The Numbers: January 23-29, 2022

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This topic has 45 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 3 months ago by NC.

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- 01/30/2022 at 3:14 pm #94905
  Jay
  Keymaster
  Location: Virginia
  @jay
  This week we had two very painful returns. One return was $100 pair of boots for fit. The second return was a $300 set of dishes. She says she just di
  [See the full post at: The Numbers: January 23-29, 2022]
- 01/30/2022 at 3:29 pm #94908
  ChristineR
  Participant
  Location: Southern California
  @christiner
  Total Items in Store: 267
  Items Sold: 6
  Gross Sales: $446.57 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $314.78 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: +/- $140
  Highest Price Sold: $280 (New duvet and shams set)
  Average Price Sold: $68
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
  Number of items listed this week: 0
  
  Lots of day job and life stuff happening again. I guess I’m just posting so you can see what happens if someone is lousy at listing for a while. 🙂 I sold some older listings this week, which is really great. This week isn’t too promising since I have my tax stuff in order but now need to do COGS. I don’t see any reason to get EZ auction tracker again now that Ebay is providing all of the other numbers. I can see that I seem to be paying proportionally more in fees to Ebay than last year. I still have 2% promoted on.
  
  Hope everyone in the East is managing to stay warm.
- 01/30/2022 at 5:00 pm #94909
  Mark S
  Participant
  Location:
  @mark-s
  01/23/22 – 01/29/22
  
  Total Items In Store: 4227 (was 4226 previously listed)
  Items Sold: 18
  Total Sales: $ 657.86 (no shipping included)
  Highest Price Sold: $ 120 (Boots)
  Average Price Sold: $ 36.55
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 315.87
  Number of items listed: 19
  
  Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales were slow at the beginning of the week, then picked up. Ended up decent.
  
  Focus for the week : Trying to keep up with listing what my photographer completes.
  
  Scavenge of the week: Picked up a Brother Printer\Copier\Scanner for $37.50. I think I can get around $200 for it. Also, picked up a bunch of 1970’s Quimper plates and other Quimper items at an estate sale. I have done well with my other 1940’s Quimper pottery (after hearing about it from J &R). I still have some of the 1940’s Quimper that I bought – it sells for good money but is long tail.
  
  Thoughts for the week: Still waiting on the editing of my episode 1 for my youtube channel. I met a guy at the thrift store this week who showed me that he had sold $31,000 on Mercari last month with 26,000
  items. That is the largest store I have heard of personally – either here or in person. He also sells on ebay doing cross listing with Six Bit.
  
  Mark S
  - 01/30/2022 at 5:25 pm #94910
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    I met a guy at the thrift store this week who showed me that he had sold $31,000 on Mercari last month with 26,000 items. That is the largest store I have heard of personally – either here or in person. He also sells on ebay doing cross listing with Six Bit.
    
    Only stores I’ve seen that size are sellers who have a warehouse and a staff. $31k sales in a month is impressive, but I’d be curious what how much it costs to sell that much (employees, building, utilities, etc).
    - 01/30/2022 at 5:33 pm #94911
      Mark S
      Participant
      
      Location:
      @mark-s
      
      Jay,
      
      That was what I also thought after I spoke with him. I should have asked what his net profit is before taxes. It was a fairly quick interaction that I had with him in line at the thrift store. I wish I would have taken down his store name or other contact information so that I could ask him more questions. But, what he said did make sense. If I had 26,000 items in my store, it could generate the gross income he said. He said he had been doing it for 10 years. My guess is that he has several employees and a large building or warehouse to handle that volume.
      
      I have never seen him at a sale or at the post office in this area. I usually run into other ebayers in the area that way. Maybe he was just in town for the day, I don’t know.
      
      Mark
      - 01/30/2022 at 6:38 pm #94912
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        I have never seen him at a sale or at the post office in this area.
        
        If I were him, I’d be buying in bulk and having stuff shipped to me (buying estates, pallets of clothes, etc). Then, I’d arrange to have USPS do a pickup each day at my warehouse.
      - 01/31/2022 at 9:07 am #94929
        
        Joe
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @joe
        
        You should check out “My Boring Reseller Life” on Youtube. As of today, he is reaching 31,000 listings on eBay. He is a one man show, although he mostly sells media (records, CDs, cassettes) and hats which would make shipping a little bit faster, but it is doable going at it alone. I think he sells about $1,000 a day on average.
        
        01/31/2022 at 9:12 am #94930
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        Very true. If you focus on an easy-to-store niche (postcards, patches, hats, media, coins, stamps), then its much easier to have a huge inventory on your own.
        
        But if you sell clothes or miscellaneous items like many of us do, I cant imagine building a 30k item inventory. We’re at 8k items and it’s a beast.
        
        02/01/2022 at 7:26 pm #94978
        
        NC
        Participant
        
        Location: Georgia
        @millionairedojo
        
        This guy has a 3 person operation and does only clothes and hats. I think he said he got up to a million in gross sales annual by himself and is now over 2 million. He said he’s worked many 18 hour days in the past though.
        
        https://www.ebay.com/str/technsports
        
        02/04/2022 at 10:25 am #94995
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        This guy is a machine with 43k items. And it looks like he sells all “one of a kind” used items.
        
        I cannot think how he has time to scavenge, list, do customer service, and ship.
        
        02/04/2022 at 11:06 am #94997
        
        Retro Treasures WV
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @retro-treasures-wv
        
        Him and the old “10konthebay” guy are partners running an ebay selling help group. The youtube channel is called Daily refinement. His videos have the usual clickbait titles but the content is wonderful. They are legit and pretty upfront and honest about how it all works.
        
        1. No shortcuts – do the work
        
        2. Create a schedule – manage your time
        
        3. Improve your processes a little bit every day
        
        Their business plan is 100% a sweatshop, but if you have really good work instructions and hire people to run it for you, you can focus on the areas that are enjoyable. In alot of their videos you can see his workers in the background taking photos. They don’t mess around!
        
        02/04/2022 at 11:14 am #94998
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        Their business plan is 100% a sweatshop, but if you have really good work instructions and hire people to run it for you, you can focus on the areas that are enjoyable. In alot of their videos you can see his workers in the background taking photos. They don’t mess around!
        
        That’s the way to do it. I’m impressed. I imagine they have a lot of staff turnover because that is a super grind of photographing and listing all day. Paying people even $15/hr (plus W-2 taxes) is likely not enough to keep people glued to a table month after month.
        
        Have you seen a video where they discuss hiring and keeping staff? That’s where I assume much of their time goes.
        
        02/04/2022 at 12:00 pm #95002
        
        Retro Treasures WV
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @retro-treasures-wv
        
        I’ve heard him talk about what he pays his employees (it’s over $20 an hour but don’t remember exact amount), how many things they have to photograph a day (its over 100), and how long they’ve worked for him etc but I can’t remember the specific video I saw it in. He’s likely talked about it in many videos.
        
        02/06/2022 at 6:20 pm #95036
        
        NC
        Participant
        
        Location: Georgia
        @millionairedojo
        
        I’ve listened to all of their podcasts and they go over just about everything. Technsports doesn’t have a high turnover rate at all. He’s got a super refined process so the people that work with him don’t have to think about anything. They create 300 listings between the three of them 5 days a week. He has people who buy for him and he pays $5 per item so these buyers are making a full time income just buying clothes for him since he needs thousands of pieces every week. He lives in Miami and he calls it the “last stop before donated clothes are shipped overseas”.
        
        02/06/2022 at 6:22 pm #95037
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        He’s got a super refined process so the people that work with him don’t have to think about anything. They create 300 listings between the three of them 5 days a week.
        
        You have any idea how much he pays people? Any job that is demanding (like listing 100 items a day) will likely need to be well paid. But he also might be a really good guy which does go a long way.
        
        02/06/2022 at 6:52 pm #95041
        
        Retro Treasures WV
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @retro-treasures-wv
        
        Seeing how hard people work in restaurants for low wages, I think taking photos of clothes would be just fine considering they don’t have to deal with customers.
        
        02/06/2022 at 6:58 pm #95043
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        True. Just curious if he’s said a number. $10/hr to list 100 items a day (5 days a week, 4 weeks a month)seems not worth it. That’s not a chill day. $20/hr seems better but still tough for being a robot.
        
        Low wage jobs churn through staff. If he’s paying high wages to keep people, just means his net profit goes down. That scavenger equation is brutal.
        
        3 people x $20/hr x 8 hours a day = $480/day in labor (before the employer’s side of W-2 taxes). $2400/week. $9600/month.
        
        Labor is the most important (and expensive) line item in our coffee shop.
        
        02/07/2022 at 7:08 am #95050
        
        NC
        Participant
        
        Location: Georgia
        @millionairedojo
        
        I think the 3 people include him (the owner) he talked about his employees at some point and said one of them is his wife’s sister and the other is a relative of someone who works for him in another business (he literally has 10 businesses. I don’t know how he does it). He said he pays his wife’s sister like $20 an hour and I think the other person is paid $12 or $15.
- 01/30/2022 at 7:21 pm #94913
  Mark S
  Participant
  Location:
  @mark-s
  Jay,
  
  That could be what he is doing and would explain why I haven’t seen him before. Good deduction.
  
  Mark
- 01/31/2022 at 8:22 am #94925
  NC
  Participant
  Location: Georgia
  @millionairedojo
  Weekly sales 1/23 – 1/29
  Total items: 6698
  Items sold: 160
  New items listed: 350
  Gross sales: $1,723.41
  Net sales: $1,218.00
  New buyers: 120
  Repeat buyers: 3
  
  Etsy
  Orders: 22
  Gross sales: $240.00
  Net sales: $204.00
  
  Gross sales total: $1,963.41
  Net sales total: $1,422.00
  
  Another solid week. If my numbers stay like this for the year then I think I’m going to make a decent amount more than I was at my old job.
  - 01/31/2022 at 8:24 am #94926
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    It’s exciting to see you build your pipeline. I know it wasn’t easy, but I think you’ve made it over the big gap.
    
    Next step is you’ll be taking vacations while still make that same money every week.
    - 02/01/2022 at 8:54 am #94963
      NC
      Participant
      
      Location: Georgia
      @millionairedojo
      
      Yeah I’ve taken a couple days off here and there but looking forward to taking some time off this year. Sometimes I only work 4-6 hours a day so it’s nice not being chained to a job where I have to be on the computer for an arbitrary amount of time even if I don’t have work to do.
      - 02/01/2022 at 9:45 am #94965
        
        Retro Treasures WV
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @retro-treasures-wv
        
        Ah yes, perfecting the “Costanza” is a requirement for desk jockeying when you routinely finish your daily work in 2-3 hours.
  - 01/31/2022 at 7:59 pm #94948
    annaesthetic23
    Participant
    
    Location: Flowery Branch, Georgia
    @annaesthetic23
    @millionairedojo A solid week indeed! I am seriously considering cross posting some of my best vintage clothes to Etsy… do you have any must-know advice for that? I’m sorry if you have mentioned this before and I just missed it or don’t recall, but do you use a software to cross post? Just curious about your experience with this aspect as I think about diversifying a bit! Thanks!
    - 02/01/2022 at 7:44 am #94960
      NC
      Participant
      
      Location: Georgia
      @millionairedojo
      
      I actually don’t cross-post to etsy. I have about 10 multi-quantity patch listings and almost all of my sales come from two different types of post office patches (I bought a thousand each of them). I actually started selling on Etsy after I realized that eBay wouldn’t allow me to sell post office stuff. I barely know anything about Etsy since I’ve only got a few listings and pretty much all I do nowadays is fulfill orders.
      - 02/02/2022 at 4:04 am #94980
        
        Steve List
        Participant
        
        Location: Richmond, Calif.
        @steve-list
        
        “eBay wouldn’t allow me to sell post office stuff”. I just realized I haven’t sold any of my 2 piece sets of “Post Office Dept. – USA” (pony express rider in center) round patch with a banner patch that goes above it and reads “Letter Carrier”. I just checked and my listing for them is gone. I just checked the eBay policy https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-items/government-items-policy?id=4318 and it doesn’t mention patches but does list a few other things that I sold in the past and I guess could of casued an eBay warning or worse. Like you NC, I bought a large lot of these (500-700 sets or so). They were at a warehouse estate sale in San Rafael, CA about 3-4 years ago.
  - 01/31/2022 at 10:48 pm #94953
    craig rex
    Participant
    
    Location: south jersey
    @craig-rex
    @millionairedojo
    
    Continually impressed by your weekly numbers, and especially your dedication to pumping out so many new listings week after week. Do you spend a set period of time each day making new listings, or do a large batch for 6-8 hours a few days and spread those new listings out throughout the week?
    - 02/01/2022 at 7:52 am #94961
      NC
      Participant
      
      Location: Georgia
      @millionairedojo
      
      Thanks! I just treat it like a job I have to clock in to and don’t stop until I get my listings created. I do 75 listings 5 days a week and that consists of 15 hats and 60 patches. I save them as drafts and every morning 7 days a week I hop on and launch 10 hat drafts and 40 patch drafts. It probably takes me about 4 hours to get 75 drafts created. I consider “working late” to be anything past 4pm and I usually start around 7:30-8. I can knock out patch listings super quick so if I were selling in another category I probably wouldn’t be able to do as much per day.
      - 02/02/2022 at 6:47 pm #94991
        
        craig rex
        Participant
        
        Location: south jersey
        @craig-rex
        
        Really good info, thanks for sharing it. My primary niche is trading cards and I would bet that our processes are very similar in terms of what info gets changed from listing to listing and how long the new listings actually take. Figuring out the right listing template and process in these niche collectible categories is a big part of being able to scale up and grow your store. A lot of sellers in my niche only picture the front of the card (not the back) and have a description that just says SEE TITLE, in the interest of building up a store with 100,000 listings or more. That’s not enough info (in my opinion) for an interested buyer, but it also took me a long time to learn that it’s almost never worth it to spend more than ~2-3 minutes creating any one individual listing.
        
        Right now I’m happy with 50 new listings a week, which is about the number of items I sell each week with a ~3000 item store. For the time being, I’m pretty much maxed out in terms of the space I have to store new inventory. But once I get my space more organized or get into a bigger space, I may have to try your listing flow and see how it works for me.
        
        02/03/2022 at 1:26 pm #94992
        
        NC
        Participant
        
        Location: Georgia
        @millionairedojo
        
        No problem! Yeah if I had your numbers I’d be happy to stay where you’re at lol. You said that you sell about the same amount as you list each week and that’s where I want to be. Will have to see how my days are when my sales are close to 50 a day, I don’t think it will be too bad, I’ll just have to stay focused.
        
        But yeah my listing process is to go to my store and sell similar off of items that are already listed and update the necessary info. The description is the same for everything but I put more information in the description notes section for hats. For patches I do a picture of front and back and I feel like that’s pretty much all the description the buyer needs along with a descriptive title.
- 01/31/2022 at 8:43 am #94927
  Retro Treasures WV
  Participant
  Location:
  @retro-treasures-wv
  Items in Store 1603
  Items Sold 20
  Total Sales $861.00
  COGS $60.00
  Total Profit $801.00
  Average profit $40.05
  Average sales price $43.05
  New Listings 50
  Items scavenged 30
  Listing 2022 weekly Avg 46
  Sourcing Allotment 12
  
  Did a bit of impromptu sourcing this week – some retail arbitrage at Walmart, and I won a few auctions from a local thrift store that does facebook virtual auctions.
  
  My sales are really cyclical – my sales chart looks like a sine wave (nerd alert!). Yesterday I only sold 2 $25 items. Boo! It sucks when my sales trend toward a $1000 week all week long and then the weekend craps the bed – only 5 sales on saturday/sunday.
  
  Oh well, keep on listing – the sales will come.
  - 01/31/2022 at 10:51 pm #94954
    craig rex
    Participant
    
    Location: south jersey
    @craig-rex
    My sales are really cyclical – my sales chart looks like a sine wave (nerd alert!).
    
    I can cosign this pattern this week.
    
    I’ll see myself out…
    
    Seriously, though, I’ve noticed that Saturdays/Sundays have been slower for me in the last few months, especially when I have 3+ day gaps without creating any new listings. Even sending out offers to watchers, putting items on sale, etc doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.
- 01/31/2022 at 11:19 am #94937
  Sharyn
  Participant
  Location: Central NJ
  @sharyn
  Week of Jan 23 – 29
  Total Items in Store: 1412 eBay, 30 Etsy
  Items Sold: 6 eBay, 0 Etsy
  Cost of Items Sold: $0 + $15.90 Commission
  Total Sales: $141.62 eBay, Includes fees but no shipping
  Highest Price Sold: $69 for 6 JCPenney Sheer Panel Curtain Set
  Average price: $23.60
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
  Number of items listed this week: 15
  
  Pretty quiet week with no sales Friday and Saturday. But then, I started listing on the weekend, and I had six sales on Sunday.
  
  I’m starting to list my new commission from our neighbor across the street. Just to recap, he is a widow and wants me to sell the stuff that his wife had accumulated over the years. She had a shopping habit, any many of the items are new or in very good condition. I think they will do well. One item sold on Sunday for $50.
- 01/31/2022 at 11:45 am #94940
  Julie B
  Participant
  Location: Georgia
  @julie-b
  My goal for the year is to double my profits. So far so good, exceeded my goal for January and that’s even with not posting much the last few weeks due to taking inventory. Ebay has always been my #1 and Poshmark was a distant 2nd, usually accounting for 10% of my sales but this month Posh has been on fire and accounts for 34% of my January profit. I’ve been crossposting some stale ebay items over there. Some items that have sat on Ebay for years have sold within 24-48 hours on Poshmark and for more money!
  
  I’m still not impressed with Mercari however. Since I’m already paying for ListPerfectly to crosspost to Poshmark, I figured I may as well crosspost some things to Mercari as well as it won’t cost me anything and doesn’t take much time. I hate that nearly every field is a drop down menu. And everyone wants me to sell them my stuff at a loss. I’ve also had issues with their shipping not updating tracking info until after the buyer receives the item which has caused some issues. I’ll give it another month or so but I may bail on Mercari.
- 01/31/2022 at 8:16 pm #94951
  annaesthetic23
  Participant
  Location: Flowery Branch, Georgia
  @annaesthetic23
  Hey all! January has been pretty meh until the last 4 or 5 days. I’ve done a little over 6k in gross revenue this month, as of right now. I haven’t taken the time to break down my weeks because I’ve been doing these eBay Seller conference calls with all the Up & Running folks. It’s been very interesting! As I’m sure many of us in this forum would experience, I haven’t learned boatloads of new information, but it has been very helpful and encouraging to hear from/talk with other sellers of many varieties, not to mention hearing directly from some of the eBay corporate people themselves! I think my favorite thing has definitely been the Q&A sessions, because everyone involved is pretty experienced, so the questions are good! By the way, I am allowed to share links to these calls (they are like zoom presentations and Q&As) with anyone who wants to view them after the fact, so if anybody is interested, let me know the best way to get them to you. It’s been funny and enlightening to hear everyone’s questions during the Q&A sessions — many of the same ones we wonder about around here, to be sure! Here are some of my personal favorite takeaways so far:
  
  1. There are lots of myths and mystery about the algorithm, but the only thing the eBay corporate facilitators would definitively say about helping the algorithm work in your favor is to list at least a little every day–specifically, don’t go more than 3 days without listing. I usually binge-list for a couple of days a couple times a month due to the nature of my workflow with my helpers, so I’m doing an experiment and adhering to this advice for the rest of Q1 to see if it seems to make a difference.
  
  2. There is no foreseeable hope for combined shipping through global shipping program. Sorry, we have to live with it. It was only slightly crushing to hear this right from the horse’s mouth, haha!
  
  3. Especially for items like mine (super misc), as has been discussed many times around here, heavily discounting things on mega-sale will likely not result in a whole lot of sales volume; they instead recommend (of course, haha) putting the profit you are willing to give up into promoted listings adspend because then at least you are getting something in exchange for the sacrifice of your profit! More eyeballs on your listings! I have always struggled to balance how much of a sale I want to have so people feel like they are getting a deal (and they are!), and how much to promote listings without feeling like I’m throwing away money. I never thought of doing promoted listings basically INSTEAD of a sale, and how that might actually result in more sales volume, so I am doing a little experimentation with that this quarter also. I still haven’t figured out entirely how to spend the grant money, but I have spent a little bit of it on storage infrastructure, some extra labor as I clean out this current estate I’m working on, and also tried out eBay for Charity for the first time. That was exciting, and I am happy to say we were able to make a $500 donation to the Midwest Innocence Project for the first time ever. I want to commit to it again in the future, but for now I turned it back off so I can get my revenue cranking. I really want to hit 100k in sales this year, and now that I know by experience how eBay for charity works, I will be a lot more comfortable pulling the trigger for more than just a trial-run in the future.
  
  Let me know your most burning questions if you have any, and I will try to ask them in the next Q&A! We’ve got a couple more weeks worth of those on Fridays.
  
  I also am thinking seriously about cross-posting some of my best vintage clothes onto Etsy, so any tips/advice/cross posting recs would be very much appreciated! Cheers everybody!
  - 01/31/2022 at 11:05 pm #94955
    craig rex
    Participant
    
    Location: south jersey
    @craig-rex
    the only thing the eBay corporate facilitators would definitively say about helping the algorithm work in your favor is to list at least a little every day–specifically, don’t go more than 3 days without listing
    
    This is extremely useful information, thanks for sharing it with us. This strikes me as one of the most important questions to ask when sales are slow. I would venture to say that if eBay is going on the record about listing a little every day, then it’s a really important factor to the search algorithm.
    
    Also, good on you for bringing a little money and more importantly awareness to the Innocence Project. They do great work and are horribly underfunded, in some areas barely funded and reliant on volunteers.
  - 02/01/2022 at 8:47 am #94962
    NC
    Participant
    
    Location: Georgia
    @millionairedojo
    @annaesthetic23
    
    I’m glad I can now say my suspicions were true, listing every day has a big impact. I started listing 50 a day 7 days a week on Jan 1st and I have to say I’m happy with the results so far. I bet you will sell a lot more if you take the same amount of listings you’re currently doing and spreading them across the month a little every day.
  - 02/01/2022 at 12:27 pm #94967
    Lukastreasure
    Participant
    
    Location: Chevy Chase, MD
    @lukastreasuretrove
    @annaesthetic23 – Thanks for sharing the info from your program. Interesting stuff, especially about the algorithm. I almost always do the bulk of my listing on Thursdays and Fridays, will have to reconsider that.
    
    Regarding cross-posting to Etsy, I’ve been on a project to duplicate my vintage items over using Sixbit. It has a bit of a learning curve to get it set up right, but once you have it figured out it is fairly simple. For the average seller, the cost of $120/month is a bit steep, but for a store the size of yours it might pay off. For my types of items, mainly collectables, I’m not sure Etsy is the right fit as I get many more views of newly posted items on eBay. Cross posting existing inventory is time consuming as the only information that is automatically copied over to the Etsy listing is the price, title, package dimensions and pictures. Description and other listing details all have to be manually input again. For new listings it is a small incremental addition, but for existing you’re redoing a lot of information that can take 5 – 10 minutes per listing (once you get the hang of it).
- 01/31/2022 at 10:43 pm #94952
  craig rex
  Participant
  Location: south jersey
  @craig-rex
  We received about six inches of snow in south Jersey this weekend, which helped me keep the listing pipeline going after a week where shipping was annoying and most of the energy I had for eBay went towards organizing listed and unlisted inventory. I’m already ready for warmer weather, but this was a nice end to the first month of the year.
  
  1/23/2022 – 1/29/2022
  
  Total items in store: 3319 (down from 3323)
  
  Items sold: 61 (37 via best offer, 8 via seller initiated offer)
  
  Gross sales: $3487.64 (down 40% from one year ago, but one year ago this week included my highest priced sale ever, so it’s nice to be within 50% of that total)
  
  Net sales: $2449.55 (down 47% from one year ago)
  
  Lowest price sold (net): $9.81 — Mahmut Tekmedir Mosaic gold prizm soccer card
  
  One of two soccer cards to the same buyer, located in Poland with a shipping address at a US freight forwarder. Circle of eBay, got to love it.
  
  Premium soccer cards, along with other niche sports like women’s basketball & MMA, have only really become a thing in the last 3 years, and I have little to no knowledge about these sports. I could name a few big players or teams but that’s it. So every new set that comes out is a learning experience. The set brands and types of cards have a lot of overlap from sport to sport, and that provides me with a little bit of a clue about what types of cards might sell. But there’s always more to learn.
  
  Highest price sold (net, total for all 3 listings): $209.61 — Gabriel Davis National Treasures auto patch card
  
  Gabriel Davis set an all-time NFL playoff record last week with 4 receiving touchdowns, and even though his team the Buffalo Bills lost to end their season, this was one of three different autographed Davis cards which all sold within minutes of the end of the game. I raised the price on all of my Davis cards as the game was progressing and I saw that he kept scoring touchdowns.
  
  I would have been fine with selling any of the cards at their original price. I would have made a nice profit. But since I know card prices fluctuate around significant events, one of my goals this year was to pay closer attention to the big games so I can take advantage of those price fluctuations. I don’t want to watch all the important games (maybe once or twice a month I’ll feel the urge to watch a game), but checking the scores only takes a few minutes and so does changing prices. I’m an expert at buying low, and these sales are proof that with the right combination of luck and timing, I can raise some prices beyond the normal sales history and still make the sale.
  
  If I save some searches for Gabriel Davis cards, in a few months during the football off-season, I can buy these cards (or similar ones) for half the price or less. It seems completely irrational, but paying attention to the game helped me understand these buyers a little more. The game was an all-time classic, back and forth, with the winner only decided in the last few seconds. It must have been devastating for Bills fans to see their team lose in such a dramatic way, despite all their amazing performances. But at least they can spend $50 or whatever on this guy’s autograph as a consolation prize and memento of the amazing game. And maybe in those moments after the game, they convince themselves that he (and the team) will be even better next year, so they can sell his cards then and even make some profit. Whether they will or not doesn’t really matter – this is what I think is the justification in the moment, why hundreds of his autographs sold right after the game for higher prices. I don’t know if they were all fans of the team, I think there are a lot of not-so-smart flippers in there, but I would bet some of them are fans and the purchase was how they dealt with their feelings.
  
  I don’t really look at a money as a tool to make me feel better, or something to spend impulsively, but I think that’s the case for a lot of people.
  - 02/01/2022 at 6:57 am #94958
    Retro Treasures WV
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @retro-treasures-wv
    I don’t really look at a money as a tool to make me feel better, or something to spend impulsively, but I think that’s the case for a lot of people.
    
    And they’ll spend it even if they don’t have it too! Man, if I had a nickel for every time someone bought some random trinket and then messaged me to ask if I can wait a week or two for them to have the money to pay…
    
    It boggles my mind how someone could live like this, but it is true for a large percentage of Americans I fear.
    - 02/02/2022 at 6:35 pm #94990
      craig rex
      Participant
      
      Location: south jersey
      @craig-rex
      
      Man, if I had a nickel for every time someone bought some random trinket and then messaged me to ask if I can wait a week or two for them to have the money to pay…
      
      I get this a lot with the trading cards buyers. I would say it’s as high as 25% of buyers. I think a lot of people buying and selling cards are using credit, or the profits from one eBay sale to pay for another purchase. I almost always say yes, take a week if you need it. eBay’s unpaid item assistant makes it so easy to relist…and every so often, not only do these buyers actually pay after asking me to wait a week, but they buy again in the future.
      
      It boggles my mind how someone could live like this, but it is true for a large percentage of Americans I fear.
      
      Some of the early podcast episodes (well 2-3 years ago when I started listening) Jay mentions his work history before he started doing the video jobs and long before eBay, a lot of service jobs and kitchens and whatever else he could find. It was one of the things that made me love the podcast right away because that was similar to how I spent my twenties and even the beginning of my thirties as I was finishing my college degree. A lot of low paying, really hard work jobs that left me tired at the end of the day. It didn’t matter how hard I worked at them because there was really no opportunity for advancement. I made just enough to scrape by, and any time an unexpected bill came up (like car repair or a medical bill) I was screwed. Even working multiple jobs, even as I was doing the “right things” to get ahead in life.
      
      So once in a while, I spent money I “shouldn’t have” to do something fun or get myself something I wanted or needed. I don’t know if it was impulsive or not. It was never backpacking across Europe or anything huge like that. Just enough so that I didn’t spend my entire twenties working and sleeping and going to school.
      
      There are other factors. Financial education in the US is…not great, and it’s so easy to buy things with the click of a button that I think for some people, buying too much online is a real negative problem in their life. But I think my story is common as well. The silver lining is that those experiences are what made me so enthusiastic about my own eBay business and ambitious enough to keep working at it until I was able to make it work full-time. To a lot of people, they need the safety net of that full-time job, and the benefits that go along with it, but I never really had that in the first place.
- 02/01/2022 at 1:46 pm #94968
  Lukastreasure
  Participant
  Location: Chevy Chase, MD
  @lukastreasuretrove
  Had an average week of sales this week. Two of my biggest sales I had just purchased two weeks at an estate sale, so if I wasn’t listing things would be worse. I was tempted to keep my biggest sale just for its cool factor, an 18″ tall Tasmanian Devil statue from Warner Bros. I paid $45 and sold it for $175. I was asking on the high side of the sales range so was surprised it sold after only 4 days.
  
  Another of my sales was interesting as I had it posted on Etsy and eBay for $175 and got a note from a buyer on Etsy asking if I’d take $130. Etsy does not have a Best Offer option, so my only way to deal with it was to lower the price, which I communicated to the buyer. Then crickets. After 2 days I went to eBay and sent the same offer to the 6 people watching the listing. It sold via offer within an hour or so… to the same person who made me the offer on Etsy. The piece was an interesting patinated brass pitcher made in Israel in the 40’s or 50’s by Pal-Bel and its going back to Israel.
  
  Week Ending 1/29/22
  Total Items in eBay Store: 1082
  Total Items in Etsy Store: 105
  Items Sold eBay: 14
  Items Sold Etsy: 0
  Gross Sales eBay (Not including shipping and tax): $716.60
  Net Sales (After fees) eBay: $603.41
  Cost of Items Sold: $95.33
  COGS Percent 15.80%
  Highest Price Sold: $174.95 Large Tasmanian Devil
  Average Price Sold: $51.19
  Returns: 1
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
  Average Days Listed: 333
  Longest Listed: 1482
  New items listed: 17
- 02/01/2022 at 2:47 pm #94970
  Pikapop
  Participant
  Location: Hampton, VA
  @pikapopblog
  Thank you @annaesthetic23 for your insight! I started experimenting last week with scheduled listings after hearing the Daily Refinement youtuber talk about how consistent daily listings was even more important than quantity of listings for putting the algorithm in your favor. It’s good to hear a specific number on days (don’t go more than 3), something he didn’t mention (he pushes for daily).
- 02/01/2022 at 9:38 pm #94979
  old_man_marty
  Participant
  Location:
  @martyholthaus
  Total On eBay: 75
  
  Items Sold: 1
  
  Profit: $13.33 (Lot of 2 Song Books for Musicians)
- 02/02/2022 at 4:24 am #94981
  Steve List
  Participant
  Location: Richmond, Calif.
  @steve-list
  Monthly numbers: 01/1 – 01/31
  
  Total listings: 1244
  Items sold: 70
  Sales: $1,431.34
  Highest price sold: $65 – Sketchbook of cars
  Average price sold: $20.44
  Cost of items sold: $215.77 / average cost: 3.08 each
  Spent on new inventory: $175.00
  Number of items listed: 61
  
  Although I had several days with no sales, January was a very good month for me. The best scavenger finds for me in the past month or so was a French Regent chess set for $1, missing the queen but I’ve already sold 2 pawns for $30 and an unused Wingspan game for $1 which I have had 2 sales of parts for $39. At an estate sale I had to wait for another buyer to finish going through a box, he didn’t take anything and when he was finished I asked him if he was done with the box, when he said yes I grabbed the whole box. I got about 20-30 Disney 23 magazines for about $10 which I will be able to sell for $5-$20 each depending on the issue. As Jay says, go all in when you can.
- 02/03/2022 at 1:47 pm #94993
  Paulo H Leocadio
  Participant
  Location:
  @paulo-h-leocadio
  Hello friends!
  
  Six years ago TODAY, I posted my first message in the old forum. I (actually) joined mid/end of January, but my first effective participation was February the 3rd.
  
  So much about so many things I learned here and from Jay/Ryanne, not to mention the sense of community, never being alone.
  
  For me, the pandemic was good (business-wise). We were lucky, the seven of us got vaccinated early, so we all could keep up.
  
  My e-commerce LLC (eBay) has not done well for some time. My challenge is sourcing. While I was never too present in garage sales, I had online auctions and some decent thrift stores around. The prices are prohibitive, and the auctions have become exaggeratedly competitive.
  
  On the other hand, my engineering LLC is booming – from home. The income for that business alone was $219k, however, that business generated others because of those projects, reports, or articles being published, generating leads and more contracts.
  
  There are a couple of other things going on (I set a gold refining operation for instance), but cash is flowing mostly from the projects.
  
  My goal for the short term is to boost eBay sales. My former hoarding is under control and yielded some good stuff to list (like rare trading cards and action figures). It is not enough though to go back to the comfortable ~$500 /week minimum.
  
  Anyway, I just wanted to post a celebratory bit being always grateful for Ryanne and Jay.
  
  Cheers!
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