The Numbers: May 22-28, 2022

05/23/22 – 05/28/22

Total Items In Store: 4369
Items Sold: 8
Total Sales: $ 256.27 (no shipping included)
Highest Price Sold: $ 33.99 (Shoes)
Average Price Sold: $ 32.03
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 310.17
Number of items listed: Not sure

Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales were in the dumps.

Focus for the week : In the process of hiring a new Photographer and Tax Credits via the WOTC program – see below in “Thoughts for the week”.

Scavenge of the week: Picked up some LL Bean Maine Hunting Shoe for cheap. Got 3 St. John Jackets for $80.

Thoughts for the week: I am hoping that my new photographer qualifies for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC). He does qualify for long term unemployment, but I am not sure if you have to hire as an employee, or if doing a 1099 will qualify also. I have to call to find out tomorrow.. This is a great program and not many businesses take advantage of it. In Michigan, there are 218,000 employers and only about 2,000 businesses take advantage of this Federal program.

The idea of the program is to offer employment to individuals in target groups that have significant barriers to employment.

Here is the State of Michigan web site that gives some detail: https://www.michigan.gov/leo/bureaus-agencies/uia/employers/panel-resources/programs/wotc

It was a bit confusing trying to understand how it works. But basically you have to file Form 8850 to your state workforce agency where the person will work. This determines if the individual qualifies for the program. Then you have to file Form 9061. Then, for your taxes to claim what you are entitled to, you file Federal form 5884 with IRS.

It appears to be most profitable if you hire a Veteran.

This is a tax credit, not a tax write off. A tax credit is much better. For example, if you owe $10,000 in taxes and you have a tax credit for $10,000, then you pay nothing in taxes!

Check it out, you may be missing out on a great opportunity if you don’t know about this tax credit.

Mark S

Just dismal sales again this week.  I ran the two .99 actions and without many views, they sold cheap.  Listed 17 items of Target RA stuff that’s not too available any longer.  Sometimes delays can be potentially profitable.

I had turned off promoted listings for a while when I read that Ebay could adjust the percentage.  Had hardly any impressions during the time it was off.  Is anyone finding the traffic reports helpful?  I’m guessing I should probably refresh old listings as someone suggested.  I even have a few losers I might add to the garage sale pile.  I’ve already tried reducing prices on those.

My H got Covid at work so I had to postpone the garage sale again.  I finished last week going through all of the boxes in my garage and scanning sales history for a lot of items.  Hopefully neither my son nor I will get Covid and then we’ll have the sale next week and get the garage back.  Going through our closets now and have a couple of tubs of better brand clothing that I will put on Mercari.

On a scavenger note, I will say that eating out seems to have gotten really expensive.  I had two meals last week – one where we just ordered apps and drinks and was surprised at how much the bill was. These are nice places, but not super fancy.  My son is working at a casual restaurant in a luxury hotel ($1600 a night this weekend), and making good tips just bussing. It’s no wonder since the food and drinks are so expensive.

Week of May 22 – 28
Total Items in Store: 1597 eBay, 35 Etsy
Items Sold: 11 eBay, 0 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $7 + $55 Commission
Total Sales: $237 eBay, $0 Etsy; Includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $47 for 2006 Harley Davidson Dyna Models Service Manual
Average price: $21.55
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0

My one return was for Huggable hangers that are sold on HSN. After receiving them, the buyer realized that the gold tone hooks on the ones I sold didn’t match the silver tone ones that they had. Horror of horrors! The hangers resold only a few days after being relisted. My neighbor (whose wife had bought them) found another box in his garage, so I will have more to list soon.

Items in Store 1892
Items Sold 24
Total Sales $675.00
COGS $66.00
Total Profit $609.00
Average profit $25.38
Average sales price $28.13
New Listings 118
Items scavenged 46
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 49
Sourcing Allotment 26

I was a listing machine last week. I had to get a bunch of stuff listed and out of my garage because one of my gifts to my wife for our anniversary was dedicating some space in the garage to set up an area for her to do her pottery again. I had to make things modular and portable to make it work. I’m making a folding wedge table, using a foldable stool, and I ordered folding legs for her wheel. I emptied out two shelves of storage to store her pottery and her supplies. The wash sink is still a portable situation running on garden hoses because I’m not sure how or where I want to permanently place it.

Regarding sales, it was still a slow week. 8 of my sold items were new listings so it would have been MUCH slower if I didn’t list so much.

Last week I talked about my year over year sales. Now that the month is done I can compare directly my year over year sales:

2019 May : 83 sold for $2263. Average items in store – 1123

2021 May: 83 sold for $2662. Average items in store – 1480

2022 May: 84 sold for $2554. Average items in store – 1798

Just for giggles since it was an absurd pandemic anomaly:

2020 May: 199 sold for $6450. Average items in store – 1512

I don’t count 2020 metrics when I consider year over year numbers, obviously!

So lessons learned – May sucks no matter how big my store is…unless there is a global pandemic lockdown. I’ll take poor sales over going through that again any year!

2019 monthly average: 91 items for $3399. Average store size 1177

2021 monthly average: 91 items for $3553. Average store size 1517*

2022 monthly average:  116 items for $4237. Average store size 1695

I’m seeing growth this year and my consistent listing will hopefully set me up for a great second half of the year. I’m outpacing my listing goals so far and I’m on track to meet the sales goals I set out for the year. I just gotta keep on swimming and trust the process. The summer slowdown is PART of the plan, no matter how much I don’t want it to be.

Weekly sales 5/22 – 5/28
Total items: 10335
Items sold: 200
New items listed: 350
Gross sales: $1,739.43
Net sales: $1,148.20
New buyers: 143
Repeat buyers: 8

Etsy
Orders: 4
Gross sales: $25.00
Net sales: $22.50

Gross sales total: $1,764.43
Net sales total: $1,170.70

Not a bad week. I started a 20% off sale on most of my store this week to help combat summer slow down and that seems to be working. I’m thinking about starting to sprinkle in higher value items to help boost profits and maybe start doing 5 pieces of clothing a day or something since there’s so much of it out there and it sales for more than hats and patches. I sold a pokemon game for $115 last week and that felt awesome. Found it at a yard sale for a dollar.

May was one of my slowest months in over a year. I wonder if buyers are holding back due to a possible recession or maybe a lack of spending money due to the increase in prices of food, gas, and almost everything else that has to be shipped.

Monthly numbers: 05/1 – 05/31

Active listings: 1307
Items sold: 42
Sales: $742.70
Highest price sold: $50 – Five 1914-1924 CA Grizzly Bear Magazines
Average price sold: $17.68
Cost of items sold: $69.39 / average cost: 1.65 each
Spent on new inventory: $153.25
Number of items listed: 62

Had a buyer in Canada fail to pick up an item at the post office, so it was returned to me. The buyer then offered to pay shipping again if I would resend it, but I haven’t figured out how to send him a new invoice for shipping. I tried sending him my PayPal email address (somewhat changed to bypass the eBay bots), but no reply to that or a follow-up email. I guess I’ll either refund his purchase price or call eBay and ask what to do.

Just got an email from eBay – another change to required item specifics is coming in July…

I had a rare sale last week of a non trading cards item, a 3 disc dvd set about seashells for $40 which I bought a few years ago for about $1. That inspired me to take a trip to the same thrift store to see if they had any more cool stuff. No seashell DVDs but I came home with a box full of old books and weird DVDs and a new pair of jeans for less than $30 total. I’m sure there were more gems in this thrift store, but I focused on what I know best besides cards. These will be great items to list when the weather gets colder and I’m spending more time inside, or if I wake up one day and lose interest in selling cards. I don’t expect that to happen, but it never hurts to have a backup plan.

I couldn’t imagine paying the bills scavenging items like this, especially in New Jersey, and I’m envious of those of you who make it work.

5/22/2022 – 5/28/2022

Total items in store: 2152 (up from 2138)

Items sold: 45 (32 via best offer, 4 via seller initiated offer, 15 via promoted listings)

Gross sales: $2437.96 (up 4% from one year ago)

Net sales: $1774.44 (up 6% from one year ago)

Quantity sold: 45 (down 11% from one year ago)

Average sales price: $54.18 (up 17% from one year ago)

Time spent searching through online auction listings for new inventory: 15 hours

Jay asked me about this last week, and I thought it would be useful to start tracking my time. This is my time spent scavenging since it’s how I acquire almost all of my inventory. Auctions are really prevalent in the trading cards world, since so many new sets come out every year (50+ for each sport), and my inventory is built from buying at auction from large sellers who sell at volume and reselling at BIN/best offer. This is a good time to buy since I think a lot of people’s hobby money is less than usual with the price of essentials so high.

I was really thorough about looking through every seller and possible search last week to get a good baseline for a maximum amount of time. I noticed that I rarely spend more than an hour consecutive looking through auction listings. But on busier days (Sunday/Monday/Tuesday), I can easily spend an hour during the day and an hour or more at night just looking through one or two sellers. Some of these sellers have 20,000 or more auctions or more every week, and checking these auctions thoroughly has allowed me to build a much larger inventory with more high quality items.

I would love to cut this time down to less than 10 hours per week, without missing out on the bargains that are the foundation of my inventory, and I hope tracking the time will allow me to accomplish that.

Highest price sold (net): $166.12 — Cam Reddish 2019 Panini The National VIP diamond relic card #3/3

This card was given out to the big spenders at the National card show, and you can see from the picture how intricate expensive modern cards can get. This one is held in a thick case and has a little chip of diamond embedded in the card. Prices for these types of cards vary a lot more than most modern cards, since they’re not part of a traditional set and aren’t heavily collected like autographed cards or specific rookie insert sets. It does have a nice low serial number and the card is quite striking visually. Plus these types of cards tend to only get produced for the top players and rookies.

Like (almost) every other card I sell, I bought this card at auction ($40 and change) and sold it best offer. It took a sale, a price cut and just over a year before it sold. I don’t think I would pay quite that much for this type of card today. But it was a nice $200 sale!

Lowest price sold (net): minus $5.80 — Manny Margot Topps Glove Works red autograph #/10

The buyer of this card opened a case yesterday claiming the item was not as described. The flaws they pointed out in their six pictures from different angles are noted in my scans and description, and the approximate condition in my title (NM) is roughly what grade the card would receive (an 8) if it were professionally graded. Maybe a 7 since grading is subjective, but I certainly wasn’t trying to hide the flaws in the card.

You might think this kind of thing happens to me all the time, collectors being picky and all, but this is just the second INAD case this year. It’s easy to handle when it’s a sale less than $20 like this one — refund in full and tell the buyer just keep it. I’m out five bucks and some change, but that’s a small price to pay to move on with my day.

Phew this place died as expected during a holiday week.

Figured I’d add this. One of the local Goodwill chains just took the next step to the darkside – individually pricing ALL clothes. They have been pulling the “specialty” brands and pricing them in a special section for several years. Now they are putting a physical price tag on every single item and are authorized to price up whenever on whatever.

That’s ok – I’ll just keep getting pickier and spending less at their stores. Still plenty of meat on the bone, I just don’t buy the cheap junk anymore.

Week Ending 5/28/22
Gross Sales: $306.11
Net Sales: $281.25
Total Items in eBay Store: 1047
Items Sold eBay: 6

Total Items in Etsy Store: 238
Items Sold Etsy: 1

Items sold FB marketplace: 1

Cost of Items Sold: $184.00
COGS Percent 65.42%

Highest Price Sold: $150.00 Guitar
Average Price Sold: $43.73
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00

Average Days Listed: 291
Longest Listed: 830
New items listed: 6

COVID finally came home to roost at my house last week.  Slowly made it’s way through the family.  I got the worst of it and was in bed for 3 days with mainly fever and aches.  Now I’m just really fatigued and haven’t been up to doing anything until yesterday.  I don’t normally get sick and I’ve had 3 doses of Pfizer, so I was surprised it hit so hard.  Be careful out there.

Slowest week on eBay in memory.  Only sold 6 low $ items.  The one large sale I had was from Facebook Marketplace, but unfortunately I sold the guitar at cost.  It was one of a 3 guitar lot that I overpaid for several weeks back due to misidentifying one of the guitars.  At least I’m breaking even.

My “big” eBay sale was a lot of chrome basketball cards that sold for $42.   I had purchased as an experiment after reading some of Craig-rex’s posts.  I had them listed for $49 and was happy for the $42 offer. Thanks to Craig for help with identification.