Shopping Links Below for 2020 Topps Series 1 and my eBay store!
90 Day Update
If you are reading this for the very first time, please check out the original article below titled “I WAS WRONG!” before this!
The results are now in and I have to say I am completely blown away by the results and PWE is something that I will be continuing with for the next year and beyond. In the process though, I have completely lost my Top Rated Seller on eBay but actual sales are greater than pixels. Overall I couldn’t be happier with the results and being able to reach a whole new segment of buyers has been extremely rewarding, both personally and financially!
Our total sales with PWE from November 20th through February 20th ended up being $739.16! On a daily average that came out to about $8.21 in sales. When I put out the original article we were at an average of $8.04 per day, so it was great to see an increase in averages sales per day during a major release (Series 1). I also credit a lot of my Series 1 success so far this year to PWE as I have been able to move through a healthy amount of base parallels and inserts buy using this shipping method.
When you compare this to my entire 2019 TRS discount, I was essentially only saving $1.29 in fees on a daily basis ($473.74/365), so just an incredible difference ($8.21 vs $1.29) in such a short time period!
And for anyone who is curious on package loss or non-delivery, I have only had one package go lost since November and that was an $80 order sent with tracking. So at this moment I have not had a single PWE package go undelivered. Rest easy my friends, the horrors of PWE are not as real as everyone says!
Looking down the road, I will be very curious on how this transpires over the next 90 days and if the results continue but from a goal perspective, I crushed my initial goal. Now I look at this and say can I deliver $2-$3k in PWE sales in 2020? That would be just incredible! For now though, we will mark this challenge complete and move onto the next one (Sneak Peak: 12 count lots vs 15 count lots).
My PWE Rules
Base $1 shipping for all packages, $0.01 combined rate for extra cards
6 or more standard cards always go in a bubble mailer with tracking.
Package cost must be under $5 for it to go PWE. (5 or less cards)
Never send a jersey/relic card in a PWE
I was wrong!
Ever since I started aggressively building out CRT Sportscards and my eBay store, I would tell anyone who would listen that every sale you make should be sent with tracking. In social media terms we call it BMWT, (bubble mailer with tracking). I did that because eBay offers a program to all sellers called Top Rated Seller (TRS), which at the time generated you a 2% fee return on your monthly selling fees. That 2% back each month was a healthy return if your sales were strong but over the past year or so it has been lowered to just 1%.
There are several different hoops you have to jump through to ensure you end up being a TRS but the main one is 95% of your orders must be scanned by the Post Office within one business day of purchase. The only way for you to obtain a scan for a package is to have tracking and that forces you to use a bubble mailer as shipments in a plain white envelope (PWE) have just a stamp and can not be tracked.
The other benefit to being a TRS is that you receive a seal on your listings and you are supposed to receive preferential placement in search results because you are one of the best! The seal harkens back to a simple time on eBay when you were given a PowerSeller badge, Bronze to Platinum, based on average sales volume. So for any long time member, those seals were incredibly meaningful. The search results listings are hard to quantify, especially in sports cards, but it is a thing you have to think about because we all know how powerful algorithms are these days.
So from a money back perspective, higher search placement and a visual representation to all buyers is why I always chased TRS on a monthly basis. And even though I was building out my eBay store to be one of the best B level sellers (I don’t do this full time), I lost sight of the actual goal and that is driving more sales. Being a Top Rated Seller is great but with no sales, it is meaningless. I should have had the the goal (which I thought I had) to drive more sales but unfortunately I was dawn to more colorful pixels on my ebay listings instead.
That is why in late November, the 21st to be exact, I decided to experiment with offering $1 shipping on my lower dollar, “You Pick” listings and run it for 60 days. Before the 21st I was running a $1 shipping promo on $1 cards if someone purchased 10 or more cards. In total I converted just under 80 listings to this or about 10% of my entire store. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t but I needed to give it an honest go.
I had to have a goal though and that goal was to see if I could drive as many PWE sales as I had TRS discounts in 2019. So the goal from late November to late January was to drive $474 in PWE sales as my 2019 TRS refund was $473.74. Knowing that I would sacrifice my TRS benefits and badge in February/March, the sales had to be there to justify losing the benefits. Secondarily, to lose the potential search placement with 2020 Topps Series 1 releasing is a big unknown but if the sales are there now, so be it!
I am happy to say that I not only achieved the goal of $474, I exceeded it by $8. Through January 21st, when I last ran my sales report, I had $482.51 in sales through PWE! So in just 60 days, I exceeded my entire savings from TRS in 2019. Just mind blowing if you ask me. If you extrapolate that out, it comes out to just under $2,900 in potential sales over 12 months.
Also, the holiday season is when I don’t list too much as I am in a “get rid of my inventory” mindset, so November, December & January are usually my slowest months. This could easily be closer to $3,500 - $4,000 in extra sales as we move through 2020! I will though be losing my Top Rated Status on February 20th as only 89% of my shipments at the moment have been scanned and uploaded within one business day. The run was good but the sales are even better!
I do have some simple rules for PWE shipments though. If a customer buys more than five cards I will ship them with tracking as the weight usually comes to over an ounce. Even if it doesn’t, it is worth the couple of dollars of loss to ensure safe delivery. I have also not had a single case of a card not being delivered in that time frame. So while there are horror stories out there about cards going missing in PWE’s, all 94 of my shipments have arrived safely. If a buyer did though reach out and say a package was missing, I was ready to instantly refund them as that would be the proper thing to do!
At the end of the day, I really wish I was doing this sooner but as we are about to enter into a brand new baseball card season, I am now ready to meet the demand of any shopper out there. If you want just one base card for your set, I will have that with a $1 shipping charge or if you want the new rookies base auto, I will have that available and shipping is just $3! My entire store isn’t updated as of yet but in 2020, my BMWT rate is just $3, which makes me one of the lowest out there!
If you are a baseball fan, have a great Series 1 release and I hope I can challenge you to look at your business differently this year and find a new untapped revenue stream like I did with PWE!