Love the vintage halloween costume sale in June! They are highly collectable, so keep an eye out in any season.
Scavenger Life Episode 314: Selling on eBay while in the Military
Every so often, we record conversations with other sellers. You can find them all here. How do we pick who we speak with? It’s always sellers who are scavenging and selling a little differently than we are or living a different lifestyle. It’s fun for us to learn new things or just help celebrate how scavenging can take different forms. We also look for people who know what they’re doing is unique and are proud of their accomplishments.
This recording is with Flavio, who is an active member of the US military. On top of his daily duties of safeguarding our country, he also scavenges and sells on eBay. Since he lives on base, he has to really manage his inventory in order to pass inspections. He’s frugal and has a strong vision for how he wants to spend his money to build his future. What’s most interesting is hearing how he tries to share this perspective with the men under his leadership, usually young recruits who blow all their cash on short-lived luxuries.
Flavio was fun to speak with and I wish I was as together as he was at his age. He’ll be here in the comments if you have any questions. Are any of you active military? Could you have imagined selling on eBay while serving?
Hope you had a good week.
Join the conversation on the forum>>
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What Sells On eBay: Prince & Wendy picks, Engineer boots, Coleman Cooler, Video switcher, Jeanie Rub massager
Love those Vintage Metal Cooler sales. Perfect for the summer!
Scavenger Life Episode 313: What’s your Backup Plan to eBay?
With a mild level of panic among sellers because eBay is removing items older than one year, we have to ask ourselves: what’s our back up plan is eBay was no longer feasible for us? In the early days of selling, we had didn’t have much at all, nevermind a backup plan. Just piles of stuff, a camera, a computer, an internet connection, and lots of time. We put our heads down and listed like our life depended on it. When eBay really started feeling like a real business, it was really exciting to know we made something out of nothing. We applaud any seller who takes themselves to seriously enough to build a steady stream of income from their own wits and sweat. It’s a big deal.
But as we established our eBay business, we knew we wanted a back up plan. eBay is fun for us, but what if someday it’s no longer fun? For us, vacation rental property was something exciting. We took our extra profit from selling old shoes and bought a couple old houses, fixed them up, and now are close to doubling our income. This took eight years, but time takes time. Like our eBay business, we love making something from nothing. We can look back and see that our hard work is paying off.
In reality, the new eBay initiative of ending old listings isn’t the armageddon that some assumed. Here’s the official announcement:
We have identified a relatively small number of unproductive listings and have begun removing those with one or more years of no sales and minimal page views, and are refunding any associated listing fees. We value long-tail inventory – it is what makes eBay unique – and remain committed to helping sellers of all types be successful on our platform.
So it’s good that eBay acknowledges that “longtail” items are important and sell slowly. I guess eBay is reminding sellers to look at old listings. They haven’t touched our old listings. But if they did, all we need to do is relist the items as if they were new. Doesn’t hurt to check them over to make sure they look good. No big deal.
Hope you had a good week!
Join the conversation in the forum>>
Our Store Week May 28-June 3, 2017
Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,724
Items Sold: 58
Cost of Items Sold: $116
Total Sales: $2,154.73
Highest Price Sold: $200 (vintage jewelry)
Average Price Sold: $37.15
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $38
Number of items listed this week: 26
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Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 1 items for $13
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Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1255
Items Sold: 15
Cost of Items Sold: $62
Total Sales: $470.12
Highest Price Sold: $140 (vintage soap dish)
Average Price Sold: $31.34
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 0
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What Sells On eBay: Star Wars glass, electric eraser, brass fireplace screen, jean jackets, vintage Texas Instruments calculator
I always love finding those Victorian Fireplace Screens, though they are not fun to pack!
Scavenger Life Episode 312: Is eBay Removing Old listings?
This week we came up with a new slogan that we hope will ring throughout the online selling world: “The best way to sell is whatever way you enjoy because it’s the only way you’ll keep doing it.” Maybe this will end the debate!
No way! Of course sellers will never stop arguing about the best items to sell and the best way to sell them, but at least let’s acknowledge that nothing matters if you don’t enjoy what you sell and how you sell it. We’ve all seen example after example of people who try to sell online and fail miserably because they try to imitate someone else’s business model. Making money is not enough. There must be love involved if you’re in it for the long haul.
On another note- Our friend, Marc, confirmed that eBay is now taking down old listings! What! It’s a Catastrophe! Let’s Freak out!
Wait, what? Let’s see what actually happened. Marc said that he was eating dinner and received a message from eBay saying they removed 1000 of his listings that were older than 12 months. This is what the message said:
Listings that haven’t generated interest, after being active for a long time, can clutter the site and make it difficult for buyers to find what they’re looking for. This can be unfair to other sellers when their listings are difficult to find. Therefore, we’ve done the following:
– We removed any listings that have been active for 1 year or longer without sales. A list of removed item(s) is available further down in this email.
– Any fees for listings that were ended early for not following policy won’t be credited to your account.We recommend that you don’t relist these items unless you first take steps to improve the likelihood of sales. Please also make sure that items don’t automatically relist. Listing fees may not be refunded for subsequent removals.
To increase the chance of your items selling in the future, we recommend that you consider the following best practices:
– Reduce the price of the item.
– Add images.
– Include pertinent item specifics.
– Offer free shipping.
– List the item using the Auction format.To help you, we have compiled recommendations for improving your listings. For more information on listing best practices, please see: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/searchstanding.html
Okay, this looks pretty bad on the face of it. My worry was that eBay was removing listings and he’d have to retake photos and write all new text. But all Marc did was hit “relist” and made all his listings active again. No big deal. There’s no way for eBay to know if you updated info. They just made a hoop he had to jump through.
So why is eBay doing this? We assume eBay wants people to look at their old listings. Great, that’s fine. But sometimes items just take a long time to sell no matter how cheap you make the items. And who cares how long an item is up as long as the seller is willing to pay the listing fee? Unlike Amazon FBA, eBay isn’t storing any of these items. It’s just a giant database in the cloud.
We have plenty of items over 12 months old, but eBay hasn’t taken any action on us yet. But if they do, we feel no stress since we can just relist. I guess this issue gives credence to the sellers who use 30-day listings and then just relist using “sell similar”. The items are the exact same, same photos, same titles, same descriptions, but they just fool eBay into thinking they’re new items. Is this the new game we must play? eBay hasn’t given anyone much info on this new push, so we’ll see. As always, it’s often less a big deal as it seems at first. The wheels of commerce keep on spinning.
Join the conversation on the forum>>
Our Store Week May 21-27, 2017
Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,743
Items Sold: 61
Cost of Items Sold: $76
Total Sales: $1,983.49
Highest Price Sold: $120 (vintage lamp)
Average Price Sold: $32.51
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $24
Number of items listed this week: 110
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Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 2 items for $30
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Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1272
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $40
Total Sales: $486.21
Highest Price Sold: $34 (leather wallet)
Average Price Sold: $28.60
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 0
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What Sells On eBay: Motorcycle wheel, Matchabelli cologne, Pendleton shirt, Radios, Vintage fan, Airplane kit
Amazing Prince Matchabelli Cologne and Aftershave sale by Steve this week. Gotta love old perfume!
Scavenger Life Episode 311: The Summer Slowdown™ is Here
This is the week that the Summer Slowdown™ started for us. We made half as much money this week as we have been the past five months. It’s been especially painful because our average price per item has been only about $22. All our low price items are selling.
For anyone new to selling on eBay, this is the time of year when retail sales plummet for almost any business you can think of? Walmart, Amazon, book stores, clothing, etc. There’s not much any of us can do about it. Americans can’t be buying stuff all the time! Let them enjoy their lives a little. Jeez.
We’ve posted in past years about how we handle quieter eBay sales during the Summer:
https://www.scavengerlife.com/2013/07/ebay-scavengers-episode-31-whats.html
https://www.scavengerlife.com/2014/06/scavenger-life-episode-129-what-to-do.html
https://www.scavengerlife.com/2015/07/scavenger-life-episode-205-dont-cry.html
Tips include focus on listing in preparation when sales pick up in the Fall. Try scavenging in different locations to break up routine. Cut down on expenses so slower sales don’t cramp your style. Or just go out and enjoy the summer. Stop working so much.
Anyway, sales will come back again on the big Merry Go-Round-of-Commerce™. Hope you had a good week.
Join the conversation on the forum>>
Our Store Week May 7-13, 2017
Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,633
Items Sold: 47
Cost of Items Sold: $254
Total Sales: $1,003.53
Highest Price Sold: $75 (suitcase)
Average Price Sold: $22.07
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20
Number of items listed this week: 200
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Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 0 items for $0
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Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1291
Items Sold: 13
Cost of Items Sold: $41
Total Sales: $499.95
Highest Price Sold: $175 (box of brass flatware)
Average Price Sold: $38.45
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 0
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What Sells On eBay: Hat stretcher, Chicken cast iron pans, Classroom record player, B&L Vagabond sunglasses, Olympia typewriter
Love the Vintage Hat Stretcher sale. Those things are so cool looking!
Scavenger Life Episode 310: Am I Selling on eBay the Wrong Way?
This week on the forum we had another long discussion about the best way to sell on eBay. Is it wrong to let items sit in your store too long? Should you end all your listings every 30-days and re-list as new. Should you focus on listing new items or keep updating old items until they sell? It’s same old “fast nickel vs slow dime” debate. Obviously the answer is whatever works for you. Many of us use a combination of strategies.
Ultimately there are three qualities of an item that make for a successful store:
–find cheap inventory that you can find again and again
–that sells quick
–and makes high profit
It’s very rare to find items that fit all three of those qualities on a consistent basis. For us, we can usually scavenge items that meet two of those three criteria. We find items that are inexpensive to buy and will make a large profit, but they usually just take time to actually sell. Other sellers may pay higher dollar for items that sell quickly, but they don’t make large profits. These are all good questions to ask of your own selling strategies. Some of it we can control. Some of it we have little control over and is constrained by what we find when we’re scavenging.
We mentioned the eBay 2017 Summer Update. Nothing in it that we’re too worried about. As always, we just wait and see how things roll out.
Hope you had a good week!
Join the conversation on the forum>>
Our Store Week May 7-13, 2017
Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,469
Items Sold: 49
Cost of Items Sold: $254
Total Sales: $2,473.08
Highest Price Sold: $400 (vintage Danish chairs)
Average Price Sold: $50.47
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20
Number of items listed this week: 15
———-
Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 1 items for $67 (dress)
———-
Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1303
Items Sold: 10
Cost of Items Sold: $24
Total Sales: $317.38
Highest Price Sold: $89 (vintage wingtips)
Average Price Sold: $31.78
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 0
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