Scavenger Life Episode 459: Delayed Gratification

Great episode guys. I actually purchased another ebay store and did exactly what you are talking about. I used inkfrog and migrated the entire store to mine. Was it worth it? Absolutely. That said, I also inherited all the maddening inventory inconsistencies. listiing errors, etc. My cost ended up being around $2.50 per listing for about 1700 items. It was mostly womens clothing which i dont source myself, but the math on that was solid, even with the hiccups. It would take me 2 months of solid listing to list that much. It was a big chunk of money, but i wasnt just buying the items, I was paying for the WORK. I’ve been eating on that deal since November.

04/12/20 – 04/18/20

Total Items In Store: 3336
Items Sold: 27
Cost of Items Sold: $ 100
Total Sales: $ 1059.91
Highest Price Sold: $ 75 (Rollerblades)
Average Price Sold: $ 39.26
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 0
Number of items listed: 28

Gut Sales Report for the week: It felt like the busy season. I was still selling a lot of Inline skates (8 this week) but other things as well. I was also selling larger, more expensive items. Had to go to FedEx a lot this past week.

Challenge of the week: Still trying to take pictures of about 10 items everyday Mon-Sat.

Scavenge of the week: Nothing.

Mark S

@Jay I physically moved the items to my basement. That was one other minor downside. She used clear numbered ikea bins with a taper that left A LOT of empty space on the shelves. Ive been slowly consolidating those bins over several months to make room again. Still worth it but just more to show that buying somebody elses inventory is buying somebody elses problems/mistakes

Items Sold: 130
Cost of Items Sold: $ around 500 (hard to calculate on a granulized per-item I buy in bulk. My average ends up in the $3.00-$5.00 per listing range)
Total Sales: $ 4244
Highest Price Sold: $ 124.95 https://www.ebay.com/itm/274328910000
Average Price Sold: $ 32.64
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 1100
Number of items listed: 238

Pretty busy week. Rolled a lot of profit into new inventory and immediately saw a return. Other items are backstock for listing (postcards, ephempera)

Challenge of the week: Death pile encroaching

Scavenge of the week: Spent $400 on huge lot of video games and systems. Listed all the games that didnt need resurfacing and about 1/3 sold in under 24 hours.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by darwinman1.

@jay to clarify i didnt get a 2nd ebay ID. I migrated the listings from her store to mine with inkfrog and then physically moved the inventory from her garage to my basement. When I met her, I had beat out like 4 other people coming to look at the stuff but when i got there, my first question was to see her store overview. I saw her sales by week and month etc. Asked how she promototed, return policy and any other affecting factor I could get out of her. After an hour I asked to look at the stuff. I ended up with about $1000 worth of boxes and packing materials as well, and a few thousand dollars of unlisted inventory. I recouped my investment within 45 days largely due to the timing of the transaction being just before the holidays. If I were to recommend that anybody do this I would say that it needs to be an unemotional numbers transaction. For something like this, I dont think it matters if it is stuff you like or know about.

Hope everyone is hale and hearty still…

Had another good week on ebay. Also received a good severance from my old job. I feel almost guilty for saying so but weirdly, in the middle of this pandemic with my wife on mat leave and me being laid off, is when we finally paid off a whole bunch of annoying debts and are in a good place financially. Hope our luck holds.

Regarding shipping from Canada – yes, Canada Post is more expensive. However, I would say that it is only catastrophically more expensive for people selling low-dollar, light items, or books (no media mail in Canada so a book costs like $15 to ship). As long as your ASP is way more than your shipping cost, you can still sell to the states no problem. About 50% of my sales are to USA.

Sales c/w shipping: CAD$3930, 20 sales, COGS: $976, Fees: ~$543, Postage: $667 –> Gross profit: $1745
Expenditures: $0 –> Cashflow: $2721

I really REALLY need to get sourcing again though. I have done an abysmal job of sourcing these few weeks.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by simplicio.

My eBay Sales (No Store) Week April 12-18, 2020

Total Items For Sale (No Store): 26
Items Sold: 8
Gross Sales: $287.74
Cost of Items Sold: $0
Highest Price Sold: $92.53 (Nikon Camera Lens)
Average Price Sold: $35.97
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number Of Items Listed This Week: 5

I don’t even do glass, in fact if I am doing a auction and see a box with half glassware but other stuff I want, I still won’t buy it lol. I used to but after a few broke in transit or because I was not careful. I just don’t I don’t even like boxing it. I have found that at auctions more times than not you buy in bulk and only some things are sell-able and certain things take so long to sell. I am at the point now I just want to buy stuff that will sell in a month or less. I will even discount it at 21 days with a sale and only make half my profit just to turn things over now. It helps to know what sells fast though.

Items in Store 1544
Items Sold 65
Total Sales $1,849.00
COGS $174.00
Total Profit $1,675.00
Average profit $25.77
Average sales price $28.45
New Listings 35

Wow I blew my Items Sold record right out of the water this week! A guy could get used to these kind of sales weeks.
It’s been kind of a sucky week. I got the stimulus money, and the same day my dishwasher AND refrigerator died. Story of my life!
I did gut the broken refrigerator before they took it so I could sell the parts. I should be able to make about $800 once everything sells.
This weekend I finally finished rebuilding the rest of the wooden shelves in my inventory building. Now I have all of my storage fully “efficientized” so I can plug ahead with listing my profit piles in an orderly fashion.

The ominious “Cost Protection Measures” corporate emails are starting to come in at work. This week they stated that noone can rollover vacation anymore. We have to use 100% of what we have by the end of the year. I don’t see how this saves the company money, but whatever. It is inevitable that other cuts will come at some point this year as our sales intake goes down.

My sales this week give me hope that I really could survive on my ebay sales if my day job ended. I’ll keep on chugging along since I have alot of free time right now. I’m working from home, which means my work computer is set up right next to my ebay computer at my listing station. I’m listing in the downtime as I really only have 2-3 hours of real work a day since I’m not on-site.

Listen every week, don’t post very often but felt like I’d like to weigh in on the whole “should you buy an existing store with cheap sunglasses issue”.
I’ve been doing both eBay (the scavenger life “system”) and Amazon (new items from china) for several years now and IMHO BOTH are viable options if done properly and are worth the time/ effort.

I won’t go into eBay because most on this forum know its ins and outs but I can answer any questions anyone might have about the Amazon FBA selling. Last year my partner in Amazon and I sold around $350K in products on that platform and hope to reach half a million in sales this year (corona virus willing).
I love it, its fairly consistent and only requires around 15 hours per week and its growing year after year. We’ve even expanded to sell on Amazon in Canada this year with plans to expand to Europe in the coming years.
Happy to answer any questions or field any constructive counter opinions.
All the best

45 orders going out today. I think we’re currently at nearly 20 orders going out tomorrow, will add 10-20 more to tomorrow’s ship-out by the time that goes out. Scheduled pickups are the best! That being said, I miss walking to the post office. They say that we’re past the peak, but there are still way too many new cases added each day for me to feel comfortable about walking outside again unless I absolutely need to for essential errands.

The last time I walked anywhere was early April. I’ve just been holed up in the house other than bringing in mail and putting out packages for the mailman. It’s been too rainy or windy to exercise outside. The days it is nice out are full of other people with the same idea to walk around, so I’ve just been staying in other than having the windows open and exercising in the house by moving around heavy boxes of stock. It’s not worth going out to risk getting sick.

It’s fine. When I do start routinely going outside again, I’m planning on walking more than ever. Before the pandemic happened, I was an Uber Platinum rider. I was using Uber 3 or 4 times a week at least, sometimes multiple times a day. I haven’t used Uber in over a month and a half, and don’t really have plans to use it again for as long as possible. I think it’s a way the virus is spreading around here – public transportation is definitely one of the main spreaders, so I wouldn’t be surprised about Uber being another transmission source as well.

I know a lot of people are eager to get back out there and go to thrift stores. I’m planning on just continuing to primarily source online for the next few months or longer. If I do go to thrift stores, I will most likely just buy enough (quantity and weight) to allow me to easily walk the items back home outside of additional non-Uber transportation methods. That is, if I feel safe enough to either venture on public transportation or go to thrift stores with other shoppers. If I lived anywhere other than where I do now, it would be fine and I wouldn’t have these concerns. It just feels like such a calculated risk to be thinking of an immediate future that involves my sourcing being 100% completely normal in the way it was before the pandemic. It has now been a little over 2 months since I’ve even been to a thrift store, so it’s not something I am urgently missing anyway.

Etsy is doing really well right now. 4 sales over the past 24 hours! I think they’re getting a lot of traffic due to being one of the only places online where you can buy masks, hand sanitizer, yeast, sourdough starters, seeds, etc,. I’ve been trying to focus on my main Ebay store, but I’m going to go back to listing more items on there as well. Amazon is a dud because I haven’t been able to buy a significant amount of stock for it in 6 months. Still, enough orders are coming in to make it worth continuing with until I can steadily source for it again.

I found a weird sort of glitch on the “make offer” function this week. I selected three things that I wanted to do a small 5% offer just to get them off the page. After getting to the make offer page, I decided to remove one of the items, so I went back to the previous page, unclicked that one item, and then pressed make offer again. I put in the 5, but the default had changed from a percentage to the actual price. You see where I’m going here? Someone bought a glass Fenton vase, which I was selling on commission, for $5. When I realized what happened, I immediately ended the second item and relisted it so that the $5 offer was removed. My mistake for not checking it, which I usually do, but I think it is a glitch as well.

Anyway, I had a good week, but not the high sales of the previous week (especially factoring in the $5 Fenton vase).

Week of April 12 – 18
* Total Items in Store: 1424 eBay, 34 Etsy
* Items Sold: 22 eBay
* Cost of Items Sold: $20.65 + $46.68 Commission
* Total Sales: $427.07 eBay
* Highest Price Sold: $39 Nikken bracelet (on commission); $35 lamp
* Average Price Sold: $19.41
* Returns: 0 (but 2 NPB)
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 12

In Etsy news, I have someone who wants to buy 9 whiskey pitchers from a single maker, so I created a special listing for her. I gave her a week to pay, so hopefully it goes through.

@Jay yeah, pretty much how you described. I made contact over a facebook marketplace post. Went to her house and had her open up her laptop and show me the ropes. I took a look at what I would be taking then we closed the deal. I set up inkfrog over the next few days, then I went over to her house with my laptop and we spent a few hours migrating the listings. We did that on a friday so I would have time to move the items before having to fulfill orders from her store. It took me about 3 trips in my van, but when it was complete after the weekend I already had about a half dozen orders to fill. At that point it was the beginning of the learning curve of learning her inventory “system” (note quotation marks). She remained available to me for a few weeks as questions came up. All-in-all it was relatively smooth. The transfer process of the listings themselves had a bit of a learning curve on its own. Inkfrog actually requires you end the listings before migrating. That actually works out because she would have had to take them down anyway. She did have to allow me access via password during this process. She just changed her password when it was done

That is pretty darn cool!

Total Items in Store: 300 Ebay, 60 Mercari
Items Sold: 9 Ebay, 2 Mercari
Gross Sales: $231 Ebay, $26 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $67 Ebay, Mercari items ours
Highest Price Sold: $40 Four new nut bowls (paid $26 on clearance)
Average Price Sold: $26 Ebay, $13 Mercari
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: +/-$100 RA clearance
Number of items listed this week: 29

Thanks for the podcast. Again this week I sat and listened by the fire. I could get used to that. I feel like we are ok with delayed gratification but will wish we had traveled more. My husband and I were just revisiting our travel memories during this shut in.

This week’s sales were ok, not as good as last week. I’m still enjoying working through the piles but did get a little burned out on listing by Sunday. Hat’s off to those of you who do it full time. I’m extremely grateful that I became efficient on Ebay before this happened so I can work this morning.

No projects from the day job yet for today so I’ll be listing again. I think I’m going to switch up to another category. I did a bit of consolidating and found a couple of RA gems that fell off Ebay – I swear it happens! Sold one last night. Also started sharing pins on Facebook again this week and cleaned up my boards. I have agreed with myself to list some of my lower dollar vintage on Mercari and keep the bookkeeping up.

Package pick up is not going well. Twice he has left them behind. Also I don’t seem to be able to add additional purchases to the pickup effectively.

Have a great and safe week!

Great episode! Thank you both. It is so great that you are both so like minded! I am an extreme saver and super frugal. My husband is the opposite and LOVES to buy stuff and spend money. Oh well, his good qualities make up for it.

Anyway, I wanted to mention that many listeners/followers should check out their local library online to see what free streaming resources are available with their library card… books, movies, music, homework help, online classes, language classes, geneology and MUCH more… including FREE ACCESS TO PAID SITES LIKE LEGAL ZOOM! You may be able to get free access to all of your legal document needs.

Be well everyone. Liz

Hi All
Thanks for the podcast R&J.

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 3835
Items Sold: 69
Total Sales: $1342.03
Cost of Items Sold: $169
Average Price Sold: $19.45
Average Cost of Item: $2.46
Highest Price Item Sold: $43.96 Nikon Nikkor AI-S 50mm f1.8 Series E Lens
Number of items listed this week: 90 worth approx. $1995
YTD Sales: $16341
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +18%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 446
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 279
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 127
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.8%
Hats sold this week: 45 (65% of sales) worth $727.14 (54% of sales $)

I had another good week of sales. Way up from this time last year.

I’ve been feeling like a real scavenger this week having sold 2 items I found from opportunistic dumpster diving. I’m not a intentional dumpster diver but I’ll look if I’m walking by one.

If anyone saw my comment last week about the sketchy $1000 / 1000 hat purchase, I have an update. Some boxes arrived this week but they only contained just under 500 hats. I knew that was about to happen when the seller sent my a photo of the post office receipt showing the weight of the shipment which was well-under my calculated weight. (The average hat weighs about 2.5oz so you can do the math). When I confronted the seller about it (in a nice way) he agreed to send another 200 hats, which I’m guessing he was too lazy too send in the first place, plus give me $200 back. (I was trying to cut him a break too get this resolved quickly – he really should be giving me $300 back assuming the extra 200 hats actually arrive). We’ll see what happens. The hats were much as expected, some destroyed, some fine, many covered in dark animal hair. Lots that have no value. I will still make make a profit eventually assuming I get the extra hats and money back.

Different topic: I thought I had a good handle on my dwindling death pile and I thought I only had a bunch of $20 items left to list but I found a small bag of pens that I’d bought at a family estate sale a year or two ago for a few dollars. After quite a lot of research it turns out they are very old, and somewhat desirable Parker, Waterman, Shaefer pens and should be worth several hundred dollars. That was a great surprise.

Hope everyone has a profitable and healthy week!

I tip my cap to you, Jay and Ryanne. You had an amazing week. From where I sit, you two live a life 99% of people would envy. You don’t have to answer to anyone in running your business or your lives. Do you realize how many people reach Sunday evening feeling existential dread of starting the work week? You’re using your talents as you choose, not someone else. That’s a pretty good life in my book. Also, my wife and I really like the Southern Split. Next up is the Guatemalan.

April 4 – 11
Total Items in Store: 552
Items Sold: 19
Total Gross Sales includes s/h: $698
Highest Price: $145 (Vintage Coca-Cola sign)
Lowest Price: $10.90 (vacuum cleaner tool)
Average Price: $37
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $40
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 33

Darn good week for me. On track to have a +$2K month, which I’ve only done a few times. Been listing my death pile like mad, but it’s nearly gone.

4/11/20-4/17/20
Total Items In Store: 2145
Items Sold: 55
Gross Sales: $1455
Highest Price Sold: $ 150 (Photo Enlarger)
Average Price Sold: $26.45
Returns: 1 $50
Money Spent on New Inventory: $12
Number of items listed: 12

• Had a very good week in sales. Highest sales week of the year so far.
• A few listings this week from cleaning out the garage and a getting rid of stuff I don’t use anymore. Also found a great deal on a few items at Home Depot to flip.
• In the last 2 weeks I’ve sold 28 boxes of L’Oreal hair color that I RA’d from a grocery store last summer for 50 cents a box. Completely sold out now, but could’ve bought a ton more as they had several carts full on clearance. 20/20 hindsight on this one.

Total Items in Store: 2780
Items Sold: 62
Total Sales: $1680.22
Shipping/FVF/Listing fees: $512.28
Spent on new inventory: $290 clothing lots sourced on facebook
FB marketplace sales: $1277 on toys purchased for $1950 last week(about 35% sold)
Average Price+shipping on Ebay: $27.10
Highest Price Item Sold ebay: $73.62 1980s statue of liberty replica
Biggest FB sales: $290, 170, 115 respectively
Number of items listed this week: about 50. Been working facebook heavily to recoup investment quickly, so eBay has suffered.

Surprisingly $400 lower after the stimulus than it was the week prior. Thank you for bringing extra voices to my forum post about the sunglasses. Offer is “being considered”

I cant source how I normally do, so I am being creative. Bought 3 pallets of box damaged toys and looks like $1950 will turn into $3000+. Not the usual margins, but it is income and I have a lot of time atm. Recouped $1277 of it in 9 days, so I am feeling more confident in the purchase.

My other business is completely toast right now, so focusing on expanding eBay as much as I can. Harder to do with our usual auctions also closed down, so we are sourcing in new ways like facebook and liquidation. Our 1400 sq ft shop is stuffed. I even removed everything related to the other business, but we are at capacity. Looking into a 3500 sq ft building with a loading dock, but that will add $600 in monthly expenses. The space is cheap, but it is still more outlay I will need to make up…and that is not appealing in these uncertain times. I do not believe I can grow any further without the space.

Seems like most of us had a nice increase in sales this week, lets hope it continues.

04/12/20 – 04/18/20

Total Items In Store: 14,924
# of orders – 124
Total # of items sold – 163
Cost of Items Sold: ~$30
Gross Sales: $3,660.64
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 0

Super busy week for us. I had hit 15,000 listings earlier in the week, but we’ve been shipping more than I can get listed. Highest sale was a 45 RPM Record that I paid about a nickel for, sold for $400. Tons of combined orders as always. Personally, doing this for a living is my gratification. It does become a grind, but anything in life does after a while. Thanks for the podcast and hope you have another great week on the bay.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by WabashValleyRelics.

April 12 – 18
Total Items in Store: 3,934
Items Sold: 48
Total Sales : $1,349
* Above yearly average of $969
Highest Price: $98 (Lifetime Cookware Stainless Stock Pot)
Average Price: $28
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $68
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $3
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 58

Another nice week of sales! Seems like those stimulus checks are hitting the streets. Steph and I still haven’t gotten ours yet though. We both tried that IRS website and entered our direct deposit info. I keep getting an error . Apparently the system wasn’t coded properly to handle a refund of zero. Boo!

Not much new on our end. Still staying at home and working. No different than it’s been for the last 14 months since going full time. I powered through about 800 35mm slides all last week. They all were of a trip to Europe in 1980. They weren’t the most remarkable things to go through but I’m glad it’s done and no longer staring at me from the corner of the room.

Doubly, wondering (like Jay) how these slides sell for you. I helped on an estate clean out of an advertising designer/cartoonist from NYC. I have a few hundred slides from Manhattan & Queens from the 50s through the 70s. I tested the waters with a few and they just sat for months so I didn’t bother listing any others. Maybe I will try a few more. Thanks liz

Would you be able to give us a sample listing title – could be made up (say for a slide of a street in Paris with a lamp post from the 40s) – just to see what kind of key words an effective slide seller uses? What might be some of the other key words that help someone find your listing besides the subject matter? I know slides can be use in art installations, for instance. Any other purposes for slides you throw in the title that are helpful? Arts? Crafts? Etc. Thanks.

Marty

@DoublyThumbs, when you say ‘I’ll scan in 4 or 6 of the best ones onto my computer’, how exactly does that work? Maybe a special slide mount gadget that attaches to a USB port? Curious minds want to know! Your slides looks fantastic. I had some old glass slides I managed to prop on a light tent. Worked for a few slides but not for hundreds like you’re doing.

@doublythumbs, thanks for your detailed answer. A few months back I passed on a few boxes of 35mm slides since I couldn’t think how I would list them.

April 12-18

Total Items In Store: 807
Items Sold: 10
Cost of Items Sold: $ 35
Total Sales: $ 303.77
Highest Price Sold: $ 39.99 (Rachel Comey Oxford Shoes)
Average Price Sold: $ 30.38
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 0
Number of items listed: 17

Gut Sales Report for the week: I thought I sold way less then went to ship (I only ship a few times a week) and was pleasantly surprised.

Challenge of the week: My day job was draining this week and my attention span short so I didn’t get to list as much as I wanted to. But almost all of the items that sold are newly listed items which is good motivation!

Scavenge of the week: I didn’t buy anything BUT I am learning how to bleach dye shirts so I took some black shirts I had in my inventory and dyed them. My husband took one of the three but I listed the other two. Will see how they do.

Also my scavenge of the week was finding the $1,000 in free money in my bank account thanks to the EIDL grant. Hope you guys are getting free money too!

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by amandaw.

A few sales here, some Xbox games and some light tools that I had picked up at a discount place, pretty decent flips. Also sold one of the app controlled R2 Q5 drones, star wars style like r2 d2 for good money.
Big thing is we ran over to Cancun and back on monday to pick up another auction lot we won online. Brought back the higher value stuff in the car and had 2 pallets shipped which arrived the next day. A big mix of stuff, some toys, some sporting goods, decorating stuff, cycling clothing, and 180 something new womens dresses. Been busy listing since Tuesday and I would guess another few days worth to list, woowhoo!
On a side note, they are cracking down further here, 1 person allowed per vehicle, masks must be worn anytime you are outside your house, including in the car. Fines of $1800 dollars and 36 hours of jail for offenders. Stores that allow anyone in without a mask will be shut down by the government, and dry law continues until the end of the month. Fortunately I had bought a few cases of beer when dry law was announced but rations are running low…
Other than that life is awesome!

Almasty, every state is doing their own thing. Yes, the measures I mention are for Yucatan. Next state over, quintana roo where cancun is, is more lax, at least you can buy beer over there!
They are expecting a peak in cases coming between may 2nd-8th more or less so they are putting these conditions in effect before to try to help. Overall still doing well here, cases are under 100 per millon inhabitants, but I imagine that is about to go way up…

Late getting to the number for the week. Time flies when you have a house full of family to entertain.

After having one of my best weeks ever last week, had one of my worst this week. Thankfully, it all averages out over time. My highest sale was a set of Polish stacking dolls, similar to the matryoshka dolls from Russia. Apparently a pretty rare set. I had picked them up for a few dollars because I thought they looked unique.

Week Ending 04/18/2020
Total Items in Store: 1129
Items Sold: 19
Gross Sales: $576.00
Gross wo Shipping $436.35
Cost of Items Sold: $40.95
COGS Percent 9.38%
Highest Price Sold: $60.00 Stacking Doll
Average Price Sold: $22.97
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 8
Promoted Percentage: 42.11%
Average Days Listed: 477.67
Longest Listed: 1389
New items listed: 0