The Numbers: February 12-18, 2023

This topic has 31 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 6 months ago by craig rex.

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- 02/20/2023 at 8:16 am #99354
  Jay
  Keymaster
  Location: Virginia
  @jay
  It starts with an offer. And then another offer. And another. The offers are high offers on the most random stuff you have in your inventory. This is
  [See the full post at: The Numbers: February 12-18, 2023]
- 02/20/2023 at 11:31 am #99361
  Sharyn
  Participant
  Location: Central NJ
  @sharyn
  @Jay – In regards to the discussion of affordable first homes from last week, I realized that I did not fully explain part of my post. I was discussing the large complexes that are currently being built in my town. This is all good for younger people who want to live here. However, they are all apartments, for rent only. No developments with starter homes such as condos, townhouses, or lower cost houses are being built. So, the point that I wanted to make was that the town is not building affordable options for the first time home buyer, only rentals.
  
  This week I received a decent offer for a fur coat. I would have accepted it right away, but I saw that the buyer was from China and had 0 feedback. Their account was opened in March 2021. It raised some concern for me, so I tried contacting the buyer first. I only had 24 hours to respond, so I declined later in the day with a comment that I wanted them to confirm that they understood the shipping was extra. I really just wanted to know that there was a human behind the offer; relying on the translation features in messaging. I did not get any answer. It could have been completely legit, but something didn’t feel right to me.
  
  I didn’t have a particularly strong week, but many of the sales were not on commission, which is nice for a change.
  
  Week of Feb 12 – 18
  Total Items in Store: 1797 eBay, 31 Etsy
  Items Sold: 11 eBay, 1 Etsy
  Cost of Items Sold: $0 + $57 Commission
  Total Sales: $309.20 eBay, $10.21 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
  Highest Price Sold: eBay $68 Palm Tree Prints Frame Mat
  Average price: $26.61
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
  Number of items listed this week: 7
  - 02/20/2023 at 4:08 pm #99371
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    the point that I wanted to make was that the town is not building affordable options for the first time home buyer, only rentals.
    
    Understood. Building only rentals isnt great.
- 02/20/2023 at 11:34 am #99362
  Retro Treasures WV
  Participant
  Location:
  @retro-treasures-wv
  Items in Store 2074
  Items Sold 20
  Total Sales $806.00
  COGS $138.00
  Total Profit $668.00
  Average profit $33.40
  Average sales price $40.30
  New Listings 41
  Items scavenged 25
  Listing 2023 weekly Avg 28
  
  So I have a month’s worth of Sales data since I started daily listing. I’m trying to post the table below – the forum will likely butcher it.
  <table width=”384″>
  <tbody>
  <tr>
  <td width=”64″>Year</td>
  <td width=”42″>items</td>
  <td width=”38″>sales</td>
  <td width=”80″>Items listed</td>
  <td width=”160″>Items listed Month Prior</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td>2022</td>
  <td>104</td>
  <td>$3997</td>
  <td>185</td>
  <td>196</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
  <td>2023</td>
  <td>85</td>
  <td>$3594</td>
  <td>189</td>
  <td>34</td>
  </tr>
  </tbody>
  </table>
  
  So last year I did most of my actual posting of listings on the weekend. I listed almost the same amount of items, but my sales were lower year over year. The only real difference was that in the month Prior of 2022 I was listing a BUNCH compared to this year. Either way, this does not bode well for the idea that daily listing has a major impact vs batch listing.
  
  Regarding Year over year traffic data, the same period last year had almost DOUBLE the impressions AND Page views that I have this year. That is….not good!
  
  The next two weeks will be very telling as I had great sales last year the last week of Feb and 1st week of March.
  
  I’m also not seeing any increasing trend in my traffic. My traffic goes up and down in a sin wave throughout the week The overall trend over the month is flat. I saw the same kind of trend when I batch listed on the weekend last year. I always thought that trend was because of all my weekend listing – turns out it is not!
  
  The worst part is that my impressions are down month over month. How’s that possible with MORE listings, more sales, and more activity? I wasn’t freaking listing for MONTHS! I’m going to call it an anomaly since the previous 30 days includes some Christmas traffic.
  - 02/20/2023 at 5:38 pm #99377
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    I love to hear your updates. Do you think items your listings are traffic generators? I dont follow my eBay traffic but I bet its garbage. We got weird stuff!
    - 02/20/2023 at 7:33 pm #99383
      Retro Treasures WV
      Participant
      
      Location:
      @retro-treasures-wv
      
      I kind of have a way to determine the traffic my new listings are generating. I ran a listings traffic report and filtered out all promoted listings. I promoted everything at the beginning of this new adventure, so anything not promoted is a new listing.
      
      Current non-promoted listings: 183
      
      Page views for these listings in the last month: 1198
      
      Total page views for my whole store in same period: 7016
      
      So 183 (or 9% of my store) new listings accounted for 18% of my page views.
      
      New items impressions: 85512 vs 2.43 million for entire store
      
      So while I am getting 18% of my page views from new items, I’m only getting 3.5% of my impressions from the same listings. More page views per impression on new items even without promoted listings.
      - 02/25/2023 at 8:33 am #99414
        
        Lukastreasure
        Participant
        
        Location: Chevy Chase, MD
        @lukastreasuretrove
        
        @Retro – Reading this, I’m reminded of the charts I used to run when I was more focused on my stock investing. I spent a lot of time analyzing the trends trying to find the buy and sell points and I never did much good with it. I finally changed my strategy to buy and hold and forgot about the daily/monthly ups and downs and whims of the market. I bought what I felt were good solid companies and held onto them.
        
        I think this is a fair analogy to the long tail selling most of us do. Buy good stuff for your store, put it up and forget it. It’ll be there for the buyers when the buying sentiment changes. I feel the buyers are holding on to their money right now anticipating things in the economy are going to get worse. When the economy improves your store will be ready.
        
        02/25/2023 at 9:07 am #99418
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        I like the “buy and hold” strategy for stocks. Buy stocks that have value and be willing to wait. Don’t waste energy timing the market.
        
        You’ve heard us discuss a million times its the same for us with scavenging. We value finding items for cheap because when they do eventually sell, we always make money. This makes more sense than paying big money for items and selling quick for a slim margin. That’s too stressful for us.
        
        But I do like Retro’s experiment. He knows our game so it’ll be interesting to see if he can move the needle at all.
        
        By the way, I’ve seen less and less of the big Amazon sellers (or maybe I just dot see them). Is dropshipping still a thing or did that business model die out?
        
        02/25/2023 at 11:03 am #99419
        
        Lukastreasure
        Participant
        
        Location: Chevy Chase, MD
        @lukastreasuretrove
        
        But I do like Retro’s experiment. He knows our game so it’ll be interesting to see if he can move the needle at all.
        
        Rereading my comment it might sound like I’m discounting Retro’s efforts, that wasn’t my intention. There is value in examining trends, even more so when it compares effort to profit, and what he is seeing sheds some interesting insight regarding posting every day vs. large batch. I appreciate the sharing of the information.
        
        02/25/2023 at 11:04 am #99420
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        Me too! Better him than me though!
        
        02/25/2023 at 2:19 pm #99424
        
        craig rex
        Participant
        
        Location: south jersey
        @craig-rex
        
        @retro-treasures-wv
        
        Great info as always in your posts. My own experience mostly tracks yours as far as the relative value of listing in batches, which was my modus operandi for a few years, versus listing daily as I’ve been doing for the last year or so. I’m just not sure how much it really matters! I’ve found that listing regularly makes me feel like I have more control over my business and my sales, something that was (in my opinion) one of the most important lessons that I learned from the podcast. There are a lot of people who resell full-time and are absolutely miserable and stressed out doing it, and if I’m not listing and my listings aren’t selling, I can find myself in that place pretty easily. It’s less common now that I use multiple platforms to sell but it’s still possible to overanalyze and get myself there.
        
        I’m very uncertain about how much of an impact traffic and impressions have on sales, particularly with unique one-off items. I think the buy and hold mentality is a really smart way of looking at any reselling business. One thing I’ve learned with that over the last few years is to be a little more flexible about lowering my best offer threshold or price. And maybe just accept that first offer instead of holding out for a hypothetical offer that’s 10% or $20 higher. Sometimes the first offer is the highest one.
- 02/20/2023 at 12:08 pm #99366
  Temudgin
  Participant
  Location: Jacksonville FL
  @temudgin
  Week of 2/12 – 2/18:
  Total items in Store: 326
  Items Sold: 10
  Gross Sales: $254.63 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $33.00 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
  Highest Price Sold: $74.34 plus shipping (vintage Italian stiletto manual folding knife)
  Average Sales Price: $25.46 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
  Returns: 2
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $21.45
  Number of new items listed: 4 (plus 4 end-and-sell-similar of old items)
  
  My returns for 2023 are up 200% over 2022!!!! – Well, that’s technically correct (I think – I’m no mathematician) since I had no returns at all in 2022 and two last week, but not really earth-shattering news. I couldn’t resist the click-bait, sorry. There was nothing I could have done any differently to prevent them since they were both from buyers who apparently did not read the listing description or look at all the photos. Probably bought on their phones since the eBay app makes it too easy to buy without seeing all the photos or the seller’s description or condition statement. Mildly annoying but I’m not going to let it take up space in my brain. FIDO.
  - 02/20/2023 at 5:45 pm #99381
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Returns are never fun. Glad you’ve had such good luck over the years.
- 02/20/2023 at 4:41 pm #99372
  Mark S
  Participant
  Location:
  @mark-s
  02/12/23 – 02/18/23
  
  Total Items In ebay Store: 4695 (was 4668 2 weeks ago)
  
  Total Items In Etsy Store: 631 (was 595 2 weeks ago)
  
  Total Items listed: 5,326
  
  ebay Items Sold: 9 items for $ 759.77 Net $ 607.95
  Etsy Items Sold: 4 items for $ 277.31 Net $ 197.97
  
  Total Gross Sales: $ 1037.08 (including eBay\etsy fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $ 805.92 (minus shipping, and taxes)
  Items Sold: 13 items
  Highest Price Sold: $ 200 (New Shoes)
  Average Price Sold: $ 61.99
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 5.71
  
  Number of items listed: 25 ebay, 24 Etsy
  
  Gut Sales Report for the week: This week felt really slow. I can’t believe I had over 1K in gross sales. There were some good sales that helped that.
  
  Focus for the week : I am now trying to list 5 new listings a day on ebay M-F. I am also trying to list 5 vintage listings on Etsy M-F. This seems to give me a good mix. Etsy is still producing and helping out every week. I am so glad I added Etsy.
  
  Scavenge of the week: Picked up a nice Bell orange rotory phone for $2.
  
  Thoughts for the week: I went to a restaurant this weekend that has been a bar and restaurant in continuous operation since at least 1850! That is something you don’t see often in the Mid-West.
  
  This place appeared to have all the original fixtures – like the bar, Hostess stand, etc. The history was quite amazing and so was the food.
  
  Mark
- 02/20/2023 at 5:34 pm #99376
  ChristineR
  Participant
  Location: Southern California
  @christiner
  Total Items in Store: 676
  Items Sold: 4
  Cost of Items Sold: $17
  Total Gross Sales: $169.94, Net $106.49
  Highest Price Sold: eBay $71 (Bauer pottery Midcentury vase)
  Average price: $42.49
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $30
  Number of items listed this week: 0
  
  Sales very slow which is typical for this time of year but zero sales during my time away most of this week.
  
  I spent three days in Fresno, California (inland, central California) while my daughter performed at an all state event. Let me tell you it was a thrifting bonanza in that city! I actually didn’t buy too much but visited like 15-18 thrift stores plus a flea market and was throughly entertained. (Our city and the adjoining one only have 8 thrifts.) In that city it was a variety of thrift flavors – large supermarket size stores, Goodwills, fancy run-by-old-ladies boutique thrifts, small independents, hipster thrifts with large cool graphic painted walls, antique/thrift blends. I met a indy thrift shop hoarder who invited me into her back storage (her prices were too high on the good stuff). There was even a big rescue mission thrift that resold used cards. In the same area are a lot of antique stores and I can only conclude that despite the expansive number of thrifts there are a lot of buyers heavily shopping them. I just found a handful of items to resell. The flea market was very low end with fabulous veggies but not a lot of great vintage items in good condition. Amazing Mexican food at the flea market though and people were very serious about reusing old clothes and items so that’s totally cool. Anyway it was super fun to hunt and I didn’t spend much or add too much to my death piles, so all good.
- 02/21/2023 at 8:59 am #99385
  twizzle
  Participant
  Location: Massachusetts
  @twizzle
  Hi ChristineR This was interesting to me “There was even a big rescue mission thrift that resold used cards’ Do you mean old greeting cards or postcards / I have always been interested in old greeting cards. Suzy.
  - 02/22/2023 at 10:47 am #99392
    ChristineR
    Participant
    
    Location: Southern California
    @christiner
    @Twizzle that was a typo. They were selling used cars not cards. I also enjoy vintage greeting cards. 🙂
- 02/22/2023 at 12:05 pm #99393
  twizzle
  Participant
  Location: Massachusetts
  @twizzle
  Oh OK that’s funny lol Thanks ChristineR
  - 02/25/2023 at 2:10 pm #99423
    craig rex
    Participant
    
    Location: south jersey
    @craig-rex
    @ChristineR I thought you meant old trading cards, so I got real excited that maybe you were gonna get some steals for cheap or I could pass along my expertise and save you from buying some “old” 1960s cards in crappy condition. Used cars, blah who cares about that. 🙂
- 02/22/2023 at 10:23 pm #99397
  Borderrooster
  Participant
  Location: Fort Myers, FLA
  @borderrooster
  eBay Store Week Feb. 12 – 18, 2023
  
  Total Items in Store: 1170
  Items Sold: 9
  Gross Sales: $201.58 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $107.82 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Goods Sold: $16.00
  Highest Price Sold: $39.95 (Vintage Army Flight Team Coveralls)
  Average Price Sold: 22.40
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $76.00
  Number of items listed this week: 10
  
  This was a very slow week for sales and a slow week for listing. Although I purchased several items for inventory at a garage sale and a thrift store, none of those items have been listed.
  In fact, I did a bare minimum of listing … and it shows.
- 02/23/2023 at 10:06 am #99398
  debitendcredits
  Participant
  Location: Albuquerque, NM
  @debitendcreits
  One time I sold 45 books to one set decorator. The sound my phone made when they paid sounded like a Casino payout. Best feeling ever.
  - 02/23/2023 at 7:45 pm #99405
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    I dream of sales like that!
- 02/24/2023 at 7:31 am #99406
  Antique Frog
  Participant
  Location: Leicester
  @antique-frog
  I sold two German children’s books to a prop buyer from Ealing. The 1944 one was printed in Sütterlin font, and the other postwar one in a normal font. Goebbels thought that Sütterlin was “Jewish”, also when the Germans put up signs in occupied countries no-one could read them, so he ordered the changeover.
  
  Prop buyer wanted them in a hurry, but then refused to reimburse me for the express postage.
  
  There are lots of people really interested in fonts, but they don’t have no money.
  - 02/24/2023 at 10:38 am #99407
    Retro Treasures WV
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @retro-treasures-wv
    Here in the states the prop buyers typically provide their own express shipping label. Even better, they still pay the shipping cost! I’ve had this happen twice over the years.
    
    I’d never ship with express postage without the buyer paying for it in advance through an adjusted invoice.
- 02/25/2023 at 6:11 am #99412
  Antique Frog
  Participant
  Location: Leicester
  @antique-frog
  I have a feeling that in this case the buyer didn’t get reimbursed for the books! “What did you buy those for? I asked for Noddy und Große Ohren!” said the director.
- 02/25/2023 at 8:17 am #99413
  Lukastreasure
  Participant
  Location: Chevy Chase, MD
  @lukastreasuretrove
  Week Ending 2/18/23
  Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $477.09 (eBay $350.15/Etsy 126.54)
  Net Sales: $389.24
  Total Items Sold 18 (eBay 14/Etsy 4)
  Total Items in eBay Store: 1146
  Total Items in Etsy Store: 453
  Cost of Items Sold: $36.55
  Highest Price Sold: $94.95 (Halcyon Bonbonniere)
  Average Price Sold: $26.51
  
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $476.32
  Average Days Listed: 156
  Longest Listed: 963
  New items listed: 32
  New Listings Value $1,233.48
  
  Another below average week. Highest sale was a little Halcyon Bonbonniere. It was thrown in with the lot of ornaments we bought. Didn’t think anything of it being so small but was floored when I looked it up. I know I could have sold it for more, but with things being so slow and having no real cost to it I decided to take the money and run.
  
  I know part of the reason my sales are down is that I’m trying to slog through our backlog of Christmas ornaments, so I decided to bid on an auction to get some more collectibles in the pipeline. Picked up an unusual piece of art that doubles as a brooch. Listed it quickly with hopes of a quick turnaround. Artist, Tod Pardon, is fairly well known, repped by a gallery in New York and has several pieces in galleries around the US.
  
  Was a bit disappointed in the auction house as I two items I bought weren’t described or photographed well and not what I was expecting. One of the risks of online auctions.
  
  Still plugging away on listing though. Beat my goal on listings and $ amount this week.
  - 02/25/2023 at 8:39 am #99415
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Unless we have a big day today, we may have the slowest week we’ve had in a long long time.
    
    Because I was in the city, I bid on a bunch of items at an online auction. I only won two lots because prices were simply insane. I have no idea who’s purchasing these lots. I cant imagine its resellers. If so, no idea how they can make money.
    - 02/25/2023 at 8:48 am #99416
      Lukastreasure
      Participant
      
      Location: Chevy Chase, MD
      @lukastreasuretrove
      
      It feels like desperation to me. I thought the tide had turned when I got a few great lots cheap back in November, but once again we’re seeing most things selling for too much to make a profit. I can’t get past the feeling that too many people jumped into reselling during the pandemic and are now panicking as the market has slowed and they are willing work on slim profit margins. It is the only correlation I can draw when overall buying is slowing but auction sales seem to be staying strong.
      - 02/25/2023 at 8:55 am #99417
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        my only only other hypothesis is that covid forced in-person auctions online and collectors have now realized they can sit at home and collect/hoard. These are people with enough money that they can just buy.
        
        02/25/2023 at 2:06 pm #99422
        
        craig rex
        Participant
        
        Location: south jersey
        @craig-rex
        
        I think you’re both right about the high prices, I see this a lot with cards since there was such a renewal of interest in cards during the early part of the pandemic. Mostly from the gamblers but I know that some of the new buyers are people who have disposable income and indulge in their hobby every so often without much consideration for getting a good deal or even what things are generally worth. Also a lot of people in the reselling game who simply don’t have a good sense for business, especially with concepts like selling at a loss or understanding why something is not worth what they thought it might be or what it used to be.
        
        We’ve discussed this before, but if you go to any of the big thrift chains, there are people buying all sorts of things at prices where I would never touch them. There are some great back episodes of the pod where you and Ryanne talk about the different types of buyers at your local auctions, too.
- 02/25/2023 at 1:58 pm #99421
  craig rex
  Participant
  Location: south jersey
  @craig-rex
  Today is a rare cold day in the Northeast, and I’m planning on spending the majority of the day inside listing. I have my monthly auctions ending tomorrow and Monday, and already have over $700 worth of items with bids, so this batch will be a success even if I receive no last-minute bids. 3 of my 26 sales last week were outside of my usual trading cards — a $23 obscure CD, a $21 Willie Mays Easton Press autobiography, a $24 Brett Favre etched crystal. Plus I sold two 10 card lots of players from the same team — listings that I can create over and over again for minimal investment beyond time. On the next cold or rainy day, I plan on having a nice marathon creating these lot listings.
  
  My store is changing rapidly, and it’s a lot of fun when it’s going well like this. Maybe March will be very slow, but I’m hopeful a big listing weekend will keep the sales coming even though my store is teeny-tiny now.
  
  2/12/2023 to 2/18/2023
  
  Total items in store: 270 BIN/BO, 400 auction, 670 total
  
  Items sold: 26 (7 via best offer, 4 via seller initiated offer, 9 via promoted listings)
  
  Gross sales: $1600.91 (down 45% from one year ago)
  
  Net sales: $1125.73 (down 43% from one year ago)
  
  Average sales price: $61.57 (up 11% from one year ago)
  
  Highest price sold (net): $258.41— Justin Herbert 2021 Panini Select cosmic prizm card
  
  My second $200+ sale from my 4 card cosmic prizm pack in two weeks! It will also be my last as the other two cards were much less valuable and the cosmic prizm packs sold out within about 20 minutes of their release. Still a nice profit on a pack that cost me the equivalent of about $75.
  
  Lowest price sold (net): $12.19— Jake Daubert 2012 National Treasures bat card ##/99
  
  Jake Daubert played pro baseball so long ago that his primary team was based in Brooklyn…but not the Dodgers, the Superbas. I bought this card on the consignment site I use COMC using credit I’ve earned from sales on that platform, then had it shipped to me (along with many other cards) to sell on eBay. I receive a package from COMC every few weeks and I ship them one every few weeks with all of my new purchases. It’s a beautiful pipeline. Old time players autograph and memorabilia cards are often a quick and consistent seller since there is a finite limit to how many can be manufactured, unlike more contemporary players where the production numbers can get very high.
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