Scavenger Life Episode 445: We Went To An Auction!

This topic has 61 replies, 24 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 2 months ago by Arizona Mike.

Viewing 25 reply threads

Author

Posts
- 01/12/2020 at 7:50 pm #72842
  Ryanne
  Keymaster
  Location: Virginia
  @ryanne
  Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week Jan 5-11, 2019 Total Items in Store: 8415 Items Sold: 45 Gross Sales: $1,162.01 Cost of It
  [See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 445: We Went To An Auction!]
- 01/12/2020 at 8:29 pm #72845
  WabashValleyRelics
  Participant
  Location: Indiana
  @wabashvalleyrelics
  Hello, been listening to you guys for years and appreciate all the content.
  
  Jan 5-11 2019
  
  Total Items In Store: 13,502
  Items Sold: 86
  Cost of Items Sold: Around $18
  Total Sales: $ 2,569.97
  Highest Price Sold: $325 (lot of 20 1940s Montgomery Ward Cards)
  
  This is my first post here, so I’ll just give a bit of background and explain some of the numbers.
  
  I started off ~6 years ago, you guys were one of the first mediums I found talking about reselling. Truth be told, I modeled my business after your store the first few years. Started off dumpster diving and going to Goodwills/Thrift stores. I soon got to a bottleneck of sorts, where I just was running out of room, even with a 2 car garage, a 1 car garage, and a storage unit.
  
  I ended up changing my business model a few years ago. I stopped going to thrift stores and started focusing on rural live and online auctions. I stopped buying clothes, glassware, kitchenware, electronics, etc. etc. and started focusing on smalls and vintage paper ephemera.
  
  Over the summer I was at an auction of a life long comic, sci-fi, and magazine collector who passed away. I ended up buying around 10,000 78s for $30 and around 2,000 magazines for a fraction of a cent a piece. After that, came the deal of a lifetime.
  
  So the guy had passed away and they auctioned off the house during the auction. I knew the person who ended up buying the house and when they got the keys, they discovered every room of the house was stacked to the ceiling with magazines that had been stored for years in bins, most of them all in near mint condition.
  
  The person was going to throw them all away because he thought they were trash, I offered to clean out the estate if I could have them all. He agreed. We ended up with around 15,000 magazines. That was back in July and we’ve been throwing them up as fast as possible ever since. We now have enough unprocessed inventory to last maybe 2 years, during which time we will be aggressively paying down all our debt and hopefully buy a house.
  
  Sorry for the long post, hopefully that explains my low cost of goods. The Montgomery ward cards were picked up for $10 at an auction, 50 cents a piece, which is a large chunk of my cost of goods sold this week.
  
  Thanks again for the inspiration to do this, I’m not sure if I ever would have started if I didn’t come across your podcasts.
  - 01/12/2020 at 8:54 pm #72847
    sonia
    Participant
    
    Location: Northeast US
    @sonia
    how cool! Thanks for sharing your story, WabashValleyRelics.
  - 01/13/2020 at 7:40 am #72856
    totommyto
    Participant
    
    Location: Naples, Fl
    @totommyto
    WabashValleyRelics,
    
    I love the story of your success. You naturally moved into the Mother Lode we all dream about, by virtue of the work that was done and is being done. What kind of magazines are they, for the most part? Loving this!
  - 01/13/2020 at 10:11 am #72872
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Welcome. That’s quite a score. Out of 15,000 magazines, how many are worth money? Id be afraid that many would be in poor shape or just worthless.
    - 01/13/2020 at 3:31 pm #72900
      WabashValleyRelics
      Participant
      
      Location: Indiana
      @wabashvalleyrelics
      
      We haven’t processed them all yet, so we’re still not sure what all we have but so far about 90% have been listed individually, the others have been set aside for lots. Out of the 86 items sold last week, around 75 of them were magazines. Highest single magazine that sold last week was a Sophisticate’s Fashion magazine that sold for $99.
      
      Another thing to consider is combined orders. Going out today is a lot of 22 tabloid magazines for a total of $231, a lot of 3 tabloids for a total of $30. A lot of 7 People/Us magazines for a total of $116.85. The highest single magazine that sold this weekend was a rugrats magazine for a total of $50.14. All prices include shipping.
      
      We’ve also gained around a dozen or so repeat buyers that will pick our store monthly and order from us. Which is something that we didn’t notice when we sold a bunch of one offs.
      
      I’d say we do around $1,500 -$2,000 per week just in magazines.
      
      The ones with no mailing label and are in at least VG condition seem to be the ones the collectors are looking for.
      
      We’ve also been able to control/change the market prices for several magazine runs. Since we have almost every issue of some of these titles, we were able to flood the market with those and increase the prices. For instance, there’s a certain magazine that had less than 100 listed on Ebay, all listed for less than $10. We have 5-10 times the amount of those specific titles, so we threw all ours up from anywhere between $15-25 a piece and have been doing well with them.
      
      Smalls/papers/magazines are also incredibly fast to picture, list, and ship. We can picture ~100 of them in under 2 hours and can post 50-100 a day if we have the whole day to work on them. The way we can do that is we try to take photos of the same magazines titles, all at once. For example, I’ll spend a few hours picturing, say, Globe tabloids, then transfer them to my pc. When I list one the title will say something like –
      
      “Globe Tabloid Aug 5 1995 – Oprah – Dallas Linda Gray – Brooke Shields”
      
      Since they’re all basically near mint, my condition description is generally just –
      
      “Excellent vintage condition. Minor toning/stressing along edges. ”
      
      Most of those mags only have 3 pictures. 2 of the front, the main photo is trimmed and cropped, the 2nd photo is cropped but still leaves a small white border, and the 3rd is a pic of the back cover.
      
      Then in the description, it’s just say “Please look at all pics and contact me with any additional questions. Thanks”
      
      The price of these is generally $14.95 + shipping.
      
      When that’s listed, all I’m doing is hitting sell similar, changes a few words in the title, changing the pics, and then that listing is done, rinse and repeat. Listing them may take 5 minutes each.
      
      My username is also my store name, so you can find me that way, but if not and anyone wants to check out my store, I’ll include the link below. Thanks. I hope that answered everyones various questions. Feel free to ask anything else, I enjoy talking about reselling and how we run our business.
      
      https://www.ebay.com/str/wabashvalleyrelics
      - 01/13/2020 at 4:20 pm #72903
        
        Jay
        Keymaster
        
        Location: Virginia
        @jay
        
        Incredible. Great job with that score…and then all the details of researching and listing.
        –Was the person a collector? I just assumed it was a hoarder where the magazines would be in bad shape.
        –Why do people pay so much for old People magazines?
        
        01/13/2020 at 7:31 pm #72911
        
        WabashValleyRelics
        Participant
        
        Location: Indiana
        @wabashvalleyrelics
        
        Yeah, they were definitely a hoarder/collector. I go to a lot of auctions, I had never seen such a massive collection before. The day of the auction itself, I filled my truck and a trailer and ended up leaving dozens of bins behind because I couldn’t haul anymore. There was the common 2-ring type setup that large auctions have. Then there was legitimately ~500-1,000 totes of paper/small items laid out in the yard. They would just pile up totes and auction them off. Most people were interested in the massive comic, toys, and movie collection he had, not a lot of interest in the paper bins in the yard, so I was just buying piles of totes $5 a pile. I was blown away. Same with the 78 records. There were 15 100-gallon totes full of 78 records, absolutely nobody wanted them, I got them for $2 a piece.
        
        Funny thing is the guys house was a dump, border line condemned, yet just about every single item he collected was in near mint condition and he collected everything, even personal mail he had acquired over the years, which was just trash. He may have started out as just a collector but then slowly begun to develop a hoarder type mentality.
        
        I would guess people buy old magazines because they’re collectors of physical media, I remember reading an article about the rise of physical media collectors coinciding with the rise of digital media conversion. Some are collectors of specific people. The big tabloid lot that went out today was to a Liz Taylor collector, they all had Liz on the cover. There’s a guy who collects a lot of Dallas TV stuff and buys quite a bit off me. There’s a guy who just specifically collects old WWF/WCW ads out of just one particular magazine title. I sold a $20 Muppet magazine to a person last week who only wanted it because of a specific He-Man ad in the back of the magazine. Then lastly, a lot of international buyers buy them because they were never released in their country, so buying them on Ebay from the US is one of the only ways they can get their hands on them.
  - 01/13/2020 at 1:46 pm #72890
    almasty
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @alamasty
    Wow, 17,000 magazines. That is a dream. Are they mainly sci-fi/music/comic magazines? I would love to fall into a large collection like that. The only problem would be storage space, but I’d make it work somehow. I spent $600 on a similar collection that consisted mainly of comic magazines & graphic novels from an estate sale in October. I’ve been doing well with them, but I definitely would’ve bought way more stock if it was available. Just down to a few boxes of unlisted stock that’s not as desirable from that sale. The comic magazines were mainly from the late 90s/early 2000s. Several from the 70s, but surprisingly the best were from the 90s. Some went for $40-60, some for $10. I’ve got a bunch to lot up that go for $4-6 apiece free shipping. Meh. Sales that good rarely come up, and when they do everyone wants to throw money at them.
    - 01/13/2020 at 3:41 pm #72901
      WabashValleyRelics
      Participant
      
      Location: Indiana
      @wabashvalleyrelics
      
      Oh yeah, 80s/90s sci-fi/comic magazines are generally low in value, unless there’s something specific on the cover or a specific desirable article. It really sucks. I think the lowest we post our mags for is generally $7.5 + shipping. Anything lower than that we have been tossing to the side to lot up. We got tons of those with this haul. Surprisingly fashion and swimsuit magazines have been the most expensive magazines so far. Aside from the $99 Sophisticates we sold this week I talked about in my other reply, our highest single magazine was also a sophisticates. It was a Jaclyn Smith Sophisticates beauty magazine. I price things according to worth point instead of Ebay comps and there was absolutely no record of that item ever being sold and I think worthpoint goes back 10-15 years. I listed it for $150 + shipping and it sold overnight.
      
      A lot of swimsuit mags have sold for $30+, so I would say those two categories would be what I would look for. Also 70s/80s TV and soap opera magazines. I generally get anywhere between $17-40+shipping per issue.
      - 01/13/2020 at 4:13 pm #72902
        
        almasty
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @alamasty
        
        Oh wow, those National Enquirers look minty. I’ve tried buying lots of those in the past to break up, but they always go high. People love their vintage gossip! Oddly enough, I hardly ever see them out in the wild. I think most estate companies toss them out. They probably think no one would pay for them. Weekly World News is a fun one. I’d probably just keep those and read through them. I’ve been trying to buy this collection of The Onion newspapers for over a year now from someone that constantly posts it, but I never get a response from the guy when I contact him. Ahhh. I’m not sure what’s going on.
        
        Did the Circus magazines come from the same buy? I have made a mint off of those in the past. I fell into a large collection of Circus/Creem/other similar magazines a few years ago and am still selling them to this day. I got lucky and got them in a few years ago right when a major musician died and prices went through the roof for them. I’ve only found Circus in quantity once since that purchase, but only like 10 at that time and they were all falling apart.
        
        Interesting there were also fashion magazines mixed in. Just an all around hoarder.
        
        Nice sale on the Sophisticates magazine!
        
        01/13/2020 at 7:43 pm #72912
        
        WabashValleyRelics
        Participant
        
        Location: Indiana
        @wabashvalleyrelics
        
        Yeah the Circus magazines all came from the same haul, pretty much everything I’ll be listing for the foreseeable future will be from the same estate. And you’re definitely correct, they are hard to come by. Usually when I come across them at auctions, they’ve been handled by so many people that they’re all pretty worn which really can kill the value. From what I’ve seen, a collector would rather pay the extra costs for the better conditioned item, same as with comic collectors. I’m not sure if I would be doing as well as I am with these items if they were in poor condition.
        
        Nice job on those Circus/Creem collection. Did they all have the posters still attached? I’ve had people buy magazines just for the poster itself. The fashion magazines blew me away, so I’m constantly on the look out for them. I think those might be the rarest ones I’ve come across so far. If you ever find any and can’t any on Ebay or within the last 10-15 years of complete sales on Worthpoint, list them very high with best offer. Both the Jaclyn Smith that sold for $150 and the Lynda Carter that sold for $99, sold within 2 days of listing for full price. They could be worth $200+ for all I know. Good luck on those Onion newspapers, you should do really well on those if you can get a hold of them.
        
        01/16/2020 at 4:00 pm #73003
        
        almasty
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @alamasty
        
        Yeah, I got lucky with the mags and most still had their centerfolds/posters attached. Well, I was bad with 1 of them by separating the poster from the magazine – sold the magazine by itself, kept the poster. I figured it was ripped on one edge and had fallen out anyway. 3 panel centerfold of Queen. That one was too cool to just give away. Also kept a page from another magazine that featured Freddie Mercury sniffing a rose. The collection was in really good shape other than a few of the Queen issues, I’m not sure why. I also hoarded a few of the prog issues for myself for a few years, started going through my personal stuff this summer and listed a few. The values have definitely come down over the past few years, but still good enough for me to list.
        
        I’ve got several boxes of fashion mags to list that I picked up 5 years ago, but nothing as good as yours. Mainly 80s-early 2000s more common titles, but foreign versions. $10-50 apiece depending on the cover. I actually don’t even know where I put them in storage – I’ve been selling paper for 16 years 🙂 and have built up a large backlog, but I’m working through it. 😄
        
        I did at one point have an early 1900s Vogue – maybe 1920s? I don’t remember. Paid $30 for it and sold it for $80 or $90 and it was in the worst condition ever.
- 01/12/2020 at 9:48 pm #72849
  Mark S
  Participant
  Location:
  @mark-s
  1/5/20 – 1/11/20
  
  Total Items In Store: 3379
  Items Sold: 19
  Cost of Items Sold: $ 60
  Total Sales: $ 555.42
  Highest Price Sold: $ 50 (Remote Control)
  Average Price Sold: $ 29.23
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 14.29
  Number of items listed: 29
  
  Gut Sales Report for the week: Slow sales. If I had not sent out a lot offers, I wouldn’t have sold much at all.
  
  Challenge of the week: List more.
  
  Scavenge of the week: Got a nice pair of Roller blades for cheap at the thrift store. Not sure why but they don’t value roller blades very much.
  
  Mark S
- 01/12/2020 at 10:31 pm #72852
  Doublythumbs
  Participant
  Location: Hopedale, OH
  @doublythumbs
  Jan 5 – 11
  Total Items in Store: 2943
  Items Sold: 26
  Total Sales : $687
  * BELOW yearly average of $889
  Highest Price: $140 (Vintage Puma Corporal Folding Knife)
  Average Price: $26
  Returns: 0
  Cost of Goods Sold: $65
  Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
  Number of New Items Listed this Week: 125
  
  Slowish week, but not unexpected since I started the week off with selling restrictions. It turns out that my store was delisted for those three days, so I could only sell stuff that I was previously negotiating best offers with. Ugh… whatever. At least I was still able to create and save drafts. So I had about 40 items ready to go on Tuesday afternoon when my little time-out was over.
  
  Since you mentioned buttons, it took me about two and a half weeks to list my big button lot. I created 305 new listings and so far have grossed $311 after 21 sales. I know that the more desirable ones tend to sell quickly and all the others will be super long tail, but I expect this little pipeline to make me a nice little pile of cash in the end. The best part is I’ve now have a ton more knowledge about buttons and I’ll know what to look for in those random sewing boxes, and I’ll even be able to go toe to toe with the button lady at the auction (yes, she’s real).
  
  I had something unexpected happen to me last week. I received a handwritten thank you note from a buyer. It was very long winded, but essentially thanked me for selling her some old Christmas lights for her wreath. It’s little gestures like that that brings me joy. Has that happened to anyone here before?
  - 01/13/2020 at 7:45 am #72857
    totommyto
    Participant
    
    Location: Naples, Fl
    @totommyto
    Hi Doublythumbs,
    Cool story, I had it happen with an old suede leather key pouch I sold on Etsy. Hand written from the Granddaughter who purchased it, and then another very shaky hand written letter from the Grandma who it was gifted to. It replaced the exact one she had forever.
    It was a $25 sale.
    Nice touches for us pirates when this happens!
  - 01/13/2020 at 10:13 am #72873
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Every so often we get a letter in then mail from some unknown person. Often its an older person thanking us for the item and why its important to them. Remember, what we’re really often selling is nostalgia.
    
    We’re nostalgia dealers.
- 01/13/2020 at 8:29 am #72859
  simplicio
  Participant
  Location:
  @simplicio
  Regarding the transaction fee on taxes. Initially I was confused by how US sales tax was working – the buyer pays YOU, then ebay immediately remits the sales tax to the relevant government out of your paypal account. Why not cut out the middleman? But actually, it’s simple: you’re the seller, you’re supposed to remit, ebay is just doing you a favour by taking care of it. Therefore the money must go through your hands. Given this, I find it hard to complain about the transaction fee.
  
  As for paypal, again, assuming they have certain costs that are *per transaction*, and the sales tax is its own transaction… seems reasonable. For the same reason, I never thought it too bad that paypal charges its fee even for a cancelled purchase.
  
  Had a good week. Finally hit 1000 listings.
  
  Sales c/w shipping: CAD$2,972, 10 sales, COGS: $35, Fees: ~$181, Postage: $319 –> Gross profit: $2,438
  Expenditures: $1,014 –> Cashflow: $1,778
  Hours: 14
  Listed: $3,990, 46 items
  Half a year ago I bought a ton of Herman Miller shell chairs for $5 each, I finally sold the remaining 12 of these chairs (which had attached desks) for $1600.
  
  Got a lot listed, and have some auction pickups this week so I’ll have even more soon. Ebay buying continues apace.
  - 01/13/2020 at 8:55 am #72861
    Retro Treasures WV
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @retro-treasures-wv
    The transaction fee is not the problem. Noone would have a problem with paypal keeping the transaction fee on a cancelled sale. That is 30 cents.
    
    The problem is that now they are also keeping the final value fee (2.9% of the whole transaction)as well. That is bullcrap and a dirty cash grab by them.
    
    So if someone buys a $2000 item from you and then immediately cancels due to a mistake, you would be out $58 – not just 30 cents.
    
    Imagine if ebay kept the final value fee even when the transaction never officially took place. That is plain wrong.
    - 01/13/2020 at 11:36 am #72886
      simplicio
      Participant
      
      Location:
      @simplicio
      
      I see what you mean, that’s a good point.
  - 01/13/2020 at 10:18 am #72874
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    I feel your store has really turned a corner. I think you used to just buy industrial items at a local auction, but big thumbs up for whatever you’re doing now. This is just a part-time job for you, right?
    
    Did the person that bought all the Harman Miller pick up locally off eBay?
    - 01/13/2020 at 11:34 am #72885
      simplicio
      Participant
      
      Location:
      @simplicio
      
      Thanks! I’m buying a lot on ebay but most of these sales are stuff I’ve accumulated from local auctions, the ebay hasn’t paid off too much yet.
      
      That was a local (kijiji) sale for the Herman Miller chairs. I had them listed on ebay too but I didn’t really get bites. What I should have done was sell just the shells on ebay, which are shippable – somebody here did advise me to do that, but I never got round to it.
  - 01/14/2020 at 11:08 pm #72960
    sonia
    Participant
    
    Location: Northeast US
    @sonia
    But actually, it’s simple: you’re the seller, you’re supposed to remit, ebay is just doing you a favour by taking care of it.
    
    No, mostly not. All the new state sales tax laws that are coming out that everyone has been talking about say that *ebay* (the marketplace) is supposed to collect and remit the tax, not the individual sellers. So they are following the law, not doing us any favors. No way they would be doing this if they didn’t have to.
    
    That said, they are doing some of us a favor for some of our in-state sales. Before all the latest hullabaloo, some states did have laws making sellers collect and submit taxes for taxable in-state sales. Ebay now collects and remits those as well as the inter-state sales taxes, so that I do consider being a favor. But that’s just a small percentage of my taxable sales.
- 01/13/2020 at 8:49 am #72860
  Retro Treasures WV
  Participant
  Location:
  @retro-treasures-wv
  Items in Store 1493
  Items Sold 45
  Total Sales $1,196.00
  COGS $125.00
  Total Profit $1,071.00
  Average profit $23.80
  Average sales price $26.58
  New Listings 20
  
  I’ve cleared $1k in sales for 6 weeks in a row. A man could get used to this, but I know the crash is coming sometime in February/March. I’m a listing machine right now, so maybe I can stave that off a bit this year.
  
  Last week I started considering storage improvements to consider this year. I got the idea to use rolling storage carts. I started researching, but the ones you can buy at big box stores are trash that I wouldn’t consider safely putting 50lbs on.
  Then I got on facebook and saw a listing for EXACTLY what I wanted – industrial grade rolling storage carts. Another K-mart is going out of business, which is where these were at. I ended up buying 9 of them, but I can’t pick them up for a few more weeks. They are heavy duty welded construction, 4 shelves 4′ wide and 2′ deep. The beauty of rolling carts is that I can stack them all up next to each other – no aisles needed. These kind of carts cost hundreds of dollars new. I got them for $50 each.
  
  So after I dropped all that cash on the carts, I had to offset the costs. Enter shopping the rest of the fixtures/equipment stuff. I did quite well. I got several new in box Sloan flush valves, heavy duty door closers, a bunch of HVAC and lighting parts, New in box large toner cartridges. All the selling inventory I got will bring in about $800-1000.
  
  They also had really nice mannequins at this sale for super cheap. I got a male, female, and a “well endowed full figure” female. All with the nice magnetic pose-able arms. I paid $60 total for all 3. I’ll be purging alot of my mannequin collection soon since these are so much nicer than the ones I have on hand. If anyone here is interested in mannequins, I can ship them!
  
  My favorite buy though was tape. They had sealed boxes of 36 rolls of tape for $20 each. I bought all 3 boxes. I am set on tape for YEARS.
- 01/13/2020 at 11:06 am #72883
  Lukastreasure
  Participant
  Location: Chevy Chase, MD
  @lukastreasuretrove
  Good show this week. Interesting thoughts about collectors. My perspective is that people are still collecting, but the collectibles are cycling through the years. Hummels and Lladro no longer, but action figures, vintage cameras, typewriters are now the new collectibles. I do see the next wave perhaps changing dramatically, however, with this new millennial mindset of “experiences, not things”.
  
  Also, kudos for last weeks discussion on cross-listing, which has been incredibly fruitful and still going strong. Lots of good info there.
  
  My sales for the week were much lower than the latest trend, as expected due to the Christmas drop-off. Still, over half of our sales for the week were Christmas ornaments. Numbers are a bit skewed due to the one large item sale, which also came with a high cost of entry.
  
  Week Ending 01/11/2020
  Total Items in Store: 1144
  Items Sold: 15
  Gross Sales: $1,427.59
  Gross wo Shipping $1,264.94
  Cost of Items Sold: $696.68
  Highest Price Sold: $998.95 (Sony a7 digital camera, COGS $668)
  Average Price Sold: $84.32
  Returns: 0
  Money Spent on New Inventory: 172.5
  Sold via promoted listings: 9
  Promoted Percentage: 60.00%
  Average Days Listed: 395
  Longest Listed: 1294
  New items listed: 9
  
  I took a calculated risk on the Sony camera. It was my highest dollar purchase ever, and my highest dollar sale ever. I use one of these so I knew it well and it was in pristine condition, so felt pretty good that it would sell high and quickly. It sold within 5 hours for full asking price. After fees my profit was approx. $240.
  
  Excited about a new scavenge. I bought a few lots at a Maxsold auction. One lot I purchased for $34 had a 14K gold Hamilton pocket watch in it. The watch wasn’t even mentioned in the listing, though there was a very blurry picture. This is why I like buying lots, you never know what you’re going to end up with.
  - 01/13/2020 at 11:13 am #72884
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    My perspective is that people are still collecting, but the collectibles are cycling through the years. Hummels and Lladro no longer, but action figures, vintage cameras, typewriters are now the new collectibles.
    
    You’re right that younger people do still collect, just different things. Video games, comics, etc.
    
    Whats interesting is that there’s a big gap in what young people collect and what you can find at auctions. Boomers who are dying off collected items that younger people dont often want. We’ll have to wait some time before Gen X (me) dies off when our collections will be ready for sale 🙂
- 01/13/2020 at 11:46 am #72887
  Sharyn
  Participant
  Location: Central NJ
  @sharyn
  Last week, I talked to an eBay rep and got three defects removed. I will be a TRS again for the next rating period. I’m happy!
  
  About Forever 21 mentioned in the podcast – The company is having issues in general and is one of the chains expected to go under within a year or two. My daughter bought a few things there in her younger teen years. The store has a bad return policy. You can only get store credit for something within the first week of purchase, then they won’t take it back. I would think that their return policy has something to do with their issues, but they probably can’t have a better policy because of their fast fashion business plan. Sort of a catch 22.
  
  Slow week, but I haven’t been listing much:
  
  Week of Jan 5 – 11
  * Total Items in Store: 1501 eBay, 34 Etsy
  * Items Sold: 14 eBay
  * Cost of Items Sold: $31.15 + $7.30 Commission
  * Total Sales: $245.77 eBay
  * Highest Price Sold: $50 vintage ship table lamp
  * Average Price Sold: $17.56
  * Returns: 0
  * Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
  * Number of items listed this week: 5
- 01/13/2020 at 12:17 pm #72889
  totommyto
  Participant
  Location: Naples, Fl
  @totommyto
  THEY’RE BAAAAAACK!
  That’s what I picked up on as soon as I began to listen to the podcast. I’ve felt for sometime time now that the scavenging spirit has been waning a bit with the still much APPRECIATED, and always very much ANTICIPATED podcast.
  It’s been like listening to a couple of very salty fisherman with a fishing podcast, discussing the winds, the baits, the hooks, the bites, all great, yet knowing that they haven’t ‘really’ wet a line in awhile. The excitement, the stories, all back, and so awesome. I am so happy you both got re charged, and please accept my apologies for being presumptuous in any way.
  
  Four sets of GMC Floor mats sold to four different buyers after I found a sweet spot selling price and after making shipping adjustments. I have had these mats for more than a few months now. Because of the current dimensional weight computations, a lot of my packaging sizes needed to be modified. For example, shipping was $65 for a certain larger item, and I was able to bring it down to $25. Prior to the dimensional weight computations by both the USPS and FedEx as well, I did not have too much of a problem with over priced shipping, and I did not take such great care in packaging size.
  
  1/05 – 01/11/20 (no cross listing is done between platforms)
  
  eBay store: totommyto
  
  Total store items: 831
  Number of items sold: 12
  Total eBay sales (not counting s/h): $542.50
  Cost of items sold: $26 (four sets of auto mats sold for $70 each, cost was zero, trash find!)
  Highest price sold: $100 – Care Bears Magnets Store Display, paid $15
  Average price sold: $45.20
  Returns: 0
  Money spent on new inventory: $61
  Number of new items listed this week: 3
  Sell through rate for the week: 1.4
  Number International sales: 1
  
  Etsy store oldfleatoymarket
  
  Total store items: 627
  Number of items sold: 8
  Total Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $199.90
  Cost of items sold: $16
  Highest price sold: $42.50 – rusted tool box carry tray insert on Etsy, paid $2
  Average price sold: $24.98
  Returns: 0
  Money spent on new inventory: $48
  Number of new items listed this week: 0
  Sell through rate for the week: 1.3
  Number International sales: 1
- 01/13/2020 at 1:56 pm #72892
  jadowa
  Participant
  Location: Franklin, IN
  @jadowa
  Week of January 4 to January 10
  
  Total Items In Store: 5083
  Items Sold: 158
  Total Sales (w/o Shipping): $1605.23
  Cost of Items Sold: $320.44
  Total Profit: $1284.79
  Highest Price Sold: $44.99 (Dr. Seuss Book Lot)
  Average Price Sold: $10.42
  Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
  Number of items listed: 0
  
  Took some time this week to get organized for the coming year… My goal is to list 500 items per week for the next few weeks. It seems like a lofty goal – I just need to stay focused and not going on tangents like I do so many times.
  
  I had a nice thank you letter this week also (and it ties in to Magazines). I sold a lady a back issue of a magazine that contained a feature story on her. She had been looking for years for the issue she said. I love stories like that.
  
  I love magazines. Nobody wants them so they are so cheap and they actually sell really well… And, they are so quick and easy to list.
- 01/13/2020 at 2:05 pm #72894
  almasty
  Participant
  Location:
  @alamasty
  I’ve just hit 600 items sold over the past 60 days on my main Ebay store. I still don’t use promoted listings. I have been running constant sales on my store since Black Friday. The last one just ended a day ago, so I’m going to see how well I do now without running a sale. I am sending offers to every single “watcher” I get, some of which result in sales right away.
  
  I don’t mind selling a lot of low-value inventory at the moment. It all helps to pay down the massive Paypal Working Cap Loan I got out a few months ago. Almost at the 50% point of paying it down, and with the way it is going I should be able to pay it off way ahead of schedule. As long as the low-value inventory sells, I’m fine with it. Still hovering around 13,000 active listings right now.
  
  I could’ve gone to a library sale this weekend, but I skipped it due to how bad the Flu is here. I really don’t want to risk getting sick just to get more stock in. So, I’ve been working on the backlog and fulfilling orders. I love just staying in during the winter and listing as much as possible. Looking forward to hitting up sales again when it gets warmer out and everyone has stopped coughing!
  
  Here are my last 10 Ebay sales start dates. I am now in month 18 of not ending/relisting items. The last time I did so was July of 2018:
  
  Start time: Jun 13, 2018 04:43:48 PDT
  Start time: Jul 12, 2019 14:11:08 PDT
  Start time: Apr 30, 2019 08:49:53 PDT
  Start time: Nov 11, 2018 11:25:47 PST
  Start time: Jun 13, 2018 04:43:47 PDT
  Start time: Nov 07, 2019 11:34:34 PST
  Start time: Jul 10, 2018 03:55:17 PDT
  Start time: Oct 10, 2019 12:48:07 PDT
  Start time: Oct 13, 2019 11:49:07 PDT
  Start time: Jan 12, 2020 10:20:18 PST (sold within a few hours of listing, yay)
- 01/13/2020 at 4:34 pm #72904
  Itemsfromthesouth
  Participant
  Location: Florida
  @itemsfromthesouth
  I love a good country auction. The auctions in the cities bring too high of prices! Glad you guys got to go to another one and I hope you find a treasure or two in a box lot!
  
  I believe it was last week and I also believe it was SeamStore who posted him numbers for the year. I’m ready to work on my taxes and went back to find the thread so I could write down the categories for tax deductions…I thought he did an incredible job on the breakdown. Even though I have searched all the threads for the last 3 weeks, I cannot find it. I’m sure I did not imagine it.
  
  Does anyone know where that thread is or have a good breakdown of categories for expenses?
  
  Thanks so much!
  - 01/13/2020 at 4:53 pm #72906
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Here you go:
    
    Scavenger Life Episode 443: Goodbye Old Decade
  - 01/14/2020 at 8:31 am #72921
    Temudgin
    Participant
    
    Location: Jacksonville FL
    @temudgin
    I like to go straight to the horse’s mouth and use the IRS form where the expenses are entered as deductions for filing taxes. I use the categories listed on IRS form Schedule C (with some explanations provided in the instructions) here:
    https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-schedule-c-form-1040
    And for more in-depth questions about what’s deductible and what is not, I look here:
    https://www.irs.gov/publications/p334
    This is for sole proprietors and single member LLCs who file as a sole proprietor using Schedule C.
    
    For partnerships and LLCs taxed as partnerships the Form 1065 and instructions are here:
    https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/partnerships
    
    And for S Corps and LLCs who have elected S Corp tax status the form 1120-S is here:
    https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-1120-s
    
    (For anyone out there who’s gotten big enough to make a C Corporation worthwhile, hopefully you have a CPA telling you what to do.)
- 01/13/2020 at 6:05 pm #72907
  Simon
  Participant
  Location: San Francisco Bay Area
  @simon
  Thanks for the podcast.
  
  Here are my numbers for the week:
  
  Total Items in Store: 3466
  Items Sold: 43
  Total Sales: $908.21
  Cost of Items Sold: $154
  Average Price Sold: $21.12
  Average Cost of Item: $3.6
  Highest Price Item Sold: $39.95 – several items including an Antique 1890s Medical Degree – Indiana Central College
  YTD Sales: $1660
  YTD sales compared to this time last year: +5%
  Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 445
  Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 211
  Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 105
  Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.24%
  Hats sold this week: 32 (74% of sales) worth $558.76 (61% of sales $)
  
  Jay – on the topic of PayPal, one topic that isn’t getting discussed nearly as much as it should is another topic related to Sales Tax. PayPal includes Sales Tax (collected and remitted to states) in our individual Sales figures even though we never actually see that money. Ebay has indicated that the Sales Tax amount will also be included in PayPal’s 1099K. That means we have to figure out what that Sales Tax amount is and make sure we treat that as an expense or we’ll be paying income (and self-employment tax) on money we didn’t keep. Unfortunately PayPal doesn’t make it easy to figure out that amount. You actually have to download and analyze PayPal transaction info. There was a brief mention of this in a thread about SixBit: https://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/ebay-sales-tax-ripple-effect-sixbit/
  - 01/13/2020 at 6:54 pm #72908
    almasty
    Participant
    
    Location:
    @alamasty
    I dug around in the Paypal forums and found a solution for this. Just tried it and it works!
    
    It turns out that Sales Tax IS itemized in the Activity Download report:
    
    Click on Activity
    Click Download in upper-right corner
    Specify the date range and file format
    Refresh and download report
    Sales Tax is column T in my spreadsheet
    - 01/13/2020 at 7:23 pm #72910
      Jay
      Keymaster
      
      Location: Virginia
      @jay
      
      Thats good to know. We’ll be doing our taxes in February.
    - 01/20/2020 at 4:20 pm #73115
      Arizona Mike
      Participant
      
      Location: Arizona
      @arizona-mike
      
      There is a fairly simple way to determine the amount of sales tax paid by eBay, without having to go into the PayPal spreadsheet, which I found while working feverishly on taxes this weekend:
      
      PayPal > Summmary > Reports > Statements > Custom Statements.
      
      Select the date range, and after it downloads, you get a PDF document which breaks down the PayPal fees by category, and “Tax Collected by Partner” is broken out under “Payments Received” in the summary at the beginning.
      
      Good podcast and discussion on auctions. A lot of the auctions around here (Arizona) are going for a hybrid in-person / online auction. I prefer in-person only (it reduced the numner of bidders to those willing to get up and drive to the auction), but the advantage in the hybrid auctions is that the auctioneer will always favor the in-person bidder – he will always make sure you get one last bid if you have already bid before, whereas if you are bidding online it is sometimes easy to miss the last call.
      
      That might be a good topic for a future podcast – tips and tricks for bidding at auctions.
  - 01/13/2020 at 7:22 pm #72909
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    I wonder if eBay will have this total of taxes collected for the year that we can easily deduct. I know on our weekly total eBay shows the “Grand total” (sales plus tax) and then the “Item Total” (just sales).
    - 01/13/2020 at 10:03 pm #72916
      Sharyn
      Participant
      
      Location: Central NJ
      @sharyn
      
      I can see the sales tax come in and go out in Go Daddy Bookkeeping. Go to the Business Income page and select “Sales Tax Collected” from the categories and press filter. I can see a positive and negative for each amount.
      
      Well, except for one charge on Jan 10 that doesn’t seem to have a negative for it. Not sure about that.
      - 01/14/2020 at 7:52 am #72919
        
        Retro Treasures WV
        Participant
        
        Location:
        @retro-treasures-wv
        
        Yeah I looked at mine in Godaddy and it did not zero out. It is showing a net positive. I have not dug into it deep yet to determine why.
        
        01/14/2020 at 8:23 am #72920
        
        Sharyn
        Participant
        
        Location: Central NJ
        @sharyn
        
        “Sales tax collected” also includes tax I was collecting at the beginning of the year and remitting on my own before eBay took over. So, I do have a positive amount that is offset in the Expenses category “Sales Tax Submitted”.
        
        Also in “Sales Tax Submitted” are a few days of taxes in November where eBay just started using PayPal to collect and remit the tax. They must have changed the way they reported the numbers, so it just looks out of place.
        
        01/14/2020 at 3:56 pm #72939
        
        Simon
        Participant
        
        Location: San Francisco Bay Area
        @simon
        
        Yep. I’m in California and I was collecting CA sale tax. I remit annually in July so I have sales tax that I collected in CA and remitted, sales tax that I collected and haven’t yet remitted (July – Oct) and then sales tax for all states that was collected and remitted automatically including CA for Oct onwards.
        
        It shouldn’t be significant amount but there is also sales tax that was refunded back to the customer. You’ll see that in the PayPal transactions also.
        
        The main thing is to just make sure you don’t pay income tax on the sales tax that was collected on your behalf. I’m hopeful that PayPal will eventually make that more visible without having to mess around with individual transactions.
- 01/14/2020 at 11:46 am #72926
  MoCoyotes
  Participant
  Location: St. Louis
  @thegoodoletwo
  1/5-1/11
  
  Total Items in Store: 3034
  Items Sold: 33
  Cost of Items Sold: $28
  Total Sales: $1031
  Highest Price Sold: $83 (Vintage Carhartt Vest)
  Average Price Sold: $31.24
  Returns: 1
  Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $30
  Number of items listed this week: 79
  
  Finally had the time to list this week. Hopefully that continues and equates to increased sales in the coming weeks.
  
  One of the callers mentioned living in a rural area and traveling once a week to a more populous area to source. I live in a city and do all of my thrift store shopping in the surrounding rural areas. I go to estate sales in the city. I guess it all depends on your part of the country.
- 01/14/2020 at 1:46 pm #72930
  MyCottage
  Participant
  Location:
  @mycottage
  Interesting “collecting trends” report:
  
  https://www.asheford.com/2019-survey-results.html
  - 01/14/2020 at 1:54 pm #72931
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Thanks. Did you see anything that surprised you? Everything is what I expected throughout all age groups.
- 01/14/2020 at 1:59 pm #72933
  MyCottage
  Participant
  Location:
  @mycottage
  Jay, Nothing really surprising, but for me a good reminder that there is a market for some non-MCM stuff….MCM has been so popular, it’s easy for me to overlook some of the older stuff, and here in the Northeast, we still have a fair bit of older stuff around, some of it available for a good bit less than 15 years ago….
  - 01/14/2020 at 2:04 pm #72934
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    At the last auction we went to, I really tried to look for anything I hadn’t seen before. Anything that people are overlooking. Nothing new at that auction. Again, just so so much junk that people collect in their lives for people who are now dying in their 80s.
- 01/14/2020 at 2:18 pm #72935
  DantheDiner
  Participant
  Location:
  @danthediner
  Jan 5-11 2019
  
  Total Items In Store: 7.432
  Items Sold: 86
  Cost of Items Sold: Around $18
  Total Sales: $ 1,264.84
  Highest Price Sold: $195 (Broken Daiichi Machine)
  
  Hello, from Amtrak! I’m taking my first-ever trip on here to pick up my dad’s new car in Western Mass (made a last minute-sale of the 1999 Corolla for a whopping $300). I have never been on anything so comfortable. I’ve been listing the Sports Illustrateds my helper photographed for me yesterday for 2 hours now; thought I might take a break to examine my numbers. Looking forward to this special show you have coming up.
  - 01/14/2020 at 2:20 pm #72936
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Great sales. Ill be interested to see what a $300 car is like 🙂
- 01/14/2020 at 5:48 pm #72954
  SilverFoxFinds
  Participant
  Location: Virginia Beach
  @silverfoxfinds
  Loved hearing about that magazine cache! So excited for your future earnings, and what they’ll be able to accomplish for you. 🙂
  
  Thanks for a great podcast. It was a bit jarring to hear my “name” but glad that what I’ve noticed is worth sharing. I’ve been following minimalists (relative minimalists? aspiring minimalists?) online for a while, and in the last year have been following a bunch of sewists and capsule wardrobe adherents. There are many shared motivations behind their purchasing choices – be more environmental; fight the social (and environmental – and mental, I should add) injustices of fast fashion; reduce their amount of clothing so that dressing is simpler & less of a daily chore; and go for fewer but better pieces of clothing. FWIW, a bolo with this crowd are current brands that are going the extra mile WRT the above considerations (Madewell, Everlane, Eileen Fisher), as well as natural fibers and well made items. There is a lot of recycling/upcycling of good fibers into new items (linen tablecloths into shirts, eg). I imagine that this is still a very small proportion of the population though.
  
  Had a great sales day today, with an auction of vintage LEGO pieces and partial sets going for $370. I had started to try and put sets together, saw that there were missing baseplates, realized I didn’t have the time it would take to sort it and figure out what was what, so lotted it all up and put it on auction. Was a little worried when the bid this morning was around $70, and I was expecting in the $300 range. So, spot on when the hammer fell, and so grateful. Will see how that looks in next week’s overall #s.
  
  Last week’s # dipped a bit from the previous week, some of it due to my solds including commission items that I’ll have to pay out on. Holding steady around #s of items sold and amount earned over the last year – averaging around $500/wk, 15-20 items. Would like to bump it up, of course, but perhaps that is showing me what a natural baseline is for 1/2-3/4 time work at my pace and input. Burned out a bit on estate sales in recent months, but hope to get back to yard sales in the Spring, and travel for some auctions/thrifting in coming weeks. Need a change of scenery, and a boost of eBay-vation.
  
  1/5/20 – 1/11/20
  Total Items In Store: 781
  Items Sold: 19
  Net Sales (Total Sales – Selling Costs): $553.86 – 129.48 in commission sales
  Highest Sold Price: $75 Vintage LL Bean Plaid Wool Blanket
  Average Sold Price: $29.15
  Cost of Items Sold: $21.98
  Returns/Refunds: $0
  Money Spent on New Inventory Last Week: $0
  Number of Items listed last week: 10 or so
- 01/14/2020 at 7:50 pm #72959
  NC
  Participant
  Location: Georgia
  @millionairedojo
  Numbers for December:
  
  Items sold – 39
  Gross sales – $1,018.00
  Cogs – $88.68
  Net profit after all expenses – $773.78
  Average profit per item – $19.31
  Active listings at the end of the month – 536
  Amount of items listed for the month – 54
  
  I share everything I sold here in this blog post:
  
  https://millionairedojo.com/what-sells-on-ebay-december-2019-2/
- 01/15/2020 at 2:26 pm #72970
  Stuff4u
  Participant
  Location:
  @stuff4u
  I have been in managed payments since start. Currently, I am not paying the fee on sales tax. Unsure if that will change as times goes by. Example, sold an item for 25.99 and the fee paid was .70 (.027). On the order history, shows that sales tax was collected and remitted by eBay. We can only hope that it stays this way.
  - This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Stuff4u.
  - 01/15/2020 at 2:47 pm #72972
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Thats good info. If true, it’d be an added boost to getting us to switch to managed payments.
- 01/15/2020 at 3:11 pm #72973
  Stuff4u
  Participant
  Location:
  @stuff4u
  It is true. If easy way to add image, let me know and I will screenshot. Only downside now is less international sales, but otherwise my sales have been steady. MP will be great in the long run. Will give eBay so much more ability to manage the payment flow (like adding Immediate Payment required on Best Offers). Worst part for sellers is to adjust record-keeping processes. No fear! Enjoy your show, and originally from VA. Miss the trips to the VA mountains, but the Ozarks aren’t so bad.
  - 01/15/2020 at 3:13 pm #72974
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    You can upload photos here for free: https://imgur.com/upload
    Then just link to the photo here.
    
    How do you do bookeeping for taxes on Managed Payments? Do you use Godaddy Bookkeeping?
- 01/15/2020 at 3:22 pm #72976
  Stuff4u
  Participant
  Location:
  @stuff4u
  https://imgur.com/a/pgiSVPV Hope that works. Will show fee is only 2.7%. Will post bookeeping stuff next.
- 01/15/2020 at 3:31 pm #72978
  Stuff4u
  Participant
  Location:
  @stuff4u
  I use Quicken for bookeeping, but works like Godaddy. In theory, the only transaction that will not upload to godaddy is the daily bank deposit. So, only need make a journal entry for the daily total (which we get on the email or summary page) – not a huge deal (could even add a weeks worth and make a weekly entry). Will need to fund paypal for the shipping cost that is charged. So, I just add money to my paypal account when I reach a certain low number (again, not a big deal). Nothing else really changes. And lastly, one just has to go through getting “comfortable” with the fact the money is flowing differently (did I really get the money I was supposed to). Once you gain that comfort level, then all is good.
  - This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Stuff4u.
  - This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Stuff4u.
  - 01/15/2020 at 3:38 pm #72982
    Jay
    Keymaster
    
    Location: Virginia
    @jay
    Understood. Ive heard other mention Quicken. Is it basically the same as Quickbooks? Does it spit out all you need for taxes?
- 01/15/2020 at 3:43 pm #72983
  Stuff4u
  Participant
  Location:
  @stuff4u
  Quicken is similar, but not a double entry system, so a little easier – quicken is no longer owned by Intuit (which owns quickbooks and turbotax), and support for quicken is not as good as once was. I am an accountant by training, so I can make it work. Not sure how easy it would be for most folks. I would go with whatever your accountant recommends.
- 01/16/2020 at 9:05 am #72990
  chaoticgood
  Participant
  Location: Kansas City, MO
  @chaoticgood
  Here’s my report for Jan. 6-12
  
  I sold two $100+ items, which is big news for me: A Vietnam era infrared metascope that was up for about 24 hours, and an autographed Bill Clinton book that was up for several months and I was certain would sell for Christmas. Other fun sales were some cowboy boots I bought my daughter for $5 over the summer – they went for $39 real quick! And I am sold a couple more patches. They are an easy item, so I don’t mind the small sale.
  
  Items sold – 15
  Gross sales – $428 (about 1/4 going to shipping and fees)
  COG sold – est $20
  Active listings – 160
  Items listed this week – 13
  
  In sad news, my favorite thrift store for personal items closed down. About 1/2 of my wardrobe is from there, and I was always finding some good cassette tapes and LPs for me. It was a place I would take friends too, and most of their items were well priced for individuals, not the greatest for resellers. I went on their last day and they announced a bag sale while I was there. I grabbed a bunch of items marked around $10, just to see if they would resell.
  A real loss for that community. I think the owner just was ready to retire, and the kids didn’t want to take it over.
  
  I’m glad that you are going back to auctions! The treasure hunt is my favorite part.
- 01/16/2020 at 1:02 pm #72994
  Lukastreasure
  Participant
  Location: Chevy Chase, MD
  @lukastreasuretrove
  I just submitted my sales tax to the state of Maryland this morning. Used to be so easy with GoDaddy, but now it’s all muddled together with no quick way to determine what was collected for Maryland or some other state. I pulled the Paypal transaction report into excel and filtered for Maryland to get the total. Took a bit of time to figure it out for the first time, but should be easier going forward.
  
  It was interesting to see that eBay missed collecting sales tax for one of my listings. It was over 90- days ago so I can’t review the listing, but something to keep an eye out for. I only have to submit twice a year for Maryland.
Author

Posts