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Tagged: dumpster, Free Boxes, SCAVENGER-MOBILE
- This topic has 20 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 10 months ago by Winchester38.
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02/15/2017 at 1:01 am #12601
http://imgur.com/a/YjHGG I made a huge purchase today. These boxes are filled with many many Shirts and Sweatshirts from Jazz Festivals. They are all NOS I purchased from a former vendor. Many are from past festivals.
In truth, I haven’t had the time to look in all the boxes yet, to see exactly what I’ve got. The stuff I’ve seen so far is pretty cool.
Be careful what you wish for. I don’t have a lot of clothing in my store and was looking to expand.
I don’t want to mention the price yet, as I’m still a little freaked.
My brain is telling me this was a good purchase.. but the cheapskate in me isn’t convinced yet.
I guess this is officially a cache…
- This topic was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by So Cal Joe.
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02/15/2017 at 6:22 am #12604
Nice haul! I’d be interested in seeing the shirts you find! I have been toying with the idea of contacting the local United Way to see if I can buy the left over men’s shirts after an event they have called Trash to Treasure. They have said they sell the remaining items to Goodwill for $0.18/pound so I was thinking of offering $0.25/pound and seeing what they said.
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02/15/2017 at 6:50 am #12605
I think it’ll be a fun experiment. We’ve told the story of how we bought truckloads of used military gear from the government. We made money but it certainly is a lot of work. You just really have to love the stuff in the cache you’ve found.
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02/15/2017 at 2:19 pm #12635
Thanks Jay it will be fun and also give me a forced learning curve.
By the time I’m done I should be much better at listing and photographing clothing..
By the way I also ended up with a huge lot of Bobble heads new in the box of a particular celebrity and a case of new Scooby Doo coffee cups.
It sure would be good stuff to ship off to Amazon… maybe.
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02/15/2017 at 11:06 am #12614
Nicely done!
Sometimes you’ve got to go all-in when you see an opportunity. Back in September, I spent $400 on a collection of approximately 1500 vintage trucker hats. Completely filled the 8′ box of my pickup, along with the back seat.
To date, I’ve listed probably 250 of them, sold about 40, and have made over $1000, and that’s not factoring in patches that I’ve sold off of some that had deteriorated.
Hope it turns out to be a giant home run for you!
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02/15/2017 at 1:58 pm #12623
Yes $400 sounds like a lot of money to pay for a bunch of old hats… But if you sell just 20 of them for $20 each.. you’ve paid for the bunch.
And it sounds like you’ve done better..
I appreciate the encouragement.
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02/15/2017 at 2:55 pm #12639
So Cal Joe—Holy Smokes, that’s great! I’m guessing you are going to do quite well with that! I need to get through my death piles…well, death storage units…before I would have space for that size haul, but maybe some day….
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02/15/2017 at 4:30 pm #12648
I reorganized my storage last month, so I was able to find room for it.. but it’s a real mess right now. I’m just going to take it one box at a time.
I’m lucky that there are some duplicates. It should reduce the listing time.
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02/15/2017 at 5:48 pm #12657
My hero!
One day, that will be me! A trailer haul!
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02/19/2017 at 9:50 am #12857
Wow that is crazy and awesome all in one.
Recently i made a shirt buy that was much smaller(90+)
Being a part time solo seller i tried to streamline my process.
First thing i did was sort according to band/size.
Used a lay flat on white backgound photo setup.
Placed a tape measure pit/pit top bottom in pics.
Placed then in clear plastic bags and numbered them with permanent sharpie.
Then when listing i used this template and sell similar.
Notice the small id:81 number on bottom for when they sell.
Maybe you have a better process but this was the best i could come up with and so far so good.Rush Snakes and Arrows 2008 World Tour Rock Concert T-Shirt
Front: Rush Snakes and Arrows Art Graphic
Back:Tour datesMaterial: 100% Cotton
Color: Black
Tag size:Mo Knits XXL (see measurements below)
Short sleeves
Machine washableMeasurements (laid flat):
Chest (pit to pit, then doubled): 25/50″
Length (bottom of collar down back to tail): 32″Condition: Pre-owned, no rips/holes/tears/stains. Please enlarge the images above for a closer look.
Listing many XXL/XXXL Rush Shirts.
Check out my other items!
id:81 -
02/20/2017 at 7:29 pm #12948
I appreciate the advice.
I’m going to start with the jackets and sweatshirts. I figure, I’ll list the oldest more vintage stuff first.
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02/20/2017 at 9:22 pm #12956
WOW! Now THAT’S a pipeline!
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03/14/2017 at 7:03 pm #14476
FREE BOXES…
I was walking to FEDEX today and found these sitting next to a dumpster.. so I quickly went home To get the ** SCAVENGER-MOBILE ** and backed it up. they are all 4 X 4 X 8 inches.. not the best size, but I’ll put them to good use.
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03/14/2017 at 7:25 pm #14479
You need to buy a lottery ticket! You have been nailing it.
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03/14/2017 at 8:26 pm #14485
Thanks.. I wish I could say my sales were also up.. February was a train wreck.
I’ve got about 80 listings with the hats shirts etc.. 2 sales.. $42 so far.
This month has been better.. listing every day seems to be helping.
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04/10/2017 at 1:03 pm #16362
UPDATE…………..
It’s been a bot of a learning process, but WOW almost 2 months have gone by..
I originally spent $600 for this hoard of clothing. originally, I was hesitant to list the cost, but now it’s no big deal.. it is what it is.
I now have just over 250 individual listings (Many with mutltiples) for this haul. To date, I have sold about a dozen items for about $210. Most of my listings have been done in the last 30 days. My guess is that I have in excess of 1000 items total, but I really don’t know the exact number. It may be higher. I’ve seen it all, but not listed it all yet.
About 5% or so of the items are damaged (stained) and some have defects (misaligned decals). I’ve been trying to catch these as I go, and I have a reject box that I can address later. I believe there are water stains on many that will wash out.
Most of the T-Shirts are priced at $16.95 and the sweatshirts at $20 to $25 plus shipping.
My store just crossed the 1900 item mark. The problem is that my sales have been dismal. I haven’t crossed $2000 a month in sales this year. Outside of using markdown manager, I have not been doing any type of promoted listings. I’m wondering if this is the wave of the future and a very crafty was of increasing listing/sales costs.
My next step on the shirts is to create a promotion “by two get the third for 50% off”. I have been waiting to see how well they would sell, but now that I’ve got so many listed, I think it’s time for the promotion.
I also have the clothing listed as “preowned” and then in the comments note that it’s never been worn. I do this, because so much of this stuff is wrinkled, has no tags and has been sitting in storage so long. I’m wondering if I should list it as NWOT. I don’t want to give the impression that this is freshly made coming off a container ship from China. Maybe after running the promotion, I’ll reconsider.
Thanks for all the positive comments I have received. I really thoughy by now my store would be making $3000 a month. Time will tell.
- This reply was modified 7 years ago by So Cal Joe.
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04/10/2017 at 1:27 pm #16364
I guess specific clothes advertising Jazz festivals are pretty niche. I think these are long tail items. Get them and they’ll sell, but I wouldnt expect them to fly off the shelves.
Even if you made $300 a month month after month, that’s a good score.
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04/10/2017 at 4:21 pm #16377
It’s tempting to just lower the prices to make them move.. but these are unique and I think could be a pipeline. I am willing to lower the price on multiples though and will probably move in that direction. $300 a month on a regular basis would make me a happy guy..
After this next batch, I need to give it a break listing this stuff. I have a bunch of women’s tops that I’m really not familiar with listing and quite frankly, I’m burning out on listing these clothes. I’m going save the remaining tubs for another time. My office is looking like a T.J. Maxx store and I need to move all this stuff out.
Thanks for the input Jay..
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06/13/2017 at 4:57 pm #19361
…bumping an old one here, but I was just crunching some to-date numbers on my hat purchase mentioned above, and thought I’d update here.
To date, I’ve listed 361 of the hats in the lot. 81 have sold, for a total of $2,091.10 (before fees/shipping/etc).
I’ve also pulled patches off of a bunch of the hats that were in rough condition or falling apart. I’ve sold 62 of these, for a total of $786.23, and currently have another 179 listed, with 100-125 left to list.
I have gone through the whole collection, and have 13 boxes (approximately 325-400 hats) left to list. There are another 12 boxes that I’m going to send to a local auction house to free up space. These are less desirable, in worse condition, etc.
To summarize, to date, sales of $2,877.33.
Based on conservative average selling prices for hats and patches, and what’s remaining, there should be around $15,125 in hats, and $3,487 in patches left to sell.
It’ll take a few years to have them all listed/sold, but I’d conservatively estimate that when all is said and done, I’ll have turned a $400 investment into upwards of $18,000 – $20,000.
I love this game!
- This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Winchester38.
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