Scavenger Life Episode 319: Being Adults, Making Decisions

I’ve only sold one pair of Toms, and they were heels. I’ll have to take more risks on getting more distressed ones. Really wish there were pics of some of the things you guys thought were interesting. That shirt sounds like fun.

Kind of another average week.

Sales: CAD$304, 3 items
Notables: Art-deco metal airplane ($4–>$65), Xerox typewriter from 1986 $20–>$150
COGS: $35
Profit: $218
Hours: 8 (hourly rate $27)
Listed: 8 items (total 175)
Expenses: $201
Cashflow: +$103

I bid last night (online auction) on a hydraulic conduit bender I was hoping would sell for $9k, bidding went up to $3k at which point I was out.

Learned what I should’ve learned a while ago, that you really have to wait till the last second in these types of auctions. I bid with 45 seconds to go, which was enough time for Incumbent to reconsider their reserve price (which I initially beat) and put in a new reserve, which then beat me.

So sad you’re not coming to NYC anymore! Was going to propose maybe a day or 1/2 day of going to estate sales with you!

Week July 9-15, 2017

Total Items in Store: 932
Items Sold: 21 (2 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $77 (8.9% of sales)
Total Sales: $864.37
Highest Price Sold: $199.99 (c1908 Bausch & Lomb Microscope)
Average Price Sold: $41.16
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Promoted listings test: 13 sales, $560.43 (64.8% of total sales), $31.57 fees (5.6% of sales)

Another great week of sales for me. Because I haven’t seen the summer slowdown yet, I’m really starting to wonder if the Promoted Listings are driving things.

Two big sales this week, the microscope above (off to Portugal) and also an estate lot of slides, photos, and 8mm film reels off to Paris for $180 best offer (paid $10)!

No picks or listings this week. Got some news that my uncle/godfather’s health took a turn for the worse last week and headed down to Florida last minute Friday to see him. Also talked to his brother who lives nearby that is the executor of his estate. If the worst does happen and he passes, his brother will need to sell his house & contents so I went over and pointed out things that might be worth more than they think. Showed him the value of some stereo equipment that he assumed was outdated, records, old 35mm camera & lenses, and a few other odds & ends. It was pretty enlightening to him that anything was of value, so glad I could pass that knowledge on under the circumstances.

Hi Guys
Thanks for the show. Sounds like you’ve got busy lives right now. Hope you’re happily busy. Do you think you’ll replace your helper in the near future or do you think you need to build your death piles up again first? (jk – nobody intentionally builds death piles do they?) It must feel kinda weird not having a big backlog of unlisted stuff. A good percentage of your sales must come from the new listings so it seems to make sense that you’ll want to keep listing with or without help.

Here are my numbers. I had a pretty good week:
Total Items in Store: 1851
Items Sold: 39
Total Sales: $987
Cost of Items Sold: $84.45
Average Price Sold: $25.3
Average Cost of Item: $2.17
Highest Price Item Sold: $120 Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera (2nd highest sale was a 90’s Mac laptop for $100)
Number of items listed this week: 53
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 251
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 158
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 86
Sell-through rate (for the week): 2.11%
# of Hats Sold: 27 (69% of sales)

Total Items in Store: 792
Items Sold: 4
Cost of Items Sold: $14
Total Sales: $82
Profit: $68
Highest Price Sold: Does it really matter?
Average Price Sold: $20.50
Average Profit: $17

Pretty horrible week. As J&R knows with their rentals and freelance stuff, you don’t have all your eggs in one basket. I actually sold an old heater that I’ve been trying to sell since before I did ebay for $300. I don’t include that though. I also did some arcade repair the last two weekends for a local pizza chain. So if you considered those things as well, I had a pretty cool week even without ebay.

My death “piles” are really weighing on me. I could sooooo use a helper. Instead I just keep buying more stuff. Doh!

So I’m stating it here and now and I mean it. I WILL NOT buy anything else until I hit 1000 items in my inventory. I’m almost at 800, but I plan to start a 30% off sale on old inventory today so getting there could be difficult. I need to do this far more than I need more inventory to put in my death piles.

July 9-15
Total Items in Store: 984
Items Sold: 18
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $621
Net Profit: $358
Highest Price: $112 (Weller Floral Carved Pottery Claywood Burntwood 7″ Flower Vase)
Average Price: $35
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $126
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $33

I had an alright week of sales. Nothing too amazing to report on that front. My net profit for the week is down close to half of my gross because of some high Cost of Goods Sold plus I factored in the cost of a bunch of supplies I purchased last week. I did quite a bit of listing, including a lot of glass items. I really hate listing glass, but it’s so damn prevalent in my area that I can’t ignore it. At least this time it was more useful stuff like dinnerware and not the fancy stuff that only exists to be looked at. I’ll be doing another round of the stuff this week which I’m kind of dreading. But the sooner I list it, the sooner it’ll sell and gets the heck out of my storage hopefully.

So my second week of my slide experiment wasn’t nearly as good as the first. I listed 15 slides plus relisted the 1 that didn’t sell the previous week all the same way… auction style with a starting bid of what I was hoping to outright sell them for. I ended up selling 3 for a total of $38. Now granted, this group of slides weren’t really interesting. Some scenes of people cutting hay and such. Two of the ones that sold were to the same buyer in Korea who bought all from the first week. I’m wondering if he wants to see how they arrive and in what condition they really are before he starts dropping more money on these. This week’s batch might be more promising. There are a few slides from a leper colony and a few of a Korean wedding. I’ll continue to report on my experiment next week.

I’m curious what the restaurant mugs you found look like. Do they say where in WV they were made?

Week of July 9-15
* Total Items in Store: 936
* Items Sold: 16
* Cost of Items Sold: $34.60 + $0 Commission
* Total Sales: $372.98
* Highest Price Sold: $75 Vampire Tarot Card & Book Set
* Average Price Sold: $23.31
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $97
* Number of items listed this week: 109

In this summer’s tradition of alternating good/bad weeks, this was a good one!

It may look like I was really cooking on the listing, but, in reality, I was listing the book cache that I purchased last month. Basically, I had bought 13 boxes of books in order to get the Tarot card sets such as the one that is my high sale this week. Most of the other books are not that interesting, but I needed to get them listed. I used eBay’s stock photos & information, so they were super easy to list. I still have two boxes left. When I’m done, I’ll add in a quantity discount, which might not work all that well, and I’ll gather lots of 10 or so books and sell them at a much lower price/book. I think that the latter method will work much better. Either way, the purchase was worth the tarot card sets that have already provided a decent profit.

Total Items in Store: ebay, 220, Etsy, 471
Items Sold: 14–8 on etsy, 6 on ebay
Total Sales: $564.43 ($234.47 on ebay)
Highest Price Sold: $115 (antique brooch on ebay)
Average Price Sold: $40.31
Returns: 0

another good week. I am not buying again until I make a real dent in my “death piles” the current goal is to get up 500 items on Etsy and I am closing in on that goal.

July 9-15 2017

• Total Items in Store: 809
• Items Sold: 14
• International 2 GSP
• Total Sales $1032
• Highest Price $400 guitar amp
• Average Price Sold: $74
• Returns: 0
• Cost of Items Sold: $173
• Cost of items purchased this week $30

Attended a family reunion to celebrate my mothers 90th birthday so I was away Thursday thru Saturday. Found a cool lamp while perusing the local garage sales with my daughter who found a lot more than I did for her Poshmark store.

One big sale a week is what I need usually and the guitar amp sold late Saturday night.

RR Store Week July 9-15, 2017

Total Items in Store: 1,340
Items Sold: 26
Cost of Items Sold: $23.80
Total Sales: $639.68
Highest Price Sold: $109.00 (lot of Aveda hair treatment)
Average Price Sold: $24.60
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $54.97
Number of items listed this week: 75

Well, a bit better than last week, but not by much. But I did hit my listing goal of 75 brand new listings, which is a record for me. I’ve set the same goal for this week. I’m throwing everything I have at this summer slowdown; sales, new listings, Promoted Listings, even a bit of social media. Fingers crossed I don’t have to dip into my emergency fund again.

That Aveda sale was amazing. It was 8 small bottles of texture smoother, which is basically a relaxer. They are Aveda Professional, so they’re only available to Aveda concept salons. I sometimes use their shampoo and conditioner, so I know how expensive it is. So when I saw them in the FREE box at a yard sale, I pounced. Took about a month to sell.

OK, off to listen to the podcast and hit that listing goal again.

*Paul*

Lots of info this week, as I wanted to stay true to posting our numbers for each week, so there is some catch-up below…

Week of 6/25-7/1
Total Items in Store: 1,565-ish (didn’t grab the numbers)
Items Sold: 65
Number of Items Listed This Week: 59
Total Sales: $1,712.61
Cost of Items Sold: $310.11
Highest Item Sold: $110 – Miche Classic Purse Lot – 2 Base Bags & 9 Shells
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week, Veronica leads for the year 15-10.

June 2017
Items Listed: 365
Items Sold: 266
Total Sales: $6,777.02
Sell Thru Rate: 17%

Week of 7/2-7/8
Total Items in Store: 1,532
Items Sold: 39
Number of Items Listed This Week: 0
Total Sales: $1,335.35
Cost of Items Sold: $265.19
Highest Item Sold: $125.85 – Victorian French Style Large Floor Table Lamp Shade
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week, Veronica leads for the year 16-10.

Week of 7/9-7/15
Total Items in Store: 1,520
Items Sold: 43
Number of Items Listed This Week: 27
Total Sales: $1,387.11
Cost of Items Sold: $223.49
Highest Item Sold: $150 – Mitchell & Ness Atlanta Falcons Deion Sanders #21 1989 Throwbacks Jersey
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week, Veronica leads for the year 16-11.
Competition: Highest Total Sales: Troy leads the year $21.8k to $16.6k

July has hit, and definitely a slow down. It worked out OK though as we used the time to implement SixBit as our main database. LOVE this software. The ability to mass relist (and force the listings to be NEW to eBay), automatic relisting, and all the great things about having a database (this is the world I lived in for 20+ years, so I’m loving it). Took more days than I really wanted to reconcile and learn the software, but it is time well worth it. It is always good to make sure you are working ON the business and not just IN the business.

After eBay Open is done and we are back in the swing of things, I will have the network configured so that we can use SixBit for more front end work…like automatically filling in my Item Descriptions from what I put in Item Specifics. That will be WONDERFUL and will take more time off the listing side.

On the downside this week, I had to waste a lot of time updating listings. I had a picture linked into the Item Description from Photobucket that showed a graphic on how I do measurements on shirts and sport coats. Then Photobucket killed the link and wants me to pay $40/mo to keep the link active. NOPE. But I will be looking into how to use Description Wrappers in SixBit so that I can put the photo back in the listing. Just a pain to waste the day pulling the link…

Total Items in Store: 1,620
Items Sold: 23
Cost of Items Sold: $8
Total Sales: $705.47
Highest Price Sold: $96 (Vintage Mexican Full Circle Skirt)
Average Price Sold: $30.65
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $9
Number of items listed this week: 20 (spent the week doing a side job painting a house. That “choose work that pays a lot and you wanna do” thing)

7/9/17 – 7/15/17

Total Items in Store: 2,115
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $30 (around)
Total Sales: $355
Highest Price Sold: $94.95 (Tinted Lip Balm)
Average Price Sold: $32.27
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0

Slow week for me, but yesterday was good. Mostly slow except my make up sales. The make up was a pain to sort and list, but now that it is listed, it is so easy. People have been buying multiples, so I just put them in a small bubble envelope and that’s it. Had so many sales that the 18 gallon container for them is right near the PC. It is so nice to have a $95 sale and then you put it in an envelope and all done. Make up is on my BOLO. $660 in make up sales so far and not quite a month.

I have been noticing is that scavenging has been getting a lot easier for me. I have the following on-going “venues” that consistently have great items for a reasonable cost:

Garage Sale – Guy who buys whole estate sales and has Barn sales for it every other weekend.
– Others in my area that have sales in the Spring and Fall

Estate Sale – Have one with great prices that sends me the early Bird preview about every 2 weeks

Thirft Store – Have a great small Church Thirft store close that has great items consistently.

Rummage Sales – Same church’s having annual Spring and Fall Sales that are great.

Also, I have been working on getting a process down for bulk listing with Wonder Lister. I think this will save a lot of time by putting the standard stuff in the .csv file.

Mark

Very slow week for us 🙁 but on the plus side we crossed the 600 listings mark 🙂

Week 3 (09-15)
Number of Active Listings: 603
Items Sold: 4
Avg Selling Price: $24.19
Cost of Goods Sold: $0.00
Total Sales: $96.76
Returns/Refunds: $0.00
Unpaid Items: $0.00

Things have been getting slower and slower for us over the past weeks, I’m putting it down to it being winter (slow period here) and tax time. Makes it harder to stay motivated but pushing through, goal this week is to at least get to 650 listings although I think we should get closer to 700

As far as scavenging, our local op shop (thrift store) has been doing a $1 sale over the past month so we’ve been visiting only the one place, always come out with about 20 new items to list each time. Best was probably a pair of Calvin Klein jeans new with tags that we snapped up for $1.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by davidbloop.

Store Week 7/9/17 – 7/15/17

Total items in store: 1411
Items sold: 20
Cost of items sold: $15.40
Total sales: $528.89
Highest price sold: $100.00 (My last Bruce Lee poster …darn!)
Average price sold: $26.44
International Sales: 0
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory this week: $27.75

We are taking lots of little trips this month, almost back to back, packing in the summer fun. It’s been great, but I think eBay is feeling it a bit. I’m still selling, and this week was better, but I’m looking forward to more time to list. We are headed out again tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll find some cool thrift stores along the way!

July 9-15th, 2017
Total items in store: 366
Items sold: 29
Cost of items sold: approx. $46
Total sales (not incl. selling costs): 394.62
Highest price sold: $100 VTG Disney Bedspread
Average price sold: $19.08
International Sales: 1
Returns – 1 for fit
Money spent on new inventory this week: $89.35
Number of items listed this week: 21

Posting numbers is a good weekly exercise for me, today it makes me publicly embarrassed about how little I listed, and motivated to do better. This week I’m weeding through inventory, will donate some and send in a thredup bag of things I don’t feel super strong about and that haven’t gotten much interest. I often feel the tug between wanting to get the number of active listings up vs. the urge to dump a bunch of stuff. I’ll weed, but keep sourcing weekly and make sure what I’m bringing home are only things I really want to deal with and store. I also want to cross post what I can to my fledgling etsy store.

The Disney bedspread sale (to Japan) was a great end of the week finale. I had that bedspread on my kitchen floor for weeks as it went through multiple rounds of stain fighting. When I felt max force Oxyclean could do all it could do, I listed it & it sold within a few hours. I was a little worried when I saw that the buyer had private feedback, but when I saw that their email address had “Disney” incorporated into it, I kinda knew all would be fine for some reason. Here’s to a good week for everyone.

P.S. I’ve sold one pair of Tom’s, yes a lot of interest right away, easy sale. Maybe another reason why people are into them is because they’re vegan shoes. My old neighbors were vegan, and they were limited on their shoe buying because of this, and they did buy Tom’s on eBay. When I sent the Tom’s I sold, I started to put them in a clear sealing bag, but it seemed to trap and enhance the not so great used shoe smell, even though I cleaned them, so I think I wrapped them in tissue paper or something instead, they needed to have air circulation during their trip.

“you can pee in the toilet”

-Ryanne

favorite comment lol

Hello, my Ebay page is aaadeals_2016 I have been listening and following you guys for over a year now. I’m from Indiana and I’m going to be staying tonight in your town. I tried to book your farm house for tonight but it’s already taken. I’m about an hour away and would very much like to meet you guys somehow or some way. I’m not a stalker or creeper haha just a fan that has made some money with your help. I know your busy being adults this week so just a meet and greet and a picture would be awesome if we can. In headed to D.C. Tomorrow. My wife has never been out east so I’m being a good husband. Maybe even coffee in the morning or something.. you can contact me in my email thank you

Hope to hear from you.,
Keith

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by scavengerjunkie.

Not posting specific numbers but a few notes about my store’s week. One is that sales picked up this week as compared to the last two, but mostly low dollar items, under $15. However a bunch of these were things that were old stock, from a year or so before I even had my store. So those were nice to get out of the basement!

Interesting sales of note: I sold a chrome auto part found on the shelf at Goodwill for $100 – paid $3.99 for it. I sold a set of xmas mugs by taking a BIN of 25% below asking, then immediately after purchasing, the person doubted she got the right size mugs, and eventually cancelled the sale. The good thing is I relisted them, and two days later someone else bought them for full price! Yay! Lastly I someone put a BIN offer in on a low price item, I countered, and they countered back with a price higher than my counter! I’m guessing they made a typo, but wasn’t sure. I accepted the offer and figured I’d get an email asking to cancel the sale. Instead, 24 hours later they paid! It was under a $5 difference so I guess they just didn’t care and wanted the item.

I just noticed in the ebay banner ad at the top of this page my items were on it! I’m sure ebay is feeding them to me because they’re mine but still, first time ive seen my items advertised outside of ebay 😛

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by davidbloop.

That’s because your cookies know you looked at those items recently.
That’s not what we see.

Total items in store: 512
Items sold: 19
Cost of items sold: $24
Total sales: $336
Highest price sold: $20 (Pair of CROC Canvas Shoes)
Average price sold: $17.60

I had to cancel my first sale due to a lost item. I guess it is time to organize my things better. I am going to spend the next couple days getting my bin system in better shape. I recently bought a box of Barbies from the 1960’s so I am really looking forward to getting those listed. The box has a lot of clothes and accessories which I hope sell for good money. Have a good week.

Week July 9-15, 2017
Total Items in Store: 455 (lowcountryfashionfinds)
Items Sold: 17 (3 Facebook)
Cost of Items Sold: $81.75
Total Sales: $628.98
Highest Price Sold: $89.00 (lot of 13 brass candlesticks)
Average Price Sold: $31.44
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 4 (lots of slides, of which I have hundreds)

For the candlesticks, I pick up brass ones, no matter their condition at rummage sales or yard sales. I basically get them for free as people are happy to see them go and just lot them in with other stuff. Once I get 10 or more, I do a lot for sale. I used the terms “wedding or set décor” in the title.

The slides are overwhelming but interesting. I have 800+ from the 1970s of one couple’s trips which I bought at an estate sale for $40. I decided to break them up into locations and years. “Key West, 1972 and 1974”, or “Jamaica 1972”. They went to Spain for two full months in 1974 which I am hoping to have up soon. I hope they start selling so it’s worth the work. It is interesting though to see the pictures. Very voyeuristic, like an estate sale.

I continue to sell perfume every week from a lot of 103 I acquired in mid-June for $980.00. So far I have sold 65 bottles for $2,715.55 on ebay and FB. I have 38 remaining. Not exciting stuff, but so far that perfume paid for Disney tickets + food and lodging ($1200), a 4th of July trip to a wedding in Fort Lauderdale ($320) and piano repair/tuning ($300). Now I am saving funds for taxes + boat repairs/upgrades. Also, as of July 18, 2017, I am now sub-one year to retirement on July 18, 2018 from my DoD job. Trying to hold on for one more year amidst the bureaucracy.

Brian Treasures, they are mismatched. Sometimes I have a pair, but I just lot it in with the rest.

July 9- July 15 2017
Total items in store: Etsy 495 // Ebay 463 (Items not crossposted I list different types of things on Etsy and Ebay)
Items Sold: Etsy 13 // 10 Ebay
Cost of items Sold: Etsy $14.80 // Ebay $6.51
Total Sales: Etsy $179.05 // Ebay $95.35
Highest Price Sold: vintage kids book The Witch’s Catalog $40
Average Price Sold: $11.93
Returns: 1
Number of items listed this week: 58 (Listed at $1,044)

Close to hitting the 500 listing mark in both my Etsy and eBay shops. I am tired of being an adult and making the right decisions. I am pretty sure if I took a few days off and acted like a kid though my whole life would fall apart quickly. O_O

Just getting time to listen to the podcast–I miss it so much when there isn’t time! Love hearing about your busy, productive, crazy scavenger lives. I recently sold a vintage swim cap for $50. It had flowers all over it. It went to an apartment in NY City. I should have asked more! 😊 Good job!

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by Linda Shields.

There’s a really good podcast on the beginning stories of many popular companies called “How I Built This” – it’s very interesting. One of the episodes is an interview with the founder of Toms which offers a lot of insight into how the company’s shoes became so popular –

http://one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=530069705:530095037

Still not sure how this forum works! I am here though, reading and listening.

To the person who set up Sixbit this week, YEA! I love Sixbit and can’t imagine ever listing without it. I doubled the amount of listings I could do in a day with it.

This summer has been horribly slow for us. Sales have been yuck! It is my fault though. I succumbed to the trend of going to the bins. While the bins work for a lot of people they just don’t work for me. It has been a good lesson in trusting what you know and staying in your lane. There is definitely profit there but it has really felt like a grind this summer. I am excited to be back doing what we know works for us and seeing our sales numbers go back up.

Anyhow love the podcast as always!

Hey Amazing! That was us that put in SixBit. Completely agree, love this program!

I’m only using the backend now to manage the listings, since we have a total of three computers that we need on the database, and I have to get those connections set up to work, but we still love it.

We are on the road now looking at new areas to move too (planning to move to a cheaper area once our youngest son graduates in 6 months, less house, more storage, 5+ acres, $0 mortgage), and then to Vegas next week for eBay open. When we get back, I will get the network done and we will start to crack it up!

I created all of my own. I use to do HTML for my own templates so I had a base knowledge so that was helpful. If you get stuck let me know and I can show you mine.

Sorry for the delay been super busy. I’m the guy that called in about parting his old Civic out. Basically if you can change your own oil and brakes you can do this. What I suggest is typing into ebay your car year make and model plus year. Then add parts to the end. Search for used parts. Go though sold listings of used parts and then go outside and start parting it out. Quick big sells for me where the side mirrors, headlights, taillights. But I have sold probably 100 parts. Just some examples, manual, spare tire, jack, bag of tools in trunk, trunk latch, both arm rests, rear view mirror, kick panels, dip stick, gas cap, dimmer switch, impact bars, starter, alternator. Just to name a few. So grab your tools and get down to business. You might just find yourself learning how to work on your own cars too. Just more savings in your pocket.

That’s a great approach to parting out a car, or even a washer or old tape recorder. Nice methodology – thanks for posting it here for all of us to see

Total Items in Store: 335
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $10 (used) + $78 (new)
Total Sales: $365
Highest Price Sold: $70 Vintage Pyrex dish
Average Price Sold: $33
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0

On vacation this week so late posting last week’s sales. Thank you for the podcast consistency and sorry you had to pass on NYC. Soon you should be sitting pretty and reno will be a memory.

What is this thing you call “vacation”???