Scavenger Life Episode 287: How Is the Holiday Selling Season for You?

Nov 27 – Dec 3
Total Items In Store 1091
Items Sold 18
COGS 56.00 (NICE R.O.I.)
Total Sales
Highest Price Sold Vintage Schott Shearling Leather Coat listed for 199.00 accepted best offer of 140.00.
Ave Price 39.00
Intl Sales –
Returns –
Spent on new merchandise 20.00
New Listings 48

Been a good week. Sold 6 items for less than 20.00 and still managed a 39.00 average sale price. 8 sales (mostly Christmas items) were items I listed last week. Ebay profits will pay for my taxes this year. Have a prosperous week.

Store Week Nov 27-Dec 3, 2016

Total Items in Store: 777
Items Sold: 19 (1 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $82.00
Total Sales: $681.45
Highest Price Sold: $195 (Starrett Caliper)
Average Price Sold: $35.87
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $140
Number of items listed this week: 45

Pretty good week for me. Lots of smalls that will likely be gifts, lots of weird & quirky things, and then the big sale was the Starrett Caliper. Several years ago I picked one up cause I knew tools sold well and I had never seen something like this. It sold immediately and for way more than I anticipated, so it was added to my BOLO list. I’ve bought several over the past 3 years, this one I picked up a few months ago for $15 and it sold for the $195 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/191867257194).

May have gone out for my last pick of the year. We’re having our master bathroom gut renovated so we’re living out of the second bedroom which is also my eBay room/photo studio. Good thing I have my death box so I can at least list something to keep the pipeline full.

Listening to the podcast now!

Total Items in Store: 331
Items Sold: 12
Cost of Items Sold: $28 (used) + $81 (new RA)
Total Sales: $374
Highest Price Sold: $100 (Anthropologie Seahorse knobs – summer clearance $42)
Average Price Sold: $31
Returns & Int’l Sales: 1 possible return for accidental double purchase coming.
Number of items listed this week: +/- 15

Sales picked up for me this week. Most of the sales were very recently listed new RA items. During the last few months I’ve formulated a totally unsubstantiated theory that Ebay has placed more emphasis on freshness in the recent past. Sorry, no evidence. I also have some old listings that don’t have Fed Ex Smart post, and a couple with over 20 watchers and thousands of views. I plan to rework those after Christmas. Hoping to get some more Christmas items up this week. I’ve been a lot more casual with my photos and I’m cringing a bit, but I just need to get more quantity going with the time I have.

I’ve written before about the mood being in-Christmas like around here since the election, but the weather has finally cooled and we’re decorating. I think things are still a bit serious in tone generally, but I’m looking forward to the holiday and seeing family and turning off the tv – especially the news. Uncharacteristically, I have done very little gift shopping. Have a great week!

11/27– 12/3

Total Items in store: 441
Items sold: 8
Cost of items sold: approx. $9
Total Sales: $138
Highest price sold: $ $35 – electronic dartboard
Average price sold: $18
Int’l sales: 0
Returns:0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Amazon disbursement – $0

Full time ebay goal – was March 2018; now – ????

Ebay to Amazon experiment – Had 0 sales.

About 4 weeks out from baby #2 coming along (another little girl) so I am splitting my free time between nursery prep and mom to be assistance.
I am going to put off making a decision to go full time for a couple of months. I really want to buy sell full time. I am caught between doing what I will enjoy right now, or waiting and doing it as a side hustle for a few more months before jumping in full time.

Total Items in Store: 600
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $76
Total Sales: $513
Highest Price Sold: $65 pair of Adidas shoes
Average Price Sold: $30.18
Average profit: $25.69
Items sold on FBA: 10
Amazon sales: $200
Amazon FBA profit (after fees & COGS): $72.50
Total combined profit: $509

Business picked up this week with more sales but mainly bread & butter items. I had a great scavenging week at a local goodwill at which someone dumped a TON of nice and barely worn mens and womens shoes. I bought over 30 pair of shoes!
I haven’t done much listing because I’ve been spending time sorting Legos. It is so much fun! I could literally sort Lego all day every day – I just have that personality type. I hope to get all my lego listings done this week. That $20 purchase is going to make me well over $1000. My list price of just single complete minifigures will be over $600 easy.

Have a great week everyone

Did Jay put a log in the wood burning stove halfway through the podcast?

The crackling fire sound effects were totally appropriate for the “Holiday Sales” episode. Haha.

Total Items In Store 811
Items Sold 35
COGS 221
Total Sales 1,497.67
Highest Price Sold Gucci Loafers $120
Ave Price 42.79

Solid week.
My ultimate goal is to buy higher and higher end items to where I need to sell fewer and fewer items. To do that, to me its all about education and experimentation until I get there.

Interesting item of note, I have a friend that owns 2.5 hours of raw video of Beyonce when she was 11 and starting her girl band. It documents basically the start of her career. He has been working on it, editing it for years…He is just an average guy trying to pay his bills. He used to work for National Geographic as a photographer. Anyways, the video is being sold in a London auction, valued at somewhere around 2-3 million…The auction is January 10th…hope he does well.

Buses:
Growing up in the sixties, my dad was the manager of the Greyhound bus depot. I remember at 8 years old (1966) being put on a bus alone bound for Duluth to visit my cousins. Also getting a box of illegal (for Minnesota) fireworks that a driver would pick up n the way back through South Dakota.
In 2003 I traveled around Uruguay and the bus service was great, they even had a beverage cart with an attendant serving refreshments.

Back ups:
Maybe the crossover listings on Bonanza and TrueGether could be your back ups.

Sixties house:
My home is starting to be very much like that guys. I’ve been acquiring furnishing from that period for a couple years now. They remind me of what I perceive was a better time and I think they look cool. Madmen, Bewitched, Dick Van Dyke and any footage of the astronauts wives watching the liftoff in their homes give me ideas.
I’m in the process of looking for a home to buy and one of my criteria is it must be a built in the sixties ranch style.

https://i.imgur.com/b8pppQi.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/zWUi9Qv.jpg

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Steven S.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Steven S.

Total Items in Store: 207–>ebay, 391–>etsy
Items Sold: 14 (7 on ebay, 7 on etsy)
Total Sales: $600 ($350 on ebay, $250 on etsy)
Highest Price Sold: $125 ring on ebay
Average Price Sold: $43

good week for me.

Store Month of November

Total Items in Store: 498 Ebay (250 Amazon)
Items Sold: 109 Ebay (157 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $1,703.00 Ebay ($1,985.07 Amazon)
The COGS is so high on EBay because I liquidated a lot of old stock using auctions starting at $0.99
Total Sales: $6061.95 Ebay ( $11,575.47 Amazon)
Highest Price Sold: $400 Bose Entertainment System (Ebay), no clue on Amazon
Average Price Sold: $55.61 Ebay ($73.72 Amazon)

The month felt much slower than actual numbers. When I did the totals I was pleasantly surprised. I think this is due to a 3 months crescendo ( Aug -> Sep -> Oct) followed by a slow down in November compared to October (about 27% on Ebay and 18% on Amazon). So the lesson here, like Jay and Ryanne always say, DO YOUR NUMBERS 🙂

There were some small oddities: I sold fantastic on Ebay on Thanksgiving day but close to nothing on Black Friday. Amazon was fantastic on the Cyber Monday week, not so much on Thanksgiving week. December started strong on Amazon but Ebay has been lulling since Black Friday. I still get about 1k+ on sales per week but not the 1.5-2+k numbers from before.
One thing that I learned this year for Amazon FBA is that you really have to be prepared inventory wise for Q4, right now I am running literally on fumes (250 items vs 400+ I usually have) and I don’t see how I can get a lot on inventory during the winter. I guess I know what will happen this year once garage sale season open – my purse will open big :). This pas year I was a bit reticent to splurge on inventory for Amazon for Q4 (still spend 1000 to 1500 per weekend on inventory but it could have been more)

As the end of the year draws near I am starting to look at the business overall, how we did on our goals, setting goals for new year, see what we should stop doing or improve upon. I will have a summary of the analysis on January along with December numbers.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

For those of you that have people that work for you I would recommend sending them a little bonus for the holidays. It always keeps up morale and studies show happy workers are more productive workers.

It doesn’t have to be much it’s just the gesture they will appreciate. I gave everyone $100 bonus personally. Obviously if they have just started it’s different but for those that have been doing it for around a year it’s nice.

Ryanne, listening to you talk about the overalls return, is there a way to close a case if they don’t return it? I have a woman who opened a return case on November 19th and still has not returned it. When I click on the return I don’t see anywhere where I can close it. Maybe that’s not possible but I thought I’d ask if you know. Thanks.

Edit: Ah! sorry, I should have kept listening to the podcast, you answered my question. 🙂

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by JtotheNessa.

Customer call in my Home!!

Yesterday, Sunday the 4th, received a scary call from a recent customer complaining about an item and asking for return. Even though my wife had that SCARED FACE, I told the customer to please go ahead and initiate return case using the Platform provided tools – she insisted she only paid through PayPal and could not remember where she purchased from. I told her I did not know how she found my personal phone, however we need to use the official channels provided by the Commerce Site and Paypal because they are the official mediators for cases like this.

Informed her I accept 30 days return guaranteed and I was waiting for the return request.

My only inference is that she looked my address online to find the phone number.

This is terrible terrible

Any comments?

11/28-12/4
Total Items in Store: 218
Items Sold: 19
Cost of Items Sold: $40
Total Sales: $438.22
Highest Price Sold: $ 99.99 (incomplete set of Foxfire books)
Average Price Sold: $ 25.43
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $45

I too enjoyed the sounds of a crackling fire. In the last week it’s finally gotten cold here in Kentucky. When I was a wee lad our house was old (built in the 1860s) and it had a massive stove in the kitchen (although, now that I think about it, it was probably more of me being a tiny person as opposed to the stove actually being large). My current house has a regular old heat pump. I doubt anyone ever has (or ever will) have evocative feelings about a heat pump.

Another above average week for me, sales-wise. I’m trying to be diligent about finding new stuff to sell as the trash to treasure ratio isn’t great for a lot of the places I hit. I’d like to get to the place where I have a few death piles lying around, if for nothing else than the piece of mind that I’m not going to run out of stuff to sell. Right now I can get everything I find listed within a few days. I know I should hit some auctions and try to snag some box lots, but it’s a lot easier to drift in and out of thrift stores while I’m out buying groceries or what have you.

QUESTION ON FINAL VALUE FEES ON A RETURN: I had a customer request a return for a Revere Ware pot, he had wanted a 1 quart but ordered a 2 quart by mistake and returned it. I refunded his price for the item, he paid shipping both ways. I was charged $1.80 Final Value Fee for the item on the original sale. But on my November ebay Invoice, I’ve been issued a credit of only $1.44 FVF. Is this what I am supposed to expect? I thought we would get the entire FVF for the item credited. Thanks, I can’t find anything specific about this in ebay help pages.

Old Manuals

Never was lucky enough to find old manuals. Boy they sell. Even old Texas Instruments calculators are going.

Now my challenge is to have a better send of what others, like Audio Systems, manuals do sell. I have plenty at home. The challenge is as much as there are manuals, there are also the actual audio systems in various conditions.

Possibly I will look into the beyond vintage ones. Seems like electronics from last 15-20 years are not worth the effort.

Comments? Computer related seems to sell anything

Great opportunity for “commercial” long tail

Folks, as result from the probable policies from the President Elect (specifically lowering taxes from the rich and large corporations; eliminating social security and health benefits from low income and others with pre existing conditions; partnerships with powerful lobbies like dirty energy producers including the mega oil corps, full power to coal producers). There would be interesting consequences. And I will put aside environment and global warming and focus only on economy.

It is very likely that because of the short to mid term fiscal deficit, government spending will be in pressure and the inflation will go up, recession will affect so far immune sectors like commerce, small businesses and the poorer population will have less money to spend and worse condition.

It is very likely that the look for second hand office material, equipment,, machines to make things from T shirts to food will come stronger. Compare to the commercial auction houses and estate sales.

I am not sure how much we can leverage that. buying and selling perspective. For example we will see more ceramic sinks for liquidation from the smaller shops and the chains that will consolidate, also portable electronic players in moderate quantities.

I plan to go to one of these auctions tomorrow to see who are the buyers. Wonder our case in terms of shipping and storing would be.

Jay-Too true! Reminds me of that saying about work: you can get it fast, cheap, and good, but never all three at once.

Paulo-I’m glad I’m not the only one. I’ve been at it for about 6 months, myself.

Paulo, younare very confused about Trmp’s “probable policies”. Please stop listening to the lamestream media. I have heard him sa exactly what his defnite policies are, and they are the exact opposite of what you said for the most part. Please go to his webste and read for yourself. Then uou can relax and look forward to good things like the rest of us. 🙂

http://Www.donaldjtrump.com

RR Store Week Nov 27-Dec 3, 2016

Total Items in Store: 1047
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $19.29
Total Sales: $481.86
Highest Price Sold: $59.99 (60s bowling trophy)
Average Price Sold: $28.34
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $43
Number of items listed this week: 20

I totally identify with that dude in Phoenix (and Steven S, apparently!). My house is furnished and decorated with mostly vintage items, all from the 50’s and 60’s. I’ve been collecting things from that era since I was a kid. I’ve always loved the mid century look, and that love is now making me money. Another niche I collect is tiki; eBay is dangerous for Tiki nerds on a budget. But it’s one of the few places where one can find super specific items, like a mug or menu from a certain tiki bar or restaurant. I have a whole room just for my tiki junk!

Same week for me; lots of low dollar items sold, a result of listing death pile pieces. But I’ve definitely seen an uptick in my sales. I doubt it’s because of the holidays; I think it’s because of my return to consistent listing. And I sold a bunch of mugs too! A 60s drug mug, a Walt Disney World plastic mug, a handmade signed cat mug…what a strange coincidence.

Yesterday I had my first Facebook sale. It was a program from a tiki convention called Exoticon, held in 1995. When I was moving, I found an extra copy in my archives, so I put it up on a tiki collector page. Had a buyer within a few hours. I did have to remind him to pay after a few days, but he quickly apologized and immediately sent me the money, $24 including shipping. Not bad for some old paper.

*Paul*

Nov 27-Dec 3, 2016

Total Items in Ebay Store: 1050
Total Items in Amazon Store: 535

Items Sold Ebay: 44
Items Sold Amazon FBA: 20

Ebay COGS: $178.85
Amazon COGS: $106.50

Total Amazon Fees: $211.58
Total Ebay/Paypal Fees: $321.02

Total Sales Ebay: $2,207.65
Ebay Excess Shipping Income: $ 56.71
Total Sales Amazon: $1,061.26
Total Income: $3,325.62

Net Ebay: $1,764.89
Net Amazon: $ 849.68
Total Weekly Net Profit: $2,614.57

Highest Price Sold AMZ: $ 249.99 (New Sony Boombox – sold 3 at $250 each)
Highest Price Sold Ebay: $ 149.99 (2.5 oz discontinued lotion)

Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $60

This is my first time posting my weekly numbers. I do ebay/amazon in addition to a part-time 23 hour a week job. I do this on my own and been building this up as a serious business since around April of last year. I sell a little bit of everything. I have a lot of hats, eyeglasses/sunglasses, shoes, socks, and electronics in my store. I’m probably spending close to full time hours on online selling, between sourcing, listing, and shipping.

Christmas season is definitely in full swing with my store. Sales have been crazy. Big stuff. Little stuff. Everything is selling right now. It’s hard to keep up and get it all out. Had a nice week with Amazon as well. I purchased some brand new Sony boomboxes from a person who buys liquidation items. Sent those into Amazon and they have brought a tidy profit thus far.

Thanks for the encouragement, Jay! If I hadn’t stumbled onto your podcast, I doubt I would have ever seen eBay as more than a hobby. I appreciate all the work you and Ryanne have put into this community.

Total Items in Store: 544
Items Sold: 78
Cost of Items Sold: $533
Total Sales: $3107.37
Highest Price Sold: $187.50 loving family dollhouse lot
Average Price Sold: $39.84
Number of items listed this week: 90+

I believe last week was my best week ever. November was my best month ever with $9900 total sales. And cyber Monday was madness, 20 items sold for $900+. I packaged 36 items this morning… with a sick baby under foot, so I’m absolutely exhausted. You know you’ve hit your limit when you’re looking forward to things slowing down?! I have 10 death tubs of clothing left and then I will have gotten through all of my unlisted inventory. Which is so crazy to me. If you would have asked me three months ago if I was ever going to list it all, I would have laughed at you. It feels great.

Jay, I will say it once more. I have a hunch that having hundreds or thousands of old listings is not necessarily a good thing. I suspect that lots of old listings may in fact drag you down in The Cassini search engine. Look at all the big weekly stats from sellers with comparatively few listings. I think fewer listings with faster turnover is the sweet spot. I hope to start thinning out my old deadweight things and selling them super cheap or donating them to see if that helps sales AND to free up storage space. I have zero desire for getting a warehouse. My aim is going to be to have no more listings than I get free each month with my Premium level store. What do you think?

Possible solution for the photo storage/backup problem when taking photos on your phone, so as not to max it out – on my android I simply send the photos to my google drive account for backup. You need good wifi though if sending a lot of them, otherwise it can be slow!

Numbers for month of November
Total eBay Items: 671 (670 last month)
Items Sold: 52 (50 last month)
Total Sales: $943 ($662 last month)
Cost of Items Sold: $116 ($143 last month)
Highest Price Sold: $70 Hoftritz Germany Steak Knives
Average Price Sold: $18.13 ($17.39 last month)
International Sales: 3 gsp / 2 non gsp
Number of items listed: 37 (50 last month)
Spent on new inventory: $118 ($84 last month)
Returns: 0

I’m starting to list some higher priced items (many long tail) so my average price sold should slowly increase.

Some recent sales:

Friendship & Sisterhood Brooch
Paid $3 sold for best offer of $30

Richmond Pacific Railroad Hat
Paid .49 at a thrift store and sold to somebody in New York for $26.95

Levi’s Saddleman Boot Cut White Jeans
Paid $4 sold for a best offer of $54

Old White Rotary Sewing Machine Manual
Paid $1 sold for $22.95. I was pretty sure this was a reprint, and you can download this manual online for free, but if you have the machine or are a collector the hard copy is nice to have.

PG&E of California Centennial Story Book
Paid $4 sold for $59.95. Histories of companies and organizations always seem to sell at a premium for me.

-Steve in Richmond, Calif.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Steve List.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Steve List.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Steve List.

Items in Store: 178
Items sold: 5
COGS: ~26.00
Total Sales: $97.47
Highest Priced Item: $25 Thatcher Co. 1 Gallon Square glass milk jug
Avg. Sales Price: $19.49
International Sales: 0
Unpaid item cases: 1
Returns: 0
New Listings: 1
New inventory costs: $9.90

Okay week for me. I was happy to see a good number of sales even with the average price being lower. Most of what I sold had been in my store from the early summer. I had another handbag sell so I think that sale may be helping. It is hard to really infer anything when the sample size is so small, but I’ll take it. COGS is high because one of the items was part of a bad auction buy. Was trying for some nice watches and then found out that the watches were knockoffs. So, I’m assigning the cost to the items I can sell. I should still break even with the other items, but this one was a good lesson about not getting excited over specific names if you don’t know how to do a high level authentication. My one unpaid item was a larger ticket for me, but I closed the case, relisted, and had it resold yesterday…this time with payment. Many of my unpaid items are GSP sales so I’m wondering if buyers don’t see the full GSP price until after they initiate the check out process. Any one have insight into how that works?

I got my first section of shelving built in the basement this weekend. My husband helped and we used some of the left over lumber that we have around after construction. It isn’t even scrap wood! We have a huge pile of 2×6 pine tongue and groove and many sheets of plywood in the yard still. I have more than enough to finish the rest of the shelves. I plan on a 3’x21′ run with 4 2’x4′ sections running perpendicular. Each will have 3 shelves with room to store on the floor under it. I can’t wait to get the rest built, but for now, the priority is the rest of the house. Still need to do the painting so we can get the flooring down. Our scheduled completion date is sliding back and now we are looking at end of January instead of Christmas. I’m eager to get it done just so I can have more time to focus on listing. It will happen soon enough! I am planning on 2017 being a good year for building up the eBay business so I can get the house paid for and move into owning my own time!

11/27-12/3/2016

Approximate # of Items in Store: 265
# of Items Sold: 13
Average Cost of Items Sold: $7.92
Total Sales: $714.92
Highest Price Sold: $125 – Shoes
Average Price Sold: $54.99
Returns: 1 – $35.98
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $34.76
Number of items listed this week: 28

J&R, Listening to the podcast…. You mentioned you now have zero defects (I assume you had one before). I believe defects drop off after 12 months. I will know better soon, because I have one “out of stock” defect which I received mid-December of last year. I expect to go down to zero within a few weeks. And you are right, the defect structure was changed radically after Wenig became ebay CEO. The two main concerns today are cases closed without seller resolution, and “out of stock” cancellations.

Items in Store: 13,192
Items sold: 172
COGS: $20.76
Total Sales: $990.36
Highest Priced Item: $28 Norwich, VT Univ Alumnia Hall RPPC
Avg. Sales Price: $5.76
New inventory costs: $0.00

Ran a 3 day 50% off sale just to move some product. Hoping to finish out the year with 14k postcards and am trying to add at least 300 postcards a week.

After initially starting everything at auction, I’ll run all of my items as 30 day listings. Kind of a PITA to relist 13,000 items (200 at a time, since I haven’t figured out how to bulk relist in sixbit…just laziness on my part). But I find that the first 2 days my cards are relisted my average daily sales (approx $120) more than double. That never seemed to happen when my GTC listings renewed. Curious if those that use GTC see a huge spike in sales when the items renew for another 30 days?

Just dropped under 3 years until I can retire from my real job.

J&R have you ever interviewed Fred’s Premium Closet? His store clothing photos are so good. It makes me wonder how he folds the shirts. Does he use cardboards in each one? I would love to hear an interview with him, or get a link to one you have done.

Thanks for another great podcast! Sorry your sales haven’t been spectacular but it’s great that you are getting all your death piles listed so you can start scavenging for higher dollar items again.

Before I list my numbers, I was wondering if anyone here had purchased the 230 VCRs/DVDs auction lot in NJ that I had posted about last week. I had checked it a few hours before it ended, and someone had bid the minimum of $230.

Week of Nov 28 – 4
* Total Items in Store: 517
* Items Sold: 11
* Cost of Items Sold: $10.40
* Total Sales: $212.94
* Highest Price Sold: $35 Antique Cup & Saucer
* Average Price Sold: $19.35
* Returns: 1 damaged item
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: about 25

This was an OK week for me, but better than last week. Sales picked up Sunday and Monday. The damaged item was my fault. It was a cake plate that was awkward to pack, so I didn’t do the normal box within box. Brain fart, I guess.

The antique cup & saucer was in an auction lot that I was not charged for. I didn’t realize their mistake until a few days later, otherwise, I would have said something. I initially didn’t think that the set was that nice, but I tracked the hallmark down:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=182361501591

Here is something sold yesterday that will definitely bump up my average sale price for next week. The buyer paid full price of $105. The auctioneer said it was a funeral mask, but I’m not sure whether it is or not. I paid about $3 for it.:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=182326309416

Hey guys! Late to the party again this week, but another great podcast. I wanted to throw my 2 cents in about sales. I recently put my sales numbers up on my blog as a way to track them visually for myself. Anyhow I saw that while Thanksgiving day always brings good sales the weekend that follows falls off. I took time with family those days since I knew it was coming. My theory is that everyone does HUGE discounts that weekend and if you aren’t giving things away you just don’t sell as much.

This brings me to my second point with your sales. You have been listing more clothing and accessories items. I can tell you for certain the market is more saturated now than it has ever been. There are more sellers in clothing than there are buyers. There are also a plethora of sellers that are willing to sell items with $1-$2 profit margins. This has caused a huge decrease in the value of items. Furthermore, if you are researching using sold listings you may not be getting a true picture of the value. Ebay is not showing the best offer sold price but the original listed price. This can cause you to over price your items. I am using the “completely” app to research and price. It will show you the actual sold prices for an item along with showing the average time on the market. The app is only available on Iphones but I know you guys are Apple users. I have spoken with the creator of the app and while she has plans to create a Droid version she is currently working on another project.

Hope this helps and I hope you guys are having great sales this week!

Cyndi

Full disclosure. I have not looked at your items are anyone elses and so I don’t know that you are over pricing. I simply know that I have been shocked by the low prices things are actually selling for when researching. It’s just a thought.

Cyndi

My week update. I am away from home, in a different part of the country and my main inventory due to helping out my elderly mom. I’m missing out on the xmas sales, but I’m grateful for the flexibility to be here. I have been out to thrift some. I opened up a new ebay account last week, so I could list a few things while here. A few stumbling blocks. I found out that a new account on ebay, will not allow you to post through 3rd party software until you have 10 positive feedback or been on ebay for 90 days. I use Garage Sale for Mac. Oh well, that forced me to use the ebay interface which I hadn’t used in years. Also, forgot about how they freeze your $ too. I wish ebay made it easier for an established seller to open a second account i.e. grandfathered it in. I put 20 items up, sold two. A sweater and a goose down parka for: $184. 99. Cost of items: $6.53. I spent a bunch more on inventory but haven’t added up yet. What I don’t sell while here, I’ll ship home. Funny I am going from Zero feedback on the new account, and just turned 1000 on my main account. I’ll be here a few more weeks.

re clothes, I still think that luxury brands will do well–Flim still seems to be making good money on high end but being in New York is her advantage. I think that the collectibles market has gone soft too, I am selling about the same as I always do, except summer when it gets even slower. Searching completed auctions is depressing–and I suppose that some clothing is going the way of the “penny book” probably because how wide spread the “weigh and pays” are. I don’t know– the market is changing for sure–Jay I think you diversified into rental properties while holding on to your consulting business at exactly the right time.

Between both stores we’ve been selling $3,200 to $4,400 every week since the end of August, but we’ve also been running constant sales and promotions. I think once you’ve had the new hire listing like she has been for the next few months, you’ll see your sales picking up substantially.

I had an interesting question today on a Revere Ware 5 qt. Stockpot:

I have a flat top range and it is very important that the pot sits flat with no wobble at all. Please check this and be honest as I have sent back a couple that did wobble.

Like heck, it’s perfectly flat on my counter, but I’m not going to say it’s not going to wobble on HIS cooktop. If it’s glass, they CAN have issues. So here’s what I responded:

Hi there. I had a flat cooktop like that once, drove me crazy until I finally got the manufacturer to send someone out to look at it, and they found it was not perfectly smooth. I cannot guarantee this pot is not going to wobble on your cooktop. Good luck, you might try having someone look at it.

I should probably block him, cuz he’ll buy it and want me to give him a full refund because he won’t be happy with the slightest issue.

BLOCK HIM OR NOT?

Total items in store: 253
Items sold: 3
Cost of Items Sold: $3 thrift + $32 retail
Total Sales: $75.97
Avg. price: $25.32
Highest price item: $59.98 2 packages of jockey underwear
International sales: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $0
Number of items listed: 0

It was a dud of a week. This week is already much better.

Yesterday was a dream ebay day! I sold 12 items for $460! Oh how I wish every day was like that…

Thank you Jay & Ryanne for taking time out of your busy day yesterday to help me jump into the forums! Fell into a Pinterest rabbit hole this morning. Here is the best quote I believe I have ever heard (and completely relevant for me at this moment. Working on this ALL.THE.TIME.): Have a great day Scavengers!
No amount of security
is worth the suffering
of a mediocre life chained
to a routine that has
killed your dreams.
-Maya Mendoza

Hey Ryanne did somebody trip over the plug in the What Sold Section? I can’t post a What Sold video there. Maybe I need to give literacy a chance? What am I doing wrong.

Also do you two have a po box for any December Solstice gifts? I have something here to send.

Anywho, it’s been pretty steady on books on Amazon and dries and drabs on eBay.

Now is the time to consider pruning dead inventory before eBay hits ya with that automatic renewal listing fee.

I was going to be an entitled prick and post my What Sold video here anyway, but I am entering my mid life crisis adult phase, which reminded me that would be poor form.

Drat.

If anything I had weird sales the past few months, like the $70 Squishable frog, and some Betamax tapes. Somebody wanted out of a lot, just one Young and the Restless Betamax for $50, so clearly, the money is out there somewhere.

Guys suck it up and sell books on Amazon. It’s a nice, steady income as long as you have a price changer. We have a home brew changer, but I have heard Amazons isn’t too bad.

Basic numbers for last week:

eBay total for all accounts:

$788.52

Amazon

$1,952.04

We do not use FBA. My control borg partner(ish) cough long story, would bleed out of his eyes if we did.

Also any advice on how to deal with my new but perpetually angry at the entire universe mailman, greatly appreciated. Tattling would result in all mail going to His basement, so if there is a way to get his route changed anonymously, I’m all ears.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by Eve Everett. Reason: Just random thoughts

I’ve had a great week, in my humble little part time seller way. My sales really picked up over the past couple of days — though Cyber Monday was flat. People are clearly in a gift-buying and coat-buying mode. I haven’t had a return in a while either, yay! Providing partial refunds to people with legit complaints for items I don’t want to have to re-list has helped prevent a couple of returns this fall.

Another cool thing is that my husband, who was dubious about my ebay hobby (addiction!) is getting more into it as he’s seen what I can sell. The other day he was saying it’s like creating money from nothing. Exactly! We’ve enjoyed taking some trips to thrift stores as a family and he’s shown incredible talent in finding high-end men’s outdoor gear that I wouldn’t have thought to look for. And also, OMG, he just cleaned out his closet for me to have many more vintage outdoorsy items to sell.

I don’t track my numbers, but my current goal is to get my store to 250 listings and keep it at that level. Based on prior performance of my store, 250 listings would result in income of approximately $500 to $1,000 per month, depending on whether I’m able to sell higher-$ items in any given month. I have about 210 listings right now. 250 is somewhat arbitrary, but I’m going for it because that’s doable with my storage and sourcing resources, and it’s the maximum amount of listings you get for “free” with my store subscription. I like how Ryanne and Jay recommend 500 listings as a sustainable level, but for me, I have a strong gut feeling that 500 is too many, but 250 is just right. (Did I mention I have a FT job, a young kid, and limited attic storage space?!)

Total items in store: ~300
Items sold: 22
Cost of Items Sold: $22
Total Sales: $671.79
Avg. price: $30.54
Highest price item: $114.84 Sega Master System II Video Game System
Money spent on new inventory: $0
Number of items listed: 0

I was sick as a dog all week so the only eBay I did was to pack up stuff and get it out the door. Having a 4-month old baby in daycare is like the virus gift that just keeps on giving. I think either the baby my wife or I have been sick for the last 2 months straight!

I did sell some neat stuff this week though. The Sega Master System came out of an awesome video game lot my brother picked up a while back. It’s a prime example of how knowing your stuff helps make the $$. He called me because a lady had a huge lot of games at a yard sale but wouldn’t sell him just the Nintendo stuff and she wanted $80 for the lot which was more than he was willing to pay. When he told me everything that was in the lot I nearly drove the 30 miles to the sale myself. Instead I immediately sent him $40 through PayPal and told him to buy the lot and give me all the non-nintendo stuff. I’ve easily made $500 off just the stuff he gave me and I know he made at least that much off the Nintendo stuff including some rare circuit boards for a demo-unit that he sold for $285.

CTLady, I also have a FT job 🙂

One of the main motivators for me after leaving a 20 year job was staying home with the Twins a bit (I have 5 kids and have never given same attention to the 11 yo Twins). And my wife always wanted to resume her career, for me I had all the reasons to support her and stay a bit with the Twins.

Having said that, I just hit the 510 items listed mark. I have an aggressive goal to reach the $1000 mark using even slow ticket items to generate me traffic.

I was on the $2k/month for Aug/Sept/Oct, dropped on november and it seems it will stay lower in December. Also consider I had mostly designer clothes and other higher tickets before and it seems my average ticket item is lower since I stopped buying clothes.

Depending on what you are listing will not be difficult to be at least that level

Cheers

Jason K – Regarding your comment about being sick all the time with your baby in daycare, please know that IT GETS BETTER! I was soooooo sick for the first winter my daughter was in daycare, with multiple bad colds and bacterial infections. Yuck! But knock on wood, two winters later, I haven’t been sick in months! (I did get the flu last winter, eeek!) I think you will eventually develop resistance to a lot of the daycare bugs. That’s why the teachers never seem to get sick.

CTLady,
That’s what other people have told me. I was honestly very tempted to take him out of day care and just watch him at home since day care is so crazy expensive, we are paying $700 a month for one kid! Then when he got sick 2 weeks ago I watched him at home for 3 days and its just impossible to get more than an hour or two worth of work done because the only time I could work was when he was sleeping.

Nov 27 – Dec 3rd
Total Items in Store: 124
Items Sold: 4
COGS: 51.10 (One item was a 50 dollar buyout)
Sales: 135.97
New Listings: 11

Second week in, we did list about a few items but our seller limits are slowing us down and we can’t seem to get ebay to bump them (no live people to ask). Still, not bad at all and this week appears to be headed down a good path as well. Fingers crossed.

My sales have been good on both ebay and etsy since Thanksgiving. I do stock a lot of vintage Christmas items and Christmas craft kits though.

Something I’ve notice recently about Etsy. Buyers on Etsy must not shop around for best price. I cross post most of my vintage on Etsy and buyers will often pay more for my item on Etsy than they would for the same item I have listed on Ebay. The reason it’s less on ebay is because I run sales on Ebay. On etsy there is no system to run sales unless you use a paid third party application.

Mon 28th – Dec 4th

Ebay $317

19 items sold on Ebay
average price $17

Etsy $278

11 items sold on Etsy

average price $25

Bonanza $10

Total $605

Nancy, I have noticed the same thing about buyers on Etsy — they do not seem to be as price-sensitive as ebay buyers. If they want the thing, they buy it! I have added a $1 handling fee to my Etsy postage (you have that option) and as far as I know, this hasn’t affected sales (but you know, maybe it has?) The handling fee is not visible to buyers — they just see a shipping fee that is $1 more.

Havent posted in a while, a lot going on, love the new site!

so far the Holidays have been busy on Ebay and personally. Went on my first vacation while running a store, went smooth! Used your advice and changed my shipping time to 10 days and had no issues at all and still had sales. Holidays too I am having a lot more returns than usual

Also I finally became a top rated seller!!!! very excited.

Havent listed much with the holidays, but was able to do two good hauls and have now been trying to list. My father is not doing well, and is declining and it has been hard to stay focused, groups like this keep me going.

Hope you guys have fun in brooklyn

Have a question: MDC Galleries talks about re-listing older items that have been on for 90, 120, etc. days. It’s probably very basic, but I’m wondering how you can view the age of your inventory without clicking into each item. I have been re-listing when items get a lot of views but no action, but am not sure how to view that other stat.

Thanks!!

Thanks, Mike! I appreciate the instructions… I now have that column set up. As I said (and thanks to some things you said earlier this year), I’ve been ending listings that are about to re-up and have many views, and re-listing as sell similar. Some have sold, many have not, but I am becoming convinced that ebay likes an active store… new listings (even if you’re just listing things you’ve ended), feedbacks, editing, etc. I don’t have a large enough store where that’s a problem, it’s just part of the daily routine.

Thanks again!!

In response to the clothing sells saturation, I see it to. I have seen steady sells but very little growth. One reason I don’t post my numbers on here as much is because every week it is between 650 – 750 dollars without fail. Yet I keep listing and the item count in my store keeps growing. I have started looking for niches within clothing, such as hunting clothes, and also I have tried to move towards more NWT clothes and higher end clothes when I can find them. I have always kept about 20% of my store in non clothing items so I have some diversity if the clothing slows (and it does this time of year for me based on last year clothing sells were down until right after Christmas when people got gift cards and money). One thing I have been looking at is repairing jewelry broken higher end jewelry. It is a slow process to learn and then you have the fear of authenticity strikes / vero. Otherwise I plan on streamlining my store and moving out some of the old bad pics and dead stock and going from there. Thanks for the podcast!