Wow Lotz... I think I have "sympathetic brain freeze"... How many Slurpees have you had today?
eBay Seller's Mathematical Formula
Time sourcing a widget = 1 hour
Time researching value of a widget = .5 hour
Time photographing and listing a widget = .25 hour
Time servicing buyer offers and questions for a widget = .25 hour
Time printing a label and packing a widget = .25 hour
Time delivering a widget to the post office on my bike = .5 hour ( Burns off the calories I consume while packing my widgets.)
Total time spent acquiring, selling and shipping 1 widget = 2.75 hours.
90 % of ALL widgets sold on eBay sell for $30 or less. $30 plus a shipping average of $12 = a category fee of 12.5% = $5.25 plus a promoted listing fee of 5% = $2.10 plus fees applied to tax charged = .73 nets a profit before any business expenses of $21.92. In brick and mortar retail business expenses usually amount to 70% or more of the item's sale price. Online sellers do better at about 50 % total expenses of the item's net sale price.
A widget selling at $30 with an ""after eBay"net of $21.92 (assuming there has been 5% PL fees) minus 50% business expenses suggess the net profit is $10.96. This is more than a brick and mortar store can expect to pocket from selling a $30 widget. They need 22.50 or more to cover operating costs and pocket $7 or $8 dollars if lucky.
However if you factor in "Total time spent acquiring, selling and shipping 1 widget = 2.75 hours." you're making $4.00 an hour. In Canada Home Depot pays $16.50 to $26.27 per hour before deductions. If we take an average of $20/hr with deductions at 20% we have a net of $16 per hour working at Home Depot. They have good benefits and most folks really like working there for some reason.
The decision about whether or not to stay open during the mail strike MIGHT be based on whether or not you can sell four $30 widgets per hour for time spent if you wish to make the average salary of a Home Depot employee.
This analogy is just for fun of course and not meant to be a true comparison. No one really knows how long it takes to find, list, sell and ship a widget because if we kept track, we would never do this in the first place!
Love you @lotzofuniquegoodies LOL
Drag and drop here or browse files to attach
