Scavenger Life Episode 339: Scavenger Holidays

[Ryanne]

 On our way to NYC for 10 days to scavenge, see family and relax/work. Just changed our handling time. Santa guy paid. It’s going to be a great, scav
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 339: Scavenger Holidays]

[Mark S]

12/10/17 – 12/16/17

Total Items In Store: 2,072
Items Sold: 32 (most I have sold in 1 week) – 1 on TrueGether
Cost of Items Sold: $110 (around)
Total Sales: $1339.32 (My 2nd highest week)
Highest Price Sold: $150 (Camel Hair Blanket)
Average Price Sold: $41.85
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 158
Number of Items listed this week: 15

Great week of sales, wish they were all like this.

Bought some Quimper pottery this week for $125. I think I can get upwards of $900 if I sell them individually as Jay has suggested to me. I think that way is much better money wise than selling all as 1 lot.

I have really enjoyed selling multiple items from 1 listing. I have a number of these listings and I am going to continue to look for these types of items. You just keep selling them with one listing!

I have been getting more serious about my shipping materials inventory. I created a spreadsheet of all
the shipping materials I use and there are 65 unique items. 35 of the 65 are boxes and 7 are some type of poly mailer. I update the quantity on hand and in storage two times: 1. If I reorder the item and 2. When I notice the item in the shipping area getting low and I get more from storage. It is very simple and it prevents me from running out of any shipping materials by setting a % full. When the % full drops below 50%, I start to think about replenishing that item.

I was looking for a brown belt for myself at an estate sale. I found three that looked fairly average for $1 each. Then I looked to see what size they were and realized that all three were vintage Coach belts. Long story short, they should sell for about $115 in total. I have a new BOLO!

Mark

[Linda Shields]

Good for you Mark S! Would you mind telling me the sizes of boxes you buy and where you buy them? I am overrun by a mountain of used boxes because I never know if I will need one. It’s to the point of ridiculous.

[Mark S]

Linda,

I have just about every kind of box that you can get from USPS. I get these 3 boxes from ebay with the quarterly coupon: 18 X 14 X 10, 12 X 10 X 8, 10 X 8 X 6. I get the following boxes from a local wholesale box company. I don’t think my company will help you much because the key is that I can go to the warehouse and pick them up without any shipping cost. You can probably get the same from Uline for a similar price, but you will have to pay about 70% more for the shipping. So, look on the web for a place near you where they deliver free or you can pick them up.

Box Each QTY
48 X 7 X 7 $1.79 25
30 X 14 X 7 $1.74 10
24 X 12 X 4 $0.92 25
14 X 11 X 4 1\2 $0.71 25
14 X 8 X 6 $0.66 50
12 X 9 X 4 $0.58 25
10 X 8 X 3 $0.46 25
10 X 8 X 6 $0.44 25
20 x 10 x 6 $0.93 25
30 X 14 X 10 $1.77 10
34 x 10 x 6″ $1.28 10

Having these boxes saves me time from having to search for a box. It saves money when it saves money to send Smartpost.

Mark

[Linda Shields]

Thanks Mark!

[5853ne10]

My sales this past week are down due to a focus on moving into a much larger storage facility that allows me to drive my van inside. However, this post is regarding shipping materials primarily boxes and tape. Unless using a USPS flat rate box I source 90% of my boxes at a two of my local recycling centers. Massive amounts of cardboard boxes come in daily and we are free to take all we need and they are in every possible dimension from jewelry-size to a large television. I also source ALL my packing materials from there as well including air pillows and bubble wrap of every style. In another bin is packed with styrofoam pieces, boxes, sheets and more. For tape, I often buy mine at estate sales. I recently bought a commercial air-powered box stapler for $25.00 including 2000 staples. Hope this triggers an idea for you.

[Ryanne]

yes, everyone should source from the trash for free! our dump will not allow us to pull anything out, it’s against the rules. i sometimes do anyway when i see a really nice box!

[Mark S]

I had a very wierd situation this week. I don’t sell very much on Bonanza and TrueGether, maybe 1-2 items per month on them. However, on Friday, the same item sold on both Bonanza and Truegether. The price on Bonanza was nearly 22% more than the price on TrueGether. I didn’t think that was suppose to be possible – price difference of that much and both selling. But after looking into it, I found that the shirt was being sent to the same address. However, the guys first name was the same, but the last name was different. Also, each had a totally different email address. I didn’t want to spoil a Christmas gift, but I had to contact them both to find out what to do. It turned out that it was two different guys looking for the same item. So, I had to cancel the Bonanza sale. Turned out ok. I couldn’t see a way to cancel a transaction on Bonanza – it looks like the refund from Paypal is all you need to do.

Mark

[Ryanne]

i’ve had something similar happen where someone will buy an item (like a mug) on ebay and immediately buy the same one on Bonanza. but they don’t realize this is a mirrored store (though the photos and logos are identical) and i’ve had to cancel the sale or try to help them find a similar matching item on ebay, which i have actually been successful at.

[IndySales]

Items Sold: 13
Profit: $326.05
COGS: $66.53
Average Price Sold: $25.08
Highest Price Sold: $86.16 (Pioneer Home Theater System)
New Items Listed: 12
Total Listings: 174

I won my first auction this week, paying only $60 for about $1,000 worth of high-end audio equipment. That in addition to a few other good finds made this a great week for increasing the value of my inventory.

Still on the road to 250 listings, which is where I’m expecting to see consistent daily sales. Finding inventory is the bottleneck ATM, but winning the auction this week definitely opened my eyes to a whole new genre of sourcing.

[Jay]

Ive been getting emails from other Scavengers who are buying these auction lots of returned merchandise. They also say much of it is new. why does the stuff sell so cheap if its so valuable? Im surprised there isnt more competition.

[Linda Shields]

I’m so happy Santa paid!!! Merry Christmas and enjoy your vacay. 😊
I had another good week with over 1K in total sales—and a good month. Up to over 1200 listed. Didn’t even list on Ebay for almost 3 weeks while we had our granddaughters visiting. We returned them to the airport at 3 am Wednesday morning. I’m just getting back to business.
Great news for us; we just paid off our mortgage this week. As Dave Ramsey folks say, “WE’RE DEBT FREEEEE!” Thanks SO MUCH Ryanne and Jay for being my mentor and support group through these past few years, providing much encouragement and support.
I was thinking about my next goal for Ebay. I definitely want to invest in a bit of cryptocurrencies. Any advise from our fellow trash elves on that? Other suggestions? I don’t think I want to do anything that requires DEBT! 😊

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Linda Shields.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Linda Shields.

[Mark S]

I have a friend that bought 5 bitcoins at 7,000 and sold at 19,000. He made about 60K. But he warns against buying them now because of the frenzy.

Mark

[Linda Shields]

I opened an account with Coinbase last night. Plan to just invest 1K per month, dividing it equally between Bitcoin, Etherium and Litecoin. I am now the proud “owner” of one Litecoin, half of an Etherium coin, and 0.0186 of a Bitcoin. LOL. Kind of dollar cost averaging, I plan to do this once a month at least for a few months to see how it goes. I am only investing what I can afford to lose, not going crazy. If you worry about how high Bitcoin already costs it’s kind of like not starting an exercise program because you should have started a year ago. I wanted to buy Bitcoin when it was $800 but didn’t want to cut back onthe mortgage payoff. Once I have a Goal I stick with it. I figure doing this will keep me interested in staying with Ebay, as I was thinking about quitting. I have another project in mind for the new year that’s kind of a big challenge for me that will require some time and effort as well. Starting is the hard part.

[Mark S]

Linda,

That is awesome that you are now debt free. Dave Ramsey has some real good principles about money.

I think that is a worthy goal for all of us to reach.

Mark

[Utahbill]

Congratulations on paying off your mortage that is a great accomplishment. Thanks for posting it is inspiring.

[Jay]

Wow. Thats huge. So you paid off your mortgage early with your eBay profits?

[Linda Shields]

Yes, I talked about it a couple of months ago as it was getting close. We re-financed our ten year old home 7 1/2 years ago down to a 15 yr mortgage. I had read Mr. Money mustache say that if you have any debt that you should act like your hair is on fire. That inspired me to add extra pay down to our mortgage from my eBay profits. At first I just threw in an extra thousand ever so often, then as my store grew I threw in an extra thousand every month. Then as my store grew more I was able to add an extra 2000 per month to the mortgage payment. That allowed us to pay off a 15 year mortgage and 7 1/2 years. I was very surprised to learn a couple of months ago that I had personally paid off $110,000.00 on our mortgage. It was painless because it was just extra income from my eBay store. Now we can’t get over the realization that next month we won’t have a huge chunk of our income disappearing from our bank account. 😊

[Ryanne]

yes! nice job! can’t wait to do that too.

[Linda Shields]

I have total confidence in you! 😀

[T-Satt]

Well done! Very Awesome!

Now…what will you do with the extra income?

[T-Satt]

Congrats on paying off the mortgage Linda! That is awesome!

[BrianB]

Congratulations on being debt free.

[Julie B]

Linda,
Look into Bitcoin Cash, now also available on Coinbase. Bitcoin Cash was spawned when the Bitcoin blockchain software was updated over the summer (called a “fork”). Anyone with bitcoin at the time of the “fork” got an equal number of “coins” in Bitcoin Cash. For example, if you had 2 bitcoins at the time of the fork, then you received 2 bitcoin cash “coins” after the fork. Anyway, Bitcoin Cash is now available on coinbase. I think we’ll see a drop in bitcoin prices for a bit, while people buy into Bitcoin Cash instead. It’s a cheaper price point right now too.

[Linda Shields]

Thanks Julie, I’ll check into that.

[Rydell Relics]

RR Store Week Dec 10-16, 2017

Total Items in Store: 1,389
Items Sold: 44
Cost of Items Sold: $39.00
Total Sales: $654.96
Highest Price Sold: $44.99 (Clan Douglas cashmere sweater)
Average Price Sold: $14.89
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20
Number of items listed this week: 39

That might be my lowest average price sold ever! But I’m not complaining; a sale is a sale. Lately, I’ve been finding lots of paper ephemera, and although items might only sell for $5 to $10 each, when you get a whole box full of the stuff for a buck or two, it’s hard to pass up. Whether or not I create a sweatshop for myself or not is kind of up to the estate sale gods. If I find a whole box of horse racing magazines for $2, then that’s what I’m selling. If I find a closet packed with cashmere sweaters, then I’m selling those too.

It took some doing, but I convinced myself to take a good long look at my record collection and see what I can live without. The first and easiest things to pull are the doubles. I don’t need two copies of Pink Floyd “Dark Side Of The Moon”, so I kept the nicer copy and listed the other. Sold in just a few days. I also dipped into my jazz LPs and pulled The Jazz Messengers at Cafe Bohemia Volume 1. It’s the first pressing on Blue Note Records, which are highly collectable. I’d like to keep it, but if I can get close to my $240 dollar asking price, I can live without it.

Paul

[Jay]

A sale is sale. As long as you’re enjoying the process. Thats all that matters!

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Looks like $240 asking for it isn’t out of the question.

[Utahbill]

Week of December 10-16

Total items in store: 250
Total sales: $296.86 (does not include shipping)
# items sold: 14
Weekly Sell Through Rate: 5.6%
Average: $21.20
Returns: 0
# items listed: 9

A pretty good week considering the low number of items I have listed. As I suspected the buyer of the $120 jacket last week did not pay. The good news is I relisted it and it sold today for $160. That will help my numbers for next week.

Between items selling and holiday activities I didn’t increase my total number of listings. So,
the goal for next week is still 260 items, again.

Next weeks total items in store goal: 260

My goal is to increase the total number of items I have listed by 10 each week regardless of how many items sell.

[T-Satt]

Week of 12/10-12/16
Total Items in Store: 1,678
Number of Items Listed: 78
Number of Items Sold: 100
(Includes 13 Etsy, 5 Bonanza 1 TruGether)
Weekly STR: 26%

Total Product Sales: $2,275
Cost of Items Sold: $418
Gross Profit for Week: $1,673
Highest Item Sold: $110 – Polo Ralph Lauren Down Parka
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 27-22.

eBay Clothing
# Listed: 1,031
# Sold: 49
STR: 20%
ASP: $24.20

eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 644
# Sold: 38
STR: 25%
ASP: $22.84

Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 115
# Sold: 13
STR: 48%
ASP: $17.04

Completely agree on doing the jobs that you want to hire out. In fact, I am changing my listing process right now, going back to the listing sheets that I used to use, so that I can do the job exactly how I plan to have our new hire do it. This is so that I can refine it one more time before they come in, and it will be easier to step in when they aren’t here.

Regarding Same Day Delivery, I have not seen anywhere that Guaranteed Delivery requires Same Day shipping, but Veronica and I do Same Day handling. Our Postal Service arrives at the house no earlier than 3pm, so we have a 2pm cutoff on eBay. If the buyer pays at 1:59, we have to ship it out that day per eBay handling requirements. If the buyer pays at 2:01, we don’t have to ship until the next day.

Good news on the Dicken’s Village sale for $5,000. The first payment of $1,000 went through, so it looks like this thing is happening!

PS – I may have an answer on your items not showing for eBay Guaranteed Delivery. Check in your Site Preferences \ Return Preferences. You should have a rule that says “Approve a Return Automatically” with the name “Approve eGD returns automatically”. If you have modified that rule at all…your items may not show up. It was set when you signed up for eGD to automatically accept all returns.

I found this rule yesterday, and contacted eBay asking how it works. Both the rep and I believe that by changing this rule to have certain exclusions, your items may not show up for eGD. He is supposed to contact me today to confirm that. I will let you know if I get any more info.

[Linda Shields]

T-satt would you mind sharing your listing sheets? I need to teach my helper how to list and I dread it.

[T-Satt]

No problem, but let me be clear on what they are…

My sheets are by clothing type (Shirts / Pants / Suits … etc) that have the information needed to do a listing WITHOUT having the item in front of you. So these are clothes only.

I’m going to tweak them and scale them down, as now I should have a lot of basic information in the templates in SixBit or on eBay, and I’m also cutting down what I put into the Description.

If this is what you are looking for, shoot me an email at tsatterf@yahoo.com and I will send you a copy. These are built in Excel.

[Linda Shields]

Done! Find me in your spam filter. 😊

[simplicio]

Congratulations on paying off the mortage! That is fantastic. Debt is so fragilizing… the coming year’s goal is to divest ourselves of as much debt as possible.

I had a decent week for sales… but I got into a bit of a buying frenzy. That would be fine but I think a few of my items were bad buys… I guess we’ll see. The questionable buys were mostly the cheaper ones, so the cost is really space/hassle.

Sales: CAD$646, 4 items, $161 avg
COGS: $90
Expenditures: $632
Net profit: -$171
Hours: 5, -$34/hr
Notable sales: another 2 toners for $40–>$440
Notable buys: 4 toners for $258 shipped (hoping for $1000+), an airport metal detector $74 (mistake!! it weighs like 200 lbs), automatic bottle filler $53 (*probably* a mistake, but good upside if not), classroom projector $200 (hoping for $500-800).

[ChristineK]

Congratulations on paying off your mortgage Linda!! Best feeling ever! We’re right behind you…we should have ours done by Feb. 🙂

The NYC scavenger vacation stories made me think of when we took our kids to a camp out-of-town a few summers ago. It was the last week of July/1st week of August, and the VRBO we rented was on a street near what I guess were college apartments. Anyways, I found SO MUCH STUFF that we still have and use to this day that week. Apparently that’s the move-out/move-in time at colleges? I had no idea…it was so crazy. We could have taken so much more but we were constrained by what we could fit in our minivan.

Some highlights were a color laser printer that had literally only ever had a few pages printed on it, the Coach bag that I still carry every day, Coach sheepskin-lined boots that I wear every winter, a new-in-box sewing machine that my 11 year-old is crazy about, a ton of textbooks that I traded in on Amazon, JCrew and Lilly Pulitzer clothes, a Dr Dre Beatbox, photography lighting and a tripod still in the Amazon boxes (looked like a student bought them and then didn’t end up taking the class?)…it was nuts. One of the apartment complexes even had 2 clothing donation bins, but yet the students threw the clothes in the trash and in front of the trash bins instead. I put as many bags of clothing as I could into the bins so they didn’t end up at the dump. It was like a cornucopia of waste…scavenger heaven! I keep trying to convince the kids to do that camp again lol.

[Linda Shields]

Let’s celebrate! Let us know so we can share the happiness.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Enjoy your week in NYC! I’m sure you’ll have no shortage of things to do, but I’m off work on Friday and may go out to see if there are an estate sales Friday/Saturday before we head off to Western PA for Christmas.

Week December 9-16, 2017

Total Items in Store: 850
Items Sold: 17 (1 Amazon, 1 Bonanza)
Cost of Items Sold: $106 (14.6% of sales)
Total Sales: $717.42
Highest Price Sold: $187 (1960s Boston Celtics jacket)
Average Price Sold: $42.20
Returns: 0 (1 NPB though)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Promoted listings test: 13 sales, $536.45 (74.8% of total sales), $26.98 fees (5% of sales)

That Celtics jacket was the last of the 4 I bought back in Feb at an estate sale. It was the last day before closing when I got there and 3 Celtics jackets and one Red Sox jacket were still there. They had them priced at $40/each, but were already at 50% off for the last day to take them down to $20/each, I offered $10/each for all 4 and they accepted. I thought they were just nice recent throwback jackets, but when I got them home and noticed made in the USA & the very early RN number I realized they were all legit 1960s. Paid $10 each ($40 total) and sold each for $150-$200 (about $700 total).

Starting to develop some death piles after not listing for a good 3-4 weeks. I’m off on Friday and all next week so I hope to catch up in between visits with family & friends.

[Sharyn]

Brian – Where in Western PA are you headed? We always spend time in Pittsburgh from the day after Christmas through New Years. My sister and her family live in the same town we grew up in near Pittsburgh, but my family and I live in NJ and my parents live in FL. So, we all meet up for the end of the year.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

My family is everywhere Monroeville, PA to Steubenville, OH. We’ll likely be spending most of our time in the Washington, PA area where my brother lives because his first baby is due on Christmas Day.

[Sharyn]

I grew up in Upper St. Clair, which is where my sister now lives. I’m familiar with Washington, PA since my dad’s company had a store in the mall there when I was growing up. My grandpa used to live in Monroeville (he is no longer with us).

[Sharyn]

One comment on the podcast – the GoDaddy bookkeeping actually will tell you when you have a repeat customer, but it is a bit hard to notice. When you first go to the opening webpage, on the left hand side there is a box labeled “New This Week”. If you have a repeat customer, it will read “repeat customer” with the number of repeat customers in front. If you have not had any repeats in the past week, it just doesn’t show anything. You can click on “Meet your customers” to get more information.

Week of Dec 10-16
* Total Items in Store: 1192
* Items Sold: 30
* Cost of Items Sold: $71.22 + $4.38 Commission
* Total Sales: $564.83
* Highest Price Sold: $70 Gemstone Yellow Desk Globe
* Average Price Sold: $18.83
* Returns: 0 (1 NPB)
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $3.30
* Number of items listed this week: 16

My COGS are a little high because I bought a raincoat new at an outlet shop during the summer, and then found a nicer one at a rummage sale. So, I sold the new one at a slight lower price than what I paid, but was able to use the full sale price as my COGS.

I finished up listing the china I had and decided to take a break. I need to work on another project and do a little bit of organization. I’ll start up again next year.

I’ve TRIED not to do any sourcing, but there were some good online auctions out there. I found one where someone was emptying out a storage unit and didn’t have that many listings. It didn’t get much interest. So, I put minimum bids on a pair of men’s Carolina work boots, men’s Timberland boat shoes, and a set of andirons. With the 10% premium, the total came to $3.30!

[Ryanne]

technically GDBK does show repeat customers using first and last name data, not email or username data. so i’ve seen it flag repeat customers for a name like “Richard Smith”, and i checked the info about purchases and it was two different people, different locations, usernames and emails. i wish ebay would just give this info based on username and email.

[Marjean28]

My numbers for the week, which reflect me raising prices significantly. I tried to eliminate sales so that I could focus on scaling up inventory. Spending time packing takes away from the time I can list. I am going to try to make a go of this full time, having lost my job 2 months ago. I don’t necessarily want to take income from the store now though.
December 11 – 17
Store 1
items in store 780
total sales (not including shipping) – $132.46
total items sold 7
highest priced item sold – $50 Lord-Of-The-Rings-Trilogy-Risk-Board-Game-2003-Parker-Brothers-COMPLETE-LOTR
Average price sold $18.92
this is the store I partnered with my friend on. We haven’t really been listing in it for the last 2 months

Store 2
items in store 454
total sales (not including shipping – $656.75
total items sold 10
highest priced item sold – $500 Evenheat Pro-Set Kingpin 88 Electric Kiln for Programmable for PMC 1440 Watts – this was my own personal kiln
second highest priced item sold – $36.89 Womens Size 18 Lands End Blazer Suit Coat Tan Plaid Plus Size Wool Cashmere Used
average price sold $65.68, without the kiln, average price sold $17.42 (ouch)
This is the store I’ve been trying to build up.

It’s hard not to look at those numbers and cringe. There’s an old adage I used to live by when I was on commission sales eons ago, “production cures all woes”. Too true.

[Doublythumbs]

Weird, I wasn’t able to log on to the forums for a minute. It kept saying I was tagged as a spammer. But then it started working again. So if you get a message from me asking for help, just ignore it I guess.

Dec. 10-16
Total Items in Store: 1018
Items Sold: 19
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $648
Highest Price: $185 (Vintage Japan Embroidered Dragon Tiger Tour Reversible Sukajan Souvenir Jacket)
Average Price: $34
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $96
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $0

Pretty decent week for me. A little better than average. Though it just feel slow for some reason. I got the feeling that I did far better last December than I did this year, so I pulled up the data in GoDaddy and I must have just misremembered it. I’m making more sales now than I did a year ago. It’s just one of those ways that your memory plays tricks on you until you see the actual data.

I’ve hit a major milestone this week. Over 1K items in my inventory! Woot! I was wondering if I was going to make it before the new year. Also, I finally caught up on my backlog to the day of the flood when most of my inventory was destroyed. Everything that was salvaged is now listed and I don’t have to look at all the items that I labeled as destroyed on my spreadsheet anymore. It’s just another way that I can put that awful event behind me.

No scavenging last week as I’ve been focusing a LOT of my time listing and preparing for Christmas. I hope you both enjoy your trip to NYC! I can’t wait to see all the things you scavenge!

[Ryanne]

i had to un-mark you as spam, i’m not sure why it happens, but i have to manually allow you to post again. i don’t know why even when you’re an approved user.

[Simon]

Here are my numbers for the week:
Items Sold: 65
Total Sales: $1251
Cost of Items Sold: $111
Average Price Sold: $19.25
Average Cost of Item: $1.71
Highest Price Item Sold: $44.95 Vintage SABATIER JEUNE 9.5″ slicer / chef knife
Number of items listed this week: 34
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 295
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 160
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 102
Sell-through rate (for the week): 3.17%
# of Hats Sold: 50 (76% of sales)

I had a great week. This was my highest number of sales since I started reselling (over 2.5 years ago). A surprising number of hats sold this week. I expect that things will slow down this week since we’re getting close to deadlines for shipping (especially for buyers on the west coast).

I hope everyone else had a good holiday season and will have a well-earned break.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Total Items In Store: 895
Items Sold 21
Total Sales $642.50
COGS $100.10
Total Profit $542.40
Average profit $25.83
Average sales price $30.60

12 of my sold items were shoes for over $400. Shoes absolutely drive my store! Matter of fact, I just got the “cha-ching” on a $100 pair of shoes while writing this.

I forced myself to get my photo setup arranged this week out in the garage. I’m back on the listing train baby! I’m getting back to having a system where I create listings during breaks and lunch at work, then take photos in the evenings. I HAVE to get some form of system going so I can be consistent. On Saturday I was able to list 20 clothing items start to finish in the morning. On Sunday my time was limited due to waking up late. I did do a timed trial to assess how quickly I can list pants. I can easily do 3 minutes a pair to create the draft listing, research and price, assess condition, and fill out all info in listing. Basically everything but photos. I already know I can batch process photos very quickly through my phone app. So 5 minutes per item start to finish done in a batch process fashion for pants is my benchmark to shoot for.

Scavenging has been great lately. My current process is that I hit up 3 tag sale Goodwills on Sunday, and hit up my local non-tag sale goodwill just once a week now. I’m cleaning up on clothing! I’ll buy the bread ‘n butter stuff all day long with the 99 cent tag sales. If something is pretty good and I’m not confident it will stick around until 99 cent week then I’ll buy moderate bread n butter ($25 profit) items at 50% off. I only buy things full price if they are well over $30 profit. Yesterday I got two vintage women’s ugly sweaters that will easily bring $100 each, but may bring even more once I do a little more research.

[Lisa T.]

Hi guys,
This is about Amazon Merch pay on demand shirt selling. Yes, it really is easy. There is no marketing, website, etc. Occasionally I’ll post a link on Pinterest. People find your stuff through keyword searches just like they do on ebay. I basically only do text-based shirts. I use PicMonkey (they have free or $6 a month service), resize using free online tool, then post the shirt. You decide what to charge and that affects the royalty you make. Sure, there are people paying for software, buying designs, setting up websites and doing it all day like a full-time job. They usually sell on multiple POD platforms. But for a side gig, it is super easy income. I haven’t touched it in months because I’ve been finishing my latest novel, and I make several hundred dollars a month. -Lisa

[Jay]

Hey Lisa. Thanks for the comment. Always love real hard data.
–How many designs do you have for sale?
–How much do you sell each shirt for?
–If your net profit is $300/month, how many shirts are you selling?

[amazingtaste]

Hey there everyone! Also wanted to comment on the Merch conversation. It is “easy” money if you only want a little money. Kind of like someone would say selling one item on Ebay is “easy”. Making a full-time living off of it will require full-time work just like anything else. Also Amazon can kick you off at any point so there is risk involved in being too heavily dependant on it. It does allow me to do something that is very different than selling on Ebay. I am sure you feel the same about your video jobs. It is a fun side gig. Ebay will always be our main gig though!

[T-Satt]

Was the coaching from Greg really valuable on Merch? And how much time are you spending per shirt for design?

[amazingtaste]

The coaching from Greg was 1000x worth it! I can’t say enough good things about him and his information. I would highly recommend it. I am spending very little time per design. 🙂

[BrianB]

At one time, several podcasts ago Ryanne and Jay were discussing the infrequently encountered issue of providing at least 3 images for an eBay listing. eBay requires or maybe strongly suggests that you have at least 3 images. This isn’t usually an issue, but at the time Ryanne and Jay were discussing photographing patches. Today, I noticed a listing where the seller simply listed one of the images multiple times in the listing. I thought, “Why didn’t I think of that?”.

My other solution for this very small issue for something like a patch is to take a picture of the front of the item, the back and then to take a 3rd picture of the front with a coin or something similar to provide scale of the item.

[Ryanne]

that’s what we do too with patches or other small items (like buttons). front back and hold it in your hand or put it next to a quarter for size comparison. not just so you get the 3 photos, but i find when i buy from other sellers and they don’t do some kind of size comparison for smaller items, i am ofter flumoxed at how small the item ends up being because i just pictured it differently.

[Linda Shields]

Spealing of hans, I Often put my hands in a photo to show scale. That earned me a nice compliment recently from a woman who said, “you have beautiful hands.” 😀 I do try to keep a decent manicure so my hands look nice for the photos because i have seen too many ugly/grisly women’s hands on ebay showing jewelry, Etc. that’s SO gross! Haha iI wouldn’t want anything those hands have touched. 😜

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Linda Shields.

[Temudgin]

For a military patch, if you’re selling it as old (or have no idea) you can also add a close up of the edge to show more clearly to the less savvy buyer if it has a cut edge. There are some exceptions but generally a merrowed patch is late ‘60’s or later.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

This Facebook group is VERY helpful if you need help identifying military patches, insignias, age of them, etc. People are usually friendly in there. https://www.facebook.com/groups/7817160305/

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Brian Treasures from Grandmas.

[Nancy]

I do same day shipping and I have my cut off time set at 9am CT. So if it sells between 12 midnight and 9am I have to ship it that day. It’s taking some getting used to. I keep forgetting I have to check to see what made it through that time slot and I’ve missed two times things I should have sent out same day.

[T-Satt]

We have never missed anything with Same Day, but we have been burned by shipping too early. Literally had the labels on at 1:45 and someone bought and paid at 1:50. So now, we will pack everything with a quick description, name, zip, and weight on the package at any time (night, first thing in the morning, or starting at around 1pm) and we won’t hit pay and print until 2:00pm…

[Steven S]

Dec 10-16 2017 $2645

• Total Items in Store: 830
• Items Sold: 34 (31 ebay / 2 Bonanza / 1 Truegether)
• International 2 GSP
• Total Sales $2645 ($2515 ebay / $90 Bonanza / $40 Truegether)
• Highest Price $500 JBL Speakers
• Average Price Sold: $78
• Returns: 0
• Cost of Items Sold: $808
• Cost of items purchased this week $10

Not much listing as I was busy packing and being lazy.
I love the eBay lifestyle, work 4-5 hours a day and goof off a lot.

[Geoff]

I sold my Cast Iron Utility Sink again this week for 490 and change. My wife cannot wait for me to get it out of the garage. First sale the woman blew off picking it up 2 times without calling and then asked to cancel the sale day 28. This time the customer instant paid but seems not to understand the local pick up thing and he is in Texas (Im in Ma.) Anyway — it is a great sale however i am afraid it is going to fall through again — its funny some items just seem to be cursed or something.

Week fell off a bit – hopefully the sink sale sticks otherwise it will hurt the week pretty bad.

12/10/17 – 12/17/17

Total items in store (beginning of week): 897
Items sold: 21
Weekly sell through: % 2.34
Total Sales: $ 851.52 (no shipping)
Average price: $40.55
Cost of items sold: $200.23
Gross profit: $651.29
Highest item sold: Mid century Cast Iron Deep Utility Sink 24″ x 21″x 13″ 1962 ($492.00 Cost $120.00)
New items listed: 49
Asking price of new items listed: 1774.46
Cost of new items listed: $ 207.83

[T-Satt]

Look at it this way…

Focus on the amount you listed this week. You have over $1,700 coming your way in the future. You don’t know when…but it is coming…

[Geoff]

I think that thought is what i find most fun about this business : )

[T-Satt]

Which makes me glad to think I have about $60k coming my way…someday… 🙂

[Geoff]

So I just picked up the phone and called the people who bought the sink. An 82 year old woman bought it and i spoke with her son. I am so glad I spoke with them because they just seem so nice. Looks like my sale may go through — and i totally don’t mind helping the lady figure out freight now that i know they are actual people. For a little while i was trying to figure out how someone could be scamming me by depositing money into my pay pal account.

My take away is i need to get out more.

[Jay]

Cool. We dont assume that people are scammers. Good to protect yourself, but most people want the item they buy.

[Geoff]

totally — i have dealt with one, and only one, scammer. And for whatever reason i have to actively remind myself that fundamentally almost everyone is just like you or me — and Ebay does do a good job of keeping the marketplace fair.

[T-Satt]

For me, the take away was…provide great customer service!

Some things don’t change, no matter what business…or decade…

[anniethrifts]

For anyone who really is interested in doing Amazon Merch, sign up now. I’ve been waiting since the Spring and I know others that have been waiting to get approved for over 14 months now. Others say it only took them about 6 weeks. Who knows how long it will take!

[T-Satt]

I have heard that. I follow some other discussion groups on Merch.

That is where the real “throttling of sales” takes place. And they straight up say they are doing it…

[Sharyn]

I just received a message from a buyer (from the UK) who paid only after I sent a message explaining that the unpaid item assistant was going to kick in tomorrow. Many times a seller here will wonder why someone didn’t pay, and here is one explanation:

Hello there,

Terribly sorry, I had a fundamental misunderstanding of how eBay worked and assumed that if I put an item in my cart but didn’t pay for it, it would still remain on the storefront or the page and wasn’t reserved for me. I went through with the purchase.

Thank you!

[Linda Shields]

Ryanne and Jay, I am finally finishing listening to the podcast. It’s so funny that you brought it up because I actually do set our ADT camera on the floor to watch the cats eat when we are away. Hahaha. They apparently do not miss us, they chow down the whole time we are gone. 😀😀😀. If we do get a burglar I will have great photos of his feet!

By the way, I would love to hear your recommendations on where to scavenge in NYC from you or anyone else. We are going there again in March and taking our oldest granddaughter this time—I would love to take her scavenging.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Linda Shields.

[Julie B]

My numbers 12/10 – 12/16

This is my least profitable December in 3 years, even though I have 3 times as much inventory as Dec 2015 and twice as much inventory as Dec 2016. I think this is because I am not listing regularly due to outside work as well as lower profit margins from retail arbitrage inventory (the only type of inventory I have time to acquire right now). But nevertheless, I persist.

Total Items In Store: 955
Items Sold: 29
Cost of Items Sold: $195
Total Sales: $791 (but this includes free shipping)
Highest Price Sold: $104 (J Crew Leather Pants, which buyer is returning due to fit. I will relist for higher price)
Average Price Sold: $27.28

I’ve had some of my oldest inventory sell over the last few weeks. Not sure if its because I updated all of my titles to delete punctuation or for unknown reasons. Jason T Smith of Thrifty Business said that if a title has punctuation google search engine will cut off searching the title at that point.
Example: NWT Chico’s Leather Jacket. According to Jason Google would cut off at the “‘” in Chico’s.
Another example: 23 Bon Appetit Magazine Back Issues June 2016, July 2016, April 2017. The title will get cut off at the first comma.
Last example: NWT Chicos Leather Jacket 3/4 Length Sleeves Size 2. Google will cut off searching title after the “/”.
I don’t know how to verify if this is true but I did update most of my titles over the 3 weeks, just in case.

[T-Satt]

That is really interesting about the punctuation. I use Men’s in my titles a lot for the size (as in Men’s Medium, Men’s Large). Sometimes I take out the apostrophe if I need one more space.

I also use the / a lot for dress shirt sizing (as in 33/34) for the sleeve length.

I will have to look into that. It could up the STR if I make those changes…

[Julie B]

If I have to put punctuation in my titles I try to place it as close to the end of the title as possible. So for example: NWT Ralph Lauren Green V Neck Sweater Medium Men’s. That way, if the punctuation theory is true, then google search won’t cut off the title until the very end.

My last two posts have taught me that at 41 years of age, I can’t correctly spell “punctuation” on my own. I miss the first “t” every time. Thanks Spell Check!

[Sharyn]

Does anyone know how to search for punctuation in your titles? I put in a quotation mark (“) and an ampersand (&) into the search window, and nothing comes up. I know that I have a few of those in my listings, so there must be something else I have to do. It will be a pain to scroll through all of my listings to find punctuation.

[Jay]

Sorry if i missed something: are we not allowed to use punctuation in titles?

[Ryanne]

you are allowed, but people are saying for Google SEO sake, it might be bad.
i personally strip out any commas or apostrophes on any titles if i can. sometimes i’ll have a hyphen or a dash, but that’s rare.

[Geoff]

I don’t know about google – but i have found lately for ebay best match the titles that perform really good often can be 2 worlds – like “Estes Rocket” – and sometimes not using unnecessary worlds (or all capital or that kind of thing) is as important as key words.

[T-Satt]

Sorry, I don’t have a way to do it either. I can use SixBit to Find/Replace (it will be a new test for me), so my plans are to do that.

Good news is, your listings with eBay will be refreshed by doing this, as the title will change. Should be a boost in search…

[Manateejaq]

December 10 – December 16 2017
Total items in store: Etsy 451 // Ebay 595 (Items not crossposted I list different types of things on Etsy and Ebay)
Items Sold: Etsy 17 // Ebay 30
Cost of items Sold: Etsy $30.91 // Ebay $212.41
Total Sales: Etsy $285.45 // Ebay $723.77 ((Total = $1009.22))
Highest Price Sold: $125 Tony Lama Ostrich Cowboy Boots
Average Price Sold: $21.47
Returns: 0 (Though one buyer messaged me AFTER I mailed their package and marked it as shipped, asking to cancel because they gave me the wrong address.. yah. And another said she did not receive an item though tracking listed as ‘delivered’ and my post master confirmed that the GPS location at the last scan was at her house. Good times. I did not refund, and am expecting negative feedback – 3 out of 6 feedback this buyer has left other sellers has been negative.)
Number of items listed this week: 29 (listed at $587)

I am visiting family for the holidays and decided this year to just change my Ebay handling time to 10 business days and leave it going. I was really set on closing up shop (and I did put my Etsy store on vacation), but the longer handling time worked for two other shorter trips I have taken this year, so I feel ready to take the plunge. I know 10 days isn’t crazy extreme, but it feels like a lot to me! I gave myself a little extra cushion in case bad weather comes up, so the actual handling time will probably be less. Under promise and over deliver! I would really like to sell some things while I am away. Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays to everyone!

[T-Satt]

“and my post master confirmed that the GPS location at the last scan was at her house. ”

How did you get the GPS location of the last scan? Did you call your local post office?

[Linda Shields]

I had a $150.00 sales item retuned to me by FedEx saying “The House Was Torn Down” after 2 attempts at delivery. I sent an email to The buyer, a doctor in Denver, who said, “I’m building a house. They usually leave packages next door.” Thanks for the heads up. He gave me the neighbor’s address and another $12.50 to re-ship and I got to make another 10 mile round trip to FedEx. I just paid for the shipping on my own business account (it costs the same) hoping it will avoid giving me a delayed shipping defect for printing a new label. Hoping it gets delivered this time. I also insured it both times.

[Ryanne]

it’s always funny to me when people do weird stuff concerning their shipping address and don’t care to inform you, the person shipping them stuff.

[BrianB]

Ryanne: How did you pack the Santa-canoe item? It looks like it would be quite challenging to pack.

[Ryanne]

it took me about an hour to pack. i double bubble wrapped it, then made a cardboard shell for it, stuffed that full of peanuts, then custom built a box and stuffed that full of peanuts. it took a long time, but i was confident it would get there unscathed.

[ChristineR]

Total Items in Store: 431
Items Sold: 25
Cost of Items Sold: $168 + Free and augmented shipping $172 (oops!)
Total Sales: $864
Highest Price Sold: $210 (4 plates to one buyer, paid $43, plus $130 overnight shipping – see oops)
Average Price Sold: $39
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $11
Number of items listed this week: 23

A very good week for me last week. I did make a major mistake. I left my store on during our vacation. Right after we left, I sold my highest priced order and the buyer contacted me that he needed them by Christmas. When I returned from vacation, I learned that I was unable to print an Ebay label for Fed Ex overnight or 2 day even though there was still time to get it out at FedEx. So, I paid FedEx’s exorbitant full price fee at the counter and asked the buyer to pay it forward. Luckily, the sale was good enough so after fees it was a break even lesson for me. Buyer offered to pay half and I told him if his girlfriend wants to return then I would accept. At least he was super grateful. I think I did the exact same thing last year right before Christmas. Our home was evacuated the day we left for vacation, I got sick at the end, and someone at a hotel stole our car keys and my husband’s ipad. In restrospect, I wish I had turned off my Ebay store this crazy time. I will lose TRS status and the sales this week ended up being not worth it with my big shipping error. But, ces’t la vie. On the upside we really enjoyed the fresh air visiting Portland, Eugene and Bend, Oregon. Happy Holidays trash elves!

[BookHawk]

Hi Guys!
If you don’t mind my asking where are you going to thrift in NYC? I’m going there the second week of January with my husband and I have hopes of stopping a few places. We are also going to be in Queens.
thanks!

[Jay]

No secret places. Just the thrift stores that you can find online. But our favorite places are just walking the streets on trash night to see if people put out goodies.

[BookHawk]

Cool, thanks! I hope you guys are having a great time and finding cool stuff!

[Author]

Posts