Scavenger Life Episode 294: Finding the Valuable Caches and Going All In

[Ryanne]

In our career of scavenging, nothing is more exciting than finding a Cache. What’s a cache? It’s that huge box of items that you buy for one price at
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 294: Finding the Valuable Caches and Going All In]

[TreasureFinder]

Super easy way to check your invoice for credits on returns:
Seller Hub – Go to Open Returns – Click on Closed Returns – In a second tab open Account Summary within Seller Hub – Open Most Current Invoice that came out after the return was processed – Scroll down to Credits Paragraph on Invoice and it will list each final value fee credit you received and for which item. You may have to open several different months of invoices depending on how far back you need to go but once you make a habit of checking every month it is so very easy.

[Paul]

Regarding unauthorized use of others’ listing images and text, it’s grounds for a VeRO takedown. Per eBay: How to report another member that has copied your images or text

If you believe another eBay member has copied images and/or text from your listing, we encourage you to contact the other member to ask if they’ll remove your image or text from their listing.

If the other member is unwilling to remove the image or text, you may report it using our VeRO program. You must fill out the Image and Text Theft Notice of Claimed Infringement and return to the VeRO team.

Source: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/image-text.html

[Jay]

Thanks for this tip. I didn’t know small sellers could use the VERO process.
Have you ever gotten a listing taken down before this way?

[Paul]

I’ll let you know the outcome of the first of these I submitted today.

[imjosh]

Jay, I have used vero successfully to have someone’s listing removed.

[Jay]

I’m surprised this is the first time someone has mentioned that a small seller could use the VERO system.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Can’t wait to listen to the show tomorrow morning on my way to work. I love buying up a whole pile of like/similar items, especially if they’re collectibles – usually means the seller was a collector and has good condition merch. Also buying a box full of something means BIG savings!!!

[PS… change the date on your postings to 2017!]

Week January 15-21, 2017

Total Items in Store: 742
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $19
Total Sales: $266.95
Highest Price Sold: $49.99 (vintage Reed & Barton Damascene Owl & Moon pendant necklace)
Average Price Sold: $24.27
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $160
Number of items listed this week: 51

So so week of sales – decent volume for me, but a lot of lower dollar items. But at the same time my COGS % is the lowest it has been in a long time.

Back on the horse listing after a 6 week hiatus. Really got cooking and listing quickly by grouping like items – records, playing cards, estate tobacco pipes, etc – and knocking them all out at the same time. Death pile backlog quite manageable now and should get that taken care of by next weekend.

The bathroom reno is completely done except for the glass around the shower. The glass guy came & measured and should be back to install by Friday. We’ve been using the new bathroom except for the shower for nearly 2 weeks now and am ready for it to be 100% done. I still promise I’ll post a video once done.

[Jay]

Ah yes, 2017.
Fixed.
Glad 2016 is over.

[Paul]

There is an easy way to check to see if you have received a final value fee credit. When using a PC, look for the Hello {your name} in the upper left corner. Hover over that, select Account Settings from the links that appear (I know, it’s not intuitive). On the next page, within the Account Summary section, there are links to view: All account activity | Fees | Credits | Payments and refunds. Click Credits and enter the Item Number and click the search button. Here is a shortcut: http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewAccountActivity

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Paul.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Paul.

[omfug]

Total Items in Store: 413 etsy, 218 ebay
Items Sold: 14 (6 etsy, 8 ebay)
Total Sales: $817.32 (etsy $466, ebay $350.83
Highest Price Sold: $375.00 antique chinese herbal cabinet found at the local auction, sold on Etsy.
Average Price Sold: $58
Returns: 0

another good week for antiques and collectibles.

[Jay]

You’ve been having a good run of weekly sales. Remember this when times are slow!

[Alex]

I had no luck in reaching out with a no contact negative. I refunded, sent them an apology for my oversight, and sent the feedback revision. I never heard back from them. I got a neutral lately, and I’m thinking that I will do nothing unless they initiate a return or contact me. I think people who leave poor feedback with no contact are just grumpy. If they really wanted to work with you, they’d contact and/or initiate a return. It’s not like I don’t accept returns and these people were experienced eBayers. On the bright side, I have learned where to look for issues and what not to buy due to the potential for issues. They may be grumpy and caused a little ding to my feedback, but I’m getting better because of them.

[Jay]

Good attitude. Focus on selling more items. We’ve seen too many sellers sabotage their store because they just cant get past one bad sale.

[Terri]

1/15-1/21/17

Approximate # of Items in Store: 240
# of Items Sold: 18
Average Cost of Items Sold: $6.70
Total Sales: $872.57
Highest Price Sold: $250 – Women’s Coat
Average Price Sold: $48.48
Returns: 1 for $125, but see below
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20.25
Number of items listed this week: 25

A pair of ski pants were returned, but they resold for the same amount the day after I relisted them. Since they were already included in my sales figures a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t include the second sale in the figures shown above.

Without the $250 coat sale, my ASP would’ve been in the $35 range. Continuing last week’s trend of selling a lot of older stuff with lowered prices. Still a decent ROI and happy to get the stuff gone before spring.

[Liz]

Total Items in Store: 340
Items Sold: 27
Total Sales: 450.75
Highest Price Sold: $44.99 (vintage wood embroidery hoop)
COGS: About $50
Returns: 1 (holiday decoration that broke, so I refunded. Thanks FedEx Smartpost :/ )

My store has been really busy. Lots of book and craft sales. Lower selling price, but easy to ship, and I’m happy to move stuff out the door.

I have listed about 50 items this week. I have another 20 items that I photographed today. Death piles are shrinking. Yay!

[Steven S]

Great sale on the foot pedal. It was a switch for a Roland guitar amp.

[Thrifty Empire]

Had my first charge-back in December. Tried to contact the seller 3 times to find out what the problem was as the PayPal notification was somewhat vague. Just copy pasted the same message all 3 times no response. It was the holidays and the item was such a small amount it wasn’t worth spending too much time on it. So I authorized the charge-back. I got hit with a $20 fee from PayPal, it’s not a huge deal the first time around. The package did show up 3 days later marked return to sender. So I gather that I’ll spend a bit more time working with it on future ones.

I did find a cache of vintage ski resort and olympic patches a couple years back for $4.00. So far I have sold them one at a time and got over $500 out of the $4.00. Pretty happy with that return.

[Steven S]

Jan 15-21 2017

Had a very slow week with 0 sale Thursday and only $395 in sales at the end of the day Friday then Saturday happened, 5 items sold for $1760! The week ain’t over ’til it’s over.

• Total Items in Store: 724
• Items Sold: 15 eBay
• International 0
• Total Sales $2155
• Highest Price $1340 Pioneer speakers and stands
• Average Price Sold: $144
• Returns: 0
• Cost of Items Sold: $122
• Cost of items purchased this week $50

Customer issue, I had to throw $12.50 at the guy who bought a TV converter for $25. He said it made his TV buzz. Converter was new in the box, 1 of 2 I paid $2 for. He was a nice guy and even said that the partial refund was up to me and he wouldn’t leave negative feedback either way, he left me a good positive.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Glad it worked out Steven… but just shows that some people like to complain for the sake of complaining. He wasn’t going to return the item or leave negative feedback, but yet he still wanted to put it in your ear.

[Rydell Relics]

RR Store Week January 15-21, 2017

Total Items in Store: 1152
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $47.99
Total Sales: $557.84
Highest Price Sold: $79.99 x 2 (1935 Ford rubber toy car/The Beatles VI LP)
Average Price Sold: $32.81
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 26 new/85 sell similar

I had to take some time out this week for health reasons. Turns out I have to go gluten free! Such a bummer, but if that helps with my ears and the other symptoms, I’m all for it. Today is Day 6…so far, so good. And I found some pretty tasty gluten free beers, so all is not lost.

Two estate sale runs last Saturday yielded great results. That rubber Ford toy was a souvenir from a exposition held in 1935; it has a great decal on the top. It sold at full price about an hour after listing it. I also picked up a Browning leather soft hand gun case. Had I not seen one on a “What Sold” video, I wouldn’t have known they were in demand. There were none on eBay, and the Completed Listings ranged from $30 to around $55. Since I had an exclusive, I priced it high at $69.99 firm. Sold within a few days. When in doubt, go high!

*Paul*

[whiskey]

Paul!! Sorry to hear about the health issues but glad it sounds like there is a game plan. Welcome to the world without gluten. Say goodbye to bread that is light and/or fluffy. Pizza. And most craft beers. Have you found Ommission and strangely enough, Coors Peak? They are the only two that really taste like beer to me. And I think Freschetta makes a decent gluten free pizza.

whiskey, celiacs diagnosis a couple of years ago but kicking butt and moving forward without processed wheat

[Rydell Relics]

Heya whiskey!

Thanks for the warm welcome into the GF world. Funny, the herbalist I saw recommended Omission, which I am enjoying. Stone makes a good one called Stone Delicious IPA that I liked as well. I’m pretty lucky living in Southern California; gluten free choices are fairly abundant. But I’m still lamenting the loss of some of my favorites. I’m also a vegetarian, so that really bumps up the difficulty level. Ah well, I’ve been meaning to eat better anyway. Can’t hurt!

*Paul*

[whiskey]

A world no one wants to live in! Thank you for telling me about Stone’s Delicious IPA. Stone’s Arrogant Bastard and Smokey Porter were my favorites until I couldn’t enjoy them anymore. I am already in the process of tracking one down. The only caveat is that Ommision and the Delicious IPA are not truly gluten free. They fall under the 2 million ppm that allows them to be called gluten free (Stone doesn’t call it gluten free, they use the term gluten reduced or something.). This typically means I can enjoy one, maybe two, before symptoms set in. But I am super excited to try it.

GF is same here in Oregon. It’s as abundant as possible. And thankfully meat and eggs provide protein for me, but I have come to love quinoa and edamame as alternative sources.

[Kelly1mm]

Jan 15-21
Items/listings in store 1476/1302
Sold 15
COGS $175.20 for items ($59.60 each for 2 RA items see below) , 107.25 free shipping = $282.45 (I offer free shipping on 99% of my items)
Sales $559.92
Highest Price Sold: $100.74 x2 Lego’s Star Wars Sets – I had 3 of these sitting for 6 months and all 3 sold beginning last week – see that post for cost details
Lowest Price Sold $12.00 (4 pack of Airwick Scented oils – cogs 1.06 cents, shipping 3.65, packaging .25, fees $1.51 = $6.47, profit = 5.53)
Average price Per Sale $37.32
Intl – 0
Returns –1 (clothing for fit)
$ spent On New Merch –$24
Listed New 35 Items
Return rate 1.20% overall / 1.92 clothing

Glad to be almost done with my RA experiments. Relatively lots of cash tied up for the return (ROI of about 30% after all is said and done) and margins of 21%. 3 of my sales were RA accounting for almost 80% of the COGS above.

Lowest sale is a grocery store item I pick up when my grocery store has bonus gas points on them. After the use of coupons and the value of gas I can get some products for less than free (as in the value of the gas is let than I pay to take them out of the store). Thus I will keep doing selling them when I get them for the gas points.

Doing a lot more organizing of inventory and moving to a yet again bigger storage space in the house (went from a closet to the closet 1 shelf to a bedroom to a bedroom and 1/2 basement and now to the attic for clothes storage, bedroom for listing/photos/office work, 1/2 basement for hard goods death pile storage.

We are moving in a few years and we already have purchased 2 separate properties in our new location as the rule will be no ebay stuff where we live! I think separation will be a good thing. We do plan to use ebay funds to at least assist in our gut remodel of the new-to-us farmette.

[Freds_Premium]

• Total Items in Store: 633
• Items Sold: 55
• Total Sales $1,554.73
• Average Price Sold: $28.27
• Cost of Items Sold: $165

This global warming gave me a 66 degree day when I was out sourcing. It was the busiest day I think where the checkout lines were 30 minutes long. These temperatures also keep people away from Ebay though. Seems like a lot of people are complaining about sales on Reddit and Youtube. I want to know if someone knows where to get information that shows Ebay sales by specific category year by year or monthly. Does something like Terrapeak offer this?

[michael d]

Fred, you have been killing it lately. Are you still 100% clothing? Impressed with your growth.

[Freds_Premium]

Yes, all men’s clothing. My goal is to expand and add man hours.

[michael d]

We do well with suits and dress shirts, mostly the stuff we bought when mens warehouse went out of business. I want to stop doing clothing but its such an easy stream of income. Cheap to buy, easy to list and relativity fast selling.

[Freds_Premium]

Clothing is great because you can have thousands of inventory in 1/8th of a small bedroom. Basically no storage costs. There is an unlimited supply of it and I can go to the source at anytime. Easy to ship, 65% goes in a poly bag and 30% go in a legal flat rate envelope, 5% in boxes from the Ebay store coupon. Clothing is efficient to list, no testing, limited cleaning, no counting all the pieces, no preparation. Best of all is that it’s interesting. I remember in highschool about dreaming of affording certain brands and now I can get them for next to nothing compared to the price of new. I have a Brooks Brothers alpaca and wool flannel lined jacket on as I write this and I paid less than $7 for it. This is just one example of something really exciting for me and it is all a part of the business.

[Erik]

Total Items in Store: 851
Items Sold: 27
Cost of Items Sold: $205
Total Sales: $1,197
Highest Price Sold: $129 Iphone 5S
Average Price Sold: $44.33

Was slow this week except for a couple 400+ days which made the week end up descent…I an learning to not make a big deal about good days and bad day but just be consistent. It all ends up selling eventually. Picking has been really difficult here in California. Not sure how seasonal that is, I cant seem to remember things being like this last year…but I still have a backlog so I cant complain too much.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Erik.

[Idahoarder]

Store Week 1/15/17 – 1/21/17

Total items in store: 936
Items sold: 11
Cost of items sold: $7.55
Total sales: $235.97
Highest price sold: $45.00 (Smashing Pumpkins poster)
Average price sold: $21.45
International Sales: 1
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory this week: 0

[sonia]

Jay: there may be a typo in your blog post? You say “slow nickel vs. fast dime” – I think you might mean slow dime vs. fast nickel.

[Ryanne]

oops, yep, fixed. thanks sonia. glad you knew what we meant.

[Julie B]

Traveled to Iowa to visit family last week. Ever since my last trip home when I found a drum at a local thrift for $4 that I flipped within 24 hours for $385, my parents are very excited about taking me to thrift stores in the area. They try to help me find stuff at Goodwill, which is cute but kind of annoying because things they thought were “valuable” in their day, are actually quite common (i.e. Avon & Norman Rockwell junk, Bavarian dishes, things from U.S. occupied Japan, etc.). I felt bad for frequently having to say, “No, I don’t think that will really sell.” Finally my mom found a nice pair of Kate Spade shoes that I wouldn’t have necessarily purchased on my own at $19.99, but felt like I needed to buy in order to keep from being a Buzz Killington. She was very excited. My husband brought me a mass produced sign for $1.99 that he was excited could possibly sell for…..$10. I bought it for no other reason than to encourage him to perhaps get into the ebay flipping game himself eventually.

Some of my better sales during the week 1/15/17 – 1/22/17:
Walt Disney Oliver & Company 4′ x 10′ movie banner – $75
Polar Bear Sweater – $199.99
St John Quarter Zip Sweater – $59.99

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Julie – I hear you on some of that stuff that seems good but has been overproduced. I fell into the Avon trap like 3 years ago and ended up donating most of it back for a tax write off. I learned my lessons. My mom, however, just retired so she started an eBay shop because “I make it look so easy”. She is falling into all of the pitfalls that I did starting out, even though I literally made her a list of things to do and not to do – buying that garbage stuff, becoming emotionally attached to things, taking a negative or bad experience too hard, and of course the big one is that she has been agreeing to list things for friends and not accounting for the fees she’ll be entailing. I guess people never learn unless they do it on their own.

[Liz]

I hear you, Julie. My husband seems stuck on things he remembers as special and “fancy” from his childhood. Made in Japan teacups have a tendency to follow him home. Luckily he doesn’t venture out too much on his own any more. When he does, I just smile, say “Thank you so much!”, and cross my fingers that we’ll break even.

[pam n]

I know what you mean, Julie. Relatives get excited about dusty piles of glassware and figurines that depress the hell out of me, but I do take an occasional item, since I appreciate that they want to help me out!

[Retrodottie]

Hi Jay & Ryanne!We buy books by the truckload almost weekly, our last load there was a box on a pallet that was loaded with random stuff and alot of housewares. So far we have sold a VTech game system and I just listed 2 sets of china (not complete)from this box. We will end up making approx $450 from that box alone. Our entire truck – 10 boxes cost $768. So yes this was a pleasant surprise!
Thanks for all of your great content!
Mary

[Jay]

–Where do you buy these truckload of items?
–How much do you normally pay?
–How do you list so many items?

[Sharyn]

Week of Jan 15 – 21
* Total Items in Store: 602
* Items Sold: 21
* Cost of Items Sold: $22.26 + 51.14 Commission
* Total Sales: $435
* Highest Price Sold: $50 Winter scene oil painting
* Average Price Sold: $20.71
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $121
* Number of items listed this week: 42

I am pretty sure that this was my best week ever! I was somewhat disappointed with holiday sales, but apparently my items are better for the people that want to buy for themselves and not for gifts.

I purchased the oil painting in May last year for $2. I had it listed for $80 and took a best offer of $50. That was a long tail item worth waiting for!

The money I spent on new inventory was $45 for two items at an estate sale and $76 for 9 lots in an online auction. I realize why I like online auctions so much. I don’t negotiate well at estate/garage sales. The one I went to had just opened an hour or so earlier, and I saw that they weren’t negotiating much. I didn’t have time to go the second day when I would be more comfortable with asking for a lower price, but I did get a large hand carved wood chess set and a very old sewing machine in working condition!

About 9 of my sold items are on consignment for a family friend, and my COGS show how much I owe her. Most of the items I listed were her items as well. I have a number of her items yet to list, but I’m going to take a break and list some of my new inventory.

[shortandstout]

Store info for the week:

(Main/T-shirt/Postcard)

Items in store: 168/106/10
Items Sold: 2/1/1
COGS: $10/$0.49/$0.10
Total Sales Price + collected Shipping: $68.60/$12.99/$6.49
Top Sale: $43.99 NWT Thirty-One Bag/Polo by RL Shirt/RPPC Muir Woods CA
Net Profit: $32.96/$7.33/$4.75 = $45.04
International: 0
Returns: 0
New Listings: 1/20/0
Spent on new inventory: $10.39 on shirts

Better week than last week which I’m glad for. Making an effort to put aside more time for listing. T-shirts are still the easiest to get up, but I also need to work on the main store backlog. Taking some time tonight to photograph and make sure I have my listed items stored and not randomly stuck around the house. Other than the t-shirts and postcards, my inventory is pretty scattered and I’m the only one who knows where I put stuff. I started off with a spreadsheet and labeled tubs for the t-shirts to make locating them easier. I’m going to start something similar with the other hard goods.

My scavenge of the week for was Free tickets to the PSU Men’s Hockey Game on Saturday night. Since they scored a goal, a local deli shop offers free 9″ subs with a game ticket so lunch today will be free subs for me and the hubby!

[SuttonParks]

Total items in store: 271
Items sold: 24
Total sales: $458.61
Highest price sold: $59.47 Phillips dvd/vhs player w/remote
Average price sold: $19.11
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory this week: $255.69
Items listed: 36

I’ve been listing 50 items per week for the last month and fell short last week.

My goal of $300 profit per week to fund my Appalachian Trail hike in 2018 is working so far. I remind myself that the summer is coming and that it is slower so keep building that inventory.
I usually spend about $120 per week at the Goodwill outlet but last week there was a 50% off sale at a thrift store and I found some good deals.
Eventually I’ll need to get the average price up too. Right now I’m just hustling to hit my main goal. I have been running a 15% off sale during the week and 20% off for the weekends. I think that may help but I’ve found that nothing seems to help sales like consistent listing, just like they say on the podcast.

[michael d]

Suttonparks,

Are you going to do a thru-hike or section? I just read AWOL on the Appalachian Trail (before I sold it) and I would love to do it when I retire, cant see taking off 4-5 months right now.

[JasonK]

Speaking of charge-backs I had my first one this week as well. Buyer purchased a pair of Nike shoes for $60 on Jan 15th. Never contacted me about any issues and then initiated a charge back through their credit card saying they did not authorize the payment. I called PayPal and they said that since I had tracking information showing the item being delivered to the address on the PayPal account that all was good. They had me respond to the case on the PayPal website then released the funds so they were no longer being held. Now I’m just waiting to see if the buyer tries to appeal the case.

[Jay]

Cool. I promise that if you have tracking that says “delivered”, then Paypal and eBay will back you up to the end.

[Erik]

Even if it was a fraudulent charge, Paypal would make you and the ebay customer whole

[Marie in Florida]

I would have had a poor week, but I sold one great item. Makes all the difference in the world.
Total Items in Store: 251
Items Sold: 5
Total Sales: $473
Highest Price Sold: $425 Alden Shell Cordovan Shoes were branded by Nordstrom as well as Alden. I had them up for $549 and considered this best offer to be a good return for my investment of $10.
Lowest Price: Banana Republic shirt Won’t buy again unless it’s new
Average Price Sold: $94
Returns: 1 that the PO said went to a vacant address. What do I do with this?
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $1 Too many death piles

[Jay]

That’s a great sale. Congrats.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Total Items in Store: 626
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $39
Total Sales: $325
Profit: $286
Highest Price Sold: $50 Vintage Roos Womens Wool jacket
Average Price Sold: $36.11
Average Profit: $31.78

Another week of no thrifting and no listing. Stuff is still selling though! Sold 4 items already today. Amazon FBA was a total dud – no sales at all.

I’ve lost 20 lbs so far over the last few weeks. No dieting, eating clean, no junk food and moving alot. My basal metabolic rate says I should eat a minimum 2500 calories…it is INCREDIBLY difficult to get 2500 calories while eating clean. I stretch a lot, do yoga, and walk often. I have a fitbit charge HR. that device along with the app really helps motivate and keep things in perspective. My resting heart rate has dropped 10 points since I made my change for a healthier life. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the other side of 300 again, but I’m patient and disciplined enough to not take shortcuts to get there this time.

Have a great week everyone!

[Jay]

Good for you. Its much more important to change your habits permanently than lose weight quickly. These changes you’re making will keep the weight off as you slowly shed the pounds.

I like the term “eating clean”. Really just gets up back to pre-1950s. Eat raw/unprepared food you have to prepare yourself. Get away from processed food. And if you have the time, its much cheaper to eat this way.

[shortandstout]

Yes, congrats on the healthy lifestyle changes and the resulting weight loss!!!

[ChristineR]

retro – I’m on vacation but I wanted to pop in and say I am rooting for you. My dad has had great success with weight watchers in the past and Oprah has a new cookbook. WW is a budgeting system that allows you from feeling totally deprived, and you could probably find used cheap point guide. I’m thinking of trying the cookbook because I figure with her resources she probably has some tricks in there to keep things tasty and healthy.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Christine you should try out a fitbit along with its app. You can keep a food journal in the app in which pretty much every food in the world already has its nurtritional info stored in the cloud. You can scan the upc of a packaged food and log it directly. You can create custom meals by searching out the ingredients. It’s awesome. Getting real-time feedback on progress is very motivating. I find it to be almost like playing a game to log my food.

[GreenDragon]

I’m planning a twist on the “going full time” idea. My wife works as an elementary teacher. The work is never ending and the pay is crappy. I floated the idea to her of partnering up with me on ebay and leaving her job. I didn’t think she’d be interested but she is. We’re going to begin training on her spring break and hit the ground running during the summer while she’s off. The moral of the story is that I’m going to use ebay to fund HER freedom while I continue ebay part time and work full time.

[Jay]

That’s great. My advice is to make sure she really take the reins of the business if she’s the oen going full-time. She really needs to be in charge if she’s going to be productive.

[GreenDragon]

I absolutely agree. We actually had 2 separate, scheduled meetings to discuss the details of the transition. The first was an overview of the plan and the work involved. The second involved the financials and goals. It is nice that we’ll have the summer as a trial period. As her and I discussed, it will only work if the numbers work and the numbers will only work if she puts in the right amount of work. She has a good work ethic but there is still a leap of faith in her not having actually done this work on a daily basis over a long period of time. We’ll see how it goes. She’s excited about the prospect. I figure that there is not really a ton of risk involved in trying it out and the potential reward is a moderate to significant quality of life improvement.

[michael d]

I like how you said you had two scheduled meetings, keep it business oriented and away from hobby-esque if she is going to switch to full time. I have helped a few people get started full-time on ebay just to see switch it to a part time hobby on the weekend or only when yard sales start up. Come up with a plan on how many hours per week she wants to put in, what you expect to get out of those hours. Keep in mind summer sales are typically lower, so don’t let her get discouraged if amazing numbers do not happen in the three months that shes off.

[hartleymanages]

Total Items in Store: 271
Items Sold: 21
Total Sales: $1,057.57
Highest Price Sold: $450 Bose Acoustic Wave 6 CD player
Average Price Sold: $50.36
Returns: 0

The Bose CD player I found on Offer Up for $60 so no complaints there. Took less than a month to sell. I also sold a 400 capacity CD/DVD player (!!!) for $200 that I paid $80 for. That sold in less than a week. People still love their physical media.

[jinedo58]

Total Items in store:928
Items Sold:10
Total Sales: 174.00
Highest Priced Item Sold:Goldman Sachs Baseball Cap
Average Price of items sold:$17.40
Money spent on new inventory $15.00
New listings 10

Slow,but its been slow for over a year, trying to rethink and try new things like offering free shipping on baseball caps

[BGB]

Total Items in Store: 229
Items Sold: 13
Cost of Items Sold: $30
Total Sales: $259.89
Highest Price Sold: $64.99 Some (delightfully) junky plastic toys from the 60s
Average Price Sold: $19.99

Listening to the podcast paid off this week. I had a return request for an item damaged in shipping. Only thing was, it had been a week since the item had been delivered by this point. Sure, some people don’t open packages right away, but something seemed a little off in the way they approached me, like it was an exploratory mission to see what they could get away with.

My feeling was that this person broke the item (a picture frame) and then said it occurred during transit. Did I have any proof of this? Nope. So I take the return and figure I’ll eat the expense.

But they didn’t send it back, so I got to call eBay and have them close the case in my favor! I wouldn’t have known to do that without the podcast, so you all saved me some money.

[michael d]

Store #1
Total Items in Store: 8735
Items Sold: 139
Cost of Items Sold: $213
Total Sales: $2758.12
Highest Price Sold: $500 (Hach pipesonde probe)
Average Price Sold: $19.84
Returns: 6 (clothes and one appliance part)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0

Nice to come back from a week vacation and see good numbers, still havn’t listed anything other than remotes and books since mid December. Have about 200 items waiting to be listed, just short on time since switching books to 100% merchant fulfilled.

Top seller was a Hach Pipesonde Water Probe, for $500, we purchased this along with two pallets of other water testing equipment from Fairfax Water Authority surplus auction. Spent $175 on two pallets, this piece was the highest priced item and overall the two pallets have made a little over 3k in the last year. Other high sellers were a Beachbody DVD Set for $175 and a 60L Suit for $100.

Interview with the new employee didn’t pan out, so back to the drawing board on that front. Looking forward to catching up with work after taking such a long break, things are once again transforming from death piles to death mountains.

[pam n]

Store Week Jan 8-14
Total Items in Store: 437
Items Sold: 16
Cost of Items Sold: $45
Total Sales: $865
Highest Price Sold: $400 ASE Gatsby book
Average Price Sold: $54
Returns: 0
International Sales via GSP: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory: $70
Number of items listed this week: 18

Highest sale yet for me this week. I picked up a lot of around 50 Armed Services Edition books at an auction for $20. These are small paperbacks issued to the military during WW2. There are hundreds of titles and a collector’s market for the books. Apparently, the Great Gatsby had its first paperback release in this format. The book originally came out in the 1920s, but its eventual rise to classic literature status occurred at least in part to service people reading the book. The only copy I could find sold for $325 on Etsy, so I decided to price mine at $400. The buyer initially offered me $250, but before I could respond he purchased it outright for full price. Yesss, love this biz. I appreciate not only the $$$, but learning random facts when I research the items I acquire.

[Idahoarder]

Wow, great sale! I generally don’t spend time looking through books (not my thing), but I’ll be sure to keep and eye out for these. I know books can be big sellers, so I really should try to learn some more about what sells.

[Paulo H Leocadio]

Ryanne, need please your advice.

Because of some (good) time constraints (super busy 🙂 ), I am a little behind on watching and reading/commenting.
The challenge is that some important topics accumulate outside the scope of the current/latest podcast.
Please let me know what and how you prefer me to do.
Just to give you a couple of examples, I want to comment on a scavenging trip to Madison (and a new 6 month long project), the new eBay voucher and generic curiosity about my store sales.

Thank you in advance!!! 🙂 😉

[Jay]

Can’t you just start a new topic?
Just pick a relevant category and let’s talk.

[RevivalWares]

Week January 15-21, 2017
Total Items in Store: ~115
Items Sold: 6 (5 Ebay, 1 Kijiji)
Cost of Items Sold: $19.98
Total Sales: $183 Total Net Profit:$ 157.43
Highest Price Sold: Dale of Norway Men’s Sweater $60
Average Price Sold: $30.50
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: 21.49
Number of items listed this week: 11

For me this was my best week yet. 3 months in but have been much too slow with listing. Trying to pick up the pace!

[Habnab]

January got off to a super-rocky start this year, but I had a decent fabric sale this week ($500/three yards of high-end upholstery fabric) and a fun antique lightbulb sale ($50) and a few other sales to round out the week. I’ve also found a few pretty good paintings recently so I’m feeling a little bit better as we head into February.

I got sidelined a little bit this past week — I found a vintage Commodore 64 and a ton of games/accessories at a junk store and have spent too many hours tinkering with it and playing Donkey Kong with the family. Lost a bit of sourcing/listing time but sometimes you just have to give in to the hyperfocus.

The closest I’ve come to buying a cache was finding a gallon-sized bag of victorian-era buttons at a local thrift. I’ve been researching and selling buttons out of that bag for several years.

[Jay]

I remember those buttons. That’s was a great cache especially since they came from the dump!

We just bought two small boxes of buttons at an auction today.
Not as old as yours, but I hope we squeeze out the dollars.

[MyCottage]

Wow, habnab, congrats on the fabric sale! For me, five hundred dollars for three yards of fabric is a lot better than a decent sale…I’d call it great! What sort of fabric was it?

[Habnab]

My Cottage, it was some high-end upholstery fabric that’s actually still in production, though this roll was at least 7 years old. I learn decorator fabric names from Elle Decor and other decorating magazines and spring when I find them.

Some names to know:

Lee Joffa
Scalamandre
Brunschwig & Fils
Cowtan & Tout
Clarence House

I live near several enclaves of summer homes for the super-wealthy, and so fabric remnants and other decorator goodies fall into the benthic zone occasionally, where we bottom-feeders scoop them up. 🙂

[Gladys]

Didn’t get a chance to post last week, so here’s a 2 week summary:

1/8 – 1/21
Total items listed – 91
Total items sold – 2
Total Sales – $31.45
Highest price sold – $21.95
COGS – $1
Returns – 0
Money spent on new inventory – $7.80
New items listed – 11

The highest price item I sold was a Jaguar Automobile baseball cap that I had bought the week before for $1. Sold in less than a week and for my full asking price. I’m not sure I would have even thought about trying to sell baseball/trucker hats if not for this podcast, so thank you very much!!!

I’ve gone to several thrift stores I’ve not visited before with good results. I’m finding I can get baseball caps for $1 and ties for 50 cents pretty consistently, so I’m focusing on them right now. They are easy to list, easy to store and easy to ship, which works well for me right now. My goal is to have 100 items listed by the end of the month, and I have enough on hand to make that happen.

[Jay]

Be careful about buying too many ties. They’re cheap because no one wants them. They can sell, but very slowly and only certain brands/styles. It’s a beginner’s trap.

[Manateejaq]

Jan 15-21 2017
Total items in store: Etsy 298 // Ebay 56
Items Sold: Etsy 8 // Ebay 0
Cost of items sold: Etsy $24.11
Total Sales: Etsy $83.80 // Ebay $0
Highest Price Sold: $14.85 for a vintage My Little Pony
Average Price Sold: $10.48
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 4

Bad weather + illness = little work done. 🙁

I love finding caches too! I found an entire collection of Rainbow Brite dolls & all their Sprites at a thrift store one time. So exciting! A few months later the same store had HUNDREDS of troll dolls (these I passed on, at the time, I just had no space for them).

Another year I went to a garage sale where a man was selling his ENTIRE collection of action figures – Thundercats, Ninja Turtles, Masters of the Universe. He had ALL the Ninja Turtle figures from the original line from 1988 to 1993. I bought ALL OF THEM. 🙂 He had them all individually bagged up with their weapons and accessories. WOW. I have never spend so much money at a garage sale before. I have since sold all but two of them, and made lots of profit! Woot! My only regret is that I didn’t buy all the play sets and other things from him. I just didn’t have the space! I am pretty sure he had an ultra rare playset worth about $900 that at the time I knew nothing about… (he gave me a stack of pamphlets/mini comics that went with the action figures and sets, and the comic for that playset was in there). I probably passed up on some major money. D:

[Sharyn]

Since I buy much of my stuff at online & live auctions, I tend to get many caches of the same type of item. This can be a good thing and a huge time saver. Often, research can be shortened because what you learned about the first item you pull out applies to many other items in the same box. The first time you photograph something, you figure out what how to best to show the item, which speeds up the process on subsequent items. Then, using “sell similar” really speeds up the process of listing.

Right now, I’m looking at an online auction where several of the auction lots consist of many similar items. The previous owner obviously collected these over many years. If I end up winning any of these lots, listing will be a breeze after the first one.

[Gladys]

Thanks for the caution on ties Jay. I’m trying to be very selective about the ones I choose, and keep learning as I research to list them.

[Liz]

If you can get a big box of ties for cheap, you can sell them as a craft lot. But the key is lots of ties for really cheap, otherwise it is not worth it.

[Retro Treasures WV]

I love cache stories. Back when I first got serious about selling on ebay, I bought this huge tub of these math manipulative blocks from goodwill for like $7. We sorted them all by color and I sold them in sets of 10 blocks of each color – I think 8 colors- for $8 a set. I ended up making close to $200 and it only took a month or two to sell them all.

Another cache I’ve happened upon was at the habitat for humanity restore. I got three caches that day – a big box of price guns, a bunch of new in box paper towel dispensers, and a bunch of track lighting lights. I did VERY well on the price guns – $30 to $40 a pop and I’ve sold all but one. I’ve done decent on the paper towel holders – still have 4-5 left. I regret the lights – I haven’t sold a single darn one. I think I’m gonna bottom out the price just to move them. I only paid $1 per light, so hopefully I can still make a few bucks.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Retro Treasures WV.

[lizlangsteiner]

Jan 15 – 21
Total items in store 1066?
Sold 12
COGS 42.00
Highest Price Sold 124.99 Longchamp Handbag paid 10.00 at local thrift store
Ave Price 37.49
INTL –
Returns –
Spent on new merch 60.00
16 new listings

Still in Ocean Beach California. Sold a Longchamp handbag that I bought a a local thrift store, shipped it on Monday. Thrift store prices are much higher here in SO CAL makes me appreciate even more my local honey holes at home in Missouri.

J&R I see you have over 5000 listings in your main store congratulations on that!

[Jay]

Thanks. Having an employee certainly makes listing happen faster.
Hope SOCAL is treating you well. Enjoy the sunshine.

[Habnab]

I passed up a possible good cache today because I choked on the price and wasn’t sure it would maintain my attention; a whole binder of stamps (not at all my category, but wait –) from African countries (– makes it way more interesting!)between about 1920 and 1965. I’m still mulling it over. It was $85, so way above my flinch point. Anything under $40 and I would have made the gamble.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Habnab.

[Jay]

Stamps are a tough one. We’re listing a huge amount of stamps and First Day envelops. (let me correct myself: Ryanne is doing all the research and our employee is listing! But it tires me out just watching them.)

Obviously $85 would probably be easy to make back if its a big enough lot of stamps in good shape. But you really do have to be committed to research and tedious listing.

[shortandstout]

Here is a cache for any clothing sellers in the NY Area:

vintage Disco Shirts

This seller has 2000 or so New Old Stock 1970’s Disco style shirts they are selling as one lot for $10,000. Way outside my price point and listing ability right now. The seller claims that they sell for anywhere between $40 to $120 in vintage boutiques and currently are not on the Amazon/Ebay/Etsy markets in mass, if at all. Research would have to be done on that claim.

I’d do it if I was farther along in my selling and had the capital to invest. The pictures of the shirts they have are so vintage 70’s fugly they are absolutely awesome!

[Terri]

My only cache so far was a bag containing 17 packages of identical vintage nylon stockings. They weren’t high-end stockings, but all were a long size that I knew would sell well to the male market. The entire bag was marked at .99 (Savers). They each sold for $12.99 with free shipping that cost me $2.60. Grossed about $175 from a .99 investment over the course of a couple months.

[retiredtreasures719]

My most recent cache was two 5-shelve bookcases and all the books on them for $31. I had one bookcase sold before I ever picked them up. The books were mostly cookbooks and Knitting books. A few were specialty items that will go for good money, but most are pretty common and I’m listing them for $5-9 each. I’ve already made my purchase price back plus some. Books are so easy to list if the ISBN matches!

[Liz]

I once found a bottle of never used Alamo beer bottle caps for $4 or $5 at Goodwill. I think I made $400-$500 off that bag, selling the caps one at a time. A bunch of them went to a collector in Russia.

I never did find out why those particular caps were in such high demand.

[So Cal Joe]

Caches over the last 1 1/2 years..

Box of Hot Wheels cars, cases, tracks etc.. paid $80. After many listings sold for about $750..

Small box of electrical parts.. $10 at yard sale.. over $350 in sales.

Box of over 50 assorted shot glasses.. Paid $5 at yard sale.. sold over $450 after many listings..

Box of 5 very old Whiskey bottles.. paid $7.. sold $550.

Recently bought a bunch of books for $12 at a box lot auction… so far over $400 in sales..

I bought over 500 sewing patterns for $30.. so far $0.. still have to figure this one out.

It sure does keep it interesting.

[almasty]

I am so conflicted about caches. It is nice to find a batch of something that will be easy to list because all you have to do is duplicate listings. Easy, right? Well, not if you sell online full-time and continue sourcing around your cache. You’ll find you still have unlisted portionsof your hoard a year or more later. Caches are the number 1 source of death piles in my household.

[pythonesk]

We got a box of these advertising posters for $3 at an auction and we’ve been selling them for $5 a piece. So far sold about 10 of them:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SKI-Soda-Citrus-Soda-Pop-Soft-Drink-Advertising-Poster-Sexy-Nurse-Cleavage-/112017506948?hash=item1a14c38284:g:d3sAAOSwepJXUzcI

[Yayato4boysand1girl]

Ryanne you just have to know how hard I laughed when you said ” Amazon you can go straight to Hell !” . I’m actually still laughing !

[LaLeslie]

Hi Guys, anyone having issues with hacking? I had a listing sold yesterday only to learn it was a hack. The buyer had to change their password..I then relisted the item and sure enough, 2 hours later it sold again. Hacked from another buyer that didn’t have anything to do with the purchase. I was on the phone with Ebay this morning and they encouraged me to change MY password. Anyone have this issue before?

[Sharyn]

oops, I meant to reply to your comment with my message below.

[Sharyn]

I have not had a hacker buy something, at least, not that I’m aware of. The only issue I had was from a hacked account telling me that someone was plagiarizing my listings. It looked suspicious to me, so I didn’t do anything. Later, I received a standard email from eBay saying that the message was from a hacked account.

How did you know that the first sale was a hacker, did the real person from that account contact you? Other than the fact that you were suspicious of the second sale because of the first one, how do you know whether a sale is from a hacked user?

I’m not sure why you have to change your password if the buyers are the ones being hacked, but, of course, it is a good idea.

[LaLeslie]

I knew the first sale was a hacker bc I sent them an invoice and they replied they were hacked. Then Ebay contacted me to let me know the first transaction was a hack. Im not sure how it was possible to be hacked on the same listing within 2 hours. So that’s why I contacted Ebay today and changed my password. I have since relisted the SAME listing (a 19th c painting)…so lets see if I get hacked again. Would be nice to have an actual sale.

[Jay]

That doesn’t sound fun. We hate when an item sells, but then we have to re-list because of some issue.

Just to clarify, your account has not been hacked. The people buying this item are saying that someone has taken over their account. Seems weird that if they lost control of their account, they could still respond to your message. Did you sell it on auction?

But this kind of issue is something eBay and Paypal has to deal with. That;s why they get 10% of the profits. That item will sell again.

[LaLeslie]

Jay, this item was a BIN item. Im just confused how/why this happened. I decided to take the painting down as my brother thought it looked “controversial, bc it looks like Bin Ladin”. Ebay didnt have an issue with it, but maybe a hacker did?? Cant think of any other reason.

[Author]

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