Scavenger Life Episode 494: Admit That You’re Stressed

According to eBay’s metrics, my sales are up 111% over last month.  I need that trend to continue upward.  My best sale of the week was a 24 pack of discontinued cat food.  I bought it for $5 and sold it within a few days for $99.99.  It may have been the last of it’s brand anywhere on the internet.  I would have priced it higher but it’s best by date was back in October (which I disclosed in the title and the listing) so I didn’t want it sitting around long.

Historically the week after Christmas is always great for finding amazing things at thrift stores.  But I have to miss it this year because we’ve been exposed to Covid.  I feel fine but I don’t want to be a Typhoid Mary infecting others, so I have to sit at home until we’re cleared.  I have plenty of stuff to list but it’s killing me knowing that I am probably missing out on all kinds of NWT unwanted Christmas presents at the thrifts this week.

Finally, on the chili dog debate – I’m with Ryan.  🙂

12/19/20-12/25/20

Total Items In Store: 2282
Items Sold: 28
Gross Sales: $847
Highest Price Sold: $100 (Enerpac Hand Pump)
Average Price Sold: $30.24

Returns:  1 $65
Money Spent on New Inventory: $68
Number of items listed: 20

• I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas.
• Sales were much lighter this week. Especially at the end of the week which was to be expected with the holiday and the shipping issues.
• I am currently up to 3 items that are in shipping limbo. One is for a special type of sealant that my customer needs to complete a project.  If that one doesn’t start moving in the next day or two, I am going to send out a new one and ship it priority to get it there faster.
• I’m a lot like Ryanne when it comes to needing to be doing something. I have very little inventory to list right now, so I’m spending the time organizing my storage.  It keeps me productive and will give me additional room once I can fill up on inventory again.
• Possible Scavenge of the Week: I purchased a bicycle at an online auction that I have to drive out to pick up on Tuesday.  Got it for $12 and it may be worth over $300.  Fingers crossed!
• Have a happy and safe new year!!

I hope everyone’s holidays were wonderful, and have an excellent New Year!

Week of Dec 20 – 26
Total Items in Store: 1448 eBay, 27 Etsy
Items Sold: 12 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $12.60 + $71 Commission
Total Sales: $352.29 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $99 for 2 sterling forks & 1 sterling teaspoon (on commission), $52 Corning lab hot plate
Average price: $29.36
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 21

Yes, the week was definitely quieter. I’m focusing on listing or moving everything currently in my garage so that I can actually park there!

Not sure my numbers this week because I played around with some things in GoDaddy Bookkeeping and I thing things got a bit messed up.

On the sales end, sold a pinback button I have less then a $1 into for $20. What’s weird is the buyer paid $0.70 for shipping like it was a letter but I don’t have that on my business policies or can’t figure out how they managed to do that, suggestions?

I sold a wall mount clock for $40 that I’d bought for $6 so I’ll take that. Switching over to Wave or at least attempting to. Doesn’t seem to sync as seamlessly as GoDaddy at the moment so we’ll see.

this month had a lot of startup costs between a big auction pickup and buying various boxes and supplies. Hoping my numbers overall are better next month with less expenses.

On a personal note, I cut my finger and had to go to urgent care. No stitches but have to wear a splint for a couple days. The worst though is I have tooth pain I’m headed to the dentist for tomorrow so once I get that figured out I can be more productive.

Later this week I’ll clean up some safety razors I’d picked up at auction, should sell for just under $100 in total and bought them for $12 so that’s cool.

I work in Luray right down the street from where this coffee shop is going so feel like the authority on this issue.

Sorry Jay. Have to break with the man code. Absolutely not on the chili dogs.  They are terrible in any setting and me sitting in your lovely shop with a delicious cup of coffee and a muffin while the guy next to me is scarfing down a chili dog sounds awful.

hate to break it to you. . . .

Hi guys! Christmas week was exceedingly slow for me too.

Sales: CAD$524, 5 sales, COGS: $127, Fees: ~$81, Postage: $130 –> Gross profit: $186

Expenses: $68, New inventory: $554 –> Cashflow: -$308

Dec 20 – 26

<li aria-level=”1″>Total Items in Store: 4,093
<li aria-level=”1″>Items Sold: 29
<li aria-level=”1″>Total Sales :  $831

<li aria-level=”2″>* BELOW yearly average of $1,031

<li aria-level=”1″>Highest Price:  $180 (Lenox Renaissance Christmas Nativity Animals)
<li aria-level=”1″>Average Price:  $29
<li aria-level=”1″>Returns: 0
<li aria-level=”1″>Cost of Goods Sold:  $56
<li aria-level=”1″>Costs of Goods Purchased this Week:  $0
<li aria-level=”1″>Number of New Items Listed this Week: 37

I had a pretty good week considering it usually slows down on the days right before Christmas. I’m currently experiencing a customer who’s very displeased with the shipping time on her package. I mailed it on Dec 10th and it’s still sitting at a distribution center. I’ve been trying to placate her but she’s been sending me daily messages and becoming more hostile by the day. I have a bad feeling that when it finally gets delivered, she’ll return it out of spite.

I’ve got some great news to share! We successfully refinanced our home mortgage. We’re going from a 25 to a 15 year loan. Our interest rate is going from 4.9 to 2.125 percent. The monthly payment will go up $46, but that’s not a big deal. In the long run we’ll save tens of thousands. It cost me $1200 and an hour of paperwork, but it was totally worth it.

I’ve got to throw in my opinion on the chili dog debate. While I have to agree with Ryanne that chili dogs don’t belong on the full-time menu of a coffee shop, I have an idea for a compromise. Make them a special, limited run item akin to the McDonald’s McRib. Manufacture some allure to them and only make them available one or two weekends a year. The mystique might intrigue the customers and bring them in. They’ve got to be some really special chili dogs though!

As long as everyone lost their sense of smell, chili dogs don’t sound like a bad idea.  However, I think the smell would make me nauseous while drinking a cup of coffee.

Total Items in Store: 227
Items Sold: 9
Gross Sales: $403
Cost of Items Sold: $163
Highest Price Sold: $65 (New placemats, paid $20 sourced on Ebay)
Average Price Sold: $44
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 1

Enjoyed the podcast.  I think you should keep your ideas flexible about food options.  Start with the easy no brainers like pastries, sandwiches, fresh fruit, power bars, chips etc. and see what kind of clientele you are getting and at what time of day.  My favorite coffee shop here has the best avocado toast on rustic bread.  I could eat that every day.  If you can manage, oatmeal with toppings and egg options are nice to have.  They do not serve chili dogs.  But maybe you’ll discover that locals and tourists will like to have more grab and go lunch options?  I like to grab a coffee and a lunch to take to the office during normal times.  Also I was thinking unlike your other businesses you may experience lulls in the day when you can catch up on some tasks while at the business.  Anyway, good luck.  There is every indication that things will turn out great!  One last coffee shop thought – you probably have super cool branded mugs coming out but one of our local breakfast places uses random coffee mugs from the thrift store.  It’s kind of fun to check them out at the table and see what you get.

I had pretty good Ebay sales last week.  I usually have a few ladies who purchase new items after Christmas either with money gifts or because they ran into them on the web while looking for bargains.  February is usually the worst month for me.

It’s a bit of groundhog day here but we finally got some rain and are wrapping up the last of the college apps this week.  Happy that will be over and done with.  I was forced to recycle a bunch of boxes and discard perfectly good packing material to make room in the garage for my husband’s new pull up bar.  A bit painful.  2019-20 I did make some progress on the death piles and some of that is slowing selling off.  There’s nothing on the floor of the garage anymore – yeah!  I hope to get the remainder down by half in in the next year.

I was happy to read in the news that Ebay will continue to address the relative difficulty of listing and try to better synch the app and the site.  Also read they will focus more on used items as their niche.  Finally moving in the right direction IMHO investing in tech and moving away from trying to compete with Amazon.

Happy New Year!

Chili goes better with tea, but maybe not Liptons, which seems to have a bad reputation. Try Yorkshire.

I haven’t listened to the podcast yet, so apologies if this was already discussed… but how about a chili dog cart, parked outside your cafe during select times/days/seasons?  There is a hot dog cart that does a brisk business in our resort town in the summer.  They have a large statue of a hot dog putting mustard on himself which I personally find somewhat disconcerting.

While I agree that an indoor chili dog/coffee cafe sounds potentially queasy, I think a seasonal chili dog cart is a good idea as an outside feature. I think there’s a country approachability to it for the locals (I remember a hot dog food truck being a very popular spot in the small Vermont town I went to school at). You could pair it with some kind of apple cider for a warm drink option in your branded cafe cups, and people would have an outdoor grab-and-go meal (which may be a good idea anyway depending on how long the COVID restrictions remain).

Definitely has been a more stressful week than I’ve been used to since going full time on eBay.  I’ve been obsessing about the delayed packages.  Still have quite a few that are missing entirely, but most of the others are at least moving now, though slowly.  So far, I’ve only had 2 refunds that I’ve had to process, but expecting at least a few more before this is done. The worst is the items that never even got an origin scan.  Insurance won’t cover those if the never show up in the system.

Had a decent week on eBay with one large $500 sale and another $150, both antique ornaments.  That really pulled us up from what would have been a mediocre week.  Over half of the sales for the week were Christmas decor or ornaments.

Really need to get back on the horse for listing.

Week Ending 12/26/20
Total Items in Store: 1158
Items Sold: 26
Gross Sales: $1,593.63
Net Sales (after fees, shipping, etc.) $1,114.64
Cost of Items Sold: $85.00
COGS Percent 7.63%
Highest Price Sold: $500.00 Antique Ornament
Average Price Sold: $42.87
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 15
Promoted Percentage: 57.69%
Average Days Listed: 312
Longest Listed: 1154
New items listed: 8

Chili Dog sounds great especially in the winter.. maybe with an option for hot chocolate.

Thanks for the podcast.

My numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 4355
Items Sold: 40
Total Sales: $1224.94
Cost of Items Sold: $161
Average Price Sold: $30.62
Average Cost of Item: $4.03
Highest Price Item Sold: $154.95 McCarthy Presidential Campaign Poster
Number of items listed this week: 58 worth approx. $1696
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +23%
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 186

I thought it was going to be a slow week but I was plesantly surprised by a pretty good week.  Much better than the same week last year.

I think it’s funny that the chili dog mention seems to have the most comments from listeners here.  From a vendor perspective I think it would be hard to keep that one on the menu.  Chili would have a pretty short lifespan unless you were just going to heat in a microwave which doesn’t seem like a great idea.

I got a chuckle from the mention of selling Christmas presents.  I don’t remember doing that ever but…. when I retired recently I was given a book by some of the people I worked with. It was a technical book about the job I was leaving so it’s not something I had the slightest interest in so I immediately listed it on ebay and only felt a little bit guilty.

My wife is working at home so I have not had time to listen yet this week…But that won’t stop me from saying No to the chili dog. Coffee and chili dog do not go together. I have a picture in my head of your shop. Chili dogs are like a nightmare in my vision of your place. A cup of chili on the menu would be ok, but not canned…. that being said, draw a lunch crowd in, then tailor the menu to what they will buy. If everyone in town wants a chili dog and you can sell 50 a week, then by all means make it a coffee molle chili and use your coffee in the recipe. Whoops I’m rambling……but have you made a spice rub with your coffee yet? It could be another item on your website too…time to go listen….Happy New Year!

Come on now, what is a chili dog? Meat and bread, who hasn’t had eggs & sausages with toast along with their morning coffee haha. Just different spices.

You could have the whole market for the chili dog coffee consumers in the tri-state area.

If you don’t have branded coffee mugs for your coffee shop, you can start out with contemporary Fiesta coffee mugs. They hold 8 oz and have a nice style. I like the ring handle (Tom & Jerry).  Durable. Multiple colors. Reasonable cost. Source them on eBay if you like.

I’m a Fiesta fan from way back.

Sausage, bacon, eggs, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, mushrooms, black pudding, fried bread, toast, butter, mug of tea = full English breakfast.

‘Sausage, bacon, eggs, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, mushrooms, black pudding, fried bread, toast, butter, mug of tea = full English breakfast.”

That would be quite awesome. But we like a healthy breakfast here in the colonies, so we’d need the kippers too.

Just before Thanksgiving, my wife and I decided to sell our house.  Listing anything on eBay went out the window and nearly 100% of my attention has been focused on painting, painting, fixing and, painting. I don’t know how you guys (J&R) do all that you do.

Anyway, I just wanted to jump on to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and to vote YES on chili dogs.  I think you could be diversifying your customer base.  I would make them a summer offering and also offer Icees (or the hipster version of Icees). Best regards to all in the New Year – stay safe and healthy, because this shitcoaster (pandemic) has not stopped moving.

Sorry for the delay in responding.

My wife’s parents went on a long stay visit to Boston to help out with young grandchildren and have left an empty house here. The long-stay visit turned into a two-year lease and their house 1 mile away from my house is empty.  We decided to sell our house and rent their house.  Our plan is for my daughter to graduate high school in the spring of 2022, then my wife and I will begin slow travel around the world.  Thus we had planned to sell our house in the next two years, but with the market potentially peaking early this spring, we thought that now is a good time to get out.

@Steve, I know that neighborhood well.  I used to ride my bike through there on my way to and from work everyday (at the KP clinic on Sheridan).  I am near 72nd & Kipling.  If COVID ever goes away, I would love to buy you a coffee if you have any free time in town.  I am an early riser in a household of late risers, so my mornings are always my own.  (Actually, I am not working during the week, so pretty much 90% of my time is my own).

When we leave to travel, we plan to lighten our load. A fraction of our house will go in storage (mostly my tools my wife’s creature comforts and photos), the rest will be donated if it has value or taken to the dump.

I’m not sure what life looks like after travel. If it is back in the USA, then I will definitely build an eBay or similar store again.

Week ending 12/27

Items in Store    1415

Items Sold           19

Total Sales          $708.94

COGS    $53.00

Total Profit         $655.94

Average profit   $34.52

Average sales price          $37.31

New Listings       12

It was definitely a slow week for Christmas. The word definitely got out that online orders were a no-go for Christmas shopping. Bummer for sure, but not as bad as it could have been. I had a $200 sale late Sunday night but the cancelled immediately because they didn’t read the description. No worries, that item sold the following week.

Scavenging wise I had another one of my “gut feel” runs. Sometimes out of nowhere I will get these overwhelming urges to go to a specific thrift store for a quick look when I originally had no plan to go. I have learned over the years to trust these urges as they always result in the best items.

This time it was for this little cash only charity shop that I RARELY go to. It had been over a year since I went there. I drove past the general area of it with not even a thought of it, but then all the sudden I told my wife “We have to go to the Paws ‘n shop”. I turned around and went back. Turns out they were having a 50% off store wide sale. I picked out a TON of stuff. In the end when they rang me up it was $180. Then they reminded me they were cash only (I had forgot). I never carry cash, but checked my wallet anyways. Surprisingly, I had just over $200 in cash. How convenient! I never use cash and had sold a few things on FB marketplace over the past 2 weeks and just put the money in my wallet and forgot about it.

All told, that $180 worth of stuff will net me over $2000. There is one item in there though that is a wild card – a complete vintage Silver dinnerware set. I paid $50 for it. Preliminary research told me it’s worth at least $200, but there are a few similar sets that have sold in the UK for over $2000! I haven’t done a deep dive yet to see what makes the multi thousand sets special.

Oh and regarding the menu, NO to chili dogs!

I recommend you partner with a local baker and keep a display case with sweet and savory baked goods. Minimal work on your part, minimal equipment/labor, shelf stable foods to minimize shrink.