Scavenger Life Episode 475: Spotting Problems, Solving Problems

Planning on listening tonight, but here’s this week

Items in shop:249

Newly Listed: 90

Sold on Ebay: 2

Gross Sales w/o shipping: 29.98

Average: 14.99

Highest item: MCM Bud Vase, no name, 16.99

COGS: Less than $1

Another slow week, but we’ve been listing like crazy. Have some more FB Marketplace sales keeping us afloat, though it’s more quick nickle than slow dime stuff. Tons of questions being asked this week about products, so hopefully will see some sales.

I put promoted listings at 1% on all my listings and the bud vase sold via promoted.  Going to set a 10% sale tonight too to boost some sales for the coming week.

Listed 2 auctions worth of stuff in the last 2 weeks, and still chipping away at that estate from the 85 y/o. So far every box has had something in it to at least pay for the box, but it’s not the ROI that I’m looking for.

On the local front, I have two consignment booths in town that I use to cull down sub $20 items. One of my booths asked if I wanted to move downstairs to the main floor and get 3 shelving units instead of 1 that I have upstairs for the same price ($40 a month, no commission), so I moved all my stuff down and figured out I have about 5 shelves worth of space more than what I had upstairs. Lots of old lady smalls going to the booths this week. My other booth didn’t turn a profit this month, which is the first time it hasn’t, but I also only moved stuff once last month because of the wisdom teeth debacle.

Wisdom teeth are good, but I found a cyst so I’ve been out of commision for the weekend until I can go to the doc tomorrow. Don’t worry too much about it, its not the big C word, but it’s annoying regardless. I’d love for all this medical stuff to be over.

Thanks for the podcast! Excited to listen.

I haven’t posted numbers here in a very long time, but wanted to show that postcards still provide a very lucrative income.

Total Items in Store: 24,863
Items sold: 160 (159 postcards)
Gross Sales: $1,852.13
Highest Price Sold: $60 (Barney The Dinosaur Plush from my 2nd store)
COGS: $18.89 (postcards average $.10 each Barney was $2.99)
Average Price Sold: $11.27 (postcards only)
No Returns
Money Spent on New Inventory: $500 for approx 6,000 postcards
Number of items listed this week: 450

I consolidated my 2 stores and I’m still 95% postcards. After retiring in November 2019 it took me about 5 months to decompress, recover and regroup from my job. My pension covers all of my bills with some leftover. I still do ebay for fun money and for capital for other lofty goals.

As a retirement gift to myself I took advantage of the dealership offers during the pandemic and bought my forever truck. Probably shouldn’t have, but I usually don’t splurge on anything for myself.  I went from driving 500 miles a week to driving 500 miles every 3 months, so I hope to have this truck for many years to come.

Not going to give numbers this week, will do so next week.

I do have a question, to preface a relative  has broken their hip and is living in an assisted living facility. She’s doing fine but won’t be moving back into her home and it will become a rental property due to legal stuff (power of attorney stuff). My role is to list stuff as things can’t be donated (would violate the trust). I’m going to list the larger stuff on local apps (LetGo, OfferUp, and FB Marketplace). I live in the Midwest and my relative lives in the Southwest. Should I sell what I can when I go down starting Weds until early September and then ship back what doesn’t sell? Then I could ship from my apartment from the eBay account I made for this project. Thoughts?

Hey Jay and Ryanne,

$2.72 sounds like it might be a first class return label. Have you gotten any small items returned recently?  Incidentals like return shipping will be included on the monthly invoice along with your store fees.

W/E 8/8/20

My store:  DEBITENDCREDITS

Total Items In Store:   2,344
Items Sold: 33
Cost of Items Sold:  $208.25
Total Sales (Sales + Shipping does not inc sales tax) $1,395.66
Ebay / PayPal / Shipping Costs / Fees $433.30
Net Profit: $962.36
Highest Price Sold:  $150.00 Vintage 1920 Smith Corona Typewritter
Average Price Sold:  $29.16
Number of items listed: 70

Scavenge of the Week: a HUGE lot of 8mm Home movies with footage shot all of the world between 1960 and 1986.  The first two 30 minute reels contained footage of 1960s Dog Sledding, President Eisenhower on a military base,  jets flying, a baby in diapers playing poker, and a zoo trip.  Whoever took these films, knew how to compose shots, follow subjects, and stay in focus.  I have only begun to explore this treasure trove.

Most Satisfying Sale Sold a Vintage GE General Electric Radiant Space Heater for $60.00. I rescued it for our local recycling bin—a truly scavenged item.

Good morning!

Decent week on ebay for me.

Sales c/w shipping: CAD$2499, 14 sales, COGS: $149, Fees: ~$365, Postage: $640 –> Gross profit: $1346

Expenses: $0, New inventory cost: $1100 –> Cashflow: $156

Got a bunch of microscope stuff for $15, already sold one lens in a few days for $380 to France. Also moved a whole bunch of fibre optic terminals I got at the dump for $5, they sold for $430 with like $550 shipping (weighed 70lbs altogether) to somebody in the south.

Spent a lot of money on ebay sourcing… I guess we will see how well bone drills sell.

What we do in the shadows fan here! Favorite episode was the Mailer Daemon.

Slow sales over here lately from all 3 of my platforms, but enjoying the break from the overall business of the pandemic. Sourcing Halloween is probably a great idea right now, just sold a blow mold for $50.

Also, one of the best things I ever did was move to Mint and pay $200 a year for service. I can’t believe people pay $100 a month. Now I even think my old service at Straight Talk was too expensive at $45 a month.

Poor guy just wants a tesla 😉

A quick look at the spreadsheet shows 12 sales for a total revenue of $510 and a profit of $215 for the week. I’m noticing that rather that I’m clearing out a lot of the gaming items I have bought from others locally and slowly selling more and more retail arbitrage/imported myself type items.

While it makes me less a flipper and more an actual ecommerce store I do like these items as the sourcing a lot more consistent.

Goal ahead is just to keep churning over inventory to build up capital!

Much better week for us, the last month and a half has been scary slow.

Total Items in Store: 703

Items Sold: Ebay 28<span class=”Apple-converted-space”> </span>

Total Sales: $1895

Highest Price Sold: $391.50 8mm Player (Paid $20)

Money Spent Inventory This Week: $311 (online auctions)

My favorite item: Vintage Bear sold for $198 and purchased for $6

Along with you all we have been contemplating life and wondering how to sell higher priced items. With both my husband and I now reselling full time we wanted to change business models. We are also running out of space in our house. UG. We will no longer buy items that will make us under $25, at least this is what our goal is. We have been doing pretty well in the last month with higher priced items, most we have gotten at online auctions for a pretty minimal price. We of course are always weary of scammers with electronics but we are going to do our best, learn from our mistakes, and give it a shot.<span class=”Apple-converted-space”> </span>

We are also fans of What we do in the Shadows!!<span class=”Apple-converted-space”> </span>

Aug 2 – 8

• Total Items in Store: 3,947
• Items Sold: 39
• Total Sales :  $1,193
  • * ABOVE yearly average of $1,002
• Highest Price:  $180 (1912 Arthur J Elsley Print in Frame “His First Christmas”)
• Average Price:  $31
• Returns:  0
• Cost of Goods Sold:  $85
• Costs of Goods Purchased this Week:  $0
• Number of New Items Listed this Week: 15

It looks like I’ve hit a milestone. For the first time, I’ve averaged over $1,000 a week over a 52-week period. This is a goal I’ve been working toward since day one. It feels great knowing my store can generate that kind of income, even when I’ve put almost no effort into it for a little while like I did this last week. We spent the week preparing for our community yard sale, but I feel like it wasn’t really worth it. We made about $200 together which is fine, but the work getting everything out of our basement up to the garage and organizing everything was insane. From now on, I’m only putting in the yard sale pile the things that I know will sell and tossing the rest.

I just got into the Managed Payments program last week too. So far I like it. And I like that we won’t be paying anymore PayPal fees, but I’m wondering if that will be supplemented with additional eBay fees. So far I haven’t seen any decline in sales but rather on the contrary my sales seemed to have had a boost since the day it activated. I’ll keep recording the data and reserve my final opinion once I see the numbers.

One annoying thing about Managed Payments is that it removed 18 of my currency-related items. I knew the policy beforehand, but I didn’t know I had so many listings. The funny thing is that not a single one was for real currency. They were all bus tokens or wooden nickels or commemorative coins. I wonder if I can re-list those in a different category and not catch flack for it.

I had a question for the caller who purchased a church building for storage and had an auction from it. Was this in Weirton, WV? I swear I went to an auction earlier this year out of a little old church that sounded just like what you were describing.

@Doubly congrats!

Total Items in Store: 353 Ebay, about 100 Mercari
Items Sold: 4 Ebay, 1 Mercari
Gross Sales: $200 Ebay, $9 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $64
Highest Price Sold: $79 (4 new plates, bought on summer clearance this month for $22)
Average Price Sold: $50 Ebay
Returns: 0 – two immediate offer cancelations.
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 4

Slow sales this week but only one was very low dollar.  I have been really tied up with my day job and son’s college search and apps so basically not listing or running a sale.  One day Ebay let me send out 28 offers and I didn’t even get any counters.

Hope everyone has a good week. Perhaps people are being cautious since the Federal relief has stalled out.  I’m wondering if people will be extra excited about some Halloween and Christmas items this year since they are cooped up.  Obviously might be less gatherings and travel but the holidays are a nice change.

My Sales Week Ending 8/8/20

Notes: Efforts went to a new niche that needed some prep work. Will return to listing this week.

Total Items For Sale: 67

Profit: $6.36
Items Sold: 1
Items Listed: 0
Average Profit: $6.36
Highest Profit: $6.36 for a small lot of boy’s pants
Cost of Items Sold: $0
Returns: 0
$ Spent Sourcing: $0.00

What we do in the Shadows is great! Love that show.

Regarding the invoice total on the payments tab, mine equals the FV fees charged for the period of time between my last invoice and when managed payments was activated for me. I assume they will also charge store subscriptions to the invoice amount at the end of the month.

No need to feel sorry for PayPal. eBay has a market capitalization (share price x # shares outstanding) of $38.05 Billion while PayPal’s market capitalization is $226.82 Billion. Here’s another measure: eBay earned $746 Million of Net Income during March – June 2020 while PayPal’s Net Income for that same quarter was more than 2x ebay’s at $1.53 Billion. This is why activist investor Carl Icahn pressured eBay into spinning off PayPal as a separate entity to “unlock” the value. In other words, activist investors like Icahn and now Elliott Management are forcing eBay to part itself out because the sum of the value of PayPal, StubHub, eBay Classifieds, Magento, etc is more than the value of eBay as a whole.

Items in Store    1282

Items Sold           25

Total Sales          $739.00

COGS    $86.00

Total Profit         $653.00

Average profit   $26.12

Average sales price          $29.56

New Listings       7

Yesterday we had our refinance appraisal. We used that as motivation the last 2 weeks to hardcore do work to our house so it looked its best for the appraisal. I am TIRED! TONS of painting, trim, repairs, cleaning, etc. I took a week of vacation from my day job just to get this work done.

Now it is done and our house looks amazing. I’m gonna take a week or two to reorganize my ebay space that I wrecked during this process and get back on the listing train.

Numbers for the week weren’t going well but I had two $100+ sales this weekend that saved the week.

Also of note, this past weekend was the annual neighborhood yardsale. We took a break from work to hit the sales. There were SOOOO MANY yard sales! I was tired of them by the time we were done. I was able to get a bunch of great stuff. Yard sales are where I get my best items for my store – the good stuff rarely hits the floors at thrift stores anymore.

The podcast’s discussion around new cars was timely for me.  For some reason 2 weeks ago I started thinking I wanted a different car.  Mine is a 2015 Nissan Rogue.  There is nothing wrong with it – I just don’t like that every other car on the road looks exactly like mine.  My husband was even pricing cars for me online when suddenly over the weekend I came to my senses.  Why would I want to shell out thousands of dollars when my car is paid off, has all of the features I want and is in perfect working order?  I’m not even a car-person.  I’ve always driven other cars for as long as possible.  I think I was just bored.

“Spotting Problems, Solving Problems”.  Yes, very important and I personally think this is more difficult for someone like me who has no partner (business or life) to share concerns with.  I think, at least in my case, we can become better at independent problem solving if we take the time to analyze the problem.  There are also several proven problem-solving techniques such as ‘Root Cause Analysis”, which can be found online.

What I really want to bring up though is the danger of falling into the trap of creating systems and processes to circumvent a problem, or spend more money and time preventing a problem that what the problem causes for us.  This sometimes comes from deciding to make sure the problem, whatever it is, never happens again.  One example, I have seen some sellers who make a video recording of packing every order so the can prevent the empty box or didn’t receive everything type of claim.  I personally think that is way overboard but those sellers who do it will likely staunchly defend that process and even think sellers who don’t do it are just stupid.

It’s called cost vs. benefit analysis and it can be applied to many decisions we make in business and even in our personal lives.  A good example is Jay and Ryanne talking about keeping an older reliable car vs. buying a new or newer car.

Anyhow, these are things that work for me in solving problems.

Finally listened to the podcast. Man the guy who called in about using the church for storage is something else! I think it goes to show also that one changes what one sells over time. Also maybe an incentive to get help with photos or listings to plow through that large of a “death pile” aka storage units. It also I think points out just how many people who have estates think they have more valuable stuff then then actually do. I do think it’s natural especially for people who don’t do eBay to over estimate what stuff is worth.

Finally found my first antique typewriter in a storage locker. Had it professionally restored at a typewriter store, didn’t even know those guys were still in business.

Just got an email from eBay today-simplified fees start August 12. Can’t come soon enough, because I got a huge honking July bill. I honestly wasn’t too sure when I started with managed payments in June, but after I finally got everything directed away from PayPal to my new bank account, things are flowing pretty well. Every time I thought I had switched everything, something else would pop up. Hit a new high today in my store-1,300 items!

Took me a bit to find where I saw this but here’s what they sent me…

Reminder on Simplified Fees:
Starting August 12, you will pay only an updated final value fee, consisting of a category-based percentage of the total amount of the sale, plus a $0.30 fixed fee per order. You will not pay separate payments processing fees.

Fixed fees will apply to each order, rather than each individual item in an order, saving you money when buyers purchase multiple items from you.

In the event of a refund or cancellation, the variable portion of your final value fees will generally be returned to you, and eBay will retain only the per-order fee.

Final value fees, and select fees associated with the order will be automatically deducted at the time of the sale, and the rest of your proceeds will be paid out directly to your bank account.

You can cover the costs of refunds from your linked bank account or credit card when your pending payout is not sufficient to cover the refund amount.
Watch a short video on fees here or for full updated fee details, click here.

If you want peanuts, Uline is probably the most expensive place to get them unless you are picking them up, but even then they charge you for that.  Open google maps for your closest big city and search for shipping supplies.  There is probably a local place that sells bulk bags of peanuts you can pick up or have delivered to you for next to nothing.  I bought 10 big bags of peanuts in Indy for about $18 a bag and they delivered for $15.  These companies usually have delivery routes around the state anyway delivering to business and factories.

8/1/20-8/7/20

Total Items In Store: 2037
Items Sold: 29
Gross Sales: $779
Highest Price Sold: $120 (Yamaha FM Sound Generator)
Average Price Sold: $26.87

Returns:  0 $0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $204
Number of items listed: 18

• A little late posting sales this week. We got hit with a freak storm early in the week.  100 MPH winds for about 20 minutes straight.  Had trees down at 2 of our properties and one landed on the porch roof.  I’m pretty sore from cutting and hauling wood for the last couple of days, but it’s all cleaned up.
• Put my store on 3 days handling last week, as I was out of town for a wedding and had my son doing my shipping for me.
• Got switched to managed payments this week…a little freaked out at first about how it all works. Seems mostly fine, but I don’t like not having instant access to the funds like I had with PayPal.
• One of my favorite auctions opened back up again and I went last week. Interesting dynamic….about 50% wearing a mask.  Most of the 70+ years old were not masked.  Old farmers just going about business as usual.
• Scavenge of the Week: I had the winning bid of $2.50 on an online auction of the entire wall of glassware behind someone’s basement bar.  Lots of unique glassware from the 70’s and a couple of cool decanters.  My wife packed it in boxes while I hauled it up to the car, so I don’t even know what all is in there.  It will be fun to go through when I am ready to list it.

Jay your interview of Chris the Coin Guy was in Episode 138 back in 2014 if that’s who you were thinking of. I also wonder how he’s doing.  I find that in 2020 I can still snipe items for resale on eBay though I now use Gixen rather than doing it manually. But I don’t buy gold coins.