Overview
This week Liz and Doug share some seller news and updates on eBay’s item specifics, eBay trading card authentication, Mercari shipping changes and more. All the news that fits.
The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly is the ecommerce resource for the seller community across all platforms and hub for information on growing your business. Find out more at listperfectly.com/podcast, leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@listperfectly.com.
List Perfectly is the ecommerce resource for selling across multiple e-commerce platforms including eBay, Poshmark, Etsy, Mercari, Kidizen, Grailed, Depop, Tradesy, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram and Shopify.
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Links
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Episode Links
eBay item specifics
The Resale Market: Who’s Playing, Who’s Leading, Who’s Emerging
Phoenix Business Journal Startups to Watch
eBay Trading card authentication
Inside eBay’s new Authenticity Guarantee for trading cards: ‘It’ll be a fast service’
New Mercari Shipping Rates
Transcript
Liz:
Welcome to The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly. This is season two, episode eight: The News. If you’re part of the List Perfectly Facebook group or if you tuned into their YouTube channel, you can see I’ve spent the last week in Phoenix.
Doug:
Yeah. You went out there.
Liz:
I got to go down and spent some time with Theresa Cox, and we did a TikTok with her dog and maybe another TikTok or more. We’ll see. We’ll see what rolls out in the next week. We did #dogtok. Oh, I actually did a hashtag #dogtok.
Doug:
Oh, there you go.
Liz:
There you go. And I got to visit List Perfectly headquarters and spend time with Clara and Amanda.
Doug:
And you guys did some content. You did some lives. I did a couple lives. I did two Insta lives.
Liz:
I am so proud of you, Doug. You showed up on Instagram like every time I opened up Instagram.
Doug:
That’s what I like to see. My giant hair and my giant head. You’re gonna be seeing more lives. I think you and Clara are gonna go live on a weekly basis. The Clara and Liz Show.
Liz:
Yes, it has to be, you know, I think that I could sit down and talk to Clara for hours, but I know she’s super busy, so I’m sure that we’ll have to rein that in a little bit. Uh, but it was super cool going live, like right next to each other.
Doug:
Yeah. And you guys had a good live. You had a lot of views for live views. A lot of times, things like that, not as many people watch them at the time as afterwards when it’s archived, but you guys had a lot of people watching. So, I think it was good. The timing’s good. And just taking the live questions and you, both do really well. Liz gets nervous for The Seller Community Podcast’s lives, but you did a great job.
Liz:
Thank you. It, um, I think I’m getting better and, and by better, I mean, a little more at ease because these are our friends that show up now. These aren’t listeners or viewers, they’re just our friends that show up. And I’ve got that in my head now. And I will say Doug, I mean, we do our livecast, which if you’re listening today, Wednesday, the day that this podcast drops. Be sure to catch us tonight at 4:00 PM PST for Doug and me on our livecast.
Doug:
The whirlwind lives without Annette, cause she couldn’t make it. The Seller Community Podcast Livecast. Well, last month was big. Last month was our biggest. We usually recap episodes, but most of the time, last month we just talked to commenters and answered questions and it was a lot of fun.
Liz:
It was a lot of fun. I think it’s a learning curve for the two of us. I just got caught up reading comments. The chat was going fast. Now I understand when you’ve got, you know, some of the YouTubers that have a hundred plus guests live on their show, they can’t read all the comments. I understand that. I had a hard time with just a couple of people.
Doug:
Yeah. Tonight, February 9th, in case you have to look at the calendar. And also, Liz and I are doing a meetup this week based in Rally, North Carolina with our friend Paul Apollonia. So, we’re gonna go there, Liz and I are gonna bring the Liz and Doug show virtually into their, wherever they are, maybe from their homes. And, um, I’ve known Paul for a while, obviously from eBay, but he’s usually involved in ECommChicago. So, I used to go out there. I think he does eBay Opens, too. And he has done some other eBay events. So, I’ve known Paul for several years. Nice guy, uh, big old school eBay dude. And, here’s some news. Liz has basically convinced Paul Apollonia to become a multi-platform seller I believe.
Liz:
Yeah. I can’t say that I convinced him because he was thinking about it. Paul and I know each other just by being in the community, like we don’t know each other. We don’t have a history together. We’ve been running in the same groups for years. So of course, I know about Paul. Super cool guy, but yeah, just through conversations about, “Hey, should I do this? Should I not?” And just simply, “Hey, well what do you sell? Where, where do you think you wanna go?” And just casual, you know, reseller friends talking about what’s best for our businesses. And he made that decision.
Doug:
Yeah. Yeah. And eBay appreciates your loyalty, but it’s okay to branch out. It’s okay. It’ll still be there.
Liz:
It’s okay. Yes. So, and that’s what I say all the time, eBay knows that I sell on other platforms. They know that I was, or I still am loyal to them, but they know that I’ve branched out and they still happen to invite me to a couple of events.
Doug:
Well, maybe not now that you’ve officially announced it on The Seller Community Podcast. No more.
Liz:
<Laugh> I think they know.
Doug:
The phone will be picked up, “No more Liz events.”
Liz:
No more Liz events.
Doug:
All right. Speaking of eBay, should we get into the news, Liz? Anything else?
Liz:
That is no, unless…what have you done this week, Doug?
Doug:
Well, I did my two Instagram lives, so that was probably about 20 minutes altogether. And then, uh, you know, working on podcast stuff and then working on the big secret project, Liz. Coming soon.
Liz:
Don’t do it. Don’t do it.
Doug:
Don’t do it. I’m not gonna tell. Believe it or not.
Liz:
Don’t tell ’em.
Doug:
I’m not gonna tell you.
Liz:
Wait, I might not know what it is.
Doug:
You know what it is, you know what I’m talking about!
Liz:
Do I?
Doug:
People know that thesellercommunitypodcast.com is coming soon. So that’s gonna be our new fancy website. So that’s maybe a little hint, maybe a teaser as to what else is coming. I don’t know if you can figure it out from there, but uh, good stuff. Lots more lives, a lot more cool content. Lots of TikTok, more Instagram, more List Perfectly faces out and about. Um, and then, you know, a lot more stuff with sellers. Speaking of sellers, we have a good friend. RefashionedHippie. Maggie Weber. She’s got a book out and she’s published her second book, ‘A Clothing Resellers Guide’ available on Amazon. Coming soon in print. I’ve read it. Great overview. Really good high level advice. It’s a quick read, but that’s good because it’s like, it’s the high level stuff you need to know. She talks about List Perfectly, Liz, cuz that’s the platform she uses, and it has helped her grow her business. So, there’s a chapter about cross posting and we’re gonna do some, we’ll do some Maggie stuff in the future. We’re talking about some different things. She did a super cool reel for us on the Instagram.
Liz:
Yeah. I saw it and it totally made my entire month.
Doug:
It was good. It was great. It was a plug for the podcast and then showing off her podcast swag, her hoodie. Um, I remixed it.
Liz:
I remixed it.
Doug:
I think we got a little something else coming up that we’re gonna do with that. So, stay tuned for that. How was that, Liz? How’s that tease?
Liz:
Okay. That works.
Doug:
Okay. All right. I don’t wanna go too far.
Liz:
No, that was really fun to see and to remix on Instagram.
Doug:
I like duets. I did a Consignment Chats duets earlier today.
Liz:
On TikTok?
Doug:
On TikTok. Yeah. I was like, “Oh, I’ll just duet this.” I like to do those.
Liz:
Nice. I did a TikTok this morning. I did a TikTok this morning, too.
Doug:
Well, maybe I’ll take a look and duet it for you.
Liz:
So, actually I did a TikTok last week and then I did a TikTok this week. I am feeling the silliness of TikTok, I guess.
Doug:
Yeah. I mean, I think it grows on you. It’s interesting. It’s interesting. I mean I spend some time, you know, daily looking in there. I’ve got a lot of reseller stuff now. Resellers, music and movies.
Liz:
There you go.
Doug:
There you go. So, should we get into some fun news Liz?
Liz:
Yes. Let’s get into the fun news.
Doug:
So, ladies gentlemen, Liz wants to talk about eBay item specifics. <laugh> And let me tell you something, I don’t know if you know this, Liz. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you’ve heard this story, but way, way back, a couple years ago, speaking of EcommChicago, I was at EcommChicago with Paul Apollonia, and I started to get some texts about the item specifics. And I didn’t have a deep knowledge, especially in the clothing sphere. How the item specifics worked. But this is kind of, I guess, kind of when they were really launching ’em and they really did really were pushing ’em and they wanted you to, they were basically saying, you gotta start using them now. They had the little lightning bolt thing that we’ll talk about. But basically, what happened is, they were a bit jacked up with some of the references. So, Liz and I went through that, Liz spoke up and it got passed on and some, uh, seller communications and changes went out. Thanks to Liz O’Kane.
Liz:
I’m pretty sure that was my first public Liz rant. So, I very rarely will put out content on my displeasure of companies that I enjoy. Um, but to say I was super frustrated is keeping it mild. Um, but I feel I did really well. Everybody knows me as positive Liz, like, oh my gosh, she’s such a cheerleader. How could you be…? Whatever I get it. Right? I think what happened was I put a Liz rant on Instagram, still tactful, but you could tell my frustration so much where an eBay employee named Doug Smith saw it and said, oh, if Liz O’Kane is ranting about this, she must be super mad about it. What’s going on? And I’m pretty sure in a DM I just unloaded.
Doug:
Well. And I think, um, you probably did, “Really eBay?”
Liz:
Really eBay?
Doug:
Liz is like “Really Doug, really?”
Liz:
But it was a couple years back and we all, you know, if you were in the game back then, since then I spent time learning about eBay item specifics. So, this is gonna be another Liz rant. Let’s talk about it. Do you really wanna start the news with “Really eBay?”
Doug:
Really eBay?
Liz:
Actually, this isn’t a Real eBay. This is just gonna be a Liz rant.
Doug:
It’s kinda a knowledge thing, too.
Liz:
It really is. It’s not really a rant, but it’s more of a rant for sellers to learn from.
Doug:
It’s a learning lesson, learning with Liz.
Liz:
Learning with Liz. Okay. Maybe we can do like every other week. Cuz Liz rants kind of sounds negative. And it’s very rare that I rant or not. I don’t know.
Doug:
Learning with Liz.
Liz:
Really eBay?
Doug:
Really eBay?
Liz:
Let’s clear the air on a couple of things. When you go into eBay. Okay. So, I’m talking to all sellers across the board, new eBay sellers, old eBay sellers, experienced eBay sellers, inexperienced eBay sellers. Let’s just look at eBay item specifics. It is the most tedious part of listing on any platform. Hands down. It just is. Let’s look at item specifics and why they’re important.
Doug:
Why are they important?
Liz:
First and foremost, it is what helps your items get found. The very first requirement of item specifics is picking the correct category. This is a whole other subject. Go back to season one, episode eight with Dave Snyder, learn about listing displacement and why categories are the most important thing you can do. Once you’ve picked your category, item specifics populate for that category, you are going to have required and recommended. Of course, the ones that are required, you fill out. You just have to. Best practice, select what is provided by eBay in the pull down menu because those items that are in the pull down menu are what shows up in what’s called the left hand navigation search when a buyer does a search. So, if you type in blue t-shirt on the left hand side, it’ll ask size, color, category, material. All of those things are important. And all of the ones that you see are directly from eBay’s pull down menu in item specifics. So, make sure you’re doing that.
Doug:
And that’s based on data that eBay has cuz they want your stuff to be found, too. They’re not trying to bury your stuff. They want your stuff to be found. They have 25 plus years of data and that’s gonna help you get that placement in the left hand nav, which is very important.
Liz:
Right. And I will be the first one to say, depending on the category, some of them aren’t perfect, probably less than perfect. They’re less than ideal, but it’s what we have to work with. And it’s items that our buyers are seeing. So, you’ll want to select what eBay provides. Then you get into recommendations and this is where it gets tricky because there is a little blue lightning bolt that eBay says they’re gonna get rid of. Okay.
Doug:
I like it. I think it’s cute.
Liz:
You know what? It is. And I’ve never seen this any other way than okay.
Doug:
And honestly, it’s a weird little gamification thing. When it came out, so here we go, Liz, when it came out, everybody thought they had to fill that little lightning bolt thing. It was kind of like the more you fill it, the more you’ll get seen, but they’ve also come out and said, we understand there’s confusion with the little lightning bolt. You don’t have to fill it and they might take it away. And then, um, one thing quickly, based on what you said is, this is all based on algorithmic stuff and algorithms learn based on what’s put into ’em. That’s why it’s important to do these the correct way. Don’t mess with it. Don’t try and game the system, uh, cuz that can mess up the system and mess up the algorithm.
Liz:
The way I see it is you’re selling your item. You wanna put your item in the eyes of the appropriate buyer. When you select the wrong item specifics, you’re putting your item in front of people that don’t care about your item. So, you’re less likely to get a sale from it.
Doug:
Well, and that’s a great example. Like if you’re trying to sell, let’s say I don’t remember the specific example Dave uses, but he likes to use a Darth Vader reference. Let’s say you’re selling Darth Vader earrings, but you’re trying to get more exposure for your Darth Vader earrings, so you put like item specifics, or you try and game it to be like in Darth Vader figures and stuff like that. That’s not gonna help you get found.
Liz:
But that just kind of goes back to the category. And once you select the appropriate category, the proper item specifics will populate whether it be required or recommended. So, when it comes down to recommendations, let’s get really just down to it. You wanna properly describe your item. You don’t wanna put unnecessary information, right? If I have a plain black t-shirt, I will go through my item specifics. It’ll ask me for a theme. If there is no theme, leave it blank because people looking for a blank black t-shirt aren’t gonna pick on any themes.
Doug:
Exactly.
Liz:
If it’s short sleeve, put short sleeve. So, for that black t-shirt it’s gonna ask for a pattern. Okay, if there is no pattern, put solid, don’t put floral, it’s going to ask for character. And this is the one that trips a lot of sellers up. It’ll say character. There are hundreds of characters that eBay has in their dropdown menu. You don’t have to pick one because there’s no character on it. So, here’s an example. A crockpot. You might say character there’s no, I have a, just a plain crockpot. I’m not gonna put a character. I’m gonna put NA for nonapplicable. Just leave a blank. It doesn’t matter. Nobody is looking for a character and nobody is gonna type NA. They’re just not gonna click it. So don’t click it. But guess what? There are crockpots with Batman on it. In that case you would pick Batman. It’s there for those items that happen to have a character.
Doug:
Well, and it’s funny, you mention plain black t-shirt cuz that specifically has happened to me. No shocker, I like plain black t-shirts. Searching plain black t-shirts, I like Metallica, but I don’t wanna see a Metallica shirt when I’m searching for a plain black t-shirt. I want something with nothing on it.
Liz:
Think of it the opposite way, too. If I am looking for a black Batman t-shirt and I specifically click, I wanna see Batman t-shirts, but I’m getting a bunch of plain black t-shirts, I’m gonna give up my search because eBay’s not showing me the right thing. Buyers will get frustrated and leave that search. Cause they’re not getting shown what they really want because sellers aren’t clicking the appropriate item specifics. If I have a plain black t-shirt and I select Batman, it’s not helping me.
Doug:
So do your research, pick your category, do the required item specifics, do the recommended. We’ve been told, don’t add your own. Don’t add new ones. You don’t need to. You wanna work with the data that eBay’s given you.
Liz:
Yes. Select the most appropriate from the dropdown menu or the boxes that are provided. There are a couple of categories that I come across that make no sense. Like none of them fit my product, even though it’s in the appropriate category. And, but here’s the thing. When you look at item specifics, eBay puts them in order of the most relevant or most searched for items. So, they collect data based on buyer search and what they actually click to filter their items. If I’m a seller selling a t-shirt, the top recommended is the theme. And you’ll see a little number next to it. 1.3 million searches. What does that mean? 1.3 million potential buyers clicked on a theme on the left hand search navigation within the last 30 days. That’s direct data from eBay and they put these in the order of searches. So that’s the most searched for item specific in men’s shirts. The next is fit. The next is sleeve length. The next is pattern. Features. Character and down. So, when I do my listings and this is just my way, I can look at this. If my item doesn’t have a theme, I won’t click it. If it’s just a plain black t-shirt, if it tells me what the fit is, I will select it. I will select the sleeve length, the pattern, if it has any features, if it has a character, but if it doesn’t, I’ll leave it blank and that’s okay. My lightning bolt will not fill in, but that is okay. It’s the most relevant for the search.
Doug:
eBay has a page on item specifics on Seller Center. We’ll put the link in the show notes.
Liz:
You can also take eBay Seller School. If you go to sellerschool.ebay.com. Self-paced. Free. It’ll tell you everything you need to know about a lot of aspects of eBay, but specifically you can learn about eBay, item specifics. That’s the end of my Liz rant. Um, item specifics are relevant, but it doesn’t mean you need to fill them all in. eBay puts item specifics for that category in search order. So, the most clicked on searches by buyers. So as a seller, make sure that you’re reading that and that you’re understanding item specifics. So, when you’re filling in NA or when you’re picking a wrong item specific that you’re not helping yourself, don’t make it more complicated than it is. It’s already complicated. eBay knows that they’re the most complicated platform to list on. They throw a lot in front of you. It’s because they have the most buyers. They have the most items listed on a marketplace. So, they have to kind of help buyers find items. And this is one of the ways they’re doing it.
Doug:
There you go. All right. Well thank you for that. Liz rant on item specifics. So, Liz did you know that secondhand selling poses an 82% reduction in the carbon footprint compared to new clothing? Did you know that, Liz?
Liz:
I do now because I read this article from WWD.
Doug:
So WWD, which I think is Women’s Wear Daily. I don’t know it might be something else, but um, they ran an article that we really liked on the resale market. Who’s playing, who’s leading, who’s emerging, kinda talks about some of those things that, um, you know, the way resale helps the environment. And you know, what’s interesting to me is there’s a chart, the resale market share chart, Liz. Facebook Marketplace. Huge.
Liz:
It is. So, let’s back up just a second. This article came out in August and these charts are still circulating around the seller community. I see this chart on Instagram. I see posts about this article, um, in Facebook groups. So, it’s pretty important to talk about.
Doug:
That’s interesting cuz I just recently saw this article, but uh, yeah, you’re right. Crazy. It’s interesting to see the breakdown and I’m surprised Facebook Marketplace is that big.
Liz:
Well, here’s the thing with Facebook marketplace. They have no indicator between local pickup and shipping. So, this is all a Facebook Marketplace, not just shipping on marketplace and they have no true indicator for transactions. It goes on later in the article to kind of describe this, but they put it in, and Facebook Marketplace takes up 43%.
Doug:
Places like Goodwill, Salvation Army, Oxfam, Savers, uh, Buffalo Exchange. They are, uh, reigniting their value proposition as fashion resale is burning bright. So, people are bringing stuff into them like a Goodwill. We know what it is. Goodwill only puts out 15% of the donations.
Liz:
Yeah. But let’s back up a minute. I’m not done talking about this chart. Okay. So, you look at this chart and yeah, Facebook Marketplace takes up the biggest part of this pie chart that we see. So, 43% of the resale market share. The next one is eBay with 32%, then Etsy with 15.7%. Goodwill with 3.5%. Mercari with 2.6%. Poshmark with 1%. And then it goes down to first dibs, ThredUp and The Real Real. Facebook Marketplace is a popular destination for everyday resellers, their overall boasted an impressive $26 billion in total revenue, 250 million monthly users. But the volume of its marketplace transaction is harder to track down because the company doesn’t report it separately. So that’s everything together. That’s everything, Facebook Marketplace. So, the next one is eBay. $27.5 billion in transactions happening in its most recent financial report. After that is Mercari with 7.15 billion. And then after that Etsy with 3 billion and after that stock X at 1.8 billion posh market 449.6 million, then The Real Real at 170 hundred and 7 million. So, we go from eBay at 27.5 billion to Mercari 7.15 billion. The big conversation in the seller community is sellers that aren’t selling on eBay. Why do you see it’s a global marketplace? And that’s kind of people are like, I didn’t think Poshmark would be so low. Well, they don’t do cross-border trading. Like I can’t ship something to Canada or India.
Doug:
So many sellers we know we’ve said this before are intimidated by eBay if they’re not selling on there. And part of that, frankly, is item specifics that we just talked about.
Liz:
Well, item specifics and shipping.
Doug:
Yeah, and shipping and the models are so different. Sellers have said it’s easier to go from eBay to other platforms than other platforms to eBay, especially PO mark to eBay. For me, the Facebook marketplace thing, I was so excited when, you know, they grew what they were doing and they added, you know, shipping and added all that. And I still kind of think that they blew it. All I’ve heard about it are issues with getting paid and issues with shipping and issues with listings getting done. But it’s also kind of like with some sellers, we know, I kind of see it as like an Amazon type of thing. They’re like, yeah, I don’t like listing on Amazon, but I do make money there. So, I gotta do it. So, you know yeah. And it’s a, it’s a, so Facebook marketplace was doing good where you would do the, you know, you’d do the local stuff and then they kind of upped it with shipping. But you know, it’s do, it’s doing really well. Cause it’s so ingrained. And once you get it set up, it’s pretty quick to list. I will give them that. But I still think Facebook marketplace has some backend seller issues they need to work with. And I have a friend that works there and he told me he is like, be patient, big things are coming. It’s like, well dude, come on, let’s get the big things out. Yeah. Really Facebook.
Liz:
Really Facebook? Right. <laughs>
Doug:
Wait, I’m sorry. Liz. It’s “Meta.”
Liz:
It’s still Facebook.
Doug:
Well Facebook is Facebook, but Meta is the bigger organization. Yeah,
Liz:
Yeah, you’re right.
Doug:
Can’t wait to see little bitmoji Liz walking around with her NFT backpack.
Liz:
Right? I don’t know that I’ve met an in-between seller yet. I’ve met sellers that either crush it on Facebook or they do miserable on Facebook. I’m one of those sellers that have done absolutely miserable on Facebook. So, you know, I just kind of made the decision to not sell there anymore because I wasn’t getting the track based on the time that I was putting into it.
Doug:
This article is really comprehensive. And we’ll of course include the link in the show notes. Oh, it talks about too, not only like your Goodwills, your thrift shops, your resale shops, your marketplaces. It also talks about how investors are investing in resale. Investors are investing in sustainability, and you know, environmentalism, that’s all big right now. And there’s a huge amount of investments that are investing in these even smaller niche selling platforms or these different types of sellers as well. #DougRant!
Liz:
So, one thing that stuck out to me, you know, they, the Poshmark founder, so Manish, he put it, you know, bundling or styling outfits for individuals and live virtual shopping. That’s what the Posh Parties are. They’re just two social elements that liven up the Poshmark community. Goes on to say that on average Poshmark users spend 27 minutes a day on the platform and the community counts for more than 30 million active users out of those 30 million, only 6 million are actually buying. But there’s a lot of great information in this article. A lot of great statistics, go check it out. The link is in the show notes.
Doug:
Yeah. It’s worth a look. All right, Liz, let’s move on to, we’ve actually, we’ve got some List Perfectly news and Theresa Cox news.
Liz:
Yes.
Doug:
So, Theresa Cox. So, we referenced my brief live stint this week. One of the live things I did on Instagram was I went on and talked about Theresa Cox’s office hours, which are growing every week. So weekly, every Thursday at 10 Pacific, one eastern, at tinyurl.com/officehoursLP there’s a free hour you get with List Perfectly power seller Theresa Cox. She’s been with List Perfectly forever. But what I really like about it, couple of things–obviously, great information. Great to have one-on-one with Teresa Cox. It’s free. We get a lot of sellers that just come and listen. But I love cuz I kind of tease her, Theresa Gems #theresagems, cuz she’ll talk about something and then she’ll add a little something. She’ll tie it into something. So, she’ll talk about a List Perfectly process and then tie it into if you sell on eBay or here’s another way to do this. It’s a great free resource from List Perfectly. Breaking news, Liz! Did I hear a little bird tell me that you’re gonna be taking over office hours sometime soon?
Liz:
Theresa got invited to an exclusive event with eBay tomorrow. So, I will have to try and fill these shoes tomorrow, February 10th.
Doug:
They’re red shoes to fill Liz.
Liz:
I know I’m a little bit nervous. She’s kind of set the bar pretty high.
Doug:
It’s a free resource. It’s a weekly thing. Theresa’s talking about every once in a while, moving the hours around to accommodate different schedules, but it’s available for you each week.
Liz:
And congratulations to Theresa. She was featured in First for Women magazine talking about her selling. How she sells some books on Amazon too. So, Theresa’s kind of a little bit everywhere. I still learn a little bit about her. Every time I see something with Theresa in an article, I’m like, “oh yeah, she does sell books on Amazon too.” She sells a lot of stuff on Amazon, but this is what they really focused on. So, congratulations for your publication in First for Women magazine.
Doug:
First For Women magazine print only, on newsstands through today, you might have to try and find one on eBay after this. Maybe she’ll sign it for you. Great article and congratulations to Theresa for that feature. And Liz speaking of features and List Perfectly, this was a big one. We were very excited when this came out Liz.
Liz:
Yes.
Doug:
List Perfectly is based in Phoenix, Arizona and the Phoenix Business Journal identified List Perfectly as one of the 10 startups to watch. And they were the only bootstrap startup. So, the only self-funded, that’s important. That’s huge. Congratulations to Amanda, congratulations to Clara and obviously congratulations to List Perfectly. But, that’s a huge accolade, huge recognition for them.
Liz:
It was. I mean, when you think of startups and tech, especially in Phoenix, it’s huge. Phoenix is huge. One of the top 10, come on. Yeah.
Doug:
Come on.
Liz:
Female founded boot-strapped.
Doug:
That’s right.
Liz:
So, I am so honored to even know them. Yeah. It’s amazing. So, congratulations, Clara and Amanda.
Doug:
Yeah, always awesome. Obviously, we love List Perfectly. We love Clara and Amanda, and their journey is great, and you know, all the stuff that they have planned, it’s so cool and interesting. And big things are always coming and we’re always, always changing the game.
Liz:
Yeah. And I think with that too, a huge congratulations to the entire team that makes List Perfectly run every day.
Doug:
Yeah. So obviously, you know, no shocker I’m into the geeky stuff. So, eBay’s growing its authentication programs. So, they’ve got, what do they have Liz? They’ve got purses, watches. They’ve got sneakers, they’ve got watches and they’ve added trading cards. I don’t think this is a big shocker. They have been ramping up trading cards, trying to get people to sell trading cards there for, for months. But now they’ve got an authenticity guarantee program for trading cards, all buyers who spend more than $750, get what they expect. That’s a lot of trading cards.
Liz:
It really is.
Doug:
So, you ship your card.
Liz:
That’s one card.
Doug:
That’s one, one card. That’s quite a card. I wouldn’t spend $750 for a trading card.
Liz:
Doug. That’s the minimum. They go way above that.
Doug:
Oh wow.
Liz:
Yeah. I’m in the wrong business, man.
Doug:
Basically, what happens is you get this card, you send it into the eBay authenticators at the Third Party Certified Collectibles Group and they go through their process. They have these checklists. They verify that the card is indeed as listed. They put the card in a special case with a QR code, tamper-proof seal and ship it back to you. So, you get it in a nice little case. It’s the same process eBay already has to authenticate watches, handbags and sneakers. I told you about the sneaker video I saw, right?
Liz:
No.
Doug:
So, I saw an eBay, there was an eBay…these guys, some convention with eBay shirts and they had the box, the sneakers and opened it. Look at it, turn it around, smell it. I don’t know why they’re smelling it, but I don’t know. Maybe that’s how you can tell whether it hasn’t been used or not. I don’t know. Smells like leather!
Liz:
Trading cards have been around forever. Right? Baseball cards. Well, when I think of cards, two years ago, I would’ve automatically thought of baseball cards. Nowadays when I hear trading cards, I think of Pokemon cards.
Doug:
Sports cards are big again. So they are, they’re really big in reselling. So, football, basketball, baseball. When I was a kid, Liz, believe it or not, I collected baseball cards. I lived in New York in the seventies at the height of the Yankees. I was a Yankee fan as a kid. Now I’m a football fan. And shockingly, I had quite the collection of early Star Wars trading cards. And you know what I did with them Liz?
Liz:
What did you do?
Doug:
At one point I threw ’em away.
Liz:
Oh, I thought you were saying “sold ’em on eBay.”
Doug:
I was too old. Too cool and too old for Star Wars, Liz. And look at me now.
Liz:
Oh, Look at you. Now you haven’t outgrown it.
Doug:
I probably have a Star Wars thing within my reach.
Liz:
So, at the height of the pandemic, yeah, cards became super-hot, and eBay was where people went to get them. I mean, you know, I heard about this, you know, the beginning of that card craze, you know, there were some I won’t name names, but some very popular YouTubers that were buying these exclusive Pokemon packs and they were spending big money and opening ’em live kind of like an unboxing, right? It’s like buying these for your chance to win X, Y, Z, and just really took off. And eBay has really embraced the trading cards as a collectible. So according to eBay, nearly two years later, the boom is still booming. There were more than $2 billion worth of transactions in the first half of 2021, which is more than all of 2020 combined for that category. So that was, and it’s still, it’s still hot. Clearly, they’re authenticating. eBay wants to be the place where people go to get authentic goods including trading cards.
Doug:
They’re gonna keep, obviously growing this authentication stuff, they’re gonna keep ramping up with it. And hopefully when those guys open those packets live online, it’s not like when Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s vault. Remember that? It was a live TV event. They opened Al Capone’s vault live on TV and it was empty. There was nothing like it. It was like total, total. <wah, wah, wah, wah> Speaking of that, Liz, I did this on purpose. It’s your turn. You’ve got the next story. So, I love to give Liz the rate stories because she gets the, <wah, wah, wah, wah> and then she’ll go through and read the rates for us. Read the rate chart, and then I pretend to doze off. So go ahead, Liz. What’s your shipping rate news?
Liz:
Okay. Why? Man, you always stick these to me. I hope that I make this sound exciting. No, shipping rate increases are not exciting. So Mercari came out with their new shipping rates. <wah, wah, wah, wah> That sound haunts me, like I hear it all day, right? So, the new shipping rates are effective February 1st, 2022, for new listings with Mercari prepaid labels. Rates will also change on existing listings. If shipping option is updated, starting March 1st, existing listings will be subject to the new rates too. So, they came out with this chart, and it was pretty confusing, right? So, they came out with this chart. It was a little bit confusing because they showed USPS, FedEx and UPS. There was no smart post in this chart.
Doug:
You know, I’m a fan of Mercari, but I never really like their shipping. I would always do shipping on my own via Pirate Ship. I doubt this is an improvement.
Liz:
I have always shipped on my own also, and didn’t use Mercari labels. And I would just do free shipping, like included in the price. I would get a couple sales here and there just enough to let me cross post cuz Mercari is like one of the easiest platforms to cross post to using List Perfectly. So, I’m like, why not? And I don’t really have to babysit. It’s just there. And it’s done. I recently started using their shipping labels and doing away with free shipping and was able to lower my price. Even though their shipping was a little bit more and my sales increased.
Doug:
Interesting.
Liz:
Yes. So Mercari labels are not very friendly with a four by six printer or little label printers, but I found a way to make it work, whatever, it’s fine. When these shipping rates came out, there was kind of an uproar like, “oh my gosh, I’m gonna ship on my own.” Their rates are super expensive but let me break it down really quick. They came out with this new rate. Let’s just look at USPS because I think that a lot of items, well, a lot of my items are under a pound. Their rate increases went up 7 cents for four ounces and under 8 cents for five to eight ounces, it went up 19 cents for nine ounces to 16 ounces, not so bad, right? The one pound one ounce to three, three pound rate went up $2.86 cents.
Doug:
That’s quite a jump.
Liz:
Three pound, one ounce to 10 pounds went up $2.40 cents. And the 10 pound one ounce to 20 pound went up $3. That’s USPS for a one to three pound item. USPS Priority Mail is $12.48. FedEx home is $14. FedEx SmartPost is $9.66. UPS Ground is $11.88. UPS SurePost is $9.42. So, there are still other options that weren’t in the original chart that they emailed out. And the bigger conversation that we keep having is postal rate increases.
Doug:
Yeah. And that affects everything. And we don’t even wanna get into the supply chain and the cost of stuff and gasoline and all that we will of course include this link in the show notes. So, you too can review the Mercari shipping rate increase chart
Liz:
For all of you that needed a nap like Doug.
Doug:
That’s right. I’m back though.
Liz:
What else do we have in the news Doug?
Doug:
I think that’s it. Liz, we’ve covered a lot. Well, that’s all the news that fits this week, Liz,
Liz:
And that’s all that we have for the podcast this week. And I am so looking forward to next week’s podcast. And if you haven’t listened to it yet, go back and listen to last week’s podcast.
Doug:
Liz is like jumping around, traveling in time now. So, it’s exciting. Yeah. We have a very interesting, special two part miniseries coming up for you.
Liz:
Mini-series?
Doug:
Yeah. Should we tell ’em?
Liz:
Let’s tell ’em. I’ll let you reveal something. Go ahead and let our listeners know…
Doug:
I get to reveal something. All right, so…
Liz:
Oh wait, that’s not good…
Doug:
Recently we had Clara and Amanda on, the co-founders and co-CEOs of List Perfectly talking about last year, talking about this year, what’s coming with List Perfectly and you know, interestingly, there’s so much more to the Clara and Amanda story. And the big part of it is their reselling journey. They’ve done it. They do it, they’ve done it all. They’ve seen it all. They’ve both been selling for years. So, and it goes back to what was called The Clothing Vault, where they got started. They got started even before that, but this is kind of the story of how they got started and The Clothing Vault and you know, this story is even to be continued.
Liz:
Yes. Can’t wait for listeners to hear this, to see that. yeah. Clara and Amanda are sellers. Like they get it, they’ve done this. Hands dirty, thrifting, processing, inventory management. Like that was their life.
Doug:
Yeah, exactly. And great little stories and you know, just scrappiness and just, you know, kind of, kind of the start of the journey to List Perfectly, cuz there’s even still more to be told. That’s a teaser right there. There we go. Next two episodes. The Clothing Vault part one and The Clothing Vault part two.
Liz:
I can’t wait! Thank you for joining us on The Seller Community Podcast News edition from List Perfectly. You can find us at listperfectly.com/podcast. Leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast. You can email us at podcast@listperfectly.com. You can post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/listperfectly. Use the #sellercommunitypodcast and mention Liz or Doug.
Doug:
You can listen to us anywhere. you listen to podcasts and be sure and subscribe, tell your friends, and if you’re on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, we’d love for you to leave us a review. Also, please follow us on Instagram and TikTok. Liz is @coloradoreworn. I am @snoop.dougie and of course @listperfectly. And you can always use our promo code podcast, P O D C A S T, for 30% off your first month of List Perfectly or upgrading your plan.
Both:
We will see you next time.