Is there a faster way to list items?

[silentmobius]

I've noticed that a lot of sellers have $2-3 stuff like trading cards or stamps which are sent through lettermail. Thousands of listings.. I used to sell cards when I first started and it took ages to get listings up one by one (researching prices and putting/taking pictures) and then put the address and pack the cards. That's a lot of time to make .50-$1 profit. 

How do sellers list thousands of small value items, I've tried turbo lister but it doesnt really make things faster. Is hiring someone the only way?

[mr.elmwood]

No, there isn't.

You are confusing sellers with making a profit. There are a lot of people who do this as a hobby. As a friend of mine says: Business makes money, interests are free, hobbies cost money.

I compete with hobby sellers. Came across another one yesterday. Their selling plus shipping price is less than the postage they will pay. Never mind their acquisition cost, FVF, supplies, etc. FB of 500 and they have lost money on every sale.

[femmefan1946]

Hiring someone would add costs not reduce them.

You would be paying 17 cents a minute to an Ontario worker at minimum wage, in addition to paying yourself.

In my opinion, if an item cannot be sold for at least $9.99 it is a money loser. And even there the procurement cost should be under a dollar.

[ricarmic]

My opinion is very much like femme's - only my general minimum I aim for is $14.99.

Here's a post I made a while ago that identifies how long it takes me to sell an item in eBayland.

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/My-experience-so-how-long-does-it-take-me-to-sell-1-ebay-...

Mr E. also hits it on the mark, there are a lot of "for fun" folks selling stuff along those of us who try to make a "living" doing it.

One of the categories you pointed out stamps, suffers that issue and is the one of my profession too.... it makes for long days - and whether it is economic conditions (for example the higher the price of gas, the less discretionary $$$ buyers have left) or whatever, at least in my case, more smaller stuff is selling of late, which is more work to maintain a consistent income level.....

[rose-dee]

I agree with all of the above, and my approach has been to minimize the time spent on the lower-end items so I can devote more time on the higher value items.  See my Post #2 in the discussion link you set out above.  For me, the cut-off point to make any sort of reasonable profit is around $12, but I do offer some items at under $10 simply as "loss leaders".  However, those are almost always items that take the least amount of time and effort to list.

I'm fortunate that my own antique patterns require almost no effort or time to list once all the initial development work is completed (which usually takes about a month per design), but then I don't think there are too many sellers who are also their own suppliers, so acquisition cost is a concern for most sellers.  As 'femme' says, the only way to justify the time spent listing an item with a sale price under about $10 is to acquire it for next to nothing.  And as many have said, your profit is set the moment you put your money down to pay for your stock.

To respond directly to the OP's question, competition from weekend/hobby sellers is a fact of life on eBay.  If you're running an actual business, then you have to find ways to balance your time inputs and the values of your items.  Sometimes offering items with a wide variety of pricing is the way to do that; sometimes finding ways of streamlining and rationalizing your listing processes can work.  For example, photographing a whole series or group of similar items in one session and using boilerplate copy wherever possible so you aren't repeating the same text over and over, but only changing what needs to be changed in each description. 

The key issue in my mind is that we, as sellers, are all responsible for properly describing our items (including good photos), so there is no way to completely side-step that task.  This means there has to be enough value to you in what you're selling to make listing it worthwhile, based on your time spent, unless you're just doing it all for sheer enjoyment. 

[silentmobius]

But I've seen card sellers who have 20-100k feedback, they get 2-5+ thousand feedbacks a month. And there are a lot of them. I can't see how they do it purely as hobby and I know its possible to make money. All from the states though, Ive even seen a couple of very high over 100k stamp sellers too. I see them list $3-4 dollar stamp lots.  Of course with 85 cents postage with us with their .40 or so, its pretty hard to do this.

I just assume they buy big lots, sort out the expensive ones, and use the little ones to increase feedback. but i'm not sure. 

[ricarmic]

One thing some do is list multiple quantities of the small items, that saves having to repicture etc (ie they list a given sportscard with 24 copies available), however one would still have to have very efficient processing from the sale through the shipping piece to make it economically feasible.

Some sellers I watch sell low $2 or $1 items in large quantities, sometimes each individually pictured, and I know some of them are trying to make a living doing it... not sure how they can but perhaps they have inexpensive help or something.....

[pierrelebel]

"I see them list $3-4 dollar stamp lots"

Back in the "good old days", I did that.  Offer low price stamps and stamp sets selling for $2 to $5 with low shipping charge and free shipping for all additional lots purchased and paid at the same time.

Over the years, I averaged seven purchases per transaction (one payment, one shipment).

Yes, there were a few buyers who would only buy one lot but they were offset by those purchasing a large quantity. My record was 200 lots, from 200 different listings, to one collector in Ontario (stamps from Jersey, Guernsey and isle of Man).

Lots and lots of work.

The one important consideration is that many of those low priced buyers will eventually want to add "better items" to their collection and may come to you for those $10, $50 or $100 lots.

"use the little ones to increase feedback"

Feedback ratings are not increased by those multiple purchases.  eBay combines all purchases made by one buyer over a one week period into one feedback rating and one only.  Same for DSRs.