Ebay sellers thread (other platforms too)

[QuarterMillionMan]

Sold this today by auctions which I started at $1. Also, buyer pays $5 shipping. I subscribe to the Las Vegas Advisor monthly newsletter (yearly subscription is $50) which includes this valuable coupon book. I used a lot of the gambling coupons which I disclosed in my description of the item for sale. The gambling coupons which I used netted in a profit and possibly paid for my $50 subscription so this extra $9.55 is just the cherry on top. Buyer hasn't paid yet and the sale is not completed yet until the buyer pays.

[disneysteve]

I've been giving a lot of thought to my reselling business now that I'm more than a year into retirement. I really ramped up the business as I approached and entered retirement. It is a lot of fun. I've met some great people. It keeps me physically and mentally active and gives me (and us together) something to do with a lot of our time. The raw return on investment is solid.

All of that said, however, the actual amount I'm earning isn't really that much. I've realized that the total amount I'm making in a year between ebay and Replacements is the same or less than our portfolio earns in a day frequently. I've always said I wasn't doing it for the money and that's still true. I just feel like I'm at a point where there are other things I'd rather be doing with a lot of that time. Also, specifically with the china sales, I got to a point where I was working on that a lot. To prepare for a road trip to North Carolina, I really had to push myself to acquire about $5,000 worth of merchandise to make the trip worthwhile and I have less than 60 days to do that each time. I haven't enjoyed that pressure.

So I'm looking to trim things back. I am not going to stop reselling as I do really enjoy it. If I want to remain a supplier for Replacements, I do have the $5,000 annual sales quota, which really isn't all that hard to meet. I did it this year with my first trip in February. I was on track to do about $25,000 in sales to them this year but that's just more work than I want to do. As long as I can at least keep exceeding the $5,000 mark that would be fine. I'd rather not lose access to their database.

As far as ebay, I've been focusing more on catching up with my "death pile", items that have been sitting around for ages that need to get listed. That includes personal items from our own collection and belongings that I want to sell. This dovetails with our ongoing efforts to declutter. I've backed off some on attending estate sales. I still go to them, as I did yesterday when I bought 3 items, but I'm not hitting several each week or getting there an hour early to be at the top of the list.

So basically I'm trying to take it back to just being a fun thing I do on the side rather than a major focus of my life and time. I'm totally glad I did it the way I did it because I think it helped with the transition into retirement and this phase of our lives. And had I not done it, I would have always been wondering if I could have. Now I know, as I've always said, that if we needed the money, I could always ramp it back up. At the pace I was going, I probably would have done about $40,000 in sales this year and could absolutely have done even more if I wanted to. It's an awesome way to make extra money regardless of your situation. We're just at a point in our lives where I don't need to work that hard at it because it's not about the money for us.

Stay tuned. I will still post my monthly numbers and experiences. I've been reselling since high school. I'm not about to stop now.