"It can take four hours or more to prepare even the simplest items for auction,
from taking and uploading digital photographs to writing the ‘ad' and selecting
from 45,000 selling categories. We do all the work so our customers don't
have to." says the owner of a national chain drop-off store, and reported in US
Franchise News.
Every item goes through it
Every item that a store takes in will go through most, if not all, of the following
processes before it is history. Not all of the items will sell. That means the store
incurs fees and labor costs that it must absorb. If the items sells, the fees are
taken out of the seller's portion of the sale and overhead comes out of the
store's commission. That commission can vary greatly and has no bearing on the
actual cost of processing. The steps are:
- Input customer information (for new customers)
- Enter the items into a tracking system of some type
- Research them for value, information, and education
- Place items in bins and store them
- Photograph the objects
- Edit the pictures
- Write and compile a listing
- Estimate shipping fees by size, weight, and value
- Post the items on eBay
- Answer email or phone calls regarding the item
- Locate, pack and ship the items that are sold
- Settle payment or shipping claim
- Cut and mail a check
- Re-list, return, donate or dispose of the items that don't sell.
Estimating processing time
All of this requires employees to do it, and the times for each process with each
item can vary greatly because the items vary in size, shape and complexity.
While it is possible for an item to go
- from take-in to action in 20 minutes,
- a more realistic number would be 40 minutes.
- Add another 5 mins. to that for the times spent monitoring the auction for
questions and errors.
- If it sells add 10 mins. shipping. If it doesn't sell add 10 mins. of
miscellaneous time returning or disposing of it.
Thus we should use appx. 50 mins per item to determine processing costs.
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