The Numbers: September 19-25, 2021

Our Store Week September  19-25, 2021

Total Items in Store: 1965
Items Sold: 17
Gross Sales: $729.48 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $458.15 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $88.29
Cost of helpers: $0
Highest Price Sold: 59.95 – 19” Fenton Amberina Stretch Glass Vase
Average Price Sold: $ 42.91
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $161.05

Number of items listed this week: 22

San Antonio was a good/bad experience…we only got to 7 Thrift Stores because… the car battery died, minus  the time it took to get it replaced at Walmart and getting  the ABS module checked out at the convenient Chevrolet dealership…which now needs replacing…oh well!  But we found 36 good items, ate some good food and came home…I changed the Handling time to 3 days and that’s all packed up and shipped out. Hope to get all the new stuff listed this week!

09/19/21 – 09/25/21

Total Items In Store: 3912
Items Sold: 26
Total Sales: $ 857.88
Highest Price Sold: $ 95 (Vintage Helmet)
Average Price Sold: $ 33.00
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 277.28
Number of items listed: 40

Gut Sales Report for the week: It started out slow, but on Wednesday things blew up in a good way and it started feeling like the busy season.

Focus for the week (and this past summer): Trying to get the house ready for an appraisal, so working on cleaning up everything.

Scavenge of the week: I found a 1952 typewriter for $25 that is immaculate. I will list it high because of the condition. I also picked up a DVD\VCR combo barely used in the original box. These in the original box new go for very high prices since they are not made anymore. Mine is the next best thing so I will list it high.

Thoughts for the week: Sales continue to come in as I list and even when I don’t list. The total dollar amount of items in my store has grown about 25% since June. The number of items in my store has grown about 20% since June. That feels great to know that I am making a significant difference in my store. Also, that would indicate my ASP is rising also. My projections for 4th quarter and next year are amazing. This is a real exciting time for my store.

Mark S

Total On eBay: 71

Items Sold: 1

Items Listed: 2 (Goal Achieved!)

Total Profit: $13.85 (Mon-Bell Fleece Pullover)

Goal This Week: 4

Total Items in Store: 311
Items Sold:  10
Gross Sales: $667.46 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $442.44 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $115
Highest Price Sold: $109 (set of three new plates (paid $48)
Average Price Sold: $49
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $+/-25
Number of items listed this week: 13

Another fun week for me getting back into Ebay and looking for Halloween decor.  Still didn’t find much Halloween as I feel it was really picked over except for costumes.  My own Pottery Barn Halloween stuff is doing well on Ebay so I have a search out on Mercari and Ebay for similar underpriced.  My daughter and her friend asked to go thrifting today so Gen Z is getting in on the action. She got a couple of clothing and accessory things for herself. That was fun.

Also went to an estate sale around the corner from my house.  The dealer had good taste and I went late but went back second day and bought a couple of midcentry Ikebana Japanese art pottery vases and steel frogs at half price. There was a really cool third one but a dealer got there before me on day 2.

Getting into it with Ebay again feels good. I’m straight up getting kind of loose with the photos and just want to get stuff listed.  I love having Terapeak, as it makes it so much easier to price.  I wish I could just list on my phone but really I need to work on the computer still. It does help to use a similar listing on Terapeak with a lot of the item specifics filled out. Then I add photos on my phone.

Love to see all the optimism in the thread heading into the new week. I have definitely noticed less eBay activity (both buying and selling), especially on the weekends, over the last few weeks. But listing consistently has helped me avoid a major downturn in sales even if a few individual days have been slow. And seeing how my sales compared to this time last year is always encouraging. Find those little reminders which show you that your store is growing and focus on them.

This weekend, I put serious thought into selecting items for a 30% markdown sale. My usual process is to quickly select 500 items by category or sometimes by size (bulky items) and offer a low discount of 15% to 20%. I do sales like that once or twice a month and generally see about $200 – $400 in net sales from those markdowns. I figured I’d try a different process this time and see how it went.

If this weekend is any indication, this method of marking down items might be more successful. If that’s the case, I’ll create a separate thread about my processes once I have enough to data to analyze them in some depth.

Utilizing tools like sales, sending offers to buyers and coded coupons is so important to us eBay scavengers in 2021. Amazing to think about how much the eBay selling platform has changed (in my opinion for the better!) in the last few years.

9/19/2021 – 9/25/2021

Total items in store: 3395

Items sold: 63 (41 from best offer, 12 from sending offers to buyers)

Gross sales: $2819.03 (up 97% from one year ago)

Net sales: $2031.92 (up 102% from one year ago)

Lowest price sold (net): $4.19 — vintage graded tennis card of Martina Navratilova

I’m not a collector, so I don’t feel regret or sadness when something sells. Quite the opposite. It’s exciting to get the adrenaline of the sale notification and I like knowing that the cards and other items I sell are going to their “forever home” or one step closer to it. But this sale was a bummer.

It’s not really because I made $1 profit (at most) after COGS. That’s obviously not what I was hoping for, but it will happen sometimes. Sometimes you might even lose a few bucks on a sale, but getting the physical space for new inventory and cash in your pocket is worth it.

But I’m a little bummed at this sale because these Sportscaster cards have an interesting story. The set was released from 1977 to 1979, covered all sorts of sports (everything from baseball to hockey to sumo wrestling and martial arts) and was sold in the US and abroad via magazine subscription 24 for $1.89. The 2000+ card set contains some of the earliest cards of all the great sports stars of the late 20th century — Wayne Gretzky, Muhammad Ali, Pele, Bruce Lee, Steve Prefontaine and so many others. Most people didn’t subscribe for the full runs, so many of the cards are quite rare compared to your more widely available 1970s Topps sets. Despite that, Sportscaster cards are not worth much — regardless of quality of player, regardless of graded or not graded, regardless of anything.

I completely understand why collectors don’t value these cards much. The cards are oversized (larger than 4″x6″) and because of that, storing them is a pain. It is easy to find protective supplies for standard sized cards, but harder for weird sized stuff like these cards. And the set is gigantic at over 2,000 cards. So where is the collector base for them? A few, like the Wayne Gretzky (one of his earliest cards) are valuable, particularly in a high grade, but most will sell for a buck or two ungraded and $10 to $20 bucks graded.

Seeing how low the demand for this set is made me think about the passage of time. How many of these cards will be around in 20 years, let alone have any interested buyers? Even a lot of the websites cataloguing the set, including one that had scans of every card, have dead links or have completely disappeared despite all the internet preservation tools in existence.

Most likely, the set’s legacy will continue on in the future in a new form. The late company Donruss used the design for standard sized cards in 2004 with some of the popular attributes of modern cards like variations and serial numbering. That set is practically vintage and lacking in a collector base at this point, so maybe the card world is due for a Sportscasters set in the next few years with autographs and shiny foil and whatever the next hot new card trend is.

Maybe that’s not sad, after all. Maybe that’s how things move forward and move on.

Highest price sold (net): $150.07 — Mason Crosby autographed printing plate

Crosby has been the kicker for the Green Bay Packers since 2007 and in fact won their game tonight with a last second field goal. There is a fairly robust market for rare cards of the best kickers, primarily because they have historically been ignored by the major card companies and received few cards. This is completely understandable, since the more casual fans (and collectors) want cards of the star quarterbacks and running backs and receivers, not kickers.

But these fan favorite cards do sell well, and this Crosby card in particular had higher value because it’s one of the 4 metal plates used to make the card and it’s his autographed rookie. Printing plates of lesser players without the autograph regularly sell for $5 or less, but the right player or autograph combination can go for much more, as this sale shows. I could have sold this plate a year ago for around $100, but received my full asking price by waiting.

This was one of three sales on Friday which all netted around $150. One of the others was a 20 year old autographed rookie of retired quarterback Kurt Warner. This card had very noticeable damage, but Warner’s rookie cards and autographs have value because he has such a classic underdog story that there’s a biopic coming out about him later this year. (Which is probably why the card sold, now that I think about it.)

The third was a red numbered to 5 autographed gem graded rookie of Chicago Cubs catcher Willson Contreras, one of the best players from their World Series teams. The Cubs have fallen on tough times and are moving towards younger players, so Contreras is probably set to move on to a new team next year, as most of his teammates from those great Cubs teams already have. This buyer was from Illinois, so I imagine this card has to be one of the centerpieces of their collection and memories of those winning teams.

Technically, my largest sale this week was an order of about 15 hockey cards to one buyer which totaled over $250. This was notable because the buyer said they’d pay two weeks ago, then asked for more time twice. That leads to non-payment almost every time, but in this case the buyer paid on Friday like they said they would. After they paid, the buyer sent me a long message thanking me for my patience and promising to place another large order in the near future. That almost never happens, either, but maybe lightning will strike twice in this case. If anything, it was another reminder that bad buyers are the exception and not the rule.

Our Store Week September 19-25, 2021

Total Items in Store: 529
Items Sold: 5
Gross Sales:$175.58 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $94.37 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $5
Highest Price Sold: $30 (Whirley Travel Mug)
Average Price Sold: $35.12
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $5
Number of items listed this week: 4

Getting ready to head to Gulfport AL for some vacation time with our son and family so changed handling time to 2 weeks and turned off promotions on Friday.  Will be interesting to see how that affects the store/sales.

Sales continue to be slow and I’ve not listed.  I do believe there is a correlation between listing and sales.  But then again, even our antique booths have slowed down this week, so maybe it’s the increased virus numbers in Ohio.

No auctions this week, but hit a couple yard sales and thrift stores for a few bread and butter items.  Sourcing helps keep me motivated to list, but I have a large backlog of items waiting to be listed:).  I never panicked about inventory during the shutdown earlier, I probably won’t get all I have listed before I die.  I call that pile the “revenge pile” …my kids will have to deal with it, payback for those stressful teenage years of sleepless nights they put us through years ago:)

Week of Sept 19 – 25
Total Items in Store: 1387 eBay, 39 Etsy
Items Sold: 8 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $11.85 + $17.50 Commission
Total Sales: $253.20 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $97.50 Set Rogers silver plate flatware service for 12
Average price: $31.65
Returns: 1 (refunded)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 38

I finally had a large listing week. I was just too busy during the summer to get anywhere over maybe 10. Monday and Tuesday ended up big listing days (with zero sales on those days), but I sold 5 items on Wednesday. If that isn’t an indication of how eBay rewards activity, I don’t know what is. I sold one item a day for the rest of the week.

I have to remember NOT to sell new in the box items that have batteries. My one return this week was a Jawbone ear piece that was new and sealed in the box, but was over 10 years old. The buyer complained that it wouldn’t charge. They are probably going to just buy a replacement battery (I assume that is available), but I just refunded them in full. I’ve run into this issue in the past, and I just have to sell these items as “used” and needing a new battery. Or, just not list them.

Sales Report for: 9/25/21
Total Items in Store: 1199
Items Sold: 16
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $646.46
Net Sales (After fees): $523.92
Cost of Items Sold: $78.45
COGS Percent 14.97%
Net Profit Margin: 68.91%
Highest Price Sold: $130.00 New Waterfield Leather Bag
Average Price Sold: $40.40
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 11
Promoted Percentage: 68.75%
Average Days Listed: 274.69
Longest Listed: 1444
New items listed: 17

Still listing postcards.  Lost a bit of momentum on listing this week as I had some family commitments and I got into some unusual cards and went down a rabbit hole on research.  The thread having listings “good enough” was timely for me.  It’s hard for me to leave a mystery alone.  Several of the cards I have are seemingly rate and I am still too green at postcards to know when that means they’re high dollar or just that no one is interested.  I’ve been using the site delcampe.com to identify and price, along with eBay, but Delcampe has a better history for the European cards that I am pricing.  Keep telling myself that these are long tail and the buyers will come.  Got some reinforcement from some playing card decks I sold this week.  Bought a huge lot a while back and spent a lot of time researching and listing them.  Now they trickle in regularly.  Sold 3 decks this week for $15 – $30 and a lot of the ones that weren’t worth listing individually for $35.

My high dollar sale this week was a leather Waterfield messenger bag for $130.  It was basically free to me as it was hidden inside another bag when a purchased a lot of TUMI luggage.  I’m a little nervous about the sale as it is going to Mexico to a buyer with only 1 previous rating and no purchases in the last year.  I’ve never been burned before…  I sold it on offer so I’m rationalizing that a thief would have just bought it outright. Insured just in case.

Total Items in Store: 133

Items Listed: 10

Items Sold: 10

Total Sales: $174.50

Highest Price Sold: $50 Breyer Special Run Grane Model Horse

Glad to see my sales are improving. I listed my goal of 10 new items, and have started ending and relisting about 5 items every day. It seems to be stimulating sales of old and new stuff – several items sold this week I originally listed at least a year ago. I am still leery of ending items, I sure thought I used to see a message that eBay could penalize sellers for ending too many items, so I always was picky about ending listings.

I have gotten a ton of really silly-low offers on my items with best offer enabled recently. Like something listed for $20 will get an offer of $1 or something for $50 will get an offer of $5. I always counter, usually about half way between listing and offer, and never hear back. I haven’t paid attention to the person making the offer to see if they are high feedback likely resellers fishing for deals or newbies. It gets old to see I have a bunch of offers only to click through and see them all ridiculous numbers.

Did a bit of shopping at yard sales, but they were all total duds. Prices way too high and sellers unwilling to come down. Baseball caps continue to be a staple selling item for me so I watch for them, but even those were priced high. Luckily the storeroom is full of stuff to keep working!

Weekly sales 9/19 – 9/25
Random Item Store
Total items 1128
Items sold 33
New items listed 70
Gross sales $748.90
Net sales $487.73

Patch Store
Total items 3467
Items sold 54
New items listed 140
Gross sales $388.24
Net sales $303.18

Etsy
Orders 43
Gross sales $394.55
Net sales $335.37

Gross sales total $1,531.69
Net sales total $1,126.28

eBay sales were almost identical to last week. I’m wondering if that’s going to happen more often as I continue to do the same thing week after week. Etsy has blown up the last couple weeks. I guess a lot of people are buying post office patches for Halloween.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Store still closed. Another week of recovery. I’ll be off work probably the rest of the year per my doc.
my wife is dealing with a “fun” post Covid issue – Covid can attack your liver after the virus moves on from your lungs. Her liver enzymes spiked on blood work 2 weeks after she was released from the hospital. They were fine before hospital and while</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>in hospital. It will be a while before we can be certain it is just moderate Covid damage and not something more serious depending on if her enzymes steady and then lower or continue to increase.

</p>
Folks, all politics and misinformation aside I can tell you 100% that this virus is NOT just the flu. Our lives are likely permanently altered. It sucks.

I have to see what those drawer pulls look like.  That’s a nice sale.

9/19/21 – 9/25/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 371
Items Sold: 10
Gross Sales: $317.43 (not incl shipping or taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $160 plus shipping – Belgian FN49 rifle bayonet.
Returns:  0
COGS: $69 (including consignment commissions but not including original cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 27
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0