The Numbers: Week March 31 – April 6, 2024

Items in Store: 2947
Items Sold: 29
Total Sales: $1,045.00
COGS: $156.00
Total Profit: $889.00
Average profit: $30.66
Average sales price: $36.03
New Listings: 7
Items scavenged: 7
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 34

2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,584.21
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 36
2024 ASP $44.45
2024 projected total sales $82,379.14

Wow you had basically the same opening line as me. I’ve been insanely busy at home and at my day job. I’ve also not been feeling great lately. My diet and exercise have been at the bottom of the barrel. This week I’ve dialed in my diet which has given me a great energy boost. I haven’t listed much since I got back from vacation several weeks ago. As I start to feel better I hope I can get to doing more listings. I need to as it fits into other plans I have in the non-ebay world.

Even without much work other than shipping, the store is still doing pretty good! A week like this still being a $1k week when I did the bare minimum is like getting free money.

I only sold one item higher than $100 this week – a pair of the lower end hoarder shoes for $127.

One year ago my numbers were 10 sales for $497. The year before – 20 sales for $468. YEESH! The first 2 weeks of April have always been the weakest period of my ebay store since I started tracking my numbers (with the exception of Covid lockdowns anomaly)

So to put it in perspective, not listing going into the worst sales month of the year and I still had a $1k week. Yeah that’s not just great – it’s PHENOMENAL!!!

Premium Hoarder update:

Sold 5 items for $287.

Eh, a slow week. The fact my big ticket hoarder items didn’t contribute this week makes the sales numbers even more impressive.

Week of Mar 31 – Apr 6
Total Items in Store: 1631 eBay, 28 Etsy, 47 Ruby Lane
Items Sold: 10 eBay, 0 Etsy, 0 Ruby Lane
Cost of Items Sold: $1 + $24 Commission
Total Sales: $187.80 eBay
Highest Price Sold: eBay $28 for Aquaterior Round Bathroom Sink Tempered Glass Imperfect
Average price: $18.78
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 2

I’m playing catch up with eBay as my career job gets back to normal. I spent last week going through boxes of jewelry, and a large portion of it was donated. I’ve started to take photos, so I will definitely have more listings this week. I’m sure my low listing numbers have something to do with my lower sales.

I was in the process of listing a pearl necklace on Ruby Lane when I got a notice saying that certain pearls had to have an appraisal. I took them into a jeweler, who at least confirmed that they were real, but the appraisal was going to be expensive. I sent an email to RL asking about their policy, and it ends up that it is for natural pearls only, which are mostly antique and very rare. I have cultured pearls, which are more common.

I find that their policies aren’t always very clear, and when you combine that with software that isn’t very developed, listing can get to be a headache. There’s also this glitch where a relatively newer listing will randomly move to the “backroom” (where buyers can’t see it), and I have to undo it. I emailed them about it, but the customer rep didn’t know of any issues.

There’s nothing wrong about the site. The customer reps know more and are reasonable to deal with, but the website can be annoying when you are used to eBay.

Total Active Listings: 937
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: $208 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $99 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $28
Highest Price Sold: $47 (2 new shams, Mercari bundle flip)
Average Price Sold: $35
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $100
Number of items listed this week: 14

Whew after a few weeks of not listing much my Ebay store is on life support.  I’m definitely feeling the sandwich generation pulls as both of our dads have been having health problems and my daughter is struggling with some things.  This week took a lot of time with the fundraiser, but I just have one more day of that and I feel good about stepping up.  I do have a couple of weekend trips coming up but generally speaking life should calm down during the weekdays.  Knock wood.  We continue to have a lot of unusual expenses cropping up but the last car will be paid off in July.  I need to get Ebay cranking again.

I also flipped some things this week on Facebook that are non-vintage – some Pottery Barn pillows and bulky items we have in our living space.  Some ours and some I bought for Ebay.  FB marketplace could be great but I just don’t want to have people coming by the house for resale items and I don’t have the patience for meet ups.  About half of those items sold right away.

I haven’t had much time for sourcing but over the past couple of months I have tried out a few estate sales.  It’s a very wide variety of pricing and quality of stuff available.  I like the idea of hitting up Friday sales and occasionally going back to the bins when it’s less crowded on weekdays.  It would be good to get things at lower price points than thrifts, but I also love my thrifts for certain things they don’t care about pricing up.  Estate sales are kind of nice for buying practical things. I joked with my husband that I finally scored some tin foil at the last one.

Finally, it’s a ton of work but I’m really driven to sell live at the pop up market.  It wouldn’t be worth it until tourist season begins because the space is not super cheap.  Despite the work I am connecting with other dealers and vintage lovers, even on Instagram.  I’m trying to get some idea of the desired Gen Z clothing items to add just a small rack of clothing to the mix.  Hopefully they will see decor items they like as well.  I need to start on price tags and sorting and sign up for square.  I have been able to score quite a bit of inexpensive metal display racks but will need to add trunks, baskets or some other things for the ground space.

@Jay thanks!  I’m super excited about it.  I hope it’s worth the effort in the end.  Will post photos in May or June when I get there.  Either way, it’s fun finding my local vintage peeps.  Delayed covid reentry.

Jay and Ryanne, I’d be curious what would happen if you did end and sell similar on your oldest 500 items since you’re so busy with other projects. It’s interesting to see that you have had a few strong weeks of sales even without listing. Goes to show the value of building up a large inventory and keeping it there. Have you been running any markdown sales or sending offers at all?

I have been planning out what I’d like to accomplish with my spring cleaning and am starting to think about small listing and organizing projects I want to tackle each week of May and June. I’ve never had the time or money to think about my business like this. I love it.

3/31/2024 to 4/6/2024

Items in store: 159 (down from 202 last week)

Items sold: 36 — 7 via best offer, 7 via seller initiated offer, 11 via promoted listings

Gross sales: $1790.73 (down 45% from one year ago)

Net sales: $1151.55 (down 48% from one year ago)

Average sales price: $49.74 (up 8% from one year ago)

Highest price sold (net): $380.40— LeBron James 2003 to 2005 Nike pitch book

Bought in September of 2022 for $55. Some things are worth pricing high and waiting, waiting, waiting. I have a hunch this book will be worth more in five or ten years, but I’m a take the profit now kind of person.

Lowest price sold (net): $7.78 — Will Shipley 2022 Onyx autograph