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This week, we had a steady flow of sales which felt great! In fact we sold about sixty items which is a big volume for us. That’s almost ten items a d
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 286: Black Friday, Just Another Day on eBay] -
Nov 20 – 26
Total items in store 1061
Sales 17
COGS 30.00
Highest Price Sold SJB JCPenny Coat for 99.99 paid 4.00 at a thrift store
Total Sales 655.84
Average Sale Price 38.53
Returns 0
Intl Sales 0
Spent on new Merchandise 160.00
New Listings 27Congratulations Ryanne & Jay on your Sales AMAZING.
Good week for my store. Saturday I went to my favorite thrift store, everything in the store was half price. Even all the stuff in the cases at the register. I purchased 200.00 when I checked out it came to 100.00 I added my 20% off punch card and paid 80.00. What a thrill. -
Looking for the “making your listings mobile friendly” episode. Been using the new ebay mobile friendly checker and I love it. Realized my earlier listings are not mobile friendly. Can someone please help. Let me know if I am not in the appropriate place. Still getting used to the new format. Thank you.
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http://www.scavengerlife.com/2016/08/are-your-ebay-listings-mobile-friendly.html
you can search the blog through the field up top, right hand corner.
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Total Items in Store: 182
Items Sold: 3 (2 eBay, 1 to a co-worker)
COGS: $18.50
Total Sales: $174.49
Highest Sale: Pair of Red Wing LoggerMax boots $135
International: 0
Returns: 0
Spent on new inventory: $3
New listings: 5Was going to be a low week until I sold the boots yesterday. I decided to run a 10% sale on my purses and handbags and that was one of my sales so hopefully some of my higher dollar purses will follow for Christmas. The sale to a co-worker was a Pikachu backpack that I picked up the day before at the thrift for $1. Quick easy flip without ever having to take pictures or list and she was happy to pay the price I would have listed it for on eBay. I was planning on doing more listing on Thanksgiving, but I didn’t get anything prepared for listing in the car. That being said, I was happy to get the 5 items listed this week since the house project was a main focus. Friday night we found out that the drywaller was going to overcharge on an area he left out of the original bid since he underbid the big job so we switched gears on Saturday and hung and mudded 10 or so sheets in the house to save the $1500 they wanted. That was a full day of work, but I’ll save that kind of money through sweat equity when I can.
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ah yes, sweat equity. something many of us here are all too familiar with!
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We had originally planned on doing all the drywall ourselves, but we are coming up short on time so we contracted out the majority of the house. I don’t mind the work and have gotten pretty good at it. When I switch to scavenging full time in a few years I might just look into also doing some small job drywall and painting work. Of course, I’d like to get a few investment properties myself so I may just do that work and be done.
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Little late catching up this week. Yes $1,500 is WAY OUT of line. I had a General Contracting business that I had to close down when 2008 hit. But at that time we remodeled whole houses, added second stories, extra rooms, etc., etc. My subs charged $15 per “board” and those were 4′ x 12′ not 4′ x 8′. Now that was “wholesale pricing for us because I did so much work with them. But the retail for a home owner direct was approx. $25 per board. Yes there is a minimum of 5 to 10 boards for small jobs but not $1,500. Now of course prices has gone up but even at $35 to $40 per board 10 boards should be about $350 to $400.. even at $50 per board [way too high], that is still only $500 not $1,500.
Good for you, just do it your self if you are physically able. But it usually takes at least 3 three man crew to hang boards fast. Two on stilts to move boards up into place and screw down and one on the ground to trim each board to size as needed as called out by the stilt man as he calls out the measurement needed for cut boards.
My guys could board a whole ranch house in one day and first coat of mud, then 24 hour dry, then second coat of mud then 24 hr dry then last coat with sanding in between. 3 days total start to end. So J&R,, maybe this helps you ride shotgun over you crews.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
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Total Items in Store: 595
Items Sold: 11
COGS: $36
Total Sales: $355
Highest Sale: Vintage Arnold Palmer golf shoes $55Things are still slow on ebay. Last week I didn’t list anything and focused on other projects around the house. I also spent a lot of time over the holiday sorting a large lot of legos I purchased at goodwill. It looks to be right around 70 lbs and cost $20. I will fare quite nicely on the lot. I found close to 3lb of minifigures in the lot – some of them worth $10-20 each. Now to get it all listed to start making money! I found sorting legos to be quite enjoyable and therapeutic. I’d do it again in a heartbeat…but I don’t think my wife was a fan of the process.
Hope everyone starts to see a pickup in their stores.
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Nov 20 – 26
Total items in store 760
Sales 19 (9 Amazon)
COGS $296.44
Highest Price Sold 1943 Naval Tachometer
Total Sales $994.69
Average Sale Price $52.35
Returns 0
Intl Sales 0
Spent on new Merchandise $0
New Listings 9Awesome week volume & total sales wise. Avg sale price on eBay was low, but high on Amazon (all sales were $74-$99) – but that also came at the expense of COGS – eBay COGS were at 15% while Amazon COGS were at 33%. Good mix though paid off.
Didn’t do much in my store this week with the holiday. My wife & I hosted 12 people – my parents, her parents, my brother & his wife, her sister, and 2 friends that were going to spend it alone. We made it clear in advance that there would be a not politics policy – it was well know that there would be deep red & deep blue in attendance, so nothing one side would say to the other was going change the minds of the other side and vice versa. Everything went off without much of a hitch and everyone had a great time.
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Total Items in Store: 363
Items Sold: 8
Cost of Items Sold: $88 (new RA) + $9 (thifted)
Total Sales: $283
Highest Price Sold: 2 @ $56 – New Athropologie Cow Butter Dish (purchased for $22 earlier this month)
Average Price Sold: $35
Returns & Int’l Sales: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: +/-$150 (RA + Indy Thrift Xmas Boutique)
Number of items listed this week: +/- 20It was basically dead for the week until yesterday. I ran a sale, a couple of collectables auctions, and also tried a $10 off $75 promotion (which no one has taken advantage of yet including the guy who bought the two identical butter dishes in separate purchases. Huh?) I bought some tried and true RA items during a retail sale but this year I’m not experimenting with Christmas merchandise based on my own cautious outlook. TV says it is a good retail season especially online, but I’m not sure I’m buying into it and my customers are probably generally more Indy-minded.
Very quick note on the politics. Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed reading the posts while cringing a bit when J&R took some heat. I find the national perspective very interesting. It’s good to look outside your own bubble. This is a great Ted Talk about how we all need to do that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-_Az5nZBBM I hope you don’t mind my sharing something non-reseller related.
I made a forum post about having two Hatchimals up for sale. Yesterday I got a middle finger bid of $1. 🙂 I’ve never sold anything like this, but it’s certainly interesting. Mine are up high with best offer right now. I’m going to dump them at whatever they are going for about a week before Christmas. Most of the offers have been for around the original price – not sure why people are bothering. I hope to benefit charity through the Ebay program and also pay for a couple of Christmas gifts.
Have a great week.
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I saw this article on Hatchamals last week on MSN Money and thought it was an interesting analysis of the Hatchamal market on eBay.
TL/DR version – They expect them to go higher in the first two weeks of December, but a new supply from the manufacture to hit a week or so before Christmas will bring the prices back down. As always though, all speculation with some basis in past trends.
Oh and they mentioned one listed for $2,500…..may have seen your listing 🙂
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That is an interesting article TFS. I’m famous! 🙂 I actually dropped the price shortly after listing even though I’m content to even just take them to my husband’s hospital to donate or give one to my daughter. I probably will release them a comfortable few days away from the priority mail deadline – maybe mid-December. I’ll let you know what happens later.
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Been a while since my last update, been willing to provide deeper details for sometime.
First off, wanted to share my message with the community, had all my 5 kids home for our favorite time of the year, so time was precious.
Anyway, Jay, Ryanne, Bev, Sue, Schultz and many others I’ve been interacting for little under a year, I am tremendously grateful to you. J&R allowed me to be part of this phenomenal community, it’s America at it’s best, and all of you are enablers of my journey. THANK YOU!!As summary, I have my main eBay channel with some auxiliary channels (Grailed, Amazon, eCrater, Bonanza, TrueGether, Etsy) where my combine sales have been:
Aug: $1,906.89
Sep: $1,956,86
Oct: $1,984.85
unfortunately the business is very slow for me in Nov ($887.23), which will not keep my steady growing month over month sales.
I sell mostly on eBay, the other channels help me to complement, even though I only list on Amazon new boxed stuff (even though they have been finding all excuses to remove my brand new, sealed on original box everything). Slow lister on Etsy and the others are just synchronizations of eBay (grailed is different because men’s Designer and Top Fashion are GREAT sales there).From one side, I learned to take advantage of the environment (had accumulated a handful of Trump related items like Biography from the 80’s) and nice Xmas related collectibles (antique and vintage) like Xmas train parts (found a complete one from early 80’s that was totally broken, so I sold each locomotive and wagon separately, sold very fast for different people certainly willing to restore). Great learning’s for the next year indeed.
Found a Thrift where a lady dumped dozens of Salvatore Ferragamo Shoes. Been a great deal, I am buying little by little and listing little by little. They are mostly 1-2 wore and with boxes, etc. This Thrift started to scavenge other similar elder people so many Channel, Louis Vuitton, etc. I am helping her to authenticate and she gives me good discount.
My store is at 500 items, possibly my 1000 goal will not be met. The good thing is the traffic because of constant listing, but also, as many of you commented on this podcast and on Schultz podcast, I have been listing low ticket items which is certainly one of the factors affecting my revenue in november given similar number of items sold.
Also, I want to provide an overall view of my 3 main lines of business together, comparing time dedicated to each, etc, but I am not sure if the community would be interested.
My Freelancing Blog is doing fine. I think I have dedicated more time on my freelancing business in November too.
To finish, I am heartbroken. my middle son left Saturday, the older boy left yesterday with girlfriend and my daughter (oldest kid) leaves tomorrow. I should by a ranch in Montana away from civilization to have my babies close to me all the time 🙁
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Total Items in Store: 455
•Items Sold: 59
•Cost of Items Sold: $410
•Total Sales: $2,379.61
•Highest Price Sold: $180 Thomas train wooden lot
•Average Price Sold: $40.33
•Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
•Number of items listed this week: 90+It was a great week. Packaging 36 items today from this weekend. I continue to attack my death bins and stick to my buying freeze. It has been great and very motivating. I’ve tried buying freezes before and never stuck to it so I’m proud of myself for finally attacking these bins of death. 🙂 I listed something a couple of days ago that had a sticker that showed I bought it FOUR years ago! Ugh. I don’t ever want to go back to doing that to myself. It’s a mental burden to have all that unlisted crap piling up. I have already broken my “best month ever” record for sales. I’m hoping to hit $10,000 for November but that’s a pretty lofty goal and I’ll have to have 3 amazing days but it’s my goal none the less. My kids are all back to school and my husband has a week of vacation so he can tend the 1 year old while I list list list this week.
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This is AMAZING!!!!! GREAT JOB, super proud of you.
What would be a couple of examples of what you sold!!
Super
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I hadn’t even thought about the wooden train sets for eBay. We are getting ready to “move” into the new house in the next two months and I’ve said nothing that we don’t use or need will be making the move over. My son has a ton of toys that he doesn’t play with anymore that are from his toddler years (he is now 8). Time to list those trains!
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Your sales are awesome. Would you mind sharing your ebay store? I’d like to follow you if you don’t mind.
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Two random questions:
(1) Anybody knows how do I update my profile picture here?
(2) On TrueGether, anybody knows how to access and print the Packing Slip? Bonanza is already a secret, but on TG I could not at all find, so I am using PayPal instead.
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Total Items in Store: 784
Items Sold: 24
Cost of Items Sold: $193
Total Sales: $930.77
Highest Price Sold: $80 (Settlers of Catlan Board Game with extension)
Average Price Sold: $38.78Not super busy sales wise but not bad. I was able to list about 50 items over the holiday…I hope to be done with 80% of the $3,000 lot that I bought by the end of the week. I made almost 1,000 dollars from it so far.
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Have had sluggish sales for a long time compared to last year, so was very happy to have a good Black Friday with 13 sales for a total of around $900.00. Highest price was $250 for a small 2.5′ x 4′ rug. I bought it and 2 larger matching rugs at the end of a estate sale I stumbled upon this summer for a total of $400. Karistan rugs. Hopefully the big ones will sell soon. Am avoiding buying and concentrating on just listing what I have.
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Week of Nov 21 – 27
* Total Items in Store: 503
* Items Sold: 8
* Cost of Items Sold: $11.16
* Total Sales: $110.37
* Highest Price Sold: $19 Vintage Musical Mickey Mouse Watch
* Average Price Sold: $13.78
* Returns: not really a return, but damaged item through GPS
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: about 35Pretty lousy week for me compared to the last few. I got a best offer for an item that I know was listed too high, and I came down pretty significantly. But, no sale. I adjusted the buy now price, and, hopefully, it will sell with holiday sales.
I shipped a set of chess pieces through the global shipping program a few weeks ago, and one of the pieces arrived damaged. Unfortunately, it was one that the buyer needed to complete his set. From what he is saying, I think that eBay did not repackage it the way I had it. I had the pieces carefully rolled up in bubblewrap, not touching each other, and I think that they just threw a bunch of pieces loose together in the bubblewrap. Anyway, I’m working to get him refund after he opens a return.
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Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 1268
Items Sold: 31
Total Sales: $744.6
Cost of Items Sold: $91.85
Average Price Sold: $24.02
Average Cost of Item: $2.96
Highest Price Item Sold: $54.95 Lot of 6 Berkeley High School Year Books
Number of items listed this week: 74
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 195
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 84
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 14
Sell-through rate: 2.44%
# of Hats Sold: 11I’m happy with these sales. The flow of sales were sporadic but they added up nicely. I had lots of free time over the Thanksgiving weekend so I did lots of listing and those new listings generated a number of sales. (You can see the impact of listing by comparing the Average Age of Sales to the Medium Age of Sales figure above).
I’ve been listing a mixture of new stuff and my tubs of death piles. Listing a bunch of low-value death pile items is boring (and goes against my goal of increasing my average order value) but it’s good to get those old things moving.
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Just listened to the podcast- really enjoyed it, as always. I believe you mentioned “inkfrog” or “6bit” for an access question to ebay helpers. I have heard it mentioned before in other forums that you can create a “user permissions” setting on your ebay account. Apparently to give drafting or listing rights to someone, without that person seeing all your other info. Would love to dive into this deeper, perhaps someone knows?
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Nov 21 – 27
Total items in store: 226
Sales: 25
COGS: $35
Highest Price Sold: $74.99 for a N64 console
Total Sales: $517.68
Average Sale Price: $20.70
Spent on new Merchandise: $38.15I’ve been selling on eBay since June, and this is by far the best week I’ve had. I usually sell an item per day, and I’ve been averaging five a day. The pace of orders has already slowed down, so I expect another normal week to come.
Didn’t do much in the thrifting department this week since I was here and there for Thanksgiving, but I did manage to find a N64 console and a bunch of games as well as my normal haul of books and weird junk. I’ve already sold two games and the console and managed to double my money in a few days, plus I still have eight more games to sell from that lot. I wish I could find video game stuff all time, but books are far more prevalent finds for me.
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11/20-11/26/2016
Approximate # of Items in Store: 260
# of Items Sold: 24
Average Cost of Items Sold: $8.33
Total Sales: $1,360.59
Highest Price Sold: $250 – Briefcase
Average Price Sold: $56.69
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $49.50
Number of items listed this week: 11Very happy with the number of items I sold this week since it’s more than double what I’m used to. Sold seven things on the 20th and again on the 26th. Like JtotheNessa, I’ve curtailed my shopping over the past couple of months and have been working on fall/winter inventory purchased in past years that’s still unlisted. For the last year or two, I’ve stayed current listing what I buy, but these are things that were purchased and stored away in 2013-14. Even had a couple of things from 2012. Oddly enough, I listed those two 2012 things and one sold within 24 hours and the other within a couple of days. Both sold for decent amounts, too. Guess it’s a good thing I lean toward purchasing classic fashion rather than trendier stuff. I did go to my favorite consignment store for half price Black Friday morning and spent the $49.50 referenced in my stats on a Tory Burch purse that should realize a profit of about $100. Also got a great North Face jacket for myself for $17.
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Yes I use Inkfrog and find it excellent when having helpers. they don’t have access to your ebay plus they can save specific folders by date, name whatever you want. Then before you launch the item to Ebay you can just make adjustments to price or any other details. Also you can have “saved pre fills” which saves a lot of time! For instance I have pre fills like ” women’s jeans” men’s dress shirts” ‘womens boots” “art prints”. All shipping and categories are pre saved, no need to do it every single listing. hope that helps!
On the politics, I really appreciated when I read your post last week and found that was real ood how you guys positioned yourselves as opposed to other blogs where people rather not talk about it in order to not lose followers. I believe we gotta be discussing things in so we can always learn from each other. Plus be closer to the politics and try to have some kind of control over it. Thanks so much for being so awesome! -
Nov 20-26 2016
• Total Items in Store: 717
• Items Sold: 20
• International 0
• Total Sales $1685
• Highest Price $700 Reel to Reel tape deck
• Average Price Sold: $84
• Returns: 0
• Cost of Items Sold: $126
• Cost of items purchased this week $70There’s an app called LetGo that I tried out a few weeks ago for sourcing, a guy on there has a turntable for $75, kinda high but I inquired, he finally drove to my house from a nearby town and we test it out, turns out the belt is broken, I say nothing, he finally says how bout $25 and say $20, sold. I find a new belt on ebay for less than six bucks, it works great and there was an extra phono cart that came with that may fetch $200!
My daughter came down Wednesday for the thanksgiving weekend so except for packing and 1 estate sale, I haven’t done much eBay related business like listing, but this morning I’m headed out to pick up a box of free reel to reel tapes I found on CL then back to the routine of research and listing.
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Glad to hear the new hire is working out well. We’re still having our lister schedule all her listings and I run through it real quick and take notes on what I changed, I put the item up, and go over the notes the next day. She’s doing pretty good on pricing and I hope to set her free to list without the training wheels soon.
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I am unsure how to reply to posts by others–is that possible to do right under their comment?
But wanted to sympathize with Paulo with his kids leaving. Going back to college I assume. It’s hard. Still missing my grandkids after son’s family was here all summer. And I woke up at 4:00 am thinking of my son who died 2 1/2 years ago. My husband just purchased airline tickets so we can go visit son and grandkids in Hong Kong. Even with getting one ticket “free” with flier miles plus a discount on the other one we are spending about $5K for business class seats. But when you are in your 60s you really don’t want to fly coach for a 14 hr flight.
Paulo I hope you will tell us about your other businesses!
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Hi Linda, in order to reply under a post, you need to be logged in, so that you can see the word REPLY to the left of the posting number, which is at the top of the post. Click reply and it opens a box at the bottom of the page, but it will post under the comment.
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11/20 – 11/27
Total Items in “Store”: 111
Items Sold: 4
Cost of Items Sold : $3.62
Total Sales: $68.97
Highest Item Sold: $24.99 Fur Real Chimpanzee
New items up: 87Nowhere near the numbers of anyone else, but I did hit my first Ebay goal (sell five items).
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That’s terrific! Selling 5 items is a great start.
I still remember selling my first item for $17.49 in 2007. It was a new with tags Zutano dress. I had taken it to a consignment store and they were going to give me $4 for it. I knew I could do better. I put it up for auction and had two bidders go back and forth. -
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Total items in store: 283
Items sold: 8
Cost of Items Sold: $37 thrift + $73 retail + $12.50 consignment
Total Sales: $531.94
Avg. price: $66.49
Highest price item: $163 Vintage shearling jacket
International sales: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $0
Number of items listed: 0I felt like Flim (Faith) selling only high dollar clothing. It was a great week selling coats for $163, $125, $80, and $70, but there goes all of my high high priced inventory. I’ve already gotten glowing reviews for the Sawyer of Napa shearling and Gorsuch down jacket. I’ve had the down jacket up for over a year so I was happy to see it go, purchased for $14 sold for $125.
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October & November are a blur and I didn’t realize I haven’t posted in awhile. I’ll just summarize my October & November (so far):
I’m closing in on 13,000 active listings
October:
Items Sold: 566
Total Sales: $3,638.05
Average Sale: $6.43
COGS: $67.92November
Items Sold: 583
Total Sales: $3,687.46
Average Sale: $6.33
COGS: $69.96Over the past 2 months I spent about $2000 on about 10,000 postcards and splurged on some higher valued cards.
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RR Store Week Nov 20-26, 2016
Total Items in Store: 1043
Items Sold: 15
Cost of Items Sold: $30.48
Total Sales: $453.46
Highest Price Sold: $119.99 (50’s men’s coat)
Average Price Sold: $30.23
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 32Sales are slowly getting back to where they used to be, and my death piles are slowly dwindling. Looking at the items in the piles, it’s no wonder I dragged my feet on listing them. It’s a lot of stuff that is tedious to list, and doesn’t sell for much. Like pants. I hate dealing with pants. But I told myself that I would clear out this particular death pile before going to my storage unit and getting more.
Black Friday was quiet, but Thanksgiving was jumping! I had one guy messaging me about a WWII Army yearbook, trying to negotiate a price. After a while, I had to ignore his messages in favor of the holiday. But I resumed the conversation the next day, and we had a pleasant transaction.
*Paul*
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If anyone is in the central NJ area and would be interested in buying a boatload of VCRs and DVD players, check out the link below. The minimum bid is $230 for 230 VCR and DVD players. I happened to notice it on govdeal.com. I personally don’t have the room nor the patience to test all of these, but the talk in previous Scavengerlife discussions is that they do sell well on eBay.
https://www.govdeals.com/index.cfm?fa=Main.Item&itemid=28&acctid=5693
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J&R regarding your slow sales this year, I think many of us are dealing with that and I don’t think it’s due to you listing your death piles.
(CNSNews.com) – 1,154,000 fewer Americans are working today than six years ago, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In January 2008, 146,378,000 Americans 16 and over were employed, and now in January 2014, 145,224,000 are employed, a difference of 1,154,000.We are living in a depression. People can’t spend like they used to. Many more are living on cobbled together part time jobs if they are working. Employers can’t afford to hire due to all the employer’s benefit costs, including obamacare. Sorry to bring it up, but that’s a fact. That’s one reason why I’m feeling optimistic. Employers taxes are no longer going to be the highest in the world. Even the stock market has gone crazy with high expectations.
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We are not in a depression. We are not even in a recession. The economy is good right now.
The Labor Picture in October
Figures are seasonally adjusted, except where noted. *Hispanics can be of any race. †Not seasonally adjusted. §People not working who say they would like to be. Includes discouraged workers and those who cannot work for reasons including ill health.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
By The New York Times
The last time the unemployment rate was running this low was in early 2008. But by Election Day that year, the economy was in sad shape and getting worse by every measure. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were vanishing, housing prices were plunging, paychecks were shrinking and credit was tight.On Friday, in the last economic snapshot before voters go to the polls, the government reported that the jobless rate fell to 4.9 percent in October, matching the level in February 2008. Today, though, most economic bellwethers are showing improvement. Particularly encouraging was the fact that hourly wages rose 2.8 percent compared with a year ago, the best gain in more than seven years.
The economy’s escalator may be slower and narrower than Americans expect, but it is now going up instead of down.
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We are not in a Depression, we are in a recovery period since the mess that was 2008. I think it’s important to realize that the economy is actually doing pretty well….room for improvement? Certainly. But, on balance, much better than 8 years ago. I don’t mention this because I want to talk politics. I mention it because I think in this case it is risky, from a business point of view, to blame the economy for uneven or slow sales.
Most of us here sell a large variety of long tail merchandise. Which is why, for most of us, “List it and forget it” works OK. List enough long tail merchandise, and sales will come. They may be uneven, but they will come. It is a numbers game. If we want more consistent sales, it might be worth trying some other things as well. List more, maybe try social networking and marketing, maybe try to add an inventory component of newer, shorter tail merchandise to balance the long tail merchandise…there are things we can try. But shrugging and saying ” There’s nothing I can do, the economy is in the toilet” is unhelpful….and that’s the risk when we start blaming the economy when, in fact, the economy is not all that bad overall.
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Friday set a new record for online spending, the stores near me are packed, I have seen more help wanted signs in the last 2 years than I have in many years. People may not be buying as heavily on ebay, but that could be because their choice of venues has expanded exponentially. 2008 was a bleak period in this country and the recovery made in the last 8 years stabilized the economy. My partner’s family trust lost 1 million in equity (they are invested in the market) all of it regained since our current President righted the ship. I will give Trump a chance, but frankly his picks for his cabinet are frightening.
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I’m happy to report that sales appear to be coming back to normal for late November. I didn’t even bother running a sale this Thanksgiving-Cyber Monday, and sales were still brisk! On an inventory of 6,000+: 9 sales on Black Friday, 3 on Saturday, 3 on Sunday, 7 on Cyber Monday That’s more like it! Hopefully it will stay like this throughout December.
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Unemployment numbers don’t reflect the record high rates of people “out of the labor force”… including significant numbers of “discouraged workers” who actually would like to be working.
It’s hardly controversial to suggest that the recovery from 2008 has been uneven and that significant portions of the country did not experience much of a recovery.
In 2015 Bernie Sanders said:
“while employment figures, have improved, “the ‘real’ unemployment rate—which includes those working part time who want full-time work, and those who have stopped searching but if offered a job would take it—remains in excess of 10 percent.”“Moreover,” says the report, “most workers have failed to see improvements in their paychecks … In fact, taking into account cost-of-living increases since the recession officially ended in 2009, wages have actually declined for most U.S. workers.”
Low-income workers have been hit the hardest. The data brief concludes that “on average, the lowest-paying jobs have experienced disproportionately greater wage declines.”
(actual numbers may have changed since piece was written)Numbers may have changed somewhat, but the point remains valid.
Telling people that everything is fine and they’re just imagining a slow economy was not an effective strategy.
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I am really curious to know if you are a Trump supporter quoting Sanders (as some have been apt to do), or a still upset supporter of Bernie’s from the primaries. That would really help in how I possibly phrase a response to this.
Sorry to Jay & Ryanne for quoting facts and getting hostility back in your forum, ya’ll. I was just trying to keep it positive.
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I would also point out that the current President met with unprecedented obstruction–he had a good jobs bill ready to go that concentrated on infrastructure spending (badly needed) and guaranteeing low cost loans for small business that was blocked in Congress. It is astonishing that he got as much done as he did. I would look to the State governments, example Kansas, to see why and how the economy is doing so poorly in some areas. Need I also note that in places like Michigan hundreds of thousands of jobs were saved when the Government bailed out the Auto industry which has recovered. The problem we have now is the wash of propaganda mostly on one side to be honest, that is convincing some people that the country is a disaster (where were these people during the last Bush administration?) At any rate, I wait to see how the new President handles dumping 22 million people off of healthcare, and giving yet more tax cuts to already wealthy people–will this create jobs? never has before, and again, look at the state of Kansas which has become a disaster under such policies.
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Hi Ryanne and Jay,
I’m Keri (Dave from wheresthecoupon.com is my husband) Dave and I listen to your show while we scavenge on Saturdays. We love it and thank you for all you do! I just wanted to send a message of support for your last podcast. While I was a little surprised that you guys shared your thoughts about the election, but I applaud you for it! Take Care and Happy Scavenging! -
11/20 – 11/26
Total Items in Store: 893
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $7.05
Total Sales: $407.95 (Including 2 not yet paid)
Highest Price Sold: $69.99 (Sperry Top Sider Heels). Runner up and my favorite item was a $65 Vintage Sno-Jet for flocking an aluminum Christmas tree!
Average Price Sold: $37.09
International Sales: 2
Returns: None received yet, but 1 initiated for the $69.99 shoes.
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: 0Things picked up slightly this week, but my run of returns and unpaid items continues. Not sure what’s going on, but I hope people start paying up soon! This upcoming week was one of my best last year, so I’ve got my fingers crossed!
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Listening to the podcast. Several thoughts:
1 – I wasn’t angry about politics being discussed, just disheartened, but I totally respect your right to speak about whatever you want. It’s your podcast!
2 – You should look into promotions. I have been running a promotion of buy 1 get 1 25 or 50 percent off. These have been great ways to generate revenue and if you do the math it’s NOT a bad discount to offer when you’re getting someone to shop around and buy more and saving money on shipping by combining. For example, say you are running a buy 1 get 1 50 sale and you have two $100 items with $15 shipping. So the person is going to get those two items for $150 but you are going to save maybe another $10-$15 combining shipping. So they pay the $30 shipping and it only costs you $20, so add $10 to your $150, $160. So the REAL discount on the total of both items was only $40 or 20%. All of my items have room for me to discount it at 20% and still make great money. I LOVE the new promotions tool! I’ve generated $750 in sales this month using it.
3 – You don’t have to sell clothes or electronics to do well. I sell mostly used toys and will come very close to $10,000 in sales this month.
4 – My death bins weren’t un-interesting items. I fell into the camp of those who are much better at finding and buying the treasures, then they are at listing them. My death bins are full of amazing things. I would encourage anyone who is sitting on piles of unlisted inventory to take it one item at a time and work through it. It has been the best feeling to start to get through all of my crap. Before it was such a looming mental and emotional burden that I didn’t even recognize. Kind of like debt. Climbing out is hard but SO rewarding!
5 – Do you wonder if your employee will someday rather just take what she’s learned from you and start her own ebay business?
Thanks for the great podcasts!
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JtotheNessa, do you mind sharing your store name? I hate selling clothes, and would love to branch out into more toy sales. I’d love to take a peek at what you are selling, if you don’t mind. 🙂
I don’t like talking politics. There is a reason behind the old saying of “Never discuss religion or politics in polite company”.
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I have always encouraged the people who list for me to start their own ebay store. It’s the spirit of sharing. Just like Jay and Ryanne do here. However, that being said, most people won’t follow through with starting their own. I think ebay sellers are a special breed:)
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i think we need to remember (myself included here) that not all people want to be business owners. and most of us think that’s super weird. but some people just want a paycheck. i’ve been there sometimes too. i just want to get paid and then go do my own thing (that didn’t last long though). running a business is tough, stressful and full of responsibility. but as we all know, the rewards are countless. i’m not afraid my helper will outpace me in business. she sees us planning/prepping for that storage building in our backyard. you want to be successful in this business? you have to have major storage. not many people want to deal with that very, important aspect of it. seems simple, but i feel thats a huge part of it.
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Ryanne, I definitely agree. Some people much prefer a regular 9 to 5 job. Others might prefer to be entrepreneurs, but ebay and online selling is not the approach they’d take. And many would never view ebay or Amazon as anything more than a part-time, supplemental income. And there are easier ways to make a buck, that’s for sure.
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Week Nov 20-26, 2016
Total Items in Store: 306
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $35.75
Total Sales: $531.64
Highest Price Sold: $75.49 (Old IBM Thinkpad Laptop)
Average Price Sold: $31.27
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: ~20I don’t think I’ve ever posted my numbers before but decided to start doing it. Overall the week was dead until Friday night but I got a nice bump in sales Friday night and into Saturday. I think I sold over 50% of my items just in that short time-frame. The IBM laptop was an interesting sale since I used to just pass over old computers. This one wasn’t too old, late 90’s so not “vintage” but old enough to be pretty useless by today’s standards since it was running Windows 98. The important thing is that the guy at the yard sale let me test it before I bought it and I was able to verify that everything was still working. I guess there is a market for anything IBM, especially the old Selectric Typewriters which I’ve sold in the past for $300. I’ve even sold freebie keychains with the IBM logo on it and instruction booklets for old AS/400 terminals.
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A great old PC accessory to keep an eye out for are “clicky” keyboards. They are big, bulky and every key makes a very distinctive “click” when pressed. Modern keyboards run on a switch matrix and individual keys just connect two wires on a mat together to complete a circuit. A clicky keyboard has dedicated switches for every button. Can be sold for $50+ pretty easy.
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Yep, I’ve sold my fair share of “clicky” keyboards too. Again, the IBM ones are very coveted. This whole idea of “vintage” computing and the crazy prices people pay on eBay really makes me feel old sometimes. When I was in college my roommates and I were true computer nerds. We would go dumpster diving behind the computer science building and pull out all manner of old computer systems, IBM PC XTs, Apple II’s, Sun SPARC systems and loads more. We would bring it back to our dorm by the car load and tinker with it and get it all running again. To think that stuff is now worth $1,000’s of dollars! I actually still had quite a few of those old systems when I graduated but after a few years my parents got tired of storing it for me and I didn’t have space for it so in the dumpster it all went.
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I thought it was quite funny on this weeks podcast to hear that Jay genuinely thought that bringing Politics into the forum would not cause anger, strife, division, hurt feelings, and cause people to leave. It is this way in every forum I’ve ever been to no matter how the moderators tried to contain it to a subforum. It always spills over in passive aggressive ways to all areas of the forums. Now many folks here will start to dislike each other and make assumptions against other fellow trash elves. We’ll probably lose a few very valuable members of the community. In short, this sucks and I hate seeing the division lines forming.
I just want to remind everyone that hitting that submit button is not a requirement. Sometimes just typing out your thoughts and deleting them can be quite therapeutic.
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I just canceled my inkfrog subscription. It was fine and did the job but I didn’t think it was anything special. I just give the people listing for me access to the account. I have 3 people that list for me currently.
You can spend the $27 a month or more for inkfrog. After using it for about a year I am looking to cut costs and save money.
I get emails for all listings, I am on ebay on a regular basis, and what can the person that is listing for you do? If you are worried about them sabotaging your account they shouldn’t be working for you. You can have a different paypal password so no worries there.
Bottom line when you have people working for you there needs to be a level of trust. For my working stiff job I have access to everything. Personal info, numbers, accounts, financials, etc, etc, etc. That information is far more sensitive than anything on ebay and what am I going to do with it? If I ever did anything that I should’t with that info I would get fired or worse which I will pass on. I believe that is how most people think when dealing with sensitive info and if they don’t think that way you don’t want them working for you.
Maybe I am too trusting but at the same time what can the person possibly do that I wouldn’t immediately catch on my account? I get emails for everything that takes place on ebay. That’s my 3 cents.
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I agree. We live in a small community. I know and trust the people that have listed for me. I also get emails everytime something happens on Paypal and ebay. I like to think that 99.5% of the people in this world are trustworthy and good. Will I get burned? Maybe…but until then I’m taking the easy route:)
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Store Week Nov 20 – Nov 26
Total Items in Store: 408
Items Sold: 10
Cost of Items Sold: $13
Total Sales: $621
Highest Price Sold: $305 Fountain pen parts
Average Price Sold: $62
Returns: 0
International Sales via GSP: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory: $20
Number of items listed this week: 5Had a good week despite barely listing. I always keep an eye out for fountain pens and found one in pieces at an estate sale. Paid a dollar for it and when I got it home saw that either it was broken or the included nib was for a different pen.
I thought about pricing it for parts at $40/best offer, but decided to run an auction since I didn’t see a similar model on ebay which was the right choice — sold for $305!!Over the past few weeks I’ve sold two *non-working* German made Anniversary clocks, the kind with the glass dome. One was in an auction box lot, I almost tossed it before I reminded myself I’m a scavenger and looked it up on ebay. Wound up selling overnight for $45 to a gentleman in Taiwan. Bought the second one for $6 at an estate sale and sold that one just as quickly for $55. Keep an eye out for these clocks!
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Store Week Nov 20 – Nov 26
Total Items in Store: 344
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: About $30
Total Sales: $260.03
Highest Price Sold: $40 (Glass punch bowl & cups)This was a real “meh” week. I have made $1525 in November, which is $100 down from last year, which isn’t terrible. Maybe I’ll get lucky tomorrow, and someone will buy $100 worth of stuff, and I will match last year’s sales. 🙂
I sold lots of dishes and glassware this weekend. I’m really glad someone bought that punch bowl set, and it is out of my life.
I have been nose-to-the-grindstone, working through death piles. I really, REALLY want to finish them up by January 1.
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To send an invoice using your phone.
(This works on Android through Chrome, no idea about iPhone)
Open your browser, not the eBay App.
Go to eBay, just as you would using a computer.
Log in.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and tap on “Classic Site”.
This will bring you into the same eBay that we all know and love on the PC.
Resize your screen and do everything you would normally do at home using your phone.Though I too would love for all of the features to be in the App., this is a usable workaround.
I’ve sent invoices like this while away from home without a problem. Good luck and happy hunting.
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