I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Ebay successes and not-quite-successes

The listings for two pairs of shoes I listed on Ebay have now expired and I have good news and bad news to report. One sold for $16.40 plus $5.60 shipping for a total of $22.00 which I received last night via paypal - I took the package to the post office today and shipped it out so basically I am done with that.

The other did not sell at all. I found it kind of amusing actually because they were two similar pairs of shoes that I bought originally for the exact same price one size apart that I wrote almost identical listings for, and one pair got all kind of attention (21 watchers and a flurry of bids by the end) and the other pair, 2 watchers and zero bids. I guess there is a high demand for size 6XW shoes and not so much for 5XW? I guess that could be true because my son did walk rather early - maybe most kids’ feet are bigger that size 5 before they get their first shoes. My daughter isn’t walking yet so I have no idea what her shoe size is. My son’s first shoes were actually a 4XXW. But I am keeping those (for now).

Subtracting out the paypal fees for the shoes I sold (approximately $1), plus the ebay fees for both items (approximately $2), and the actual shipping I paid ($6.35 since I chose delivery confirmation ), that leaves approximately $ 12.65 in profits from this so far. When I transferred money out of my paypal account into my bank account, I only transferred $16.00 and left the other ~$5 to cover ebay fees. I know that’s a lot more than the ebay fees actually are, but I didn’t know how to look them up when I did that, and I also wanted to leave some in case I decide to relist the shoes that didn’t sell and they don’t sell again. That fee (if I do choose to relist) should be less than $1 though, so I may transfer another $2 out, or I may wait until after I relist the shoes and transfer out the exact amount left.

We’ll see. I am happy with my ebay experiment. I’d be happier if both pairs of shoes sold but I’ll take this. I added the $9.65 I have in profits from what I transferred out of the paypal account ($16.00 minus the $6.35 shipping), and added it to the $8.87 I have left over from paying Capital One, which comes to $18.52. I snowflaked that this afternoon to my Citicard. I could have waited until this evening, because I have a potential craigslist sale lined up for tonight, but I wanted to get it in before my billing cycle ends (tomorrow) and the “4 payments per billing cycle” starts over.

I don’t know if I’ll be using ebay again as a seller but I am pleased with how this turned out. I’d be more pleased if both pairs of shoes sold….

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