Scavenger Life Episode 429: Trash Metronome

Woohoo, I was mentioned 2 episodes in a row! This time about the combined shipping issue. The thing is, though, that eBay sometimes DOES automatically combine shipping. And if the buyer’s already paid it can cost you extra money to ship separately if the items cannot be combined. That recently happened to me with a heavy wheel bearing and a fragile coffee mug.

But earlier this year it happened to me in a huge way. I sold 20 cases of of item. The cases were 16″ cubed and weighed 12 pounds each. One buyer purchased all 20 cases and eBay took it upon themselves to combine the all 20 cases into 1. And they charged the buyer only enough shipping for about 2 of them.

I have no clue what made the system think that was feasible. It would have cost me over $600 out of pocket to ship the buyer’s order (because that’s how much eBay UNDERcharged the buyer). The shipping amount I had set per case was correct. But eBay automatically combined the order than could not be combined and grossly undercharged the buyer. I frantically contacted eBay in a panic! It was an extremely frustrating experience.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Steves Stuff.

Another situation I had was when I was selling of bunch of brand new Westin Delta airline blankets. A single blanket would just barely fit in a flat rate legal envelope (and that was the shipping option). So one customer bought several and eBay took it upon themselves to combine shipping. Well, only one would fit in the envelope. And they weigh over a pound each. So eBay’s combining shipping meant that I had to ship them in a box and pay another $10 or so to make up the difference in price.

It turns out – in that situation – that there is a way to go into the advanced options (I can’t even remember how to find it now) and set a shipping cost for additional items. But it hidden, hard to find and not at all intuitive because the language is incredibly ambiguous. So it’s hard to know if the things you check will do what you hope they will when a sale occurs.

Hello! Just now listening to the new podcast and wanted to add one thing regarding the new Paypal change starting on October 11th..It does not only apply to returns, but they will also not refund the transaction fee for cancellations..I am far from a complainer, but this aspect bothers me as I have been getting several cancellations recently…Great podcast as always..Long time listener here who has never commented before, maybe once years ago..Enjoy the rest of your weekend..

Kind Regards,

Rick

Ah, cool, Rick! I’ve walked Lake Hollingworth many times myself. I lost 40 pounds walking that lake over about 4 months. Then I got married, gave up the walking and regained the weight. Good times!

Hello all, have not listened yet, looking forward to a quiet Monday morning in the workplace to do so, going to at least slap down my numbers, which are still slack.

9/15 – 9/21/19 (no cross listing is done between platforms)

eBay store: totommyto

Total store items: 830
Number of items sold: 4
Total eBay sales (not counting s/h): $145.00
Cost of items sold: $8.50
Highest price sold: $50 Vintage very portable GPX 1986 TV, paid $2.50
Average price sold: $36.25
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $3
Number of new items listed this week: 9
Sell through rate for the week: 0.5
Number International sales: 1

Etsy store oldfleatoymarket

Total store items: 666
Number of items sold: 3
Total Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $54.00
Cost of items sold: $5
Highest price sold: $24.00 – large steel hook
Average price sold: $18.00
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $3
Number of new items listed this week: 0
Sell through rate for the week: 0.5
Number International sales: 0

2019-09-15 – 2019-09-21

Total Items In Store: 3285 was 3276
Items Sold: 12
Cost of Items Sold: $ 40
Total Sales: $ 438.13
Highest Price Sold: $ 80 (Cabinet doors)
Average Price Sold: $ 36.51
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 348
Number of items listed: 21

Gut Sales Report for the week: Good startto the week, but sales fell off the cliff at the end of the week.

Challenge of the week: Make more room for storage.

Scavenge of the week: I went to an estate sale on Sunday. It was at the end and they were trying to get rid of a lot of Mid-Century hard goods. I would bring a small box filled with great items and they would say $20. I keep this up for a while. At the end, I had spent $110 including items for my daughter. I spend $100 for items I intend to sell. The total listing price that I will list these items for is about $1800. And there are some great items. I was disappointed that they weren’t more big hitters, but with about 50 items, it all adds up.

Mark S

I haven’t had the time to suss out my numbers in quite a while. But I do feel like tooting my horn and sharing that – because of some particularly great scavenging last week – I had four $200 ($190, $215, $210, and $225) sales Friday night. I paid $20 total for those four items.

About a week ago I found a jackpot of Xerox (some OEM and some generic) compatible “solid ink” blocks in a dumpster behind the local military recruiter. What I found is worth about $750. So far I’ve sold $117.65 worth!

I had several really slow weeks during the summer. But things turned around for the better about 2 weeks ago. And this weekend was fantastic, between eBay and Facebook sales, I did almost $1,200 since Friday. My total cost for all items sold in those three days is $30 or less.

If only it was always like this! I just need to keep that momentum going. ABL, baby! I currently have 561 eBay listings (the most I’ve ever had at once) and I’m frantically adding more as I can.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Steves Stuff.

Week Sept 15-21, 2019

Items in store: 4446 Listings for 6343 Items
Items Sold: 116 transactions for 124 Items
Gross Sales: $6258.14
Highest Price Sold: $499.99 …. Korean War Parka…but still awaiting payment, seems unlikely.
Lowest Price Sold: $2.99….Shoe Laces
Average Sale Price: $50.47
Cost of Goods Sold $378, Plus consignment payout, roughly $840
Number of new items listed this week: 138 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $682.63
Repeat Customers: 9
International: 15%

Scavenges of the week. The North Face McMurdo Parka, Golden Bear Leather Jacket, Sulka Dinner Jacket.

Still on track for a record breaking month, though I lost my lead on my $30K goal this week after a few returns were backed out of the sales. I’m optimistic as ebay usually hammers the extra ebay bucks rewards pretty hard at the end of a quarter, which will hopefully keep sales coming in.

Podcast Comments:

Promoted listings
As you mentioned, we can now see which items are promoted in the sold listings. You can also see them before-hand when the offers come in, by going to the “listings with open offers from buyer” page and then sorting using the promoted listing quick filter (blue oval buttons). This way you can see if the listing is promoted before you start your negotiations.

Combined Shipping
If a buyer would like combined shipping for multiple buy-it-now purchases, ask them to click “request total from seller” on their shopping cart page. You will then receive an email notification which will allow you to send a revised invoice with the new shipping amount. Note: I believe you have to have the “allow combined payments/shipping” option turned on in your shipping preferences to activate the “request total from seller” button on the buyers screen.

The_SEAM_Store – You’re correct about combined shipping. Whenever a potential buyer messages me beforehand, hinting they might buy multiple items, I also suggest they just put them in their cart then request total. But of course it only works if the buyer has the foresight/foreknowledge to “request total from seller”. Once they pay there’s no way to adjust it.

You can also refund part of their shipping. But in cases where eBay takes it upon themselves to combine and undercharge the buyer, there’s no way to get the correct shipping amount. That’s why there needs to be a way to opt a given item out of combined shipping eligibility.

Some may see the potential conflict it as a fringe situation, but I’ll bet anything it’s an issue a lot more often than one might think. It’s happened to me at least 3 times in the past 6 months; it probably happens across the platform thousands of times every day.

I also had a pretty great week, and can’t attribute it to anything special, other than doing a ton of listing.

Total Listings: 225
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $261.81
COGS: $47.75
Highest Price: $63.40 (NWT Pendleton 49er shirt)
ASP: $37.40
New Inventory Purchased: $0.00
New Listings: 18

I’ve been growing my store aggressively since July. Normally I ramp up sourcing and listing over the summer when sales are slow, and mostly kick back and fulfill orders in fall/winter. However, this year I’m feeling like I’m in a good groove with sourcing/listing, and thinking I might try to keep it up. I sure wish there was a store level between Basic and Premium.

There was a thread recently about other forms of scavenging, with some comments about mushroom foraging. Pleased to say that my family had a successful trip this weekend hunting chanterelles. First time we’ve gone since my daughter was born. She’s now 3, and got a kick out of it. Our haul was 3 lbs of chanterelles. The fancy grocery store in our neighborhood sells them for $20/lb. We’re keeping them all for ourselves, though!

Items in Store 1219
Items Sold 21
Total Sales $660.00
COGS $53.50
Total Profit $606.50
Average profit $28.88
Average sales price $31.43
New Listings 36

I made some improvements to my photo station this past week. I changed out my white vinyl (which had gotten pretty dirty) and raised the height about a foot. Now I can photograph pants by hanging them. Photographing pants has always been a pain in the butt and I avoided it. Now it is super fast! I will still use a mannequin for any pants I want to stand out.

Always be improving.

Other than that, I’m over here trying to get stuff listed and hoping my store sales improve. My fall goal was to average $941 in gross sales a week and I’m falling behind already.

Week September 8-21, 2019

Total Items in Store: 1011
Items Sold: 34 (1 Discogs)
Cost of Items Sold: $287.99 (25.5% of sales)
Total Sales: $1,129.29
Highest Price Sold: $139.99 (U2 Pop)
Average Price Sold: $33.21
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $492
Number of items listed this week: 20
Promoted listings test: 15 sales, $388.94 (34.4% of total sales), $18.45 fees (4.7% of sales)

Hey gang! Haven’t posted for a few weeks (although I have been listening) after the Labor Day holiday, travelling for work, and other life getting in the way. Since I can’t remember the last time I posted, here are my numbers for the past 2 weeks. Good to be back!

Pretty solid numbers, on the uptick vs the summer… and I even had $500+ of sales yesterday (Sunday) which will hit next week’s post! Hopefully this is the beginning of holiday sales!

On top of the U2 Pop high sale, also sold an original Beach Boys Pet Sounds for $120, a mixed piece lot of tobacco pipes for $60 (which were all at the bottom of a box that I was going to toss out), a 1913 straight razor for $40, and a mix bag of pocket watch parts for $40 (from the same box as the pipe parts).

Only went to one random sale this week because it was convenient while I was running errands, found this awesome pile of WWII era photos of Hawaii – hoping most of them having hula girls help them sell for top dollar. Also, while cleaning out a “death box” of random things from lots, put this mixed lot of playing cards together that hopefully sells.

I sourced for 4 days last week! The last time I put that much effort into reselling was over 2 years ago! It was fun to act more of the part of a f/t reseller. Even though I am a f/t reseller, I’ve gotten busy with outside projects, working through the backlog and gotten lazy with sourcing online. It was weird, tiring and expensive to get back out there, but I am happy for the exercise and good stock!

I’ve found that when you think you’re at 100% capacity for unlisted stock, there’s always room to add a few more boxes! I’ve listed 60 items sourced this weekend, and another 40 items found during the week. Still a lot to go before I clear through all of it. I am trying to stay on top of it at least. Of the 60 items listed this weekend, 7 have watchers and 1 has a bid.

I’ve gotten my etsy store up to 110 listings. 2 items sold this week. Yay! I have enough items to get up to 150 active listings by q4, if I find the time.

My main ebay store was down a bit this past week. While I normally sell 50-75 items per week, I was down to 40 this week. This is a natural slow time for my niche, so I don’t mind. It will give me more time to source and list for q4 & q1 2020.

Podcast comment:

For storing art, I have one suggestion. With all the auctions I do, online or live, I end up with a few bins without lids. I took one of them for small to medium size framed art. I fit them in lengthwise and leave an inch or so of space at the end. That way, I can flip through them and find the one that sold. If you had larger bins or boxes, you could do it for the slightly larger art as well.

Sorry, I don’t have any suggestions for large or unframed art.

I had another slow week, but Sunday through today has started out strong. I am hopeful.

Week of Sept 15 – 21
* Total Items in Store: 1486 eBay, 3 Etsy
* Items Sold: 12
* Cost of Items Sold: $15.50 + $0 Commission
* Total Sales: $235.58
* Highest Price Sold: $60 Vintage Members Only leather coat
* Average Price Sold: $19.63
* Returns: 1
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 20

Thanks for the podcast R&J.

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 3248
Items Sold: 41
Total Sales: $871.92
Cost of Items Sold: $116
Average Price Sold: $21.27
Average Cost of Item: $2.84
Highest Price Item Sold: $104.95 Traktor Kontrol F1 – DJ Remix Controller
Number of items listed this week: 43
YTD Sales: $36672
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +9%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 412
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 242
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 157
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.26%
Hats sold this week: 28 (68% of sales) worth $481.59 (55% of sales $)

A pretty unremarkable week. Sales were solid but I sold a lot of hats so my total sales figure was pretty typical for this time of year.

Ryan from Ralli Roots (YouTube) got to do a Q&A session with someone from eBay about the changes to Promoted Listings. It was pretty informative. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_F1dYoDU9I ) The main takeaway is that if your item appears as a promoted listing, it wont appear lower on the page. So previously your listing might appear twice. Now it will only appear once. That was a concern for many people. (Especially when people started freaking out about ad-blockers blocking promoted listings). You an check your impressions dashboard in the seller hub to see if there is any substantial change for your store.

Hope everyone sells lots of trash this week.

Sept. 15-21
Total Items in Store: 2615
Items Sold: 24
Total Sales : $644
* Below yearly average of $934
Highest Price: $80 (Vintage Walz Lens Hood for Leitz Leica Summicron Lens)
Average Price: $27
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $26
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $388
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 44

I have some good numbers to report this week considering the time of year. Sales were fairly consistent with a bunch of lower priced items. I made enough to let me sleep soundly at night and that’s fine with me. My listing number was lower than my goal because we spent extra time scavenging. We went to a weird auction on Wednesday. There was a lot of good stuff but the bidding was going high, at least at the beginning. But we managed to get a bunch of cool stuff. My scavenge of the day was a giant box of old radio and television Photofax service manuals. They’re each just little 4 page or more pamphlets, but they’re going for $10 a piece on eBay and I’ve got hundreds. I also bought a parts bin full of old capacitors. I don’t know exactly what I’ve got, but if you look up vintage capacitor under Solds, certain ones can go for hundreds of dollars!

Regarding the storage of artwork, our solution is to hang them around the house. We have a lot of empty wall space so it made sense to use the pictures until they sell. When one does sell, it just gets replaced with another piece of art from a little stack in my storage. It’s like a rotating art gallery.

I have a feeling I won’t get a lot done this week. We just adopted our first kitty cat yesterday and we’re working to get her used to the house. That and we’re going to auctions on Thursday and Saturday. It’s funny how worried I was that the auction scene was drying up around here. Now it’s exploding.

Week of 09/15-09/21
Total Items in Store: 3,338 (Up 24% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 112
Number of Items Sold: 105 (Up 18% YOY)
(Includes 3 Etsy, 17 Poshmark, 3 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 13% (Down 1% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $3,289 (Up 41% YOY)
Sales Volume Variance to Prior Year: Up $420
Sales Price Variance to Prior Year: Up $529
Cost of Items Sold: $549
Cost of Labor: $240
Highest Item Sold: $225 – Hugo Boss Tuxedo
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 22-17.

Clothing
# Listed: 1,890
# Sold: 65
STR: 15%
ASP: $32.19

Shoes
# Listed: 875
# Sold: 28
STR: 14%
ASP: $33.02

Hard Goods
# Listed: 573
# Sold: 12
STR: 9%
ASP: $22.67

EBay
# Listed: 3,338
# Sold: 85
STR: 11%
ASP: $29.83

Etsy
# Listed: 212
# Sold: 3
STR: 6%
ASP: $26.56

Poshmark
# Listed: 901
# Sold: 17
STR: 8%
ASP: $39.65

Not much to really report, except staying busy and trying to work as much as possible. Our photographer is on vacation this week, so I’m going to be back to taking my own photographs this week. I know, “cry me a river”, but it will be interesting to see how my numbers look doing it all this week…

Regarding the situation of ad blockers blocking 2% or so of promoted listings:

I’m ignorant of the backend workings, so my point may be silly. But I don’t get why eBay would have promoted listings appear to ad blockers as “ads”. Why wouldn’t they call them up as normal listings, but with the addition of text saying “sponsored listing”? Are they retrieving them from some sort of “ad server” (I don’t know the correct terminology) rather than their own system? What’s the deal?

Wow, it’s hard to read the forum this morning as it’s all compressed into one huge column of text.

I looked up the metronome thing, it’s pretty cool! Made more sense when I realized they must be coupled together by being e.g., all on one light sliding surface.

I had a good week on ebay but more horrible returns. Seems like I’m getting all the year’s returns in one month. This time on a nice projector lens I sold for $500.

Sales: CAD$1685, 11 items, COGS: $295 –> Item profit: $1124
Expenditures (incl returns): $1384 –> Cashflow: $36
Notable sales: best sale was $600 for 3 rolls of glass cloth tape.

I spend $450 at an auction and got tons of stuff, which I just finished listing:
-Lathe parts including a nice chuck I’m hoping brings $500 or so. The rest of the parts are marginal but I listed them anyway.
-Two big boxes of roller bearings. I paid $11 for this lot and already sold ~10% of it for $300.
-A huge lot of cleaning solution dispensers for $3. I really regret this lot as I didn’t realize how gigantic they were, not to mention sticky and disgusting. I’ll get rid of them if no interest within a few months, trying to move them locally pretty cheap.
-Super heavy counterbore sleeving tool for $50. I don’t know yet whether this was a genius or idiot buy. Probably idiot.
-Gas valves, 6 for $75. These are heavy and annoying but each should bring $200-300 or so… EVENTUALLY.

@ Brian Treasures From Grandmas – Ah, ok. I appreciate your informative feedback. That makes a lot of sense.

I’ve taken a bit of a listing vacation this week, as I am getting ready for a trip AND sales picked up.

Sales: 10 or 11 (waiting on a $10 payment on one), 4 Ebay, 7 Poshmark, 1 (the first) on Mercari
Total $: $200 before fees and some shipping
Cost of Goods: Most was from lots, so individual cost of goods was $1 or less. My retail arbitrage of some Nightmare Before Xmas figurine has been a bit of a pain. I keep getting offers, but only one sale so far. I’ll hold out for my high, high prices of $14+ shipping (listed at $17).
Highlights: Some of my vintage jewelry FINALLY sold on Poshmark. I’d been having doubts, but three pieces when this week. It’s probably about half of my store/closet. Another funny item was a back pillow that I accidentally put on auction (rather than BIN). No bids on the slightly lower price, so I relisted when the auction was up, and it sold within a week.
Most of these sales are the result of offers. I’ve got too much inventory for my space, and I am hungry for sales, so I’m gladly taking reasonable offers.
Sourcing: Not much, but I did get some Marvel toys (probably a bust) and a music box during a trip to the thrift store with my daughter. It has comps of $80-130, so it’s probably a good find, if I can get it listed next week. We also cleaned out our coat closet at home! About 5 coats to list, two to the trash and four to the thrift store.
Listing: I got three coats listed, but I’m in order fulfillment and trip-planning mode now.