers! Just a quick update on mom life and my reseller life. I really shouldn’t call it mom life. More like parenthood life. My husband is very much involve in our son’s life. While I’m the one who spends most time with him, my son enjoys his father too.

Today I notice my son really trying to communicate with me more. It’s mostly gestures but it is something. You see he isn’t speaking up to speed so I’m trying my best to not meet his needs all the time. I spend so much time with him that it’s second nature for me to just do everything for him without him asking. This morning he gestured he wanted his favorite pajama pants instead of some shorts I put on him. Even though this involved longer time getting ready for the day, I was happy to do it.

It’s April 1st. For us eBay resellers this means the new seller update will take place. I really haven’t been paying too much attention other than I will be losing the 10% discount for being top rated seller. Now I think you have to be top rated seller plus for it. Not a big deal for me. I’m not willing to change my 30 days returns with buyer paying shipping back to sellers paying shipping back. Nope not worth it to me.  It’s such a big debate among resellers ( on IG at least) yet I stayed out of it mostly. I personally believe eBay made the changes for their own benefit. It’s nothing personal. It’s just business. This just means resellers like myself who specialize in used clothing is considered small potatoes. I’m sure other resellers in niche categories feel the same too.

We must move on from that and focus on making money. Luckily the income from poshmark helps. It hasn’t eclipse the income I’m making on eBay but it’s nice to have that extra sales push.

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$37 Watch Sizing At A Jeweler

Thoughts on $ March 16, 2018 Leave a comment

Today my husband and I paid $37 to size a watch. Yes I use to work for a jeweler. Yes I  do know I overpaid to get it sized. Yes of course they tried to get me sign up for a credit card company. Yes I do feel like shit giving my money away. No I’m not hiding the name. It was Kay Jewelers the nationwide company jewelers that sells moderately priced pieces.

At that moment I thought “whatever” I could just buy a watch sizing kit and size his watch myself. Yet we were there already, and really just wanted this done. Of course it was our conversation for a bit. We obviously overspent. The service we receive was expected but the whole applying for a credit card REALLY REALLLLLYY turned us off. It truly felt like we were at a crooked car dealership.

You see they gave us an option to sign up for a credit card /account then they could waive the fee (watch sizing). I heard the spiel. I even felt sorry because I was that person behind the counter at one point in my life. Not for any jewelers I have worked for but for other nationwide clothing companies. I felt a mixed of someone trying to scam me then sympathy for this person because they were just doing their job. We obviously didn’t  apply for a account with them. Overall the whole experience made me think how I want to run my reseller business.

When you sell online you lose that face to face contact with customers. There are both positives and negatives to that which I may blog about some day in the future. This whole experience made me wonder how can I improve my business. My obvious thoughts on Kay Jewelers is now them just trying to sign up for a credit card and made me wonder how can I give a better “connection” with the customer.

Perhaps I should use automatic messaging after purchases have been made, or add a card to all my packages thanking them for their patronage. I’m not sure what else I want to do but I definitely don’t want them to feel like I did when I was there telling them “no thanks we are trying to get out of debt ourselves.”

Sales During Vacation

Running A Business March 13, 2018 Leave a comment

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Yes I’m being a bit of a show off and showing my sales from March 6 -11th. I was on vacation so any sales made was a GREAT thing since I had to put both stores on vacation mode. If you are wondering about vacation mode then keep on reading. I won’t go over every detail but just my brief experience.

During the time my store was on vacation mode I was only able to make sales on eBay. You see putting your “closet” on vacation mode at poshmark will show all your listing as “NOT FOR SALE” and some little blurb stating your vacation days. Poshmark automatically turns your store back on at the end of the stated vacation day. This is important to know if you are deciding which days to turn your “closet” back on. You do have the convenience to do it on your phone ( eBay APP does not let you turn vacation on/off, only on the desktop version).

On eBay you have the option to turn vacation mode on, AND have your listings able to be sold. You can also just have your whole store hidden ( I think it might be different if you had auctions, though don’t rely on me for that). Since I was gone for less than a week, my ebay store was in vacation mode and my listings are able to be purchased. It’s just my preference. You can go longer but some customers are so computer illiterate and impatient that explaining to them your current terms aggravates them *Yes eye roll*.

Overall of course my sales went down but I still made a couple hundred dollars in sales between those days. I was able to turn my poshmark closet on , on the weekend so I still got a few sales in there. Some of my sales were small sales but those items I don’t mind letting go low enough to make my money back. After all I’m still learning about clothing and that is an industry that’s forever changing.

$3,023 In Sales. 1st Negative Of 2018.

Running A Business March 7, 2018 1 Comment

Hello All. I ended February with my most gross sales ever ( this includes shipping, IRS considers shipping as income too). I also ended it with my first negative of the year. Overall the month was OK. Yes the money I got was great but I also had to deal with some high maintenance buyers/scammers.

Between eBay & Poshmark I made $3,023 in sales. Some of sales were high dollar ( $$$, triple digit sale  #) items and they were vintage items. My favorite part of reselling is thrifting so to find these gems was like hitting a mini jackpot. I also like researching items and finding out the value. For vintage items, it’s really hard to pin point value but just finding the histories of companies is really fun to me.

I also got my first negative of the year. I emphasis year because I do get negatives like everyone. Negative do eventually disappear after a year  so I just have to let it languish on my feedback page. I called eBay to remove it for feedback extortion but they wouldn’t budge. Even though the buyer has histories of leaving negatives and asked me to “handle” the return differently before she leaves a negative. I’m not surprise. I have never had success in eBay removing negatives. They do remove so much options for sellers to find out if a buyer is a doozy so really my faith in eBay has dropped just a little.

This doesn’t stop me from selling and it shouldn’t for you if reselling is bringing consider cash flow in to the family. I could also mention the other crap I had to deal with but I’m not. I’m going to focus on the positives of great sales and toast to more sales this year. If you had to deal with shitty customers I suggest for you to think of all the other ones who love their item. Out of the 3 shitty ass customers I had to deal with, 130 of them  were happy.

Let’s also hope my last big sale of the month doesn’t get returned. I’m just like you and worry about returns.

 

Canceled Return

$ Monthly Progress February 20, 2018 Leave a comment

Today one of my bigger sales had a canceled return. I’m so relief and happy. Hopefully it stays canceled. It was a Thom Browne engineer hoodie. I sold it for  $175.00. The customer wanted to return it and open a return which was fine by me. He knew he had to pay for shipping back. Yet a couple of weeks passed by and no return. It was closed today by the buyer and it made me happy. Now February will end on a nice note.

I don’t know why they canceled. I’m assuming he wore it a couple of times and really started to like how it look on him. Perhaps he had it authenticated by a professional and they said it was real (of course it was).

January 2018 :$2300 In Sales

$ Monthly Progress, $ Monthly Progress February 10, 2018 Leave a comment

Very quick post. Between eBay and Poshmark I had  $2300 in sales. After fees and such, it was a good profit for January. January is considered slow but not too slow so this number makes me happy. I also had my first return on poshmark. It was so stupid and I realize how long the friggin reply from the buyer. Her reasoning reeked of desperation and obvious not her first run in returning things. At least poshmark paid for the return. So the item came back and was relisted with better pictures and description.

Reseller Rant

Online Selling, Running A Business January 27, 2018 Leave a comment

Hi. If you don’t want to read about me ranting about online customers then you should click away.  I’m just ranting. I’m in no way quitting what I’m doing but goddamn I need somewhere to vent.

The past few months have been wearing me down in dealing with problematic customers. I don’t mean customers who don’t mind paying return shipping. I’m talking about those who complain about every little thing just so they don’t pay return shipping. I even had one person purposely put a hole in a sweater. I’m lucky to say my account hasn’t had a strike yet but still I have to deal with people who don’t care to make false claims to save a few bucks.

I have let most of these problematic customers slide and blocked them but I’m just tired. I had to deal with my first one on poshmark and I have to admit I was devastated until I read what the heck they are claiming. On poshmark I have a skirt listed as no slits but I didn’t note the pleats which according to the customer makes it look like a slit. That case is currently in review but I know I’m probably going to lose it because poshmark hasn’t really been known to help sellers out.  So I accepted that fact that I’m going to lose that case but I’m just so pissed off at people who make claims like that.

Don’t get me started on eBay.  eBay is the worst and maaannnn sometimes I just want to ask the customers if they are this horrible in real life because if they are, they should just get a lobotomy. Granted customer complaints is less than 2% of my over sales, it does take up my valuable time.

If you think a reseller just sells to nice people you are so wrong. They just don’t talk about the drama they deal with because it brings bad juju. I’m just venting because I’m just tired of people. I will still list and sell. I just needed to let this all out.