- We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the code for each comment.
- Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
- We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to the dark depths of the eBay forums where your hate can be polished like a precious jewel.
- Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
- Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.
Scavenger Life Episode 145: What’s Happening In Your eBay Store This Week?
iTunes
YouTube
Download .mp3
Download .ogg
Even though the week was slow, we still sold two Mid Century items for over $100 each, pushing our average price per item to $38. Nice!
Having a slow week? You’re not alone, trust us. We’re hoping that the post summer vacation sales are going to start picking up. We didn’t have a ton of sales, but we had some higher priced items sell, which kind of evens things out. Our t-shirt selling experiment has been picking up with about three t-shirts selling for $25-30 each this week. Speaking of t-shirts, a lot of people liked Ryanne’s “Yes it’s true, I’m not on Facebook” shirt from the last post. You can buy one too here. Etsy sent out an email this week about their new program Etsy Wholesale, where people can buy in bulk from individual makers. We thought that was a cool spin on the wholesale market. Jay also mentions another wholesale auction site that looked interesting called BidOnFusion.
The Weekly Scavenger Numbers
Our Store Week August 23-30, 2014
- Total Items in Store: 3551
- Items Sold: 32
- Cost of Items Sold: $97
- Total Sales: $1,212.41
- Highest Price Sold: $160 (Vintage bakelite necklace)
- Average Price Sold: $37.87
- International Sales: 7 (6 GSP)
- Returns: 0
- Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $69
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Q&A: Open Thread
So it’s Friday. Does it even matter for those of us who sell on eBay? Every day is holiday, and every day is a workday.
I was researching some items for listing and noticed that eBay items weren’t showing up on the first page of Google. Not good. This isn’t new news, but it’s starting to make sense now why things have been slow all summer. I hope eBay starts upping their game vs just pushing sellers to up theirs. Unless eBay is suicidal, I bet they have teams of folks working on how to play nice with Google.
Anyway, this is an open thread. You learn anything new this week?
Some simple rules-
- We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your
ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the
code for each comment. - Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
- We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to
the dark depths of the eBay forums where your hate can be polished like a
precious jewel. - Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
- Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.
Scavenger Life Episode 144: Being a Woman, Entrepreneur and eBay Seller- A Conversation with Ryanne
iTunes
YouTube
Download .mp3
Download .ogg
Hi, I’m Ryanne. Jay interviewed me about being a woman, an entrepreneur and an eBay seller. How did I get this way? Well for starters, I was born. And second, my mom is all these things too. We mention our conversation with Dawn Ladd about a time when women faced major hurdles when starting businesses in the 70s and 80s. Our conclusion is that eBay helped level the playing field for women to start business in the late 90s and has continued to do so today. What do you think? Ladies can I get a ‘what what’?
You can hear more about how we got started on eBay here.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Scavenger Life Episode 143: What’s Happening In Your eBay Store This Week?
iTunes
YouTube
Download .mp3
Download .ogg
$5 horsehide leather jacket, waited a year but it sold for $500. Hurray.
This week we had three weird and not so great things happen on eBay, so we have a bit of a rant. Not to worry, we’re still positive about being eBay sellers and making a living online. We learned in last week’s Q&A post that Glen has been able to get the Brother QL-570 Thermal Printer to work with a Mac and eBay labels, check out his step by step tutorial here.
And don’t forget our new schedule. A new podcast every Monday and Wednesday. (Instead of both podcasts on Monday.)
The Weekly Scavenger Numbers
Our Store Week August 17-23, 2014
- Total Items in Store: 3551
- Items Sold: 37
- Cost of Items Sold: $216
- Total Sales: $2,031.74
- Highest Price Sold: $500 (Vintage motorcycle jacket)
- Average Price Sold: $54.89
- International Sales: 5 (5 GSP)
- Returns: 2
- Positive Feedback: 29
- Neutral Feedback: 0
- Negative Feedback: 1
- Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $69
—
We’re adding a bit of info to this week’s numbers- our household expenses and how much we need to make each month to survive. This helps puts our profits into perspective.
Monthly Expenses:
Home Mortgage $1190
Loan payment for .5 acre lot: $340
Loan payment for 2 acres of land: $270
Student Loan: $190
Internet: $50
Phone Bill: $50 (for two cell phones)
Electric: $200 (for two houses)
Water: $35
Healthcare: $300
Gym: $59 (for 2 people-rural gyms are cheap!)
Home/Car Insurance: $160
Food: $200
Fuel: $100
Fun Money: $200
eBay fees: $1100 (average expenses to eBay)
TOTAL = $4600
We’d love for others to list their monthly expenses as well (even
anonymously). Let’s get a better picture what selling on eBay is all
about. Maybe you’re expenses are different? If you’re selling full-time, what do you need to make to cover your bills? If you want to quit your job and just sell on eBay, what’s the amount you need to make to leave that job? Dealing with a lot of debt? Unburden yourself in our cool waters.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Q&A: Open Thread
Okay, we’re working. We’re scavenging. We’re multi-tasking. And we’re running experiments. That’s a real key to how we’ve run our eBay store. If we don’t know if something will work, we try it and see if we make money. That’s the answer we have for most questions sent to us. Will something sell? I don’t know, try it. If it sells, keep selling it. If it doesn’t sell, don’t sell it. Should I do this? I don’t know. Try it.
Chris the Coin Guy pointed us to the recent video that Danni Ackerman posted about eBay’s new Defect Rating which is in full effect. If you’re new to eBay, welcome to online selling. I feel that every platform keeps ratcheting up expectations, but eBay certainly has their own style with their yearly “Seller Updates”.
This is an open thread so what’s on your mind?
Some simple rules-
- We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your
ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the
code for each comment. - Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
- We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to
the dark depths of the eBay forums where your hate can be polished like a
precious jewel. - Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
- Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.
Scavenger Life Episode 142: Scavenging For The Greater Good
Click here if you can’t see slideshow.
iTunes
YouTube
Download .mp3
Download .ogg
It all started with an innocent question: who owns all those big donation boxes that you see in parking lots all over town? They’re everywhere. Turns out some of those donation boxes aren’t owned by a non-profit raising money for charity. They don’t even say it on the box. Instead, you’re just giving stuff to a for-profit company.
But then Todd Baker from The Arc of Alachua County responded to our question with his own experience. He helps run a non-profit in St. Augustine, Florida that gives jobs to people with developmental disabilities. Todd said he decided to place a couple donation boxes to see if anyone would leave anything. Turns out they would. He’s created an entire recycling/scavenging ecosystem that takes people excess waste and turns it into money and jobs for people who need it.
Todd tells us how they recycle paper, computers, metal, and glass. They provide a valuable service by shredding documents and destroying hard drives for the community. They then sell this waste in bulk (by the tractor trailer!) The slideshow above shows scenes from their warehouse. It’s a serious scavenging operation.
And because he’s an eBay seller in his off-time, he’s teaching his clients how to sell computer parts, books and clothes on eBay. If he can get the system streamlined, they can potentially make much more money selling on eBay then selling by the scrap tonnage. And I can’t think of a better skill to teach someone than how to live out of the waste stream by selling on eBay.
Enjoy the interview. You can donate here to his organization if you want to help out. I know they’d use the funds widely.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Scavenger Life Episode 141: What’s Happening In Your eBay Store This Week?
iTunes
YouTube
Download .mp3
Download .ogg
Been listing jewelry and it’s been selling which is a nice loop that I’d like to repeat for all items forever. This charm bracelet was purchased for $3, sold for $50.
This week we are starting something new– Sundays we’ll be posting the Whats Happening podcast, but you’ll have to hold onto your horses until Wednesday for the second podcast. We thought we’d give you more to look forward to by spreading the episodes throughout the week. Sorry and You’re Welcome.
This week has been better number-wise for sure. Ryanne has listed approximately 165 items so far in August. Hopefully she can keep that up before we leave on our (yet another) 6 week trip. eBay released the New After Sale Experience FAQs and we encourage you to read them all. Don’t just skim them, but READ THEM ALL. This is vital info for us to know how eBay will be changing in the next month. Myths shall henceforth be dispelled.
The Weekly Scavenger Numbers
Our Store Week August 10-16, 2014
- Total Items in Store: 3551
- Items Sold: 38
- Cost of Items Sold: $160
- Total Sales: $1,652.67
- Highest Price Sold: $180 (Vintage Ouija Game Board)
- Average Price Sold: $43.50
- International Sales: 8 (6 GSP)
- Returns: 1
- Positive Feedback: 13
- Neutral Feedback: 0
- Negative Feedback: 0
- Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $110
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
VIDEO: How to Refill Toner in the Brother Laser Printer 2270 2170
As many of you know, we rave about our Brother Laser Printer. It is a real workhorse when it comes to printing eBay shipping labels (these are the ones I love), invoices and thank you inserts. I’ve had mine for 3 years, printed 17,853 pages on it, and only refilled the toner about 5-6 times (at about $5 for each refill) rather than buy a $50 new cartridge each of those times. I just buy bulk refill powder
on eBay for cheap and refill it when it gets low. So easy. So cheap. That’s what we call digital scavenging!
Scavenger Life Episode 140: Interview with Andrew from “Picking Profits”
iTunes
YouTube
Download .mp3
Download .ogg
If you’ve spent any time on YouTube searching for eBay related info, you’ve probably come across Andrew at Picking Profits. There’s a ton of overly exuberant people who talk about their eBay and Amazon lives, but Andrew is a good, stable figure in that scene who maintains a measured sense of his progress. We like this.
I love his methodical and detailed discussions of how he approaches his store. He works hard but is always thinking of the future. Plus it’s exciting to see someone young (28) skip the grinding life working for someone else and jump right into building his own business.
After emailing back and forth, we decided to record a conversation about our different philosophies and processes when scavenging and selling online. He shares how he currently makes most of his income selling books on Amazon (over 10,000 books in his Amazon FBA store), but how he really loves selling the one-of-kind items on eBay.
WARNING: I’m sorry guys. You must forgive me. You know we like to keep it short and sweet, but it wasn’t my fault. Somehow this interview turned into an hour and twenty minute marathon (even with editing). I was interested the entire time talking with Andrew so hopefully you’ll find it informative as well. Now go get a lot of packing done while listening.
Andrew will be answering any questions you have in the comments below. You can find him at these fine establishments:
Like Him On Facebook ► http://on.fb.me/1mipHap
Follow Him On Twitter ► http://bit.ly/1ldqO7t
Check Out His Website ► http://bit.ly/1jkcoAR
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- …
- 71
- Next Page »




