Scavenger Life Episode 354: The Long Game – 10 Years On eBay

RR Store Week March 25-31, 2018

Total Items in Store: 1538
Items Sold: 34
Cost of Items Sold: $53.23
Total Sales: $779.47
Highest Price Sold: $125.99 (Waverly toile fabric)
Average Price Sold: $22.93
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $57.33
Number of items listed this week: 44

Ten whole years! That’s so awesome! I was just telling my girlfriend how you two started in Jay’s dad’s basement, then built it up to the businesses you have now. I’m inspired by your work every week, and I’m so grateful you two choose to share your insight with us. Also, thank you Ryanne for the assist on that Waverly toile fabric. I would have walked right by it had I not heard you talk about it in a past podcast.

Some lame estate sales this week left me with little to list, so I started to reorganize my office/storage space. It’s been in dire need for months. Now that I can actually see the floor and like items are being stored together again, it has made listing so much easier. Cluttered space = cluttered mind. Feels good to reclaim the space.

Here’s to a productive week.

Paul

03/25/18 – 03/31/18

Total Items In Store: 2,224
Items Sold: 22
Cost of Items Sold: $90 (around)
Total Sales: $909.40 + 1 TrueGether for $12.36
Highest Price Sold: $100 (LL Bean Leather Jacket)
Average Price Sold: $41.34
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 130 (Not very many good sales out there this week)
Number of Items listed this week: 0

Ten years is awesome. Most small business’s don’t make it past 5 years.

I had a good week despite not listing for several weeks. My lister must be busy. The promoted sales got me through.

I did an experiment. I took the STR %, ASP, and Number of items I had in my store from March 2017. I multipiled the STR * Currently Listed Number of items. That gave me the projected number of sales. Then I multipled that by * the ASP to see how close it would be. It was 1 item off and $11 off. I think that it was fairly coincendental because of all the promoted listing sales and my lack of listing.

I had crazy Wierd sale that I will detail below. It definitely took me out of my comfort zone.

Mark

3/26 – 4/1

Total Items in Store: 318
Items Sold: 27
Cost of Items Sold: $76.85
Total Sales: $762.56
Highest Price Sold: $85.80 (Alden Dress Shoes)
Average Price Sold: $28.24
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $205
Number of items listed this week: 75

Topped last week in total sales by $0.23, but sold 8 fewer items so it was a complete win for my little business.

In regards to the bit at the beginning of this weeks podcast, as a newcomer to selling on ebay I find the perspective you two offer to be quite refreshing. I like the chance to be able to see the perspective of people who have taken the time to already do what I am attempting to do. It’s nice knowing that I’m not just chasing a pipedream, the model does work and you two are a great benchmark.

As for what keeps me motivated as a newcomer, well, I’ve seen the other side. I could spend the next 30 years punching a clock and working for someone else, or I can do this and have at least some control over my time. Plus, the rush of finding something that I know is going to sell for a decent amount of money is pretty great.

Been with you crazy kids since the beginning but it took this long for me to figure out how to wrangle the forums with any modicum of consistency. Came on to learn and comment and really just say….Hey Trash Elves Hey! Every once in a while I will pull up a pre-200 episode to see how far you and the rest of us, have come. Thanks for all you do and all you are! I know I am not alone in saying that your much anticipated weekly episode is a comfortable and enjoyable shot in the arm to make the selling week successful in this world of wonder called Ebay. Hope it’s a $UPER week!

Mon – Sun

Total Items In Store: 2,261
Items Sold: 73
Cost of Items Sold: $94
Total Sales: $1489
Highest Price Sold: $200 (8 35mm slides)
Average Price Sold: $17.40
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 165
Number of Items listed this week: 92

I was hitting $250/day average sales until Easter Sunday ($25). Oh well. Good week overall. I got the flu Wednesday so that kept me inside and listing between naps.

Congrats on the 10 years. I think a lot of individuals flame-out because it is hard to make a living wage doing eBay full time alone until a large enough inventory is established, which can take years. Couples doing eBay together can share the work and living expenses, plus can build up the inventory much more quickly.

But once you have the inventory, and you see the cash coming in weekly, it is hard to give-up on it as it provides more fun and freedom than most any other form of income.

Morning all!

So is it just approximately ten years or do you guys have like, an ebay anniversary that you’re keeping track of?

I appreciated the discussion of auctions. Wanted to push back a little on Jay’s logic, with the caveat that I basically do NOT do auctions, these were just some contrarian thoughts that occurred to me at the time of listening.

What does it cost to do auctions using the method discussed? (High BIN price as the starting bid of the auction, and you just go straight to BIN if it doesn’t sell.)

Two costs spring to mind: (1) the logistical headache of keeping track of what needs to be relisted after failing to sell on auction, plus the added headache of auctions as a selling method in themselves. (2) The occasional item that gets lost (i.e., still in inventory but not listed) due to the above logistical complication with relisting. I have a hard time believing the cost of the above (in labour and lost inventory value) is more than $100-200/year.

Do you think the odd bidding war would save you that $100-200? Well, I know of at least 2 items I am confident I severely undersold in 2017. The unrealized profit is about $500 on them. Plus there may be others I undersold, that I am unaware of. (!)

Continuing to play devil’s advocate, recall the Pareto (80/20 rule). About 20% of your inventory makes about 80% of your profit. In my case, for the past year I can point to about 5 sales that accounted for a huge chunk of my profits for the year. I think your price histogram is flatter than mine, but still.

The outlier items that sell for high $ may not be *common*, but they are *important*. We have to give ourselves every chance to catch hold of the occasional, rare, *big* upsides.

Just doing auctions the old fashioned way doesn’t make sense because you lose a lot of bread & butter profit that way. But I like your commenter’s compromise – it makes sense. I may actually do it (only for stuff whose value I have trouble quantifying). *I think it gives you the upside of auctions without very much downside.*

OK, my numbers. Goodness, what a letdown after all the fantasizing above. Sore tempted not to post at all, but that would be sort of dishonest I think, when I’d definitely post if it were a good week.

Sales: CAD$70, 2 items, COGS $10 –> item profit $45
Expenditures: $30 –> after tax cashflow $15
Hours: 4, $4/hr
Listed: 4 items, $425
Notable sales: please kill me
Notable buys: got some cool med supplies (plastic sheets for custom splints) for a total of $20, on paper they’re worth $400 or so but I somehow sense I’ll be bequeathing them to my children

Soft week! And also low listing #s… With sun and warm temps outside, I was drawn to the sprawling garden mayhem that is the 1/2 acre lot I moved onto last July. Things are coming up that I’m not yet acquainted with (surely will bloom pink, if I’m understanding the floral directions of the previous owner), I’m realizing the extent of the invasives planted when they were popular in the 80s. Lots of work to do. And where to put the tomatoes?

Total Items In Store: 878
Items Sold: 16
Total Sales: $567.40 (not incl shipping)
Cost of Items Sold: $14.85 (lots of free-to-me items sold)
Highest Price Sold: $250 Portable Audio Signal Generator, sold on commission
Average Price Sold: $35.46
Returns/Refunds: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $2.64
Number of Items listed this week: 37

No scavenge of the week to speak of, though I’m happy with what I spent that $2.64 on. Was dropping things off at a thrift store, and figured I’d do a quick wander… Got some vintage sealed Christmas wrapping paper, a Charley Harper bird carafe, and a nice transferware pitcher with absolutely no helpful identifying information. But, like paint by numbers, I’m a sucker for old transferware.

Currently running three auctions based on performance of similar items having sold, and the #s do not look near as good as I was expecting. For purchasing, I have my eyes on 3 online auctions, and am pushing into a few higher dollar items there to explore the more money spent-more money earned side of things, but am a bit cautious as items are unseen.

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

Total Items in Store: 401
Items Sold: 2
Cost of Items Sold: $19
Total Sales: $69
Highest Price Sold: $39 (New art plate – paid $10 clearance)
Average Price Sold: $34
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 9

Tiny numbers this week as I put my store on full vacation mode the latter part of the week. We went camping in Big Sur, amazing time with no internet access. I’m way off my Ebay game with a lot of unusual things going on and will travel again to Palm Springs this coming weekend for a friends’ 50th birthday.

Congrats R&J on your tenth year of selling and leveraging your Ebay profits. I was listening to an old podcast and you were describing how finding unique treasure for cheap and selling it was keeping you going. I think I am in that group as I love the vintage – art, graphics, textiles, home decor. It’s only fun when it’s not at an antique mall – when no one else has discovered it and it’s cheap. That’s the real high that keeps me going but I do like sharing it with people who appreciate it too. Though some profits would be nice right about now since we have lots of unusual expenses. Interesting how your small store sales are swinging without listing.

Since we were away last weekend, two week numbers:

Week March 18-31, 2018

Total Items in Store: 904
Items Sold: 33 (1 Amazon, 1 FB)
Cost of Items Sold: $131 (14.1% of sales)
Total Sales: $932.05
Highest Price Sold: $60 (George Michael Faith Record http://www.ebay.com/itm/192472188530)
Average Price Sold: $28.24
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 3
Promoted listings test: 22 sales, $684.74 (73.5% of total sales), $39.11 fees (5.7% of sales)

The past few weeks felt slow, even acknowledging that we were away for 4 days (Tulum, Mexico is a beautiful place to be when there’s a snow storm in NYC!). Volume was good, but mostly bread & butter items $20-$30. Would like to be closer to $1500 for 2 weeks, although this certainly isn’t bad.

Last weekend in Mexico, this past weekend with family for the holiday prevented much in the way of listing/sourcing. My death piles have almost been eliminated, so that means I need to buy more… right?!?!?!

Another great one to be listened to again and again! Makes Monday Monday not such a sad song! And the company enjoyed while listening again and again while working is treasured, thank you!
Congratulations on defining yourselfs as Professionals, yes a salty line has been drawn in the sand, yet we all know your humility will always define you best, being your greatest asset and most secret weapon J&R! Frankly I could never listen like I do here if it were not for that.

eBay store totommyto

Total items in store: 553
Number of items sold: 15
eBay sales (not including s/h): $971.61
Cost of items sold: $37.50
Consignment payouts: $62
Highest price sold: $150.00 Vintage action figure
Average price sold: $64.77
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of items listed this week: 37

etsy store Oldfleatoymarket

Total items in store: 462
Number of items sold: 6
Etsy sales (not including s/h): $123
Cost of items sold: $15
Consignment payouts: $10
Highest price sold: $25 vintage Lion nodder, flocked
Average price sold: $20.50
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of items listed this week: 3

Better week of sales in eBay after analyzing low sales last week (because I finally look at the numbers!). More reasonable offers were accepted, many counter offers the week prior fell flat as counter offers often due. I definitely feel good about the offers I accepted as the cost of the items sold was low, and there is plenty of good back inventory to list.

Received a negative from the Ukraine after one month from point of sale. I sold a watch and could not find it! It seemed everything was more or less OK with the buyer. Long story short, a Feedback Revision was sent to the buyer, and after many many emails the feedback is now positive. I then had to erect some boundaries between the buyer and I and our new online ‘friendship’. Some of you know what I mean! Some of the International buyers are extremely savvy, they have always had to be, and Thankfully I had the experience to maneuver and avoid the Negative with only reasonable strings attached, and reasonable under any circumstances. I still kick myself for loosing a nice watch sale and watch, and not fulfilling an order!

Everyone take care, prosper, be healthy, and thank you again, and again congratulations to Jay and Ryanne!
Tom

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by totommyto.

I loved it Jay and Ryanne, when you mentioned bringing science into the auction discussion, and the foolhardiness of extrapolating off of one sale. So, from a scientific perspective, or at least from a statistically appropriate perspective, I came up with the right number of auctions for you to run, in order to do some viable extrapolation. Based on a 95% confidence level, a 5% confidence interval, and a population of 7100 between the 2 stores, your overall sample size should be 364. If you want to get fancy, you could stratify your sample sizes to be 313 from your big store and the remainder from your small store.

I did an auction recently on one item, a clock radio, not super cool or very old, but decent. Clock radios are one of my bread and butter items. I bought it for 29 cents, listed it for 10, there was no reserve or BIN option. It budded up to $18. I would have listed it for $15. I also took 25 of my very oldest items, and put them all at auction starting at $4 to $6 dollars. I’ll let you know how they do.

Congrats on your anniversary. You should be so proud! You guys are a great source of inspiration and joy to me😁

I’ve had my current Ebay store since 2007, and it has gone through many iterations before finally becoming something I am comfortable with. I’ve had to completely eliminate large product lines from it almost completely due to cost and value of the items (*cough cough* postcards). I started working on it when I got burnt out from just doing Amazon (which I still do, and which is still the lion’s share of my business).

Now that the ebay store is running on auto-pilot (I still feed it daily, or several times a week), my focus has been on working with a secondary ebay store I’ve created, as well as etsy. If it wasn’t for the creativity of being able to run an ebay business, with your own method of curation, I probably would’ve burnt out hardcore a decade ago. Ebay makes me feel like I have an actual store. Amazon is just soulless in terms of representing yourself.

The main ebay store is at nearly 9,200 items. I have 80-100 boxes of unlisted stock for this store that I can pick & choose from to list in the store, as well as going out to source new items 1-3 times a week. While the main ebay store is niched out, I still have dozens of sub-niches in it that keep me interested. I am not listing the exact same item day in and day out.

As for the secondary store & etsy, I am hoping to branch out more into items I am not fully comfortable with. At an auction this past weekend, I picked up a large lot of vintage blueprints, wallpaper, really terrible extremely bad art, misc. items, an olivetti typewriter, and tons of books like usual. I am really looking forward to listing the weirder, non-book items on the secondary store & etsy. This is stuff I would normally be interested in for myself, not necessarily to list online. Now, I am interested in them as a way to keep going in this business, as a way to continue listing and learning.

The auction also had a fill a bag & box sale going on. My husband picked up a box of 1960s/70s french pop records & misc. books for $10! while I filled up an overflowing garbage bag full of vintage clothes and fabric for $20. I haven’t listed vintage clothing online in over 10 years, but I thought this would be a good motivation to get back into it.

Total Items in Store: 2266
Items Sold: 36
Cost of Items Sold: $40
Total Sales: $1189
Highest Price Sold: $130 (Vintage Nike Shoes)
Average Price Sold: $33
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 32 (Kids were in spring break so we did a lot of playing this week.)

March 25-31
Total Items in Store: 1515
Items Sold: 21
Total Sales : $774
above yearly average of $676
above 2017 total week sales of $477
Highest Price: $75 (Vintage Pine Wood Finger Jointed Dovetail Stationary Box)
Average Price: $37
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $82
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $43
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 49

Sales were sort of slow last week, so I was surprised when I just finished my numbers and saw that I made more than I thought. Only half of what I made last weed, but still above average.

I had a few interesting things happen to me last week. I got my first complaint about a box arriving empty. The lady began sending me irate messages asking me if I thought this was a joke. I was driving home from an auction so I couldn’t respond, but her messages seemed to have calmed down by the time I got home. I remained professional and told her to send me pictures of the box with whatever was left inside. She then sent me photos showing only packing paper left inside. I proceeded to tell her that I would be filing a report with USPS and they should see where the weight change occurred. I called eBay and they said to just tell her to call them, which I did. I haven’t heard back from her since. So whether she was trying to scam me, or if somehow the package got opened, the item removed and taped back together, I don’t know.

I went to another auction on Thursday. Another BUST! I have a theory about this and I wanted to see if anyone agrees. I think resellers flock to auctions at the beginning of the year, driving prices way up. It seemed the same way this time last year. Someone mentioned that it had to do with taxes and end-of-year inventory. Sellers offload as much of their inventory in Nov. and Dec. so they don’t have to pay as much tax. But then they’ve got to grow their inventory fast at the start of the year. All I know is I wouldn’t even think about paying some of the prices that stuff was going for at this place. I think starting next year, I’ll skip the auctions January through April and just focus on listing.

My buy of the week was actually one of the few things I could get at that auction. I got a whole box lot of over 50 new-old stock 10K gold-filled watch bands for $10. Still in their original cases. I guess nobody was paying attention. They should sell for about $20 or more apiece on eBay.

Great discussion about auctions vs BIN. There’s a lot to be said about which is better. But I’ll throw my opinion in the ring and see where it goes.

I’ve heard it a hundred times that the best way to sell is to list as an auction with the starting price of what you want to realistically sell it for. My girlfriend’s dad will argue with you until he’s blue in the face that it’s the only way to sell. It sounds good and logical when spoken out loud, but there’s a lot of things behind the curtain that being unaccounted for. As Simplicio mentioned above, it adds another layer of work involved with a chance of losing listings in the clothes dryer that is eBay. Perhaps it might make more sense if you’re store is small, like under 20 items at a time. If your model is quick nickel over slow dime, then yeah auctions are perfect. But for larger, 500+ item stores, the benefit doesn’t outweigh the extra work (in my opinion).

I don’t think it’s been discussed yet, but let’s talk about human psychology and eBay. In the beginning when God said let there be eBay, there were only auctions. And people rejoiced and it was good. But as online marketplaces started becoming the norm, the auction format grew stale. Amazon convinced us to eat the forbidden fruit of instant buying gratification and it’s never been the same. (Okay, enough Biblical analogies) We’ve become accustomed to finding what we want, buying it and having it come right to our doorsteps 3-4 days later. When you run an auction, you’re forcing people to wait. You’re saying you can only buy this item on this day at this time for a currently unknown amount of money. I don’t know about you, but that turns me off. Sure, there’s max bidding and watch reminders, but it’s a hassle and we don’t like hassle. After 4 or 5 days of waiting, you’ve suddenly changed your mind, your passion fizzled, or you’ve even completely forgotten about it.

Now I would be hypocritical if I said that there is no place left for auction style selling. I’ve used that format a bunch in the past, and I will continue to do so in the future. But there are certain criteria that an item has to meet before I attempt it.
1. The item has to be highly desirable
2. The item has to be rare
3. The item has to have a large, even fanatical fan base.
You might have a home run if your item meets all three of these points. But it takes a lot of research to figure these out. I’ll provide an example… antique Korean history items. I found out about this by accident, but I’ve since learned that it potentially meets all three criteria. Those buyers are crazy and I love them! A lot of those Korean War slides sold for 4x or 6x what I realistically wanted to sell them for. But those kinds of items don’t come my way very often. Probably 99% of my store consists of stuff that meets 0 or 1 of those points. A few might have 2. But to think a bidding war might happen on everything in your store is a bit overconfident.

NOW HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT… I could be completely wrong about 100% of what I just wrote. I could switch every item in my store to 7-day auctions with their current price as the starting bid and make 7 thousand dollars next week. I would not be a happy camper packing all that stuff. But before I do something that drastic, I’m going to need hard evidence that it works that way, more than just a few home runs among a ton of strikeouts. Like Jay & Ryanne, I’m open to new ideas and won’t discount any idea or opinion as long as there’s proper proof or logic to back it up. Anyway, that’s my stream of conscious opinion. Take it or leave it and sell however makes you happy. 🙂

Just compiled my numbers for the month of March:

Listings – March 1st – 101
Listings – March 31st – 122
Items Sold – 36
Total Sales – $1952.36
Total Expenditures – $609.02**
March Profit – $1343.34

**Spent over $300 at Home Depot on supplies, and just under $100 on a box of 1000 large polybags. I built a system from the ceiling joists to hold my rolls of paper, labels, and bubble wrap. Also bought 4 rolls of bubble wrap. My actual inventory spend was $142.01.

An OK sales month – lots of higher margin/priced items sold this month which is my strategy for 2018. However, my profit is not near the $2000/month I like to hit. I am also spending a lot less time on eBay, but the per hour numbers this year are double what they were last year (I’m near $50/hour for the time I spend on eBay related activities for 2018).

MOST OF MY SALES WERE DURING EBAY PROMOS – there were several promos through ebay.com and ebay.ca this month that boosted my sales those days. I’m hoping eBay continues this practice!

Attn: Malinda (Mallybills) and ScavengerLife community:

I hate to do this here but there is something that is really bothering me. About a week ago, I was doing some pricing research on a toy (Vintage Kenner Star Wars X-wing fighter). Checking out the other current active listings, I clicked to view a competitor’s item. In between the top part of the listing (with the pricing/shipping info) and the description, eBay has posted “People who viewed this item also viewed” with a row of 5 photos/listings that “should” be like items. One of these photos was an explicit nude photo. I scrolled further down on the listing to find that a row of photos labelled “Similar sponsored items”. 4 of the 6 photos were obscene. These listings were popping up because they were put in the Toys & Hobbies Category by the sellers…site issue/nothing to do with cookies etc. I clicked on the first one I saw, which was the most offensive of the bunch (Not being oversensitive here: not just an adult doll, which should not be in Toys category anyways, but a nude spread eagle with photoshopped “doll” arms) and reported it within the listing on the Report Link that ebay provides. I also called and the Rep saw what I saw, confirmed it was a site issue, and said he would report it to the correct dept. I talked to his supervisor, too. I truly thought eBay would shut these down immediately once they became aware of the problem. Days passed and none of these listing were pulled. It’s actually pretty rampant. If you type in “bust” in the search bar and choose Action Figures Category you will quickly see listings that should only be in “Adult”. I contacted eBay for Business, and they also said nothing more that they would put through a report. It’s been almost a full week now with no action taken.
I have never, in 8 years of selling, had things like this pop up. It is offensive to buyers who will quickly leave eBay and never return. It is in my main selling category which affects my business, it is illegal by Federal Obscenity laws, and it is just wrong on a basic level for these to be visible alongside children’s toys. I am asking for help in reporting these listings and keeping our platform safe.

eBay week of March 25-31

Total Sales. $120.94 ($106.94)
Items in store. 966
# items sold. 15
Avg. sale. $8.06
COGS. $9.54
Ret/unpd/canc. 1/1/1
$ spent on new. $14.48
# new listed. 7
Highest sale. $@6.50 Calloway Pebble Beach golf pullover (original cost 50 cents)

Couple of points about my numbers-average sale is low because I have pretty much my entire store on sale. Also my return was actually for damage done in delivery. I’m really trying to clean out my inventory to make room for new items and had a higher than expected tax bill for reasons my husband has explained to me and I still don’t understand, so I really need to raise some $$ quickly.

Jay mentioned reaching a ‘healthy level of seling’ and I think I have figured out mine. I have the mid-level store, 1000 BIN and 500 auctions per month. I’m not in a position to upgrade both for space and time reasons. I regularly hit my free listing limits on BIN, so I have been doing a few more auctions (particularly closer to the end of the month). Sometimes I hit the jackpot, but mostly I either sell the item for slightly less than I would as a buy it now, or at the beginning of the month I transition it to a BIN listing. I think Jay had the best analogy-to sell items at auction, you have to have a bit of gambler in your soul. The things I’m most likely to list as an auction are things where the similar items sold prices are all over the map. Also, items where I can’t find any similar items. My best auction ever was a broken Seamaster watch that had belonged to my dad. Complete watches were selling for thousands of dollars. I just couldn’t come up with a BIN price, so I listed it as an auction for $50. It sold for over $500. I would never have priced it for that much!
I agree that buy it now is the way to go for the majority of sales, but occasionally it does pay off to gamble on an auction. Congrats on 10 years and thank you again for hosting your podcast and a forum for us to feel like a community.

We had another decent week this week and a couple of interesting sales. We actually sold two framed prints this week (now we have sold 3) and my husband is now very good at custom making boxes from large sheets of cardboard and packing up these prints. It was a love/hate thing on these prints. We loved having them hanging in our living room and office, so we hated seeing them go, but what a victory in selling the 3 prints that we got for a total of $10 for ~$300! 🙂

Our stats this week:
Listings in store at beginning of week: 785
Listings in store at end of week: 841
New Listings: 86
Sold Items: 34
Total Sales: $1016.82
Cost of Goods Sold: 93.07 (12%)
Average Sales Price: $27
Cost for new inventory this week: $323 (Yes we are still aggressively building inventory to reach our 2,500 goal)
Highest Sale: $149.95 for a “Back to the Future” camcorder we picked up at an online auction for $6.00
Favorite Sale: We picked up some authentic vintage 60s and 70s clothing. I found this adorable (most likely hand made) go-go mini dress for $2.00. Listed it and sold it the same day for $40. I knew that dress would go and it was a small victory when it sold knowing my instincts were good. 🙂

We still have a ton of stuff to list this week from our weekend scavenging, so will hopefully get another 100 or so listed this week!

Congrats to you Jay and Ryanne on your 10-year eBay anniversary. You’re an inspiration to us all!

BTW, FWIW, I also really do not like auctions but have been tempted to try them on some unique items. But our camcorder sale is a prime example of why not. We found another camcorder for sale just like ours, but was on an auction (ended on Sunday, which is supposed to be the better days for ending your auction). However, it only got 1 bid and sold for $129. We decided to just put ours up high and knew where we wanted to be from a best offer perspective. Got our offer within 24 hours ($149) and was happy we didn’t go the auction route… I am *very* curious to hear how your D&D stuff does on auction. I haven’t completely ruled it out, but have not yet been compelled to do it!

Happy Monday all!

March 2018
Ebay Stores
Total Item Count on Mar 30th: 1421
Mar Gross Sales: $7888
Items Sold: 197 @ 40.04 avg sale price
Total paid for items sold: $1267

Amazon FBA Store:
Items left in Store on Mar 30th: 342
Total Sales: $6621
Items Sold: 113 @ 58.60

Total Sales: $14509
Items Sold: 310

Here is feb as I didn’t post it

Feb 2018 sales
Ebay Stores
Feb Gross Sales: $7853
Items Sold: 190 @ 41.33 avg sale price
Total paid for items sold: $1553

Amazon FBA Store:
Total Sales: $4675
Items Sold: 84 @ 55.65

Total Sales: $12528
Items Sold: 274

I add my two cents to the auction/bin debate as a seller who has been on ebay for almost 20 years. I still list everything as an auction first. Either for 5 or 7 day depending on when I list so the item ends on a weekday. Then if it doesn’t sell I relist it as a 30 day buy it now and just relist everything as it ends each month (I know another topic under much discussion). I like to do the relist so I can adjust prices if it looks like I need to lower prices.
Back to the idea of listing everything as an auction. Originally I used turbolister and now I use Garagesale. I build all my listings and then have them all end in the evening on a weeknight. Part of the my reasoning is that a lot of what I sell is conducive to auction as many items may have multiple parties interested and could get into a betting war and the other part is the fun of auctions and getting bids as that is how ebay used to only be. Nothing is more fun that on a night were a bunch of listing are ending and the phone is just making constant bid sounds and Ka-Chings. It helps with the boring parts of being an online seller. I do list everything now for pretty much the lowest price I would take. It does save time on research as I don’t have to worry about underpricing a hard to price item. It probably would make sense to go straight to buyitnow for a good amount of my listings but old habits are tough to break sometimes. It just works for us. I totally get why fixed price on everything makes sense for most sellers.
The D&D books are definitely auction stuff. Personally I feel that is the only way to sell cool rare stuff like that that would have a large amount of interest as its hard to exactly price and bidding wars are possible.
The cool thing about selling on ebay is that it is not a one size fits all way of selling and still is an online flea market/auction house with bidding and haggling and all the fun those things bring.

Total Items in Store: 1,933
Items Sold: 38
Total Sales: $1284.84
Highest Price Sold: $88 (Calculator)
Returns: 2 (Shoes didn’t fit)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $600+

We went out of town this weekend and found a good will outlet where we were staying. We ended up going two days and got two cart loads of stuff. We also hit up all the goodwills and other thrift stores, we came home with an expedition full of stuff to list. I have been focusing on clothes for now but did find some great hard goods as well.

Congratulations to Ryanne and Jay for 10 years of selling. That deserves a celebratory drink! I have been following you all for quite some time now and have found you to be an inspiration. Being a part of the “scavenger life” forums has really been great for my business and my sanity. I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years bring for you guys. We hope to make it over you your neck of the woods soon to check out your awesome rentals!

Hey Scavengers, I have 3 accounts and receieved a message from Ebay on two of them with a report about my returns. One account was good and the other in big bold letters about my return rate being high. I sell several items a day on this account and in the course of a year, only four of the items were sent back as item not described. Out of those 4 items, 3 other them were really buyer remorse that I didn’t bother fighting or ebay ruled in the buyers favor. I guess from now on, I’ll have to make that call; I was unaware that this counted against you. If I would have known I would have handled things differently. (And besides that, how is that return rate high?).

Also you mentioned about a spreadsheet that really didn’t make a whole lot of sense; that was my experience as well.

Numbers for month of March
Total Listings: 914 (1214 items/total value $26,330)
Sold 72 Items for $1520
Cost of Items Sold: $117
Highest Price Sold: $125 1800’s Painted Pantry Box
Average Price Sold: $21.11
Spent on new inventory: $39
Number of items listed: 50
GSP: 3 – Italy and two to England

My numbers are better this month than I expected as I had several periods of 2 or 3 days with no sales at all. One buyer purchased a cross stitch pattern then canceled about 10 minuets later. I think after buying it eBay showed her a cheaper one so she bought that one instead.

My highest price sold item, the painted pantry box, would of been worth more if it was from the US, but it was most likely from Germany. Harry Rinker on his gcnlive.com radio show ‘Whatcha got?’ appraised it at about $40 to $60 (if I remember correctly) so I was happy to take a best offer of $125 since I paid only $2 for it at a yard sale.

March turned out to be my best month ever, in terms of profit, ASP, sell-through rate. My goal was to make over $1000 in profit before taxes, and in the end I made $2200!! All my efforts to get higher value items into my store over the past year or so paid off big time.

A typical week for me in March (computed from my monthly #s):
Total Items in Store: 270
Items Sold: 14 (5% sell through rate)
Cost of Items Sold: $157
Total Sales: $828
Highest Price Sold: Versace dress $250
Average Price Sold: $59
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $147 for 26 items
Number of items listed: 17

reposting with corrected #items in store and sell thru rate (don’t want to risk losing my post via “edit”)

March turned out to be my best month ever, in terms of profit, ASP, sell-through rate. My goal was to make over $1000 in profit before taxes, and in the end I made $2200!! All my efforts to get higher value items into my store over the past year or so paid off big time.

A typical week for me in March (computed from my monthly #s):
Total Items in Store: 370
Items Sold: 14 (4% sell through rate)
Cost of Items Sold: $157
Total Sales: $826
Highest Price Sold: Versace dress $250
Average Price Sold: $59
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $147 for 26 items
Number of items listed: 17

Week of 3/25-3/31
Total Items in Store: 1,878 (Up 27% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 127
Number of Items Sold: 69 (Down 7% YOY)
(Includes 0 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 16% (Down 6% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $1,778 (Up 17% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $474
Highest Item Sold: $160 – Brooks Brothers 1818 Madison Saxxon Suit
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Troy leads the year at 8-5.

eBay Clothing
# Listed: 1,105
# Sold: 39
STR: 15%
ASP: $24.22

eBay Shoes
# Listed: 117
# Sold: 7
STR: 26%
ASP: $30.19

eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 656
# Sold: 23
STR: 15%
ASP: $27.06

Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 148
# Sold: 0
STR: 0%
ASP: $0

March 2018
Number of Items Listed: 366 (Forecast: 400)
Number of Items Sold: 321 (Forecast: 436)

Monthly STR: 17% (Forecast: 23%)
Monthly ASP: $25.30 (Forecast: $21.10)
Total Sales: $9,161 (Forecast: $9,204) – Increase of 11% YOY

Continuing to see an erosion on our STR, but we are seeing stronger ASP as an offset.

Photographer is working out well, and we will keep working with him to help improve our weekly listing quantity. This upcoming week will be light, as I’m working my accounting gig and then driving to visit my oldest son in college.

Hope everyone has a great week!

I took the advice from the podcast and set up business policies. I should have been doing that from the start. I used to do no returns and a long handling time. I’ve been putting off fixing those listings for a while. Now it’s all set with one click.

Total Items In Store: 363
Items Sold: 5
Total Sales: $80.76 (not incl shipping)
Highest Price Sold: $25 Women’s Talbots Modest Dress
Average Price Sold: $16.52
Returns/Refunds: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of Items listed this week: 11
I have a great new Ebay toy. A Jeweler’s loupe! Using it to do detailed checking of my last Estate Sale finds. Finding hidden words. STERLING and 12KGF are my favorites. So listing these old jewelry eyeglasses and hiking the price.

Now my numbers for the week of 3/25 – 3/31
total number of items in store 1100 (approximate)
Gross Sales: $366 ebay + $60 next door app = total $426
Ebay FV and Marketing Fees & PP Fees: $97
COG: $21
Net: $329 total (includes 60 cash)
Total number of items sold: 15 + 4 = 19
Average Price of items sold: $17.32
Total spent on new inventory $107

I’m slowly but surely climbing with my numbers. They are largely supported by promoted listings and sales, which in some way, is undercutting the process at the same time because of the cost associated with promoted listings and sales. My first goal is to get to $300/week net. And I can see it coming closer now.

My best sale of the week was ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DINOSAURS PREHISTORIC LIFE By David Lambert – Hardcover, I picked it up for 15 cents (that’s the per inch pricing at the goodwill outlet for books) and sold it for full price of $60. It was in my store since 12/23/17. I’ll take it!

I listed a ton. I put up at least 100 books from death piles, mostly on local selling apps and facebook and took $60 from that. I also put up clothing, electronics, etc. I didn’t really track how much I listed, because I was too busy listing!

Happy Hunting Everybody 🙂
Marjean 28

Hello all: Is anyone else experiencing this behavior? Recently, when I sell an item on eBay and the buyer pays for the item the payment shows up in Pay Pal, but not on eBay. Here is a screen grab of an example. https://s3.amazonaws.com/mypublicbucketbb/Gear360.jpg

I received payment for this item, but the “Date Paid” doesn’t have a date, just a dash. It is a pain to have to check Pay Pal and I am concerned that eBay will ding me if I ship late because their interface isn’t updating properly.

Sales for week of 3/25/18 – 3/31/18
Total items in store: 150 (ish)
Cost of items sold: $34.55 (ish)
# of items sold: 18 + 1 on etsy 🙁
Total sales: $261.96 (+ $5.00 item on etsy)
Highest price sold: $29.95 tie: Vtg Tommy Hilfiger Swim Trunks and 3″ Liddle Kiddle Goldilock – but the Liddle Kiddle Goldilock item has an INAD return in process, which I am disputing, more on this below.
Average price sold: $14.55 🙁
Returns: 1 return case opened, see above
# of new listings this week: 17
$ spent on new inventory this week: $6.22

Although my total sales for last week was actually $20.00 less than the week before I’m at least happy that I finally have the month right! I’d been reporting April sales all last month instead of March – I’m hoping April will be better for me than last month’s numbers!

I do want to say thank you to Sonia for her comment on my sales last week. Thank you for telling me that I had a 9% sell thru rate, that helped! Unfortunately I’m thinking that as I grow my store my sell thru rate will most likely decrease – I tend to list the “sure things” first and throw the not great buys in my death piles, but now I’m starting to list the death pile stuff 🙂

I’m going to add my return INAD problem under Customer Issues. It’d be great if anyone with experience with customer returns could give me some advice!

Happy treasure hunting and selling to all!

Hello all: I called eBay about my Seller Hub not properly displaying the “Date Paid” information. The help desk person took a screen grab to pass along to the development team. I currently have 2 sold items with this behavior. They are supposed to look into it.

Jay, speaking- “Yeah, auctions just don’t really work for us, so we don’t do them.”

Me, thinking- “But I just sold this amazing auction lot TWO DAYS AGO for WAY more than I would have put them up as BIN!”

Jay- “I mean, people come on the forums and tell us about this time they sold this ONE thing and think we’re going to be able to replicate it always, and that’s just not the case”

Me- “Yeah, I guess… but this ONE auction did awesome! It was a set of antique Japanese rice bowls that my grandmother bought when her family was stationed in the pacific, and I had NO IDEA how much they’d sell for, so I auctioned them and they brought $150! I probably would have listed them for $45 or something.”

Jay- “Sure, it works for certain things, like weird asian pottery, because that stuff sells like crazy.”

Me- … Well played, Jay, well played.

Items in Store 926
Items Sold 12
Total Sales $328.00
COGS $44.00
Total Profit $284.00
Average profit $23.67
Average sales price $27.33

A slow week but I haven’t actively listed in weeks so I’ll take it. I’d love to say I’m getting ready to “spring clean” up my horribly cluttered ebay space but winter is returning this week…again. We might get 4-6″ of snow Saturday morning. Grrrr!!

I did get to do a burn pile last night to get rid of the massive pile of debris I accumulated from converting my garage to ebay space, so that’s a positive.

In regards to your discussion of veteran scavenger vs newer scavenger, I noticed another scavenger at Goodwill on Tuesday. It was a man with his mom. She pushed the cart and he was ferociously thumbing through every single shirt in the men’s department. They were both real excited and they had filled two carts. Then the man went through everything with his phone while standing right next to the checkout counter. They ended up putting back 2/3 of what they pulled. All the while I was calmly and non-chalantly pulling the diamonds in the rough. Once upon a time I would have felt threatened seeing this in “my” goodwill. I wasn’t this time. I was confident in two things: My abilities, and the fact that there is always plenty of stuff. I found it humorous to watch him because I saw me from 2 years ago in his actions and excitement. He did eventually stop by and asked me if I was a “flipper”. I responded that “I have an ebay business, yes.” We had a nice little talk and each shared a few tips. He was operating under the impression that to keep Top Rated, he had to jump through all the hoops of free shipping and free returns. I explained to him the difference between TRS and TRS+.

I’ve come to the conclusion that ebay is intentionally confusing the two programs so that folks like this man will go ahead and conform to their “seller mold” out of confusion and fear.

Anyways, have a great week everyone.

In regards to auctions, I don’t think they would work for my style of inventory. I try to stick to sourcing items with known sales metrics. In all the sales I’ve ever had on ebay, I can only thing of a single sale that happened almost instantly after listing. I don’t think it was because it was valuable either – I think it was because the buyer had a saved search for that specific thing. So me listing things high starting auction is just an added step that won’t generate regular benefit. If once every few years I leave $100 on the table I am fine with that.

Week of Mar 25 – 31
* Total Items in Store: 1150
* Items Sold: 17
* Cost of Items Sold: $18.50 + $22 Commission
* Total Sales: $328.30
* Highest Price Sold: $55 Antique silver plate bride’s basket
* Average Price Sold: $19.31
* Returns: 0 (dodged a bullet, though)
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $7.70
* Number of items listed this week: 0

I’m late to post. We had a family trip to check out colleges in Boston. Our daughter is a junior in high school.

Like Ryanne, I had switched to business policies and not all my items were connected to a policy. In my case, though, I didn’t realize it. When I came home, I saw that a few items were showing as late. I wasn’t able to call eBay today. Hopefully, I’ll find time tomorrow. I don’t want any late shipments to count against me, and I’m not sure how I’m going to fix the problem.

The “bullet I dodged”: I had a ceramic sculpture break in transit. It was a small break, but the buyer filed for a return due to damage. I asked for more photos, and, when she didn’t respond after a few days, I sent a second message. She said that she was able to glue it back together and just asked me to refund her $6 for glue. Whew!

My Experience with Auctions, Why I use them, and Successful Examples!

I am a high volume clothing & Accessories seller on Ebay (I average $7500 gross each week) and always start my items on auction and just like the individual mentioned in the pod cast, then change to buy it now. Every week, I have 1 – 2 items get bid up. I think this works well for clothing because you never know when there are two people who really need that particular size. Usually I only make an extra $10-$20 per item (every dollar counts!), but about once a month, I make an extra $100 or more. I LOVE selling on Ebay and can never get enough of it after 6 years (my husband, sister, and I do it full time). Also, greatly enjoy your podcast, thank you.

Username: Calljac15 & Vermillionclothingco
Store: http://stores.ebay.com/luxclothingresale & http://stores.ebay.com/vermillionclothingco
Here are some examples this past weekish: https://www.ebay.com/itm/382422231687
https://www.ebay.com/itm/253532228713
https://www.ebay.com/itm/253526112406

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by calljac86.

calljac86,

With selling high end clothing, I was just wondering what your experience has been with returns, NADs and items coming back because the buyer “rented” them from you and wants their full money back eventhough they show obvious wear.

AdventureE,

My return rate is 5%. I am guesstimating (is there a place that states this?), my NADs is less than 1% of that, we may get one a week. I just had a buyer return an item that had definitely been worn and I still accepted the NAD. This is an unusual situation, most of my NADs I would say are buyers remorse, but they are so few that I don’t fight them.

calljac86,

Thank you for sharing.

Yes, you can see alot about yourself in the Seller Hub. Click on Performance and then slowly scroll down to see all the information available to you as a seller. Then go down to Seller Level for specific info on your level. If you click on the blue arrow, it will open up to a specific tab which you will see (on the left side) is part of Seller Dashboard and is labeled Seller Level. Scroll down to see your Return Rate information.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by AdventureE.

Jay and Ryanne, congratulations on your 10 year anniversary of eBay selling. You guys have done something extraordinary by giving away your experience on these podcasts, on this website and in building this community. I wish you continued success and friendship. -Daniel.

Posting late – here is 3/26/18 – 4/1/18:

Total Items in Stores: 927 + 514 + 220 + 1055 = 2,716
Items Sold: 27 + 10 + 9 + 1 = 47
Total Sales: $753 + $206 + $162 + $19 = $1140
Highest Price Sold: $45 Tommy Bahama Shorts; $50 Pyrex Bowl; $38 J. Jill Dress
Average Price Sold: $24.25
Returns: 3
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $50
Number of items listed this week: 77