At What Point Did You Need Help?

[Slab City]

I have a ton of buddies who sell sports cards for a living on eBay, COMC and other sites. Between sourcing, listing, shipping and all the other parts that go into selling cards they are working 10-12 hours a day. If I have 40-50 items close on eBay it takes me hours to pick and ship those. At what point do/did you need help growing your business?
(Yes I understand it will be different for everyone).

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by Slab City

I have a ton of buddies who sell sports cards for a living on eBay, COMC and other sites. Between sourcing, listing, shipping and all the other parts that go into selling cards they are working 10-12 hours a day. If I have 40-50 items close on eBay it takes me hours to pick and ship those. At what point do/did you need help growing your business?
(Yes I understand it will be different for everyone).

I'd say the first thing to do is get more efficient. 50 items shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. The faster guys can probably do it in half that.

Personally, I will never need help. Once I get to the point I'm maxed out on items, I will simply climb the ladder and buy more expensive cards.

[jamcas997]

Sounds like they are listing auctions and shipping right away. I have over 3000 listings with over 46000 cards listed total on ebay alone. I sell about 15 to 20 items a day. it takes less than 10 minutes to pull all cards and supplies are right in my shipping station. It takes less than 5 minutes to print labels and maybe less than an hour to package them all up unless i get distracted. Having good time management skills and a method to the madness is important.

[shrevecity]

I agree with others efficiency is key. I ship anywhere from 15 to 20 items a day and generally only takes me about an hour. If it's just cards often around 1 minute each. The items that take me the longest are the ones I have to drive to the stage unit and pull but most of that is just getting there and pack.

[Slab City]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

I agree with others efficiency is key. I ship anywhere from 15 to 20 items a day and generally only takes me about an hour. If it's just cards often around 1 minute each. The items that take me the longest are the ones I have to drive to the stage unit and pull but most of that is just getting there and pack.

Thank God I dont have to drive to another location to pick items. Holy smokes you must have a ton of inventory.

[checkoutmydeals]

One way you could go about it is to divide what you do into various tasks. Time yourself for 25 minutes to an hour doing a task and see how many widgets you crank per hour.

When you get to a point where you would pay someone, say $20 for doing a particular task for 1/2 an hour, then you might look around for someone who can help you with that task. Not that you would pay them $40 per hour, but if you want someone to do something, it will take you a while to train them, they might do it slower than you, and you might get 1/2 hour of solid work from someone out of an average hour that they're on the clock.

Alternately, you might find someone who already does that task for themselves and see how much they might charge to do that task for you. For example, if someone creates eBay listings to sell their own stuff, maybe they would take $x per hour or $y per listing to create listings for you. If someone packs and ships their own items, maybe they will pack and ship yours for a fee, either per package, or per hour.

One thing you might have going for you is that there are a lot of reasonably talented people who are willing to do gig work, rather than working particular hours. Maybe they already have a steady job and this is a side hustle. Maybe they are a stay-at-home parent and can put in a few hours here and there while the kid is at school.

[grade]

anything over 4 hours a day is too much.