Scavenger Life Episode 489: Business = Resource Management Video Game

Notes: I was offered the less money / less stress job. Decided against it. Worked on non-eBay areas this week. Happy Thanksgiving!

Total Items For Sale: 52

Items Sold: 0

Items Listed: 0

Returns: 0

$ Spent Sourcing: $0

Pirate Ship – my mom has a newer account (within the last year) and she uses Pirate Ship for a lot of items because it is less expensive than E-Bay shipping for her.
I have had a selling account for more than 5 years and I check Pirate Ship often and It is always the same price as E-Bay shipping for me. I think it might have to do with my account status and possibly tip rated status??
then again it’s E-Bay and one may never know the answer 😜

Great episode today, as usual. I loved the resource management video game model. My ultimate goal with my eBay business is to create a stream of income that will still let me have enough free time to monetize other creative projects/endeavors time and time again! I keep moving the finish line out further in terms of reaching my “baseline” level of inventory. At first, it was going to be 4k items… now I’m shooting for 10k. At some point, I’ll have to actually prioritize the other projects, but as long as eBay is fun and full of momentum, who knows? I may push the finish line again.

I was driving listening to this episode today, and I was screaming YES! When you guys talked about wanting a 12x12x12in box! WHYYYY don’t they have one?! I’ve always wondered. I also got that dang Fed Ex adjustment message from eBay – I think mine was from shipping labels created in August. One interesting thing I’ve encountered this week was running a promotion (sale/markdown type, which I run frequently) and noticed it was not populating any of my items. I called eBay (couldn’t find the chat option, suddenly?) and they had to forward my promotion problem to IT. We’ll see if it gets fixed! Not a super great week in terms of sales, but it is 2020 and stuff is consistently selling… so no major complaints from me!

NUMBERS!

Total Items in Store: 7823
Number of Items Sold: 47
Gross Sales: $1040.19
Cost of Items Sold: $31.98
Highest Priced Item Sold: $64.95 (Denim Sherpa Lined Levi’s Jacket)
Average Sold Price: $22.13 (bleh, low… like $5 below my all-time average)
No Returns and No Sourcing Costs!

Quick question…  I may be super late to this party, but is parcel/USPS ground still a shipping option for those of you who print labels through eBay? I used to ship all my matchbooks that way (because legally they are supposed to be shipped ground only since they’re flammable) and now I can only send them via parcel through my stamps.com account. So weird! Is this a me thing or an Ebay thing? Anybody know?

Hi Anna, Ebay Shipping Supplies had 12 x 12 x 12 boxes for a while, but discontinued them.  I’m lucky, I still have some never used 12 x 12 x 12s that a doctor’s office was going to take to recycling because a preprinted address had changed—I walked out of my appointment and there they were, a shining beacon of boxy goodness—I asked permission, they said “sure” and I grabbed ’em all. Ah, the happy memories of a scavenger LOL

Good morning!

Solid week on ebay. Did a little buying too.

Sales: CAD$3521, 22 sales, COGS: $538, Fees: ~$481, Postage: $782 –> Gross profit: $1720

Expenses: $575, New inventory: $1613 –> Cashflow: $70

I started back full time on eBay half way thru this week after a 3 year hiatus at an outside job and then a one week vacation.  I organized a bunch of areas in my eBay space and got 42 new listings up but sales were pretty soft.  This week I’ll put in more hours and am working on creating a daily routine for myself.  The last time I attempted to earn a living solely from eBay I failed because I wasn’t focused and I was listing maybe a few items a day.  You can’t make X amount a day reselling when only listing a fraction of X.

My best sale this month has been a NWT Lilly Pulitzer Faux Fur Vest I bought at an epic estate sale for $10 and sold within a few days for $175.   The 2nd best was a pair of NWT Trina Turk Jacquard pants I bought for $8 and sold for $79.99.  Both brands are popular among Southern Belles here in the South but they can be hit or miss to resell.  I was fortunate that both items are still current and sought after.

W/E                                                                                      11/21/20

Total Items In Store:                                                              2,578

Items Sold:                                                                             34

Cost of Items Sold:                                                                86.84

Total Sales (Sales + Shipping does [not inc sales tax])          1,135.49

Ebay / Paypal / Shipping Costs / Fees                                   316.98

Net Profit                                                                               818.51

Highest Price Sold:                                                                119.99

Average Price Sold:                                                               24.07

Number of items listed:                                                         66

Scavenge of the Week:   New Mexico is back in lock down! I am scraping the bottom of the death piles

Total items for sale: 120 (listed and sold a bunch!)

Number of items sold: 8

Gross sales: $232.29 (sum of sold prices)

Average price sold: $29.00

Highest priced item sold: $58.50 Zoo Line wood articulated 10″ Giraffe

Very happy to be back to a normal week of sales for me. Experimented a bit with listing lightweight items free shipping and just mark up $5-8, seemed to work as 2 of those items sold BIN. One of them was the Zoo Line giraffe!

For boxes my favorite size is 12x12x6 for shipping model horses. Hey, there is a business idea – selling 12x12x12 boxes! If you are bold or have a friend who works in kidney dialysis, we get TONS of boxes of great sizes every week, and usually have a dumpster full of cardboard boxes for trash. Ask the admin if they would call when they have a shipment – they even get insulated boxes every week. I know I get most of my box supply from work, and depending on the staff we would welcome not tossing them. Mention that you recycle them and the clinic can get credit for their company Village Green initiative (well, one of the companies anyway).

I like the idea of you getting a working pay phone for your coffee shop. I think it would bring people in and perhaps keep them longer, although, you might want to wait until after things get back to normal (too many hands touching the receiver). A few years ago, my sister and family were in West Virginia and happened upon one. Their kids had to make a few calls just for fun. I’ve never deleted their message off my machine!

Like you, I sold the same number of items and had about the same sales number as last week.

Week of Nov 15 – 21
Total Items in Store: 1394 eBay, 31 Etsy
Items Sold: 20 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $35.70 + $21 Commission
Total Sales: $363.88 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $53 Porcelain oyster plate
Average price: $18.20
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 26

11/14/20-11/20/20

Total Items In Store: 2182
Items Sold: 48
Gross Sales: 1024
Highest Price Sold: $60 (2 Nebraska Machinery CAT Snapback Hats)
Average Price Sold: $21.34

Returns:  0 $0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $88
Number of items listed: 120

• Solid week of sales. Just made it to the $1K weekly goal.
• My 1800’s bottle that I put up for auction didn’t sell, so I am listing BIN/BO for $1000. I have one person who has offered me $275 for it.  I am kind of uneasy about him though.  He contacted me several times while it was on auction.  At one point he offered me $225 and a golf bag lamp and several golf balls for it.  He tried to downplay the condition of the bottle when he made me an offer, which always makes me nervous about the buyer.
• Bottle Update: I ended up taking an offer for $300 on the bottle (will be in next weeks numbers).  I had multiple offers come in and most were in the low $200’s range due to a small crack in the bottle.  I ended up not selling it to the guy that had been e-mailing me all last week and he was not happy about it.  In addition to having a bad feeling about him, he tried to get me to work out a deal outside of eBay, which I never do.
• Scavenge of the week: 2 large boxes of ballcaps from an auction for $35.  Spent most of the day Sunday watching football and listing the hats.  4 of them sold by Monday morning for a total of $100.  Paid for the entire auction in less than 24 hours.  By the end of the week I sold 10 of the hats for $235.

Oh geez. As per usual, the podcast was informative, and enlightening. I have never walked away from a podcast saying to myself “Now THAT was a waste of time!” Never! However, this time I walked away thinking about what Jay said. “…unless you have a bunch of junk in your store…” or something to that effect. And I thought is THAT what it is? DO I have a bunch of “junk” in my store? Hhmmm…something to ponder. I have a little over 600 items and while at the onset of the pandemic, I was making $2,000-$3,000/month in my ebay store, I am now at about $200.-$300./per month. Maybe, just maybe I DO have a bunch of “junk” in my store! I digress. Thanks for the podcast. Like I said. Always helpful, always informative.

Don’t know much about video games, but sometimes I wish I did. I come across them frequently and just pass them up because, I just feel like I have enough on my plate to worry about video games and what sells in that area.

MyCottage, glad to know I’m not the only one scavenging boxes :), Makes me feel so normal.

Have a great Thanksgiving all!

November 16-22

Active Listings: 642

Items listed this week: 30

Items Sold: 6

Gross Sales (before shipping): $147.

Cost of Items Sold: $24.

Highest Price Sold: $67. Necklace

Average Price Sold: $24.50

Returns: 0

Sourcing Cost: $25. (Thrift store)

Nov 15 – 21

• Total Items in Store: 4,062
• Items Sold: 24
• Total Sales :  $680
  • * BELOW yearly average of $1,022
• Highest Price:  $100 (Eight Vintage Fred Press Lemonade Highball Tumblers)
• Average Price:  $28
• Returns:  0
• Cost of Goods Sold:  $42
• Costs of Goods Purchased this Week:  $164
• Number of New Items Listed this Week: 41

It was sort of an uneventful week on my end. Softer sales than usual, but that’s okay. I won some lots on an online auction which included a nice working GE portable 8-track player that should land me some good cash.

Speaking of Pirate Ship, I’ve never used it until just now. eBay is currently having some major issues with labels and wouldn’t let me purchase them through their site for any of my five items that needed shipped. Luckily I had signed up on Pirate Ship a few months ago when it was mentioned here but never really had a chance to use it. Well it saved my butt tonight. I was able to print all my labels with no issues. I realize I probably spent a little more, but it’s nice to have it as a backup.

Hi Ryanne and Jay. Thanks for the podcast.

Here are my numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 4299
Items Sold: 52
Total Sales: $1521.22
Cost of Items Sold: $255
Average Price Sold: $29.25
Average Cost of Item: $4.91
Highest Price Item Sold: $184.95 1946 New York Yankees v San Francisco 49ers Football Program First AAFC Game
Number of items listed this week: 86 \
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +21%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 489
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 230
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 55

I had one of my better weeks of the year from a sales $ perspective. It was helped a lot by the 1940s football programs that I picked up at a garage sale for $20 a couple of weeks ago.  I’ve already sold more than $450 worth of programs from that lot.

Comments about this week’s show:
– I got a couple of those old FedEx charges.  They appeared on my invoice and I checked them against my records.  They were legit and matched the estimate when I created the label.
– That was a good tip about using the shipping supplies coupon. Another alternative : I mentioned this on another forum post.  You can find your ebay shipping coupon here: http://www.wheresmycoupon.com/  (It’s also on the Flipper Tools site).   I think I learned about that on a previous S.L podcast.
– I’m surprised you have so few shipping business policies.  I have lots and lots eg: calculated first class, calculated priority, calculated fedex, free policies for each of those types of shipping,  flat rate priority for various boxes, variations with  different international shipping policies etc.
– I’m the same as you guys with pirate ship. I tried it a couple of times, it didn’t save me money so I stopped checking.  It’s not cheaper for first class, it’s not cheaper for flat rate boxes.  It’s a bit of a niche IMO.

I hope everyone has a good week.

Thanks for the podcast.  Lots of good information and food for thought.

Sales took a big boost this last week and it is clear the holiday buying season is upon us.  Had several larger sales including an original Dirty Harry movie poster for $300 and a mid-century Jewish Menorah for $180 and a first edition of How the Grinch Stole Christmas for $100 (had some water damage or it would have gone for much more).  Looking forward to being very busy for the next few weeks.

Week Ending 11/21/20
Total Items in Store: 1253
Items Sold: 31
Gross Sales: $2,053.19
Net Sales (after fees, shipping, etc.) $1,459.87
Cost of Items Sold: $136.56
COGS Percent 9.35%
Highest Price Sold: $300.00
Average Price Sold: $47.09
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 15
Promoted Percentage: 48.39%
Average Days Listed: 345
Longest Listed: 1608
New items listed: 38

Regarding Pirate Ship.  Since it came up again in the podcast I thought it would be good to note the two areas that you will save money using Pirate Ship.

1) Domestically, when using their Priority Mail Cubic option for envelopes, or bag in a box.  I shipped one a short distance this morning from DC for NC and only saved 33 cents, but sent something to CA last week and saved several dollars.

2) International First Class shipments up to 4 lbs and less than one cubic foot.  This is where I see the BIG savings.  Just this morning I shipped a package to Hong Kong.  eBay shipping for international first class for a 2 pound package was $40, but via Pirate Ship it only cost me $24.

I started using Pirate Ship in hopes of increasing my international sales by offering a cheaper alternative to Global Shipping Program so that I can pass some of the savings on to my customers.  The biggest increase has been in sales to Canada.  I created 3 new shipping policies that I apply to items according to weight.  1) less than 8 ounce, 2) >8 oz and < 1 pound, and 3) > 1 lb. and < 4lbs.  For options 1 & 2 I have flat rates applied depending on destination, but for option 3 I still use calculated.  I will usually refund the difference to buyers when the discount is really large.

I’d like to break option 3 down into 3 more policies to take better advantage. At some point I’ll set up the flat rate like I have with the first two policies.  Unfortunately, it is not that easy to determine which already listed items are within each weight class.  Something I’ll transition to in time.

Regarding the big shipping charge correction- I had a weird overcharge this last week as well, far outside the normal $1-3 charge or refund we occasionally see.  I used a standard size box that I get from Ebay, 16x12x8, with one dress inside. So, nothing that would make the box bulge out. If it was one inch larger in any direction it would incur the dreaded “balloon rate” for larger boxes.

We got an email after shipping the package saying that the measurements came in at 16.8x12x8 and thus we owed another $18. I sent an appeal to the link included in the email. Hopefully this is just a temporary kink in the system that gets worked out quickly. I’m glad to hear that it wasn’t just me experiencing this!

Week of Nov 15 – 21
Total Items in Store: 193
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $51.22
Total Sales: $145.95
Highest Price Sold: $65 (motorcycle jacket)
Average price: $16.21
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 7

Number of items sold was same as last week, but it felt really slow because half of them sold in 2 multi-quantity sales plus nothing sold in the middle of the week.    I also got my first known repeat customer which was fun.

Sidenote: Got some Broadporch coffee in the mail today and immediately made some. I tried the Burundi this time… WOW the honeysuckle! SO good! Highly recommend 🙂

LukasTreasureTrove hit Pirate Ship on the nose:

You can put boxes in a bag and sometimes make things a little cheaper. you do need to measure out the length of the flat bag though. I don’t use PS every single day and if I’m in a hurry I do most of the shipping through eBay.  But if I come across something that’s heavier than I expected I’ll check on PS.

I really like their Intl Shipping, which again, you’ll need to chat with them and ask for the “Simple Export Rate”. This makes intl shipping so much cheaper and you can add cheap insurance so if it disappears, or it breaks, you can make a claim (which I have not yet had to do).

I also love their customer service. For a free company, I think they do an exceptional job.

Items in Store    1485

Items Sold           38

Total Sales          $1,331.00

COGS    $112.00

Total Profit         $1,219.00

Average profit   $32.08

Average sales price          $35.03

New Listings       24

I took last week off for the holiday. Here’ s my late numbers. I’ll post more info on current week’s numbers.