Scavenger Life Episode 317: Scavenger Executives

Store Week 6/25/17 – 7/1/17

Total items in store: 1379
Items sold: 18
Cost of items sold: $14.82
Total sales: $377.38
Highest price sold: $74.98 for 3 vintage camp stools. Highest individual item was $49.99 for a Levi’s jacket.
Average price sold: $20.97
International Sales: 1
Returns – 1 (for size)
Money spent on new inventory this week: $48.39

Lots of little sales again this week (even a couple of $5 sales!), but at least I’m getting rid of some of that little stuff. I’ve been taking lots of pretty low offers too. I’ve had lots of offers, but few really good ones.

The camp stools that I sold went to the creative department of a major outdoor retailer, so that was pretty cool. I knew somebody wanted them!

Also, I keep saying I am not going to sell women’s clothing anymore, because they always seem to get returned, but then I came across a sale with a bunch of nice jeans for 50 cents each. How could I resist?! I bought them all!

We have lots of family over from out of state to celebrate the 4th, and since we will all be unable to visit each other for Thanksgiving, we are having Thanksgiving dinner with each other today. I’ll be putting the turkey in soon!

With that, and I’ve been working on getting the home network established (done!) and downloading WonderLister (finally!), and I have two days of contract accounting work on Wednesday and Thursday, we will be late with any other number reporting this week. But we will be back to give an update on both numbers and WonderLister ASAP!

Hope everyone has a great sales week!

Regarding summer sales. I have not been a victim of slow sales over the past 3 summers but this year is quite different for me. Although my sales dollar totals have been average due to some high end items selling each week, the number of sales have been way down. Makes the job easier but I worry about the weeks ahead that may not have a high dollar item sell.

I really think it’s just luck of the draw, I try not to read too much into what I am or am not doing that’s different. Clothes may be the one factor that’s missing as I don’t do nearly as many as I used to. My number of items listed is just over 800, I seem to gain about 100 each year.

I think summer has hit. Maybe it’s just 4th of July. No sales for 6 days. Ouch. Problems with my phone have me tightening up my listings instead of adding new.
Total items in store: 283
Items sold: 2
Cost of items sold: $10
Total sales: $88
Highest price sold: $68 for a very large pair of exc men’s SAS shoes
Lowest price: Of course has to be the only other item. Used American Eagle jeans

Money spent on new inventory this week: $0 Doing a moratorium on buying for as long as I can.

Total items in store: 307
Items sold: 5
Cost of items sold: $220 (RA New) + $10 used
Total sales: $505
Highest price sold: $360 (New duvet & shams purchased Spring for $180)
Average price sold: $101
Money spent on new inventory this week: $0
Items listed this week: 4

Crazy week of contract work and kid transport making really good money that will go entirely to the emergency vet. Spending a quiet weekend and this week with one of my kids and our poor doggie, who has a rare condition. Staying close to home and hopefully will manage better listing numbers. Grateful for the sales I have had the last month while listing barely anything. No time for promoting on social media groups either. Sometimes I think maybe Ebay’s home & garden category sale coupons might help move my items. Ebay upped my limits from tens of thousands to millions of dollars worth of inventory LOL. I went ahead and put on 60 day return policy since I have only ever had two returns. Another plus is nothing was added to the piles this week.

I hope everyone has a nice 4th of July holiday.

J&R: Not sure what happened. I just posted a few of my favorite recent sales, noticed an error in one of the links, and edited it, and the whole thing disappeared. Any way you can rescue it?

Total Items in Store: 471 on etsy, 217 on ebay
Items Sold: 8 etsy–6 ebay
Total Sales: $530
Highest Price Sold: $105–antique earrings on ebay
Average Price Sold: $37.85
Returns: 0

seemed slow until I ran the numbers, a couple of high $ sales boosted the total.

I wish people new to eBay would stop calling in and posing questions that they have only because they’re not familiar enough with selling. I never posted in this forum or called in until I caught up with every episode of the show. The early ones in particular go through everything that these new people call in about.

Jay and Ryanne, I wish you would skip these questions for your end-of-show segment, and instead direct these people to previous episodes or the message boards. They’re not helpful or interesting, and it’s made all the worse that the same questions get asked repeatedly.

RR Store Week June 25-July 1, 2017

Total Items in Store: 1,281
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $53.02
Total Sales: $580.33
Highest Price Sold: $149.99 (Bernina Iron)
Average Price Sold: $29.02
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $76.98
Number of items listed this week: 18

A rough bout of food poisoning took me out for a few days, so I was only able to list a few new items. But I still have plenty of Sell Similar items ending and being put back up every day, so that helps a little. Way short of my selling goal this week. Curse you, stomach!

I was able to hit a couple of estate sales with great results. I bought a HUGE lot of vintage matchbooks, like well over a thousand. After pulling all the Tiki related ones for my collection, I’m now sorting by restaurant style, region, etc. At about 3 cents a pop, the return on investment should be fantastic. I also found more slides. Very exciting!

That Bernina ironing system sale was a gamble that paid off well. I recently sold a Bernina sewing machine carrying bag, so I knew it was a high end brand. So when I saw the iron, it was a no-brainer. But the price put me off: $20, and that was the half-off price on the last day of the estate sale. Plus, money is tight with the slower summer sales. But my instinct pushed me to buy it, and I’m glad I did. It took about a week to sell.

Off to listen to the podcast in the matchbook warehouse. Have a great week, everyone!

*Paul*

Great episode! Glad to see Ryanne and Jay take a little “vacation” time.

Total Items in Store: 865
Items Sold: 16 (1 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $45
Total Sales: $871.13
Highest Price Sold: $120 (Denby Glasses)
Average Price Sold: $57.40
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0

Good week all around for us. We are taking lots of offers but still making a good profit. I was telling my husband that if he was looking to buy anything on ebay (personal) he should start looking now, people are wheeling and dealing.

Fun podcast this week! I listened to it while relaxing on the beach today. I loved that you guys turned a “work” trip into a special treat. I love doing that. I occasionally have to travel for work, so some times my wife comes with me for a cheap getaway – my roundtrip flight is paid for, plus the hotel for the days I’m working, so we’ll just pay for her flight and maybe one extra night in the hotel (although that extra day is usually also free via the hotel points I get to collect for my travel days even if my job is paying). We’ve done this in Salt Lake City, Miami, and a few times in Orlando.

Week June 25-July 1, 2017

Total Items in Store: 941
Items Sold: 22 (2 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $284 (42.8% of sales)
Total Sales: $663.44
Highest Price Sold: $150 (c1915 Seth Thomas Humpback Wooden Mantle Clock)
Average Price Sold: $30.16
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $44
Number of items listed this week: 23
Promoted listings test: 11 sales, $528.46 (79.7% of total sales), $30.69 fees (5.8% of sales)

Another nice week of sales volume & total wise, but it was also the week of “selling mistakes”. First, you’ll notice that my COGS are incredibly high at 42%+ of my gross sales. That’s driven by my high dollar item, the clock – I only paid like $10 for it, but it cost about $200 to get running. I had it up for $500, but it’s been listed for nearly 3 years and it was taking up valuable storage real estate. Decided to cut my losses and take the $150 offer that came in.

Another mistake, albeit much less costly, was a NIB Waterford Champagne Flute that I bought at Marshall’s after Christmas. Thought I could get $125+, but have only been selling them for $60-$70 after paying $45 each.

Only went to one sale this weekend. I wasn’t planning on going out just to take a week off and catch up on a backlog of listing, but saw a sale with an incredible record collection. The sale started at 10a on Saturday and they put numbers out at 830a… I was there at 820a and got #8. Pretty good, but I knew that at least one other record guy would be ahead of me. And the exact guy that I thought would be there was, #1 and he had gotten there at like 730a. He obviously got to the collection first but we know each other and were pretty cordial, going through together – he got a good 75-80 albums and I did ok too with like 30. Prices were great too – $2 each or 3 for $5 (and these were pristine copies of Hendrix, Doors, Beatles, etc – none that I picked up will sell for less than $20 each).

Total items in store: 488
Items sold: 16
Cost of items sold: $21.00
Total sales: $272
Highest price sold: Vintage Audio Cassette Recorder $25.49
Average price sold: $17.00

Sales were better than expected for me this week. As I approach the 500 item mark I am seeing a lot more action everyday. Now I need to focus on adding some higher priced items in the store. I have a lot of $10 sales that I would like to see higher. I have some family in town so I haven’t listed anything this week. I am ready to get back at it and list.

Last week was an extremely frustrating one. Made two colossally stupid shipping mistakes that cost me a lot of money, and overpaid for something I was scavenging for personal use. So I took a 4-day long weekend and did no scavenging at all.

But looking at the numbers, not so horrible really… and the big picture of the last few months is satisfactory to me. I might take it a bit easier for a while though.

Sales: CAD$258, 4 items
COGS: $42
Profit: $156
Hours: 4 (hourly rate: $39)
Items listed: 3 (total 167)
Expenses incl. sourcing: $139
Cashflow: $119
Notable items: Vintage Coleman dish heater, $32 –>$173, profit $110

June 25 – July 1
Total Items in Store: 918
Items Sold: 13
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $1382 !!!
Net Profit: $1118
Highest Price: $1000 (a pair of RTS Systems / Telex TW Intercom System Power Supplies)
Average Price: $106 (LOL!)
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $42
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $450 (I swear, no more auctions after this!)

I just had my best week yet, all thanks to one sale in particular. I was barely making any sales all week. I chalked it up to the holiday coming up. Boy, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that cha-ching and it was a thousand dollar sale! And the best part about it is I got the two power supplies for next to nothing. I think I only paid a few bucks for them at a thrift store. I just hope the guy likes them and won’t want a return for any reason.

Otherwise, I had a slow but productive week. I was on a mandatory vacation from work so I used the time to list a bunch of higher end electronics that I’ve acquired. I’ve also started listing my slides. I’ve been pondering whether I should list them as Buy It Now or Auction. I’ve seen similar subject matter slides from the same era get in bidding wars and reached the $200 range. So I made them all Auction style, but with a starting bid of the least that I wanted for them. I don’t know how it’ll pan out, but we’ll see. And I’m only going to do 10 or 15 a week so that I don’t oversaturate ebay with them.

June 25- July 1 2017
Total items in store: Etsy 482 // Ebay 439 (Items not crossposted I list different types of things on Etsy and Ebay)
Items Sold: Etsy 9 // 19 Ebay
Cost of items Sold: Etsy $9.93 // Ebay $49.35
Total Sales: Etsy $79.65 // Ebay $357.81
Highest Price Sold: Laurence Kazar beaded jacket $49
Average Price Sold: $15.62
Returns: 1
Number of items listed this week: 56 (Listed at $1,200)

Great week on Ebay for me! 🙂 I was happy with those numbers. This past week my focus was on listing a collection of Masters of the Universe action figures that I have been holding on to for a while. (~ 4-5 years ago I bought them at an awesome garage sale). It is a bit hard to let them go, but they aren’t doing me any good sitting in a box, awesome collection or not. They have accessories, weapons and many have the mini comic that they came with. I still have about 15 figures to list, but then I will be done and that will feel good. Working on similar items for the whole week certainly made my work more efficient. I think I should pick a ‘theme’ each week. Maybe this week will be… Book week, or Little People week. I should probably make it a shoe week, but I don’t think I have enough shoes to list for a whole week.

Total Items in Store: 768
Items Sold: 4
Cost of Items Sold: $18
Total Sales: $117
Profit: $99
Highest Price Sold: $65 Super Soaker Mt Tiki Soki Sprinkler (AWESOME!)
Average Price Sold: $29.25
Average Profit: $24.75

Pretty horrible holiday week. The sprinkler is really cool. It is a tiki volcano that erupts every 10 seconds or so and mists out the side. Twas fun to test out. As soon as I saw it in a thrift shop I knew it was special.

As I was typing this I had a refund request for something I was prepping to ship. I’m fine with that. Problem buyer. They waited 4 days to pay then angrily demanded a reason why their item hadn’t shipped early the next day. Paid at 9pm Friday evening. Sent angry message at 9:30 am Monday morning asking why it hadn’t shipped yet. Lol. I explained my 3 business day handling time and that the clock doesn’t start until payment is made. They acted patient and apologized, but then grumpily requested a refund the next business day – today. I’m more than happy to grant their refund. A buyer like this can only be problems – not worth my time.

Week of June 25 – July 1
* Total Items in Store: 826
* Items Sold: 13
* Cost of Items Sold: $12.35 + $19 Commission
* Total Sales: $348.55
* Highest Price Sold: $75 Ceramic art menorah
* Average Price Sold: $26.81
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: approx. $0
* Number of items listed this week: 0

I came back from vacation on Monday. We had a bit of a fiasco on Saturday, and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be home on time to ship out all the items I sold. Our car conveniently broke down Saturday afternoon just as all the mechanics were closing up shop. We were very concerned that we wouldn’t be able to get anyone to fix it on July 3 because of the holiday, but I was able to email a place on Sunday and make the arrangements. Plan B would have me staying at a hotel over the holiday until the car was fixed, while my husband drove home in a rental. Thankfully Plan A worked out. Crisis averted.

I had a decent week. This summer seems like I alternate between good and not so good every other week. Last year, I recall having 3 sales while watching fireworks and walking back home. This year, nothing. I’m in not so good week mode right now.

One comment on the podcast – I had someone return a pair of sunglasses by using “return to sender” on a first class package. So, yes, it should work. I don’t think it works for any other mail option. I make sure to place a first class label so that it isn’t taped over the box opening. I don’t want the label to be cut in half. This way, the buyer can put it back in the box, tape it shut, and return to sender.

4th of July celebrated my first 3 months with an ebay store, so I figured I’d give a little summary about how my numbers have been. First off, I’m not trying to do this as a full-time gig, just wanting to make extra money to pay down debt. I had 100 items listed before my store opened (I’ve been an occasional seller for a while), and I spent the first few weeks of April adding 100 more. In May and June I hovered around 210-230, and probably in the next week or so I’ll max out the store at 250. I’ll list my numbers by month in order so you can see the trends.

# of items sold each month: 14, 51, 33

The summer slow down hit in June and continues into July so far. In April I didn’t have 200+ items up the whole time or that number would have been higher I’m sure. Great May though!

Monthly sales $: 305.98, 1204.48, 1027.33

Sold a few high dollar items in June that helped a lot and can be seen in my average sale price below:

Average sale price $: 21.86, 23.62, 31.13

I do like the trend upward, but not sure that is sustainable. I want to make at least $15 per item ($20+ would be better) and with my average cost per item over the whole quarter was $3.06, I did achieve that goal.

Sold items of note were a Filson Canvas Field Bag for $140, a Cutco Wood Knife Block for $175 (!), and a rare Goorin Brothers Cap for $150.

Had a partial return when one glass of a set broke. I also accidentally sent the wrong book to someone. As a note to Ryanne (if she sees this) the buyer offered to refuse that book, it took 3 weeks to get to me and there was a postage due of $6.05 which was more than the media mail should have been to have her resend it. So I’m interested to see what happens in your case.

Thanks again guys for all you do on the podcast, both part-time and full-time sellers learn so much from you and the community!

Question for Brian and Paul. Did you find a good answer to the matchbook listing/shipping issue? I’ve passed up many of them for these issues. Are they still valuable if you remove the matches?

Hello,
I just started listening to you guys, now I am hooked. Listen while I walk each week so I look forward to listening to you and walking! yay win win
You mentioned that you are not selling on Amazon any longer, did you close your account or what? I am focusing on eBay now and need to empty FBA but I worked so hard to get ungated in categories and really do not want to close store completely in case I do find something wonderful or maybe for 4th qtr. I have such a limited budget so just curious what you are doing with AZ, suggestions. I still have about 10 FBA items. Do I need to return everything to me and just keep it as MF? Not sure how to do that? THANK YOU!

Thanks so much for all you do.

June Seaton

Stupid squirrel chewed through some lines on the telephone pole next to our house. Killed the squirrel and our Internet connection last Saturday. I thought it fried our modem so I bought a new one, but that didn’t fix the problem. Called the media company a couple times and finally we figured out that they have to come out and fix something on the pole. They’re supposed to come out on Thursday. I did go buy a hot spot so we had some form of connection (other than cell) over the 4th of July weekend. I did sell some stuff. Had to go to the library to print labels because we couldn’t connect to the wireless printer and I wasn’t going to fight with it since hopefully everything will be back up and running on Thursday. My wife was home on vacation from her job so she wasn’t too happy either. Have a good day.

My wife tells me we’re back in the land of broadband Internet now. 🙂

Numbers for month of June

Total Listings: 810
Items Sold: 51
Cost of Items Sold: $146
Total Sales: $1213.99
Highest Price Sold: $59.99 Southern Pacific Railway Route Map Book – Cost 6.50
Average Price Sold: $23.80
International Sales: 1 GSP Australia
Spent on new inventory: $130.50
Number of items listed: 45
Returns: 1

The return was a problem. They just mailed it to me without going through eBay. The problem was that they returned the wrong item to me. I emailed both the buyer and the original seller of the item (packing sheet was included), but after 3 days of not hearing back from either, I just went ahead and mailed the item back to the original seller. The original seller finally emailed me and told me that they had received my item and would return it to me which they did.

I am slowly making it through my catch of the Tattoo Flash Sheets. In June I sold 7 for a total of $305, that makes a total of 11 sold for $470. Since I originally bough 27 of them for $215 I’ve doubled my money and still have 16 to sell.

Now to catch up on my listing.

To weigh in on the perfume and matches shipping issue: this is the official USPS position as noted on their website:

Perfume containing alcohol may not be shipped internationally or mailed domestically using air transportation. Perfume containing alcohol, however, may be shipped within the United States by ground transportation. [Note, there is a link to shipping flammable/combustible materials on this page, but it appears to take you to the wrong hazard class. When you do find the correct hazard class, you quickly go down a rabbit hold of flashpoints, etc. The answer seems to be, make sure it can’t break or leak, and label it as ORM-D on the outside. If it were me, I would wrap it in bubble wrap and put it in a ziploc with something absorbent like shredded newspaper…that way any leakage should be contained if it does occur. Perhaps this is overkill, but in a former job I shipped hazardous materials so I guess I’m cautious.]

Safety Matches

Safety matches have treated match heads that will only ignite when struck against a specially prepared surface like a match book, card, or box. Safety matches may be shipped domestically using ground transportation. Safety matches may not be sent by air or mailed internationally. [Note, there is a link to packaging instructions for safety matches on this page.]

Strike-Anywhere Matches

Strike–anywhere matches will light from friction against any surface. Strike-anywhere matches may not be mailed domestically or internationally.

https://www.usps.com/ship/shipping-restrictions.htm

It does not surprise me that some of the USPS’ own employees don’t know the rules…many organizations seem to have this problem.

It is Saturday 9:45 PM CST. Ebay is having trouble producing labels. I called Ebay. They said lots of people are having this problem. Told me to wait an hour or so to try it again.

Hello! There was a guy who called in on this podcast to express frustration around listings remaining active after an item is sold. I use this feature a lot because I sell multiples of the same item quite frequently. To turn it off go to:

Account –> Site Preferences
Show all
See “Use the out of stock option” in the first section
Un-click “Yes”
Apply

Done. High five.

Yes, this is true. it removes the “buy now” or “make an offer” buttons and leaves the “add to watch list” option. When more inventory comes in, you change the quantity and it’s available for purchase again. The main benefit, from my perspective, is that if there is a listing with a lot of watchers, you can keep the watchers on that listing who may be waiting to buy. The second best benefit is that you don’t have to recreate the listing all over again if you sell this item a lot – although I use a listing library app for that so I don’t waste $$ on out of stock listings with no watchers on them.