- This topic has 18 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 6 years ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
I heard this story while waiting in line at an estate sale this week.
This person has sold on ebay, so if they are on this forum, please feel free to chime in.
The Story
I was standing in line at an estate sale this last week for about 30-45 minutes. I started talking to a man that I would say was in his seventies. We both liked records and started talking about that. When I mentioned the town where I go to record shops, he told me a story. He started a restaurant there in 2007. It was the perfect storm as he described. He missed a milestone in opening the restaurant and missed out on a lot of sales. Then, the recession hit in 2008 and sales took a nose dive. In order to try and keep the restaurant stay a float, he sold his awesome collection of comics on ebay for about $100,000. But, that was not enough. Finally, he ran out of money. The landlord sued him for the rent he owed and the future rent left in the lease when he didn’t pay. This forced him to file charter 7 bankrupcy because he owed about 1 Million dollars. Not sure of all the details, but because of all this, his wife left him.Wow! I couldn’t believe the story. He lost his wife, his business, his comic collection, his credit rating (everything that goes with bankrupcy), his good name, and basically everything in his life.
After hearing this very sad story, it also made me thankful that I had a great ebay\online business that is not very risky. I mean really, the biggest risk most of us face is maybe whether that $5 item we bought will sell for a profit. Ok, some take a little more risk than that, but usually most of us are never risking more that $1,000. And in reality, since we have all done this so much, it really isn’t a risk because most of us know what we are doing. It is just a matter of time till the item sells and probably for a good profit. Now, most of us will never get rich selling online, but we also don’t have to deal with the stress that goes along with a risky business.
So, this Christmas season is a time to count our blessings for our somewhat risk free business.
Mark
-
But Mark.. Here is a tip, if he takes any country record and puts in on a record player and plays it BACKWARDS, he will get his business, wife, money, hound dawg, and truck all BACK! 🙂 LOL
Mike at MDCGFA 🙂
-
-
We enjoy watching those Gordon Ramsey shows where he goes into a troubled restaurant and tries to fix it. So interesting to see the amount of money people pour into their brick and mortar businesses to keep them afloat.
This touches on the conversation we were having a couple weeks ago where I said Scavengers net profit is often higher than other businesses because we all have such low overhead. All we need is a laptop, a phone, a spare storage room, and an eye for finding treasures in the trash.
-
Completely agree Jay. That is the benefit to this business, better margins.
Only downside to this business…very tough to scale. Ebay is great for part-time income or for a solo (single household) shop. Beyond that, you are in regular retail and eBay/Etsy/Poshmark/Mercari/Amazon are just sales channels to sell through
-
T-Satt,
I hear you on trying to scale this business. That is one of my areas to think about this Holiday break. Like you, I am exploring other scavenging options to scale faster. I am not looking to replace regular scavenging venues, but to add more venues to get the product faster; like you have been looking into.
Mark
-
There are people who scale their eBay business, but then you take on all the costs of any big business (employees, warehouse, huge consistent injections of inventory, etc). That’s how Nasty Gal did it: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasty-gal-become-a-multimillion-dollar-business-2014-5
I know there are plenty of giant eBay businesses too who have scaled up what we all do. But as we’ve discussed before, then the job owns you 🙂
-
Just like all things in life, you have to do them in the way that fits you…
Outside venture capital will bring in a TON of extra requirements, headaches, and problems. I saw that first hand in the Oil & Gas industry. In the end, the VC’s were much less interested in assisting us than they were about just killing us to have us make their metrics. That deal should never have gone down, and one that I would have never taken.
So you have to do it and do it right, both numbers-wise AND for what you want out of it. The business only owns you if you let it. When you start full time, it totally owns you (you guys remember those days), since you have to do everything. Then you can scale and add employees, and you lose some margin, but make up for it either in volume or you have more time for other ventures (like having someone do your shipping for you when you are on vacation…)
But part of my concern overall isn’t just on how we scale…but how we compete with the others that have ALREADY scaled and are just using eBay as another channel. Now, if you are only focused on vintage collectibles, then you are in a niche that doesn’t have that type of competition. The risk there is that what is collectible now isn’t collectible forever (tastes change, and I’m sure that there are items you can think of that used to sell well that just don’t anymore as the market has dried up).
So I look at scaling on both sides: How can we get more $ for our time (back to that $/hr conversation) and also how can we compete with others that HAVE scaled, so moving into eBay is very easy. Like us going to Poshmark: only takes 60 seconds when you already have an eBay listing…
-
Agreed. Even without taking outside money, Nasty Gal grew from a one person eBay store to an eBay store making over a million dollars a year because she hired employees. I know there are other million dollar eBay stores on eBay who grew from just mom & pop stores. Scaling is all about hiring people who you can teach to do what you do.
We know a couple in our area who run an estate clean-out company. They buy estates, load everything on trucks, bring back to their rented warehouse, and list on eBay. They probably have ten employees. I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of money they make. They certainly sell a lot, but even at $10/hr, ten employees is extremely expensive ($800/day+). Not to mention all the other overhead: buying the estate, a box truck, rented warehouse, etc. And this couple is super hands on. Always frazzled.
They sell anything everything like we do. Probably do 20x the sales we do. But we have much less overhead.
So I look at scaling on both sides: How can we get more $ for our time (back to that $/hr conversation) and also how can we compete with others that HAVE scaled, so moving into eBay is very easy.
This is a good question. I think the more direct question I have is: why are we scaling? To just make more money? To do less work personally because our workers are now handling the tasks we dislike?
From our conversations, I think we’re agreed that the dream is to create a machine where you can go out and buy lots of items and have a small, trusted team process those piles into eBay sales. But the machine needs to be super efficient and healthy. No one is stressed because everyone knows and enjoys their piece of the puzzle.
-
“I think the more direct question I have is: why are we scaling? To just make more money? To do less work personally because our workers are now handling the tasks we dislike?”
For us, the answer is yes and yes. We want to increase the net income in whole dollars that we are making now on eBay, and also to have a team that can do the parts of the business that we don’t want to do. For me, I would like to do less listing and more sourcing (though I want to stay on pricing right now, as that helps me see what the market is so I know how to make good buying decisions). For Veronica, that is doing less sourcing but listing higher value items.
In the end, we want to get this income stream up and generating a solid income stream with less time devoted to it so that we can start income stream #2. Still in the works as to what that one will be, but I have the strong suspicion that real estate will be involved (in one form or another).
-
-
-
-
-
I love these guys https://www.popupbusinessschool.co.uk I think their number one guiding principle is to start business with low to no overhead.
In my youth, I waited tables and saw so many restaurants flop. A start up restaurant has to be one of the most risky businesses to undertake.
-
” I think the more direct question I have is: why are we scaling? To just make more money? To do less work personally because our workers are now handling the tasks we dislike? “
I love this question. I used to ask a similar question when I worked a regular job. Everybody was always looking to be promoted. It seemed to be their primary goal. And I guess I’m weird, but it would always surprise me that it was this way across the board, and I would wonder why and sometimes ask: Is it just about the money? Fancier title / higher status? It can’t be because *everyone* really thinks being a people manager is more fun, can it? Sure, some people are natural managers/leaders, but it’s a tough job and most people seem to be not so great at it. I worked very hard to avoid being promoted into a people management position – the money was not worth it for me.
-
Amen! I’ve been approached about being a manager a couple times in my career. I don’t want that. Nope! Never. Not a chance. Uh uh.
Avoiding being a people manager is one of the main reasons I never got my PE license. At both of my previous employers, getting your PE (Professional Engineer Certification) was a fast track to being a people manager, money manager, and in most cases both.
-
-
Yup, me too. Two lower level manager positions opened up in my group (where I used to work), and I decided not to apply. About two years later, the company decided to move out of state. I would have had to lay people off. Yeh, no.
Retro – I passed the technical portion of the PE exam after graduating college. I didn’t think the ethics portion was going to be difficult, so I didn’t study for it. Of course, I didn’t pass that part. For the career I was in, no one needed their PE and very few had it, so I didn’t bother. My uncle studied for and passed his exam after he was laid off (he was 55 – 60), and spent about a decade as an expert witness. He was paid about the same amount for a week of work as one day testifying in court.
-
Yeah I passed my FE exam on the first try my senior year in college. My first job, I was the only degreed engineer in the whole company. I was overqualified (and underpaid). There was a recession going on – I took what I could get.
Once you get out in the real world you realize that usually the smartest technical people don’t even have an engineering degree! They worked their way up to the level they are at. It has been that way at every place I have worked.
-
-
That is a very sad story with good money being thrown after bad. I know many people have the restaurant or bar owner dream. I like that show Bar Rescue, or Tabitha’s salon Takeover. We can all learn from those business shows.
I feel the greatest “threat” to online sellers is the platforms themselves! Luckily, it’s not just the ebay and amazon show anymore. Even etsy which is still quirky has an influx of J U N K imported crap. -
One of my key reason to love Jay and Ryanne and their Scavenger Lifestyle, it is that being able to generate cash through the eBay platform is available to anyone and anyone can set and meet their goals that allow them to achieve their own lifestyle.
If you want to “scale” into a hassle filled lifestyle with burdens of responsibility and shackles of success, have at it! It can be done!
Or, set a goal to make your monthly car payment.. it can be done!
Just talked to an old friend who used to say “scale” all the time, built a successful reselling business ( mostly Amazon) , 30 employees , big warehouse, major supplier connections, and, margins got too tight, led to bankruptcy. No regrets, but make sure what you want is what you want!-
Exactly. We can each run our business based on our own personal financial needs. Very modest, Very big, and everything in between.
This is why its fun to talk about goals, needs, and motivations. When people say they want to go big without any good reason other than the unspoken “I want to be rich”, then it’s usually just a formula for disaster.
But sellers who talk about paying for kids college, or taking care of a sick partner, or paying off debt, have a solid basis to keep their stores cranking.
-
Absolutely Jay. Build Your Own Business.
If you want to just keep a small steady income without employees, then build that. If you want to focus your efforts on just the parts of the business you like and hire out the rest, then do that. If you want to develop an eBay business that can run with little of your own effort, so that you can take the profits (and time) and build another income stream, do that.
Ultimately, we know that eBay won’t be our only business. We want to have the ability to travel and run our business from the road. We also want to do more charity work where we can give back to our community. Achieving both of those goals is requiring us to think about how we grow this business, allocate our Time and Treasure, and what tasks we each take on.
2019 will be an interesting year, and 2020 even more so…
-
-
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.