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Gotta love those vintage Crock Pots!
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Trash to Cash. A podcast about making a living on eBay.
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Gotta love those vintage Crock Pots!
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“How Much Do I Need To List To Make A Living On eBay?” This is one of the most common questions that people ask us. The person knows they want to quit their job, they’re ready to courageously take the jump, and all they want to know if what they should do. All we can ever say is: “it depends”, or “read our Manifesto“.
This question especially becomes urgent as the slow summer sales begin and new sellers get totally freaked out because they aren’t making the same money they did during the busy holiday season. We point folks to a podcast we did last year on The Scavenger Equation. In the simplest terms, the amount of items you need to sell depends on how much your expenses are each month. If you live an expensive life with heavy debt, you need to sell a whole lot of old shoes. If you are frugal like us and have no debt, selling becomes a much more casual endeavor.
If you ask this question to a hundred eBay sellers, you’ll get a hundred different answers because we each have our own equation. Some scavengers have five kids and another on the way. Some have no kids and only have a cats to take care of. Some of us are just out of college and need to pay off student debt, while others are in retirement and just supplementing social security income. No one can really tell you how much you need to sell on eBay to make a living. You have to do the dirty work of working out a realistic monthly budget, cut out as many expenses as you can, and start listing.
In this episode, I mention this article about a whole batch of new online services that help people sell their stuff. These are the high end folks! They’ll always be leaving stuff for us Scavengers to find and sell.
Our Store Week May 22-28, 2016
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Bonanza:
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One of my favorite things to use and to find/sell that we sold this week was a white noise machine. Very cool!
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We love our routine. Wake up. Make coffee. Start on our eBay tasks. Take breaks throughout the day for lunch/snacks. No one telling us what to do, but always making sure things are get done. It often doesn’t feel like work. Just puzzles that have to be solved that somehow magically make us money week in and week out. We bet on ourselves and it’s paying off.
While we were away for almost a month, we sold 110 items. All but one buyer was willing to wait for their item. All we did was change handling time and sent reminders when someone bought an item. So yes, people love same day shipping, but people will wait if you set the correct expectation.
This week we mentioned the following links:
Our sales were slow and steady this week. Sometimes that’s all we can ask for.
Our Store Week May 15-21, 2016
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Bonanza:
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After traveling for 30 days and not shipping until we returned, we had 108 items to pack. Luckily we were able to find every one of them and get them out the door. Some of my favorite and best sellers were vintage hats.
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For the past couple years, we’ve gotten requests to interview Nandry, the Teenage Thrifter. Thanks to Chris who did an introduction, we finally had the pleasure of talking with Nandry.
This interview is especially appropriate after our recent conversation with Jim Collins, who shared a lifetime of knowledge and experience about saving money, investing, and taking chances. Now we hear from a young woman who’s just starting out on her journey for independence in a very connected online world.
Nandry is 18 and is about to go off to college after just graduating from high school. She decided to be home schooled during her high school years. Instead of working at the local fast food joint after six period, she was running her own eBay business during the day. Not only was she plotting her own education, she was making her own money (and much more than minimum wage) and learning business skills that will only amplify and improve as she gets older. What awesome parents she must have.
Though we don’t plan to have kids, many sellers are knee deep in rug rats. We have lots of conversations in the comments about how to get young people into starting their own business. I’m not sure if Nandry can give you a definitive solution, but at least you can hear what motivates her.
Just ask Nandry any questions in the comments below. We’ll see if she can stop by to answer them.
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A big Thank You to Steve for sending us some great What Sold videos the last couple weeks while we travel. Our favorite sales of his are the Casio keyboards (2 weeks in a row) and a bottle of Crabtree & Evelyn cologne
. Wow.
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Here we are in The Big Easy, The Crescent City, New Orleans. We’re working our tech job so we’re super tired and maxed out. But we did have time to record this podcast before we started the madness.
Here are the links we mentioned in this episode:
–If you are considering selling clothes for full time money on eBay, listen to our conversations with Cindi of Amazing Taste and Dan and Lisa of NewVintageNY. Both stores are extremely successful but you’ll hear the work it takes to make it happen.
–We all discovered the free shipping supplies from eBay that you can get if you have a store subscription. Read more about it here.
–Read about the designer Hawaiian aka Aloha shirts that are now in style.
We know it was slow for some. Hope things pick up for us all.
Our Store Week May 1-7, 2016
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Bonanza:
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Regular listeners know that we travel several times a year for long 4-8 week trips. We continue to sell on eBay by simply extending our handling time. I know it sounds crazy, but buyers will wait for their item if you set the correct expectation. Since we’ve been on our current trip, we’ve sold 60 items on eBay over the last fourteen days. We have another eleven days on the road. So far not a single buyer has asked for a refund and are okay with the delayed shipping. (Or at least no one has complained after being notified by a message.) Our store is always open.
In this same period, we’ve sold 41 items on Amazon FBA. It certainly is nice that we don’t have to ship these items. Send it in and let Amazon ship. But they certainly make you pay for this service.
Since we aren’t shipping and can’t video our sales, Steve Schultz has allowed us to post his “What Sold” video. He’s been a strong part of this community for a long time. We love to see how he finds and sells vintage electronics for big money, while still selling a steady stream of bread and butter items. Check out the conversation we recorded with him last year. Feel free to link to your sold video in the comments.
And lastly, Justin from Selery asked if sellers would help him out. From what I gather, he’s trying to build an “FBA for eBay” service where his company would photograph and list items on eBay that you send them. Like FBA, they would store the item and ship when it sold. Instead of trying to hire a personal photographer and lister on Craigslist, they’d do it for a fee. There’s lots of details to consider, so take his survey so he can find out what would be helpful. Justin said he’d send $5 to the first fifteen people who complete it.
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We’re wrapping up our week vacation in Bend, Oregon. A week is never enough to enjoy a place. Just when we start relaxing and finding our favorite places, it’s time to go. Staying longer is always a huge benefit to owning our own time. We’ll be doing the next podcast from New Orleans.
Let’s talk about The Master Plan.
If you’re just starting selling online, then the most important thing is figuring out a sane process and successfully selling one item at a time. Most new sellers stumble and fail at the start. Scavenging sounds fun, but then the selling part seems to much trouble. It feels like work.
The next step is to get all your monthly bills paid from scavenging. For those that can do it, this is a big accomplishment. There is a trail of burnt out eBay stores that just couldn’t consistently list and sell.
Or you might have a full time job that you love/tolerate, and just sell on the side. The goal is to make extra money for a yearly vacation, make an extra payment on the house, etc. Your eBay store is some nice extra income, but you can live without it.
But then you might be like us. You’ve built a robust eBay/Amazon pipeline. You do this for a living and live in frugal luxury. All your monthly bills get paid. You have no consumer debt. You are making extra payments on the mortgage. You’ve built up savings to buffer any down times. If you’ve done everything right, you still have extra money. Now what?
There’s single answer for everyone. We’re investing in rental property. Now we’re starting to think where we want our lives to be when we’re in our 50’s. Our interview with Jim Collins was cool because he’s part of a community that believes in Index Funds. We see eBay as our jumping off point. And we have to be grateful we aren’t living hand to mouth anymore. Hope some of you are finding this freedom too.
Here are the links we discussed in the podcast:
Our Store Week April 24-30, 2016
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Bonanza:
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