Time, the secret eBay offset

November 5, 2024

As I said in my last post, I have been using eBay recently for the first time in many years. I have even made a pretty reasonable amount of money in exchange for the things which were on my shelf gathering dust.

On paper, it’s gone quite well. Let’s have a look at a sample here:

I purchased a comic book collected volume about five years ago and thanks to the label on the front, I know I paid £8.99 for it. I got it from Forbidden Planet in Coventry if you are curious. I have had my enjoyment out of it as both a good read, and ornament and a dust cover for my shelf.

Fast-forward to now, when I list it on eBay for £6.95 and £2.30 postage and packaging, as guided by the tools in the app.

It sold, and now I have to wrap and send it.

I spent £3 on bubble wrap, £2 on brown paper and £2 on tape. This stuff will be good for probably six or more packages but the total cost seems to average out to around £1 per item for packaging.

Each package takes me up to, but rarely exceeding, 10 minutes to package and affix the label. Assuming I am sending more than one item per ‘session,’ then I am most likely spending no more than 5 minutes per package.

If we assume the source product cost is only the cost of the packaging and time to deliver the package to the carrier, including queueing because it is a dusty book which I don’t want, then we have a financial cost of £1 and a time cost of no more than 20 minutes if it is a single package. We are not counting fuel to get to the store here because I usually drop things off as I pass on the way back from work.

The minimum wage in the UK is £11.44 which is about 19p a minute, so the 20 minutes time has a minimum cost of £3.80. So a single package has a total cost of £4.80.

• Sale value: £6.95
• Total cost: £4.80
• Profit: £2.15

eBay is not worth the effort for anything with a sale value of about £16.00, unless you are selling in bulk or value your own time less than minimum wage.

Time to donate some stuff, I think.