The Numbers: Week August 18-24, 2024

Items in Store: 3144
Items Sold: 46
Total Sales: $3,528.00
COGS: $396.00
Total Profit: $3,132.00
Average profit: $68.09
Average sales price: $76.70
New Listings: 69
Items scavenged: 6
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 39
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,589.62
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 33
2024 ASP $47.66
2024 projected total sales $82,660.12

ooohI’mabouddamakeanameformyselfoutherr! Sorry, seeing him in live action and in Xmen 97 has me feeling pretty awesome about my all-time favorite comic book character, Gambit. If you’re an 80’s/90’s kid and haven’t watched Xmen 97 yet, you should! Holy smokes, what an emotional ride!

Anyways…what an amazing week! I had two huge sales that pushed it over the edge. It was still a great week aside from those though. 9 of my sold items accounted for $2500 of my sales!

I am feeling good about pushing past $90k in sales this year. My weekly listings are going to be quite good the rest of the year and I’ll be listing some heavy hitters.

My two oldest did a PHENOMENAL job listing that entire wardrobe of coats, jackets, and suits. I did have to keep pushing them, but they made it. These were NOT easy items to list. When it comes to clothes, suits and coats are about as difficult and time consuming as it gets. Anything I ask them to do going forward with clothes will be easy. I paid them $2 per item and since they completed the entire wardrobe (57 items) I am paying them a 10% commission on every sale. Two items already sold. The listed value is about $3500 so they will do VERY well on this project if things keep selling. All I had to do was review the listings for errors, double check price, and make it live. Soooo nice! Now that both wardrobes are 100% listed

I did a bad job shipping this week. I had a lot of trouble sleeping and missed my midnight deadline two nights by falling asleep early so I ended up with some late shipments. Boo! When your so exhausted that you just fall asleep wherever you are – even the hardwood floor – it is what it is.

Yard sales sucked. Plain & simple. I’ll ride it out through September but I doubt there will be much more.

I’m still not doing thrift stores right now, though I was tempted.

This week I have 100+ drafts that need photographs. I would like to crush that pile as much as possible – it’s mostly shoes. Since the coat/suit wardrobe project was so successful I plan to organize another death pile in the corner of my garage. Get everything in labeled bins and then have my kids tackle the listings bin by bin – complete listings just like this. Instead of a 10% commission I will offer a bonus for comlpeting a bin within a specific time frame. Then just leave it all sitting there instead of moving it to inventory storage. Letting them focus on old death pile stuff can be a HUGE benefit to me for space AND sales.

Premium Hoarder update:

Sold 12 items for $1768.

I’ve been driving around with the back of my van packed full of giant trash bags of premium hoarder clothes since June. I finally broke down, bought some new bins and got it all into proper storage bins. So now I have the back of my van packed with storage bins…Lol! I’m slowly listing this stuff, 5-10 items I bring in and create listings on my lunch break when I have time. Then I do photos in the morning before I leave for work. It is really easy to knock out 5 clothing items photos in a couple minutes before I leave.

Total Listings:  877
Items Sold: 3
Gross Sales: $245 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $166 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $30
Highest Price Sold: $80 (new travel bag)
Average Price Sold: $81
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $240 (RA, thrift)
Number of items listed this week: 6

I’m glad you guys had good weeks!  I’m still in the doghouse with low sales.  AND I totally messed up Friday.  Went out of town – traffic was horrible coming home and I got dinged for late shipping.  I’m going to have trouble getting back to TRS after those ghost listings in January.  Not smart on my part to wait to ship after the morning.

On the plus side, I did the pop up vintage market again and grossed about $700 with a possible follow up $60 local sale to another dealer who saw this Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/C_FIVeHOSun/?img_index=1.  No huge sales, just a lot of sales.  It was really fun and I like my fellow vendors very much.   I always bring projects to do and I got in 16,000 steps that day.  I have an out of town wedding this Sunday but I’m really tempted to go again Saturday (Labor Day weekend), hoping a lot of people come up from LA for the holiday weekend.  The tourists may drop way off after this weekend.

The dog show was this past week at the fairgrounds so I’m still planning to take the other clothes finally this week to the flea market.  Selling live is kind of exhausting but fun.  Most of my buyers are young adults, so I need to keep that in mind when sourcing.  I’m learning each time what people will buy on impuse and look through.

I also went to the Goodwill bins once.  It was less crowded since the high schoolers are back in school.  It was interesting and I enjoyed it. Nothing to write home about but it was nice to have a little more time to look.

It’s going to be busy but I really need to list in earnest and do a sell similar on my store.  It felt hard to go back to the desk again after such a long break.

I have family visiting this week, so I went to set up Time Away and then to adjust my Etsy handling time. Ends up, I never adjusted Etsy after getting back from vacation at the beginning of June. Could be one reason I haven’t sold anything there through the summer. I’ll adjust back once my parents go back home.

I was inspired to list some deathpile items, and I’m working now to clear out an area of my basement. Thing is, once I list all my DPs, then everything I’m setting aside now will be DPs when I’m done. LOL.

Week of Aug 18 – 24
Total Items in Store: 1763 eBay, 37 Etsy
Items Sold: 10 eBay, 0 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $11 + $15.85 Commission
Total Sales: $172.94 eBay
Highest Price Sold: eBay $36 for Replacement Part for Fitness Bike
Average price: $17.29
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 24

August 18-24

Items sold:  17

COGs:  $44

Net profit after fees and COGs:  $856

Breakdowns:

Ebay Items in store:  440

Ebay Items Sold: 6 for $343 after fees

FBM items:  over 60; there is not a “storefront” to count items easily.

FBM Order Shipped: 3 for $73

FBM Items sold locally:  8 for $440

I am still “Below Standard” for ebay.  This is a bummer in that I cannot do promoted listings, and they take an EXTRA 12% generally after their fees.  In February I went to South Africa for three weeks, and had delayed shipping.   My sister needed help in Belgium, so I went directly there for two weeks.  My husband came home and tried to ship my items but could not find some. So I had defects.  I called ebay this past week and the tech agreed that I had been performing great since March, but that it would be a YEAR before I would be eligible for a better rating.   My “over 20 years” of an ebay account did not account for an exception, nor did my Top Rating for the last five years before my February trip.  Arghhh.

What this meant for me in March was a turn to other avenues.  I tried WhatNot in April and May; I had some auctions and sold about $300 worth in two weeks, which gave me a beginner bonus of $150.  But Whatnot buyers are extreme low-ballers.   I actually sourced some items there from storage unit auctioneers.   Now I am listing my shippable items on FBM as well, starting in July.   I sold three smalls on FBM and shipped this past week for similar “ebay prices”.  I have also turned to selling locally more, finding free larger furniture items.

Now I am making more each week than I did just on ebay.   I am listing my smalls on FBM as well on ebay.  I have mileage as a large expense but it’s all local driving, so I am still accessible to family.

Here is what I sold last week that was FREE to me: side table, two wooden signs painted with crab and fish, set of patio cushions, a 8×10 sisal rug with stains, mini golf course pieces, dish set, more patio cushions, and a 72’ console table from World Market.

The World Market table was a phone call; I had picked up a side table from them before and gave them my number.   I picked up the table, as well as a cappuccino machine, and a box full of Halloween costumes too.   Great people!   I sold the table for $200.

My Instagram is “thriftshifttwins” if you want to see videos of what I found and sold.   I am very deliberate about social media though.  I just do insta to share with family and friends.   Several friends are coming to look at the free rugs I picked up a week ago and maybe buy.

@thriftshift I’m following you on Insta.  What great items you are selling.  I follow some others who refinish furniture and it does take a lot of effort.  Maybe if you connect on Insta, your local dealers will want to create relationships.  I’m doing that here with some art, flipping to upscale shop dealers.  I don’t mind being a link in the chain, and they do the cleaning right.

I also now have the time to reframe art and might even start refinishing frames.  There are a lot of great art pieces in orangy 70s wood or ugly 80s metal frames.   Finding new modern or even vintage frames is like shooting fish in a barrel – nobody cares.  Likewise, I sometimes find great frames with ugly artwork.

The Frame Blog

One giant rabbit-hole.

8/18/2024 to 8/24/2024

Total listings: 347 (up from 338 last week)

New listings this week: 40

Items sold: 38 — 19 via best offer, 8 via seller initiated offer, 26 via advertising

Gross sales: $1759.64 (down 18% from one year ago)

Net sales: $1201.26 (down 10% from one year ago)

Average sales price: $46.31 (up 39% from one year ago)

Highest price sold (net): $121.53— Kyle Lowry NBA locker room nameplate from the 2018 All-Star Game

This is sports-adjacent, but not a card. I bought around six of these nameplates at the beginning of the year for $20 to $40 each. I took a while to get them listed, as I do with almost everything. I wasn’t sure about pricing, how to do the photos, or if they would sell. But I should trust my gut more. I’ve sold three of them for over $100 each. It becomes easier to take chances on buying items outside your comfort zone when you can look back at recent examples of how it paid off. Now if I can just find some more locker room nameplates from the All-Star Games…

Lowest price sold (net): $11.78 — Torry Holt 2023 Panini Mosaic silver prizm autograph

Total Listings in Store: 867
Items Sold:  3
Gross Sales: $245 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $165 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $29
Highest Price Sold: $80 New Lug Bag
Average Price Sold: $81
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $80? thrifts + $50 (Temu repop for Fall booth. PB clearance)
Number of items listed this week: 0

Also sold about $120 of our clothes at the flea market, grossed about $450 at the pop up market (less on the holiday weekend than the two weekends before).  Also sold a $100 MCM plate to a local dealer off Ebay who I am developing a relationship with.

Last week was quite busy with two markets and a wedding.  Labor day weekend was slow on Ebay as usual, but I did forget to start a sale event before I left town.  Started one at 25% when I returned and business immediately picked up.

I’m having a hard time sitting back down to list in earnest after pretty much doing live sales and other things for the summer.  But I do know that now is the time, if ever, to pump in listings and I have PLENTY of items to list online.  They need a good sorting and the garage is a mess of piles at the moment.

The RA is just not as good as it used to be, but that’s probably a good thing since there is plenty to source elsewhere.  I had fun at two of the thrift stores that put out their Halloween last week, though not a huge haul from that.  I ran across a couple of old timey dealers selling off inventory at  a yard sale and bought some cool European vintage postcards for my booth.  Some of them I am cutting and putting in mini frames I got for 50 cents at my favorite thrift store.

People were quite cheap at the flea market and loved the dollar bins.  I didn’t sell too much off the higher end rack, but got it all sorted while I was there.  I held a few items back to sell on Ebay or Mercari (North Face Jackets, etc.) and a bag or two to try to flip at my Fall markets.   I do plan to sell live a few times in the Fall but primarily focus on Ebay.   I may take a bunch of old purchases to the flea market in early December and try to get my money back on things that I don’t want to list ($10-15 ebay items).  Anything below that I think has already been purged at my previous yard sales.  I’ve now done the pop up enough to know what sells well.  Unfortunately it did not correspond with the items I’d most like to get rid of from my death piles.

I also am close to making a deal to start a large display case consignment arrangement in a local antique mall that hosts our live booths.  The mall is newer and is one of the lower key tourist areas but is struggling a bit after growing very quickly.  I wasn’t willing to pay fixed rent but I do have some things I can try in there and remove from my unlisted piles.  He said 50% is standard commission but I think he will do 35-40%.  Now I need to decide what might work for that case.  I have low expectations.

So all in all, I’m kind of focused on paring down some of my inventory and ramping up on Ebay, with a little live selling every 2-4 weeks sprinkled in.  I’m excited to be able to focus on the business in a way I haven’t before.  I have a lot more freedom since my youngest moved out. Also need to set up a regular routine and work in some more exercise.  I miss the podcast dearly.  Would have loved to hear more of your thoughts but I do appreciate the forum posts.