Our Store: September 5-11, 2021

Total On eBay: 71

Items Sold: 3

Items Listed: 2 (Goal achieved!)

Total Profit: $33.56

Average Profit Per Item: $11.19

Highest Profit: $19.55 (Old Tenba Camera Gear Bag)

Goal This Week: 2

Good to see your store numbers climbing each week with new listing.

I’m still in hospital trying to recover to the point I can go home. It’s a sloooowwww process. I can sit up, stand, and walk some now without going into respiratory distress. Hopefully I am healthy enough to go home at some point this week.

Our Store Week September 5-11, 2021

Total Items in Store: 1949
Items Sold: 19
Gross Sales: $1066.63 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $720.87 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $31.72
Cost of helpers: $0
Highest Price Sold: $99.95 – Baldwin Smithsonian Electric Brass Candlestick
Average Price Sold: $56.14
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $38.97

Number of items listed this week: 11

We spent all day Wednesday taking one of the cats to the vet and then 178 miles round trip to pick up 20 new Americauna (Easter Eggers) chicks. Plenty of new GOOD inventory to list. Next week a 2 day thrifting trip to San Antonio, looking forward to that and revisiting 3 favorite restaurants and at least 6-8 Thrift Stores from 2009-2012 days. A good week…

Glad to hear you are getting better, Retro!

Crystal & Jules of JulesBijouxVintage

After Popeyes Postcards had posted about “end and sell similar” for older listings, I realized that I had not done that in quite some time. I did that to two pages worth (400 listings), and I suddenly had several sales for 2 – 3 days. Then, I listed a high priced NWT suitcase, and it sold within a day. My week was pretty nice considering the rest of the summer.

However, things are now back to “normal”, and I only sold one item during the weekend. I’m going to be very busy through Thursday, so I’m going to put my store on time away until Friday. I’m not expecting much for this upcoming week.

Week of Sept 5 – 11
Total Items in Store: 1362 eBay, 39 Etsy
Items Sold: 10 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $10.71 + $0 Commission
Total Sales: $381.21 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $169 Travelpro Crew7 suitcase NWT
Average price: $38.12
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 19

<div>J&R, Nice to see that your numbers are recovering and you are seeing nice sales volume again.  Hopefully it rolls downhill to us. :-)</div>
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<div>My sales still aren’t great, but at least off the bottom of the curve.  Doing the only thing that really affects sales and trying to keep my head down posting.  This week I focussed on books and postcards and got 37 new listings posted.  A few weeks ago I won several auction lots that included about 200 books and 150 postcards.  Many of the books are antiquarian-type 100+ years old and the postcards are all from between 1907 and 1930, all from Europe.  Actually went back and re-listened to the podcast with Spinacheater to get some ideas and perspective on the postcards.  Sold the first postcard late Saturday night for $50, a 1907 card from Poland, but it isn’t included in this week’s sales as they didn’t pay until Sunday.  Having fun researching them and learning about the history related to them.  Giving Google translate a work out as they are all in French and my French is pretty basic.</div>
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<div>Big sale of the week was a vintage Christopher Radko seahorse ornament for $150.  Cecile is the ornament expert in the family and mainly focussed on Christmas related items.  She bought two lots of ornaments at auction a few weeks ago that included this.  Averaged about $7 per ornament for 7 ornaments, so this paid for all and got us into the profit zone.</div>
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<div>COGS way up this week and profit margin down because I sold a new lawnmover battery for what I purchased it for.  I bought it back in June for my lawnmower and ended up the problem wasn’t the battery but the mower.  Return window closed so I ended up selling on eBay to get my money back.</div>
 
<div><b>Sales Report for: 9/11/21 </b>
Total Items in Store: 1177
Items Sold: 10
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $432.55
<b>Net Sales (After fees): $361.85 </b>
Cost of Items Sold: $152.59
COGS Percent 42.17%
<b>Net Profit Margin: 48.38% </b>
Highest Price Sold: $149.95 Radko Ornament
Average Price Sold: $43.26
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 6
Promoted Percentage: 60.00%
Average Days Listed: 179
Longest Listed: 901
New items listed: 37</div>

Total Items in Store: 135

Items Listed: 9

Items Sold: 6

Total Sales: $89.50

Highest Price Sold: $39 Mr. Peanut gold metal tray

Wow, I am catching up on my favorite site and just read the big news. I am sad and glad to hear about the changes – I will miss the podcasts, but glad to read all the success stories and also glad the forums will stay. I get so much information here from fellow scavengers. I have been dealing with a case of the blahs and come here to find inspiration to get back in the reselling game. My storeroom wont empty itself, and even the annoyance of trying to get good photos doesn’t outweigh the enjoyment of making cash and keeping good stuff out of the dumpsters.

Halloween is selling well, and I need to get a leg up to get Christmas stuff out and listed. I will also try out the end and relist tip to see if that can move some of my older listings. I have been active listing stuff to Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace with mixed results. Sold some stuff I wasn’t expecting, but some of the good stuff hasn’t even had tire kickers. I was hoping to get some furniture moved out to make room for processing boxes and organizing but no such luck. So weird that my mid-mod retro lamps and furnishings are languishing while selling scrap metal and posters.

Thanks Jay and Ryanne and all my fellow scavengers for keeping it fun and interesting!

9/5/2021 – 9/11/2021

Total items in store: 3316

Items sold: 62

Gross sales: $2933.29 (up 35% from one year ago)

Net sales: $2164.20 (up 46% from one year ago)

Lowest price sold (net): $8.93 — Isaiah McKenzie autographed rookie card

I only shifted to completely focusing on my niche, sports cards and autographs, in the last few years. Previously, I had a few different niches and wasted a lot of time unproductively scavenging at thrift stores or other places where I would most come home disappointed.

Focusing more on this niche completely changed that. One of the main reasons why is that I can scavenge without leaving the house now, but mostly I learned more about what sells and why. Superstar cards and hot rookies are always popular, and almost always very expensive (to the point of ridiculousness), but there is a market for lesser players cards as well. Certain players become very popular with their local fan base even if they’re not the best or flashiest player.

Isaiah McKenzie is one of those types, a football player for the Buffalo Bills who is described on Wikipedia as a “utility player” and has a penchant for long touchdown runs and kick returns. Last year he had a game with a few highlight reel touchdowns. After seeing that box score, I did some research and learned he was an underdog story with rookie cards in only a handful of sets. So I bought up a bunch of McKenzie autographs for $2 to $4 each. Every once in a while, one will sell for $10 to $20 and I will replace it with another from my stash.

There are a number of other players like this with few cards and a cult collector base. I wasn’t finding and selling cards like these a few years ago, even though I knew the niche more than 99.5% of people. But there is always more you can learn.

Highest price sold (net): $379.64 — Saquon Barkley cracked ice autograph rookie

I can fairly easily explain why this card is so expensive. The player in question is the young and popular running back for the New York Giants, Saquon Barkley. It’s his autograph rookie card (especially desired by collectors) and these cards (limited to just 10) were sold on Panini’s Rewards site for one day and sold out within minutes. There were no other copies of this card listed when mine sold. There are hundreds of new sets printed every year, but the top cards can disappear into collections quickly and take years to show up again, if they ever do.

If you want one of Saquon Barkley’s autographed rookies, regardless of quality, you’re gonna spend $100 minimum. I can see the logic behind spending a few hundred more and getting one of his best. If Barkley lives up to his potential, the card will be worth more in the future. It’s one of the most popular Panini designs, in part because it’s limited and in part because modern card collectors gravitate to shiny things like cats do. A lot of the desirability in specific modern cards (beyond the basic attributes like player, set and type of card) are in the ways the cards sparkle and shine.

$20 sales are the bread and butter of my eBay business, and probably yours too, but it takes a lot of $20 sales to equal one sale like this. Now if the buyer would just pick up the package, which USPS has attempted to deliver twice already!!!

I actually didn’t realize the package hadn’t been delivered yet until writing this post. A few years ago, I used to worry every time I sold an item over $100 and check the tracking numbers all the time. Now, I deal with a problem when I hear from a buyer (very rarely, maybe once every 2-3 weeks and I sell 50+ items a week) and my solution is always the same: whatever gets me out of the conversation fastest. If that means the occasional refund, fine. This may cost me a few bucks sometimes but it also makes for happy customers: knock on wood, I’m over 8500 feedback with no negatives and no neutrals.

From when something sells to shipping issues to who buyers your stuff, there are so many things out of our hands with an eBay store and it is so, so easy to waste time worrying about any or all of them. It’s so much more useful to focus on improving some part of your process that you do control: where and how you scavenge, or how you take pictures, or your listing flow, or organizing your inventory. You may not see immediate profits from making changes in those areas, but if you are patient and taking a longer term view, they will lead to profit down the road.

Our Store Week September 5-11, 2021

Total Items in Store: 531
Items Sold: 10
Gross Sales: $399.37 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $216.49 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $14
Cost of helpers: $0
Highest Price Sold: $43 old misc key lot
Average Price Sold: $39.94
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $43
Number of items listed this week: 8

Ebay fees at 40%, I wish they would stop including shipping cost and taxes in our sales numbers.  I’ve been putting one or two items up for auction each week, since I’ve noticed an increased interest in online auctions.  Had a 1963 Alden’s Catalog sell at auction for $39.99, but only one bid.  I only list items with a possible selling point of $20 or higher.  We have two antique booths where I put the lower price items.

Spent Saturday at 2 auctions and a neighborhood yard sale.  We are fortunate to have 2 auction houses within 20 miles of us.

Traveling and company the past few weeks has kept me from listing like I should…hoping this week to step it back up.

Wow that is an amazing week for only 36 items sold.  Looks like one of your better weeks as of late.  Hope all is well!

Weekly sales 9/5 – 9/11
Random Item Store
Total items 1013
Items sold 27
New items listed 90
Gross sales $549.60
Net sales $335.50

Patch Store 3141
Total items 3
Items sold 57
New items listed 147
Gross sales $389.26
Net sales $307.20

Etsy
Orders 17
Gross sales $174.30
Net sales $148.15

Gross sales total $1,113.16
Net sales total $790.85

Patches came through for me this week. I have 3 listings on Etsy that are multi quantity listings so all I have to do is fulfill orders when they come in. Two of the listings are post office patches (I found out the hard way eBay doesn’t like those) that I bought a thousand of each. I paid 50 cents a piece and sell them for $5 and have been making a few hundred dollars a month for over a year now. I don’t think I’ll buy anymore but it’s kinda been like printing money. I think a lot of people want the post office patches for Halloween costumes so sales are going up now. Someone just bought 15 yesterday.

Hi!  Got my coffee and trying the Cameroon – it’s nice.

Well I listed a few Halloween items this week and I’m determined to pare down our old costumes etc. I’m still kind of needing a solid Ebay day.  Day job is brisk at the moment.  Thrifting a bit and I love to hit it when the Halloween gets put out. Definitely, definitely more scavengers out in my neck of the woods than there used to be.  We are in a college and tourist city that is super short on hotel and food service staff. One wonders if some of those prospective employees have figured out selling online is better.

I discovered a reselling Podcast called Pure Hustle, and they have annoying promotions but they seem pretty sharp.  Had a recent episode truly mourning the departure of Jay and Ryanne.  They had some experimenting going on and decided that sales beget sales > listing.  I think he ran a sale and accepted a bunch of decent offers to fire up his sales after trying listing first and restarting listings. They acknowledge it could be other factors of course, but still interesting.

Happy Fall.  Retro keep healing.

“We are in a college and tourist city that is super short on hotel and food service staff. One wonders if some of those prospective employees have figured out selling online is better.”

ChristineR, I’ve been wondering the same thing. I live in a rural/small town area, and I definitely see more people buying at the thrifts, etc. And they clearly aren’t just buying stuff for themselves, as an experienced scavenger, it’s not too hard to tell when someone is buying for resale. Many of them are younger, 20s, 30s maybe….they may be supplementing their regular job income, but I think some are definitely using this as a substitute for a regular job.

@MyCottage yes young adults.  I do also know and see affluent teens who like to thrift for their own clothes and saw some college girl social media profiles listing thrifting as a hobby.  But also seeing obvious resellers. The big university is just starting so it may even get worse before it gets better.

On the flip side, bought a few items to wear on Poshmark and sellers seemed very willing to deal.

I doubt there are any reliable statistics on this sort of thing, but I suspect you are right…at least one reason employers are having a hard time filling positions is that people have found they can make money selling online (and/or at vendor markets, flea markets etc)  We seem to have quite a few crafters around here as well, and many of them buy used furniture, repainting it or even repurposing it, and then selling it….so while they see themselves primarily as “crafters” they are competing with me for stuff like old furniture and other items…

Add to this, the number of people, especially young people from fairly affluent families, who are making money investing in stocks, bitcoin, and so forth, or becoming “influencers”…or even professional computer game players….well, that’s a lot of people who aren’t looking to wait tables or stick shelves….

Agree.  Half of the job listings seem to be hotel housekeeping.  Certainly reselling is more appealing. My son made great money bussing tables last summer but he picked a really busy restaurant during peak season.  It will be interesting to see how many of the newer pickers stick with it.

ChristineR,

A lot of the jobs that are going unfilled have a pretty low entry bar (like hotel housekeeping and restaurant work) , and that is true of reselling online as well. A difference is, not only are you your own boss with online reselling, you can build up a good business over time, rather than just hoping for a small raise once in a blue moon….Still, it’s not for everyone, and I agree with you, some will drop out, for various reasons….