REVISIT: Scavenger Life Episode 425: Worried? Get to work!

Items in Store    1364

Items Sold           29

Total Sales          $950.00

COGS    $107.00

Total Profit         $843.00

Average profit   $29.07

Average sales price          $32.76

New Listings       57

Man I picked a GREAT week to start listening to “We’re Alive”. My Monday would have been empty without a new SL podcast but I’ll be good now. If you haven’t ever heard of We’re Alive, you should definitely add it to your podcast list.

I’m still working on blasting through listing all of my shoes backlog since my daughter is doing such a great job cleaning and photographing shoes. We’ll finish this week and hopefully she can transition to coats and jackets.

Regarding managed payments, I find it quite irritating that they don’t release funds for payout until I ship the item. On the other hand, it is motivating me to stay on top of my shipping.

I’m feeling the pressure to get as much listed as possible. Yardsales were a complete bust this past weekend as expected. As much as it pains me to not shop, I’m going to shut down sourcing in September and focus on listing and inventory management so I can enter 4th quarter high on listed inventory, well organized, and flush with cash. All the unrest in our country has triggered my anxiety to make me want to fill my cash reserves as much as possible.

J&R, hope roasting training went well! Looking forward to hearing all about it next week.

Listings in Store: 672
Items Sold: 18 (16 eBay, 2 FBM)
Gross Sales (includes shipping): $736 ($494 eBay, $240 FBM)
Highest Price: $200 – Fat tire bike
Average Price: $41
Cost of Goods Sold: $315
Returns: 1
Cost of Goods Purchased this Week: 0
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 11

Gut reaction to the week: Very good sales week for end of summer. Up about $200 from last week. My largest sale was a Facebook Marketplace fat tire bike I took a loss on of about $100. I bought it at auction and turned out it needed repairs. Since I thought I would keep it for personal use I had it fixed. Rode it a few times and decided I didn’t like it. Yeah it was a bad buy but sometimes they happen. No regrets.

Scavenge of the week: Planning on attending a live auction on Wednesday, my first in six months. I’ll wear a mask and do my best to keep social distance. Am I being reckless? I don’t feel like I am.

Hello all.

Took the weekend off to go camping with the family. Decent week on ebay.

Sales: CAD$2316, 16 sales, COGS: $349, Fees: ~$316, Postage: $326 –> Gross profit: $1326

Expenses: $66, New inventory: $943 –> Cashflow: $666 (!)

No huge sales, highest was an RFID tag reader for $300, security camera for $250.

Total Items in Store: 26,006
Items sold: 162
Gross Sales: $1,674.17
Highest Price Sold:  $60: Robert E Lee Monument in Richmond, VA
COGS: $16.20
Average Price Sold: $10.33
No Returns  *
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of items listed this week: 620

The “lost” postcard from last week was delivered.  It took 14 days to go 80 miles.  Got another “haven’t received it yet” message this week.  Card only took 3 days to get from Maryland to San Antonio, but it’s been sitting at the San Antonio post office for 8 days.

I’ve been pretty motivated to list over the past few weeks, but I’m still not doing what I think I can easily do which is 1,000-1,200 new listings a week.

8/22/20-8/28/20

Total Items In Store: 2033
Items Sold: 29
Gross Sales: $903
Highest Price Sold: $100 (Stearns Sinpac Reversing Switch)
Average Price Sold: $31.15

Returns:  0 $8 (Partial Refund)
Money Spent on New Inventory: $12.00
Number of items listed: 31

• Had another slow week in sales this week. The week started very slow and then picked up with a few higher dollar items near the end of the week.
• Scavenge of the Week: There is an older gentleman in a town near me that has a yard sale every once in a while.  He sells everything for 25 cents and has a garage full of tables loaded with stuff.  He had a sale this week and I spent $12 on a huge pile of inventory.  Last year, I bought a skippers hat from him that sold for over $100.  After talking to him for a bit, we found out he has access to some storage units and this is how he gets rid of the massive amount of stuff he gets.

ha! I didn’t even notice this was a repeat, it still feels fresh and I was all excited for your big sale!

I wanted to ask you you shipped this item.  I am sitting on some large prints by a famous artist but shipping is holding me back. These are about 30 by 20 inches, unframed and I have no idea how to pack them.  I though about rolling on a big tube but the paper is very stiff and will show creases. Should I get cheap poster frames from hobby lobby and box them up? Should I get think cardboard and make a portfolio?  Is this going to cost a fortune in postage? Any help grateful accepted.

Total Items in Store: 355
Items Sold: 5
Gross Sales: $138
Cost of Items Sold: $13

Highest Price Sold: $35 new plate, paid $9 a year ago
Average Price Sold: $28
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $150 summer clearance + thrift run
Number of items listed this week: 15

Congrats on the big art sale, that’s awesome.  It’s fun hearing about preparing to open the coffee shop, but I can’t wait to see photos.

Slow week on Ebay but I didn’t list until Sunday.  I did sell my 2010 minivan too though for $9500.   I’m still pulled away by other work but that should lighten up maybe by next week when both kids are back in school.  I look forward to a day when I just just sit and list on Ebay.

This week I went to the thrift shops to check out the Halloween they just started putting out (mainly looking for high quality stuff for us).  Two stores had cute college girls in pairs buying up my kind of stuff.  Also this week Youtube suggested https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEDLDyuTial0Jtb3IHCab9A these girls (the Recycled Life), who are having a lot of fun together and reminded me of the ones I saw.   Earlier I saw college boys doing it and they would talk out loud and it was clear that they had no idea what they were doing.  The girls are a bigger threat.  So more competition, but there is lots of vintage stuff around here and I have loads of piles still.  Secretly I’m hoping these college kids don’t have the patience to stick with it.

Have a great week.

Want to extend your handling time and still have offers out? Just end those items and relist or sell similar. Go in to your active listings, click tab Offers Sent and end these. Great show again!!!

I’m bummed when you aren’t able to post a new podcast, but you two deserve a break. Steve deserves a break. I look forward to hearing from you next week (and hopefully Steve this week?).

Sales were sluggish. The big stars were two RAZR flip phones given to me by one of my parents’ friends. Both sold within a week of being listed. I guess he really liked the phone, so he bought a number of them in case his broke. Kind of strange since he gave me five of them! He was an executive at the time, so I guess he didn’t think much about spending extra money.

Week of Aug 23 – 29
Total Items in Store: 1286 eBay, 36 Etsy
Items Sold: 11 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $13.83 + $0 Commission
Total Sales: $214.74 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $37 Motorola RAZR flip phones (sold two, same price)
Average price: $19.52
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 17

Good podcast to re-listen to. It put me in a better mood than I was in earlier this morning after I blew a manual snipe that would have been worth upwards of $100 net profit. My bid went in too late due to temporary slow internet that started just at the wrong time. I should have just put the bid on Gixen but I was wanting that sniper rush. Instead, I got the agony of defeat as the item sold for its opening bid. Of course I could have lost the item even if the bid went in, but I’m braced for that. Now I’ll never know if I could have gotten it or not.

8/23/20-8/29/20
Total Items Listed (3 different IDs): 245
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales (not incl shipping): $210
Highest Price Sold: $70 – WWII Turkish rifle bayonet (I had $25 in it)
Returns: 0
New Items Listed: 10
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0

I’m getting a little closer to my annual average $250-a-week gross now. Most sales lately have been the cheaper consignment challenge coins and family items.

I am scheduled to get Managed Payments in my main store tomorrow so I’m planning to end all my challenge coin listings in that store tonight. I’ve heard that the cancel ‘bots are very liberal with taking down anything related at all to coins since they are still prohibited in Managed Payments. Once the changeover is complete I’ll try and put just one back up as an experiment. If I’m unable to post it or it doesn’t survive, it will be easier to move the rest of them to my non-store seller ID by copying from the old listings.

Total Items in Store: 316
Items sold: Ebay: 6, FB Marketplace: 1
Ebay Gross Sales: 184.92
Highest Price Sold: 40.00 (Yearbook)
COGS: 6.25
Average Price Sold:  26.13
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory:  25
Number of items listed this week: 45

Really slow week this week. Switched my sale last night from 10% off everything to 15% off items $20 or more, and no sale on under $20. Lots of FB Marketplace drama this week, people not showing up mostly, but thats the name of the game. Been talking about sending more things into Amazon and am putting my money where my mouth is and packing a box today with 30-35ish items. Sold an anniversery clock and although I tried my darnest (double boxed, plastic wrapped, and paper wrapped) the dome broke. It was the same price to buy just the dome that it was for the whole clock. Looking back, I should have parted it out, but oh well. Full refund, and a USPS claim, no big deal.

Aug 23 –  29

• Total Items in Store: 3,958
• Items Sold: 33
• Total Sales :  $832
  • * BELOW yearly average of $1,023
• Highest Price:  $140 (Antique Lavatory Tiltype Soaper Tilting Soap Dispenser)
• Average Price:  $25
• Returns:  1
• Cost of Goods Sold:  $48
• Costs of Goods Purchased this Week:  $73
• Number of New Items Listed this Week: 25

I’ve been experiencing sort of a slow down on the eBay front. Not a big deal really, especially since it’s been an amazing past few months. Summer slowdown had to come eventually though,  right? LOL.

I made a pretty good score this past week. I found an online auction of a boutique business liquidating its inventory. I bought every single one of their perfume listings for the opening bid of a dollar. Ninety listings of 3 or 4 bottles of fragrance each. With buyer premiums, I paid a little over $100 for around 350 bottles. Not bad, except when I brought them home I found that every single one was used. I think they were all testers. I should still make a good bit of money though since a lot of them are pretty high end brands.

Thanks for the show this week. Here are my numbers for the week:

Total Items in Store: 4053
Items Sold: 57
Total Sales: $1332.71
Cost of Items Sold: $238
Average Price Sold: $23.38
Average Cost of Item: $4.18
Highest Price Item Sold: $106.21 Zebra GC420d Zebra Direct Thermal Printer
Number of items listed this week: 82 worth approx. $2187
YTD Sales: $39769
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +18%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 468
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 284
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 100

Another decent week of sales.  This is normally the slowest period of the year for me so I was happy with the end result which was higher than this time last year.

Congratulations on the giant art sale this week R&J! That’s pretty amazing.  I don’t think I’d ever make a sale like that because I would have accepted the first offer offer $500 if my initial cost was fairly low.

In response to your caller who was selling their daughter’s laptop, since it’s a personal item you  dont pay taxes on that sale and you don’t record it as a loss.  (The laptop cost $1200 and sold for $700 so there was definitely no profit but it’s not a loss either since it wasn’t bought for sale).  Since the revenue for the sale will be reported mixed into business sales, the simple solution  that I use is to make the COGS high enough that the profit is zero.  ie : COGS=(sales price + shipping paid by buyer) – (shipping for that item + fees).   For example if the caller sells it for $700 free shipping and the cost to ship is $50,  the COGS for that item would be approximately $559  (calculated as 700-((700*.13)+50)  – using a 13% figure for fees.  Hope this makes sense.

Different topic.  Here’s my entry in the dumb message of the week.  I’m selling a <b>hat </b>for a resort in Mexico and I received this message tonight via ebay messages:
“Looking for pricing at Sun Palace Cancun, 9/25-10/2 (7 nights) or 9/25-10/7 (12 nights) for 2 people. I heard there is a promotion 2 weeks for the price of one, is that on? We have been there before few times. Need ocean view. Usual airport transportation of course. As I’m sure you are aware, I am requesting pricing from a couple of people. Cancellation policy is needed just in case. We will book our airfare of course from Los Angeles.
WE WILL NOT ATTEND ANY PRESENTATIONS.”

It was sent through ebay messages by someone with a 440 feedback score.  How does someone make this mistake. It blows my mind. 

Hope everyone has a good week!

Numbers for August 2020. eBay store: steve-list

Total Listings: 1191
Items sold: 63
Sales: $1,446.50
Highest Price sold: $175.00 7 old stock certificates to the same buyer
Highest Price Sold, single item: $45 Wells Fargo Bank Medallion
Average Price Sold: $22.96
Cost of Items sold: $118.20 / average cost: 1.88
Spent on new inventory: $78
Number of items listed: 49
Returns: 3 refunds of not received low-cost media mail items

Today I received an email from eBay: “A special $25 coupon just for our first members” which was a nice surprise. According to the email, I signed up with eBay on 2-5-1998 and had my first sale on 4-2-2002, which was a San Francisco Zoo Elephant Storybook Key. I paid $0.25 for it and sold it at auction for $22.50. Postage was $0.57 and I added insurance for $1.10. I still have a copy of the eBay sales page and the letter that the buyer sent me with their check.

Back in June on the 3rd day of an estate sale, I rechecked a small bunch of folders in a closet, I’m glad I did. Most of them had random paperwork, but hidden in one was about 20 old stock certificates. I may have priced some of them too low as the first night they were listed I sold 9 of them for $225 to 3 different buyers. So far I have made $390 in sales from them and still have 10 more to go, not bad for something that I and everybody else missed the two previous days of the estate sale. My cost was about $1 for the folder.

The housing community I live in (450 units) had an area-wide sale two weeks ago. I made the decision to buy stuff instead of selling it. It was a great day for scavenging as it turned out two of the units were actually doing family-run estate sales. I spent a total of $65 the whole day but came away with some great items. I’m not sure what is more valuable among the best two finds, a 3′ long July 1940 panoramic photograph of a restaurant and gas station in Salinas, California (cost $5), or a restaurant ware banana Leaf/palm leaf ball pitcher (cost $3). The last 4 sales of the same brand and type of pitcher were between $202 and $338 according to WorthPoint.

Now I plan to go listen to the recast podcast episode while I list.

I also received a $25 eBay coupon for the 25-year anniversary of eBay. They gave me some of my eBay history details.

Joined eBay on 12-3-2000

First purchase: You scored Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band CD (mint) on 12-30-2002.

First sale: You cashed out with The Sopranos: The Complete First Season (2000, DVD) on 8-8-2006.

First app purchase: App-tastic! You got PINK FLOYD ANIMALS CD PIGS DOGS SHEEP DAVID GILMOUR ROGER WATERS on 8-2-2012.

First offer: Way to negotiate on 2 Battery + Charger for Nikon EN-EL3E D200 D80 D90 D50 on 12-13-2009.

So I listened to this again in my commute, feeling like company. And, did I hear you right that you guys do not claim COGS as an expense on your taxes? You just pay tax on the whole gross sale? (Less shipping I hope).

Or was that just regarding items you formerly owned that you subsequently sold?

23 Aug – 30 Aug

Items sold: 15

Sales: $667.75

Consignment payout: $175

= $492.75

Most of my items listed in the last two months have been consignment items, since I am not going out to source much.  I would like to, but I have a 6 year old, I picked up an online job, and am  renovating a house to make into an AirBnB.   I do not seek out consignment but a “church lady” from my church knew I sold on ebay; she gave me about 10 boxes of stuff as she emptied her house and asked me to sell anything valuable.  I give her 50%.  She had a few gems like a Zippo lighter and Carnival glass.  However, she told her daughter who told her friend, who had a houseful of antiques from Pennsylvania (we’re in NC).   I picked up the items and put in my storage building.   It’s been great researching.  I sold a Tiffany Favrile goblet for $450, a 1898 Worlds Fair souvenir for $150, a tea caddy for $100, and I have much more to go.  This lady is in her 70s and would go “antiquing” in rural PA.Can you imagine finding a Tiffany goblet in a thrift store?! Lots more rural antiques to go.   I give her a straight 50% cut; she gives me freedom to choose the prices, no time-line for sales, and I have donated a few items or sold “lots” of low-priced items on Facebook.

I bring that up because that client has a friend near Bethlehem, PA, who would like to sell her antiques collection too.  She is in her 70s and asked whether I knew anyone who would do consignment.  I am asking this community if you have any recommendations or would like to try it.

Hey.. ATTENTION!! Ebay Servers are down in the Atlanta area. Can’t access the Sold Orders or Orders needing to ship areas or get shipping labels.

Ebay sends a pop up message “It’s not you..It’s Us”.  Downdetector.com shows a yellow circle around Atlanta, which is not as severe as a large red circle.

Anyone else having trouble accessing some of Ebay’s areas or getting orders and shipping info.

Sure wish Ebay could get some new servers or rent space somewhere else. Such old stuff and coding. AND they are constantly messing with it.

Oh well, just a heads up.

mike – mdc concepts, Inc.

mdc galleries and fine art

Yes, I loved rural PA. I grew up near Allentown in a 1775 built farmhouse actually called “Sleepy Hollow”.  I do love antiques but rather they pass through my hands on their way to someone else!  I forgot to list my COGs.  I also use Easy Auction Tracker and like the consignment tracking column.

For the $667 of sales above, my COGs were $15 total.  Of the 15 items sold, 7 were mine.

I was listening to the “Ebay for Business” podcast today. Grith teased out that, “Big changes for eBay’s vacation setting are coming”. He wouldn’t give anymore details than that so maybe there’s hope that eBay will have their vacation setting do more than just put a banner on a seller’s listings. Maybe it will make the handling time more aligned with the length of the vacation. We can hope.

Slow week here, at least as far as items sold.  Only 9 sales makes this the slowest week since I started tracking weekly last November.  Somewhat expected I guess with it being the last week of the summer.

My best sale of the week was a trash find.  Picked up a cute figurine of Peruvian pottery on the side of the road as we were driving through a neighborhood.  It was large, about 20″ tall.  Was signed and had place of origin on it so I was able to tie it back to one of the better known artists in the area.  I had best offer, but buyer paid full price: $99.95

Starting training my first helper last week.  Pulled in my 17 year old son to start learning some of the business as a part time job.  He’s not overly eager, but at least pays attention and does a decent job on taking pictures.  I now have a backlog to catch up on which is nice.  I’ve been listing constantly this week with the kids back in school and it feels good to see the numbers climbing again.

Week Ending 8/29/20
Total Items in Store: 1131
Items Sold: 9
Gross Sales: $470.85
Net Sales (after fees, shipping, etc.) $310.91
Cost of Items Sold: $22.24
COGS Percent 7.15%
Highest Price Sold: $99.95 Peruvian Pottery FIgure
Average Price Sold: $34.55
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $194.62
Sold via promoted listings: 6
Promoted Percentage: 66.67%
Average Days Listed: 267
Longest Listed: 714
New items listed: 10