Home › Forums › Weekly Numbers › Scavenger Life Episode 318: Spending Money Should Be Painful
- This topic has 57 replies, 31 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 9 months ago by dearmila.
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07/10/2017 at 9:09 am #20174
As we’ve mentioned before, we’ve been spending all of our money on the new renovation which is about to be finished. We got an email this week that sp
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 318: Spending Money Should Be Painful] -
07/10/2017 at 9:58 am #20176
Total Items in Store: 769
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $91.25
Total Sales: $621
Profit: $529.75
Highest Price Sold: $130 Nike Barry Sanders Sneakers
Average Price Sold: $36.53
Average Profit: $31.16Pretty good week. Sold the first pair of the huge lot of Nikes I bought a couple weeks ago. Yay! Could have gotten more but the Barry Sanders ones didn’t have insoles. Were like new otherwise.
Sold sweatshirts and a jacket this week. Always find those off-season sales interesting.
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07/10/2017 at 10:23 am #20178
Spending money for me is painful for sure. But I find the biggest enemy of thrift is haste and hunger/frustration. I tend to spend too much when in a mindset of “ugh, let’s just get this done”.
I’m instituting a “scavenging wish list” with myself and my wife so that if we know in advance we’re going to want to buy something, I can keep my eyes out for it while sourcing.
So last week was pretty good, except I accrued a -$60 profit from an item I overpaid for for personal use, then subsequently sold off.
Sales: CAD$436, 5 items
COGS: $197 ($140 of that is that stupid tent I bought)
Profit: $162
Hours: 12 ($14/hr equivalent)
Items listed: 14 (total ~170 in store)
Expenses: $158
Cashflow: $278
Notable sales: Art-deco style eagle lamp $25–>$150 profit $105.
Also sold the first of the 22 under-desk CPU holders I bought a pallet of. Sold for $50 (paid $10). Not a huge profit but this was an open-box one so I let it go for less… encouraged to see this go, hopefully the others will bring $75+. -
07/10/2017 at 10:30 am #20179
Also sold a couple Coleman stoves & heaters. I love selling Coleman stuff, you can get it cheap at garage sales and it always sells well if in good condition.
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07/10/2017 at 10:49 am #20180
July 2 – 8
Total Items in Store: 943
Items Sold: 28 (11 of which were slides to the same person)
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $782
Net Profit: $592
Highest Price: $116 (Sony Minidisc Player/Recorder Deck MDS-JE520)
Average Price: $28
Returns: 1 (pair of cheap $12 opera glasses that must have broke in shipping)
Cost of Items Sold: $26
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $9I had another successful week, but it was my slide auctions that saved me. More on that below. I kind of took it easy with listing last week. I focused more on getting things done around the house. I took an impromptu road trip to upstate New York for a couple of days for a getaway. Stopped by a few thrift stores in Syracuse but they were all pretty bleak. Then spent most of my weekend catching up on eBay and getting my numbers ever-higher. I’m hoping to hit 1K here soon!
So now onto my slide auction experiment. I consider it a fluky success. And I only say fluky for one reason… all but one of my 12 slides that I listed were bought by the same person (and that last one didn’t sell at all so I’ll try listing it again). I listed them for the starting bid of what I realistically wanted to sell them for BIN based on interestingness, clarity and condition of each individual slide. I had a watcher or two on each one throughout the week, but there didn’t seem to have been much interest. That is until the last few seconds. All eleven sold for the opening bid except two which had a very small bidding war driving the price up a little bit. The winner of all was a person living in Korea. I checked out his feedback history and it looks like he’s a major collector of historical Korean items. So in conclusion, if it wasn’t for that person, I would have probably only sold a couple instead of 11. Total amount sold: $374. I’m going to try again this week with another round of slides from the same lot. Maybe I can get lucky again. I’ll report back next week if anyone is interested.
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07/10/2017 at 12:01 pm #20181
Hi Guys
I haven’t posted for a while as I’ve had a few interruptions to my summer (a business trip then an personal trip). The summer has been pretty good to my. My numbers this week are OK but I’ve had a couple of bigger weeks so I’m happy to skate through.
I recently had a birthday and I’ve decided that 3 years from my birthday will be the day I start my semi-retirement from the full-time work world. Up until that point I’m going to be hyper careful to save as much money as I can. I think discussions of finances and the scavenger life go hand in hand. If you’re not careful with your money, I doubt you’d be interested in reselling “treasure” from thrift stores. In my own life, I know that the people that are most wasteful with their money would be the ones that would be least likely to be interested in starting on eBay.
Total Items in Store: 1837
Items Sold: 30
Total Sales: $669
Cost of Items Sold: $49.77
Average Price Sold: $22.3
Average Cost of Item: $1.66
Highest Price Item Sold: $125 — 1940s photo album of photos from Saudi Arabia (found in a box of photo albums that I bought for $5 at a yard sale. I sold another one for $150 recently).
Number of items listed this week: 84
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 249
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 154
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 78
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.63%
# of Hats Sold: 23 (76% of sales) -
07/10/2017 at 12:03 pm #20182
For me, personally, since this is not my sole source of income spending money is not painful for me. I’m actually doing this so I CAN spend money relatively freely. Mine & my wife’s jobs cover the bills/necessities, and then my sales are pretty much all “play money”. Could be used for vacations, entertainment, nice dinners, etc, or in the case of late last year a contribution from my eBay sales put us over the top to do our bathroom renovation.
Can’t wait to listen on the commute home this afternoon!
Week July 2-8, 2017
Total Items in Store: 953
Items Sold: 34 (2 Amazon, 1 Bonanza)
Cost of Items Sold: $93 (8.8% of sales)
Total Sales: $1,060.83
Highest Price Sold: $140.24 (K&E Keuffel & Esser Deci-lon 10″ Slide Rule 68 1100 with Leather Sleeve)
Average Price Sold: $31.20
Returns: 1 (buyer was very apologetic about it and is paying for the return shipping, only a $20 item)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $282
Number of items listed this week: 32
Promoted listings test: 20 sales, $432.68 (40.8% of total sales), $26.58 fees (6.1% of sales)Another tremendous week for me! Still counting my blessings because I know this can’t keep up at this pace, albeit I would love it to!
Some of my top sales this week included the slide rule above on Bonanza, WWII Sharpshooter medals, and a Dr. Spock record. Otherwise, it was just high volume of bread & butter items priced $20-$40.
Picks this week were fantastic. Went to two sales and even though the pictures looked great, I didn’t expect to get the good stuff because I wasn’t early in line. Boy, was I wrong – light turnout maybe because of people headed on vacations, etc, but I’ll take it! At the first sale got a box lot of 1980s toys that included Tranformers, Thundercats, Master of the Universe, Centurions (sold within the hour of listing), Voltron, and a handful of others – paid $100 for the box and already made $70 back with the rest listed at $980 total. The second sale also netted some amazing pieces including 850+ Kodak slides, an awesome Victorian photo album, a 1960s Disneyland Railroad Engineer oil can, and more – spent $120 there and have everything listed for $1200.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Brian Treasures from Grandmas.
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07/10/2017 at 12:12 pm #20184
Store:lowcountryfashionfinds
Items in ebay store: 457
Ebay sales: $585.20
COGs ebay: $53.25
Average ebay sale: $24.38
Facebook sales: $130
COGs FB: $80
Highest ebay sale: $71 perfume
Best sale/ratio: on Friday bought vintage American Optical aviator sunglasses for 50 cents at thrift store and sold for $50. Also bought more glasses for 50 cents each of Kate Spade, Chanel, and RayBan, which hopefully sell just as fast.
Inventory purchased:$40Biggest purchase this week: maybe $20K; may buy a 42 foot catamaran sailboat currently in Guatemala. It’s a Wharram wooden boat, which are really cool Polynesian style boats. Step 1 to living on a boat in 2 years. Paying cash and hoping to negotiate down $5K on inspection. Normally they sell for $80K or higher, but as a thrifty person, I had alerts out on sites and had a shipbuilder keeping his ear to the ground for us. He called on July 4, and we sent $2K via PayPal on the same day to hold it until inspection in Aug. Very excited! We could sail it across oceans.
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07/10/2017 at 12:45 pm #20186
Store Week 7/2/17 – 7/8/17
Total items in store: 1387
Items sold: 17
Cost of items sold: $31.710
Total sales: $686.90
Highest price sold: $225.00 (WWII field jacket)
Average price sold: $40.41
International Sales: 1
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory this week: $65.00Sales were pretty good this week and I’m trying to work on listing anything that might be back to school related (backpacks and stuff), and thinking I should probably get on the fall stuff. Hard to do when it’s 100 degrees every day!
I’ve recently been trying some social networking for eBay, and so far it doesn’t seem to be making much difference. But yesterday I put a few items on Twitter and got quite a few retweets, so maybe it will help. Does anyone have any luck with this? Does Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook seem to help? Or maybe it’s hard to tell…
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07/10/2017 at 12:49 pm #20187
ThriftShift,
That’s quite a deal for a 42 foot Catamaran. I did a quick search and couldn’t find any under 100K. Why is this one you are looking at so cheap?
Market
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07/10/2017 at 1:32 pm #20189
Listening to the episode now. Interest peaked when I heard mention of “investment in assets” because not 30 minutes before, I had just finished Rich Dad Poor Dad. Very amused.
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07/10/2017 at 1:39 pm #20190
Total items in store: ebay,217, etsy, 471
Items sold: 8 on etsy, 3 on ebay
Total sales: $450
Highest price sold: $90. (vintage trunk on ebay)
Average price sold: $40.90
Returns: 0a decent week.
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07/10/2017 at 1:43 pm #20192
Re catamaran: it’s a Wharram which are usually self built, and it has wood hulls. I love them because you can pull up in two feet of water. It’s got a cRacked center beam which I have to repair to sail from Guatemala to SC. But I would rather spend the money repairing and outfitting the boat in the way I want. I will need an ebay room! Will probably start a renovation blog on it in a few months. It’s the 42 foot Wharram Pahi “Captain Cook” model. Maybe I’ll even do Airbnb for adventurers. Regardless, it is essentially a tiny house on the water. And it’ll be paid for in cash. I will do a sailing scavenging tour in the eastern US and Caribbean!
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07/10/2017 at 3:28 pm #20196
That’s an awful lot of effort to go through just to get a Scavenger Life interview. 😉
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07/10/2017 at 3:56 pm #20200
RR Store Week July 2-8, 2017
Total Items in Store: 1,300
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $37.74
Total Sales: $582.15
Highest Price Sold: $200 (signed Ravi Shankar CD)
Average Price Sold: $34.24
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 26Awful week. Between the Fourth of July, my girlfriend’s parent’s 50th anniversary party, and a middle of the night LAX airport pickup, I neglected the business way too much for my liking. But this week is totally free and clear, so I’m going to rage-list every damn day. I can’t have numbers like this, even if it is summer. I’m upping my goal to 70 items; that would be the most I’ve ever listed in a week.
The CD sale was awesome, and saved my butt. It was signed by Ravi Shankar and his daughter, Anoushka. It was in my personal collection, and although I love his music, I’m more interested in collecting his records. I picked it up years ago for less than five bucks.
Alright, off to make that 75 listings happen!
*Paul*
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07/10/2017 at 6:16 pm #20213
I just listened to the podcast.
It’s is amazing how much controlling our weight and controlling our finances have in common. Neither one is difficult to figure out, yet they can be almost impossible to master. Eat Less/
Exercise More vs. Spend less/Earn more.It sounds like the guy who Emailed you with all the debt, really needs Dave Ramsey.. I don’t agree with everything he teaches, but for people out of control he is very effective.
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07/10/2017 at 7:24 pm #20215
Retro Treasures: Ha! No thanks. You’re right in that a blog may be too much work for me. My husband is very social, but I am not. It would be his blog. I like ebay because I don’t have to deal with customers face to face, unlike my current day job. Ugh.
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07/10/2017 at 7:34 pm #20216
July 2-8 2017
• Total Items in Store: 811
• Items Sold: 21
• International 1 GSP
• Total Sales $1008
• Highest Price $140 Typewriter
• Average Price Sold: $48
• Returns: 0
• Cost of Items Sold: $40
• Cost of items purchased this week $120A more normal week but lots more packing.
I hate spending money. It’s been in the 90’s since June and I’m putting off getting my AC replaced, I think I can make it until next spring.
I will spend money on inventory without hesitation if I know I can make my margin. -
07/10/2017 at 10:57 pm #20219
About the emails, I am getting them again in my inbox. It took a few days of marking them “not spam” in order to get things into running order.
I had a thought. I really know nothing about this, but I’ll just throw it out there. I read some information on a website once about creating websites and newsletters. The guy stressed the importance of having a one-step unsubscribe link. When someone wants to unsubscribe but can’t find a quick link, they will label it as spam. If enough people do that, the spam filters will decide that this email address is spitting out spam.
Perhaps a few people were too lazy to log onto the forum and unsubscribe, so they clicked the spam link. Again, don’t take my word for it, but perhaps you should add a one-step unsubscribe link to the bottom. Maybe your webmaster will know.
Of course, now there will be people who will accidentally press the unsubscribe link and then will wonder why they aren’t getting the emails. You can’t win.
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07/10/2017 at 11:12 pm #20221
Ah, but is it painful to spend money on inventory, when you know it will make more money?
That is part of the fun for me– to spend without guilt for my ebay business. Of course I am very cheap when buying inventory, I don’t go crazy. -
07/10/2017 at 11:28 pm #20222
Total Items in Store: 2,129
Items Sold: 6
Cost of Items Sold: $30 (around)
Total Sales: $281.00
Highest Price Sold: $125 (Vintage Riedell Skates)
Average Price Sold: $46.83
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Not a good week for sales, but I was on a 2 week vacation with extended handling time and I didn’t list anything. I used Atlanta Mike’s advice and used TeamViewer to connect to my home computer from the beach in Florida. This enabled me to change my handling time from 10 days to 5 days midway through a 2 week vacation. It was quick and easy. I used a phone hot spot so that it was secure. When I got home, just changed it back to 1 day. I could have just kept changing it down to 4,3,2,1, but I was too relaxed at the beach.
The good news was the “Make-up cache” that I bought and now have listed is doing well. Brian B was asking for an update, well here it is. I paid $150 for about 650 make up items that I could list (some were damaged and not worth listing). There were 54 distinct listings worth about $9,000. My estimate is that I would sell $50 – $300 a month of these. So far in 17 days, I have had 8 orders for $284. So this is exceeding my expectations.
While I was on vacation I read a very interesting book by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. It was called “Shoe Dog”. What a great read. I was able to share his passion for shoes via my selling of shoes on ebay. I have nearly 200 shoes listed and probably over a hundred more to list. I looked up some of the vintage Nike shoes he talked about and they go for a lot of money on ebay. New bolo for me.
Mark
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07/10/2017 at 11:55 pm #20223
If it’s painful to spend money then I should be in intensive care.
Sales are slow, I’m busy with another project, I haven’t put up any new listings in who knows when and I am bleeding money.
But, I have decided rather than rip out a ceiling and wall board in 90+ heat that I will sit in my somewhat cool house and list. The wall board will wait and hopefully I can make some money to pay for new wall board.Glad to hear that you had a nice vacation/business trip. Always good to get away.
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07/11/2017 at 12:53 am #20224
Great show! I heard the issue you had with the perfume bottle where you had put that bottle was empty. I had a similar situation last week where I sent out pyrex milk glass coffee cups where I had 12 photos of the pattern and the name of the pattern and all the info was there to make the informed purchase. She opened a claim saying Item Not As Described and in the description area wrote “this didn’t match the pattern I have, it’s the wrong color it’s supposed to be brown not white.” Instead of accepting the return I called ebay and said this is buyer’s remorse I don’t think I should pay shipping. The agent agreed with me and told me to write to the customer and tell her I’m happy to accept your return but will require that you pay return shipping and gave my return address. The agent said as long as I did that it records that I have made an effort to accept the return and it satisfies my requirement for return and basically starts the clock on her end. Of course she wrote me back and said I’m not paying for that the shipping is more than I paid for the mugs. So done deal. Just thought I’d share that in case someone else had an issue. According to ebay agent using the messaging section satisfies your requirement. Thanks!!
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07/11/2017 at 12:58 am #20225
A note on squishing soft stuff for shipping. I purchased generic “space bags” at Dollar Tree online and had them shipped to store for free as they didn’t carry them in store. They were of course a dollar each and they are large. I have put tempurpedic pillows in them large stuffed animals, large puffer type coats, vacuum out the air and slip it in a polymailer or a side load priority flat rate box. I haven’t had any complaints and in fact I had a positive feedback on giving the customer a “bonus” space bag! I just factor in the $1 into shipping when I know I will be using one.
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07/11/2017 at 6:45 am #20229
Total Items in Store: 499
Items Sold: 15
Cost of Items Sold: $19.00
Total Sales: $359
Highest Price Sold: 70.00 (NIB Christmas Scentsy Warmer)
Average Price Sold: $23.93I was surprised that sales were pretty good considering the holiday. 3 items that sold including my highest price are from a couple of months ago when I was listing everything in my house. The Scentsy warmer was a gift from my mother who gets us one of those things every year for christmas. I looked it up and it was discontinued and apparently valuable. I hope everyone has a great week.
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07/11/2017 at 8:29 am #20236
Week of July 2-8
* Total Items in Store: 843
* Items Sold: 8
* Cost of Items Sold: $4.65 + $0 Commission
* Total Sales: $145.25
* Highest Price Sold: $34 Vintage Eppelsheimer Candy Mold
* Average Price Sold: $18.15
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 17Not a good week for sales. I’m somewhat back in the groove with listing now that our vacation is behind us. This current week seems better.
I’ve always been careful with my money, but I enjoyed going shopping. Now that I no longer work for a regular wage, I don’t have that desire to shop for myself like I used to, but I can get my shopping rush for the business. We did do some outlet shopping during our recent vacation. I was able to get some off-season winter boots and coats at greatly discounted prices, so I felt good about it. But, normally, I don’t like to spend money anymore.
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07/11/2017 at 8:35 am #20237
July 2- July 8 2017
Total items in store: Etsy 487 // Ebay 469 (Items not crossposted I list different types of things on Etsy and Ebay)
Items Sold: Etsy 6 // 15 Ebay
Cost of items Sold: Etsy $6.45 // Ebay $26.08
Total Sales: Etsy $152.10 // Ebay $214.86
Highest Price Sold: Birkenstock wool shoes $50
Average Price Sold: $17.47
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 53 (Listed at $856)Pretty steady week for me. Work flow was a bit interrupted by the 4th of July holiday, but I had a good time with family. Spent last week listing clothes which after the week of listing Masters of the Universe action figures was PRETTY boring. But clothes bring in money, and they are easy to find, so list them I will.
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07/11/2017 at 9:58 am #20241
An interesting article about Amazon competitors benefitting from the Amazon Prime Day “Halo effect”, with some current ebay TV ads: http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/shots-fired-retailers-aim-amazon-prime-day/309705/
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07/11/2017 at 10:09 am #20242
Total Items in store: 332
Items sold:5
Cost of items sold: approx. $43
Total Sales: $128
Highest price sold: $75 – lot of 6 Bucket boss tool organizer
Average price sold: $25.6
Int’l sales: 0
Returns:0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Amazon disbursement – $1,416Full time ebay goal – was March 2018; now – ????
Ebay to Amazon – 7 sales – $940; COGS – $382; fees – $113; profit – $444
I eventually got a buyer to remove 1 of my 2 negative feedbacks on Amazon. I sent them a message every other day for over 2 weeks. I basically just bugged them until they caved. This method is annoying for me and, I assume, for the buyer, but it was the only way.Past few weeks have been slower on amazon, topped off with 5 returns in the past 10 days for over $1000. This is the most returns I have received on Amazon during a short span, but I know it will even out over time. The good news is, when I get the item back, I test it and can sell it used on Amazon, often breaking even on my initial buy price.
Today is PRIME day! My first one with a large Amazon inventory, let’s see how this goes.
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07/11/2017 at 11:08 am #20243
We are still behind in our normal eBay process, but wanted to check in. I haven’t even done our numbers for the past two weeks…so you KNOW it is SERIOUS!!!:-)
We did very little listing last week, with our family getting together for July 4th (which is also Veronica’s Birthday!!!), and we turned it into a Summer Thanksgiving, since my parents will still be in Montana for Thanksgiving, my Sister will be in New Mexico, and we will be in Colorado with our work schedules. So we roasted a turkey, made a Thanksgiving Dinner out of it, and didn’t do much listing.
More exciting though, is that we took the plunge and started using SixBit. We tried WonderLister for a day, but we really didn’t like the interface, which is very important to us. So starting on Friday, I did the conversion, and it is a typical Database Conversion (which I have done a LOT if in my career). I have my head back up above water after reconciling the database, getting the relists done, and getting the back end working the way I want.
The BEST part that I love about SixBit is that it has a WONDERFUL relisting process. We went to the Enterprise Edition so that we can have 30 Day listings, but they can be Auto Relisted by SixBit. And the relists will be sent as NEW listings to eBay if there is no sales benefit on the history. In fact, even without the Auto Relist, when we send previously listed items to eBay from SixBit, you can tell it to force the listing to be NEW to eBay. With the boost that you get on new listings, I’m planning on this increasing our velocity and STR. I can say that two items that this weekend we had two items that were ANCIENT that after we relisted them via SixBit, they sold within 24 hours. And looking at some of our relisted items, it seems we are getting more views than normal. Here is to hoping…
I have to get back to it. I will post numbers as soon as possible, but I want to make sure the backend of SixBit is set before we go to eBay Open next week, and I have some other admin items to complete (filing 941 Tax forms, ensure bills are set to pay, etc.).
Will talk more soon!
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07/11/2017 at 11:29 am #20244
There are so many good sources for financial guidance. I would not suggest Robert Kiyosaki or his “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” book as a source for this information. He did declare bankruptcy, which doesn’t necessarily prove him to be bad. A person could learn a lot form that experience. However, the main premise of his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad was made up. I think Kiyosaki’s book even states in the front of the book that some portions may not be factual. See this link for more information.
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07/11/2017 at 11:55 am #20246
I will disagree with you there. Kiyosaki is an excellent person to learn the framework of how to think about money and finances. Rich Dad Poor Dad is a great beginning book on HOW to think about finances. I have read many of his other books and enjoy them as well as a framework on HOW to think.
No, he isn’t Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey, who have detailed plans on how to stay out of debt. For many beginners, they are good places to start (I like Dave Ramsey myself between those two).
But after you master how to stay not poor, or ultimately how to stay middle class and work for other people (which is where they get you to), Kiyosaki helps you think differently, view the world differently, and move from middle class worker to business owner.
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07/11/2017 at 11:57 am #20247
Question for others to see if they know the answer. Any idea what happens that creates HUNDREDS to THOUSANDS of views on a listing in the first few days? While looking at the impacts of SixBit, I have some items that have a CRAZY amount of views. Must be some bots of some sort, but does anyone know what they are?
This happened last year, when I had a listing that I would constantly click refresh and I could just watch the views increase every time.
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07/11/2017 at 12:53 pm #20248
The postal preview of your mail is called Informed Delivery. I don’t remember how I signed up for it but I think I was just signed in and saw a link.I get a daily email from USPSInformedDelivery@usps.gov
If you are signed in, you can see your package dashboard and your mail dashboard.
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07/11/2017 at 1:30 pm #20251
T-Satt,
In my experience, if one of my items has a really huge number of views, it is probably because a popular blogger (or other social networking person) linked to it or mentioned it.
Whether that’s the case with your stuff or not, I can’t say.
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07/11/2017 at 1:58 pm #20255
Anybody use that Terapeak program in the ebay app? I see you can get 1 full year of completeds for $16/mo. Doesn’t seem worth it to me at that price, but interesting. I looked because I was trying to find if ebay does trackback to sites that link to your listings (appears no).
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07/11/2017 at 2:01 pm #20256
Interesting theory. Something for me to look at.
I know that lots of views without a sale is a bad thing in best match, so I’ll have to keep an eye on it.
Thanks!
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07/11/2017 at 1:31 pm #20252
Regarding stripping motorcycles and selling the parts on Ebay as mentioned in the podcast.
Back in the early 2000’s, when Ebay was all auctions, cashier’s checks and Bidpay, I sold used motorcycle parts. You couldn’t lose back then.. everything sold.
I had a friend who bought used bikes and either fixed and flipped them or stripped them and sold the parts on Ebay. It was very lucrative, but there were a couple of tough issues.
The hazardous materials, old gas, oil and other fluids had to be disposed of. The oil was no big deal, but it had to be dealt with. Fortunately for him, he had an old Chrysler with a 383 that seemed to burn anything he put in the tank, so that took care of the gas.
The other issue was that most bikes would have a limited amount of valuable parts and the rest has to be disposed of. At least around here, motor vehicle parts need to go to a licensed salvage yard. They weren’t too anxious to deal with vehicles stripped pf their valuable parts.
The third issue was limited paperwork or non existent paperwork. Typically the bike would have belonged to a deceased relative or a long lost boyfriend who basically abandoned it years ago. None of these carcasses were stolen, they just lacked documentation. Either way, it further complicated the issue of recycling the frames wheels etc.
After about a year of selling my cache of parts, I lost interest. The market had become competitive and I had a day job to focus on.
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07/11/2017 at 1:37 pm #20253
T-Salt: I am not talking about detailed investment or financial planning. I talking about a person who miss represents himself. The President of the U.S. gets criticized for “alternative facts” as well he should if he’s making stuff up. I’m saying Robert Kiyosaki is selling lots of books, giving paid seminars (some are free where he sells merchandise) and panders to people with his “alternative facts”. Remember Oprah and, “A Million Little Pieces”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Million_Little_Pieces
Same thing with Kiyosaki except he’s still selling his lies and becoming more rich as a result. I’d prefer to buy a book from someone who really has used these techniques. Check out this book, “The Millionaire Next Door“. Excellent book with a similar, but truthful message
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07/11/2017 at 2:44 pm #20260
I like The Millionaire Next Door. Great book!
Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad was Richard Kimi. I listened to the interview with Alan Kimi, Robert Kiyosaki’s friend and they both confirmed that this was who Rich Dad was. So yes, he really had a Rich Dad.
But beyond that…I have still learned a lot from his books and his framework of thinking about money and finances. George Bailey from “It’s a Wonderful Life” isn’t real either…but he taught me a lot, and I’m thankful for it.
We can all take or leave the teachings we are presented in this world. That is the joy of free will. We take or leave…and our lives are shaped accordingly. There is never a single path to success, and we can all get there in our own ways…
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07/11/2017 at 1:54 pm #20254
Total Items in Store: 330
Items Sold: 7
Cost of Items Sold: $44 new + $3 used
Total Sales: $198
Highest Price Sold: $50 tie between 2 mugs and a sheet set, all new.
Average Price Sold: $29
Number of items listed this week: 18
Spent on new inventory: About $50I’m a total melmac nerd and I like the swirly kind. Trays sound super cool. Still functional today but color matters for the pricing I think. I find it very painful to spend money on maintenance items like new tires, vet bills, or repair home items that keep things status quo. I love getting quality food, furniture, textiles, and clothing at a bargain price – inventory mostly but also items for our family and that’s all on Ebay profits. We splurge a bit on vacation stays, kids’ extracurriculars, and my husband’s tv (for football) and electronics.
Finally catching a kid/work break and got back to listing a bit. Sold a promo Pyrex overnight for $70 so that’s motivating! I indulged in two garage sales in the immediate neighborhood and picked up a blue Kobenstyle Dansk piece and some Pottery Barn curtains dry cleaned already. I paid up a bit but will still make $. So I’m not cold turkey but being way more selective. Also trying to think more seasonally about selecting and running listings.
Finally, I wanted to share this article https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2017/07/05/why-women-quit-working-after-50/#70a6c5963fdc about the pressures on women making regular full time jobs unattractive at age 50+. I’m approaching 50 and can relate. We had kids late, are both only children, and I had some surprise health issues crop up this past year. By the time our kids are raised our dads will probably need care, maybe sooner. The great thing is that Ebay is a super gap filler for people in this situation. I’m so grateful for the free education I’ve been able to receive via the internet. Whenever I have more time, I’ll be ready to ramp up.
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07/11/2017 at 5:26 pm #20278
Updates, goals and investments
Have a myriad of updates from my side of the spectrum … Most relevant is that (while in Guatemala this week) just heard from my client that my 6 months contract – which ends by mid August – will be offered at least an extension, which is financially very good for being a Consultancy agreement, I bill by the hr at a minimum of 40 hrs per week, since I am traveling like crazy throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, I am making at least 50% more than the agreed per month.
Which take me to my second topic: could not find anything in Middleton, WI, even less in the countries I have visited thus far (Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala), however I had found a pair of oddities in my weekly auction (a wooden rattle and a wooden apple with a wooden arrow in it). I had a collector from California buying the rattle (sold them separately) and much better than the purchase was this person’s full explanation about the object.
It is a traditional Mayan shaker found in Mexico and some parts of Central America, there is a collector movement around it. Plus other somewhat similar objects. I am going to central Mexico next week and will have to stay over the weekend for an important part of the project, I will try to find objects similar to those to sell to collectors.
Collectors are the ones who buy the most from me. Let’s see since I never succeeded even once to find things to sell during these never ending trips.
The cash from my store is aimed almost exclusively to grow the business, however I am taking some opportunity to acquire things for the daily need, considering I have a very large family to support, more or less like Jay and Ryanne mentioned, I leverage my picks to also buy things of our necessity, been excelling in managing personal costs through and through.
This week more of my former hoarding items sold, including sets of stickers from my old company, I once went to an exclusive party at the Cowboys Stadium with the Cheerleading Squad, I grabbed 30 super exclusive photos, the ones they hand out with their autographs. Found them just laying in a drawer and listed them, sold like cheap water in the desert (this was my scavenge of the week, my house seems to be limitless). Also original set of Star Wars action figures from the 1977 movies sold to Germany on Etsy.
My major accomplishment after controlling my OCD hoarding was stop buying crap during these trips. I still buy books and CDs since literature and music are huge passions in my life, but in a very controlled limited way and the useless craps are no more.
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07/11/2017 at 6:24 pm #20279
About Merchant Accounts
Does anyone have a Merchant Account?
Does anyone have opinions about it?Even though pretty much anybody can pay using PayPal without having a PayPal account it seems that the now hidden links to do this are hindering a percentage of the people.
At the same time more and more people ask me to pay using Money Orders for example. I do not have any solid evidence to conclude whether offering other payment methods would help with sales.
Been offering for 2 month this week and not a single case came.
Comments are much appreciated since this would require more investment, a low monthly fee plus set up fees for the services I decide to go with.
Cheers
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07/11/2017 at 11:10 pm #20286
I just hit the jackpot! I saw an ad on facebook for a yard sale on Friday. One of the pictures had some vintage stereo equipment, silver faced, but I could not tell any brands. I messaged the lady and said if she decided to pre-sell any items, I would be interested in buying all of her audio equipment. She responded and said he would be interested in pre-selling the audio because everything had to be sold, they were moving in 2 weeks. I asked what was the asking prices on some of the stereo equipment and she said $50 each. When I got there I seriously could not believe it, marantz, sony, bose, onkyo, nakimichi, pioneer, about 30 to 40 pieces, all vintage and had obviously been well taken care of. Then the man comes out, “well since we talked I have been looking some of this stuff up on ebay…”. Can you believe this sells for $1,000 on ebay? I would have to get $850 for it. I looked this cassette player up and it sells for $840, I could let it go for $700. It was like I got hit by a truck. I told him I could not pay that much as I was re-selling. You know when you are talking to someone and you really just want to leave, that was me. I left with nothing. He said he was thinking about selling it on ebay himself. He has my number, maybe he will decide to call me…. 🙁
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07/12/2017 at 8:03 am #20293
Oh man, that’s the worst.
He’ll never sell it on eBay, it’s too much work unless it’s all you do. -
07/12/2017 at 8:40 am #20297
Yeah, that is awful. If the guy really needs everything out within 2 weeks, no way he’s selling 30-40 pieces for top dollar that quickly. I would have said something along the lines of being there right now with $1500 cash in my hand – instead of taking 3-6 months to sell everything on eBay.
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07/12/2017 at 9:54 am #20298
I should have offered him something and take it all right now, but it was like the breath was knocked out of me. It was an experience for me to hone my negotiating skills, next time I will do better.
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07/12/2017 at 11:11 am #20302
Yeah, sometimes sellers just need to see that you’re serious. Show them that you don’t want something for nothing, but at the same time that you can’t pay full “value”. And that you’re willing to take the whole lot from them at once at a discount – out of their sight/mind, and your problem now. 🙂
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07/12/2017 at 11:20 am #20303
Great reply Brian—exactly the best way to deal with this situation. I completely understand Lee’s dismay when he was told one thing on price and then we he gets to the place they broadsided him…ugh. When someone wants retail at a yard sale, etc. I become completely open and say that I buy for resale and I need to make a profit, despite what J&R think most people can deal with that info and will, often times, work with me on price.
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07/12/2017 at 12:03 pm #20304
I’ve honestly explained the process involved in selling items like that to sellers that tell me it’s worth this much on eBay.
I tell them that you need 12 good, staged photos, no flash or quick blurry ones. That you’ll be waiting a month or more to get a good price. You’ll be answering questions. Then the hassel of proper packaging. And finally, ebay will back the customer up for 30 days if they perceive a problem or misrepresentation of the item and Paypal even longer.
I’ve seen the realization hit home in some people and have worked out a price.
Most people think it’s easy cash for their stuff on eBay.
Give them a call, that sounds like some amazing equipment, but do your research and make sure it’s all working. -
07/14/2017 at 12:56 pm #20362
I’ve told people I’m a reseller too, that doesn’t always work though. I like to highlight the tax implications. For example, at the absolute minimum when selling thru ebay (or another site) you lose 22.5% automatically to taxes.
That’s assuming you’re in the lowest tax bracket, which is unlikely if you also have W-2 wage job. I usually just say 30% to taxes, since no one knows they can deduct half of the self employment tax unless they also are running a business. (I also haven’t accounted for state income taxes, which vary a lot)
I also tell them that if you are new to ebay/paypal they will hold your money for a minimum of 3 weeks or until you get 20 positive feed backs. It’s also unwise to be selling high value items as a new seller, since that will bring out some scammers, especially with electronics.
I do think when some people say “everything must go” or “moving to Florida in 2 weeks can’t take it with me” they are actually lying and trying to use that as a sales tactic. Similar to when retailers would run “going out of business sales” some of these guys were going out of business every week, week after week. It got so silly that in CT if you run a “going out of business sale” you have to get a permit from the state and pay for it.
Here’s a funny story. Last year I went to a garage sale in which the owner was being foreclosed on. He and his family were packing up stuff to move out. That would seem like a desperate situation to me, but I guess not to them. Anything they had of value wasn’t for sale or was priced near ebay. Instead they were making a “junk pile” and selling stuff from that pile. Otherwise that stuff was going in the garbage. So if I wanted to I could come back on garbage day and get it for free ? LOL they couldn’t follow that logic.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Gompers.
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07/14/2017 at 2:32 pm #20368
If I have to explain to a seller why they should sell to me cheaper…wait I wouldn’t do that.
Same thing when a potential customer of mine tries to explain why I should sell to them cheaper. I wouldn’t listen so why would I expect someone else to listen.Typically I just walk away as quickly as possible when I know I’m dealing with an unreasonable person. If I really want it the most I’ll do is offer my number and if they change their mind to call me. 99 times out of 100 though I just walk away. There’s plenty more fish in the ocean.
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07/13/2017 at 1:12 pm #20333
I agree with Jay and Ryanne that spending money should be painful. I know you guys aren’t into buying new cars and that’s fine. I have a few automatic payments set up for our land-line phone (my wife refuses to allow us to get rid of it) and heating/cooling. However, I refuse to automate any other bills like our credit card. We buy lots of stuff on the credit card, but pay it off each month. It would be a very poor move on my part, in my opinion to have that bill automatically deducted each month. It is way to easy to spend. I tell my teenage daughter that I need to feel the pain of writing out that check each month.
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07/14/2017 at 2:24 am #20345
Fell a bit behind on the book keeping this week so my numbers are coming late 🙂
Week 2 (02-08)
Number of Active Listings: 535
Items Sold: 7
Avg Selling Price: $17.77
Cost of Goods Sold :-$4.00
Total Sales: $124.36
Returns/Refunds: $0.00
Unpaid Items: $0.00Been pretty slow for us for the past 2 months. Things have picked up slightly but not surprising considering the time of year. Just continuing to list as much as we can, our goal this week was at least 10 listings a day and we’re already smashing that so far 🙂
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07/14/2017 at 4:36 pm #20378
Bummer on the yard sale with audio equipment! If a sale is run by a family or individual I keep my trash elf identity on the down low. I don’t do many yard sales because people want top dollar and get offended at the thought that you may be selling their items for profit. At auctions and estate sales run by companies though, I feel its pretty obvious as these people see me fill my car with their wares several times per month, and many of the regulars are some sort of reseller also (eBay, Etsy, antique shop owner, craigslist or another auction company, etc.) I don’t yell it from the rooftops, but if someone asks, I just tell them. Auctions and estate sales want to sell, they don’t care to who. And selling to resellers is a big chunk of their business. It has actually helped me because they know I’m always looking and are eager to tell me about upcoming sales and discount days (yay!)
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07/15/2017 at 5:05 am #20385
July 2-8
Total items in store: 361
Items sold: 49
Cost of items sold: approx. $78
Total sales: $480.51 (not incl. selling costs)
Highest price sold: $99.99 (Ralph Lauren equestrian toile fabric)!
Average price sold: $9.80
International Sales: 0
Returns – 0
Money spent on new inventory this week: $0 (usually I go once a week, but this week, low on funds for sourcing and determined to just go through my death piles… also organized my closet and listed some things from there)
Number of items listed this week: 25This was a better week for me than usual, was motivated to try to get sales up & did a lot of fiddling daily… auctions, sales, removed all buyer restrictions and accepted all non-insane offers. I think the fiddling definitely helps, but also feels like a waste of time. It is the best use of time to just list, but maybe while a small store is growing, if you need the sales to come in, other things have to be done I think.
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