Scavenger Life Episode 501: Shout Out To Everyone Who Shows Up and Works

02/07/21 – 02/13/21

Total Items In Store: 3340
Items Sold: 20
Total Sales: $ 826.36
Highest Price Sold: $ 125 (Vintage Tonka Truck)
Average Price Sold: $ 41.32
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 509.02
Number of items listed: 25

Gut Sales Report for the week: So no longer averaging over $1000 per week. Sales started to drop off this week.

Scavenge of the week: Found some Stranger Things items on clarence at Hot Topic.

Mark S

Either there is a glitch or I am experiencing the most intense DeJa Vu.  After you announce it is episode 501 did you splice to a re-run?

It’s me.

Total Items For Sale: 53

Profit: $21.98 (Adriano Goldschmied women’s jeans)

Items Sold: 1

Items Listed: 7

Hi!

Items in Shop:790

New Items Listed:50ish

Items Sold: 5

Net Sales: $137

COGS: $7

Net Profit: $130

This week didn’t *feel* like a slow week, but it definitely was. I only got 1 day of listing in, but I got 50 listings out which was annoying, but I’m trying my best to get to a minimum of 50 listings a week, which has been happening. I feel like there’s a constant battle of best offers where someone will send me, I’ll counter, and I won’t hear anything back, which sucks. Yesterday I wouldn’t take $40 on a $55 item since I just listed it, but today I would have, lol.

Building progess: I spoke last week about buying a building and getting it installed. Well, I’ve been putting off the actual order because my Transunion and my Equifax credit scores are like 40 points apart, which depending on the score they pull will raise or lower my interest rate by 3%, I’ve been trying to wait it out, but it’s been a headache. Placed the deposit down for the slab a week ago and haven’t heard anything, but we are in the middle of a polar vortex so trying to get anything poured in this time is difficult to say the least.

W/E 2/13/21
Total Items In Store: 2,507
Items Sold: 19
Cost of Items Sold: 28.62
Total Sales (Sales + Shipping does [not inc sales tax]) 557.63
Ebay / Paypal / Shipping Costs / Fees 164.16
Net Profit 393.47
Highest Price Sold: 89.99 OOP DVD HellBent – Vinegar Syndrome Release
Average Price Sold: 20.71
Number of items listed: 42

Items in Store    1484

Items Sold           15

Total Sales          $698.00

COGS     $53.00

Total Profit         $645.00

Average profit    $43.00

Average sales price          $46.53

New Listings       3

Items scavenged              0

Sourcing Allotment          2

Last week we were in Florida. Constant sunshine, 80-85 degrees every day. Sooooo nice.

Cue to today back at home – 20 degrees and everything is covered in ice….should have just stayed in Florida…

We got annual passes to Universal studios last March right before the lockdown. We’ve went to Florida 3x this past year. I can tell you this – the way the media portrays Florida as being the wild west is simply not true from what I have seen. Maybe southern Florida is, but Orlando has been wonderful. I feel safer there than I do at home!

If you have considered a vacation to universal Studios in this environment, I would definitely recommend it. They take safety precautions very seriously and they’ve found a way to still do many of the fun seasonal things and even improve some of them. Like Mardi Gras, they aren’t doing a parade this year but they instead are doing a food festival all over the park and have placed their parade floats spread out all over the park all day long with performers everywhere.

Anyways, my sales have trended down the last few weeks. My historical data shows that Februrary and March are the slowest months of the year for my store, so no worries. Still, my numbers are lower than the last two years. I would hope that my “slow period” would still have higher numbers considering my increase in inventory.

Anyways, I’m home and it is back to work time! I’m gonna get some stuff listed today.

Unlike everyone else on eBay, I’ve always had a hard time selling shoes.  Despite that, I’m about to get a windfall of 90 pairs of shoes, all brand new.  My husband’s cousin bought out the merchandise from a 4 story retail store that went out of business a few years ago.  They had no experience in reselling and after several months they lost the enthusiasm for it so they sold the inventory to me for less than a dollar a pair!  The shoes are higher end, retailing for $150-$250 a pair (Gabor, Marc Joseph, Vaneli).  The problem is, they don’t really sell well on Ebay.  My plan is to just box them all up and send them to ThredUp.  Certain brands do better over there.  And I won’t have to list, photograph or store any of it.  I’ve never tried ThredUp before and I understand that a lot of resellers jumped ship a few months back when ThredUp changed their rules but this seems like the perfect opportunity to try it out.  My only work will be getting the items to them.  We’ll see how it goes.

Total Items in Store:  375
Items Sold:  7
Gross Sales: $490 (disregarding shipping and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $235
Highest Price Sold: $240 (new 3 piece bedding, paid $115 on clearance in January)
Average Price Sold: $70
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week:  Honestly I’m losing track as backordered items get shipped out RA. Several hundred.
Number of items listed this week:  12

Thanks for the podcast.  Ebay was pretty quiet most of the week for me.  The retailer surprisingly started running the extra % off sale again after a few days off and I’ve gone in deeper than ever before.  The home items are selling, clothing selling but more slowly.  I should probably list some preowned textiles, as ladies are in the nesting mood.  Had one sale on Mercari, but it’s pretty quiet over there for sure.

Our Covid numbers are quite good right now and rented an Airbnb for a short stay in Santa Cruz.  Looking forward to that.  Haven’t been thrifting and I miss that for sure but the RA is keeping me busy.  Reflecting back on the last year, I would say that I should have been more productive with listing.  I do get a little too caught up reading on the internet sometimes.

Feb 7 – 13

• Total Items in Store: 4,100
• Items Sold: 49
• Total Sales :  $1,258
• * ABOVE yearly average of $1,079
• Highest Price:  $100 (Vintage Zondervan Eyre & Spottiswoode Calfskin Bible)
• Average Price:  $26
• Returns: 0
• Cost of Goods Sold:  $52
• Costs of Goods Purchased this Week:  $0
• Number of New Items Listed this Week: 11

I sort of put eBay on the back burner for the week as I took care of some things around the house, and more importantly got our taxes prepared for our CPA. I feel like he’s been charging us a bit more than he should, so I made sure to present all of the numbers in a very clear manner. Theoretically it should only take him an hour or so of work after all the work I’ve already put into it, so if he ups the bill again we’re off to find a new CPA.

Can are continuing to sell well for me. I’ve now sold almost $400 worth. I’m going to finish listing what I have setting out tomorrow, and then I’ll be done with the first batch. I’ll be glad to be on to listing other things!

I had an awesome sale yesterday (not included in my number above). I had a buyer go through my store and send me offers on 13 items. We worked out a deal that was good for both of us. It came to $426 + combined shipping. I’ve had people buy 2 or 3 items at a time, but never anything like this. It took a little bit of work to create a custom listing, and then go through and end everything once he paid, but I would love it if more buyers shopped around my “store” like this.

To the person asking about shipping rugs, I asked the same question in 2016 (my first year of selling on eBay). Mike from Atlanta was so kind to give me a detailed explanation of the best way to do it, and I’ve been following his instructions since then. I don’t sell many, but I do make some money here and there.

He suggests 8 mil black plastic that you can buy at Home Depot or Lowes. If I remember correctly, I could only find something a little thinner like 5 or 6 mil. I usually wrap it around twice, so it works fine. I still have the same rolls of plastic sheeting and stretch wrap that I purchased after reading his instructions. You can find his discussion here:

How to ship rugs

My numbers:

Week of Feb 7 – 13
Total Items in Store: 1406 eBay, 27 Etsy
Items Sold: 21 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $35.05 + $67.67 Commission
Total Sales: $600.69 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $85 Large oil painting; $71 Christofle 3 Pcs silver plate Christening Set
Average price: $28.60
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 11

My sales number has been in the $600 to $675 range since the beginning of the year. Either I sell lots of items, or I sell several decently priced items. This week is the latter.

2/6/21-2/12/21

Total Items In Store: 2198
Items Sold: 39
Gross Sales: $1090
Highest Price Sold: $100 (Notre Dame Cathedral Bookends)
Average Price Sold: $27.94

Returns:  0 $0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $142
Number of items listed: 0

• Strange sales week. Started off really well and then died off.  Had a day at the end of the week with no sales at all.  First day I’ve had with no sales since July of last year.
• Found an outdoor auction this week that had a very small attendance. Temperature outside was 6 degrees and about -9 with wind chill.  A little brutal, but I filled the truck for $142.  I had to leave before they got to the last few hayracks bc I ran out of room in the truck.  Looks to be a pretty good haul.
• Great discussion on the freedom with not having a real job. I decided to take the week off from listing and spent some time ice fishing this week.  Haven’t ice fished in 20 years and it was great to have the time to just go and have fun for no reason at all.
• Heading to Nebraska this week for a surprise birthday party. Hoping to do some sourcing while I am out there.  I usually end up finding some unique stuff when I’m in NE.  I’m going to try to get a chunk of stuff from the auction listed before I leave.

Total Items In Store: 2437
Items Sold: 41
Gross Sales: $1091  Net:$649

Highest Price Sold: $158 shower head
Average Price Sold: $26.60

Money Spent on New Inventory: $110

FB sales: 4    Gross: $600

I was inspired by the recent auction activity to attend one of our own–so that’s what we did for our Valentine’s weekend.  Only spent $110, but did pretty well.  Best/worst haul was 80+ teacups and saucers for $50 because nobody wanted them.  Have a lot of junk, some look decent.  I’ve sold a good amount of these in the past.   If we avg $10/cup, that’s a healthy profit.  I may take the lazy route and not even research, just list them all at a couple set rates based on country of origin.  Researching is definitely my least favorite part.

It has been below zero here with wind chills around 35 below.  Our warehouse is not heated save a few torpedo heaters, so we are going to list the auction haul at home and only go to the warehouse for shipping or larger FB sales.  Saturday its supposed to be about 30 degrees warmer, so next week will be better.

We approach the week much like you.  We have a basic plan, but allow flexibility.  Combining trips or cancelling planned trips to focus on something more efficient makes a ton of sense to me.  That is definitely how you can get more done.  You’re right–most of the time you can’t get it all done anyways, so focus on doing what makes the most sense or $.  Getting up every day and getting to it is the key.  It can be a challenge, but it is so rewarding to set your own schedule and live on your own terms.

Hi R&J – Thanks for the podcast!

Here are my numbers for this week:
Total Items in Store: 4457
Items Sold: 53
Total Sales: $962.19
Cost of Items Sold: $106
Average Price Sold: $18.15
Average Cost of Item: $2.01
Highest Price Item Sold: $34.97 Family Holy Bible Catholic Edition 1957
Number of items listed this week: 79
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 373
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 156

It was an uneventful week on ebay though ultimately my total sales were better than expected since my highest priced item was a measly $34!

Jay you’re not alone about reliving life’s embarrassing moments. That’s been a real thing for me.  I will visible wince or react at some of the dumb moments in my life as I relive them.  I wish I had such similar strong reactions and vivid memories of the happy moments in my life too.  In my 40s I tried to make a pact with myself that any dumb thing that I had done before age 40 could be forgotten / forgiven.  After all,  why should I be embarrassed about that dumb thing I said in front of the class in 3rd grade.  It kinda worked. I’ve been able to take some of the feeling out of some of those really old thoughts.

Ebay-related:  Before Christmas I received an email from an eBay employee who has the title of Growth Advisor.  He offered to work with me, at no charge, to increase my sales.  I met with him for about 30 minutes each week for 6 weeks and he would make suggestions about things I should try like running different kinds of promotions,  and changing the placement of keywords in my titles etc.  Ultimately I dont think his suggestions made a big improvement to be sales as I was already doing most of the best practices but it was pretty fun to be able to chat about my business to someone else who understood how ebay businesses work. I’d recommend the process for anyone else that gets an offer for something similar.

I hope everyone has a good week!

Hi all, had a good week and long weekend despite the cold. Almost finished going through the last of my auction inventory so I’ll be on the hunt again soon.

Sales: CAD$4145, 15 sales, COGS: $305, Fees: ~$559, Postage: $473 –> Gross profit: $2808

Expenses: $191, New inventory: $198 –> Cashflow: $2725

The past year I have been heavy into buying on eBay. I decided that although I will continue that, I will be raising the bar on what is a buy vs pass on eBay. It is easy to nickle-and-dime yourself to death there, buying things that are profitable, but not overly so, “so the time wasn’t wasted”. Ultimately my constraint is money, not time, so I will be only buying if it’s a really great deal.

Total Items in Store: 120

Items Sold: 11

Total Sales: $427.95

Highest Price Sold: $97.50 Caterpillar Service Manual

This was a huge week for me – things kind of trickled in so I didn’t notice until packing today that I had quite a pile of boxes. Had a few issues to deal with – another annoying customer cancelled a purchase due to changing their mind, I handled a return incorrectly so had to call ebay (sent them the wrong thing, so I issued a return label then sent them the right thing. Should have just sent the right thing and denied the return) and I still have ripples from the customer who initiated a return before I shipped, it is hitting my shipping rate so had to request that taken off my performance. I guess the more we sell the more issues, so I should be happy I am selling so much!

A little up thread someone mentioned selling a good DVD – I got hooked on DVD and VHS tapes last summer when I hit a mother lode of good horror VHS tapes. Sold a ton for good money, now I am chasing more. They tend to get overlooked at yard sales and sold super-cheap, I even pull them from the trash. Horror sells the best, along with B action movies. Easy to ship, small to store, nothing not to like about them!

Thanks for the show.  I guess we all have those moments that nag at the back of our minds.  Amazing how something that happened 30 0r 40 years ago can still have such a strong reaction.

Had a weird customer interaction this past week.  Falls into that type that just makes you shake your head with wonder.  Sold a ceramic doll from the 30’s or 40’s with a small crack in the leg.  Had my usual very detailed pictures with close up of the damage, plus mentioned it in the condition and description.  They sent a note saying, “Yep. It’s crap.  You gently got around that one.”  I wrote them a nice note back apologizing if there was a problem and reminding them of my 30-day return policy and asked for clarification on the issue. All I got back was, “I bought crap. I should have looked at your other listings first.  My mistake, I bought crap.”    Fortunately they just left neutral feedback with no comment.  Thought it was strange they wouldn’t even share what the problem they had was.  I just shrugged it off, but I have to admit it smarted a little when they disparaged my store. 🙁

Here are my numbers:

FYI: Keep an eye out on the listing sales report for repeated items.  When I ran my numbers this week it included an item in this weeks sales that was also included in last weeks sales.  Not sure what caused the duplication.  It was an item that was sold on the last day of the previous period.  Only noticed it because I cross reference my sales against my inventory list and the count didn’t match.

Weekly Numbers 2/13/21
Total Items in Store: 1137
Items Sold: 25
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $1,048.64
Net Sales (After fees): $864.76
Cost of Items Sold: $138.82
COGS Percent 16.05%
Net Profit Margin: 69.23%
Highest Price Sold: $244.95 Radko Xmas Garland
Average Price Sold: $41.95
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 12
Promoted Percentage: 48.00%
Average Days Listed: 351
Longest Listed: 1471
New items listed: 24

@julie-b If the shoes are in basically brand new condition, I’d send them to The Real Real first. It’s absolutely true that there is a different buyer pool there versus Ebay. Cross check what you have with their accepted brands list, and then if you have more than 10 items you can request a UPS pickup at your door. I almost can guarantee you will get more for them there than on ThredUp (which btw they only sell your merch for 90 days max before forcing you to relinquish it to them or pay to send it back). Anything The Real Real rejects they will mail back to you, free and anything they accept they hang onto for at least a year (continually lowering the price). The rejects I’d then consider putting on ThredUP if I couldn’t find another way to deal with them.

@simplicio I’m in the same boat! Bought a lot to resell through Ebay but now thinking I need to get pickier. It’s hard when it’s so easy to just have inventory show up at your door! Haha

@lukastreasuretrove Ugh I hate those kinds of negative, weirdly open-ended interactions. FWIW I think your store is great, going by those numbers! :p

@Jay I went through and listened to the podcast and really feel what you mean about how every holiday was a fight when you were a kid and there’s a kind of PTSD around it. That was me too. It took me a while to get there, but now I try to celebrate holidays with gusto (although not all I will admit; one or two are still too wrapped up in baggage for me to try to redeem), to make new memories to replace the bad. I have kids now so I try to make it special and stress-free for them in the way that I wish it had been growing up. My husband thinks I put too much pressure on myself about making holidays special (mostly because he’s an ultra-utilitarian type and thinks most things are unnecessary haha), but I don’t see it that way; I think I see it more how you guys see building your cafe; you have a dream of the future and what you would like life in your circle to be like, and you take matters into your own hands to create that space. 🙂

This concept of reliving life’s embarrassing moments is kinda foreign to me. I don’t usually think about those kind of things unless something really triggers the memory.

What I relate to is music. When I hear a song that I grew up with I remember where I was and how I felt – usually a great moment in my life. Occasionally, I will hear a song that gives me a weird feeling and I know something bad that happened must have been triggered. But usually I can’t remember the bad thing, just that the song is giving me bad vibes.

Mark S

LOL I like the eeyore reference!  I forget who it was, but I listen to a guy who calls them ducks.  They just swim around in circles and QUAAACK QUAAACK QUAAACK all day.  Just like to wallow in their misery

2/7/21 – 2/13/21 Total Active Items (3 different IDs): 317
Items Sold: 8
Gross Sales: $241.41
Highest Price Sold: $69 – official invitation to the ship commissioning of USS ARLEIGH BURKE in 1991 signed by Admiral Burke.
Returns:  0
COGS: $45 (mainly commissions)
New Listings: 9
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0

I just received an email regarding Managed Payments that indicates eBay may be throwing a wrench into being able to pay for shipping with a credit card:

“Beginning in late March, eBay will phase out the billing of selling fees and expenses via a monthly invoice. Instead, eBay will collect fees and other expenses, such as those resulting from refunds, claims or disputes directly from your earnings. If your earnings are not sufficient to cover these amounts, we will charge your payment method on file (debit or credit card, and/or linked bank account).”

It sounds like we won’t have the option but I hope it’s just their usual lack of clarity and we’ll still be able to choose direct collection from a credit card or from a card through Paypal.

They also mentioned that we’ll be able to create listings on eBay UK, Germany, or Canada sites. Not sure what that would get us as our items should already be visible on those sites if we offer shipping there.

Bad family. Yes indeed. It got really bad in my 40’s when my kids were born and through their early childhoods. Seeing life through their eyes dredged up the worst of my bad memories and it took a mighty effort to make their childhoods better – without spoiling them 🙂 . Not to mention reliving embarrassing moments from later in life, too.

I’ll have to say that I am much more at peace now in my mid-60’s with the passage of time. It has been one advantage to the forgetting stuff part of getting old. Bad memories and embarrassing moments don’t pop into my head any more. You youngsters have that to look forward to!

Had to put eBay on pause this week due to buying a house and selling our house. I am excited about the move though! We are going from a small house in a crowded subdivision to a bigger house on 3 acres and it just so happens the new house has a 1500 square foot storage shed on the property with power… I wonder what I’ll do with that building 🙂

the market is crazy right now but we were able to sell our house for double what we paid in 2016 so that helped ease the pain of the new mortgage.

One sale: two tape players and headphones on auction, £130 to a French collector (cog £2.50). Got offers of £20, £30 and £50 at the start, which I ignored ‘cos I was luxuriating in a pond. Bidding intensified in the last hour (7 to 8 pm).

Scavenge of the week: 1970s “Any where So cool” (sic) portable fridge by Quest Leisure Products, who are surprisingly still in business. British built, British Leyland quality. Came from a dealer in vintage VW campers who gave it to a friend who asked me to take it to the dump. Stripped it down and cleaned it; forgot which way round the Peltier chip went and burnt my fingers testing it to find out.