Scavenger Life Episode 491: Is Copper Still A Thing?

Oooh..I can’t wait to listen in the morning.. I have copper pennies…

Hi folks, glad to hear from you again!

Broad Porch website looks slick. I see it can’t ship to Canada. Not the end of the world but – is it hard to set that up?

Sales: CAD$3554, 12 sales, COGS: $285, Fees: ~$477, Postage: $213 –> Gross profit: $2579

Expenses: $668, New inventory: $139

Best sale was a couple valves for $1700. Made a little more effort to scavenge this week but without too much success. However there is a big auction coming up in a week and a half that I plan to go whole hog on.

You might be surprised how much you make on shipping. When I do my numbers for taxes it forces me to see this number. I made $8000 on shipping last year.

I do think it is worth considering this your “gross”, both because you can make money on shipping, and because taxes, fees, etc. are all calculated on that number.

Items in Store    1465

Items Sold           39

Total Sales          $1,144.00

COGS    $100.00

Total Profit         $1,044.00

Average profit   $26.77

Average sales price          $29.33

New Listings       25

No big dollar sales this week, but shipping was definitely annoying.

Nothing much of importance happened this week on the ebay front. Just cranking along, thinking about what I want my goals to be for next year.

For a few weeks, I’ve been reading about a new show called “The Queen’s Gambit” that apparently has something to do with chess. Then, I heard about how chess sets were selling out quickly causing a shortage. Sometimes, it takes me a bit to put two and two together, but I have two unlisted marble chess sets in my basement. Guess what I’ll be working on this week?

Week of Nov 29 – Dec 5
Total Items in Store: 1432 eBay, 29 Etsy
Items Sold: 22 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $28.75 + $94 Commission
Total Sales: $673.79 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $89 for 2001 Christmas Swarovski Pin (commission sale); $84 for 12 pc Target stoneware
Average price: $30.63
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $17.18
Number of items listed this week: 40

Good week as the holiday purchasing season is full on. In general, people don’t buy from me as much for holiday gifts, but more like housewares such as dishes and serving plates. I can get that ceramic stuff very cheap, but it is more of a pain to ship. I wanted to cut back on breakables when I started my part time job, but I just love the ROI.

And another shout out to Antique Frog! He helped me with a small ceramic piece from England this past week as well. He knows his stuff!

Total items for sale: 132

Number of items sold: 13

Gross sales: 248.50

Average price sold: 19.12

Highest priced item sold: Breyer Percheron horse $41

I came across a box of nice Christmas ornaments I bought for myself years ago and since I have 50-ish boxes of Christmas up in the attic decided to list instead. Good timing – I sold 2 outright and 2 have multiple bids. Went to 2 fun estate sales and spent about $20 on items to sell. I mainly buy items I like – tiki, Disney, animal figurines – because I want to enjoy the selling process. Also spent a day decorating the antique booth for Christmas, hope people are still shopping in person. I mainly put things I don’t want to ship there (too large, heavy or inexpensive). Shipping fragile porcelain and pottery gives me grey hairs and takes forever. I do it, but only for the right price!

I am also thinking about next year. I need to get a label printer, the cut-and-tape method is annoying. Need to organize the packing area as well as put the odds and ends that pile up in boxes. I think if I can put away the clutter I’d have a much easier time with the listing and shipping process. Onward and upward!

Good show this week.  I usually listen while I’m packing my weekend sales on Monday morning.  Every time I do this I have to listen twice to catch all the good stuff.

Regarding Pirate Ship, I agree that the biggest drawback to getting started with it is not knowing when it will save you money.  The other thing that I don’t like is that I have to look in two different places to calculate my costs when calculating my numbers.

Had a good week of sales.  A lot of Christmas.  My best sale was a new in box Snoopy Snow Globe yard ornament.  We picked this up last Christmas at an auction and never got around to listing it.  Didn’t really think it would be worth much because it was from CVS and originally sold for $68.  Last week I took another look and sales were all over the place, but a few sold for $150+.  I listed for $249.95 and it sold in 3 days for an offer of $225.  Also had a nice sale of a vintage ceramic Christmas tree for $175.  Sold within a few days of posting for full price after the buyer queried me on my packing technique.  A rare item that I double-boxed.

Week Ending 12/5/20
Total Items in Store: 1221
Items Sold: 37
Gross Sales: $2,355.73
Net Sales (after fees, shipping, etc.) $1,449.00
Cost of Items Sold: $163.00
COGS Percent 11.25%
Highest Price Sold: $225.00 Inflatable Snoopy Snow Globe Yard Decor
Average Price Sold: $39.16
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 22
Promoted Percentage: 59.46%
Average Days Listed: 229
Longest Listed: 897
New items listed: 15

11/28/20-12/4/20

Total Items In Store: 2263
Items Sold: 50
Gross Sales: $1449
Highest Price Sold: $139 (Nintendo Famicom Console)
Average Price Sold: $28.98

Returns:  4 $80
Money Spent on New Inventory: $132
Number of items listed: 83

• A very solid week of sales. Just a lot of low dollar items.  Only one item over $100 sold this week.  Shipping 50 items kept me busy this week.
• Does anyone know how to see how long a listing has been up for when you get an offer on your phone? It shows on my computer and is helpful sometimes when I get an offer that’s lower than I would normally take, but I am more willing when I see I’ve had the item up for over 500 days.  It bugs me that I can’t see that info on the phone app.
• Had a weird return this weekend. I had a book on birds listed as a late 1800’s first edition for $50 that has been in inventory for quite some time.  I took an offer of $35 on it and it was paid for and on the porch labeled and ready to ship out.  The buyer questioned why there was a picture with a page in it with a date of 1909 on it and decided he wanted to cancel.  I refunded him and cancelled the shipping label and relisted the book with both dates in the listing and removed the first edition item specific and priced it at $40.  The next morning, I got an offer on it for $35 from another buyer and sold it again for the same amount.  Very strange.

Nov 29 – Dec 5

• Total Items in Store: 4,093
• Items Sold: 46
• Total Sales :  $1,477
  • * ABOVE yearly average of $1,041
• Highest Price:  $300 (Louis Icart “Love’s Blossom” Colored Engraving on Resin Reproduction)
• Average Price:  $32
• Returns:  0
• Cost of Goods Sold:  $138
• Costs of Goods Purchased this Week:  $0
• Number of New Items Listed this Week: 39

Great week of sales over here! Some days, packing took me over two hours. I hope this trend continues for a while. It already looks like I’ll be reporting another good week next time too.

The Louis Icart picture was a bitter-sweet sale. I’ve had it listed for a few years, and the negotiated price was just right. But it looked so awesome hanging on my wall. I’m sad to see it go but I’m glad to pass it on to someone who will appreciate it.

11/29/20 – 12/5/20
Total Active Items (3 different IDs): 329
Items Sold: 8
Gross Sales not incl shipping: $191.20
Highest Price Sold: $45 – US Navy challenge coin (consignment)
COGS (all family items or consignment)
Returns:  0
New Listings: 0
$ Spent on New Inventory: 0

I’m getting back down into my usual weekly sales range after a couple of crazy weeks. I need to get back to listing.

Funny, I am getting out of the hardgoods business. I was a hardgoods seller first and now all I want to do is clothes, I am so burnt out on wrapping it.

Boxes, peanuts, and bubble wrap are expensive. Also, the post office automatically declines any claim now and I only filed two in the last 6 months. I don’t even file anymore.

Everyone wants free shipping and that’s really hard to do on hardgoods. On clothes, I can add 10 bucks and pretty much know I’m covered.

Also, I hate driving all the way to the closest thrifts to me and only come home with one or two pieces for an entire day spent out. Its just not efficient.

I’ll pick up hardgoods if they are small, easy to ship and worth 30 bucks. I am so over plates.

And you are right, it takes a ton of space. I have a 1700 sf basement and half of it is storage. The other half is wrapping and photography areas.

Sorry for the rant, but as a solo seller, its too much.

Week Ending 12/5/20

Total Items in Store: 15401

Total orders: 131

Total # of items sold: 141

Gross Sales: $3,076.58

Net after shipping – $2,231.57

Cost of Items Sold: ~$50

Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00

Feeling peak 4th qtr sales, spending most of the day pulling items and shipping. Some older stuff has been selling, stuff I used to spend more on and was taking up a bunch of space. Glad they’re out the door. Hope everyone is listing as much as possible still. Plenty of time for more business before Christmas. 🙂

Items in Store 329

Items Sold 7

Total Sales $168

COGS $18

Total Profit $$150

Average profit $21.43

Average sales price (not sure what this vs avg profit is)

New Listings 60

Biggest Sale: $60 Cutting and Washington 11A Tube Radio for parts. Thought it would sell for more but it was a quick sale so that work.

I’m in between jobs right now. I’ve spent about $800 or so on inventory that will last me until at least January. I don’t have a car but was able to rent a car to grab a big haul a week ago. Once I have everything listed stuff should sell in total for $4k or more. I also bought stuff at auctions that got shipped to me. We’ll see if that stuff was worth the shipping costs. I’m in a major city (Chicago) so stuff is locked down for the foreseeable future so flipping is the perfect activity to keep me busy!

Originally I’m a teacher by training but haven’t really enjoyed being in the classroom. This is the first time in a while that I feel like I’m working my ass off but also loving it! Jay and Ryann (spelling) mention to grow to 500 listings to see consistent sales. That’s my initial goal and to grow to 1000 if possible. This month has been a bit more in costs due to needing to restock on some supplies. Also for Pirate Ship I keep it in a deprecate tab to flip back and forth between eBay to sort out what’s the best price.

IMO copper is still a thing. I can see the hammered look being too trendy or boho specific, but I feel like designers are still playing around with copper fixtures and “rose gold” in general is still popular. I’m even seeing some copper backsplashes in kitchens popping up in design blogs. Copper is a great way to warm up the all white aesthetic.

@wendalina22 I hear you! I like to think that someday I’d get into hard goods but the reality is that my with my small storage and frequency of moving, clothes work best for now. Also, I’m in awe that you have a 1700 sq ft basement!! My entire house is just under 1900 sq ft haha!

@lukastreasuretrove That’s amazing that a CVS lawn ornament sold for so much. Who would have thought?

Speaking of FedEx being surprisingly competitive lately, is “FedEx Home” shipping pick-up eligible without a commercial account or is that just what they named it?

I’m still team copper. It’s beautiful! Also, the Queen’s Gambit is pretty awesome (speaking of chess sets @sharyn). Highly recommend – it might make you want to play chess, too! It mostly just reminded me of how terrible I was at chess when I used to play, haha! A captivating show nonetheless. Numbers and then notes!

November 29 – December 5th, 2020
Active Listings: 8150ish
Number of Items Sold: 78
Gross Sales (including shipping and TAX – a note about that later!): $2092.21 – my biggest week EVER, to date!
Cost of Items Sold: $38.10
Highest Price Item Sold: $170.33 (vintage glass store display jar for Lance crackers)
Average Price Sold: $26.82
Returns: 0
Sourcing Cost: 0

It’s been a pretty great week – definitely felt like I was shipping my socks off! I already hit my gross sales goal for the year, so I’m having fun thinking about next year’s goals and when I might hit 10k in active listings; I believe I will hit 10k ITEMS by the end of the year, but probably won’t get to 10k listings until the end of January.

By the way, thanks so much Jay and Ryanne for the book shout-out!! I was grinning ear to ear when you said that it’s an actual/real book! It is in fact, but it definitely still feels surreal to me, haha!! It made my heart leap to hear you mention it!!

I wanted to also mention that I’ve had a few packages delayed by weeks (some first class, some parcel, some media… basically anything but priority). 90% of them arrive on time, but a few have been totally, utterly stalled in Atlanta. I actually asked my local postmaster about this, and he said USPS is currently understaffed by at least 6 thousand people (maybe just in the ATL area, he didn’t really specify) and that there really is a massive bottleneck in the main ATL processing center. He recommended sending things priority if at all possible, so I actually changed my first class business policy to be first class OR priority for the time being, so as to give buyers the option to pay a little more but ensure it doesn’t get stalled for weeks. Plenty of people are still choosing first class, but it’s interesting behind-the-curtain info from the postmaster, in any case.

One more thing about sales tax… before managed payments, I pulled the info about tax on each item from my paypal statements. I don’t typically do this for every single item, but I do have a monthly rundown spreadsheet where I track shipping costs/fees/taxes/cost of good sold, etc. I do that to get the most accurate net profit number for each month, because when eBay tells you your item sold, and you are looking at your list on the solds page, the total price paid DOES include the tax. However, if you go to the Payments page (with managed payments), the eBay fees (based on the gross payment from the buyer, including sales tax) are shown to be deducted if you click through the individual payment record for an item, BUT weirdly, it’s not documented in the monthly statements.

So, I was thinking, crap, am I going to have to pull each individual sales tax number for each sale to get the total for the whole month? Because when I’m tracking my own sales, I have always used that gross sale total from the Solds page for each item. The answer is in fact, no! It turns out, we can pull those gross sales numbers to track my sales as they happen, and at the end of the month, pull the sales tax total for the whole month from….the Sales page, under the Performance tab. I’m assuming that this it not included in the Payments section because eBay collects and remits taxes on our behalf, so technically they never do show up in our account…. but that means the “total” of what an item sold for is different on the Solds page vs the Payments page.

TLDR: if you’re tracking your own numbers, you can find sales tax totals on Sales (under Performance tab), NOT in the Payments section.

Thanks for bearing with me. I just wanted to share this info in case it helps people as they start thinking about compiling info for filing taxes/polishing up all your records for the end of the year! Cheers!

After listening, I was thinking about eBay charging final value fees on shipping. I understand the policy was to avoid someone selling an item for a cheap price and over-charging on shipping to avoid final value fees, but now with managed payments it seems that eBay has both how much the buyer paid and how much we paid to ship an item all in one place. They should now charge final value fees only on net profit made from shipping. I suppose if someone chooses to ship outside of eBay and just upload tracking, they would still be subject to final values fees on the full amount of shipping charged to the buyer.