Our eBay month - Feb 2011

Hmmmm, why do I dread writing this up?  I do not know. 

Our sales in February were less than they were in January.  I'm not sophisticated enough to sit here an tell the world that therefore we lost X amount of dollars.  I'm not a large corporation, and there's no one here I can use that as an excuse to get rid of, and since I have no employees, I certainly can't move operations to Brazil or somewhere where labor is cheaper.  So since I'm unsophisticated business wise, I'll simply tell the truth.  We made money, but not quite as much as last month.

Both our net & gross were about 15% higher in Jan 2011 than in Feb 2011.   Our sales of single postcards were actually a bit higher in February, but sales of antique photos, especially CDVs were down quite a bit, and that is what made the overall difference. (Even though CDV sales were down, they still outsold the other categories of antique photos we sell). January was a very good month for antique photos, much more than is usual for us; February was a fairly normal month for photos. 

We ship items Monday thru Saturday, unless the post office is closed for a holiday, or for some reason we're physically unable to.  I update the totals on the day we ship them out, it's easier to keep track of that way.  January had 24 shipping days (because of holidays), Feb only had 23 - but that extra day would not have made up the difference.  March has 27 shipping days, so we'll see how that works out.

We're doing much better than this same period last year.  Our net is about 25% higher than the same two month period last year, and our gross over 70% higher in the same period.  How can that be?  Well, we were still doing a little consignment last year, but not that much - it accounted for a bout 10% of our sales.  But I noticed for some reason our business expenses were much higher in Feb 2010 than in Feb of this year, but expenses for Jan 2010 & Jan 2011 were about the same. Consignments may be part of the reason, I also think we're getting some discounts now that we didn't have then.  Also we buy things in bulk frequently, such as envelopes, printer paper and other supplies - it's cheaper over the long run, but it bumps up our expense in whatever month we purchase them.   No matter the reason,  we've done quite a bit better this year than we had at the same point last year.  That's good.

As always postcards seem to be pretty steady.  I need to figure out how to keep the antique photos at a high level every month.  And I'm continuing to add Victorian Trade Cards to the mix, so maybe one day they'll take off.