Scavenger Life Episode 333: The Illusion of Keeping Up With Everything

[Ryanne]

Slow-ish week on eBay, busy week on the forums. Makes sense! Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week Oct 29-Nov 4, 2017 Store #1 Tot
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 333: The Illusion of Keeping Up With Everything]

[Mark S]

10/29/17 – 11/04/17

Total Items In Store: 2,073
Items Sold: 12
Cost of Items Sold: $27 (around)
Total Sales: $270
HIghest PrIce Sold: $50 (DKNY SIlk Spandex ShIrt)
Average PrIce Sold: 22.5
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory ThIs Week: $ 20
Number of Items lIsted thIs week: 0

I have been thinking about what Retro Treasures was asking about going full time. So, I asked myself, could I go full time today If I got laid off at my job? I agree with what T-Satt and Mike said but I took it a step further by plugging the numbers into my forecast spreadsheet.

I copied the forecast spreadsheet that I use and then entered every last expense and income I could think of. And I do mean everything. The result? I found out that the first 9 months would be tight. I would have to do the majority of the work myself and work close to 60 hours per week. That is not a big deal to me, I probably already work near that many hours right now between my corporate job and ebay. Then I would have to hire out some things after 9 months because I would not have enough time to do everything without working a ridiculous amount of hours. Then I would have to get more storage space and I priced that out. After 21 months, I would be about $25,000 short in total – meaning I would need to make about another $1000 a month more for each of those 21 months. So, my take away is that I could do it if I take the time now to put about 1000 more items into my store. Also, I don’t want to, but I could use some 401k money If things fell short of what my forecast says. I just don’t want to start off knowing that the forecast says I will be short. The great part is that I found that after the 21 months, I would start to make a ridiculous amount of money (like 20k/ month) and would only have to work about 40 hours a week at that point, given the workers I would have contracted out to some of the work.

But, If anyone If contemplating a move like this, I would suggest doing a detailed spreadsheet like mine to look into the future and see if it is possible or not. If it is not possible right now, ask yourself what can be done now to prepare for it in the near future.

One question I was not able to answer. Would I be eligible for unemployment during that time? I have received unemployment before when I was laid off. But they ask you if you had made any wages that week. If you own your own business, you are not making wages and you will not know exactly what you have earned till tax time. Does anyone have any insight into this? That would make a big difference in my spreadsheet. I left out any unemployment benefits because I didn’t know if you could collect unemployment in this situation. I googled it, but I couldn’t find any information directly related to this question.

Mark

[Mark S]

I wasn’t quite right about the 20k I stated above. I would get to 20k\month, but not that fast. Below is what it would look like:

For the next 16 months after the initial 21 months, I would average about 10k.

The 12 months after that, I would average about 15.5k.

Then the 12 months after that about 18.5k.

Then the 12 months after that about 20k.

[Retro Treasures WV]

I’ve also been wondering about the unemployment thing. First thing is, after expenses at tax time my taxable income on my ebay business isn’t very much. How do they determine the weekly pay? I guess I could keep ultra accurate records and account for deductions as they accumulate. If you had an LLC, you could technically just keep the money in the business and not pay yourself during unemployment.
If I truly wouldn’t be eligible for unemployment, that would be crap. Makes me think I should put the business in my wife’s name.

Bottom line from my point of view (which amounts to a hill of beans legally) is that my salary job and my business are two separate things and I’m entitled to my unemployment as long as I kept the hours I was working off-limits to my business. IE, only do ebay in evenings and weekends like I do now. In some states, this is the way it actually works from what I have read. By stating you are actively seeking full time employment and are truly available to work anytime, you are good to go. Some states will even encourage you to build your own business while collecting unemployment.

[T-Satt]

Again, if you voluntarily quit your job, you will not collect unemployment.

Check this good basic article

[Mark S]

T-Satt – I was referring to a lay off situation. I don’t want to jump the gun, it is just that things are getting unstable at work and I wanted to see where I stand. Ideally I would want to plan this out, but I may not get that chance. The numbers I gave were Net Profit. I would to like to send you my forecast sheet. R & J have my email (I will send it to them if they can’t find it), so just ask them for it and drop me a line. It would be great if you could look it over and tweak it. Then maybe we could share it with everyone as a good tool for forecasting. It may take me a bit to clean it up for others viewing and do some explanation.

Jay & Retro Treasures – I don’t know about other states, but when I had to call the unemployment office in Michigan, I was lucky if I could get through on the automated line. It would be a pipe dream to actually talk to someone in that office. I think my better bet is to contact an attorney via my pre-paid legal. Maybe they can set me straight on what the law in Michigan is concerning unemployment while you are self employed.

All on this thread – this was a good conversation. I look forward to more like this. We are really diving into the meat of things now.

Mark

[T-Satt]

No problem. Send your sheet to me at tsatterf@yahoo.com

[T-Satt]

PS-I have been thinking about sending out my forecast file that I use…

[T-Satt]

Are these numbers top line Revenue? Or Net Profit?

[T-Satt]

PS – If you ever want to bounce ideas or numbers off of someone, let me know. The plunge is a big step, and I love talking numbers anyway (still wired as an accountant and forecaster!).

[Jay]

You could call your local unemployment office to ask about selling on eBay and collecting unemployment.

[Retro Treasures WV]

And if you call, make sure you get a documented answer. Otherwise you’re likely just getting an opinion.

[Jay]

This is just a blurb on another forum, but it looks like the profit from eBay would be considered income:
https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/How-to-use-PayPal-Archive/Will-making-money-on-eBay-using-PayPal-effect-my-unemployment/td-p/17936

[T-Satt]

Mark, I agree 100% about making sure the numbers work first (and I mean a deep dive) before you take the plunge. And look at a lot of worse case scenarios, and plan for things to take a while. I did our numbers, and while the rates are holding to what I forecast, the overall timeframe is still longer than I expected. I know that is 100% based on not hitting our listing goals (for lots of reasons) each week, but it all starts there.

My advice is that if you are that tight for the first 9 months working 60+, I would get a good nest egg set up to cover that timeframe. (Unless you are motivated by the burning boat method and know that is going to make you do that much work and more. Some people love the Hard Routine).

Don’t touch the 401(k). Too much tax and interest. Roll that sucker into a Traditional IRA and keep working.

I would love to see your forecast sheet (or at least talk your specific expense forecasts) so see how it compares with mine.

No, you would not get unemployment unless you were fired. Unemployment is for people you are out of work through no fault of their own.

[whiskey]

+10

I wish I had TSatt’s forecasting ability. I do okay, but I don’t anticipate everything.

I also walked from a 6 figure professional gig. I waited til everything was in place and then jumped with some savings built in for the lean times. For a couple of years we kicked every projection in the rear. In fact, we were 8 months ahead of schedule for Shan to quit her job as well (she has only held on for healthcare). As some of you know, we have been involved heavily on Amazon and Amazon was about 80% of our monthly sales. We did just over 100k between May and August of this monthyear with really good margins. We are niche sellers and it has worked for us. It took hard work but the money was there. By the end of August Shan could quit based on every metric we came up with a couple of years ago. We decided at that point she would quit in the second quarter of next year as this would allow us to do several things including being able to get all of our advanced medical stuff done.

Ever feel like you are doing 100 miles per hour and then the wall comes out of no where?

September and October have been our worst months in four years. Amazon is dead to us. We simply do not have the inventory to do anything. We can’t find anything in our niche. Our one white label product was reassigned categories and died. We aren’t walking away from Amazon but there is nothing there for us right now.

Ebay is okay, but we neglected to build a pipeline sufficient to do what we want. In the last couple of months we have revamped that and it is turning around.

Does this mean anything has changed? No. I don’t need to consider going back. Shan will still quit. We have always been very similar to J & R in that frugality is the underlying current in our lives. I think the frugality is the part of this journey that doesn’t get enough recognition in choosing to control your time. You can make more. You can spend less. Ultimately we do everything we can to control our time. We squirelled away way more than we need to survive months, or years, of adjustment.

Here’s what I would echo or add to doing this as your sole income:

1) Do not rely on one income stream as the sole source of income. We sell on five platforms. We have rentals that Amazon and eBay income purchased. We are looking at a couple of others outside of what we are currently doing.

2) Plan for failure. Amazon is not working for us right now. That’s okay. we have already changed gears.

3) Understand that your time is not just owned by what you make, but by what you don’t spend.

4) Taxes are a bear if you rely on tax deferred accounts to provide a safety net. Retirement accounts should be left alone. Plus, they are the safety net at the end. Our retirement is fully funded assuming we don’t touch it in the next decade. Not that we will stop doing what we do.

5) Once you jump, believe you are living the way you were intended to live and do everything you can to keep it. Your time is yours. As I approached 50 I was developing health issues related to stress. Some have gone, some have stayed, but they will not define me. My time is mine. I answer to no one but myself and Shan. She would tell you I only answer to her but she would be wrong. or maybe not. That is a whole other topic I love this life and the fact every morning I wake up and choose how my day will go.

Plan. Think. Do.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by whiskey.

[T-Satt]

Yeah well, forecasts and planning can only take you so far. Sometimes God laughs at our plans…

I love everything about what you posted Whiskey. 100% correct.

Keep moving forward!

[Mark S]

T-Satt – I just emailed the spreadsheats to you.

I also included Jay & Ryanne because I did a forecast on their store #1.

Mark

[T-Satt]

Sounds good. I’ll be photographing and listing today, so I’ll take a look tonight.

Thanks!

[Mark S]

I had an interesting conversation with my Storage Unit Owner. I asked him if he had any climate controlled units (to plug the numbers in for my spreadsheet in the post above). He said that he didn’t, but he would call around and find out. He called right then while I was there. The only thing we could find that was in the immediate area was $270 for a 10 X 20. I am only paying $110 for a 10 X 15 from him right now but without any climate control.

His advice to me was to avoid the National Chains. His business is independent. He said their tactics are to get the units near full, then start raising the price so that tenants move out. Then they get new ones in. Their prices are usually way high as I can attest to in my area.

This is also good insight for anyone thinking of starting a storage unit business. Going independent can give you a real pricing advantage over the National Chains. One idea that I have is to open a storage unit business geared toward ebay sellers.

Mark

[omfug]

Hey J&R you underpriced the Hi-ball jacket by about $100 (a few years ago that would have been a $300 jacket–this sort of thing was my specialty at one time) I got $200 for a similar piece about 3 years ago, but no big deal–you can only research so much.

For me sales remain sluggish, but I roll with the punches and keep listing.

[Ryanne]

i figured as much, but i could find no historical data to point me in the right direction for price. no solds on ebay or any info through google. so i was like, oh well. price it. sold!

[Jay]

Its weird that there’s no results for “vintage high ball denim jacket”:
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS616US617&ei=nmkAWsy4GsGJmQGQlJO4Dw&q=vintage+high+ball+denim+jacket&oq=vintage+high+ball+denim+jacket&gs_l=psy-ab.3…6788.7579.0.7846.8.6.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0….0…1.1.64.psy-ab..8.0.0….0.X4kIZ-JNZQE

You would think if it was sought after google would have a record of it. Live and learn.

[Rydell Relics]

RR Store Week Oct 29-Nov 4, 2017

Total Items in Store: 1,405
Items Sold: 31
Cost of Items Sold: $61.41
Total Sales: $762.19
Highest Price Sold: $98 (1951 high school sweater)
Average Price Sold: $24.57
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $30
Number of items listed this week: 16

Halloween is by far favorite holiday. I always take some time off to celebrate with a few parties and nights at my local watering hole, and this year was no different. And though I’ll never be too old to wear a costume, I certainly can’t party as hard as I used to. My poor liver needs a break! And this year I dressed as the evil Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks: The Return. Super creepy.

A pretty average week for me, hitting just shy of my goal. The lone estate sale in my area was really thin, so I left with just a few things. Sourcing is going to be paramount for me this week. My Death Pile is almost gone, so I need to hit the thrifts and hit them hard. Fingers crossed for some good estate sales this coming weekend.

Off to listen to the podcast and list. Have a great week, everyone!

*Paul*

[Manateejaq]

October 29th – Nov 4th 2017
Total items in store: Etsy 497 // Ebay 620 (Items not crossposted I list different types of things on Etsy and Ebay)
Items Sold: Etsy 11 // Ebay 11
Cost of items Sold: Etsy $29.36 // Ebay $28.26
Total Sales: Etsy $298.35 // Ebay $147.89
Highest Price Sold: Super Mario Bros Board Game $100
Average Price Sold: $20.28
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 31 (listed at $501)

I had a bad dream last night that I went to a garage sale that had tons of great stuff but I only had $3 in my pocket… and they were closing up so I couldn’t go to the bank. Haha 🙂 Scavenger / Reseller dreams.

[omfug]

Looks like you had a great week on etsy Manateejaq–congrats, I have great hopes for the Holiday buying season on there.

[AdventureE]

I could not remember what steps to take to create a forum, so I am posting this here.

The question you brought up about eBay results being case sensitive got me thinking, so I did a little research. Yes, there does seem to be a differentiation in results based on case. For some items, the item page placement difference is large while for other items the item page placement difference is slight.

Here are two examples,

Ferragamo Women’s Shoes
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=Ferragamo+Women%27s+Shoes&_pgn=2&_skc=48&rt=nc

ferragamo women’s shoes
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=ferragamo+women%27s+shoes&_pgn=2&_skc=48&rt=nc

Nike Shoes
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=Nike+Shoes&_pgn=2&_skc=48&rt=nc

nike shoes
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=nike+shoes&_pgn=2&_skc=48&rt=nc

[Jay]

Here’s how to start a new forum topic:
–Choose a relevant category on https://www.scavengerlife.com/forum
–scroll down to the bottom of the page
–Youll see a blank field
–Write a title and your content
–submit

[AdventureE]

Thank you Jay.
That is very helpful. I wonder if it would be possible to put this info somewhere on the main page to use as an easy reminder when one wants to start a forum.

[Jay]

Other than putting a big banner across the front page, there’s no easy way to notify people. I see others start new topic threads without issue, so not sure how big of a problem it is.

[Jay]

I started a new topic specifically for Case Sensitivity: https://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/case-sensitivity-for-ebay-listings

It’s not easy for me to merge all the existing comments over there. In the future, its just up to everyone to decide they need a separate thread to discuss specific topics. That’s why we moved away from a blog to a forum so you guys could have multiple conversations vs one big pile on.

[T-Satt]

That is wild. Amazing that for the Nike Shoes, the number of results were different, and in both cases, best match was different.

[Ryanne]

jay started a new thread to discuss the case sensitive search more–
https://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/case-sensitivity-for-ebay-listings

[dearmila]

Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2017
Total Items in Store: 351 Ebay / 41 Etsy (items are crossposted on Ebay)
Items Sold: 14
Cost of Items Sold: approx. $14
Total Sales: $329.98 excluding shipping costs ($295.98 eBay + $34 etsy)
Highest Price Sold: $61 (Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater for a 24 mos year old, decent offer overnight!)
Average Price Sold: $23.57
Returns: 0
International Sales: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $40.90
Number of items listed this week: 35

Surprised by another random Etsy sale. I joined a “vintage team” and have been playing along about once a week w/ their hearting/viewing items “games”… that might have something to do w/ getting another sale, but also adjusted all prices recently, so who’s to say. Not that exciting of a week sales-wise, but just focused on at least 5 every day listing goal. Halloween was fun for my 6 yo “unicorn princess”. The most memorable treats she received in her jack o’lantern were: a standard #2 pencil, a flourless chocolate cake slice from Whole Foods (from a friend) & a frozen otter pop. Have a good week!

[simplicio]

Sorry to hear the auction experiment didn’t go that well. I feel the same too: the kind of stuff I’d want to put up for auction (basically, bulky stuff that isn’t selling) is exactly the kind of stuff *least* suited for auctions.

I had a pretty good week on eBay. COGS was a little high because I sold some stuff on commission… pretty much done with that.

Sales: CAD$980, 8 items, avg $122.50
COGS: $231
Gross profit: $572
Expenses: $104
Net profit: $467
Hours: 8, $58/hr
Notable sales: kerosene lamp/heater combo, $45–>$425, sold to a guy on Baffin Island (fair ’nuff!)
Scavenging: nothing too huge to report. One thing I found was 6 big galvanized wash tubs for $5 each. I think I can sell these for $50 each. People here use them as planters… probably the best are going to end up in our garden come spring though.

So you know that thing where people end all their listings and start new ones? It occurred to me there is a fairly easy way to test whether it works. What you would need is a big store, that has not seen any major changes in how it’s run recently.

* Compute the average # of sales/week for that store over a suitably large timeframe (see above, you don’t want to go so far back that the store was run drastically differently back then – if this were Jay & Ryanne’s store, I’d say 2 years would be about right based on my podcast retrobinging)
* End and relist all listings in the store
* Count the # of sales in the week following this

The Poisson distribution would then give a pretty good idea of whether this was due to chance or not. Say you have an average of 50 sales/week and after you end and relist all, you get 75 sales the following week.

In Excel:
=1-poisson.dist(75,50,true)
gives the probability of getting 75 sales or more given an average of 50 (which turns out to be 0.04%, so this made-up result would strongly suggest the technique works).

I would do this myself but I think my store is too small and my selling behavior has changed too much too recently, for the info to be worth anything.

One thing that has occurred to me is that when I’m watching an item and somebody ends & relists it, I do get a notification… is the burst in sales people say they see happening partly because of that?

[almasty]

I currently have 8,200 items in my ebay store and end and relist when I have the time, usually at least 4 or 5 days a week. I check the number of watchers on my items once or twice a day.

I’ve noticed that usually at least 1 item is rewatched that day. I end and relist anywhere from 100 to 1,000 items at a time. Sometimes, it takes 2 or 3 days for items with a lot of watchers to gain 1 or 2 watchers again. Eventually, they get back up to the 5-10+ watchers they originally had.

I don’t know which items sell based on being relisted. I do see “forgotten” items gain watchers upon relisting, but I don’t know if they also gain sales.

I did originally do list it and forget it for years, but I have changed it up over the past few years. I don’t know how ending and relisting correlates with sales, but I have had increased sales over the past year. This might also have to do with listing thousands of items consistently over the past year that are priced right and are desirable for collectors, less so for ending and relisting.

Pretty much all I know is that consistent listing of desirable items at good price points is what is key for having good ebay sales. The rest seems sort of unnecessary. Still, that won’t stop me from ending and relisting to get some perceived new views on items that I feel have been otherwise neglected, lost in the Ebay search. You never know.

[Jay]

How do you list so many items?
Where do you store them all?

[almasty]

They’re mainly books and paper items in the niche store, so I’ve got them all boxed and shelved by type and size. I can fit 20-50 books per box, depending on how I tetris them in. For paper items, I can fit several hundred to a thousand in a bankers box, depending on how organized I’m feeling.

I list everything in a batch system. Photograph 10-50 like items at a time, assign them their own folder, list all at the same time using the same template. I just sit down and focus for short bursts of time, then move onto something else before it gets really boring.

It is really difficult to find storage space for the more general items. I list 10 toys/pieces of artwork/games combined and it takes up as much space as like 50 or more books. That’s why that store has less than a hundred items listed at the moment, it’s just too much space required.

[Jay]

Ah, ephemera and books! Sorry if you had explained your store before. Yes, that’s like the seller we interviewed who sells postcards. He has thousands listed and stored in just a small room.

Do you find that ephemera and books sell well? What are your average numbers per week/month?

[almasty]

A lot of it really depends on what I’m listing, who’s looking, the time of year. It’s pretty consistent year-round, overall, though. I normally see $600-1k+ per week, no matter how much work I put into it. The more work, the better quality the items, the higher the sales. Same for anything. The ebay store is only for collectible ephemera and books. Normal, popular books go up on Amazon. So, I am really working with material that people have no *need* for.

In order to get consistent sales, you unfortunately need a really, really large inventory for this category, unlike for an anything goes store. However, once an item is listed, it’s listed. Nothing to change.

It has been inching up over the years. About a year ago, I removed all items priced under a certain amount, and now only focus on higher-priced items. I expect the numbers to continue going up as I continue listing better items.

[Jay]

As an experiment, we have twice ended our entire store and relisted all items with “sell similar”. Though we didnt do an excel sheet tabulation, we saw that our sales did not jump up at all. Nothing in particular happened. It was just a huge pain in the butt.

And I agree that “hot” items will sell great on auction. But then they’ll also sell great on Buy It Now. So I guess its really just about what style of store we each want. Auctions are just a pain because you have to always be monitoring them to relist.

[T-Satt]

Jay, my guess is that for your types of items (unique, vintage, one-of-a-kind), then the relisting has little effect. You are looking for that one special buyer, so moving up in match has little impact.

For us in clothing, since there is so much competition, best match is much more important, so we can’t fall into the dreaded 60+ day “stale” category. When I put clothes on GTC, sales tanked after a few months. I ended them and relisted on 30 day, and sales came back up (in early summer). Gotta be something there for us about tending that garden and eBay seeing it as fresh…

[Idahoarder]

Store Week 10/29/17 – 11/4/17

Total items in store: 1611
Items sold: 28
Cost of items sold: $27.07
Total sales: $867.86
Highest price sold: $100.00 (Vintage horn rim glasses)
Average price sold: $31.14
International Sales: 2
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory this week: $106.61

It was a good week for me with several days that had numerous sales. I’ve recently listed a number of higher priced Christmas items, so I’m hoping those will go soon. I’m also going to check out Wal-Mart today to see how cheap their Halloween stuff is. Yesterday an employee said she thought it would all go 90% off within a day or two, so I’m going to see if I can get some costumes. Not really what I like to sell and there is a lot of competition, but if they are cheap enough, why not?!

[T-Satt]

Week of 10/22-10/28
Total Items in Store: 1,667
Number of Items Listed: 76
Number of Items Sold: 53
Weekly STR: 14%
Total Product Sales: $1,176
Cost of Items Sold: $285
Gross Profit for Week: $797
Highest Item Sold: $75 – Rock Revival River Jeans
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week (two in a row!) and Veronica leads for the year 25-18.

We had our first four platform day, with sales on eBay, Bonanza, TruGether, and Etsy. We have had 3 sales on Etsy in the past week. Hopefully that is picking up and it starts to pay off to have SixBit so we can be multichannel very efficiently. It was pretty cool that right before we went into church, we had a sale on Bonanza, a Sale on TruGether, and a sale on eBay within 5 minutes.

Starting to get back into the groove now that the hunt is over and my contract job is on hold until after Thanksgiving. Looking to get our store inventory numbers back up. Our week was slower, and it was interesting that since I haven’t listed many clothes for a few weeks, we didn’t sell very many last week. In the later part of the week, when I started listing clothes again, we started seeing sales on clothes again…

Actually talked to a fellow reseller in the stores this week. There is another couple that I have seen that only does men’s clothing around the thrift stores for a couple of years. We finally talked and it was interesting that they went hard on Amazon for the past two years, but they have pulled back significantly and are back into eBay. They used to do a TON of auctions, and were selling 2,000 items a month, but now this time around they are looking to go a little longer tail.

PS – I had to laugh. I was listening to the podcast during my morning tasks, and as Ryanne was talking about hearing of Circle K from Bill & Ted’s, I was sending an invoice out and it was to San Dimas, CA. What are the odds of that?!

[Jay]

Does Sixbit automatically list your eBay store on Etsy?
or can you just manage your Etsy listings from Sixbit once you manually list o Etsy?

[T-Satt]

SixBit doesn’t do it automatically, but you can create the Etsy listing from SixBit in about 60 seconds.

When you create your listing in SixBit, you have a tab for each platform (so in our case, one for eBay and one for Etsy). Veronica will create her listing for eBay as usual, and the click on the Etsy tab to add information in Etsy’s format (categories, attributes, keywords, etc.).

It is pretty quick, and it is nice that when something sells on one platform, SixBit ends in on the other.

[The Thrift Raider]

So, I felt a lot like Martin from Garbage Finds recently. I was walking my dog in my neighborhood and found multiple vintage cameras with some separate flashes. Two of the cameras I found included a Kodak Eastman Folding Brownie. Beyond that name I couldn’t figure out what specific type of camera it is. I threw it up on ebay for $50 and it’s getting several views. It seems to be over a 100 year old camera and would make a great display piece. The other is a super interesting camera called a Nishika N8000 that came with a flash. People that have these can create 3-D gifs with photoshop because it takes four images at a time. I haven’t listed it yet but I’m going to clean it up and hopefully it’ll be up by Wednesday or Thursday. I just can’t believe people throw away the stuff that they do.

[Steven S]

Oct 29 – Nov 4 2017 $1279

• Total Items in Store: 866
• Items Sold: 20 (18 ebay / 1 Bonanza / 1 Truegether)
• International 2 GSP
• Total Sales $1279 ($886 eBay/ $99 Bonanza / $294 Truegether)
• Highest Price $294 Sony Walkman
• Average Price Sold: $64
• Returns: 0
• Cost of Items Sold: $100
• Cost of items purchased this week $56

Every now and then good stuff goes cheap at the local auction house, not sure if it’s the weather turning cold or just coincidence but I filled my Caravan last Wednesday for $44.00 which included a Geaorge Nelson Starburst clock for $2.50.
They also now have a flatbed wagon to put extra stuff from the lots you won but don’t want and it’s free pickin’s for everyone else. I kept my eye on it and came away with an old wooden ironing board, an industrial sized soldering iron among a few other items and I left two boxes of extra junk that came in the lot with my clock.

[Jay]

Yeah, sometimes the handful of people at an auction just dont want what we want…and its the best. I seem to remember several years ago you were groaning about going to auctions in your area in the middle of the day under the hot sun. Im glad you’re an auction hound now!

Im always impressed that you seem to do really well on Bonanza and Truegther. We have really inconsistent, rare sales there.

[T-Satt]

Bonanza and TruGether are like you said, a bonus. We only list there because there is zero extra work. We have noticed now that we are getting closer to 2000 items, we are getting at least one sale on one of those other platforms per week.

For comparison:

YTD Revenue by Platform through Oct
Etsy – $30
TruGether – $322
Bonanza – $713
eBay – $60,928

[BrianB]

Jay: I thought I would mention that mrcustomerservice was on Ebay Radio recently. He said he is no longer exclusively doing auctions. I don’t know his percentage, but I think he said he list a fair amount using BIN now.

[Jay]

He came over to the dark side! I wonder if he now is willing to hold and store items. I know he bragged about keeping all his inventory on one shelf in his garage because he sold everything within a week.

[Jay]

Looks like he does almost all BIN: https://www.ebay.com/sch/mr.customerservice/m.html?rt=nc
249 items out of 309 are Buy It Now.
Would love to hear why he changed strategy.

[BrianB]

Jay: I believe he stated on ebay radio that too many auctions were selling for low or initial amounts. He was very pro auction for highly sought after or commodity items. The more esoteric stuff was selling for low amounts, too few bidders.

[Steven S]

I remember that too, but that was a farm auction. After hearing about your date nights at the auction house I searched out and found one that’s only a half hour drive, so much nicer.
The auctioneers even know what I like now and always look my way for a bid.

[ChristineR]

Steve that clock find would have me high for like a week! What a deal.

[Karen]

I wonder if this is the company that made your denim jacket?

https://www.picgrum.com/user/highball_clo/1641693587

[Sharyn]

Week of Oct 29 – Nov 4
* Total Items in Store: 1133
* Items Sold: 21
* Cost of Items Sold: $44.60 + $0 Commission
* Total Sales: $539.29
* Highest Price Sold: $70 Set of 6 Ralph Lauren Crystal Glasses
* Average Price Sold: $25.68
* Returns: 0 (1 messaged, but not started)
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 50

Good week for me, although it felt slow because of two days where I didn’t sell anything and one day where I sold 1.

Someone bought an item from me who lives in FL. They want to return the item, but couldn’t figure it out. They got a message that they purchased the item through an non-US site. Every once in a while, I am researching an item through Google, and I’ll click to a non-US ebay site. I will see US sellers listed. I’m guessing that is what happened to him.

I called ebay and was told that the buyer should login to the non-US website to do the return. I sent a message to him and haven’t heard back. Maybe he will decide it’s too much work. That would be good for keeping the sale, but I’m concerned about feedback. I guess I’ll wait and see.

[Sharyn]

I noticed a change to ebay search that I am finding really annoying. When I search for something, the results are unsold items even if I had clicked sold previously. I have to click sold each time. When I’m trying to price something, I usually don’t want to see items for sale (sometimes I do, but rarely). Has anyone else noticed this?

[ThatAnonymousWoman]

Regarding the waiting period for leaving feedback, I too got that message that I had to wait 7 days to leave neutral or negative feedback when I was leaving feedback for the free quarterly shipping supplies I purchased.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Total Items in Store: 866
Items Sold: 26
Cost of Items Sold: $149
Total Sales: $920.35
Profit: $771.35
Highest Price Sold: $150 Roscoe Knee Scooter
Average Price Sold: $35.40
Average Profit: $29.67

See what not listing does for you? I have not listed in a couple weeks and this week would have been my first ever $1k week if not for a $100 cancelled sale. I was hoping for a big weekend, but it was a dud. Most of my sales were Monday-Thursday.

I’m knee deep in my ebay garage conversion. My ebay room was our den, but that is being converted into a dedicated gameroom. My garage was a dedicated…junk room. It is hard getting rid of stuff but I am forcing the process for the betterment of our sanity.

A couple notes: I found out my garage is 100% uninsulated. I knew the attic wasn’t done but I was hoping the walls were insulated. I plan on renting an insulation blower and insulating all the joist spaces as well as blowing a ton of insulation in the attic. Also, since I have 9’+ ceilings out there I’m going to build some overhead storage so I can place a row of inventory tubs all along the perimeter of the room – that’s ALOT of inventory storage. I’m struggling in trying to determine exactly how I want to set the space up. If anyone has complete garage setups and wouldn’t mind sharing pictures, I’d appreciate it.

[So Cal Joe]

For what it’s worth:

I built wooden shelving units (2 feet wide) for all the walls. They pretty much go to the top. In the center I have more shelving and a dedicated shipping area. The shipping area is just an old work bench I converted. At the front, where the door is, I also have more shelving.

I found a great video on Youtube on building wooden shelves. It was made by some teenager.

If I were going to do it all over again, I’d seriously consider building a loft maybe 6 feet high for the last 8 feet or so of the garage. It would be a place to keep stuff I don’t need to see on a regular basis.

I’ve learned that you figure out the right way to do it, once you’ve done it the almost right way. However there’s no other way.. so just do it. It a paradox.

Good Luck.. Garages are cool..

[Retro Treasures WV]

I’ve kind of went this way with my storage building. I built some awesome wooden shelves and hated them almost immediately. I started using it and realized I could have done it better if I did it slightly different. Eventually I started going with these large metal racks that are $100 and I can assemble in 20 minutes.

This reasoning is exactly why I never want to build my own house. I just know that once we design the “perfect” house and build it, it will no longer be what we want due to everything we learned through the process.

Once I get into it a bit further I’ll probably create a thread here with pics.

[Linda Shields]

Our garage ceiling joists are farther apart than in the rest the house and are not up to code for putting in load bearing floors. Although one of our neighbors did it for storage and it is working. Just be sure you take notice of how far apart yours are, and how much weight you plan to put up there. I guess most guys know all of that.

[ChristineR]

Total Items in Store: 406
Items Sold: 14
Cost of Items Sold: $78 + free shipping $21
Total Sales: $390
Highest Price Sold: $68 (Paid $27 three weeks ago New Turtle Pillow)
Average Price Sold: $28
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 6

A lot of low dollar Christmas spin offs. These are items I had for sale last Christmas and don’t want to continue to store another year. It was a very busy non-ebay life week and thus not much listing and no sourcing. I’m focused on another small death pile box of Christmas and it should be a better listing week. I have two boxes of flatware and some serving pieces I’d like to get up.

If I lived near an Ikea, I would sell lots of these awesome reusable bags Ikea Zipper Bag and Large Ikea Shopper. They also make fabric bags now and then. I have purchased them online as plastic is banned here along the Coast. Plus, easy to store and cheap to ship.

Have a great week.

[ChristineR]

Ikea Fabric Bag I’d sell in lots / quantity, not lots. 🙂

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Got back from New Orleans late last week, so catching up on the last two shows and also posting for my 2 weeks. Had extended handling time (5 days), so sales for Oct 29-Nov 2 were a bit slow but this past weekend picked up a bit.

Week(s) Oct 22-Nov 4, 2017

Total Items in Store: 920
Items Sold: 29
Cost of Items Sold: $95 (11% of sales)
Total Sales: $861.08
Highest Price Sold: $125 (1962 Barbie in Pink & White swimsuit)
Average Price Sold: $29.69
Returns: 0 (1 NPB though)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $230
Number of items listed this week: 12
Promoted listings test: 16 sales, $496.97 (57.7% of total sales), $25.57 fees (5.1% of sales)

Felt good this weekend to be back at it. Went to an auction and got some things that I think are pretty cool (although I paid up a decent amount for them): 1964 Beatles Pins, 1964 Beatles keychain, 1960s Beatles cake toppers, Triumph Motorcycle cast iron sign, an ashtray from the old MGM studios, and a bunch of old rusty antique padlocks from Folsom Prison, Yuma Prison, NY Insane Asylum, Leavenworth Federal Prison, and Alcatraz Death Row.

[Incompetent Picker]

Brian, unfortunately the auction items you just listed are likely all fakes. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but having read your contributions to this site you seem like a stand up guy and a good seller. You might want to reconsider the descriptions and pricing.

[Jay]

Why do you think they’re fakes? Just curious about specifics reasoning.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

I was going to ask the same thing! I absolutely don’t want fakes in my store, so I’m interested to see what the watch outs would be. They are incredibly solid locks, seemingly made of cast iron, very rusty (too rusty?). The name plates are the only things that appear to have been cleaned.

[whiskey]

Brian, you are one of my favorite folks to follow because you rock it in areas I can’t even begin to understand.

I don’t know anything about the Beatles stuff. The locks are questionably, if not certainly, inauthentic.

http://www.switchkeys.com/INDIA.HTML

I’m positive Alcatraz did not have a death row. It’s a tourist item based on a misperception. The other give-away is that they all have similar brass identification plates. I have never seen that in authentic pieces for a single prison, much less across multiple facilities. I am certainly not an expert, but I’ve been interested in Justice system items for about 20 years based on my profession.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by whiskey.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Ugh, thanks so much for the links. So it looks like the locks aren’t even old… I was thinking maybe they were real antique locks, which would still hold a value. Guess I have some editing to do – might even just take them down to prevent any nasty grams from eBay.

[whiskey]

Therein lies the rub. I don’t know that you need to change much. I think if you label them “collectible” but stay away from anything that alludes to actual or authentic you are free to ask what the market will allow. It looks like several sell them as you are, it is just a matter of symantics.

[Sharyn]

Some random thoughts:

I sold a pair of vintage Ferragamo shoes this past week. They were in not so good shape, so I took a pretty low offer on them. Jay & Ryanne sold a pair they had listed for a long time. I noticed that Steve just sold a pair. I realize that this doesn’t prove anything, but maybe there was an article posted somewhere about the brand. Just a hypothesis, I know.

I wanted to list a Gruen watch I bought at auction for a few dollars. I’m pretty sure it was authentic, but I got a “Seller Alert” message before I could officially list it. The message basically said that this type of watch was often faked, and I had to ensure it was authentic before I listed it. I took a second look at the watch and decided to keep it for myself. I guess one way to sell it would be to take a photo of the watch with the back off. That would help with authentication.

I listed a piece of petrified wood under the petrified wood category. I noticed that the ebay email “Your listing is confirmed” took longer than normal to arrive. I know that removing a piece of petrified wood from a National park is illegal, so I wonder if ebay had to review the listing first. This piece came with a piece of paper showing an explanation of petrified wood and the name of the store. I didn’t think anything of it until the ebay message took so long to arrive.

[Steven S]

I used to buy and sell vintage wrist watches in the eighties.
Unless it’s a unique Curvex it’s hard to believe a Gruen would be something to replicate. They were common and there were quite few of those made, best prices are for solid gold ones and espcially the aforementioned Curvex.
I believe the movement will be stamped Gruen.

[Sharyn]

Yes, Steve, I don’t get it either. The Gruen I have doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, although, it is nice. The whole message was kind of interesting though in terms of the warning. I wonder if this will be something that gets expanded to other brand names, specifically ones that are in the VERO program.

[Geoff]

Comment from the podcast: Regarding freight – I have not yet shipping freight though I have looked into it a bit. R&J – since you are in the process of looking at building more storage, maybe worth exploring: for shipping freight their tends to be a lower price if you have a shipping dock. Looking at the cast iron sink sellers is informative – readytore seller is a good example – They charge 125 dollars – who know if that is close to their actual cost, but it seems like you may be able to obtain a nice competitive advantage if you volume and have the infrastructure in place (shipping dock)

My week was not great – looking to keep focused this week on hitting my goal of 115 listings. I did not come close to that last week – in retrospect their were a lot of distractions with the kids and Halloween etc… Working to streamline my processes to become more consistent in listing a large amount every week.

10/29-11/04

Total items in store: 721
Items sold: 12
Weekly sell through: 1.7%
Total Sales: $315.95 (no shipping)
Average price: $26.33
Cost of items sold: 71.74
Gross profit: $244.21
Highest item sold: Commodore Color Monitor – 1802 Gold Star – 85 dollars (cost $2.00)

New items listed: 50
Asking price of new items listed: $1864.25
Cost of new items listed: $38.50

[Simon]

Hi R&J

I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks but I heard “hats” mentioned this week which encouraged me to pop into the forums. (I listen every week even when I don’t post)

Here are my numbers:
Total Items in Store: 2046
Items Sold: 47
Total Sales: $964
Cost of Items Sold: $113
Average Price Sold: $20.5
Average Cost of Item: $2.42
Highest Price Item Sold: $64.95 GARMIN Forerunner 610 GPS (paid $10 at a garage sale)
Number of items listed this week: 46
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 278
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 186
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 100
Sell-through rate (for the week): 2.3%
# of Hats Sold: 35 (74% of sales)

Pretty decent week this week. Tuesday and Wednesday were busy. I have a theory that I see a bump on pay day (eg: end of month). Has anyone else see a correlation with this?

You can see that my hats continue to sell even at this time of year. (I have a huge number of hats listed to get this many sales). My usual listing price is $19.95 but when I look at sales for other sellers I get the impression that the average hat sells for under $15.

It was good to hear Jay give a reminder about health insurance. A few weeks ago my son got a random eye infection (unknown cause). He was admitted to hospital a put on antibiotics. He was fine apart from a puffy eye but it took a few days to get the infection under control. The reason for mentioning this is that the hospital bill just came through. The hospital billed my insurance $45,000 for 3 nights. (I’m only responsible for a few thousand of that which is manageable). Without insurance a huge bill like that could be financially devastating for many people.

[skydog]

Week of Oct. 30-Nov. 5, 2017
Total Items in Store: 489
Items Sold: 26
Cost of Items Sold: $77
Total Sales: $560
Highest Price Sold: $50
Average Price Sold: $21.54
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $19
Number of items listed this week: 22
Prices do not include shipping charges, which are charged to the buyer (no free shipping).

J&R, you mentioned finding money in your couch. I occasionally (3 or 4 times a year) find a few dollars the pockets of jeans I purchased at a thrift. Found $13 two weeks ago. Last summer I found a Starbucks gift card in a purse with $10 on it. Nice bonus since I only paid $4!

[Gompers]

Regarding unemployment there’s a lot of variables especially depending on what state you live in.
IF you are laid off from a job you should receive unemployment automatically in most states. Some states will still schedule a “phone interview” though.

If you are self employed you do not pay unemployment tax so you are not eligible to receive it. However, if you were previously a W-2 wage earner and were laid off you would be eligible.

The issue ebayers would have is the issue of “availability” and not necessary the income you are earning. For example, if you are working ebay full time – are you available to accept a full time job in your previous occupation ? The amount of money you are earning via ebay isn’t necessarily important. The availability issue is greater.

Ebay/payapl does not report earnings to the Labor Dept and they wouldn’t have a clue how much/little you are earning. Unemployment is calculated on the W-2 wages reported via your employer every quarter.

Knowing that I’m not sure it’s worth risking collecting unemployment while earning on ebay, but if one were to get caught you may be able to argue yourself out of the situation. I can see how one can argue the issue of “availability” but arguing about the earning ebay cash part would be more difficult.

[Doublythumbs]

Oct. 29 – Nov. 4
Total Items in Store: 778
Items Sold: 12
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $576
Highest Price: $260 (Moog Brushless Resolver)
Average Price: $48
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $9
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $21

Another alright week. It would have been really bad if it wasn’t for a really great sale plus my slide auctions. It’s been surprisingly slow these past couple of weeks. But like you just mentioned in the podcast, I’ve got to look at the larger picture. Earlier last month I had my highest earning week ever. It all evens out one way or the other.

I feel like I’m really getting back into the swing of things again. October is usually one of my busiest months in my personal life. My and my partner’s birthdays both occur plus we usually always plan vacations in Oct. That and all the fall festivities that I love so much means not a lot of time left for eBay. But now I’m really going to hunker down and start listing again. If I can reach my goal of 1K items by the new year, I’ll be shocked. I’m not counting on it, but I’ll be close.

We took an impromptu trip to the Goodwill Outlets again on Saturday. Steph is really going all in on the shoes, which is fantastic because shoes just don’t interest me. My scavenge of the week… I pulled out a ziploc bag full of Tiger 2-XL talking robot cassette tapes. I remember the toy from when I was a kid, so I put them in my cart for further research. When I had time to go through everything, I found that these cassettes are rather collectable. Some even sold for over $100! But the average prices are around $20 each, so I’ll make out regardless. We’ll see how that pans out after I list them.

[Steve List]

Last weekend one of my older good till canceled listings ended for no reason that I could fined. It was originally listed in December of 2015. I checked it for offending html and links and found none so I just re-listed it.

Numbers for month of October

Total Listings: 852
Sold 60 Items for $1,410
Cost of Items Sold: $121 ($40 of it was a sale for a potential worker)
Highest Price Sold: $120 – Bound Liturgical Arts Magazines from the 1930s
Average Price Sold: $23.50
Spent on new inventory: $242
Number of items listed: 39
Refunds: 1 ($14.95)

For me, this was a great month for sales, but I’m a little behind on new listings. I sold a pair of Puma steel toe sneakers for a friend whom I hope will take an interest in selling on eBay. I’ve been teaching him how to take eBay photos and hopefully I’ll be able to hire him to help me with my eBay work.

One of the bread and butter items I have been selling are beer patches and USPS Letter Carrier Patches. I was nicely surprised to discover that I sold $177 in patches in October which I think is a record for me. The beer patches are from a large catch I purchased about 15 years ago and the USPS patches from a warehouse estate sale about 2 years ago. This all goes back to what J&R say about cache finds, sometimes you have to go all in.

[Mark S]

I was referring to s lay off situation.

[Tina F]

Regarding waiting 7 days to leave negative feedback, this is true. This just happened to me last week. I will copy and paste what the buyer said. Crazy buyer lied about return reason saying shirt was defective then admitting it didnt fit right. I called ebay, they sided with me for buyers remorse. She did end up leaving her “nasty” feedback which of course was removed. I think it is a cool off period having to wait 7 days.

Oct 28The buyer sent you a message
MessageNo need to be argumentative and rude. The bottom line is you offer returns, therefore I will be returning the item at my expense. You will deduct the restocking fee and that’s fine but you will refund me the original shipping as I am the one that paid for it. If you do not, I will report you to ebay and give a “nasty” review. Enough said…if you want to be in retail sales, you need to learn that you do not argue with the customers..period. I will wait the 7 required days from ebay before I can post a negative review in which you will receive from me. Good day.

Tina F

[Winded]

Hey,
First time posting so if this is the wrong thread to post in sorry.
So I just did a quick few test searches regarding the case sensitive keywords and it looks like they changed the order of your best match in the mobile app also number of listings did stay the same.

Edit

Screenshot link.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Winded. Reason: Added link to screen shot
• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by Winded.

[Jay]

Feel free to share some of these searches so we can better understand the differences.

[T-Satt]

While interesting, I am wondering what change we would make in our listings? Would we do lower case in the title? I’m not sure of the improvement we would make.

[BethGreen]

If I think about it, when doing a search on eBay as a buyer or when looking something up for research, I use all lowercase every time.

[T-Satt]

I do too…but would you make your titles all lowercase?

[AdventureE]

Personally,
I do not think we should start making any changes until we flush this out some more. Just because there are differences does not necessarily mean we should change what we are doing just yet. I would offer to look at how case sensitivity effects features such as sold, best match, mobile etc. on multiple types of listings. Another Scavenger made mention in their post from today of what they noticed as to how it effected best match, and mobile. Also, take a look at how the listing title line was actually done. When I looked, some were in varied case and still came up high. One way that we may start to explore this is to search for your own current listings by typing in your own listings in both upper and lower case and see what effect it has on their placement as well as the placement of other similar items. Another experiment might be to identify 2 or 3 listing titles (for items you have not listed yet) you want to do in lower case and then submit the listing. Check to see where they are placed. Then go back and change the listing title to your normal case type. Then check for any differences.

[T-Satt]

What change would we make to our listings based on any investigation? Regarding capitalization, we have 3 options:

1 – Capitalize the First Letter
2 – all lowercase letters
3 – ALL UPPERCASE LETTERS

Are 2 & 3 viable options? Even if search results change, how would potential buyers react to seeing titles like 2 & 3?

[Winded]

Since I did the search under default settings I would assume best match just sees that people that type one way or another tend to click certain listings more than others. The good thing is it looks like all the listings are the the same just not the rankings.

I wouldn’t go changing titles yet either but it just seems bonkers that something that small would change your listings rankings. I would like to see how it works out in the mobile browser and the desktop as well.

[AdventureE]

I would say 2 and 3 are not to be used.

3 looks like you are screaming and may even lower your rankings if the filter for that is applied and working correctly although there are some using this method. All lowercase does not appear to increase ranking based on my research.

Look at the Ferragamo Women’s Shoes example – https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=Ferragamo+Women%27s+Shoes&rt=nc

ferragamo women’s shoes
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=ferragamo+women%27s+shoes&_pgn=2&_skc=48&rt=nc

If you take a look at the actual listings (click in on them), you will see the name I typed in and category are prioritized. In addition, simply taking the apostrophe out of women’s changed the results. What is most searched for also effects the rankings.

In addition, it is my understanding that listings rank highest when they are first listed, so that is going to impact the results. Another factor that effects rankings is the newness of the account/store. It is my understanding that those who just opened the store will have high rankings and then the ranking will drop off.

[BethGreen]

My numbers for the week of 10/29/17:
Total Items in Store: 102
Items Sold: 10
Cost of Items Sold: $43
Total Sales: $790 + shipping
Highest Price Sold: $500 (Herman Miller Fiberglass Shell Chair)
Average Price Sold: $28.99 if I don’t include the chair
Returns: 1 Refunded without return NIB defective product

Well, the chair guy paid! Yay! I accepted an offer of $500 with local pickup. I bought the chair for $20. I’m not celebrating yet. Until this thing is out of my house I still feel like it is not a done deal. The buyer lives 11.5 hour drive away from me. He asked me if I would ship it. I’m not prepared to pack this thing. So last I heard he is looking into Uship. He said worst case he would come and pick it up…but his wife is expecting with a due date of any day now! I haven’t heard anything since last Monday. I guess I will just sit tight and wait.
As a reluctant convert from auctions myself, I would love to hear you guys re-interview Mr.CustomerService now that he has had to deviate from his original business model. Even though I’m part time, I operated off of a pool table in our basement for literally years. Inventory went in and out. It was great. I loved it. I miss it. But it seems that supply has truly outpaced demand.
Other than the chair, my week was kind of slow. But then the weather got sloppy and the sales started pouring in on Sunday and Monday. So my numbers for next week should be much better. Looks like forth quarter sales are finally coming!

[Nancy]

I’ve had a similar search thing happen as the caller. When doing research on something I’ll enter keywords and have zero or few results. Then below it will say “results matching fewer keywords” but there will be results there that match ALL my keywords. I’ve played around and sometimes it seems to depend on how far apart my keywords are in the other search results. Like they don’t count if they aren’t right together as I typed them. I haven’t tested this out it is just something I’ve noticed.

[HomeDecorGuy]

USHIP is AWFUL….. Dont use USHIP… I got burned twice! One trucker just took off with a $1,500 dining set, and another dropped off a mirror at the wrong address IN THE WRONG STATE – and USHIP did NOTHING to resolve the problems… Jay was correct when he said these delivery jobbers will wait weeks and MONTHS accepting Uship jobs until they have enough to make the run worth while… They will pick up your merchandise right away and HOLD IT until they are ready to go… By the time they do the delivery your customer will be pissed off or they already canceled the order! NEVER USE USHIP – you have been warned.

[Jay]

Okay. So you dont like Uship.
Do you use another service to ship furniture that you trust?

[HomeDecorGuy]

If the item isn’t extremely fragile, just put it on a pallet, shrink wrap it tight to the pallet, then ship it with a common carrier freight company. You need to learn to fill out a bill of lading, but that’s about it. If you must ship a large delicate piece of furniture with a white glove service, use Home Direct USA – they are the largest most trusted white glove carrier. They have at least three levels of service you can choose from, depending on what you need them to do. Any real freight company will insure your entire shipment (or you can pay to have it insured) – USHIP does not cover the mess-up’s those part time jobbers cause on their site – no matter what they tell you…

[LeeinTN]

$8 bubble wrap with free ship if you buy 4. Amazon ASIN “B073XZLV11″

peng 3/16″ 175 ft x 12″ Small Bubble Cushioning Wrap, Perforated Every 12”

[MoCoyotes]

Slowest week in as long as I can remember. Oh wait, it was last year first week of November! Not a good week for some reason. But we are already several hundred dollars above last week and it’s only Wednesday.

Total Items in Store: 1978
Items Sold: 14
Cost of Items Sold: $15
Total Sales: $442.30
Highest Price Sold: $83.93 (Pyrex bowls)
Average Price Sold: $31.57
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $50
Number of items listed this week: 50

[Julie B]

Speaking of movie props, a starburst clock I sold on eBay just appeared in a scene on the HBO series The Deuce, set in 1970s NYC. It was prominently displayed right between the actors. I had previously sold it to someone who returned it because the clock motor didn’t have enough power once the clock hands had to go upwards from the “6” position. I couldn’t find a motor for it that would work with the stylized clock hands so I relisted it as broken and it sold for full price to a prop company who didn’t need it to work. My husband who does not sell on ebay but is very supportive about it, got so excited that he paused the show and took a picture of it.

[Ryanne]

we had a lamp sold and show up on Mad Men once. it was awesome. i also took a screenshot of it. would love to see the photo! can you upload to imgur.com and post here? that’s great.

[Gompers]

I have a similar shoe story. Last year I bought some brand new Giania Versace women’s high hell snake skin shoes for 3 dollars. They even came with the box and the felt storage pouch. I thought these shoes would be a slam dunk and priced them at $400, but no interest whatsoever, not even a low ball offer.

Those high heels took 10 months to sell and sold for $130. The woman who bought them was very happy though and sent me a message to that effect.

You never know what will sell. I have stories of stuff I thought would never sell especially at my asking price and they sell within 24 hours. I suppose its a matter of the buyer looking for that exact item at the exact time you list it.

[Manateejaq]

Omfug – Sorry I am slow to respond, but thanks! I also have high hopes for the holiday season on Etsy. My Etsy shop specializes in vintage toys and kids books, and every year I get a nice bump in sales for the holidays!

On another note – I was still thinking about extreme scavenging stories. This one isn’t exactly extreme, but fits with the theme. I took my daughter to the zoo a couple weeks back and she wanted to put some coins in the giant coin funnel thing they have (not sure what to call it, but you set a coin on a ramp and it rolls around in big circles down this giant funnel). Anyway, I did not have any coins to give her. I told her if she could find any coins while we were at the zoo then she could put them in the funnel. She scoured the place (also note that she is 3, I thought she would give up pretty quickly). She found $1.10 in coins at the zoo. She was quite proud of herself and decided to keep the coins to put in her piggy bank at home. 🙂 I was impressed.

[Uncle Taco]

I’ve sold or garbage. Yes our garbage. Empty toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls and empty plastic creamer bottles.
Definitely not going to get rich doing it but I love the idea of turning something we were going to throw away into something of value. I think that’s a big reason why I’ve always loved scavenging. i.e Finding the value in what others may under value or consider junk.

[Brad]

Awesome job getting the forum to load on mobile. I usually don’t post because I don’t get much time at a PC. I’ll be able to participate more now.

[Jay]

Let us know if you have any feedback on how it works.

[Julie B]

I find money on the ground ALL THE TIME! I guess while everyone else walks around looking up, I tend to look down. I found $200 on the ground at the Mirage in Las Vegas a few years back. It was two $100 bills crumpled up outside of the bathroom. There was no one in the immediate vicinity. Turning it into the casino for its rightful owner to come forward would have been pointless, that place is too huge for the money to ever have gotten back to the right person. Since I didn’t see anyone looking around for it, I pocketed it and got out of there.

More recently I found about $220 in a bank envelope at Ollies Discount store. It looked like someone had just cashed their paycheck. The envelope had an Ollie’s receipt in it which had the person’s Ollie’s Customer Rewards card number printed on it so the store was able to ID the person from that and called them to let them know. Was glad to find the owner because it was in the working class side of town and that was probably the person’s weekly pay.

Last summer I found a $20 bill in a purse for sale at Salvation Army. I find money so often that I’ve made myself a rule that if I find anyone who needs the money more than I do, before I get home, I’ll give the money to them. Well my local Salvation Army could definitely use it so I put the $20 in their donation kettle. And guess what – the VERY next day I found a $20 bill on the ground at the lake! Who finds $20 at a lake? I think it was karma, I was just meant to have $20.

I’ve found $20 on the ground at Publix, $5 in the parking lot at Sams, $20 when I was a kid in a Walmart parking lot, $11 on the ground blowing around in DC, $5 in loose quarters at the beach….. 🙂

[Ryanne]

i love finding money on the ground too. i think as scavengers, we all tend to scan and look around on the ground all the time, more often than regular people.

the other day i decided to gather up all our change and bring it to the bank (they have this big change machine you can use for free if you’re a customer). i guessed it was about $15, jay guessed it was about $50. luckily, jay was the closer one and we had about $45 worth of coins just sitting around not being used!

[Steven S]

I have a tall jar on my dresser for pocket change and lately I’ve noticed the lid won’t go on…time to let the bank sort them and spend frivolously.

[Ryanne]

i hope you tell us how much is in there!

[Retro Treasures WV]

My earliest scavenger adventures was hanging out in arcades and checking coin slot returns for quarters. If I found a machine that was jammed I’d use a pocket knife or key to try and clear it to get the cash. I also checked newspaper machines because they got clogged pretty often. Once I pulled a couple dollars in change out of a newspaper coin slot.

A typical day when I was a kid would entail catching the bus to the mall for 50 cents, hang out checking for quarters and credits in the arcade, then going to Long John Silvers to get a free tray of “crumbs” (small fried chunks of batter for those that aren’t in the know) and a water for lunch.
I was living the scavengerlife early baby!

[Julie B]

https://imgur.com/gallery/l5Bud

Hope the link works – its screenshot of the clock I sold that appeared on The Deuce

[Ryanne]

that’s so cool!!!

[Steven S]

Nice, I like all Starburst style clocks.

[ChristineR]

Wow! That clock would not have left my house! I still haven’t found one yet and I have my dad looking too.

[So Cal Joe]

Last month I looked in my change and there was a 1907 Indian head penny.. I thought the days of finding them was gone.. It’s not a lot of value.. but pretty cool.

[ChristineK]

I posted this over on the BOLO thread but I thought more people might see it here. We played hooky last week and went to the Bahamas. Whenever we’re in the Bahamas the kids love finding sea glass. After spending a while searching the beach I looked sea glass up on Ebay for kicks and holy cow…look at solds and sort by “highest first”. Some of this stuff sells for crazy money, and I really think a lot of it is homemade in a rock tumbler. Even the ones that say “surf tumbled” are probably homemade and then tumbled in the surf for a couple of seconds for “authenticity” lol. The market seems to be dominated by a few really savvy sellers…this could be a great niche for anyone who lives by the beach or for a creative person. Go dumpster dive the local frat house or your neighbors’ recycle bins on trash day, find some interesting liquor bottles and use your rock tumbler…voila! Interesting sea glass sold for craft lots and for collectors. Some don’t even say “surf tumbled” so I assume these people are just straight-up making this stuff and selling it high. I wouldn’t advocate lying about how it was made, but it seems like cool pieces and craft lots still sell even if they don’t say “surf tumbled”.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by ChristineK.

[Doublythumbs]

Wow, Christine. You weren’t kidding. And what I like about it is the number of sold listings. Nearly 7000 sold pieces of glass in the last 90 days. So it’s an item with a big collector base. I know what I’m doing the next time I’m at the beach! I wonder if there’s a method for determining if a piece is authentically sea tumbled or not?

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Just tumble it in Salt Water!! It will smell, taste like sea water. Better still collect real sea water in 5 gal jerry cans and use that to tumble in. 🙂

mc in atl.

[Castle Rock Emporium]

Just a quick comment about auctions – I would never run one unless I knew it was a rare or collectible piece. As a collectible, you never know how high it will go so I hate to undersell with just a Buy-It-Now price. I had a $4 Retail NIB Yo-Yo from the 80’s that I suspected would appeal to collectors, I started Auction at $25.00 and it went to $138.00! Timing is everything for Auctions and I knew Japan market would be important so listed at 8:00am EST so Japan not asleep yet and America hasn’t left for work. A little early (5am!) for the West Coast crowd, but can’t please everyone!
Castle Rock Emporium

[Jay]

I love sellers who do auctions. I have sniped so many cool items for cheap because I happened to be one of the few bidders who saw the item in the short time period. (I’m about to win an expensive piece of clothing for less than half of what its worth in the next few hours).

In the grand scheme of things, for every “jackpot” bidding war, I bet there are 50 auctions that sell for opening bid. Even on collectible items.

[Steven S]

If your patient the auctions are best for buying stuff.
I’ve considered Auctions many times for selling items who’s value I can’t get a handle on but ultimately I’ll just price it atrociously high, wait a few weeks if it doesn’t sell then put a best offer on it.
A 7 day auction is just too short a time frame for two or more bidders to find it and this is a see it buy it now world.

[ChristineK]

Doublythumbs, I’d doubt there is any way to tell for sure. Honestly, I’m pretty convinced that a lot of the “authentic” sea glass in the sold category is anything but lol. It doesn’t seem to matter to buyers…I think a lot of it is bought for crafting. The big, unusual pieces seem to do really well. Again, I’m pretty sure these are homemade, with interesting “I found this in Florida/England/Russia/South Africa on a beach!” stories to go along with them in the descriptions.

Auctions don’t really seem to work well for me anymore. I do them occasionally if I really have no idea how much something is worth, but only after I’ve tried a really high BIN with “make offer” for a while first.

[Marjean28]

I have 2 stores. One with my husband and one with my eBay friend/partner. I’m just posting the store with my husband’s and my numbers this time around.

10/29/17 – 11/04/17

Total Items In Store: approximately 270
Items Sold: 7
Cost of Items Sold: < $5 (I’m excluding the original cost of the crappy lamp because I used it for a decade)
Total Sales: $136.47 not counting shipping (253.62 – includes shipping – I’m never sure if shipping is supposed to be included or not & I do make some money on shipping usually)
HIghest PrIce Sold: $75 – ugly fake tiffany style urn lamp which I’m ashamed to say I ever owned!
Average PrIce Sold: $19.50 (wow, that’s soooooo low)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory ThIs Week: $ 20
Number of Items lIsted this week: 30

[mom42terrificgirls]

Could someone please direct me to a forecast spreadsheet you use and are happy with? Working on this is my holiday project. Thanks.
~beth ann~

[T-Satt]

I can send you mine, just need to clean out some things. Send me an email at tsatterf@yahoo.com and I can send it to you.

[Jay]

Scavenger Life Episode 334: The Holidays Are Just Another Day

[Author]

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