I am shooting for another live video Friday afternoon to sell more of the OA flap collection that I've been working through. If that happens I'll have a definite time posted in the next issue so you can log in and watch from home.
Vintage Scouting Memorabilia On eBay
Some of you might find this interesting. Yesterday I did some eBay algebra. They opened the gates this month and gave store sellers 50k free listings. So the nice thing for me is I consistently run over the "free" listings my store subscriptions provide. So the math puzzle is what is the optimal number of listings compared to the hit on fees?
For example right now I have 4 different accounts I'm selling on. Across all those I have about 24,500 listings live. Before selling the first item my listing fees are estimated at $1170. I want to grow to 30k and eventually 40k total on eBay. I actually found a way to do that while only paying $30 a month more in fees! I cracked the code!
The issue that I am running into (and some of you reading) is that there is a big gap in the store options that eBay offers. It goes from a Premium Store (1k free listings) to Anchor Store (10k free listings). Ideally there would be something like a 2500 or 5000 item store but eBay has never offered that. The ultimate for me would an unlimited store where for some reasonable fee you can have as many items as you want listed. They actually do that in some countries.
So what does the strategy look like going forward? Well I've actually have a call set up with some other eBay dealers to kick around ideas. There are lots of different ways to make improvements and there is no monopoly on good ideas. There are 358k items in the category right now so I think it's more about helping each other. Nobody has cornered the market especially not during a pandemic and looming recession!
Scouting continues! Last night my son's Webelos patrol had their first online den meeting. It was a lot of talking about video games (they are boys!) but at least we kept the connection. The den leader challenged the Scouts to cook a recipe with their parents and share in the group. Challenge on!
Keep Calm And Scout On,
Jason Spangler Hot Finds Newsletter
In Charlotte, North Carolina I have an antique mall booth that is filled with nothing but Scouting stuff. I call this location my clearance center because I've marked down everything to move. A lot of what you will find there are items that are too bulky to easily ship from an Internet store. The booth is located in The Sleepy Poet which is a well established antique mall on South Blvd in Charlotte. The mall is open 7-days/week year round. So the next time you are in the area come check it out.
