Scavenger Life Episode 304: Do a little bit today, then do a little bit tomorrow

Week of 3/26-4/1
Total Items in Store: 1,480
Items Sold: 74
Number of Items Listed This Week: 63
Total Sales: $2,112.76
Cost of Items Sold: $348.92
Highest Item Sold: $90 – Vintage Gone With The Wind Style Hurricane Lamp (Veronica wins this week)

Sales remain strong for us, in fact, March was our best month ever at $9,306 in sales, and we hit our best rolling 90-Day sales quantity, 791.

We missed our goal of listing 100 items per week. I didn’t get as much listed as I wanted, though Veronica was still strong. I moved my activity to more photo and prep, as my contract job asked me to hang around for 2 more days next week in case they need me, and they are OK with me putting listings on eBay while I am there. Gotta love being paid for the same hours twice!

More rainy weather on the weekend, so our only sourcing was still in the thrift stores. We will be prepping more this week for some time off next week. We are going to visit our oldest son in college and will be able to see him pitch while we are up there. So 3.5 days of low work output, but we hope to get some new listings up and do some sourcing while we are there.

That is why we love this job!

Completely agree about consistency. I track our sell thru rate each month, as well as the new listings we do each month. Every time we increase or keep our listings the same over last month, our sell through rate is strong. If we list less than the past month, our sell thru rate goes down. End of the day — JKL – Just Keep Listing!!!

Foxing is a type of fungus which loves moisture and paper items. If you need a service you could probably find one by asking who your public library uses, or even better a large University Library. Probably expensive

I sell such materials as is, just mention in the condition that it has foxing and let them decide whether to pay for the conservation.

Just listened to the podcast, and liked your conversation about the scan sheets. We moved to this so that when Guaranteed Delivery happens, we make sure we are covered and have a scan and won’t have to pay a refund for shipping if we handle timely.

Ryanne: We are like you, doing our shipping at different times of the day, but we only print the labels at 10 am each morning. The way that we use the bulk shipping to get the Scan Sheet, we pack the item up, write an item description (short), the buyers last name, zip, and the weight on the package, but we don’t ship yet. The hard part is done when we want. Then at 10 am, we do the final shipping, packing the items that sold overnight, and then print all the labels and the Scan Sheet at that time. Works for us!

March numbers:
Total Items in Store: 982 (503 Ebay, 479 Amazon)
Items Sold: 336 (100 on Ebay and 236 on Amazon)
Total Sales: $23,294.23 ($4,860.17 Ebay and $18,434.03 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $4,481.94 ($1,108.92 Ebay and $3,373.02 Amazon)
Average sale price: 69.33 (48.60 Ebay and $78.11 Amazon)

Last month when I posted my numbers I was hoping to reach at the end of March a total sales of Ebay and Amazon combined of 50k. I am proud to say I surpased that goal, reaching close to 55k
March has been a fantastic month. Ebay had a solid month (not in top 3 all time but still solid) but Amazon was the best month we had by far, being around 4k better than our 2nd best month on Amazon.

Same as last year returns continue to be a high percentage on Amazon (around 9%), but I guess that is the nature of the beast. Reading on forums it seems like everyone doing FBA have a high return rate. Combined with the fact that most of our items are used it’s something I have to get used to.

John, your Amazon numbers are crazy! If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of net profit % do you average each month, after COGS, Returns and Amazon fees? We stopped FBA as the margins were too low and fees too high, but we know some people kill it there.

Week of 3/26-4/1
Total Items in Store: 862
Items Sold: 21 (1 Amazon)
Total Sales: $579.38
Cost of Items Sold: $46
Highest Item Sold: $50 – Vintage US Merchant Marine Academy Crest Porcelain Stein
Avg Sale Price: $27.59
Money Spend on New Inventory: $0
Number of Items Listed This Week: 0

Pretty good week considering I had extended handling time at the beginning as we came home from vacation and also putting little to no work into my store as I get back into the swing of things. I mentioned the Merchant Marine stein on the Wednesday What Sold thread – such a cool piece!

In store milestones, I crossed $100k in gross sales this week. Started my store in summer 2013, less than 4 years ago. First purchase ever with the only intent to sell was a c1930s Gillette Safety Razor in it’s original case. Stormville Flea in upstate NY, paid $30 and sold for $120. That early success got me hooked and finding this community very close to the beginning inspired me to continue.

Continuing to monitor the perfomance of my promoted listings. This week had 6 sales that were promoted for $137.97 in sales and $6.62 in fees associated (4.8%). Since starting promoted listings, I’ve had 38 sales for $1,312.36 and $72 in fees (5.5%). I may pause the promotions to see if there is a dip – it’s still unclear if I would have sold the same amounts without the promotions.

Hopefully will get back to listing and maybe sourcing later this week.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Brian Treasures from Grandmas.

Regarding the suggestion you mentioned of sending something with signature confirmation so that it’s held by the post office until the customer returns from vacation:

Please be careful. The post office will only hold mail for a week or so (3-5 days after the 3rd delivery attempt, according to their website), and will then return it if still not picked up. What you should do is adjust the handling time for that specific item before they order it. Or, maybe better yet, you can suggest that they put in a Hold Mail or Forward Mail request with the post office:

https://holdmail.usps.com/holdmail/

I am enjoying listening to the podcast while I type!

My Store Week March 26-April 1, 2017

Total Items in Store: 873
Items Sold: 7
Cost of Items Sold: $18
Total Sales: $207.20
Highest Price Sold: $45 (Vintage Johnston & Murphy Shoes)
Average Price Sold: $29.6
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $86.22
———
Bonanza: 0

A slow week for me, kind of a bummer … I got a Velcro Vero violation… I had “Velcro” fastener listed for a trucker hat and I got caught (Despite being warned on this blog, this one fell through the cracks.) I also had several UPI cases and a few cancelled sales (cancelled before shipping so I technically didn’t count them). Overall a depressing week with low $ sales. Spent the week removing active content and making listings “mobile friendly”. Hopefully this coming week will be a better one, sales wise!

I listened to the podcast as usual as I was listing, accepting and countering best offers etc. Thanks for the shout-out ( I guess). LOL

The last part of the week was horrible for me, until I ran the numbers I honestly thought that it had been a disaster (despite having the best March on Etsy ever) anyhoo, I did $476 in sales (14 items sold–9 on ebay and only 5 on etsy) with the highest sale a $100 vintage bag on ebay. Even though ebay has receded as my main platform, I would never rely on just one store since it picked up the slack when etsy slowed down. Starting my taxes, ugh, I don’t make a true living at this, so my taxes are simpler than most, but still a hassle–I always wait to pay my taxes till the end of the year since they tend to be not that much, but still it is stressful.

Week of Mar 25 – Apr 1
* Total Items in Store: 760
* Items Sold: 6
* Cost of Items Sold: $3.75 + $4.50 Commission
* Total Sales: $151.45
* Highest Price Sold: $59 Native (American?) Made Hanging Mobile
* Average Price Sold: $25.24
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 20

This was a crappy, slow week for me, but I had two decent price sales that made my average price sold look pretty decent (for my typical week, at least). Yesterday (Sunday) I had four sales, so I’m hoping things are back to normal.

I did not buy any inventory, and I don’t think I will for a few weeks. I’ll be seeing my parents next week, and they have a couple of boxes of stuff and two NWT travel golf bags, so I don’t really need to buy anything. HOWEVER, I’m seeing a number of upcoming online auctions in my area, and I’m sure I’ll break down at some point.

In the meantime, I’m catching up on my backlog and then to the death piles (there is a difference!).

Did you guys already pay back your paypal loan? Just curious as to how long it took to pay back, they estimated mine at 7 months. I just took one out to buy a foreclosed home, its a pretty awesome thing because my bank offered way less money with almost double the interest.

Total Items in Store: 104
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $22
Total Sales: $217.09
Highest Price Sold: $90 Maui Jim sunglasses. sold 5 mins after listing
Average Price Sold: $27.00
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $10.00
Number of items listed this week: 3

Wanted to spend more time listing this week and building inventory, but my house got broken into. I mostly spent the week learning how to replace two windows myself (thanks youtube). Hopefully this week will be better. I’m so glad I have started making this more of a priority. As much as this week sucked it really helped to have a few dollars to fix the damages done.

I had a return opened then closed almost immediately by the buyer. They stated that the boots did not fit but then decided the return shipping a restocking fee was too much and they would resell themselves.
The next day I get this message from the buyer-
“I retracted the return request because of the 20% restocking fee. It said in the description that it may apply, but I don’t understand why this is necessary. I still need to return them to you but I wanted to contact you first. ebay say’s I can’t request a return now because I retracted it. Is there something you can do about this? If not, I will have to call them and explain. Thank you for any help you can offer. I am very sorry. I am very impressed with the quality of the boots, but I should be able to return them.”

Would you ignore? Waive the fee? I’m asking as these boots took forever to sell.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Steven S.

Good show guys. I enjoyed listening on my way to work today.

My numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 1641
Items Sold: 45
Total Sales: $805.73
Cost of Items Sold: $80.41
Average Price Sold: $17.91
Average Cost of Item: $1.79
Highest Price Item Sold: $34.95 Lot of 5 Canvas U.S Federal Reserve and U.S. Mint coin/deposit bags
Number of items listed this week: 71
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 216
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 167
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 77
Sell-through rate (for the week): 2.74%
# of Hats Sold: 32 (71% of sales)

This was my best week ever in terms of the number of sales. I’ve never sold more than 40 items in a week before. “Shipping is getting annoying” – I heard Ryanne’s words in my head yesterday as I completed my second round of shipping on Sunday afternoon. Most of my sales were lowish value items so my total sales amount was not the highest it’s ever been but I’m very happy with this result. Having my wife help me with listings is definitely a big contributing factor. I wouldn’t be able to listing nearly as many items without her help.

Ryanne, check out the Levi’s headquarters next time you’re in S.F. They have a little exhibit near the lobby showing a bunch of old jeans. (Maybe that’s where the $80,000 jeans will end up).

Ebay Stickers: On eBay radio, one of the eBay employees hinted that they might be working on stickers that could be used to cover up Amazon logos on re-used boxes. Smart thinking.

Jay – regarding “higher purpose”. For years my purpose with my job has been to provide for my family. I’ve had a few jobs I’ve likeD and a few I’ve despised which have been a total grind for years on end but supporting my family has been my main goal. One of my 2 kids graduates college in June so I’m starting to see a point where I can start thinking about dialing back. In fact, I’m thinking I might take aim for early retirement (maybe retirement with eBay side income) in 3 years. In the meantime, I’m taking full advantage of a good paycheck to fully fund retirement options (401K, roth IRA, HSA). It would have been nice to have found an occupation that truly inspired me but finding an occupation that paid well and provided good benefits was the next best thing for me.

My best week on Ebay yet, ends my best month on Ebay yet!

Total Items in Store: 460
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $0 Most of these were things found, owned for ages, or given to me
Total Sales: $435.30
Highest Price Sold: $78.00 a terra-cotta ocarina branded by Mujiryushi (MUJI) in Japan. Sold it back to someone living in Japan.
Average Price Sold: $25.58
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $138.00 – I had a chance to go to a toy auction, so I threw down a bit of cash and hope to start making it back soon.
Number of items listed this week: 34

I really appreciated the talk on having goals. For me the goal sort of led to selling on Ebay. Basically my goal right now is to pay off my mortgage. And in turn paying off the mortgage is part of a larger goal of creating more freedom for both my wife and I to focus on our art-making. We’re both painters and work day-jobs, care for our family, and make art. And of course I run this Ebay store. So we have no time and our mostly sleep-deprived.

I sympathize entirely with being at a job and feeling like your time is just being wasted away. I have a great boss right now, and easy-going work situation and a decent salary. I should feel pretty happy I suppose, but I don’t at all. There are times when I am at work inventing things to do when I have at least a thousand I could be doing at home on a daily basis. I could right many long paragraphs about that, but I’ll spare you.

Suffice to say that I see Ebay as almost an outgrowth of my art-making. I always like having funky objects around to practice drawing with and play with sculpturally. Being able to sell them off after I’m done with them makes all kinds of sense.

Hopefully as I keep growing this I’ll get our mortgage paid off asap.

On a separate note after it was called out on the podcast, I just got an eBay email about my supplies coupon being ready. Maybe they are listening to the show!

* Total Items in Store: 311
* Items Sold: 13
* Cost of Items Sold: $17 used + 45 RA Clearance items
* Total Sales: $310
* Highest Price Sold: $79 (Two new Anthropologie plates – paid $15 on sale over a year ago and reduced prices)
* Average Price Sold: $24
* Returns: 0;
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $10
* Number of items listed this week: +/- 10

A good week for me. COGS is down because I’ve got more used items listed now, and average price is down but still pretty good. I got that nice few days listing during a portion of spring break while my family was away. Sold a bulky afghan today and I’m thrilled to get that out of the garage. I also ran a 25% off sale this week, a bit deeper than I normally like to but I want to move product and tend to price high, so it’s a less painful way to increase volume knowing my tendency.

I went to pin an item for a theme Pinterest party and realized the GTC listing had dropped off ebay, so that’s unusual. My store subscription renewed and it occurred to me that I haven’t received any offers from ebay in a long, long time and they did not give me a break on my subscription even though I’m top rated plus / sometimes Powerseller. I used to get offers all the time and got a discount on my store subscription last year.

I’m not a big goal person and I’m a thinker but also busy with much responsibility. Most of my Ebay money during this learning period is going to inventory, after school care for my daughter and clothes and other practical items for my kids who are in preteen / early adolescent growth spurt period. Then there is summer camps – very expensive but I need to work. So, this is kind of boring practical stuff. I do have a short term goal of buying two very large talavera pots for my front entry.

Even if I didn’t have kids, investing in real estate here is out of reach completely. Basic houses are $1M. I expect in the future that I will be more efficient and I’m lucky to be in an amazing sourcing location with many older people and very wealthy people. I’m sure I will be doing this in my retirement from my day job. The day job is really flexible and allows me to be completely available to my kids and turn out quality work without a great deal of direct responsibility. I mainly work with a very kind and talented senior attorney – that’s right, one exists. I’ve been doing this for years though, I don’t really watch tv, so learning Ebay has been very stimulating. I also love to bargain hunt and find super interesting retro items. This all keeps me going. My family of cheapskates all think it’s awesome that my hobby can also make extra $ since it’s so expensive to live here. I gave my friend some folk art pottery for her birthday I sourced for $4. Lots of perks to this, but I just only have so much time to list and unfortunately it’s not always consistently.

Great show guys. So motivating to listen each week! Loving it!

I’ll try this again, my first posting somehow disappeared.
Numbers for month of March

Total Listings: 744
Items Sold: 44
Cost of Items Sold: $97.96
Total Sales: $815.90
Highest Price Sold: $90 (pair of pistol shooting trophy plaques)
Average Price Sold: $18.54
International Sales: 2 GSP to Germany / 1 Int. First Class to England
Spent on new inventory: $193.72
Number of items listed: 61

I wasn’t planing on spending much on new inventory, but I went to an office moving sale looking for ink cartridges and such but I ended up buying a leather saddle bag for $15 (sold already for $60) and two horse saddles for $50 each.

I also purchased a lot of Haynes repair manuals for $10, in the lot was a 1987 Suzuki Samurai Owners Manual in very poor condition, it sold two days after I listed it for $54.45.

One final note on scavenging. Even the last hour of the last day of an estate sale can be rewarding. I went to one Sunday and got there with only a 1/2 hour before it was to close. Still lots of fun stuff, but the main find was a large lot of Reed & Barton Bamboo flatware. I purchased about 50 pieces for a total of $5. Mostly spoons and forks but from sold listings on eBay there should be a good profit there.

Store #1
Total Items in Store: 1,256
Items Sold: 22
Cost of Items Sold: $21
Total Sales: $705.89
Highest Price Sold: $69.92 (Jansport corduroy backpack)
Average Price Sold: $32
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $140
Number of items listed this week: 70

Slower week. Didn’t list as many as would have liked. On Monday we went to an estate sale that had 75% off and we spent more than we ever have at 1 sale…$140. Filled up my RAV4. So much cool stuff!

March 26 – April 1
Total items in store 1278
Sold 17
COGS 36.00
Total Sales 503.85
Highest price sold 55.00 vintage coat with fox fur collar
Average price 29.63
INTL
Returns 2
Spent on new merchandise 95.00
New listings 72
Pick of the week, a Tommy Hilfiger 90’s windbreaker paid 1.00 for the wind breaker. Another good pick this week, 4 packages of vintage Ralph Lauren twin sheets paid 2.00 each for the sheets.

Somewhere I read that it starts this summer (guaranteed ship).

FYI with the coupon for shipping supplies. I screwed it up so bad LOL I had to call customer service last night. I tried to use my eBay bucks and then my coupon. It didn’t work and I ended up actually paying for shipping supplies. So be aware that that can happen if you try to use eBay bucks with the coupon.

I ordered stickers, boxes and poly mailers. I’ll use the stickers to close my bread bags. Usually I use a piece of tape.

3/26 – 4/1

Total Items in store: 385
Items sold: 1
Cost of items sold: approx. $40
Total Sales: $40
Highest price sold: $40 Vintage Club dutch oven
Average price sold: $40
Int’l sales: 0
Returns:0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Amazon disbursement – $770

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

Ebay to Amazon – 10 sales – $886, COGS – $290, fees – $114, profit – $481
Where do I spend my ebay profits? Right now my day job pays almost 100% of all our expenses. Currently, our profits are going into our house flipping side business until we have the capital to own two houses at once. Once we have achieved that goal, we will start investing from all our income streams into more passive real estate ventures (storage units, laundry mats, car washes, or the like.)

Ebay shipping supplies – does anyone know if we can sell our coupon? I just order supplies because I have a coupon. The tape and boxes are piling up.

I sold all of my eBay shipping tape on eBay 🙂 I hated it

About the Quarterly voucher

Hello Friends, hope all is great with y’all this week. Halfway through the cast, just great as usual!!

In my case, I receive a message from eBay to the email address of my store letting me know the new voucher is available and how to access it.

Per my understanding from the cast it is not everyone who receives, is this right?

(also I posted these same comments in an older podcast by mistake, could not erase them)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Paulo H Leocadio.

About Laserdiscs

I sell Laserdiscs constantly (consider I have a ~600 items store, so nothing for me is really big), but for me Laserdiscs sell as much as any of my collectibles.

I started selling my X Files Collection (it was a 24 boxes of 6 LDs to one buyer) and now everytime I see them I look for the “sellable” ones. Differently than VHS where the famous Drama and Concerts sell super well (Sold a Prince concert for $96), Laserdiscs that sell are some Horror, SciFi. They sell in the US, but 2/3 of the sales go to Europe (which is interesting since the system would not make it work, I do not remember though if Laserdiscs had different systems).
I personally have quite a few concerts and movies in my collection.

I buy them for $1 and sell them for $14.95 plus shipping. Some that belonged to me I sell for 6 plus shipping just to get rid of them (they would not sell for more).

So for the $30 level of sales it would be very rare to find.

At first I thought they had just stolen me and my partners change jars containing around 200$. Then as we went on we realized it was a bluetooth speaker, a tablet, and my great grandmothers rings 🙁 We do have a music room with a lot of expensive music equipment and instruments that was untouched. We ordered a security system immediately so that this doesn’t happen again and incase they come back for music stuff. The worst part for sure is knowing someone was invading my personal space, and obviously taking things that don’t belong to them. We are on the up and up and getting things back as they were. I’m just glad we are safe and so are our pets. Thanks guys.

We are glad that you are safe and rebounding. At least it was just things that were taken. Things can always be replaced, but people are more important.

* Total Items in Store: 409
* Items Sold: 33
* Cost of Items Sold:
* Total Sales: $668 (30 ebay, 1 Truegether, 2 Facebook)
* Highest Price Sold: $130 (WWI Ships Badge)
* Returns: 1 ($75 Dave Ramsey FPU Kit)

The facebook sales were homeschool curriculum. This is a great time of year to sell used children’s books, educational toys, and curriculum, if you have any of it!

March was one of my best months on ebay, at $2400. That is 3.5 times what I made last year for March. I upgraded my store from basic to premium on April 1, and I hope to hit 500 items by the end of the week.

Jay when you talked about how well your store is doing you mentioned you haven’t changed anything. What about your new helper? I’d say that’s a pretty big change, no?

In my opinion J&R hiring help was the best business decision that they have made–it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how strong their sales have become after they hired her–my takeaway is that constant, significant listing pays off.

Mar. 26 – Apr. 1
Total Items in Store: 664
Items Sold: 16
Total Sales: $523
Highest Price: $75 (Leitz Wetzlar Prado 250 Slide Film Projector)
Average Price: $33
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $16
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $87

Last week started out VERY slow. Sunday wasn’t bad, but Monday and Tuesday were pathetic. Thankfully it picked up again after that, but the warmer weather must really be bringing out the lowball offerers. It seemed like I was fighting an uphill battle with people trying to get huge price cuts off of my wares.

Your obsessive customer that was interested in that belt buckle reminded me of one I had recently. I’m selling a globe from the 1940’s. I have it priced high, but am willing to take reasonable offers like most of my items. So I get a message saying would you please send me a close-up photo of Palestine. I’m like whatever, I understand that there are ways to date a globe depending on country name and borders and whatnot. So I do. Then he proceeds to request more and more photos. I should have cut him off after the first, but I was really wanting a sale. I ended up taking about 20 more photos for this guy. Then he sends me a link showing one that only sold for $26 and that that’s all he was willing to pay. Old me would have conceded and took the offer. But now I feel a lot more empowered with my business I have going here. I simply shot back a more reasonable offer and never heard back from him. I think his goal was to wear me down with these photo requests and then lowball me into thinking that I put in all this work and might as well take it. Not today, bud.

STORE OWNERS …. HAS ANYBODY RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL OFFERS FOR ADDITIONAL FREE INSERTS LATELY? If so, what’s your store size? Do you usually use up the usual free inserts that come with your store each month?

I just have a basic store, but running out each month. I hate to pay insert fees for some of the cheapie stuff from around the house, and the leap to the next store level is a bit much for me. They gave me tons of special offers last year, but this year, absolutely nothing.

We have the Premium store, and we haven’t had any free insertions for over a year.

RR Store Week March 26 – April 1, 2017

Total Items in Store: 1,256
Items Sold: 32
Cost of Items Sold: $46.98
Total Sales: $636.77
Highest Price Sold: $65 (screen worn t-shirt from “Prefontaine”)
Average Price Sold: $19.90
Returns: 1/2 (partial refund)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20
Number of items listed this week: 27

Hey! Thanks for the shout out! I’m happy to be able to contribute to our community. Here’s to no more shipping dings. I just got back from the post office; I don’t trust them to pick up 17 packages AND scan them all the same day. Two weeks ago they scanned 12 packages a day late, so now I’m the chump Ryanne described in the podcast, hand delivering my packages and waiting around for the scan. But I’m determined to get Top Rated Seller status back, so if I have to do a little babysitting, I will.

The day after a mild windstorm, I woke up with the worst allergic reaction I’ve ever had. I could barely get out of bed. That, plus continuing car issues, have affected my productivity and my consistency. But I’ve been getting creative about sourcing; borrowing my girlfriend’s car while she works, taking the bus to thrift stores…I even took a Lyft to an estate sale. Sucks, but until I can get my car back on the road, I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do.

Jay, you mentioned goals. Mine are pretty simple. My short term goals are to make at least $3000 a month and get my car fixed. Slow going, but I’m getting closer. My medium term goal is to make $5000 a month, then start saving. My long term goal is to save enough money to open a bar, specifically a tiki bar. Having my own brick and mortar business has always been a dream of mine. For years it was a vintage clothing store, until ecommerce changed the landscape. But a bar is different. You can’t buy the bar experience on eBay, especially the experience a themed bar offers. I also have an advantage being in Southern California; not only is there a thriving tiki scene here, but there’s also a huge craft cocktail scene. I really think I can make something special happen. Special and profitable, of course.

*Hollywood Paul*

Love your goals!

Have you tried talking with your postal carrier to use Scan Sheets? They have worked great for us, and it is easy for the carrier to do one scan.

It made a big difference for us. We have one carrier that is pretty consistent, but there are others that run our route 2 days a week. It took us taking the extra step, talking to all of them, and we even have a sign pasted inside our mailbox door as a reminder to pick up our packages (they missed a few times early). But the time it took to get them on our schedule has saved us exponentially more time and money in the long run.

If you have questions on the Scan Sheet, look up on YouTube. Or let me know and I can help you with it.

Looking forward to listening to the podcast – saving it for a long drive coming up. 🙂

Mar 26-Apr 1 2017
Total items in store: Etsy 313 // Ebay 233
Items Sold: Etsy 6 // Ebay 5
Cost of items Sold: Etsy $15.70 // Ebay $8.26
Total Sales: Etsy $66.10 // Ebay $72.95
Highest Price Sold: Chico’s silk shirt $25
Average Price Sold: $12.64
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 41 (Listed at $714)

No really exciting sales this week. :/ Trying to find ways to motivate myself to list more.

The past week has been roller coaster crazy with sales. A couple of days in a row with no sales. Then days like today with a dozen sales. Biggest sale was a $450 rug. Lots of tiny sales also, but I have a sale on to unload the old inventory. In spite of feeling at times like business was horrible I had 36 sales in the past week. So you just never know.

The best thing that happened was yesterday I needed to find a large box. Decided to double box a very large soup pot with a glass lid since it sold for $125 and I felt queasy about the lid maybe getting broken. So on the way to Walmart to buy a box I decided to check a dumpster in a shopping strip nearby. The very first box I saw was sitting neatly on top, filled with peanuts, with a couple of things inside. So I threw it in the car and found the box I needed and came home. Turns out I had scavenged a John Perry killer whale piece worth $125, plus a Vera Russel vase worth $125 on ebay. Both in mint condition. How nice of the person to throw them out neatly packed in peanuts! I will have to check that dumpster more often!

Wow! Nice find! I will have to dumpster dive more often!

Jay and Ryanne, thanks for the reminder about the free ebay shipping supplies. I ordered mine right away. Those items do come in handy. I have started keeping a list of all the sizes of boxes I have so I remember it next time.

And Jay, the story you were told about the woman who couldn’t get insurance right after her husband passed away didn’t seem quite right. By law the spouse of a deceased spouse is entitled to get Cobra insurance in such situations. According to the US Dept. of Labor
“COBRA coverage for the employee’s spouse and dependents can last until 36 months after the date the employee becomes entitled to Medicare …”. I hope the story wasn’t a scam for a Go-Fund-Me or some such thing.

My top eBay motivator is health and energy (I guess that’s two).

I’ve worked a tonne of jobs where either the environment or schedule was really unhealthy. The last job I had was working shifts in a factory and inhaling toxic dust all day long.

Waking up every day and feeling energized from living a healthy eBay life is what motivates me to keep pushing forward.

Hey guys!

This was a slower week for us, but we are working on diversifying. I am currently working on building up Poshmark. It will be an interesting test. I am giving it 6 months to see if it is a viable option.

Anyhow about support for 2nd store. I was told this week that if I linked my 2nd store with my anchor store (simply having the same phone number for both accounts linked mine), I could call the anchor support number for help with smaller store. Just call the anchor support number directly and ask to speak about your second ID. Worked for me, hope it works for you!

Have a great week!

Oh and one more thing. If you don’t need your ebay shipping supplies right away, wait until they offer an ebay bucks promotion. Money back on free money is really nice. 🙂

My numbers for the week of 3/26/17:
Total Items in Store: 100
Items Sold: 24
Cost of Items Sold: $62
Total Sales: $455 + shipping
Highest Price Sold: $55 – NIB Nintendo Controller
Average Price Sold: $18.95
Returns: 0

Another really good week of sales. My average price was lower than I like but that is partly due to my experiment with selling multiples. I sold out of one item I bought in a few weeks, another in 1 week. I have never bought more than a dozen of one thing yet…still very new to it and I don’t want to go too deep on any one item. I did by some fleece kids bathrobes and have not sold any yet. Mostly I hope because it is not in season, but some DO sell at this time of year. I am the only seller with this particular character robe, but the market in general is flooded. So I thought this would be a great item to try out Promoted Listings. Well…I am a week into the “Promotion”. I chose a 10 day time frame and a 10% fee level. I have 3 page views (I am pretty sure these were all me) and 0 watchers. I’m not clear on exactly how items are promoted in this program. Just higher up on the search ranking? I should go back and read what eBay says about it to see if I missed something but I remember thinking what they actually do for you seems vague.
I would like to continue sprinkling multiples in with the thrifted stuff. I love doing one listing and having it pay out over and over.
Totally agree with the consistency is key lesson. My new years goal of 20 new listings a week is really producing in increase in sales. I don’t know how you do 20 a day. I think I spend way too much time cleaning/preping my items for photos. Anybody just list in the condition found without cleaning? I just can’t do it, even though it appeals to me to skip the step.

Total Items in Store: 583
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $28
Total Sales: $220
Profit: $192
Highest Price Sold: $45 Dansko clogs
Average Price Sold: $20
Average Profit: $17.43

I’m slowly getting back into the groove of listing items again. We’ve slowly been clearing out the new ebay room and I finally have a desk and table set up to work, and have good lighting to take photos. I listed a whole 10 items this week. Woot!

I’ve mentioned on here a few times that I’ve been making lifestyle changes for the better. Today I’m down 55lbs in 3 months without crash dieting, fad workouts, pills, etc. I’m under 300 lb for the first time in 6 years. I walk, stretch, and do basic calisthenics. Eating wise I focus more on protein than carbs in my diet. I try to eat mostly real foods and not processed foods. I actually eat around 2200-2500 calories a day on average, which is ALOT of food when eating real stuff.

The most amazing thing is that now I truly enjoy walking/hiking and I also love the taste of vegetables. It’s amazing all the negative effects that are caused by a diet high in carbs and processed “fake” foods. While I don’t actually follow a Paleo diet, I do find that I naturally gravitated to that style of eating just by paying attention to what my body wants and needs. Carb laden foods are now a special treat rather than a major part of my diet.

So if you’re reading this far, thanks! I mainly share the health info because it has a direct impact on my ebay business. The time I used to spend at work listing is now used to go on walks throughout the work day on breaks & lunch. Sometimes I try to sit down and work on ebay, but I’d rather be moving so I’ll do a house chore or get on the elliptical for a bit.

March 26- April 1 2017

• Total Items in Store: 719
• Items Sold: 22
• International 2 GSP
• Total Sales $945
• Highest Price $400 2 pair Prince Guitar picks
• Average Price Sold: $43
• Returns: 1 eye glasses NAD. Temples were not original, they went to Germany so not sure if I want them back, what are the rules on return shipping if they went out via GSP?
• Cost of Items Sold: $36
• Cost of items purchased this week $100

Just paid my taxes, made about $4000 more this year and paying about $1300 more in taxes. Only took an hour, my tax preparer sure loves that schedule C I bring in, and this is the 3rd year in a row I’ve gone to her so she is quick.

Congrats on the weight loss…

Several years ago, I ended up in the hospital with blood pressure issues. I was put on more blood pressure meds and was told to reduce salt intake and exercise. I was getting very big.

Vowing never to return to the hospital, I radically changed my diet and virtually eliminated my salt intake. This meant no fast food and almost no processed foods. I religiously read labels and became obsessively aware of sodium content in foods.

I meant to exercise, but rarely did.

Much to my surprise, over the course of about 18 months I lost 50 lbs, going from 260 lbs to about 210 lbs. I really didn’t even diet, I just avoided the processed foods. Without realizing it, I made a lifestyle change.

Since i quit trucking, I have the opportunity to ride my bike or hike everyday. I agree with you, it takes time. To get in a decent workout takes anywhere from 45 min to 1 1/2 hours each day. Since Christmas, I have put on about 20 lbs and feel sluggish and fat.

The beauty is I know the formula., I just have to focus and put in the time. I listen to my IPOD while I ride my bike and just go.

I’m still on the blood pressure meds. It’s hereditary and if I have to take the pills forever.. that’s ok. My numbers are good and at times very good.

Regardless of what you do to exercise, being consistent is the key.

It sounds like you’ve figured out a plan that works. I applaud you on your efforts.

Keep us updated..

Congrats to both of you on the lifestyle changes. Very inspiring!

Friends, hearing the second half of the cast today, I stopped in the second question where our friend was talking about the feedback received after the transaction with the Flash.

Is it possible to reply to a feedback in the feedback wall?

I received a neutral feedback, even though I do not agree, I did not call eBay because the text is important for my learning and even more for other potential buyers. In a nutshell, after receiving a vintage italian decorative statue handmade by a famous italian pop artist, the buyer mention it was missing a piece even though the picture was clearly showing it was missing (he wrote like that).

I wanted to thank and make a comment below the comment, is it possible?

Great podcast as always. I usually listen while walking, so I get exercise and education (and some entertainment) at the same time!

March 2017

Items in store – 150
Items sold – 13 (12 Ebay/1 Amazon merchant fulfilled)
Total sales – $144.44
COGS – $1.47
Highest sale – $30 for a pair of Gargoyles sunglasses my boyfriend had. Sold within a couple of weeks of listing.
Money spent on new inventory in March – $45

Haven’t been on the forums much lately because I’ve been busy sourcing, listing and taking care of life in general. I had 3 goals for Q1 – get listings to 150 items, open a Basic Store, and start listing on Etsy. Done, done, and done!! While my sales are nowhere near what others do, they have improved and I am pleased.

Many of the sales this month were things in the house. My favorites, while not high dollar, were 2 lids to Mr. Coffee carafes. Yes, I am a klutz and break them. Sold them individually for $3.95 each and within a week of listing.

My one Amazon sale was a book and I was shocked when I saw what the fees were. I only had one book left on there, and it isn’t a high dollar book, so I moved it to Ebay. If I find more textbooks that have a low rank and high price, I may put on Amazon; otherwise the fees don’t make it worth it.

And a huge THANK YOU to ebaymom for mentioning Velcro. Like you, I had heard it talked about on earlier podcasts, but wasn’t listing anything with it at the time. After reading about it, I immediately went to my listings and had to remove it from about 5 hats/caps. Now my listings just say adjustable, and there are pictures which show the closures. Do people know what hook-and-loop is? Is there a better term that is allowed?

And now back to listing, listing, listing.

Several topics after listening to the rest of the cast and reading the comments

(1) About the tape
I do not have problems with the stickyness of the tape. There are cases where it plays a role, mostly when I an using large recycled boxes. Usually I use new USPS boxes, and only one stripe of tape. It bugs me though for those boxes where I have to use more than one stripe up and one down because of the psychedelic touch it gives, very unprofessional.
With the USPS it even looks nice.

(2) Ryanne’s colorful jacket
I moved back to my collectible thematic store, it is where I do not miss and make better return (still being impacted by the investments I tried to make on the cheaper items, the challenge is that I do not have Jay and Ryanne’s knowledge and they sell too much too cheap).
The thing is I have found a handful of vintage items like this jacket, for example a few weeks back fantastic hand made italian jackets and shirts for about $15. Could not by them.
Great learning.

(3) FEDEX, UPS
One strategy I had used is to embed shipping and handling cost, it gives me room for error and if no error it is a mark up.
Given the profile of my store, most of what I sell is related to collectibles and antiques. Statues and figurines and other similar items are top sellers. When I get to cases where the safety is super important I use UPS and I take there to make the package, the thing is I have room for a large error (those cases I cannot accept crazy best offers or super reduction on shipping). has server well, always considering my small volume compared to most here.
What is impacting me now is the new pricing scheme. I could not yet understand why my margin has gone in the calculations, about 75% of my items need review, I got to cases where I was no the threshold of a loss (not compared to the item cost, compared to the potential profit on a per item case).

(4) USPS
Because of the problems I have with my old Paypal and eBay accounts, shipping from eBay does not work for me at all. Already talked for long with both companies they cannot make a connection with the correct PayPal account.
Mostly because of this, I use Stamps.com. With them I have a “manual” scan that seems to work fine for me. I understand that for higher volumes this might be a hassle.

(5) hate shipping x hate listing
I prefer to ship, I hate listing a lot 🙂

(6) Global Shipping
I love Global Shipping. And there are many people who ask me to ship outside, most cases they explain why and compare costs.
I have been shipping outside the program (Khrigsthan and Norway being the most recent). For now I cannot manage to decline those.

(7) Alternative payment methods
Having been receiving requests for payments other than PayPal, for example today I received a money order from one of those sales. I am looking on how to make clear for buyers I accept other payment methods too, been working.

(8) Stressed buyers
This happened to me last month on Amazon and it was the last drop to avoid Amazon completely. It was a Digital Video sealed tape, he even send me a note to my “office” with very nice words. But

USING FLAT RATE BOXES FOR REGULAR PRIORITY: Many months ago, someone posted a link to the USPS Help pages that stated something about using flat rate and regional rate boxes for Priority BY WEIGHT. Something to the effect that it was ok to do so. I’ve searched in the forum, but cannot find the conversation. I’ve searched the USPS pages and can’t find it. Anybody have it still???? I SHOULDA BOOK MARKED IT THEN!

I would be surprised if USPS allowed the flat rate boxes to be used for regular Priority by weight. We had long talks with our local post office on this, and they were adamant. Gotta use the right box, and since it is their policy and shipping supplies, we comply.

This is wierd, I just sold an item and already received positive feedback. Thought it might be a newby buyer but they have over 20,000 feedback ratings.
Glad they have confidence in me.

Wow! That is great and we will have to remember this. We stopped using the flat rate boxes like this in 2014 and never looked back. Thanks for the info!

Total Items in Store: 9205
Items Sold: 142
Cost of Items Sold: $175
Total Sales: $2860.28
Highest Price Sold: $240 Singer Sewing Machine
Average Price Sold: $20.14
Inventory Purchased $85

Good week, tops sellers was another Singer sewing machine from the storage unit buy for $240. 18 Williams Sonoma cookbooks for $85, and seven broken xbox consoles for $68. Not counted toward totals, but my son sold off all of his skylander toys for $85. Off of ebay we sold another lot of D.C. firefighter jacket scraps to our buyer in Germany for $375. On Amazon we sold an Alfred Hitchcock “Birds” Barbie for $90, everything else was under $60.
Back in February I had a large amount of item sent back from Amazon FBA instead of taking the long term storage fee. The last box finally arrived last week, Amazon sent me a report that stating 85 items were lost/damaged in warehouse. Total refunds for lost/damage was $350. In addition many of the boxes arrived damaged with large holds in them or split seems. The books were literally pouring out of the boxes when the UPS drivers dropped them off. I have several cases in for reimbursement based off poor packaging.

Ebay tape seems to be a mixed bag, at times it great and other times I can’t seem to keep it on the box. Not sure if it’s the humidity, or heat but it seems to have gotten worse at lately.

Hit two milestones recently, 10k feedback and maintained a 16k (gross) month.

Saw another interview w/ Greg Ross-Smith, the Senior Product Marketing Manager w/ eBay discussing how Guaranteed Delivery will work. At around the 24:00 mark, they discuss a little more about how the algorithm will work based on the zip codes of the buyer and seller to guarantee delivery.

Rockstar Flipper – Guaranteed Delivery Interview w/ Greg Ross-Smith (Senior Product Marketing Manager, Delivery Experience)

This will help as even First Class packages can arrive in 3 or even 2 days, depending on where the buyer and seller are located. We are in Colorado, and routinely see our First Class packages get to California or Texas in two days.

The TV show Strange Inheritance did an episode on those +100 year old jeans. http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5378025641001/

Jay, you may be able to contact EBay to state that you have a podcast, and you can help them get the information on guaranteed delivery directly to them.

You could also think about contacting Casey (Rockstar Flipper) and ask him for the contact information.

I think EBay is smart to start using more influencers to get information out to their sellers. So many of us listen to podcasts or subscribe to YouTube channels to get good information.

I will see what I can find.

If nothing else, you could contact Griff at EBay and see if he can get in touch with someone. I would ask for Greg since he did this for Casey and is the main point person on this.

I would still get Greg on and try to ask some of the specific questions on Guaranteed Delivery that we have discussed here. Specifically:

1) Going through a few scenarios (First Class, Priority, Overnight) to illustrate how the filter will work.

2) Is the filter showing number of days? Or a Delivered by Date?

3) He mentioned that if a seller ships on Saturday, you can show up in search better. Talk more about how to do that, as right now it is Business Days (M-F). I know that we ship on Saturday, so how can we use that to our advantage to reach more buyers?

4) He mentioned 26 data points in the algorithm for when items would be delivered. Can he talk more about what those are, so that we as sellers can know how to list using GD and get presented in search?

That is off of the top of my head. Maybe others here on Scavenger Life have some thoughts or specific concerns (that have not already been discussed) that you can use.

I think if you open the door to having someone from eBay on your podcast, the rest of us can have questions on the forum that you could use to try and have someone on to answer questions once in a while. Heck, even interviewing Griff would be interesting (as long as we ask him NEW questions).

Late to the party, it has been a busy week!

My numbers for week March 27 – April 02

Total Items in Store: 154
Items sold: 5 + 1 in Unpaid Case
Cost of items: $35
Total Sales: $188
Highest Price Sold: $54 (85 vintage audio cassettes of recorded music)
Average Price Sold: $37
Returns: 1
Money Spent on Inventory: $0
Number of Items Listed: 11

Big news this week is that I opened a Basic store. It was my plan to open it on/before my birthday and I did it within two days. Goal achieved! However, I didn’t realize how much work would be required to create categories and move all my inventory. That and getting my tax stuff finalized and submitted to our CPA knocked my listing down.

I’ve decided to commit to listing 10 items per day, five days a week. If I get more, great. But that will take me to the highest consistent listing quantity I’ve ever managed, so it’s a big goal for me. I’m working the store entirely on my own: sourcing, listing, shipping, bookkeeping, as well as taking care of everything on the ranch and running our property portfolio.

My return was an odd one. My husband came home from the post office with a parcel for me. Inside was a jacket with a note advising that it was beautiful but too small, please credit. I wrote to the buyer on eBay asking her to open a return case. Nothing yet.

Regarding the Coupon, I don’t know if this is because I have a new store, but this is how I found my coupon on Saturday:

Go to Manage My Store and open Subscriber Discounts
http://imgur.com/h0FdjKa

Click on See Details under eBay Shipping Supplies
http://imgur.com/no0as3F

And the coupon was right there (I changed my coupon to **** from the actual numbers)
http://imgur.com/OlWbFZR

I found something interesting while taking photos of my pile of antique photos. It looks like I have a signed photo of Henry Wells, the founder of Wells Fargo and American Express. Now I’m wondering how the heck I research the value on that. I see that someone has a scrap of paper with his signature on Ebay for $450 (which actually looks just like the beautiful signature on my photo), but that isn’t much to go on. Where does one find an historical ephemera appraiser?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 9 months ago by Linda Shields.

Congrats on the store Amatino!

Very important! When creating new store categories, make sure to change the SEO keywords to be correct for each category.

Go to Manage Store \ Search Engine Keywords

T-Satt and Jay – cool! Thanks! So much to learn! The curve is steep when starting out, but worth it if you can stick with it. 🙂

Glad to help Rydell. It is a little different using bulk shipping, but we are used to it now.

Check EBay and see if your shipping labels now show the scan that they were picked up.

Good luck!

Fairly good week, I hit the thousand dollar mark again with several good finds. They include some diesel leather boots, nascar radio scanner (awaiting payment but I can be patient while someone transfers $ to Pay Pal), a couple pair of Nike’s, a couple bigger size men’s blazers (these sell great and for decent money if you can find 48 or bigger in a brand name) and some men’s shirts. I am getting better at knowing which brands sell and for how much I can sell them quick or long tail. I usually go for the quick money, but not always. I am over 4000 in a month for the first time ever, so I am happy with that. FBA is rolling along well also, I sent in 7 shoe boxes of Joe Abboud dress shoes and Lacoste leather sneakers all purchased on clearance. Now if I can finish taxes before 4/15 ;(

Week of 3/26-4/1

Total items in store. 798
Items sold. 15
Total sales. $212.26
Avg. sale. $14.15
COGS. $6.16
Returns-0 Unpaid item finally closed
$ spent on new inventory. $25.87
# of new items listed. 39
Highest sale-$59.99 vintage Toshikane earrings

I posted these earlier in the week, but they seem to have gotten lost in the web somewhere. Not a bad week, sold quite a few higher priced items. The Methodist Church had their rummage sale and I consider that the kick off to garage sale season. Got my scavenge of the week there-2 Callaway/Sunderland microfiber Pebble Beach pullovers for $1.

Couple of thoughts on the podcast-Ryanne I agree that listing is the hardest part. In my case I think it’s because I don’t have anyone to talk about items I have questions about. My husband is no help, he threw away vintage pill box hats just because they were old!

On the USPS, we have a love hate relationship. We live very close to the post office, so we end up with subs on our route a lot. Usually they pick up my stuff but about once a week, even when I have a pick up scheduled they ignore my boxes. I now have the Post Office on speed dial. The other thing I have learned is never to trust the calculate a price feature on either the USPS or UPS websites. The price is 99% of the time higher than what they tell you, which is why I like doing my shipping through eBay.

Goal this week: reorganization of my office/eBay space. It’s looking a lot like a bad episode of Hoarders. I’m not listing quite as much because I am spending rearranging (my husband says I’m just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic) boxing up some stuff that just isn’t worth the time to list to go to GW.

I’m with you Ryanne, I need goals! Since I began selling full time, I have been able to purchase a new Mac & I Phone (both for business purposes, I use my phone camera for listing). I began this journey after being treated for an incurable form of Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (it’s very slow growing) and becoming unable to work in the field I used to. This is the perfect job for me, when I’m not doing well, I can rest or vice versa, list like a mad woman when doing well 🙂 I’ll bet I’m not the only one out there who’s health has directed them to this path. I love what I’m doing, and currently am working to save for a trip to Paris & the Cote Azure (bucket list!). Thanks so much for your forums and podcasts, it’s been very inspiring ~