The Numbers: April 9-15, 2023

This topic has 21 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 5 months, 1 week ago by Antique Frog.

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- 04/17/2023 at 11:13 am #99807
  Jay
  Keymaster
  Location: Virginia
  @jay
  As we all discussed last week, it feels like a weird slooooooow period is upon us. Our week was certainly quiet. A handful of sales, few offers or mes
  [See the full post at: The Numbers: April 9-15, 2023]
- 04/17/2023 at 12:08 pm #99809
  JasonK
  Participant
  Location: Florida
  @jasonk
  Hello fellow scavengers. It’s been quite a while since i’ve popped into this forum, hard to believe it’s been 1 year since I switched to selling just model trains. I’m still not making what I would consider to be a “comfortable” full-time income but I thought I’d share some numbers.
  
  Total Items in Store: 896
  Items Sold: 64
  Gross Sales: $1,786.32 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $1,040.45 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $371.37
  Cost of helpers: $125 (shipping helper paid flat $500 monthly)
  Highest Price Sold: $228 (brand new train track sets drop-shipped from supplier)
  Average Price Sold: $27.91
  Returns: 2 (1 shipped 1 still waiting, maybe buyer will keep afterall)
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
  Number of items listed this week: 70
  
  Over the past year I’ve tried quite a few things, learned a lot and failed a bit. First, selling new model train merchandise on eBay is pretty much pointless. I went through the process of getting setup with one of the major model train distributors in the US and spent around $4,000 on new merchandise. The sell-through rate is super slow, even on items I researched the heck out of before I bought them and the margins are horrible, like sub 20%. I’ve still got around $1,o00 worth of items sitting on the shelf almost a year later. I just use the distributor for drop-shipping now, they will ship directly to the customer for a $4 fee and so far that has worked out fine but the sell-through rate is so low that I’m probably just going to delist the new stuff and stick to used.
  
  As for used, the customer base on ebay is thriving and I’m selling almost as many items as I’m listing each week. I buy large lots and collections at train shows and I’m starting to make connections with local dealers in Florida that will sell to me privately at discounted rates. The margins are much better too, around 40%.
  
  This past year I invested a lot of time into making my ebay store well organized with custom categories and banners, weekly newsletters and even use the new social media integration. I’m starting to reap the rewards from that in the form of repeat buyers and multiple item purchases. I’d say 20-30% of my business is repeat buyers now and every day I have several buyers buy multiple items. I do wish ebay made combined shipping easier though, right now I use a flat shipping price of $5 for >8oz, $7 for >16oz and $10 for 1-2lb. The multiple item purchases throw the shipping cost all out of whack and so I do a lot of custom invoices for combined shipping on multiple items. My buyers are super picky about shipping costs and many have unrealistic expectations on what it costs to ship things. I mostly stick to items under 1lb as a result.
  
  Ok, enough brain-dump for one day. I wish I could be consistent posting numbers in here every week but between the ebay business and my IT business I’m always trying to do too many things at once.
  - 04/17/2023 at 2:08 pm #99812
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Good to see you again! It is interesting to hear how selling new items is too low margin. This is my feeling when I see other resellers try to buy items from China for resale.
    
    Scavenging old items and reselling seems the best mark up. Just takes more time sourcing.
- 04/17/2023 at 12:09 pm #99810
  ChristineR
  Participant
  Location: Southern California
  @christiner
  Total Items in Store:
  Items Sold: 3
  Gross Sales: $267.20 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $177.34 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $54
  Highest Price Sold: $135 (1.5 yards Lee Jofa vintage fabric UK, sold in hours)
  Average Price Sold: $89
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: +/- $15
  Number of items listed this week: 25
  
  Yep, super quiet and slow. I did have a great day yesterday which is not reflected in these numbers. I am hearing from multiple Youtubers and a podcast that they are slow as well.
  
  I got through all of my recent purchases and rummage sale hauls and made myself get into the fabric death piles. Had a great sale right away but some aren’t worth much. I do not enjoy listing fabric even though it’s not really too hard. Also putting things up on Mercari from our closets and had a couple of sales there for the first time in ages.
  
  The annual neighborhood sale is coming up but I’ve been trying to shed things as we go except better clothing so I can reorganize my inventory in the garage. So I don’t think I will hold a sale though it is a little tempting to get rid of some of the $15 inventory I held onto and things I’m not really keen to list. The flea market is doing better in my area but it’s $35 for the day, not sure worth that. It might be fun to try. I’ve been going but the prices are strong except the clean out guys and I can’t get there too early. However, I did find a seller selling his mom’s stuff – midcentury and was happy to pick up a few items super cheap from him. We don’t have enough of those guys.
  - 04/17/2023 at 2:06 pm #99811
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Yeah, it is yard sale season which is exciting. We’ll see if competition is still crazy or if some of the new sellers are slowing down on buying.
  - 04/21/2023 at 3:30 am #99850
    Antique Frog
    Participant
    
    Location: Leicester
    @antique-frog
    @christiner My experience with selling at UK car boot fairs is that the majority of sales happen in the first couple of hours. After that it’s a waste of time. So what happens is that I drive on to the pitch at 6 in the morning, set up, sell for a couple of hours and then spend the rest of the time sitting around bored until 12 or 1 when the fair closes and I can drive out with the rest of the sellers.
- 04/17/2023 at 9:30 pm #99820
  Sharyn
  Participant
  Location: Central NJ
  @sharyn
  I don’t know; this week wasn’t bad for me. I’ve had slower months.
  
  Week of Apr 9 – 15
  Total Items in Store: 1739 eBay, 30 Etsy
  Items Sold: 13 eBay, 0 Etsy
  Cost of Items Sold: $3 + $68 Commission
  Total Sales: $352.80 eBay, $0 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
  Highest Price Sold: eBay $90 Pure Irish Linen Tablecloth 12 Napkins Set
  Average price: $27.14
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
  Number of items listed this week: 7
  - 04/18/2023 at 6:34 am #99823
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    You did have a good week. I’m glad to see its not slow across the board.
- 04/17/2023 at 9:34 pm #99821
  Temudgin
  Participant
  Location: Jacksonville FL
  @temudgin
  Week of 4/9 – 4/15
  Total items in Store: 314
  Items Sold: 6
  Gross Sales: $142.53 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $41.93 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
  Highest Price Sold: $54.00 plus shipping (1st Marine Division Vietnam 1969 Challenge Coin)
  Average Sales Price: $23.76 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
  Number of new items listed: 6
  
  Back in the doldrums this week but at least I got enough listings in to maintain inventory.
  
  @JasonK Great to hear about your work in used trains, and how you cultivate repeat sales. It’s instructive to see how you successfully work a supposedly “tired old” niche area. With acquiring inventory so competitive these days, I think there are real opportunities in developing a niche where there are better buying opportunities, either where there’s an aging collector/dealer base you can draw from before it gets to auction or sale as you’re doing, or where the stuff is often dirt cheap at the auctions and sales like Ryanne and Jay’s old pottery and porcelain. I’ve been trying to go to the hard-core sources in militaria like you’re doing with trains but boy those old codgers are tough nuts to crack. But I’ll keep at it.
  - 04/18/2023 at 6:35 am #99824
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    You make a good point. There’s always money to be made buying old collections if you can get them before they hit the auctions.
  - 04/19/2023 at 1:13 pm #99843
    JasonK
    Participant
    
    Location: Florida
    @jasonk
    @Temudgin I honestly believe the future of reselling online is in finding a niche and cultivating dealer and customer relationships. For me, model trains made sense, I had an interest in the hobby and in Florida we have a lot of retirees with collections to sell and a lot of train shows where I can make connections with dealers and do bulk deals on inventory. Other parts of the country it may not make as much sense. I know there are other folks I see on YouTube that still make a decent living being an “everything” seller but for me in the Tampa/Sarasota area I really struggled with the item quality/price/sourcing time ratios. I’m also a firm believer in refining your processes to be as efficient as possible. Time is the one resource we all have the same amount of but cant ever get more of. Even within the model train niche I’m starting to drill down into certain categories that I can buy in the largest quantity at the lowest price and list/sell the fastest.
    - 04/19/2023 at 1:50 pm #99845
      Lukastreasure
      Participant
      
      Location: Chevy Chase, MD
      @lukastreasuretrove
      
      Good to see you’re doing well. There is a lot to be said for becoming an expert in a niche and focussing in that area. I feel like I’ve become an expert in several niches over the years, only to rarely come across the item again and lose the knowledge and repeat again. I’m amazed that you can source the inventory consistently.
      - 04/20/2023 at 9:36 am #99848
        
        JasonK
        Participant
        
        Location: Florida
        @jasonk
        
        @Lukastreasure
        
        I actually got started by bidding on model train lots on shopgoodwill.com. It’s a bit tricky to get decent stuff at a low enough price (be very careful of the shipping fees) but persistence pays off. There is actually a lot of good stuff on there and while the prices are not always the lowest it’s a good way to source a large amount of one type of item and see if the category makes sense to base your resale business on it. Once I knew I had a winner, sales wise, I started exploring other ways to get the stuff. I tried national distributors, social media resale apps, flea markets, running advertising in local coupon booklets, talking to local train shops and going to swap meets for model trains. Honestly, getting out there and talking to people and making contacts was the best thing I did. I just called one of my favorite train show dealers yesterday, I told him I was getting low on train car inventory and asked if he had any to sell, not only is he going to hook me up with 100’s of items at a great price, he invited me out to appraise a private collection that he was contacted about and make an offer to buy it.
        
        04/20/2023 at 11:50 am #99849
        
        Lukastreasure
        Participant
        
        Location: Chevy Chase, MD
        @lukastreasuretrove
        
        It sounds like you’ve put a lot of effort into it. Glad that it is paying off for you. Gives me some food for thought. Thanks
- 04/18/2023 at 1:13 pm #99828
  Retro Treasures WV
  Participant
  Location:
  @retro-treasures-wv
  Items in Store 2029
  Items Sold 11
  Total Sales $288.00
  COGS $46.00
  Total Profit $242.00
  Average profit $22.00
  Average sales price $26.18
  New Listings 2
  Items scavenged 2
  Listing 2023 weekly Avg 20
  
  Part of me is glad I’m not listing right now. I’d be freaking out if my sales were dead and I was actively listing. My items sold and total sales are down 35% year over year so far, and that’s with 20% MORE active listings this year!
  
  I’ve created 314 new listings so far this year. At this point last year I had created 812 new listings. That leads me to believe that active listings don’t mean much compared to continuous new listings.
  
  This week is a prime example of why I’m not listing right now. Two of my children have birthdays, we have 8 baseball games, and two of my kids have prom.
  
  I did survive doing taxes. I learned that I don’t need godaddy or any other software. The reports from ebay, my business credit card, and my bank account take care of pretty much everything in a neat fashion. Honestly I think it was easier as Godaddy was such a mess the last two years.
  
  Bottom line, gross sales are down, COGS are up, expenses are up. So yay to less taxes, Boo to less profit! I’d rather proudly proclaim higher business income as I’m getting less and less mileage out of a dollar every year.
  - 04/18/2023 at 8:37 pm #99830
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Good news is that you’re still selling even though you’re busy doing other things. Crazy you have two kids going to Prom. Assume graduation soon. More room in the house?
    - 04/18/2023 at 11:18 pm #99833
      Retro Treasures WV
      Participant
      
      Location:
      @retro-treasures-wv
      
      My oldest is 16 so I have at least another couple years. It’s a prom for homeschool kids and they let middle schoolers go too, so my oldest son wanted to go this year. There will be about 200 kids there.
  - 04/19/2023 at 2:13 pm #99846
    Lukastreasure
    Participant
    
    Location: Chevy Chase, MD
    @lukastreasuretrove
    @Retro – I had a similar feeling with doing my taxes. Losing GoDaddy actually made it easier. I never felt like I could completely trust GoDaddy’s numbers so I always compared with eBay downloads and reports from my credit card and back accounts. Without GoDaddy, I just had original sources to use. No comparision time. One set of numbers to use.
    - 04/19/2023 at 3:59 pm #99847
      Retro Treasures WV
      Participant
      
      Location:
      @retro-treasures-wv
      
      I’m really hoping at some point that ebay provides some form of free accounting package to produce a complete sch C for your ebay business for store subscribers. Their current reporting capabilites is sooooooo close. Just need to include a COGS functionality. I’ve submitted this to ebay for business and been told it allegedly was being worked on.
      
      Imagine how cool it would be if you could input COGS as a hidden item specific right next to the custom SKU directly in the listing that would show up in reports.
- 04/18/2023 at 9:32 pm #99831
  GreenDragon
  Participant
  Location:
  @greendragon
  Total Items in Store: 3129
  Items Sold: 30
  Gross Sales: $1,452.01 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $ 1090.73 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $226
  Cost of helpers: $0
  Highest Price Sold: $150 (dress shoes)
  Average Price Sold: $53.78
  Returns: 1
  
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $238.41
  Number of items listed this week: 41
  
  Hey Jay & Ryanne and everyone else. I think this is only my second numbers post ever and I half-assed the first one. Numbers were sort of middle of the road for the week but I can’t complain too much and I’ll be happy if I can maintain a similar level throughout the summer. I have some concern that sales are going to REALLY fall off a ledge in June and July (I mean more so than usual). We’ll see.
  
  What everyone else says has been true for me: costs of goods (and everything else) are up, sales are down, and competition is fierce. That said, I still enjoy finding things that are being undersold (or free) and selling them for more money on the internet! I keep getting more selective with what I buy and how much I am willing to pay for things and figure that at some point my new listing volume will dramatically slow down. Oddly, that hasn’t happened yet, as I have several fresh death piles just sitting there waiting for me to do something with them…
  
  I miss the podcast and hope you guys are doing well with all of your businesses.
  
  Scott
  - 04/19/2023 at 8:26 am #99835
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Yeah, we’ll see how the summer goes. I assume it’s going to get slow. Your numbers look good this week!
- 04/19/2023 at 1:42 pm #99844
  Lukastreasure
  Participant
  Location: Chevy Chase, MD
  @lukastreasuretrove
  Week Ending 4/8/23
  Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $832.49
  Net Sales: $669.96
  Total Items Sold 14
  Total Items in eBay Store: 1178
  Items Sold eBay: 14
  Total Items in Etsy Store: 518
  Items Sold Etsy: 0
  Cost of Items Sold: $99.66
  
  Highest Price Sold: $274.95 (Vintage Wooden Tackle Box)
  Average Price Sold: $59.46
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
  
  Average Days Listed: 240
  Longest Listed: 1140
  New items listed: 0
  New Listings Value $0.00
  
  After a few weeks of poor sales, I feel like I can release my breath this week. A nice week of decent sales. My big sale was a vintage wooden tackle box ($275) made in Florida back in the 40’s or 50’s. I thought it was a toolbox when I purchased it at auction. I’ve done well with wooden toolboxes so I had high hopes and paid $55 for it. It only took 1 1/2 months to sell and I asked above the highest price I could find for previous sales.
  
  My second highest sale, $150, was for a cast iron reproduction of a 1930’s race car toy. I thought it might be an original when I bid on it, which would have been worth a few thousand, but it is just a really good reproduction. Can’t complain too much since I only paid about $19 for it.
  
  Etsy sales have fallen off a cliff since late March. On top of the slow sales I’ve been dealing with the aggravation of a glitch with Sixbit caused by an API upgrade by Etsy. None of my sales on eBay were automatically ending on Etsy. I posted more detail in a separate post if interested.
  
  Haven’t been listing for the last two weeks due to family obligations. Trying to get my head back in it this week.
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