The Numbers: Week of December 3-9, 2023

Items in Store: 2896
Items Sold: 38
Total Sales: $1,893.00
COGS: $300.00
Total Profit: $1,593.00
Average profit: $41.92
Average sales price: $49.82
New Listings: 45
Items scavenged: 90
2023 weekly new listings Avg: 46

This was a frustrating week. Honestly the numbers are much better than the week felt. It felt dead. I went from Tuesday early morning until Wednesday late evening without a sale or an offer. I had two frustrating returns. One the buyer is new to ebay and didn’t read the description. I sold a vintage toy cassette player for parts/repair very cheap. Working this unit sells for $50+. They wrote me saying it played slow. I politely told them to re-read my description. Everything was disclosed. So naturally they opened an INAD case. Ebay for business was frustratingly not helpful. The person practically word for word told me my own description in their message and the case. The ebay for business rep was like “we don’t have the item and it isn’t our job to interpret what the buyer/seller says”. Bullcrap!

Anyways, I have to allow the return and then can “apply” for the new false INAD return shipping credit. Ebay for business basically told me that new return shipping credit is BS and I’ll never get it since ebay “isn’t there and its not their place to judge…blah blah blah”. I also messaged the buyer that they are free to return the item at their own cost, but I’ll file a fraud return claim on them if they use the free INAD return label. They shipped it back this morning and didn’t respond to my message.

The other return the buyer messaged me that they wanted to return a pressure cooker due to a loose lid. I was trying to quickly message them before they opened the INAD case but they did it pretty much immediately. Why even bother messaging!!! Grrrr….. I went ahead and fully refunded them and told them how to fix it via a new seal. I also told them under no uncertain terms to NOT send the item back. I figure with my luck they’ll still send it and cost me a return shipping label.

It seems like my store dies for a day or two every time I get a return. Coincidence? Maybe.

I did stay in the hunt for the $70k gross year because of a huge $700 sale for a NIB printer at the beginning of the week.

I was out of town Friday until late Sunday night which impacted my listing. I still got 45 listings in over 4 days so yay! That keeps me in the running to meet my 2500 new listings goal by the end of the year.

Crazy….almost $1900 in sales and 45 new listings on a 4 day work week and I feel disappointed again. That’s why I do these numbers and reflect every week. My December numbers have been flat or trending down since 2018. I’m waay up this year so far. It is convenient that I’m hitting my stride now as I have some big expenses coming up this year and I need every penny I can get.

My traveling is done for the year. I really want to wrap up my listing goal by the 22nd so time to get busy listing!

Premium Hoarder update:

I sold 5 items for $218 this week. Well that’s shockingly bad! I even listed a bunch of hoarder clothes and even some big ticket shoes this week. I tried to negotiate on a couple pair of shoes where the offers weren’t quite good enough and the negotiations stalled out. Oh well. One of the pair I’m pretty firm at getting $600 for them since it is a pair I have the original receipt for.

Total Items in Store: 1,143
Items Sold: 32
Gross Sales: $1,138.88 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $634.67 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $151
Highest Price Sold: $100 Jonathan Adler Needlepoint pillow, sold immediately
Average Price Sold: $35.59
Returns:  1 – Returned to sender
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $45
Number of items listed this week:  52

Well it was a pretty good week though no big dollar sales except the pillow.  I did sell 8 items of my Target RA stash this week to one buyer, but there are more items left.  All my RA items have been sold out at Target.com and in all my nearby stores.  We’ll see if people will pay up extra for some of that this week or after Christmas.  Overall the Target RA experiment I think will be a success but all may not liquidate this season.

I have been running a sale and will start another today, probably going down to 20% off. I’m grateful for my Ebay business but we have a lot of extra expenses so I’m trying to crank out all the sales I can.  I’ve been pricing a little more competitively, while leaving room to make offers as much as possible.  Thinking a lot about next year and definitely looking to move to more of a faster nickel than maximim price.  I think this is also suited for the economic conditions and consumer sentiment.

R&J Happy that things are going well.  Reflect on your amazing accomplishments!  Miss the podcast as always.

Finally, I wanted to share something I found by Justin Resells for those of you who source on Facebook Marketplace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW6W1qZ6zQI

I believe this week proves that promoted listings is a much better bet than running a markdown sale. This week I ran a 30% off that included much Christmas stuff, but it was not nearly as good as last week with PL.

I will start next year without sales (except for one) and the rest PL.

Week of Dec 3 – 9
Total Items in Store: 1728 eBay, 35 Etsy
Items Sold: 14 eBay, 0 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $14 + $45 Commission
Total Sales: $273.66 eBay, $0 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $35.66 Vintage Trafalgar Suspenders
Average price: $19.55
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0

Well, I officially slacked this week, so much going on personally… I just didn’t have time to list and honestly didn’t make it my #1 priority. It felt good to take a few days off. I’ll be back on track next week. Always great to see the numbers and read your stories. For me, Promoted Listings are important and I seem to have the best combo when I run a low $ sale and a low $ coupon. (5%)… in addition to the PL’s.  But I like to change things up and with super desirable items I tend to exclude them from the discounts and those items still sell without the help. I have been tracking the STR for each item I list. It’s helping me to source better items. And, yeah, after a return, I feel like there is a sales slow-down for 24 hours, but no way to officially prove it, as the traffic stays the same, but I wonder if items get temporarily placed lower in search, possibly?

My Store Week December 3-9, 2023

Total Items in Store: 756
Items Sold: 16
Gross Sales: $643.97 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $313.28 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $46.89
Highest Price Sold: $49.97 (Polo Ralph Lauren Vintage Pants)
Average Price Sold: $30.85
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $90.83
Number of items listed this week: 11

$ Amount Listed this week: $579.44

While we’re on the topic of promoted listings, it is worth mentioning that I haven’t added any items to promoted listings in many months. I think I added some in July maybe? I’ve listed over 1000 items since the last time I added promoted listings. My sales are higher than ever in quantity and gross sales.

Listing high STR items and being consistent with listing is far more important than promoted listings. 60 of my last 200 sales were via promoted listings, half of those being from 3-4 multi quantity listings I’ve been selling from for a while.

I only do 2.1% on items I have PL turned on.

Total Items in ebay Store: 301

Total Items in FBM:  96

Ebay Items Sold: 10 for $998

Ebay COGS: $18.25

FB items sold: 5 for $160

FB COGs: $10

Items found: I found 13 items in about a span of three hours this past week at different times.

On ebay I had a great week.  I sold two pairs of my “curb find” Lucchese cowboy boots, one for $375 and one for $275.  I sold a NWT “arborist” “Notch” backpack for $170, which was found at an apartment complex trashbin.   I also sold three toddler/baby 1990s “Apple Macintosh” t-shirts in a lot of $85. However, one boot purchaser said he was returning the boots for fit.  I haven’t seen them arrive yet, and it will be a bummer to refund $275.  But it should sell again.

On Facebook I sold a solid wood coffee table for $45, a piano stool for $25, a Harbinger weight vest for $45, and a hot/cold water dispenser machine for $45.  The piano stool had cost me $8 in an auction and unfortunately was damaged. The others were free curb finds.

This past week I found some great items:  an antique narrow tall dresser, a promotional Miller Lite snowboard, a porch swing, 3 Simple Human trashcans, a bar height patio set, and two amazing carved wooden cabinet bookcases.  The bookcase-cabinets were huge and heavy. They are India/Bali style.  One was 67” x 55” and couldn’t even be budged by me.  The other was 72” x 48”.  Luckily I found them only ¼ mile from my husband’s office, so he left to come help me. I had to make two trips in my truck, and the garbageman nearly got the second one before I got back there. I listed the large one for $1500 and the smaller for $650 (on FBM just so far, will put on ebay this week).

It’s worth looking up a June 2023 government report if anyone’s kids are looking for research paper ideas. My daughter and I were just researching SHEIN.   I often scan racks at the thrifts for interesting fabrics, and often it’s a SHEIN item that tricks me.   I wanted to know where people are buying it from; turns out it’s just the internet.

They and TEMU are covered in a government report about Chinese slave labor.  The report is titled “Fast Fashion and the Uyghur Genocide”.  TEMU and SHEIN account for 30% of de minimis imports into the US, because their prices are low…because of the labor they use.  They don’t have US based stores that receive imports, unlike Nike or H&M who pay $700M in import fees for items that are more than de minimis (because they pay higher wages in China).

Week Ending 12/9/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $1,314.92  (eBay $915 / Etsy $400)
Net Sales: $1,081.80
Total Items Sold: 23  (eBay 17 / Etsy 6)
Total Items in eBay Store: 1164 / Etsy: 564

Cost of Items Sold: $312.95
Highest Price Sold: $325.00
Average Price Sold: $57.17
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 13

Average Days Listed: 452
Longest Listed: 2053
New items listed: 21
New Listings Value $1,360.95

Decent week of sales for our store.  The most items I’ve sold in a single week this year.   Many were low dollar so my total wasn’t too great.  My COGS were very high for this week’s sales as 3 of my bigger sales were items that I misjudged their value at auction and overpaid for them.

My big sale of the week was an old typewriter for $325.  I paid $90 at auction, but when I got it, it had undisclosed damage.  I had to pay another $50 for it in parts to repair it, plus a lot of time to actually repair.  To make matters worse, FedEx really mishandled the package and it arrived busted. The buyer threw the box away before contacting me, so no evidence for a damage claim.  I ended up refunding them $125 for the damage.  Basically, a wash sale.  Pity, as it was a very cool looking typewriter.  I enjoy fixing things like this, but this was discouraging.