The Numbers: May 21-27, 2023

Items in Store 2004
Items Sold 7
Total Sales $116.00
COGS $29.00
Total Profit $87.00
Average profit $12.43
Average sales price $16.57
New Listings 0
Items scavenged 14
Listing 2023 weekly Avg 17

Well this HAS to be rock bottom, right? I knew it was a slow week, but DANG!!!!

Oh well, this week starts my summer challenge – 13 weeks and 1000 listings. If that doesn’t get my store a-rockin then I might as well quit. I got off to a good start and posted 7 listings this morning.  I have to average 77 a week.

In other news, I kicked off a special summer project with my oldest 2 kids yesterday. We were at a shopping center and my kids found a $20 laying on the ground in the parking lot. They of course wanted to blow it immediately. At some point during the walk my wife brought up the idea that they could try a form of the paperclip challenge. How far can they take that found $20 in one summer? I offered up my ebay expertise to help them start selling. Initially they were hesitant as they REALLY wanted to frivolously blow that $20. Finally I convinced them that if they played their cards right they’d pretty quickly have that $20 back, plus plenty more.

So off we went to goodwill with their $20. It was the perfect day for this goodwill as they do a double tag 99 cent sale on clothing for memorial weekend. I coached them to focus on in-season mens clothes – mainly golfing fashion mall brands and athleisure for womens clothes. They would pull the clothes, bring them over to me and I’d coach them to check for flaws and give advice on what was more desirable and what wasn’t going to sell quickly.

I also threw them a bone and let them have an apple wired aluminum keyboard I found that was $3.

I considered starting a new store just for them, but for this summer it will be much easier just to use my store. I gave them a single dedicated bin to store their stuff – the bin is called “2 broke homeschoolers”. My wife thought it would be awesome if they started a youtube channel to document their journey but they…”don’t want to dilute their future brand of being video game youtube stars”. So no youtube channel…for now.

So we got home and I helped them create an excel spreadsheet to track their inventory, COGS,  sales, and profit (nerds gotta nerd!). I gotta say, seeing my 12 year old son happily entering data into excel was a proud father moment.

Next I showed them how to research and leverage the sell similar tactic to simplify listing. We discussed pricing strategy so that they don’t leave too much meat on the bone but also have try to ensure a quick sale. So far they have created 8 listings with a combined list price of $160. They are so pumped and excited. Today we’ll finish up the listings and they can take their photos so the listings can go live.

These 2 kids are best friends and work together very well. I have a feeling that this will work out quite well for them. I’m thinking that I’ll let them post their weekly numbers as well here starting next week.

Awesome post Retro! Good luck.

Total Items in Store: 910
Items Sold: 62
Gross Sales: $1,793.40 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,178.15 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $400
Cost of helpers: $125.00
Highest Price Sold: $270 (n scale locomotive)
Average Price Sold: $28.93
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 70

We are definitely getting into the “slow” season for model trains. My sales were ok this week but I found myself taking lower offers and really having to coax the sales to keep them flowing. I sold two expensive steam locomotives for $250+ and that really helped gross sales but one was brand new merchandise so my margin was very low and the other was on consignment for a friend hence my high cost of goods in relation to total sales this week. I’m going to try a 20% off sale on a bunch of the n-scale rolling stock I listed that isn’t moving very fast and I’ve switched up the items I’m listing to focus more on HO scale which I think sells better. If I can maintain sales numbers around what they were this week for the next couple of months I’ll be satisfied that I weathered the slow season without issues but I really don’t want my net after fees and shipping to be much below 1k per week.

Total Items in Store: 626
Items Sold: 5
Gross Sales: $249.59 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $153.55 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $64
Highest Price Sold: $78 (New pajama pants)
Average Price Sold: $43.57
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 2

Well not a good week for sure and I didn’t help it along by listing.  Have some things going on but hoping to get my Ebay mojo back soon.

Week Ending 5/27/23

Total Items in eBay Store: 1234 / Etsy Store: 553

Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $588.60 (eBay:$479 / Etsy: 110)
Net Sales: $506.84
Total Items Sold :9  (eBay: 7 /Etsy: 2)

Cost of Items Sold: $95.19
Highest Price Sold: $240.00 (Hubley Cast Iron Doorstop)
Average Price Sold: $65.40
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Average Days Listed: 145
Longest Listed: 911
New items listed: 25
New Listings Value $2,144.00

I was ready to lament my poor sales this week until I looked at history and see that this was the best last week of May that I’ve had since I started keeping regular records in 2020 – even better than early pandemic.  Not a lot of sales but had two large sales that made it better than average.

My big sale was a Hubley cast iron German Shepherd door stop from the 1930’s.  Prices on these are all over the place with asking prices for some over $1000, but recent sales on Terapeak weren’t supporting that level so I took an offer of $240 after starting at $299.  My second big sale was from a repeat customer who has been regularly buying ornaments for the past few months.  She ordered 6 of my higher priced ornaments and I gave her 35% off for her regular patronage with me getting $143.

I was happy to see that I had 25 listings from the week.  For some reason I didn’t feel that productive.  One was a relisting of my return that had only sold earlier in the week, so that was a net 0 for the week.

Wow! You guys are hitting on all cylinders. Your sales have been impressive.

My numbers were very strong last week, and it’s only because of the time and effort I’ve put in to expand my store into different categories. My sales of individual trading cards last week were down about 50% from last year, which has been very consistent with my numbers over the last six months. However, I had around $1100 in gross sales in other categories, everything from trading card lots to trading card supplies to model trains and Lord of the Rings calendars.

Also, my individual trading card sales are still just as strong as last year. But more of those sales happen in my consignment port now. The individual trading cards which I list on eBay are all ones that I think will sell quickly for a nice price. No more listing $10 and $20 cards and waiting for the right buyer to pay 75% or more of my asking so I can make five bucks profit. The low priced cards (or photos, as you’ll read below) which I list are all things that I have in quantity. There is a lot more method to my madness now compared to a year ago. This has made eBay more fun and interesting for me, and I think probably more sustainable in the long term.

5/21/2023 to 5/27/2023

Items sold: 40 (20 via best offer, 9 via seller initiated offer, 26 via promoted listings)

Gross sales: $2249.37 (down 6% from one year ago)

Net sales: $1500.33 (down 11% from one year ago)

Average sales price: $56.23 (down 6% from one year ago)

Highest price sold (net): $159.72 — Marty Friedman JSA certified autographed photo

This was a really quick flip, sold within 48 hours of me posting it. Bought on eBay for $25, original listing that I bought from was okay, but auctions are not a good way to sell something as obscure as an NBA Hall of Famer who played pre-World War I.

Second place was this 2-car model train set which I go into more detail about over in the Sale of the Week thread. It’s the first model train set I’ve ever sold and maybe the last, but I’m thrilled to see another example of how doing the research pays off.

Lowest price sold (net): $7.98— Jalen Wilson autographed 8×10 photo

I have dozens of this same autographed photo, purchased in lots of 10 a few months back for a buck or two each. At some point, I will want to liquidate, but Wilson was a star hooper at Kansas (recently graduated) who may get drafted late in the second round of the NBA draft next month. So I may get occasional $10 sales for quite a while still.

Somehow, I completely spaced out about posting my numbers for this week. Here goes, nothing to get too excited about.

Week of May 21 – 27
Total Items in Store: 1705 eBay, 30 Etsy
Items Sold: 5 eBay, 0 Etsy

Cost of Items Sold: $0 + $10 Commission
Total Sales: $61.86 eBay, $0 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $24 for 18 Joy Mangano Black Huggable Shirt Hangers
Average price: $12.37

Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 3

Monthly numbers for May: 05/1 – 05/31

Total listings: 1559
Items sold: 36
Sales: $781.98
Highest price sold: $44.90 Pair of toggle switches
Average price sold: $21.72
Cost of items sold: $81.37 / average cost: 2.26 each
Spent on new inventory: $226.00
Number of items listed: 29

My May sales were half of what they were in April, probably due to not listing much in May. I did purchase a lot of inventory as there were 4 city wide garage sales near me which were hard to pass up. My best find was 3 boxes of old porcelain fixtures for $20 – some of the fixtures should sell for over $20 individually. I like finding old hardware and fixtures, although they are long tail, they always seem to sell for good money.

Last night I sold a Coach bag I have had listed since 2016. When I pulled it out of storage, it smelled like old cheese. I didn’t smell when I stored it all those years ago. All of the methods to get rid of the smell I found on YouTube will take days if not longer which I didn’t have the time for. I contacted the buyer and let them know that the bag had been in storage for about 7 years and now had an unpleasant smell to it. My solution was to offer them a full refund and mail it to them anyway. They were very pleased with my straightforwardness and happy with a free bag – and I am very happy to avoid a possible INAD and bad feedback. With shipping and the cost of the bag, it cost me less than $20 which I am happy to pay since it was my fault and I should be able to maintain my 100% feedback.