eBay Adventure – Pause for the Cause

                Okay I am the first to admit that having 4 sales in 5 days (one of those days was Veterans Day, a federal holiday) is time and energy consuming. You have to pack, write thank you letters and ship. Resale is hard work so I have taken a slight break Monday. All I’ve done is track my Saturday package. I haven’t relisted anything. I even let some things expire. I just take a break from the madness (It also helps that I am getting instant PayPal payments because now I don’t have to wait until the buyer receives her package to receive my money.)

                Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – Receiving My 15th Star

                I have working feverishly photographing merchandise to put in my store. There have been a lot of sales lately but I will keep all of my items ready for sale. I must keep a fully stocked store especially with these few weeks before Thanksgiving. After uploading new merchandise, I see a new rating. It has gone from 14 to 15. My heart flutters because I am truly honored that my customers view me so highly. I will remember these hearts because they say that they appreciate my customer service. I shop same day upon payment. Also I ship only domestic and global USPS priority mail so that my customers get their items ASAP! On a personal note, I am very happy that my overall rating increases to 92.3%. Haters take that!

                Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure - All Hail Instant Payment PayPal

                Resale is not an easy business. I have been doing it for 5 months. I have listed, relisted, negotiated, fought fraudsters, checked ungrateful customers and been surprised by shipping weight more than once at the post office. Throughout it all, I’ve written thank you cards, purchased materials and shipping the same day as payment. All of this toiling and seed planting have reaped me a bountiful harvest: I now qualify for PayPal’s instant payment.

                This blessing ranks right up there like manna from heaven! Liquidity and solvency are important to every business. Instant payments mean that I can transfer the money to my bank. I achieve liquidity because these transfers are cash infusions. Also with cash on hand I stay solvent by paying my bills!

                Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure - 120 Days In

                This 30-day period is my slowest because I have taken myself offline after the Depop failure. I have emotionally regroup from that. I have only sold one item for $55; and, I am perfectly okay with that because eBay’s fees are super slow. The last thing I need right now is a heavy heart and high fees. I do think that I will reassess what I do regarding selling my clothes.

                Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure - 90 Days In

                Right after Labor Day, I am in a very nadir place. I have decided to sell my clothing items on Depop. I have seen some YouTube personalities mention it so I say ‘why the heck not?’ Well after 6 weeks with no role (I’ve even done a Labor Day sale plastering my photos everywhere from Blogger to Instagram to Pinterest with no such luck.). I have never experienced no sales. It has taken me less than 2 weeks to get my first eBay sale. I declare defeat deleting my Depop store.

                This has taken a whole lot out of me. First, I’ve devoted time towards learning a new system. Second, I have created a separate marketing campaign. Third, I am still stuck with unsold inventory which costs me time, space and money. I so need a break from resale!

                Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

OFA Alumni Volunteer Meetup at the Lincoln Memorial

                I have gone to the Organizing for Action (OFA) alumni volunteer meetup at the Lincoln Memorial. I am very happy to be in an elite class. Also I am glad to switch out of the Cleveland fashion week t-shirt for the Ann Taylor blouse because it’s a more formal event. I feel slightly underdress when I see black men in suits show up. I am very glad to be photographed. Most importantly, I am grateful to not sit down because I’m tall and in the front. I highly doubt that those ladies would’ve told a man that. Yes, I’m defiant but hey that’s the same character trait that has given me the Vote Corps slot. I am no slouch.

                I see myself as others there back in the same place four years later. I am going to do the work to ensure this. I guarantee. Check out my video!

eBay Adventure – Some People Are Not Your Customers

                No sooner do I accept the Kate Spade black patent leather tote bag then the buyer emails me through eBay saying ‘please disregard’. Now this is a new one: a customer saying that she wants to cancel an order after doing a bid. I am like ‘huh?’ because this has never happened to me. I agree to cancel because I refuse to fight over $26. Inside I feel like blocking this buyer for her messiness. However, I decide against it because she is probably petty and I need to conserve my energy for more sales.

                This incident magnifies that not everyone is my customer. eBay is a global auction place where anyone and everyone can come into your store; however, not everyone should be my client. You need to be discerning because some clients do not want to pay; and, you are in business to sale!

                Since I am now selling purses, I may get these customers because unlike my shoes and dresses, purses have a wider demographic. What I will do is ask more questions and screen them because cancelling orders hold up merchandise.

Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – Here’s to Another Successful Week

                I am fresh off of receiving three sales. I have been successful implementing the webinar strategies and shipping same day as I receive payment. I attribute my success towards more than merely positive thinking. I have taken massive action. I have been thinking like a businesswoman. I am looking at the sales goals subtracting my costs of goods sold. This is why I have increased the domestic shipping cost for my gladiator sandals. That dim weight shipping cuts into the revenue.

Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – Flying off of the Shelves

                I awake a little perturbed about that brown embossed Kate Spade purse counteroffer falling through. I am feeling some kind of way about it. I carry on about my day but on a chance I check my account. Low and behold my second pair of Stuart Weitzman snakeskin Backview gladiator sandals. My items have been selling like hotcakes. I am very proud to take the action from Halloween Monday’s Holiday Promo webinar (Read here: http://carlarjenkins.blogspot.com/2016/11/ebay-adventure-holiday-promo-prep.html   ). Furthermore, I am very happy that I have stood on my price raising my domestic shipping price for all of gladiator sandals. I have been hit with the dim weight at the post office ($45, I will never forget that!). I have learned from the webinar that I should never apologize for raising my prices because I am a businesswoman. Wal-Mart doesn’t apologize; and, because I have not felt too sorry to raise my domestic shipping price. The customer has purchased them anyway. I am proud to have stood my ground regarding my prices because items are flying off of the shelves!

Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – Receiving my 14th Gold Star

                I have been under the weather for the previous two days. It has been wrenched. I am just happy to have loaded up my store, done my Periscope and built rapport with people. My two packages have been shipped. When I feel better, check my eBay profile and see my 14^th gold star. I am extremely grateful whenever I receive these gold stars because I am honored that they truly love my stuff (I am getting teary-eyed even typing this because I am very happy that I have a successful store. 4.5 months into this eBay adventure!). Seeing this rating reinvigorates my spirit to be better and restock my store.

Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – Wheeling and Dealing

                My eBay store activity has picked after these two sales. Also, I am happy that those weird midnight requests are gone. I have noticed something new that is happening to me. I am starting to receiving offers and counteroffers. This is a new trend so I am starting to flex my counteroffer muscle. In one such case, I have a brown embossed Kate Spade purchase where someone pitches me $35 for $75. I counteroffer $45. It is fair because half of $75 is $37.50. She has not replied but I am standing in my price and fairness. Since the beginning my counteroffer policy has always been ½ of the stated price. I am not bending over that. Remember, even though I am decluttering, this is a business. As a seller, my goal is to make a profit. I always tuck that MBA in the back of mind. It is the reason why I have made over $3200 in sales in 4 ½ months.

Shop my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – Foot Fetish?

                Now I was fresh off the holiday sales webinar feeling great. I had a full store and was about to retire when I saw that I had a message on eBay. I assumed that it was from one of my newer sales. Nope! It was from someone asking about the Rene Caovilla. These inquires were old hat. There were so many people asking about them. I even had people direct message me on Instagram about them; yet, they were still in my store. I relisted them at least twice. I opened up the message and here was someone telling me that I needed to photograph myself wearing the sandals. Yo! Was the person contacting me a foot fetish person?! It was 12:55 am after all. I shot the photo (no fingernail polish. No one got this at this ungodly hour of the morning!). I admitted that I was sideswiped by that strange request. I woke up later that day seeing the Rene Caovilla

Shop my eBay store: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure - Holiday Promo Prep

                I registered for this Holiday webinar happening on Halloween for two reasons: 1) I knew that I would get something out of it from the teacher and 2) I had not had an eBay sale in 1 week. I needed to do something different to get a different result. It was first advertised as a lottery selection. If you reshared the coach’s Periscope and Facebook Live livestreaming content, you would enter a lottery to be picked for a free ticket. I never believed that pay thing because I was already enrolled so why would not I had been accepted. That was neither here nor there. I registered for the webinar. It was not like I was trick or treating (Sidebar : I did tell my father to go to the Heinen’s grocery store and pick more candy for the kids in the neighborhood). I might as well did some personal development plus this webinar could help my bottom line.

                I attended the webinar where I learned and laughed so much throughout. The coach gave us 30 ways to make money. I started taking notes because I knew that my eBay store would benefit from this. The light bulb came on : I would put several of my Kate Spade purses up for sale. Accessories were huge! Although women may not fit a size 12 shoe or dress, every woman wore a purse. That addition expanded my target market. That meant more money and I sorely needed that. Even though the webinar ended at 11pm, immediately I started photographing my items. I uploaded 2 Stuart Weitzman sandals and 5 Kate Spade purses. I was proud to had done that all before midnight. I knew that I was ready for tomorrow and more sales.

Shop my eBay store: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – Going for Dolo

                After the success of my other Instagram boosted posts, I’ve decided to shoot my own eBay Instagram ad. Normally I use the eBay Fashion logo but fearing copyright infringement, I shoot my Stuart Weitzman and Gucci boxes, I upload the photo then click on promote only to be told that my photo had to be in landscape! Great! What a waste of copy! Now I have to shoot the boxes sideways leaving enough space for my eBay store URL. That’s a lot of energy to do again so I wait 3-4 days focusing on my current sales and new store merchandise (I have to make money regardless if I post an ad).

                I return to photograph it in landscape, go into Picmonkey to put my URL on the photo then upload it t Instagram. Finally, the system lets me promote my post for $5 (I am a very cheap person. I have to see what this ad does with $5 before I spend $10). Shooting my own ad is a big step for me as an entrepreneur. I am creating my own products’ ad campaigns. Not too shabby for someone who had just converted her Instagram from personal to business only one month ago!

Shop my eBay store: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – How to Make over $3200 in eBay Sales

I decided that for Nanowrimo (national novel writing month) to write about my eBay Adventures. I perused my seller dashboard (the first time in at least one month) and saw that I cumulatively sold $3231. That was astounding given that I had started this June. I sold 30 items. I was extremely happy at my progress. Now it’s story time:

Resale is Rough

                Selling on eBay is hard. I had to take September off because I was so drained. Although you look at the sales numbers thinking that this is good, it is very hard fighting bad customers, nothing selling and fraudsters. I am happy to have rebound

Constant Improvement is Key

                When I first started, I did not know what the proper box dimensions were. I shipped everything in the same box. Now I was wiser, I bought boxes that saved me money. The white boxes saved me hundreds of dollars in shipping.

Change Your Global Shipping Price to Above $50

                I learned this the hard way. Initially, it was $40 but after a couple of Paris global USPS priority shipments and I upped that price to $50. $10 was a lot of money to part with when your global shipping was $45.

No Global Shipping for Lower-priced Items

                Anything under $125 dollars was US only. There was not enough return on investment to make it globally. I was glad that I established that rule in the beginning else global shipping would eat all of my profits.

Be a Stickler for Customer Service

                I have always learned from my customers and shipped the same day as payment. I felt that if they paid for it, why not ship it the same day. Also I expanded to shipping on Saturday ahead of a holiday because people want their stuff. Doing this has a wonderful side-benefit: PayPal releases your money faster. I am now receiving instant PayPal even before I ship the product. PayPal trusts me so much that I automatic receive my money allowing me to transfer it into my bank account. It feels good to be rewarded because I have stood on these shipping the same day at payment receipt. There are some people who make hundreds of thousands of dollars yet PayPal still holds their money until their customers received their merchandise. After 4 months, I deserve this.

Visit my eBay store here: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure - Racking Up Stars

                This past weekend and this Monday I received three orders from two clients. One in California and another one in DC. As always I shipped my orders within one business day. Yesterday I visited my eBay account to add inventory and saw my two new 100% customer ratings. Below is the photo showing it.

                I pride myself on providing high quality customer service in the form of answering questions, taking a lot of photos and shipping the same day as payment received. Doing these three things enabling me to have not just one sale but have multiple repeat clients. 

eBay Adventure – Firing Your Bad Customers

                I have received an email from a customer who wants a discount on an already worn, discounted item. I have told her that I could not honor her request for 3-4 reasons. Below is the synopsis of my response:

                Thanks for the correspondence and concern but I will not give you a discount and these are my 3 reasons.

·         First, the stilts price was originally $100. I agreed to your $65 best offer bid. That was already a 35% discount.

·         Second, I also extended my shipping deadline to accommodate you because you were on vacation. My normal shipment was 2 business days. I shipped on Saturday which was not a business day and outside the original scope of what I did for my other customers. You mentioned vacation after purchase.

·         Third, my description clearly stated worn and I priced my merchandise as such.

·         My store policy clearly stated no returns. I made no misconceptions about the material or my policies. I had accommodated your shipping request and accepted a deeply discounted item.

I had a situation like this before and eBay sided with me because I made no misrepresentation. Also you would have to explain to eBay how your telling me that you have been on vacation post-purchase would be in your favor. All of our correspondence was through eBay and that would be used in the decision-making process.

What I have learned throughout my 120 days on eBay, that sometimes you have to fire your customers because they are trying to take advantage of you. As a seller, never become a doormat!

Visit my eBay store at www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6.

eBay Adventure – Weather or Not

                I have been checking the USPS mail tracker feverishly because one of my packages is going to Florida. As many of you know, Hurricane Matthew has wrecked the Sunshine State. Whenever I check the tracker, it says weather delay. It is all up and down my tracking notes. I will be the first person to tell you when I started my eBay decluttering process that I had no idea that I would have been shipping into the eye of the hurricane; yet, here I am shipping my order on Saturday directly into the middle of Hurricane Matthew. I just pray for everyone’s safety (including the postman!) and that my buyer receives her package unharmed.

Visit my store: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – Standing Up for Myself

                The person who tried underbidding me at $150 returned with a $200 offer. I accepted it because it was closer towards 50% ($225). I stood up for myself because there was no way that I allowed any buyer to undermine me! That was someone that you had to learn as an eBay seller. There were people out there trying to nickel and dime. It was mandatory to stand firm because this was a business and as a seller you must have a breakeven analysis and cost of goods sold (the cost to ship your product).

I brought up cost of goods sold aspect because it a vital part of revenue. In business sale – cost of goods sold = revenue. Cost of goods sold is a uniform price. The post office charged you, the seller, the same amount of the package dimensions regardless of sales price. Lowering your sales price meant a cut into your revenue. That was why I stood up and declined the $150 but accepted the $200 because I needed a buffer and to generate revenue! eBay was a business and the buyers would respect that!

Visit my eBay store at: http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6

eBay Adventure – Sometimes You Have to Walk Away

                Feeling great about my current momentum, I took to Periscope showcasing my sales and my new merchandise. Also I loaded the replay into my HootSuite redistributing it across all of my social media platforms. That was the behind the scenes work that most sellers did not understand. You cannot simply open a store. You had to do marketing and business development. Maintaining this blog and doing my Periscopes (converting some of my best into YouTube videos) were part of my marketing campaign. I would had been remissed thinking that my two newer sales were a result of my sharing my photos online, blogging and Periscope.

                Later Thursday night I checked my eBay to get the store link for a blog post. I received an announcement saying that I had a bid. I saw that someone wanted $150 for a new $450 item and I flatly declined it saying that it was too low. No one was getting me on a new item for 1/3 the cost. That was highway robbery. I would had entertained something over $325 but come on, now no one would get a Gianvito Rossi shoe for $150! Sometimes you had to walk away from a sale which I did. There might be a very real possibility that I would have to relist my item; and, I am okay with that because I had retained my integrity and sales policy!

                Visit my store at http://www.ebay.com/usr/carljenkin_6