Officially gave my notice... Full time eBay/FBA starting Sep 18th!

[JustinNH]

Wish me luck... officially gave my notice that my last day of work will be late September. I've been stocking up for a month now and creating goals and thrifting routes as well as venturing into FBA. I am/was a senior accountant, which has helped in setting financial goals and keeping track of everything to the point where this was feasible and finally made the call a few weeks ago.

I'm pretty excited. Going to be a long 5 weeks!

 

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[dieselram94]

Wish me luck... officially gave my notice that my last day of work will be late September. I've been stocking up for a month now and creating goals and thrifting routes as well as venturing into FBA. I am/was a senior accountant, which has helped in setting financial goals and keeping track of everything to the point where this was feasible and finally made the call a few weeks ago.

I'm pretty excited. Going to be a long 5 weeks!

Well done Justin!!!!!!! I'm officially wishing you luck!! This is becoming a enticing option for me as well!!


Sent from a spun out toilet paper tube (one ply)!

 

[Beachkid23]

Good luck! The only thing that set me back for a little bit was my health insurance. And I have my own now however I just don't get sick or if I do I don't go to the doctor very much. However a doctor did just open near me that does take the insurance so that has changed.

My best advice is don't spend it all at once. once you make some money. The downtime can be really hard not to go out and shop and buy more stuff than you need and spend a lot more than you need to. I keep about 170 listings up at once. Thinking about doing more than that once the kids go back to school next week I would like to have 400 up at a time. Or more. Now that Christmas is coming!

To give you an idea though What I sold this last 31 days before eBay fees is equivalent to 4 1/2 months of paychecks from my last job... And I got be home with my kids every day.

 

[JustinNH]

Well done Justin!!!!!!! I'm officially wishing you luck!! This is becoming a enticing option for me as well!!


Sent from a spun out toilet paper tube (one ply)!

Thanks!!

Good luck! The only thing that set me back for a little bit was my health insurance. And I have my own now however I just don't get sick or if I do I don't go to the doctor very much. However a doctor did just open near me that does take the insurance so that has changed.

My best advice is don't spend it all at once. once you make some money. The downtime can be really hard not to go out and shop and buy more stuff than you need and spend a lot more than you need to. I keep about 170 listings up at once. Thinking about doing more than that once the kids go back to school next week I would like to have 400 up at a time. Or more. Now that Christmas is coming!

To give you an idea though What I sold this last 31 days before eBay fees is equivalent to 4 1/2 months of paychecks from my last job... And I got be home with my kids every day.

Yeah, I've been on my wife's plan for a few years now as it was actually cheaper than us being individual (which is odd).

My goal is to keep 300-400 active listings by Thanksgiving. I tried to time this to go along with both hunting season (hey, I can use a nice break) as well as the Christmas shopping season. I'll probably be hitting the 'by the pound' outlet twice a week near me and hitting alternate thrift store routes in between, with afternoons and an occasional full day listing.

 

[diggummup]

If someone has an eye for value and is willing to put in the time and effort, it can be done. Especially if you live anywhere near a big city or metropolitan area. I have been seriously considering doing this myself sometime in the next few years. I already have enough inventory to last me the first year or so and I'm getting tired of paying for storage units that do nothing but cost me money and keep getting filled up. Good luck, I wish you great success.

 

[Beans]

I do it full time but not by choice it just worked out that way. I try to list a couple of items a day. The best thing I like about it is if I mess up and sell an item at the wrong price who do I have to answer to....me.

 

[NJcigarman]

You will love making your own hours and doing what you really enjoy. Good Luck

 

[masterjedi]

Good luck! I used to run (600) ads all the time... and I can tell you "its a job" listing, shipping all of the products, answering all of the questions and emails, trips to the post office, etc... again I wish you luck!

 

[RustyGold]

Best of Luck Justin! I'm sure you will do well with your decision!

 

[silverdollarbill]

Best of luck! I would love to do this full-time. However I'm not skilled enough and its not really an option for me.

 

[Carl995]

It's actually tough for me to do (but i'm trying). Very hard for me to work at home listing....too many distractions.
I think a small cheap office space will be better, that way when I get home i'm off work.
I have more stuff than i'll ever need. Been collecting & repairing old electronics all my life!
From quack machines to music equip to Pinball machines!!

I first started eBay in 1996, every piece of equipment I listed for a nickel starting bid. EVERYTHING sold at thru the roof prices!!
Then I had to wait for the money orders to come in which gave me time to prepack. It was great then.
I owned a pinball machine buy-sell-repair store & a service center at that time.

Now its just relist....relist...relist.
So I discount the items to my absolute low price & put it on craigslist & it usually sells.
Let someone else list & relist, dealing with shipping, paypal returns etc.....


I wish you the best on your adventure!!!!

 

[diggummup]

It's actually tough for me to do (but i'm trying). Very hard for me to work at home listing....too many distractions.
I think a small cheap office space will be better, that way when I get home i'm off work.
I have more stuff than i'll ever need. Been collecting & repairing old electronics all my life!
From quack machines to music equip to Pinball machines!!

I first started eBay in 1996, every piece of equipment I listed for a nickel starting bid. EVERYTHING sold at thru the roof prices!!
Then I had to wait for the money orders to come in which gave me time to prepack. It was great then.
I owned a pinball machine buy-sell-repair store & a service center at that time.

Now its just relist....relist...relist.
So I discount the items to my absolute low price & put it on craigslist & it usually sells.
Let someone else list & relist, dealing with shipping, paypal returns etc.....


I wish you the best on your adventure!!!!

Off topic but just wanted to say I enjoyed reading your biographical website. Your dad seemed like a heck of a guy. I think it's shameful that a museum would do what they did without recognizing him.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

In 9 days I'll have been retired for one year. My goal was gardening, and doing eBay. I've been watching what I view as a downward spiral on eBay, completely in the favor of the buyer and against the seller. Beachkid's adventures and struggles have certainly influenced me away from that idea!

But I'm glad I retired!

 

[diggummup]

I've been watching what I view as a downward spiral on eBay, completely in the favor of the buyer and against the seller.

I don't get it. I don't seem to have these problems myself. I even got my top rated seller status back a few months ago. I lost it because I cancelled a couple sales and didn't know that counted as a defect. I know there are bad buyers out there but I think some sellers create their own problems too. I know I have and probably will again at some point.

 

[masterjedi]

Ya... I started watching/selling on eBay when there was only 1200 items for sale on the complete site. I used to start all auctions at $1.00 and wow what prices you would get. Shipping and listing/selling prices were cheap too. Every Monday (I had a small PO box) and it would have so many checks in it that the post office could not get them all in it. (It was stuffed full) I had to then go back in line and get all the rest of the checks/money orders. It would take me at least 2 hours each Monday to cut all of the checks open from the envelopes and fill out the deposit form for my bank. Those were the days.

 

[dieselram94]

I don't get it. I don't seem to have these problems myself. I even got my top rated seller status back a few months ago. I lost it because I cancelled a couple sales and didn't know that counted as a defect. I know there are bad buyers out there but I think some sellers create their own problems too. I know I have and probably will again at some point.

I really haven't experienced these problems either. I think the types of items a particular seller is selling has a tremendous impact on the issues one might run into.


Sent from a spun out toilet paper tube (one ply)!

 

[JustinNH]

Thanks all!

yeah, I have had a handful of bad buyers, but overall, not many issues. Defect rate is 0.34 with 3/894 transactions. I'm sure it will go up proportionate to all the new listings I will be doing though.

I have bought from eBay back in the late 90's, but have only sold for the last 2 years. Even in that two years, many things have changed.

 

[trdhrdr007]

Good luck. The biggest challenge in my small town is finding enough inventory. I'm doing this as a part time gig & am easily clearing $25 (or more) an hour. If I lived in the big city I'm reasonably certain I could scale it up to a full time job with a decent paycheck.

I've had a few issues & am running a .76 defect rate right now. That's 3 defects. Two of those were for low star ratings for item as described. No idea how that could have possibly happened because I use lots of pictures & describe any flaw no matter how minor. The 3rd was for an item that was in the USPS system for over a month before it finally turned up. I don't see how I could have done anything different to avoid those.

 

[Beachkid23]

So when you gave your notice did you say that you're leaving work to sell on eBay full-time? And Amazon. Or do people in the office ask and have you told them what you're doing? And do they look at you like you're crazy kook? Lol.

Reason being I worked at a school before I left and my paycheck was horrible after taxes and they save some money for the summertime it broke down and made like eight dollars an hour. I had to deal with all the kids bad behaviors and like to fight and they wanted to fight me and they wanted to hit and some kids said they were going to shoot up the school it was just a horrible job. Then some of them would need toileting too.

So I decided I had enough.

(Off subject...the teacher I worked with was smoking hot and all of her friends came to visit and they were all smoking hot always talking about going out and partying. I went out with them a couple times and it was just fun)

But we were just friends no biggie. Then I put my two week notice in and she could not believe I was quitting. Said, I never thought in a 100 years, I would have an employee quit to do yard sales all the time! Everybody asked questions are you really quitting to go to yard sales? Are you really quitting today so you can go to thrift stores are you really leaving your job with this pension so that you can go do this Are you crazy you should've gone to college to get a good degree yada yada yada!!!

I think about them this time of year, all coming off of summer break and going back to work having to deal with kids that their parents don't give a crap how they behave and how they act. And how much stress they're going to deal with how much hours they're going to have to work and everything but you know they got a decent paycheck they have degrees and they are all teachers where I was just an aid and it was not worth my time to be there! So I wish them luck and that they have a good school year but I don't think I could deal with that type of stress! Working with middle school kids I thought was pretty tough!

 

[Beachkid23]

In 9 days I'll have been retired for one year. My goal was gardening, and doing eBay. I've been watching what I view as a downward spiral on eBay, completely in the favor of the buyer and against the seller. Beachkid's adventures and struggles have certainly influenced me away from that idea!

But I'm glad I retired!

I'll tell you what it has been kind a rough. In a way it's kind of scary to step away from that every week check to do something that is not so comfortable and to go start something you have no idea if it's going to fail or not. My biggest problem is that I overspent in the beginning. I bought way too much stuff and I would buy stuff just hoping to be able to double my money on even though it probably wasn't the best option to spend my money on. It is stuff that will sell but how long does it take to sell?

I've completely change my whole game plan. In the last two months I started working with someone else and I got a secondhand dealers license so I can advertise what I want to buy. I get to go to peoples houses and I may have an opportunity to set up in someone else's store locally. My wife finally supports what I do. I could pay off all my debt at this very moment. And I have two appointments next week that are huge!

So I guess basically I'm sorry for whatever I said in the past I know there's been a lot of nights I was really depressed not only with what's going on financially but with my relationship with my wife as well so I was probably drunk! Which we've been going to counseling so the drinking is stopping it's amazing!!! [emoji41] but I wouldn't talk anyone out doing this if you have the effort to do it in the time and wanting too. I have set a goal for how much I sell this year and I'm about there already it's not even close to the holidays.

I just got a text another one while I'm sitting here. Life is good and God is good have a good day and I wish everybody luck!