The Numbers: Week of December 31-January 6, 2023/24

We ended the year with strong sales and are happy with how are store is working. When you sell stuff you scavenge randomly, you just never know how it’ll do. It’s a much different business model from a store that does market research and stocks items that are popular for resell. As scavengers, we’re always hoping there are other people that see the value in the stuff we find.

Our most fun sale was a vintage hanging lamp that we sold for about $150. Several months ago we went to a house that was being renovated. The woman sold us a set of 1970s appliances for $300 (that Ryanne quickly sold for $2000). While at the house, Ryanne saw some lamps in the dumpster out front. Lady said we could have them free. Ryanne jumped in and got them. I love her.

We’re about a month away from opening our new cafe in Harrisonburg, VA. Last minute renovations are taking longer than we want. Lots of moving pieces. Hiring a full staff. Need to train. Set up equipment. Style the inside. Oh boy. Its a bigger city but has a small enough downtown that we have a lot of buzz and anticipation. Let’s go.

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Our Store Week December 31-January 6, 2023/24

Total Items in Store: 9580
Items Sold: 27
Gross Sales: $1,528.72 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $947.37 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $89
Cost of helpers: $0
Highest Price Sold: $175 (studio vase)
Average Price Sold: $35.08
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $100
Number of items listed this week: 50
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

This topic has 23 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 3 months ago by ebaymom.

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- 01/10/2024 at 10:55 am #102103
  Jay
  Keymaster
  Location: Virginia
  @jay
  We ended the year with strong sales and are happy with how are store is working. When you sell stuff you scavenge randomly, you just never know how it
  [See the full post at: The Numbers: Week of December 31-January 6, 2023/24]
- 01/10/2024 at 1:48 pm #102105
  ChristineR
  Participant
  Location: Southern California
  @christiner
  Total Items in Store: 1,163
  Items Sold: 25
  Gross Sales: $1,120 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $637 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $120
  Highest Price Sold: $87 New teapot, paid $19 on 12/25
  Average Price Sold: $45
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $60
  Number of items listed this week: 12
  
  Tough week last week. I got my first negative feedback ever from a new Ebayer. Claimed it was not authentic. I’ve done all the things and she hasn’t returned the item. I need to call Ebay and follow up. Then, I was organizing and somehow a tiny little horse figurine I had nearby inside a basket went flying and broke so I had to cancel that $40 sale. I think there is something else I forgot. Not a terrific week for the fam either. BUT we did go to the Eagles Goodbye concert.
  
  On the upside I organized all of my shipping boxes. I’m cleaning out our guest closet to accommodate listed inventory. I kind of hate this time of year since I have to sit for a day and a half and do my COGS when I’m really in the mood for physical organizing. I’m a weird person who likes that kind of activity. Haven’t been shopping much or listing enough. My daughter dumped a bunch of clothing out of her room. The better stuff I think I will just go ahead and try on Ebay. I don’t really want to deal with learning Poshmark.
  
  Congrats R&J for being on the home stretch. Very exciting but I’m sure stressful as well.
  - 01/10/2024 at 5:51 pm #102107
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Thanks Christine. We know the hard work always pays off. Just necessary stress trying to manage all the details.
    - 01/11/2024 at 8:18 am #102116
      ChristineR
      Participant
      
      Location: Southern California
      @christiner
      
      You’re welcome Jay. I hope you continue to be able to find great employees. My cousin outside of Bend opened and closed a day care. Plenty of customers but good employees were hard to come by and she had to work it herself a lot. It sounds like in Luray you have done ok and the new city is larger and younger. 👍. Hopefully your housekeepers are solid. Excited to see photos of your new cool place! Glad EBay is doing well for you too. All balls in the air! Way to go.
      - 01/11/2024 at 2:17 pm #102117
        
        ChristineR
        Participant
        
        Location: Southern California
        @christiner
        
        I forgot to mention that there is new data available in the beta Ebay social page. Some of it doesn’t make sense to me but I can tell I’m averaging about 25 clicks of traffic from Pinterest per month. Unfortunately it doesn’t indicate whether those people bought the item or not or say which listings drove traffic.
- 01/10/2024 at 2:13 pm #102106
  Retro Treasures WV
  Participant
  Location:
  @retro-treasures-wv
  Items in Store: 2972
  Items Sold: 43
  Total Sales: $2,219.00
  COGS: $266.00
  Total Profit: $1,953.00
  Average profit: $45.42
  Average sales price: $51.60
  New Listings: 40
  Items scavenged: 0
  2024 weekly new listings Avg: 40
  
  Starting the year off right! I hope to ride this $2k+ per week wave as long as I can. I’ve started on my numbers for the year – there is a deal on Turbotax right now if you use that. Home & Business was $75 on amazon.
  
  I made one Goodwill trip this week but they didn’t have anything worth buying that fit my criteria. Their inventory is strangely depleted at this Goodwill and they are starting to reorganize shelves. I have a bad feeling they are going to do much more Purchased Goods. I’m not too sad I didn’t get anything. I only want the fast sales and high dollar stuff. The mileage trip still counts even if I don’t buy anything. Can’t find the big fish if you ain’t at the lake!
  
  I’ve been listing heavily but haven’t been moving items to inventory at the same rate. The limited daylight and cold temps in winter always leads to me slacking on the inventory org side of the business. I was able to move a bunch of stuff to inventory this weekend, but I have a bunch more to go. I got a nice new headlamp for when I work at night out in the inventory shed. New Toys…I mean tools always motivate me to do work. LOL! I’m starting to run out of room again in the listed inventory shed so I’m going to have to do more intense reorganizing and efficientizing. Boo!!! The room is there, I just gotta put the work in to make it more available. It’s sooo much easier to do with nice weather during daylight so I can work outside as well. One way or another I have to get it done this week. I can’t wait until spring to get my work spaces cleaned up and organized.
  
  Now that ebay has some pretty robust numbers tools, I like to do some numbers fun. We talk about pipelines around here. Two of my best pipelines are Art Markers and Smartwool Socks. I sell some of each every week. I was able to pull the numbers from ebay for last year on each of these pipelines. I sold 244 markers for $1265. I sold 67 pair of smartwool socks for $950. I LOVE these pipelines and will be sad when they are depleted. I’m sure something else will come along.
  
  Premium Hoarder update:
  
  Sold 9 items for $946. That brings my total items sold up to 247 and my ASP is up to $118.
  
  In my store I currently have 479 more items listed for a list price of $64665. My current gross sales is $29k. If I apply my actual ASP price to the unsold listings I am looking at $85k in gross sales eventually. I have around $15k more in the stuff I haven’t listed yet, so my initial thoughts of $80-100k in sales is turning out to be accurate.
  
  My total profit on the haul so far is $12750.
  
  I took a $300 offer on a pair of shoes that I had listed for $500 at the end of the week just to insure I hit $2k sales for the week. I had these priced up anyways and the buyer market for these was likely limited. Might as well strike while the money is in-hand.
  - 01/10/2024 at 5:52 pm #102108
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Two of my best pipelines are Art Markers and Smartwool Socks.
    
    I dont remember the story of where you found a hoard of markers and socks.
    - 01/10/2024 at 6:58 pm #102109
      Retro Treasures WV
      Participant
      
      Location:
      @retro-treasures-wv
      
      The socks were pre-covid – I think 2019. I cleared out a tent sale at Dick’s sporting goods. $2 a pair women’s smartwool. I bought somewhere between 250-300 pair. I listed most of them and sold every one of them back then. I mis-placed a giant tub of them somewhere in death pile mountain for several years ( sad, I know!). That tub turned up around 18 months ago and I listed the rest. They haven’t sold as quickly as the first batch. I’ve made several thousand dollars on this pipeline.
      
      the markers I bought at Hobby Lobby on clearance around 2 years ago I think? I bought over 400 PrismaColor Art markers for $1.50 each. They retail for $7. My ASP has been $5.20 because I have two marketing plans to give a discount if buying multiples and free shipping if buying 4 or more. I’ve been surprised at how many single markers I’ve sold even with the discounts and possible free shipping. When I sell a single I get $6.99 and make an extra dollar on shipping with my discount. I only have about 40 left.
- 01/10/2024 at 7:48 pm #102110
  The_SEAM_Store
  Participant
  Location: PA
  @the_seam_store
  Total Items in Store: 3716 listings for 5372 items
  Items Sold: 39
  Gross Sales: $3427.25 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $2459.62
  Cost of Items Sold: $606 ($197 mine / $409 consignors)
  $Highest Price Sold: $399.99 Polo Puffer Coat
  Average Price Sold: $87.88
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $380
  Number of items listed this week: 60
  - 01/10/2024 at 7:53 pm #102111
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Nice to see your numbers havent gone down after all this time away. Did you and your partner ever buy that house so she could go back to school? Hows your back?
    - 01/10/2024 at 8:14 pm #102113
      The_SEAM_Store
      Participant
      
      Location: PA
      @the_seam_store
      
      No, but she’s finished, licensed/practicing in MD and PA. My back has been a bit better for the past year. That was a long stretch of hurt since 2017.
  - 01/10/2024 at 8:52 pm #102114
    Retro Treasures WV
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @retro-treasures-wv
    Here is the story I mentioned last week:
    
    Scavenge of the week June 18-24, 2023
    
    Premium hoarder score getting serious
    
    The premium hoarder apartment CRAZY hard goods!
    - 01/11/2024 at 6:10 am #102115
      The_SEAM_Store
      Participant
      
      Location: PA
      @the_seam_store
      
      Maybe this will be encouraging then.
      
      Here are the running totals for my premium hoarder
      
      Months since acquisition – 41
      
      Item Sales (Not including postage) – $127,147.82
      
      The SEAM Store commission – $43,968.43
      
      Client Payout – $63,138.15
      
      Items Sold – 1577
      
      Active Listings – 519
      
      Items to be listed – 315
      
      Garage-sold, Trashed or Donated Items – 426
      
      We initially agreed on roughly 1200-1400 items. He couldn’t fit everything in a small PODS unit, and his location did not offer Medium PODS, so he went with a Large. He got a little happy-go-lucky at the end and just started throwing in piles of things we had not discussed. I was having massive anxiety about the unknown death pile inbound, with nowhere to offload the unconsignable stuff. During the pandemic I couldn’t find anywhere to take donations, but I was able to move a lot of the unconsignable stuff at a garage sale by doing “fill a bag”. It was almost a year before I finally had everything unpacked and really knew how much he sent. The 60 wardrobe boxes nearly killed me, but it has been worth it……I’m not sure if I would do it again….but ask me tomorrow.
      
      I send him a payout every month on the 15th, for the past 3.5 years, and almost never hear a peep.
      - 01/12/2024 at 9:58 pm #102127
        
        Retro Treasures WV
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @retro-treasures-wv
        
        Oh wow, that is alot at once! I’ve brought mine in a van load at a time and just kind of dealt with it in my existing space. I had just made my work space super clean, neat, and organized the week before I unleashed that collection upon my space.
        
        How long did you keep the pod? Is there a cost to that for you or the consigner?
        
        It’s good that he is hands off. I’ve always been leery of consignment as I don’t want a 3rd party having any input in my business or hassling me. I get enough people not “staying in their lane” at my day job.
        
        01/13/2024 at 11:56 am #102128
        
        The_SEAM_Store
        Participant
        
        Location: PA
        @the_seam_store
        
        The consignors pay to ship to me. He was going to drive it initially, but in the pandemic, the POD made good sense and was much cheaper than trying to mail it all.
        
        I was ready (or so I thought), so I only needed about 45 minutes to offload the boxes into my garage. It came 3 days before Christmas, and right before some snow, so I wanted to get that part out of the way ASAP. They picked it up a few days later.
        
        All of my consignors are fairly hands off. I do have one guy thats a little different…..but he sends some great stuff sometimes, so I deal with it.
- 01/11/2024 at 4:00 pm #102118
  Lukastreasure
  Participant
  Location: Chevy Chase, MD
  @lukastreasuretrove
  Week Ending 1/6/24
  Gross Sales: $753.30 (eBay $599 / Etsy $155)
  Net Sales (minus shipping, taxes and fees): $420.31
  Total Items Sold: 15 (eBay 10 / Etsy 5)
  Total Items in eBay Store: 1116 / Etsy: 533)
  Cost of Items Sold: $49.44
  Highest Price Sold: $115.00 Lamp
  Average Price Sold: $34.43
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $80
  Sold via promoted listings: 7
  Average Days Listed: 379
  Longest Listed: 1230
  New items listed: 0
  New Listings Value $0.00
  
  Wow, all of you are having a heck of a start to the new year. Congrats.
  
  Not too busy here. Best sale of the week was a mid-century “Crazy Legs” lamp. I had it up for $150 but took a best offer of $115. Another nice sale was a $100 for a reloading die for bullets for a .38 Special that I got in a large lot earlier in the year.
  
  Had my first good run through a thrift store in ages last week. Went to a Goodwill that I haven’t been to in years. Used to be very mediocre. Last week I walked out with a grocery cart full. Most exciting find was a cool tiki mug that should sell for $80.
  - 01/11/2024 at 9:24 pm #102120
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Had my first good run through a thrift store in ages last week. Went to a Goodwill that I haven’t been to in years. Used to be very mediocre. Last week I walked out with a grocery cart full. Most exciting find was a cool tiki mug that should sell for $80.
    
    I would love a world where Goodwill was a good source of inventory. I’m sure its different location to location. We walked through our local Goodwill recently. All junk!
- 01/11/2024 at 4:02 pm #102119
  Lukastreasure
  Participant
  Location: Chevy Chase, MD
  @lukastreasuretrove
  @Jay – Looking forward to the opening of the new cafe. I’ve never taken the drive over to Harrisonburg. This’ll give us an excuse to see more of the valley. Good luck with the opening.
  - 01/11/2024 at 9:26 pm #102121
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    I’ve never taken the drive over to Harrisonburg.
    
    It’s a fun town. You can feel the excitement as Richmond and Charlottesville stop being affordable for young people after college graduation. Its nice being around people in their 20’s/30’s.
- 01/12/2024 at 9:50 pm #102126
  Sharyn
  Participant
  Location: Central NJ
  @sharyn
  I’m not sure what happened here. I know I saw some of these posts, but I must have not pressed the subscribe button.
  
  Anyway, last week I started feeling ill on the 1st, and I tested positive for COVID a few days later. I put my store on vacation mode for part of the week, so my numbers are pretty low.
  
  BTW, they now have a medication called Paxolivid. It helps you recover from COVID quicker, and it worked pretty well for me. However, it replaced my symptoms with other symptoms that also made me feel pretty crappy, so I only took about half the medication. I’m still tired, but I’m doing OK.
  
  Week of Dec 31 – Jan 6
  Total Items in Store: 1709 eBay, 35 Etsy
  Items Sold: 7 eBay, 0 Etsy
  Cost of Items Sold: $1.23 + $45 Commission
  Total Sales: $161.18 eBay, $0 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
  Highest Price Sold: eBay $46 for 1913 History of the United States Antique Books 6 Vol Set
  Average price: $23
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
  Number of items listed this week: 7
  - 01/14/2024 at 8:22 am #102137
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Hope you’re feeling better. We’ve only had COVID once, but if we had it again, I’d definitely use Paxolid.
- 01/14/2024 at 1:36 am #102135
  ebaymom
  Participant
  Location: Ohio
  @ebaymom
  Sharyn – glad you are feeling OK, hope all the Covid is now behind you.
  
  This was a bit of a slow week for me. I got a part time job at our church watching the kids during group meetings. I get to take my little kids with me to “work” for a couple of hours in the morning, and I’ll do this 2x a week. But boy, it is quite hard work watching and entertaining a room full of little kids,,, Listing on eBay in peace and quiet is much more fun but this was a nice opportunity to get paid while spending time with my own kids, which I would normally be doing at home anyway. My youngest will be going to pre-school in a few months and I’m looking forward to the block of uninterrupted time I will get to focus more on both sourcing and listing.
  
  Here are my numbers:
  
  My Store Week December 31-January 6, 2023/24
  
  Total Items in Store: 700
  Items Sold: 23
  Gross Sales: $659.15 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $283.43 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $46.21
  Highest Price Sold: $33.70 (Mens Vintage Bowling Shirt)
  Average Price Sold: $24.66
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $101.69
  Number of items listed this week: 34
  
  $ Amount listed this week: $1079.90
  - 01/14/2024 at 8:23 am #102138
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    I have no idea has people work in childcare. They dont get paid enough to take care of a roomful of kids each and every day.
    - 01/14/2024 at 2:19 pm #102139
      ebaymom
      Participant
      
      Location: Ohio
      @ebaymom
      
      Jay, my thoughts exactly… a few hours a week, I can handle it, but I just wouldn’t make a good pre-school teacher or day care worker 🙂 I don’t know how they do it! And the pay is not enough (definitely harder than any higher paying corporate job I’ve had in the past).
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