I know I said in the coming weeks we would talk about the Star Wars Micro Collection, and we will, but first I just want to talk about what I have been up to lately, that incidentally has been stealing a lot of my time.
So I opened an ebay store… I’m looking at it as a kind of experiment (a $20 a month experiment) It is my hope that I can unload a large portion of my GI joe and Transformers from the 80’s as well as a few Star Wars Micros and some newer stuff I have acquired recently. These things will start to trickle in to my store in the next week or so.I am trying to use the holidays as a way to move a little bit more. I can definitely use the extra money.
A couple of lessons I have learned about the whole ebay and ecommerce process over the last year are:
Number one, mind the fee structure. If you don’t you will have your butt handed to you.
For most of the vintage stuff, I haven’t really paid much attention to it, only because I got these things when I was little. I don’t have any information about profit margins for stuff that my parents or Santa Claus bought/brought for me. So it is kinda non-existent.
For anything newer or anything you purchase for the purpose of reselling, you really have to watch your profit margin.
And what I mean by that is basically Your cost for the item, including tax plus what you pay for the box and fillers (like bubble wrap or craft paper) If you offer free shipping Include your shipping cost along with ebay’s fees and don’t forget paypal charges you about 2.9% plus a 30¢ swipe fee. All of this stuff adds up quickly and can eat the profit before you can say “SOLD!”
I really want to stress is the cost of shipping. What makes it difficult is if you don’t have a postal scale or access to one. You will be flying blind. I can’t recommend having a digital scale enough. Get one.
This is the one I use. I paid like $19 bucks for it. Saga Digital Postal Shipping Scale
It is totally worth it. It makes coming up with shipping estimates really easy. I used to occasionally lose money on some items because the bathroom scale was off by like 2 pounds. (Yeah, so don’t use that trick)
The price of USPS (United States Postal Service) postage is basically fixed. You cannot really get any discounts on it. For most packages they do offer an online price that can be around 20% less. Take advantage of this. I usually buy my postage through ebay. It already has the addresses typed in and that comes in really handy.
Another part of postage is boxes and fillers like bubble wrap and packing tape. I tend to stay away from adhesive mailing labels that I can print on my printer. In theory they can be great but at an office supply store a kit could cost you around $8-10 and ends up costing you about 40-50¢ eact.
Make sure you factor this stuff into your package unless you are just reusing some old stuff. I like to use new boxes. It gives a more professional look but believe me I am not going out of my way to get them.
- Your cost on the item (Obviously)
- The price of the box or envelope you are shipping the item in
- The cost of the bubble wrap, tape, mailing label etc.
- The selling fees you have to pay (ebay charges are based on category, Paypal charge around 2.9 plus 30¢ swipe fee, Amazon charges you 15% plus a few other fees)
I was going to give a long winded math lesson on figuring out your profit margin, but I will spare you. Th main point here is that if you plan to sell on these sites, it is really easy to get caught up in not calculating your profit. You have so much going on. But make sure you do it. It really sucks to lose money on every sale and not notice it because you sold it at a higher price than you paid for it.
Any questions or if you would like me to discuss anything in particular just post a comment below.
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