Scavenger Life Episode 443: Goodbye Old Decade

Yes, I go to the Goodwill bins regularly (about once a week). The regular Goodwills tend to be too expensive around here. I also feel like there are more interesting items to be found in the bins. Some bins are filled with items from the regular stores that didn’t sell, but most bins at my location are filled with unsorted donations. Sometimes this is a clear-out of grandma or grandpa’s home resulting in some cool vintage finds. I don’t find a whole lot of big ticket items, but I love the treasure hunt. I also get all my personal crafting/sewing supplies (I find unused fabric all the time) as well as some clothing from there since I try to avoid buying new whenever possible.

Hi all.

Kind of a slow week for the holiday season.

Sales: CAD$1035, 9 sales, COGS: $305, Fees: ~$150, Postage: $94 –> Gross profit: $580
Expenditures: $2427, Cashflow: -$1542
Hours: 9
Listed: $1600, 10 listings
Notable sales: door reader things 2 units for $300, this was an ebay purchase, now paid off and I have 14 more units to sell, so that was a good buy.
Still going crazy buying buying buying on eBay. At this point I literally have to wait for sales before sourcing much more. It’s a novel problem for somebody who 2 months ago was racking his brain for places to find things to spend money on.

I too dislike flaky entitled buyers, on the other hand we should bear in mind that expectations around returns affect buyers’ willingness to purchase in the first place. An “eBay flea market” might be fun, but who would willingly risk $10-20 shipping with less prospect of return for a serious defect? There’s a reason flea markets are great places to source, the prices are low precisely because everything is “as is, no returns”. Part of the reason you can charge a premium on eBay is because you’re adding warranty where none existed previously.

As sellers of used goods, too, I think we should bear in mind the amount of infrastructure it requires to arbitrate between us and buyers, regardless of who’s right. I would love to know what kind of costs we represent relative to the fees we generate – as compared to new, commodity sellers. An eBay of infinite, perfect justice to sellers of weird used items might be so costly as to not make sense as a business proposition.

Overall the platform is better than I would have expected a priori.

I found out a while ago that my snowbird uncle, a nice old public school brit, likes to hit the Goodwill bins in Florida. I think he likes the human drama of it all, and he’s become popular in the community (I imagine Seinfeld’s Del Boca Vista) for the treasures he finds there.

Items in Store 1395
Items Sold 33
Total Sales $1,066.00
COGS $150.00
Total Profit $916.00
Average profit $27.76
Average sales price $32.30
New Listings 29

I closed out the year very strong!
So back at the beginning of September I set a goal to gross $941 a week through the end of the year. Unfortunately we had the massive ebay glitch that messed up everything for a while.
I ended up averaging $811 over that time frame. I set a lofty goal, and still did really well! I averaged $1162 in sales a week in December, which is amazing! I’ve never had 4 weeks in a row of $1000+ in sales. I hope that trend keeps on a rolling.

In other news, I did a TON of work to my garage/ebay space this weekend. I hired a person to install a side entry door in my garage as it didn’t have one. Worst…contractor…Ever! I really struggled deciding to hire it out or do it myself. There were enough questions that I couldn’t commit to DIY. After watching this alleged professional, I should have done it myself. He was unprepared, I had to let him use MY tools to do the job right, he kept trying to take shortcuts that were not kosher. Alas, it is done and I have moved on. I paid $400 labor for very crappy work – took him 4 hours. I may rip it all out and redo it myself so it is right. On the bright side, I spent that 4 hours doing what I am good (and confident) at and listed $1600 in inventory.

After the door was done, I created an indoor/outdoor pin area for the dogs and then trained them to go through the new doggie door.

Then I ran some new electrical to add some outlets in the garage and relocate the outlet that used to be where the new door is. Finally, I installed a light over top of my relocated listing table. Phew, that was a productive weekend!

In the process of reorganizing the garage/ebay space for the new door, I decided I am going on a scavenging moratorium until sometime in February. I need to maximize cashflow for our vacation…and I’m out of space.

Today I plan to sign up for a business credit card. I want to go ahead and commit to getting away from using paypal in prep for managed payments. It will make my bookkeeping next year simpler to just start the year off with the new system. I’m comfortable now with pirateship, so I’ll just go to using them full time for USPS orders.

Happy New Year everyone!

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Retro Treasures WV.

Hello all, and thank you yet again Jay & Ryanne for your podcast, the best Bits & Bytes hangout for us scavenger seller types anywhere. I can still remember how lonely it was searching for a place to just hear upbeat shop talk and find folks who shared understanding concerning all the little nuanced aspects of online junking. You are a blessing, and that goes out to the rest who gather here.

I enjoyed some great sales on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures with a remarkably low COGS of less than 10 cents per item. I guided my Mother in Law, age 83, at a church sale in Connecticut by phone down here in Florida. She paid $6 for a huge lot, packed them in a suitcase and brought them to Florida for her holiday visit. When I listed most of the good ones right around Christmas, I was betting on the ‘this is what I REALLY wanted for Christmas 1990’s grown up kids’ to be the buyers.

12/22 – 12/28/19 (no cross listing is done between platforms)

eBay store: totommyto

Total store items: 837
Number of items sold: 8
Total eBay sales (not counting s/h): $540
Cost of items sold: $12
Highest price sold: $139.50 set of 2 vintage TMNT action figures, paid a quarter.
Average price sold: $67.50
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $2
Number of new items listed this week: 4
Sell through rate for the week: 1.0
Number International sales: 2

Etsy store oldfleatoymarket

Total store items: 638
Number of items sold: 7
Total Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $182
Cost of items sold: $9
Highest price sold: $48 – building set magnets and rods – paid $1
Average price sold: $26
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of new items listed this week: 5
Sell through rate for the week: 1.3
Number International sales: 1

Total Items in Store: 282 Ebay, 40 Mercari
Items Sold: 7 Ebay, 3 Mercari
Gross Sales: $87 Ebay, $45 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $40 + one item free
Highest Price Sold: $29 offer to watcher (Target Christmas Bird Decor sold after Xmas, paid $12 thrift xmas boutique
Average Price Sold: $12 Ebay, $15 Mercari
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $42 (mostly RA)
Number of items listed this week: 0

Thanks again for the Sunday podcast. Pricing at thrifts has a lot to do with manager staffing. Over time our indy thrift pricing has gone up and down. When the prices are raised too high, stuff really starts piling up, then they advertise that they have lower prices than before. At Goodwill, they have a hard time keeping staff. The old manager was sending out most of the good stuff for online selling, but they are remodeling now and the current pricing on hard goods is great and the emphasis on movement. That store already turns over very quickly due to it’s prime location downtown.

This week was all about low dollar for me on Ebay. Speaking of low dollar, even though the garage is looking much, much better, my spouse is starting to question whether it’s worthwhile for me to continue to sell on Ebay. This is mainly because that profit taxed on top of all our other income at high rates. So, perhaps I should consider cherry picking in my backlog and making death piles? We’ll see. I told him I love to sell on Ebay, it’s good for my stress level in some weird way and we can use the extra $ even post-taxes due to our high cost of living.

2019-12-22 – 2019-12-28

Total Items In Store: 3368
Items Sold: 19
Cost of Items Sold: $ 60
Total Sales: $ 627.36
Highest Price Sold: $ 50 (CD Changer)
Average Price Sold: $ 33.02
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 60.38
Number of items listed: 20

Gut Sales Report for the week: Slower sales, but that was expected.

Challenge of the week: I still have a lot of items I need to process and list.

Scavenge of the week: Found a Sony 200 disk CD player at the Salvation Army. Yes, Salvation Army prices are getting too high, but I can still find good deals. The one I go to has different colored stickers. Each week they have a 50% off on a certain color of sticker. This helps move out the older inventory that has been sitting too long. Not sure how many different colors there are, maybe 5-6. So, inventory is moved out in about 6 weeks. This is their way of throwing high prices at the wall to see what sticks. I like the independent thrift store better – much better prices but very limited inventory.

Mark S

It was nice to have 2 slower weekends in a row. Combining shipping days and not having to ship mail on Saturday made it feel like less work! Also took a couple of days off, so it was nice.

With less mail going out, I was able to get 40 items up from the last auction haul. I’ve also been working through the general backlog over the past few days to clear out space for the auction items. Most items are getting listed. I’m only tossing a few that I feel won’t sell or that aren’t worth listing. I’ve also been donating reject items as often as possible to clear out space. Most of the items I’ve been working on in the backlog have been from 2015-2018, so not too old.

A lot of the new items are going up on auction to save on listing fees and because I’m hoping for bidding wars. I realize this is a bad time of the year to be listing auctions, but I have to list stuff when I get to it. What’s nice about having such a big backlog and not picking out ALL of the best stuff first is that I’m finding valuable items mixed in with the bread & butter, so it’s keeping the listing interesting. If this was all just bread & butter I’d get bored quick.

I’ve also been listing in my secondary Ebay store, but not as much as I would like to at the moment because of working through the backlog for my main store. Sales are increasing on that store because I’ve been running a small sale and am getting a boost from having more active listings up. I’ve probably listed 50-100 items in it since late November.

No time to list on Etsy at the moment. I do have a few items I need to get up within the next week that I think will do well on there.

Here are my last 10 sales on the main Ebay store by their starting dates. These items sold from today through yesterday afternoon. I haven’t ended/started any listings since last July, so I am currently up to month 17 or 18 of potentially “stale” items.

Start time: Nov 19, 2019 12:10:27 PST
Start time: Nov 01, 2019 12:33:03 PDT
Start time: Jul 05, 2018 04:40:57 PDT
Start time: Nov 15, 2018 11:09:28 PST
Start time: Jul 10, 2018 03:57:41 PDT
Start time: Jun 17, 2018 04:20:49 PDT
Start time: Sep 23, 2019 14:44:15 PDT
Start time: Dec 29, 2019 09:12:18 PST
Start time: Jul 15, 2019 12:50:52 PDT
Start time: Jun 17, 2018 04:19:43 PDT

Thankfully, have had neither requests for returns (I only openly accept on some listings), nor too many/too weird email inquiries. But, also not many offers. Had 3 sales on Christmas day, though none on Sunday, which is typically my biggest day of sales. This time of year, all bets are off. Hoping that January continues to be my highest selling month of the year so that I have something to look forward to, but if last year taught me anything, it’s don’t hold your breath!

12/22/19 – 12/28/19
Total Items In Store: 814
Items Sold: 12
Net Sales (Total Sales – Selling Costs): $410.29 – $134.67 commission sale (All Clad fish poacher)
Highest Sold Price: $125 – All Clad Fish Poacher
Average Sold Price: $34.19
Cost of Items Sold: $25.00
Returns/Refunds: $0
Money Spent on New Inventory Last Week: $2.25
Number of Items listed last week: no idea – I’ve both listed new items, and ended some listings

Another enjoyable and informative episode!
You meantioned Steven Schultz again. We watch all our youtube vids on Roku but we can’t watch him.
On youtube on my pc following the link on the site here it says the video is unlisted. Does this mean it is hidden and we can’t watch on Roku?

Dec 22-28
Total Items in Store: 2771
Items Sold: 27
Total Sales : $690
* BELOW yearly average of $905
Highest Price: $60 (WW2 USO Cartoon Pictorial Map of Hawaii Big Island)
Average Price: $26
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $29
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $486
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 79

eBay slowed down a bit for me last week, but I expected that to happen. The same thing happened last year during Christmas week and even the year before that. That’s why I love having my data easily available so that I can see my sale trends.

I went to a good auction on Saturday. It was intense. In my area, good auctions have been really few and far between this year for some reason. Resellers here are really thirsty for good inventory. So when this one was advertised with tons of pics and descriptions, it got the attention of all the dealers in a hundred mile radius. Four auction rings and hundreds of people elbow to elbow, pushing each other to get closer to the auctioneers. I was amazed that I stayed for the whole thing. But I got a van load of really cool stuff. My prize of the day was a complete Lenox nativity set in their original boxes. I paid up for them (over $100) but I expected to sell it all for $800-1000.

This week I’ll be once again focusing on buttons. I have them all sorted by material. The metal ones are done. Now to start on the glass buttons. I think these ones are where my sales will shine.

Happy New Year!

Interesting what you were saying about breaking eBay out two sites. It seems like there should be a place where you just go to buy used and vintage stuff. I know when I search ebay for something I want, a big issue is wading through the “noise” of all the cheap new junk to find the good quality used item at a price I want to pay. I hesitate to buy any new items from eBay unless it is something that is a brand I’m familiar with due to all the questionable items, and I’m more inclined to go to Amazon to buy them due to the reviews and Prime shipping, but even there the glut of cheap junk is overwhelming.

I find myself longing for an online store that curates all their items and limits the selection to just those items it has tested and believes they are good quality for a good price. There are some small niche stores that do that, but nothing I’ve found large scale for commodity items.

Had another good week on eBay. I feel like we’ve been really lucky sourcing this past year. The items have been selling much better than expected and I guess we’re learning better what sells. Our holiday sales have been up way over our weekly average.

Here’s what we saw this week:
Week Ending 12/28/19
Total Items in Store: 1179
Items Sold: 33
Gross Sales: $1,952.56
Cost of Items Sold: $95.86
Highest Price Sold: $400.00 (Confederate $500 note)
Average Price Sold: $51.00
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Sold via promoted listings: 17
Promoted Percentage: 51.52%
Average Days Listed: 215
Longest Listed: 812
New items listed: 8

Had two high dollar sales this week. The $400 confederate note and a $300 transistor radio. Tha pushed our average up and really made the week for us. Kids have been home on winter break, so haven’t done much listing.

Shew, what a year. I hit my Q4 goal of $1K/day Gross Sales ending with just about $93K over 92 days…..need to keep that momentum up for a few years to offset my wife’s grad school. Big changes this year. Her school starts on Monday, it’s down in the DC area. We plan to commute for a bit first, but I imagine that will wear off quickly and she will be on board with my plan to purchase a small second home closer to the action. I plan to go down with her once a week to source. Will be nice, as I didn’t get out for as much thrifting as I like the past couple years since I injured my back, and the local shops just don’t have a lot of great stuff.

Here’s how the year looked, there may be a few loose expenses that didn’t get added, but only a few. Sales tax numbers seem way off, will have to wait for the paypal 1099K to square all that up I guess.

Income

$257,168.47 Sales
$104.56 Sales Tax Collected (No way this number is correct)
$28,419.86 Shipping Income
-$15,445.95 Returns
———————
$270,246.94 Total Income

Expenses

$260.00 Accounting Fees
$17.95 Advertising
$8,453.00 Charitable Donations
$41,829.82 Consignment Payout
$30,444.59 Ebay Fees
$50.00 Gifts
$41,276.07 Inventory Cost
$1,703.00 Meals & Entertainment
$4,559.19 Mileage
$593.68 Office Supplies
$1,916.92 Other Expenses
$8,968.91 Paypal Fees
$59.09 Sales Tax Submitted (Also doesn’t seem right)
$36,734.63 Shipping Costs
$1,666.45 Supplies
$8.50 Travel (wow, I didn’t do a single out of town thrift trip)
$4,044.00 Utilities
$2,646.52 Web Interpret Fees
—————————
$185,232.32 Total Expenses

—————————
—————————
$85,018.16 Net Profit

Hello all:
I assume most of you have heard of the AB5 law that went into effect on 1/1/2020 in California. I don’t think Ebay sellers have anything to worry about, but the criteria does make me wonder whether an Ebay seller should be reclassified as an Ebay employee. Certain professions are exempt from the new law, doctors, lawyers, strippers, etc.
Under the new law a worker can only be classified as an independent contractor if they meet all of the following:
(a) the worker is free from control and direction in the performance of services; and
(b) the worker is performing work outside the usual course of the business of the hiring company; and
(c) the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business.
I’m not a lawyer so I don’t understand whether (a) applies to an Ebay seller or not. Ebay doesn’t tell us what to list, but does have many rules about what and how we must list. It sounds to me like an Ebay seller would pass the (a) qualification (be allowed to be a contractor).
Ebay sellers certainly appear to me to fail to meet the requirement for (b).
For (c) I heard a different explanation that states that the worker is free to have other employers, which Ebay sellers most certainly could, sell on Amazon, Etsy, etc. It sounds to me like an Ebay seller would pass the (c) qualification (be allowed to be a contractor).
This California law is possibly going to be implemented by other states, but that is not a certainty at this point.

Totals for the MONTH of December 2019. I am mainly a mens clothes seller, free shipping, free returns, 1% promoted listings, no best offer, good till cancelled.

Listings/items at end of month = 4405 / 4945 Total listed value $110,219
Items sold = 330 Down 4% YOY
$ sold = $9,693 Up 3%% YOY
ASP = $29.37 Up 9% YOY
Monthly sell through rate 7.5%

Expenses
Postage = $1714 (17.7% of gross)
Ebay fees = $973 (10% of gross) (includes Promoted listing fees of 66 sales totaling $1728 ($17.28-8.33 credit = $8.95.62) 20% of items sold/ 17.8% of $ sold) and return labels
COGS = $892 (9.2% of gross)
Returns = $849 (8.6% of gross) Some pretty big $ returns this month!
PP Fees = $793 (8.2% of gross) INCLUDES SALES TAXES REMITED TO EBAY!

Total operating expenses = $5221 (53.9% of gross)
Total operating profit (my name for it – does not include expenses such as mileage, shipping supplies, depreciation, etc …) $4472

Notable sales:
Harley Davison Panhead Convertible Leather Jacket Vest D Pockets XL Distressed (Sold for $250, Purchase price $25)
Sous Vide Supreme Demi SVS09L Gourmet Cooking Water Oven System Tested Working (Sold for 151.24, purchased for $5)
Vtg Vietnam Era USAF MA-1 Flyers Jacket 1969 Large Alpha Industries Has Issues (Sold for 124.99, purchase price 6.99)
Nike Air Max Plus TXT TN 2014 Sunset Retro Tour Yellow Shoes sz 10.5 647315-700 (sold for 124.99, purchase price $3.50)

YTD Items Sold = 3594 (+6% YOY)
YTD Gross = $96,130 (+11% YOY)
YTD Net = $47,931

Week of Dec 22 – 28
* Total Items in Store: 1499 eBay, 35 Etsy
* Items Sold: 13 eBay
* Cost of Items Sold: $15.15 + $4.66 Commission
* Total Sales: $272.08 eBay
* Highest Price Sold: $36 for 1950s Motorola AM tube radio
* Average Price Sold: $20.93
* Returns: 0, 1 partial refund
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 1

Just got back from a year end visit with family. I had an extended handling time for a good bit of last week, so sales were slower. Things are picking up this week.

In this podcast, Ryanne said that she would take about two hours to ship about 20 items. I took about three hours today to ship my 14 items that sold while I was away. Granted, I had more fragile items, but, really, I just pack slower.