The Numbers: April 23-29, 2023

Total Items in Store: 608
Items Sold:  4
Gross Sales: $150.69 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $84.79 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $8
Highest Price Sold: $45 (New Slip sleep mask)
Average Price Sold: $37.67
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $15
Number of items listed this week: 20

Well not a great week.  I did have a good day yesterday, thankfully.  I’m noticing that some things that used to sell regularly for me are very slow – like craft kits.

Went to Bed Bath and Beyond this week to check out the clearance and it was as I expected very disappointing on the discounts. I heard they were going to liquidate quickly but Christmas was only 20% off and most things 10%. Surprisingly a lot of the shelves were already clearing.  Not a good source for me.

I’m a bit frustrated as a couple of the thrifts have adopted new labels that are super tough to get off most surfaces.  Apparently people were trying to switch tags.  No thanks to them for this nuisance.  The thrifting has not been great lately to say the least, and I’m almost to the point of being glad for the piles but still have too much backlog.  However, things are looking better and better around here.  I debated and then decided to go in to the neighborhood garage sale.  I am going to sell some stuff I don’t want to store anymore or ship (vintage light fixtures, big pillows, some large art) and some $10-15 items.  We also have some cat damaged Crate and Barrel leather furniture and a rug that I’d like to update and hope to find quality replacements for on Facebook Marketplace.  I know we won’t get much at the yard sale but it forces us to make a change. My husband must be coming around because he suggested I get all new bins and he got rid of his giant boxing bag in the garage.  Yippee!

Week Ending 4/29/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $812.50  (eBay $552.68 / Etsy $137.80)
Net Sales: $672.31 (eBay $552.68 / Etsy $119.63)
Total Items Sold: 14 (eBay 10 / Etsy 4)
Total Items in eBay Store: 1194 / Etsy Store: 537

Cost of Items Sold: $47.49
Highest Price Sold: $199.95 Cast Iron Motorcycle
Average Price Sold: $58.04
Returns: 0

Money Spent on New Inventory: $5.00
Average Days Listed: 383
Longest Listed: 1999
New items listed: 25
New Listings Value $1,781.75

What started out as a really bad year is finally starting to pick up a bit.  April ended being the best since 2020.  Not sure if anything has changed in the market, or I’m simply posting better stuff.  I have been putting in a lot of effort scavenging and listing since the beginning of the year, so I’m going to take the credit.  🙂  I’ve posted more in the first 4 months of the year than I have since I started keeping records.  Now to keep the momentum going.

Best sale of the week was a 1930’s Champion cast iron motorcycle cop for $199.95.  These cast iron toys are tough to sell as there are sooo many reproductions.  I’ve spent a lot of effort to make sure what I am selling is the real thing, but I am always left with some doubt.  I’m pretty sure this one was real, but won’t breath easy until the return period is over.  Sold 4 more books for a total of $239 from the $2 lot I bought at auction several weeks ago.

It rained all day here on Saturday and ended up getting some water in my basement and spent several hours yesterday cleaning up.  My basement is where my office and storage is located.  I’ve had a lot of water problems simce we moved in but thought I had them mostly under control.  We still keep most everything in plastic boxes or elevated just in case, but I got a little complacent and left two boxes of books on the floor in an area I haven’t had problems in years.  Ended up throwing out 20 – 30 books.  Some of the books were personal and had some sentimental value, so a bit disappointed about that.  We’ve spent over $10,000 on trying to remediate these issues since bought the place in 2006.  Guess it’s time to spend some more…

Items in Store 2040
Items Sold 13
Total Sales $288.00
COGS $46.00
Total Profit $242.00
Average profit $18.62
Average sales price $22.15
New Listings 37
Items scavenged 5
Listing 2023 weekly Avg 20

Yesterday I actually had some time (and motivation/energy) to do some ebay work. Yay!

It felt good to get some ebay work done. I have not actively listed for 11 out of 18 weeks so far this year, and havent listed the last 8 weeks!

I photographed and listed my backlog of drafts. I also created a bunch of new listings.

A while back I bought a sewing machine at Goodwill to give to one of my children. I tested it at the store and it appeared to work. Once I gave it to my super crafty wife to put it through a real test, it had motor and drive issues under loading. Even perfectly working I’d get max $100 for this machine. Selling intact for parts/repair I’d be lucky to get $20 and have a high likelihood of a bad buyer placing an INAD.

So I did what any good scavenger would do and parted out everything that was worth parting out. Most parts are universal to many machines of this brand. I also parted some parts for this specific machine that are likely to break or go missing. In total the listed value of everything is…$275!!! It’s tempting to do alot more parting out. There is money to be made for sure, and COGS are super low.

I’ll be in the profit selling 2-3 parts likely this week. Then it’s a pipeline that just keeps on giving over the next year or two.

The week started of terrible with no sales Mon or Tues and only one piddling sale Sun and Wed. However, it picked up after that, and Saturday had several sales plus the completion of six items sold to one person. Strangely, I had sold six item to one person the previous week, and I hardly ever get multiple sales.

Week of Apr 23 – 29
Total Items in Store: 1718 eBay, 30 Etsy
Items Sold: 13 eBay, 0 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $7.25 + $75 Commission
Total Sales: $274.01 eBay, $0 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $55 Kirks Folly Brooch
Average price: $21.07
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 3

Monthly numbers for April: 04/1 – 04/30

Total listings: 1562
Items sold: 61
Sales: $1,691.15
Highest price sold: $290.00 Set of vehicle service manuals
Average price sold: $27.72
Cost of items sold: $215.41 / average cost: 3.53 each
Spent on new inventory: $66.00
Number of items listed: 81

I had a few periods of 2-3 days with no sales at all in April, but it was made up by one very good sale for $290 and three others for over $100 (two were for vintage pencil lots). I’ve been trying to list more and buy less inventory but I think that is about to end as there are three city-wide sales coming up very close to where I live, one of them in a city that hasn’t done one before.

First time posting numbers in a while. My grandfather died a few weeks ago. He lived a good long life and was healthy for almost all of it. We should all be so lucky. I miss him so much. Thank you Jay and Ryanne for this podcast. I would most likely still be working a dead-end job (or two or three) if I had never found Scavenger Life podcast and forums. I had so much extra time with my grandfather because my schedule is so flexible. I will treasure that for the rest of my life. And I was able to pay my bills in this time as well.

No surprise, eBay has been in the back of my mind most of this year. Just ran my business on autopilot, ship what sold and list a couple things when I had a few minutes in between running around. I did find the time at the very end of March to run a batch of 10 day auctions which boosted my April numbers. It is so interesting what gets bids and what doesn’t. I have another batch of auctions ending next week and I’ve received bids on sterling silver coins, signed batting gloves and an airbrushing DVD. Why didn’t these bidders send an offer when these items were listed as BIN/BO? Who knows, but I love to see this stuff sell.

My trading card consignment sales were my bread and butter for the last few months, since no shipping. A reminder that eBay is great, but it’s helpful to have another venue for sales, especially if life gets busy and you’re relying on selling for all or most of your income.

It will be nice to really get back in the swing of eBay over the next few weeks.

April 1 to April 30, 2023

Items sold: 155 (63 via best offer, 27 via seller initiated offer, 68 via promoted listings)

Gross sales: $7717.31 (down 28% from one year ago)

Net sales: $5096.98 (down 33% from one year ago)

Auction sales: $1872.72

Average sales price: $49.79 (down 13% from one year ago)

@craig-rex – Sorry for your loss.  It is nice to hear that eBay gave you the flexibility to spend quality time with him during his last few months.

Week of 4/23 – 4/29
Total items in Store: 312
Items Sold: 2
Gross Sales: $36.51 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $13.26 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
Highest Price Sold: $26.52 plus shipping (USN Communications Security Mgmt System Challenge Coin)
Average Sales Price: $18.25 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of new items listed: 0
Kind of embarrassing to put up these numbers but they are what they are. I had more Time Away so no offers out during that time or several days before, since accepted offers out have to be shipped at my usual handling time. Usually I have found a slight uptick in sales when I initially go on Time Away but not this time. I was helping my daughter move to start a new job with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I grew up in Philly and lived there into my 20’s but have not been back in many years so it was fun to see familiar places. I got excited when I drove by the Melrose Diner in South Philly but surprised to see no one inside in the middle of the day until I realized it was closed. Unfortunately, the closing is permanent and it will be torn down. Another landmark gone.

I was very impressed. It does seem to be a hot new place to live. There are some areas that were really bad when I left in ’79 that are now pretty decent residential with restaurants and shops so there are definitely more options for livable neighborhoods within the city limits than there used to be. Overall there are strong cultural and historical attractions in Philly of course, and recreation with the shore and the mountains not too far away and the weather is not too bad. I read somewhere that it is now the third trendiest and most affordable city in the country.