Scavenger Life Episode 506: We Don’t Have The Luxury Of Being Mediocre

About the “death” of Yard Sale Treasure map, bummer I know, it was convenient. I usually use the craigslist website on my desktop, and sort by the map to see the ones closest to me or to make an efficient route. I then do have to write them down and map them out on mapquest. Google maps is better but only lets you put 10 locations at a time! I like to use the search terms church, neighborhood & community to identify the good ones first, then build a route around that. However, in the last few years less and less people are putting an ad on CL to start with, making the YSTM less effective a tool overall. Until Nextdoor or FB Marketplace make a similar tool, it’s defiantly a  step back in planning an efficient route. For all the yard sale only sourcers out there, we know that those 5-6 hours a week are precious. Good Luck out there Scavengers! Stay Safe and may your inventory reserves grow!

Happy Sunday!

Items in Shop: 801

Items sold: 10 (9 on Ebay, 1 on FBM)

Sales: $292

COGS: $11

Net Sales, after FVF: $242

Man I was feeling this stimulus check being sent out. I sold a $60 hat, a chintz dish I’ve been sitting on for months, and a cigarette display rack that I was using as a display for months before listing it ($50+ $50 shipping) Grandma had cataract surgery this week and I’ve just been unable to really give Ebay attention. Had a minor breakdown with my dad about not being able to afford the office rent, the payment for the building, and being able to pay myself, and so he’s going to help with the dual office/building payments for the next few months while I’m waiting to move in. I feel like my pride hurts a little bit taking help from dad, but the bigger picture is moving all my inventory twice and disrupting my household for 3 months waiting for the shiny new building to be built is just hectic and not productive, so it’s really awesome that he can help out.

Facebook is definitely slowing down, I’m still getting messages but not as many buyers. This will be my 3rd week of renewing listings, so I’m curious to see if when I relist everything in a couple weeks if I’ll go back to having like 5 sales a week on there.

Building update: Slab gets poured tomorrrow. The crew has been prepping the sight this weekend. I think it’s finally settling in just how big this thing is going to be. Additionally, I went with a new company and have been doing some edits to the building and the building itself has gone from $8,500 to $7100, which is awesome.

Note: I had a low goal last week since I knew I was chasing a new  job at my company. Landed a transfer from Customer Service Supervisor to Audiovisual Tech which will pay 25% more. Yay!

Total items For Sale: 63 eBay (+1 on The Real Real)

Profit: $117.99

Items Sold: 4

Items Listed: 4 (Goal Achieved!)

Average Profit: $29.50

Highest Profit: $69.68 (Electrolux Vacuum Hose)

Goal This Week: 8 Listings

Great to hear from everyone as always. Good week on ebay for me.

Sales: CAD$6537, 16 sales, COGS: $162, Fees: ~$883, Postage: $393 –> Gross profit: $5099

Expenses: $183, New inventory: $0 –> Cashflow: $5078

HVAC controllers again for $4400 were the big sale.

I have an auction on Wednesday that I’ll hopefully get a decent amount of inventory from.

Items in Store 1437
Items Sold 27
Total Sales $1,008.00
COGS $122.00
Total Profit $886.00
Average profit $32.81
Average sales price $37.33
New Listings 0
Items scavenged 2
Sourcing Allotment 2

So I had a pretty crappy week. Wednesday night, an electrical burning smell I couldn’t locate in ebay room (garage). Couldn’t sleep all night for fear of house burning down. Thursday night, thunderstorm and power freaks out in house  – partial power loss. Power company came and showed me that power coming in was fine, so something wrong in my panel. I was up at 3am probing my panel to diagnose the issue – found the unlocatable burning smell…

Friday found an electrician to replace my entire electrical panel. Spent Friday evening and all of Saturday installing new panel. I put my family in a hotel for 2 nights while it was all done. Once done Saturday night had to spend a couple hours verifying circuits. Needless to say, I haven’t slept much in many days, and ebay ground to a halt.

In other news, I did stop by a yard sale Saturday that was near my house. It was intended to just be a mental diversion to burn a few minutes, but it ended up being one of those unicorn sales. Toys as far as the eye could see!!! First thing that caught my eye was an ENTIRE STORAGE TUB of Pixar Cars Die cast cars. These can be big bucks. I bought the whole thing for $60. I’ve already created 40 listings that total over $1k list price, and that is only a fraction of what I have. Some of them sell for $100+

When I showed interest in the Cars stuff, they showed me a Cars Geotrax tub. Sure I want that. One problem, they weren’t sure it was all in that one tub…then they pointed at this wall of tubs that was all geotrax. 8 GIANT storage tubs. They wanted $200 for all of it. Ugh…I didn’t really want that much. Then they opened one of the tubs and it was full of nothing but the motorized cars and remotes. I have sold many of the remote controlled cars and even the common ones sell for $40+ each and they sell fast. There was over $1000 of easy money in that one tub, and I had seen numerous other RC cars with remotes in the Cars tub.

So yeah, I ended up loading up my car and the guy brought the rest over to my house in his SUV.

That’s where I drew the line at that sale. There were 4 giant overflowing storage tubs of Hotwheels. There were  3 50 gallon tubs overflowing with nerf guns.  I didn’t even ask because I already have a bunch of nerf guns in my death pile, and the hotwheels would be way too tedious for me to mess with. Still, there were $1000’s in inventory there for the taking.

I talked to the people – an only child/grandchild with parents with a ton of money and grandparents with tons of money. He’s a teen now and they had kept everything. All of that stuff for one single kid. Crazy!!!

3/13/21-3/19/21

Total Items In Store: 2192
Items Sold: 28
Gross Sales: $1445.27

Net Sales:  $917.72
Highest Price Sold: $300 (23 Cans of Aeromarine engine oil)
Average Price Sold: $32.77

Returns:  0 $0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of items listed: 6

• Overall a decent week in sales.
• Really hating the loss of yard sale treasure map. I tried using it on our trip to Louisville and got the notice that it wasn’t pulling from Craigslist anymore.  I ended up using the Craigslist app to find some sales, but was so much easier on YSTM.  We travel quite a bit and it was a great tool for pulling up sales in new areas.
• My wife and I went to Iowa on Friday and I located an estate sale that was a little out of the way, but in the general direction. We got there about an hour after it started and I didn’t think it was going to be very good as we saw people leaving without any goods when we pulled up.  When we went in, the house was completely packed full of stuff…every room!  Here’s the deal though.  The prices were absolutely outrageous.  Even with high prices, I can usually find a few gems to scavenge, but there was nothing here I could touch for reasonable prices.  We spent 30 minutes there and left with nothing.  The house was full of people and they were only selling a few items here and there.  The lady running the sale was telling people everything would be half off on Sat and even cheaper on Sun, but it seems to me they are losing a ton of money with all the people like us that will never be back.  Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me they would make more money in the long run if things were priced reasonably from the start.

I have a little rant.  I had an amazing clothing haul from an estate sale last weekend.  Due to the size of the sale, it was scheduled for 2 weekends.  There was very little parking so the Estate Sale company asked that only bulk buyers shop the first weekend and to make an appointment.  There were lots of shoppers there but as far as I could tell, I was the only “bulk buyer.”  After shopping 4 hours and accumulating 100s of items of clothing I asked them to give me a price, expecting them to give me a bulk price.  Nope. They sat for over an hour and went thru each item one by one.  Clothing had set prices unless otherwise marked (ex. all shirts $5, pants $6) however, the lady started changing all of the prices on me.  She would say, “well this is Save the Queen and all of those are $15” etc. even though there were no signs whatsoever to that effect. I was really annoyed but I was so exhausted at that point that I didn’t want to just abandon everything and leave.  The stuff was so plentiful and the brands so good that I went back a second time but made sure one of the hourly employees tallied up my haul instead of the lady running the sale.  Even after purchasing probably 500 items, I didn’t even make a dent in all of the clothing they had.  I texted them earlier this week and offered to buy all leftover clothing after their last day (which was yesterday) because otherwise they were going to donate it all to charity.  The lady wouldn’t even give me a price.  She said that she needed to get her client a good tax receipt from the charity.  Then why even sell any of it in the first place?  I think she just doesn’t like resellers.  At least I came away with some good stuff to list, even though the experience kind of left a sour taste in my mouth.

I have a little story sort of similar to the caller who talked about finding the exact crocks that her daughter wanted. A few years ago, I bought several lots from a MaxSold online auction. One of the lots had a vintage Flint spatula, which was exactly the same one we owned. My husband, who is the pancake maker in our house, would talk about how great it was and how much better quality it was compared to modern utensils, but it had a cracked handle from going through the dishwasher too many times. I handed him the one I just got, and it took him a second, but he suddenly smiled and became very excited over this new to us spatula. He washes it by hand, and I am not allowed to put it in the dishwasher. I think that the original one was given to me by my grandpa years ago when he was downsizing, so now we have two.

Anyway,

Week of March 14 – 20
Total Items in Store: 1373 eBay, 44 Etsy
Items Sold: 20 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $10.43 + $46.23 Commission
Total Sales: $413.94
Highest Price Sold: $65 for Sajen goddess pendant (but, going to be returned), $38 oil painting (no frame)
Average price: $21.60
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 8

A gem fell out of the Sajen pendant (which is a consignment item) en route. I was going to refund the buyer $10, but she wanted to be able to return it if her repair was screwed up. I said just to return it, and I will do the repair. She may rebuy it if it comes out fine. She was going to use superglue, so I’m sure I’ll do a better job.

3-15-21 to 3-21-21
Total Items in Store: 1210
Items Sold: 11
Gross Sales: $200.16
Net Sales: $83.63
Cost of Items Sold: $3
Highest Price Sold: $29.89 Anime Bluray
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 49

Steady week of low dollar sales. Continuing to list and feel good about that. Sold some items for my friend who had to move in a rush and did a major downsize. Feels good to send here some cash every few months from stuff she would have trashed/given away just to be rid of it. I give her all the profits after fees/taxes are covered.

Most excited to be scheduled for my 1st vaccine shot Friday. Looking forward to being able to go out and be more comfortable in public in 6 weeks. And being able to swim this summer!

Total Items in Store: 162

Items Sold: 11

Total Sales: $1,16.50

Highest Price Sold: $850 Breyer Special Run Olympia Morgan Mare

Well I am sure glad I worked so hard in the last few weeks to list to eBay – it paid off for sure! Several older pieces sold which was very nice as well as several items I just listed. I laugh every time I sell a cassette or VHS tape. Did well with some TDK PRO SM-X90 sealed blank tapes, some sell in the $20 each range, I got an offer of $15 each for all of mine – sold!

I went to 2 estate sales last weekend and they couldn’t have been more different. One was the official company where they total each item, everything is priced close to retail the first 2 days, with discounts the last 2. They do sell, but I only bought a few things for myself and the house was still pretty full. The second was a couple clearing out mom’s house, stuff in the front was cheap, stuff in the backyard was dirt cheap. I bought 2 big boxes of miscellaneous items – they were happy and I was happy – win-win! I do need to tone down the buying so I don’t totally neglect selling from my storeroom, but it sure is fun to discover new things.

I used to use yardsale treasuremap all the time, but I started noticing most were listed on fb instead of cl anyways.

There is a local estate sale company that prices basically at retail, then marks down day 3 and 4.  Even at 75% off, the prices are usually too high to do well on.  These companies keep as much as 70% of the proceeds.  I love the family member cleanout estate sales and have done exceptionally well at some–and I feel the family can likely do just as well without the middlemen taking such a huge chunk.

Jumping on some of that special coffee–we prefer light roast, so that sounds good!

Busy week.  Finally signed our warehouse lease, but it has been a very slow process.  No clue when we will get keys, haven’t been told what to do with the check, etc.  It is unreal how un-motivated they are to get someone in the building.  Cannot wait until it is finished.  Until keys are in hand, there is major stress.

We sell a lot on facebook.  Generally the large things like you all do.  It has allowed us to drastically increase our asp and we have even done 40 shipping orders through it.  FB has eclipsed eBay sales for sometime now, but eBay is consistent like a clock.

Hey everybody!

Loved the episode in general and all the calls this week! The crocs story was awesome; I’ve had a similar thing happen! In psychology, we usually chalk experiences like that up to the recency bias, but I can say from personal experience that sometimes (like in the case of the yellow crocs) it seems a bit TOO serendipitous to be only that! Feels a little magical! As frequent shoppers who always have our eyes out for certain things, we deal in recency bias all the time… but something like the yellow crocs is just uncanny compared to all the things we now notice because we’ve just heard about them or whatever. So cool. Also, so great to hear from Marty!

It’s been BUSY still around here. Hitting the home stretch listing stuff out of my storage unit, preparing to move HALF my garage inventory to a second storage unit and continue my inventory cataloguing! BOY that is boring, but worth it. I can’t wait to be done. Lol. Sales have been all over the map for the past 6 weeks. I also feel like I noticed an uptick from the stimulus checks, and may still be… but overall, compared to January, February and March have been slooooow. It’s interesting because I’m still listing a ton every month, thanks to my helpers… usually upwards of 500 items, all miscellaneous as usual, and it seems that the longer this alternate universe goes on, the less predictable my sales are. I just kind of notice that, and then keep working haha. Either way, the answer is to keep on listing. It’s nice not to be stressed about it, for the most part!

Numbers!

March 14-20
Active Listings: 10,130
Number of items sold: 57 (the most in one wee since the end of January, when I was selling 70+ per week!)
Gross Sales: $1844.38
Net Sales: $949.97
Highest Sale: Vintage Halogen Torchier Lamp, $274.39
Average Sale Price: $32.35
No returns, no sourcing!

Have a great week, everybody!

Thanks for the show!  Appreciate the level headed advice you always give.  Low on hype and right on in substance.

Slowest week of the year so far for me.  Really has been a roller coaster year with weeks going up and down.  On the bright side, I’m still ahead for the year compared to last.  My problem really is in getting listings done.  I need to focus and block out the distractions.  Should help temporarily as kids go back to school finally.  My son started two days a week last week and my daughter should go back in mid-April.

Took a big gamble and booked a non-refundable AirBNB for July in Europe.  Keeping fingers crossed that the vaccine rates keep climbing and we’re able to get ours before then.  Currently the country isn’t accepting any travelers.  Prices were so low that it was tough to bypass.

I’m going to miss the Yard Sale Treasure Map also.  I checked out Craigslist’s new app that you mentioned and it is pretty weak.  That’s really going to leave a void.

My biggest sale this last week was a vintage Dunhill tobacco pipe.  It was one I restored myself to increase its value.  I bought a large lot of very collectible pipes that were in poor condition.  In researching them I came across some blogs detailing how hobbyists were restoring them and thought I’d try.  A little elbow grease can go a  long way to increase value.  This was the third I’ve restored and sold from the lot.  The other two sold for more than $100 each.  I’m in about $3 per pipe plus labor.  Takes about 2 hours to restore each.  Of course, restoring a pipe takes up time I could be listing…

Week Ending 3/20/21
Total Items in Store: 1153
Items Sold: 13
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $366.51
Net Sales (After fees): $298.19
Cost of Items Sold: $31.16
COGS Percent 10.45%
Net Profit Margin: 72.86%
Highest Price Sold: $74.95 Vintage Dunhill Pipe
Average Price Sold: $28.19
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $32.20
Sold via promoted listings: 9
Promoted Percentage: 69.23%
Average Days Listed: 369
Longest Listed: 1363
New items listed: 11

3/14/21 – 3/20/21
Total Active Items (2 different IDs): 347
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $147
Highest Price Sold: $45 – consigned US Navy USS Tarawa Commanding Officer’s personal Challenge Coin.
Returns:  0
COGS: $20 (including commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 2
$ Spent on New Inventory: $11

Wise words from you two on the podcast this week. But I had to laugh when Jay said he would be “licking” stamps if he had to be shipping. I still have the habit of saying “dial” the phone, but I do have about 25 years on Jay, I think.

I have had annoying eBay buying experiences similar to one in your discussion. It’s the kind of thing that gives eBay a bad reputation. I’ve bought items specifically because they were represented as tested working but I found they were not upon receipt, and it was obviously not due to damage in shipment. The seller had simply lied that the items were tested. The last time it happened it was a $150 item and when I opened a return, the seller simply refunded me and didn’t even send me a label to return it, and it was suitable for First Class Package.  So that told me they had zero time and money into and were just rolling the dice that I wouldn’t notice or something.

March 14 – 20

<li aria-level=”1″>Total Items in Store: 4,105
<li aria-level=”1″>Items Sold: 27
<li aria-level=”1″>Total Sales:  $709

<li aria-level=”2″>* BELOW yearly average of $1,064

<li aria-level=”1″>Highest Price:  $125 (Vintage Snow Lion Sleeping Bag)
<li aria-level=”1″>Average Price:  $26
<li aria-level=”1″>Returns: 0
<li aria-level=”1″>Cost of Goods Sold:  $27
<li aria-level=”1″>Costs of Goods Purchased this Week:  $0
<li aria-level=”1″>Number of New Items Listed this Week: 54

It’s been kind of slow over here on my end last week. That’s the way it goes sometimes I guess. I managed to get a lot of items listed, so that’s a plus. This week I’ll be taking care of some stuff around the house, so I’ll neglect my listing duties for a few days. Gotta get an area behind my house leveled off for a shed. Fortunately, I got locked in on the price last year before the cost of materials skyrocketed.

3/14/21 – 3/20/21

Total items in store: 2295

Items sold: 84

Gross sales: $3178.98 (up 200.3% from this week last year)

Net sales: $2153.19 (up 226.4% from this week last year)

Highest price sold: $187.74 — an autograph rookie refractor (refractor = shiny) of Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager graded 9 mint

Lowest price sold: $11.97 — a plain, unadorned rookie draft card of Australian basketball player Joe Ingles, who was not drafted and only has a few rookie cards

Last week, my sales were slightly higher because I had about 10 sales of $75-$100 and 10 sales of $100 or more. This week was much more typical (at least for crazy stimulus sports card bubble times): 8 from $75-$100 and 4 over $100.

Even when I sell 84 items, I never have 84 packages to send out because I always have a few buyers who purchase multiple items. This week, I had one sale of 12 items to one buyer for $170 less Canada shipping and fees.

All 12 items were different hockey players printing plates. Printing plates are the various colors (black/yellow/cyan/magenta) used in stamping ink on the cards. Most manufacturers insert printing plates plates as a “hit card” every x number of packs or boxes, often with an accompanying autograph from the player, or a piece of their jersey. A few manufacturers use the plates to create a new product, like the Panini Plates & Patches set. You receive at least one printing plate and patch card in every Plates & Patches box, but the name is mostly branding. There are lots of regular cards beyond the plates and patches cards, though “regular cards” in most sets in 2021 often have an autograph, a piece of jersey and/or some kind of foil/colorful design and serial number.

Have I mentioned how high the cost of buying a box of trading cards is in 2021? Each five card box of 2020 Plates & Patches football cards will set you back at least $375. That’s over $60 for each card, and Plates & Patches is not even a premium expensive brand! It’s pretty run of the mill average in terms of pricing. The most high-end boxes run $1000 or more for a box of 5-10 cards, so you can do the math at how absurdly expensive a 12-box case gets. Most collectors don’t get their cards through buying boxes anymore. They either buy or trade for individual cards or purchase “their” team (or player) in “box breaks” or “case breaks.” Here is a very well-written article on case breaks that explains the process better than I can.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/05/04/breaking-the-fall-sports-cards-and-the-pandemic

I know what breaks are, but I’ve never participated in one since it’s basically all luck. No need to take a shortcut and gamble when I already have a system where I can make money as long as I put in the work. I originally purchased the plates I sold this week through various eBay auctions last month, all from the same seller. This is very common with trading cards, most sellers use auctions, but it’s an inefficient way to sell and prices vary a lot. I suspect many eBay trading card sellers need to sell this week to pay for their purchases next week. In fact, I was like that for a few years. It’s only this past year where I’ve truly broken out of it, somewhat from the increased demand (more people buying cards) but mostly from smarter buying habits.

Like these plates. The 12 plates I sold this week cost me just over $5 each, and even after shipping to Canada and fees, I made a tidy $90 profit. I had each plate listed at $20 and I had already sold some other plates at that price. But I had the flexibility to go down to $15 or even $10 and still make a profit, and whenever I get a buyer who sends me a bunch of offers at the same time, I’m always inclined to take it.

I have a new lot purchase of over 100 plates in the mail which I’m looking forward to. Sadly, this will probably be my last cache of plates until next year’s sets come out. But at least I went out with a bang. I got very lucky with my winning bid and only paid about $3.50 for each plate. Most will get listed at $20 with a few at higher prices if the players are collectible or popular. A handful will sell within twenty-four hours of listing, as collectors often focus on a certain player and set up saved searches (e.g. ‘Mario Lemieux plate’) to alert them to new listings so they don’t miss their players’ cards (especially the rare ones) before another collector snaps them up. They have to be quick, especially with the most desirable cards. I’ll make back my initial ~$400 investment with the first 25 or so that sell, and then the rest is all profit.

I loved this week’s podcast so much. Inspiring and grounded at the same time. It’s so important to find something that’s worth putting in the extra time and effort on, like the thoughtful things you include for guests who stay at your Air BnB’s.