The Numbers: Week of February 4-10, 2024

It was interesting to hear everyone’s experience/opinion selling clothes in 2024. It’s a whole new world for those of us who started years ago. So many sellers selling so many clothes on so many different platformsI hear everyone’s argument that clothes are easy to store and ship. True!

That being said, we love selling our weird bulky items. It was about four years into our eBay adventure when we realized that you could sell more than clothes and shoes on eBay. It was Mikey and Wendy who opened up our eyes to all the strange things you can find at yard sales. It was a revelation to us that people bought old, weird stuff. Collectors! It was even more awesome because it was so fun to find and research these items. And then even more more awesome because we could often get this stuff for cheap because most sellers don’t have the storage for them.

This week was an example of how we sold many cool weird items that we got for cheap. Most took a long time to sell but we have lots of storage and patience is a virtue.

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Our Store Week February 4-10, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9464
Items Sold: 30
Gross Sales: $1,612.76 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,145.03 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $124
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $140 (antique chocolate pot)
Average Price Sold: $38.16
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 25
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

This topic has 14 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 1 year ago by Retro Treasures WV.

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- 02/12/2024 at 3:47 pm #102392
  Jay
  Keymaster
  Location: Virginia
  @jay
  It was interesting to hear everyone’s experience/opinion selling clothes in 2024. It’s a whole new world for those of us who started years ago. So man
  [See the full post at: The Numbers: Week of February 4-10, 2024]
- 02/12/2024 at 3:57 pm #102395
  Retro Treasures WV
  Participant
  Location:
  @retro-treasures-wv
  Items in Store: 3040
  Items Sold: 34
  Total Sales: $1,836.00
  COGS: $165.00
  Total Profit: $1,671.00
  Average profit: $49.15
  Average sales price: $54.00
  New Listings: 61
  Items scavenged: 42
  2024 weekly new listings Avg: 44
  2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,496.50
  2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 33
  2024 ASP $45.35
  2024 projected total sales $77,818.00
  
  We celebrated our oldest child’s 17th birthday this weekend. I front loaded the week with some listing and draft banking then yesterday my oldest 2 did shoe cleaning and photos. We don’t do the Superbowl since no one in my house except me has even the slightest interest in football, and there are no Swift fans here either.
  
  As usual, something had to slip so inventory organization lost out this week. I have a huge pile of listed inventory to deal with and get into storage. No major goals this week. Hopefully I can get my 40 listings in. It would be nice to sell 40 items. I’ll try to be more aggressive on sending and accepting offers. I need to keep in mind I want to sell 6 items a day, so I can use that small goal to remind myself to get those sales and sacrifice a bit of profit. Have I sold 6 items yet? No? Make increasingly better offers or accept lower offers until I go to sleep or hit 6 sales for the day.
  
  I’m maintaining that $45 ASP. Just gotta get my # of sales up any way possible.
  
  Otherwise I’m gonna keep end/sell similar and keep listing. I’m doing 20-30 old items a day on weekdays in my downtime at work. I’ve worked my way up to June 2021. Still a ways to go.
  
  Premium Hoarder update:
  
  Sold 7 items for $1106. Two big shoe sales at the beginning of the week really got the week off to a great start. Now at over $15k in profit.
  - 02/15/2024 at 1:29 pm #102418
    craig rex
    Participant
    
    Location: south jersey
    @craig-rex
    I need to keep in mind I want to sell 6 items a day, so I can use that small goal to remind myself to get those sales and sacrifice a bit of profit. Have I sold 6 items yet? No? Make increasingly better offers or accept lower offers until I go to sleep or hit 6 sales for the day.
    
    This is such a great way to frame things if you’re struggling with motivation or trying to hit a specific listing goal. When sales get slow, it can get easy to fixate in an unhealthy way, whether that’s getting negative about eBay as a platform (the eBay elves are hiding my listings!) or how things have changed selling online over time (sales were better when ___). I used to turn inward and get frustrated with myself over death piles, not listing enough, not spending my time as efficiently as possible.
    
    But that’s a lot of wasted energy, and one of the beautiful things of selling online is it’s just you. No middle management necessary, so no reason to fixate on things out of our control. Break things down on a more micro level — set a timer and create new listings until your time goes off, send out your next batch of offers to watchers at 30% instead of 20%, make a plan for one crooked death pile and set aside the time to actually do it, then go do something else. eBay will still be there tomorrow, and something will probably have sold by then, and what else could we possibly hope for?
- 02/12/2024 at 6:19 pm #102397
  Sharyn
  Participant
  Location: Central NJ
  @sharyn
  @Retro-Treasures-WV – Having grown up in Pittsburgh during the Terry Bradshaw legacy football era, I always watch the Super Bowl. I keep track of how the Steelers are doing during the season (on Facebook, my cousin posts happy Batman when they win; sad Batman when they lose), but really don’t watch other games. Yesterday was quite a bit of preparation since we had a few guests join to watch. The game itself was kinda boring, but I’m glad KC won.
  
  I continue to sell large items, which is a blast considering the space I’m starting to win back. I’m also selling higher value such as my highest of $180 (a consignment item of vintage software). My second highest was $150, and I had plenty between $30 – 50. I also sold a number of older items, so that keeps me happy.
  
  No sales yet on Ruby Lane, but I continue to list. Boy, it’s tough being unrated after being a reseller for so long!
  
  Week of Feb 4 – 10
  Total Items in Store: 1679 eBay, 34 Etsy, 21 Ruby Lane
  Items Sold: 15 eBay, 0 Etsy
  Cost of Items Sold: $46 + $110 + ~$75 (for selling something for my son) Commission
  Total Sales: $680.52 eBay; includes fees but no shipping
  Highest Price Sold: eBay $180 for Vintage 1988 Apple Macintosh System Software Update Version 6.0 with 3.5″ Disks
  Average price: $45.37
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
  Number of items listed this week: 12
- 02/12/2024 at 9:42 pm #102399
  ChristineR
  Participant
  Location: Southern California
  @christiner
  Total Items in Store: 1249
  Items Sold: 20
  Gross Sales: $1,046.35 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $720.38 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $121
  Highest Price Sold: $119 (80s Art Plaque)
  Average Price Sold: $52.32
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $280 (RA, thrift, big rummage sale).
  Number of items listed this week: 39
  
  Pretty good week. Most of my sales are coming on the weekend. I think I was helped when I remembered to run a markdown sale. I’m doing that as opposed to increasing my promoted percentage. Gearing up to review some older listings and sell similar. Hopefully I can muster up the discipline to look over prices and sell through rates.
  
  My immediate family had some issues this week so I’m glad I was able to still do that many listings. Knock wood, I should be able to get a lot done this week while I’m watching over my doggie who just had cancer surgery.
  
  Enjoyed a lovely rummage sale, one of the big three. It was great because not many people paid the $2o EB cover charge and I made it first to the art, linens and some of the housewares sections. Most of the other dealers were gone to the clothes, books, etc. I got everything listed except the larger art work and sold a couple of picks already. I mostly listed new purchases, some of the Mercari RA that just came in and late Anthro deliveries from the post-Christmas sales. Need to limit the sourcing and hit the listing.
  
  I have about 50 listings cross posted to Niknax and had no sales last week. I’m add a few themed listings in grouping and then putting a link the chat. It doesn’t seem like sales are going to well on the platform but they are accepting fewer sellers and still adding members. The live sales seem to do better plus cheap items. I had a couple more of my items featured by the Crazy Lamp Lady so that helps to get views.
  - 02/13/2024 at 8:18 am #102403
    Retro Treasures WV
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @retro-treasures-wv
    Wait what?!? A yard sale was charging a $20 early bird fee???
    
    Can you elaborate a bit more on this? Maybe it was a big flea market style sale or something?
    
    Big sales with entry wait lines or entrance fees just isn’t a thing where I live.
    - 02/13/2024 at 12:08 pm #102406
      ChristineR
      Participant
      
      Location: Southern California
      @christiner
      
      Sure. It’s a large rummage sale at the fairgrounds. The line with the fee for this one was maybe 75 people (probably 100% dealers) and an hour later hundreds. $20 is the highest fee, $10 is more common. All the big book sales and rummage sales have a presale. These are big charity fundraisers for a good cause – kids, planned parenthood, etc. Everything, and I do mean everything costs more here. We just got reported as the city with the 5th highest cost of living in the US I think. We pay for those year round garage sales. But there are deals if you know where to look.
      - 02/15/2024 at 1:19 pm #102417
        
        craig rex
        Participant
        
        Location: south jersey
        @craig-rex
        
        @ChristineR
        
        These fees are common at large sales in the high cost of living Northeast where I live, too. I consider the cover charge as part of my overall COGS. Sometimes I’ve had a lot of success at these sales (like my Chicago trip) but more often I spend less than $50 total. So I’ve been making the trips less often this year.
        
        With all the driving, time spent picking, etc, it’s simply a better use of time to scavenge online in my trading cards niche. Scavenging online doesn’t really compare to the thrill of zigzagging to a different section of a sale than all the dealers and finding something really cool, or hitting a section that was just picked over and there’s something there which is weird and (maybe?) valuable. But it’s fun in a different way. Since I buy mostly from the huge consignment sellers in the sports memorabilia world, I still find other neat items every once in a while and that’s what keeps me going. It’s so important to find that angle and what works for you if you’re selling online in any sort of volume. You have to remain open to learning new things and have at least a vague notion of a plan of what you can sell besides your main niche, because those items might not always be there.
        
        One thing that’s constant with scavenging is that things will change, even though no one wants them to because it is the pipeline dream to sell the same things forever. The idea of things changing is obvious with “hot” items where demand dries up quickly, but more often change in a niche happens slowly over time and the change is hard to see even when you’re looking for it.
        
        I’ve seen this over and over again in my trading cards niche in the last few years — for a time, demand went up for certain players cards, and sometimes way up. There were a lot of new buyers because of the pandemic and their buying was irrational. That still happens, no market is perfectly rational, but overall prices have dropped over the last few years, and for some players cards, prices are way lower. There are exceptions and patterns but anyone who thinks they know the future of cards, the next hot player or set, is usually wrong.
        
        I consider myself very fortunate to buy and sell in this niche because there’s such a huge reselling market and so much to learn from it. The most important lesson I’ve learned is that everyone makes mistakes when buying new inventory, especially if it’s a type of item you’re still learning about, and sometimes your best move is cut your losses and move on. You wanna make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs.
- 02/13/2024 at 6:24 am #102402
  The_SEAM_Store
  Participant
  Location: PA
  @the_seam_store
  Feb 4 -Feb 10, 2024
  Total Items in Store: 3771 listings for 5410 items
  Items Sold: 60
  Gross Sales: $4538.55 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $3293.88
  Cost of Items Sold: $783 ($375 mine / $408 consignors)
  Highest Price Sold: $350 Fur Coat
  Average Price Sold: $75.64
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $220
  Number of items listed this week: 28
- 02/13/2024 at 10:29 am #102405
  Lukastreasure
  Participant
  Location: Chevy Chase, MD
  @lukastreasuretrove
  Week Ending 2/10/24
  Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $767.11
  Net Sales: $431.18
  Total Items Sold: 17 (ebay 16 / Etsy 1)
  Total Items in eBay Store: 1046 / Etsy Store: 476
  Cost of Items Sold: $40.58
  Highest Price Sold: $127.46 (Ceramic drum)
  Average Price Sold: $45.12
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
  Sold via promoted listings: 12
  
  Average Days Listed: 481
  Longest Listed: 2886
  New items listed: 8
  New Listings Value $1,382.60
- 02/15/2024 at 12:48 pm #102416
  craig rex
  Participant
  Location: south jersey
  @craig-rex
  I have some nice numbers this week because I made use of my 500 free collectibles auction listings in January, and I’ll have really nice numbers next week because I ran a second set of auctions late last week which ended this past Monday, the day after the Super Bowl.
  
  I couldn’t imagine running auctions week after week like the mega sellers in trading cards and other collectibles categories do. So much shipping! So many items which sell for the starting bid or don’t sell at all!
  
  Ending prices for auctions can be all over the place. For every listing which ends about where you’d expect, there are five where the market gets irrational. Sometimes this works in your favor as the seller with a mild bidding war. But sometimes an item doesn’t sell even though Terapeak says it really should have. And most often the buyer wins your listing at a good deal. This is how I buy most of my inventory, after all.
  
  But auctions have a nice rhythm to them as long as you manage your expectations. I’ve found that about 10% of my auction listings will sell if I set my starting bid at 50% of my BIN price. Most of the listings get paid for within the first two days after the auctions end. A few times the buyer flakes and doesn’t pay, but this happens most often on cheap items. Most of the buyers are one-offs (collectors! flippers!) who like the thrill of the bid.
  
  After the auctions end, I take a few days to assess what didn’t sell. Sometimes the item had watchers who didn’t pull the trigger. It’s an easy choice to return those items to my inventory at the original price. Other times lowering the price is the right move. Maybe demand for the item has changed or I just had it priced too high when I made the listing. I’m only human, and sometimes this happens.
  
  If the listing is card-related (as most of my inventory still is), I can send it to my consignment port (for a fee) and eventually it will get processed and listed there. I’ve been doing that more and more lately. It’s a different way of selling than eBay, but I enjoy it just the same and selling there has taught me about eBay and vice versa. Sometimes I pull listings from my consignment port to ship on eBay or buy on there to sell on eBay. One pipeline feeds the other.
  
  Running monthly auctions on eBay has taught me to analyze my inventory more closely. Sometimes the best move is to pull a listing from my inventory and move on to something else. So I’ll put it into a small or large lot listing or (more often, especially for bulky items like books and media items) just donate it. Sure, I spent the time creating this listing, and it doesn’t cost much to keep a listing up in my store. But some stuff takes a long time to sell, and I’ve found that I like when things sell quickly. Some things are rare and expensive and worth holding onto, and I have a few of those in my store at high prices. But my sweet spot is items in the $20 to $100 range. I like to sell those quickly, ideally within 90 days of creating the listing. I’m happiest when I hear the cha-ching for those items. It’s a reminder that I am constantly learning and improving.
  
  If I had more storage space, I’m not sure I would have ever gotten this creative about moving inventory. But it works well for me. I’ve crunched a lot of numbers to come up with my auction strategy and I’ve gotten much more hands-on and willing to experiment with different selling strategies because of it. At some point in the (near?) future, I’ll have more space for my eBay business, and it will be interesting to see how much auctions remain a part of my selling repertoire.
  
  2/4/2024 to 2/10/2024
  
  Listings: 240— down from 377 last week thanks to two rounds of auctions selling and two rounds of culling inventory
  
  Items sold: 58— 15 via best offer, 4 via seller initiated offer, 15 via promoted listings
  
  Gross sales: $2023.90 (up 37% from one year ago)
  
  Net sales: $1272.92 (up 27% from one year ago)
  
  Average sales price: $34.89 (down 52% from one year ago)
  
  Highest price sold (net): $151.36 — Cal Ripken Jr. 2020 Topps x Road to 2131 orange autograph #7/8
  
  Lowest price sold (net): $8.40 — Trumpeters and Kettledrummers Art 1970s book
  - 02/17/2024 at 10:09 am #102427
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Look forward to seeing your numbers. I can imagine the Superbowl sparks big sales…especially because you’re so good at identifying what players buyers are looking for at special times.
- 02/17/2024 at 10:29 am #102428
  ebaymom
  Participant
  Location: Ohio
  @ebaymom
  My numbers for February 4-10, 2024
  
  Total Items in Store: 756
  Items Sold: 21
  Gross Sales: $544.78 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Net Sales: $247.67 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
  Cost of Items Sold: $45.60
  Highest Price Sold: $44 (men’s pants)
  Average Price Sold: $25.18
  Returns: 2
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $153
  Number of items listed this week: 32
  
  $ Amount listed this week: $1030.06
- 02/26/2024 at 2:22 pm #102474
  BrianB
  Participant
  Location:
  @brianb
  eBay recently informed me that I am once again a Top-Rated-Seller. I remember tweaking a few details on some of my listings, but other than that I’m not sure what I did to once again attain eBay’s good graces.
  - 02/26/2024 at 2:51 pm #102475
    Retro Treasures WV
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @retro-treasures-wv
    The late shipping metric used to be a year of data. Now it is 3 months, so if you had a bad day it only messes you up with TRS for 3 months now instead of the absurd year it was before.
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