For high volume sellers: How much time do you spend on ebay

[realdeals]

Originally Posted by wired

I just sell stuff and chill out.

Then why are you wired all the time?

[wired]

Originally Posted by realdeals

Then why are you wired all the time?

Mind expansion is chill out time

[wired]

Originally Posted by dan_ebay

I have 2 main websites and a lot selling on ebay aswell..Just about time management to me, people have their 'perfect' way of stealth but I don't find it efficient so I've ditched half of it. I don't bother checking IP's more than once every few days, worst case scenario I'll get the same IP come up 2-3 times a month out of 1000s of logins, will that get me banned? No

I have 5 main accounts that I check messages on every day to start with but if my dsr's are good then I don't even bother with messages, just wait for them to open a case, if the dsr's go below 3.5% then I start reading them again, they sell fairly fast so its not really a issue. Don't care about 'top rated', the discount isn't worth the effort and I don't believe it makes any difference in the search results.

Then nearly half of my ebay turnover comes from'churn and burn' accounts, mostly because I can't be bothered with loads of banks and also I don't have to worry about looking after the accounts atall, I was setting a lot up myself but now I buy most from here, they cost £75 each, I hit the £1800 limit with around 35% profit after all costs and returns etc so I'm making £630 on each-£75, ditching it and getting more (bunneh can confirm) lol. These accounts I obviously don't care about so I don't bother reading messages, that saves a lot of time.

I have 2 people packing both part time, my items are only small so they can do around 60 items per hour each, only just got the second 1 and they have a bit of spare time now so getting them to print off orders from 2 of my main accounts(don't trust them to do all and know that my names are bill,terry,sam,john,james lol).
They're both under 21 so low wages (ones fit, will bang soon). I just think of this as each item is costing me a extra 10-12p to process and in my head factor it in.
For my websites I use virtual assistants, I have 1 full time and 1 part time both from a company in Singapore, they only cost me $600 total lol. I have the full time one building a pbn full time and the other just does random stuff.
Now that I don't 'need' ebay I'm really just taking the mick, I'm saving all the emails from paypal and mass mailing them with mailchimp, this is the only thing taking me a lot of time as I'm having to save them 1 by 1, just made a thread on this. But still worth it as around 1/50-100 each time is going on to my website and a fair amount of those will be returning customers

Come on, some photos or is she a tubby, or a he?

[yotano211]

Originally Posted by Trustfund

Thanks for the speedy response. i am hated by many Ebayers i simply find other people who dropship by using a combination of filters. go onto their store, find their best selling products copy and paste their titles into google. 95% of the time an aliexpress link pops up. i copy and paste the listing (5 minutes tops maybe 15 if i code up a template in html 5).

By doing this you almost always eliminate the bad products. as these items are top selling its most likely that 5 or more aliexpress sellers are listing this item. boom never out of stock list in high numbers.

Cant be too bad im 17 and got enough money after 4-5 months to buy a sl55 amg (used) and have enough left to pay of my first two years of University in the Uk outright.

next year (2016) im gonna open many many more european accounts and see how that goes.

spoke to a financial adviser to gain some insight into the taxation process and hes predicting me a 6 figure salary that year.

nothing better than putting an ad in a newspaper and the assholes who mock you at school at sitting infront of you in an interview pleading for a job.

But i understand what your saying though, its a touch and go model.But if you do it right with high selling limits across multiple stealths, its one of the most low risk business models.

not trying to brag just justifying my methods

Good for you, dont bother what anyone else says. You are making money and saving up. With my ebay money I bought my first investment property in cash last year, my 2nd one comes next year, also in cash.

[Samtheman]

Originally Posted by new2stealth

Hi, I am new here too (you can tell by my nickname, lol).

I do ~2000 orders a month. Similar process to yours: open each order in a new tab, check whats the product, type it in a thermal printer label template, copy the postcode, paste it into Royal Mail postcode checker, enter flat/house number, copy the whole address into a label template, print the label, go to next order). After doing this for all outstanding orders, I start packing, takes about 30-60mins.

Your system of working sounds to be more efficient though. Any chance you could share it with me?

I do similar thing with all my sales: export them from ebay as a CSV file, copy the data into excel template, it automatically does all the calculations for me - checks how much each item costs to me, shipping expenses, fees etc and gives me a profit figure - I always know exactly how much money I am making.

Surely will answer your message once I have made 20 posts, best way to go is manually through eBays download excel report which has all your sales

Softwares have done me over so I would not recommend and they cost money, but when they mess up your inventory then you will feel it

Software you dont have control over your dispatch and all that, but with the manual way your in full control and items dont dispatch at a certain time they only dispatch once you have got to your pc printed everything out and on your way to pack

[Play]

Originally Posted by Trustfund

whats everyones problems with dropshipping? if you find the right products then its a breeze. when they need a return i just send the same/modified message to the supplier of that item and tell the buyer i will pay for shipping directly to our "Chinese warehouse".

Clearly you lot have a reason to dislike drop shipping please share your reason why as i see no flaws with this business model

Drop ship is a very good model - you basically do nothing.

But when do you hear - doing nothing ever makes you money?

Eventually the model breaks down, the flaws become apparent, your sweat will begin to break and you come to realise this is an atrocious selling model. Until then, no matter how much people tell you its wrong, you wont listen.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by Play

Drop ship is a very good model - you basically do nothing.

But when do you hear - doing nothing ever makes you money?

Eventually the model breaks down, the flaws become apparent, your sweat will begin to break and you come to realise this is an atrocious selling model. Until then, no matter how much people tell you its wrong, you wont listen.

You REALLY need to know the quality of your dropshipper well to make sure of no complaints.

[indielad1010]

I sell 200 items per week and i utilize both Buy it Now Listings and auctions together...I sell clothes so if I get a lot of one particular size I auction those as well as include on BIN. If the auction went for a particularly good price, I give 2nd chance offers out to clear stock more quickly. I also use auctions to clear stock quicly at the end of the selling season, for example coats in January or Summer Dresses in August. One problem is I end up splitting my day, packing parcels in the morning and doing auctions at night. Also ebay customers are very impatient about responding to their emails, so I put on my listings, give me a working day to answer enquiries!

[taerese]

Originally Posted by indielad1010

I sell 200 items per week and i utilize both Buy it Now Listings and auctions together...I sell clothes so if I get a lot of one particular size I auction those as well as include on BIN. If the auction went for a particularly good price, I give 2nd chance offers out to clear stock more quickly. I also use auctions to clear stock quicly at the end of the selling season, for example coats in January or Summer Dresses in August. One problem is I end up splitting my day, packing parcels in the morning and doing auctions at night. Also ebay customers are very impatient about responding to their emails, so I put on my listings, give me a working day to answer enquiries!

Nice input mate.

Is it not terrific selling clothes? I learnt lot of return request, perhaps resulting in unpleasant reviews that could put the sellers at risk. All of these due to buyers choosing wrong sizes.

[dan_ebay]

Originally Posted by taerese

Nice input mate.

Is it not terrific selling clothes? I learnt lot of return request, perhaps resulting in unpleasant reviews that could put the sellers at risk. All of these due to buyers choosing wrong sizes.

Don't think I could manage. 'Hi I bought this, it says size 16 but its more like a 12'

'definitely a 16 you fat mess'

[indielad1010]

There are things you can do to 'reduce risk' put a sizing chart on the listing or a link to it. Also, A few customers buy a posh dress, wear it to a function, then send it back for a refund. I've cottoned on that ebay won't tolerate this if you report these kind of buyers they will not refund them and will also remove any negative feedback and case defects! The biggest problem I have is losing items, as clothing takes up a lot of space, or making a mistake on the numbers of sizes, customers really get hacked off over this, but its an easy mistake to make

[wired]

Originally Posted by dan_ebay

Don't think I could manage. 'Hi I bought this, it says size 16 but its more like a 12'

'definitely a 16 you fat mess'

Size 16 is apparently not fat anymore...

says the fatties.

[omdano]

Just take the time that everyday requires from you .

[jjscruff]

Originally Posted by Samtheman

I joined aspkin today, I am a high volume seller on eBay selling over 3000 items a month



I spend approximately 15-30 minutes on messages (this can vary but on average each message takes 2-3 minutes,

how the hell do you get so few messages? 15 a day?

I get 50 a day selling 600 items a month.

[Haidukken]

Originally Posted by jjscruff

how the hell do you get so few messages? 15 a day?

I get 50 a day selling 600 items a month.

The category you sell at probably make a rather big difference.

Somebody who selles "one size fits all" black mens socks probably has question a month. Probably a customer with 6 toes on one foot asks if it'll still fit.

Somebody who sells LR44 Batteries with poor description probably gets 1 an hour, asking if it fits their product and does it replace SR44 battery.

If you get 50 a day, perhaps think about what are TOP 3 questions that people ask and try to answer the question in your listing, so that they wouldn't have to ask it?

Check your listing quality, is it just basic information or are you really doing the best you can do.

Its usually simple things in life, the small details.

[jjscruff]

Originally Posted by Haidukken

The category you sell at probably make a rather big difference.

Somebody who selles "one size fits all" black mens socks probably has question a month. Probably a customer with 6 toes on one foot asks if it'll still fit.

Somebody who sells LR44 Batteries with poor description probably gets 1 an hour, asking if it fits their product and does it replace SR44 battery.

If you get 50 a day, perhaps think about what are TOP 3 questions that people ask and try to answer the question in your listing, so that they wouldn't have to ask it?

Check your listing quality, is it just basic information or are you really doing the best you can do.

Its usually simple things in life, the small details.

I sell to young adults so i guess that's why. wheres my stuff wheres my stuff i need it now.

[ItzakJano]

On 2010-2013 i was making my own stuff and selling them over eBay.
The sells were so low and the time to make&Pack&Send them was so high so i just stopped doing that.
2013-2015 im dropshipping via old supplier i have which i am working with for whole 2 years, never got bad word on his quality . Shipping usualy is fast enough.

for the last 5 years i guess i spend avarage of 5-6 hours a day! on ebay and over net to learn since ive never met in real life someone who does what i do on eBay.
And on this forum a few weeks tought me what ive never dreamed of learning in few years. so cheers that.

[ItzakJano]

By the way, selling about 150 products a month , forgot mentioning that

[Shekibi]

It really depends, some eBay sellers are so big that they have over 10 employees. The big will find it almost impossible to handle the whole account on their own.

[yankee]

Originally Posted by Shekibi

It really depends, some eBay sellers are so big that they have over 10 employees. The big will find it almost impossible to handle the whole account on their own.

Not only that BUT a business does not require hands on by the owner. If not you just own a job.

[password01]

Hi OP

As epimetheus039 has already eluded to. You should be aiming to do all your work via software.

eBay offer APIs for all their functions allowing tailored software to communicate. In order to be efficient you need tailored software to run your business and allow you to scale. A lot of this available off the shelf.

In my opinion you shouldn't be using the www.ebay.com website at all when running admin tasks. The very practice of waiting for page loads and navigating the side takes too long. I am currently writing my own set of tools for all this kind of thing.

For example you will want to be able to get visuals on the following with one mouse click and another couple of clicks + typing to respond:

• View all new messages + respond
• View all sales today
• View all items not dispatched
• View feedback (rank negative/neutral)
• View items returned/return requests
• Mark items as shipped
• The list goes on..

Work smarter, not harder. And to be honest, if you're running a viable business/model then don't be afraid to pay for software. It will really help.

There is also a concept of VA (Virtual Assistant) where you hire to do admin tasks that you shouldn't be doing. These items can range from answering customer queries, listing items, pricing items research on items etc. The people who do this are generally low cost and based in SE Asia. I hear the Philippines is good as a lot of people hit third level education and have good english.

Hope that helps.

[newjerseymax]

My ladies do all the heavy lifting... :-0