Scavenger Life Episode 353: Process vs Philosophy

[Ryanne]

 We certainly can talk every week about how we do this (and the forum is the perfect place for that), but this week we talk, again, about why we do t
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 353: Process vs Philosophy]

[simplicio]

Morning all! Hope everyone is doing fine on E bay dot com this week.

Very good week for sales, but my scavenging dry spell continues, as I have not found much at all to sell the last couple weeks. Partly I have been working extra at my day job, which cuts into sourcing time. Still, this is pretty pathetic for a growing business.

Sales: CAD$1773, 14 items, COGS $297 –> item profit $1175
Expenditures: $20 –> After tax cashflow $1194
Listed: 1 item, $50 (total listings 305) <– pls publicly shame me for this
Hours: 7.5, hourly rate $159/hr
Notable sales: toner cartridge $20–>$250, shower rough-in valve $90–>$315

Now to listen to the podcast!

[s]

Total Items in Store: 266
Items Sold: 35
Cost of Items Sold: $80.67
Total Sales: $762.33
Highest Price Sold: $55.15 (Mizzen + Main shirt)
Average Price Sold: $21.78
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $41
Number of items listed this week: 56

Far and away my my best week by every metric, except for average price sold. My goal though is to remain above $20, so a complete success in my mind. To be fair though, I sold through over 10% of my total inventory in one week and I don’t think there’s a way I could maintain anything like this.

A terrible week on the sourcing front, my car decided to break down on a sourcing run on Wednesday so I’ve been homebound since then. But the shop just called me about half an hour ago and my car will be fixed today, so it’s time to get back at it. The only plus side to this is that I’ve listed everything and currently have no backlog, so that’s a plus.

Hope everyone else had a great week!

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

[Jay]

This is a great week for you. Do you mainly sell clothes?

[s]

At this point my inventory is 85% clothes, but that’s because I’m new and garage sale/flea market season hasn’t kicked off here in Southeast Michigan yet. Every sale this week was clothing, the day that the sale you guys referenced happened I sold 15 items.

[Jay]

Fifteen items in one day is incredible. We rarely sell that much in one day. That’s awesome!

[MyCottage]

I like to think I’m a helpful person, and so I’d be glad comply with your request and publicly shame you for only putting up one listing, but I got zero put up. So I don’t think I’m the person to do it! LOL (My excuse: I’m re-doing our inventory system)

[Rhianna]

Total Items in Store: 1928
Items Sold: 35 (2 Etsy)
Total Sales: $1268.27
Highest Price Sold: $140 (Denby Glassware)
Average Price Sold: $36.23
Returns: 3 (Shoes that didn’t fit)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $180

We had a great week of selling and listing. We are focusing on clothes at the moment, our local auctions where we get our piles of hard goods has really dried up. So we are trying our had at clothes. Hoping for warmer weather so we can hit the yard sales and estate sales.

I was laughing at Jay and Ryanne talking about the entitled people at the auctions. We defiantly have those people here and I always get a kick out of out bidding them, but we run into paying to much for pride for sure.

[KatieScott]

The Scam: You mentioned that someone bought a coat for $600 and then cancelled saying that someone took over their account. I had someone do this to my ebay account about a year ago. They bought $2000 worth of things in 15 minutes. They go in and change your shipping address and then they also make the purchases so that they are hidden. They ship everything to 600 Markley Street in New Jersey. It is a Russian scam thing. Fortunately, when it happened to me, I was online at the time so I could see all these purchases being made that I wasn’t making; I was immediately on the phone with ebay and Pay Pal getting the whole thing fixed. I’m not alone this has happened to many people over the years and is apparently ongoing. There’s a podcast that explains all about it on Gimlet media’s Reply All, #99 Black Hole, New Jersey. Here’s the link: https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/99-black-hole-new-jersey

[Jay]

I understand that scam. In this case, it was being shipped to the buyer in Arizona. It was an actual home address. I think he just accidentally purchased it.

[tam from Tam’s Vintage & More]

KatieScott- I love reply all! The episode you are talking about involves a watch I think. Scammers really put effort into what they do!

[s]

After hearing the live auction story I’m now more interested then ever about starting to go to them! As a 6’3″ 240lb man I’d love to watch people quietly brood and throw some shade at me. Also, to the caller from Metro Detroit…you are officially my new scavenging nemesis!

[Mark S]

Don’t worry, he doesn’t live anywhere close to you. I had a meet up for the Michigan people a while back, so I know this.

[s]

Drats…foiled again!

[Retro Treasures WV]

Items in Store 944
Items Sold 13
Total Sales $577.00
COGS $39.00
Total Profit $538.00
Average profit $41.38
Average sales price $44.38
Best Sale: Thomas the Train Knapford Station – $200

Pleasant surprise to sell the Thomas Train part this week. I figured it might sit until next Christmas. Sales volume was down this week but that’s much easier to swallow when a $200 item sells. The weather turning cold and crappy again after the time change really took the wind out of my sails. I’ve only listed like 14 items in the last month, and that was just finishing up photos of shoes that I had already created listings for. With baseball/softball taking up a lot of spare time right now, once the weekend hits my wife and I really just wanna Netflix and chill when not involved with the kids. I just don’t feel like listing because I’m too exhausted. Once the weather improves I’ll get back into it.

Speaking of Netflix & chill, we’re really digging Person of Interest right now. We just started season 3.

[almasty]

after being on instagram for a week, i’m starting to notice that there’s not really a community of people that have been doing this for a long time. or, if they have been doing it for a long time, they are more apt to introduce beginning techniques and motivation posts for newbies. there really aren’t people that consistently do this (f/t) for years and post about their day-to-day. like, life is not all about ebay. that is why people left their jobs to get the ebay lifestyle, supposedly. people wanted more out of their lives than just work, yet everything that’s being presented online about reselling is just work work work. people congratulate themselves for taking a day off. yay? it’s some sort of puritan work ethic in overdrive. it tires me out to see the amount of work that people do day in and day out. it might just be early motivation for newbies, but it is really exhausting and not sustainable in the long-term.

no one really asks why they are doing this. there is really no actual freedom in one’s life if more time is spent working consistently year after year on an online business than in a throw-away job, with little outside of that work to show for it.

that being said, i am sort of motivated to *maybe* create an ebay podcast for long-termers that does not really go into process much outside of how it integrates into one’s daily basis. i have some ideas that i would like to go in-depth on, and since no one likes to actually read, a podcast seems the way to go.

it has also been interesting to see capitalism at its ugliest on instagram in terms of resellers. i am beginning to really understand better why collectors dislike resellers so much.

[s]

While I understand your position, I’m of the opinion that there’s inherently freedom in working for ones self as opposed punching a clock and working for someone else. I’m more then willing to grind out 40 hours a week selling on ebay rather then working in a shop for an equal amount of money. Also, the ability to schedule my own hours is a huge plus. When the sun’s out and I’m playing disc golf at 11am on a Tuesday it all feels worth it.

[Jay]

There’s definitely room for more podcasts beyond just “how to get rich”. Just record on your phone and keep it simple. Consistency is really the key.

You say: “it has also been interesting to see capitalism at its ugliest on instagram in terms of resellers. i am beginning to really understand better why collectors dislike resellers so much.”

Can you expand n what this means?

[almasty]

I don’t know, I find the whole “hustle” and “hustler” mentality to be pretty crass. Well, considering what the definition of hustler is, I guess a lot of people don’t realize how they are outwardly presenting themselves to the world, lol. That seems to be one of the predominant strains on instagram, as well as on youtube. And I’m a reseller! I can’t imagine how people that are outside of this community that stumble into these images and terms react to them. It’s sort of embarrassing to be associated with “colleagues” that use those words to describe themselves. It just makes all of this feel disgusting to an extent, when it shouldn’t.

Thank you for advice in regards to podcasts. I’ve been using the voice recorder on the phone for other projects, so I’m glad that it will also work for this if I do do this. I’ve also got a few zooms lying around, which I should probably start using again at some point.

[Jay]

I agree that the “hustler” terminology doesnt do people any favors. I get the idea, but the wording always strikes me as someone who doesn’t take themselves seriously. Or is hoping to benefit by taking advantage of someone else.

It’d be like someone into real estate celebrating themselves as a “slumlord”. To each their own.

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

[s]

It would seem that you’re ascribing only only meaning to the word hustle. While I will agree that the term can certainly be viewed as having a particular meaning, it’s also a way of describing someone who puts in extra effort. I’m not certain of what both of your ages are, but amongst younger people a hustle is just nothing more then a side business or way of making money outside of the norm. While not particularly young myself, 37, I don’t automatically go to the negative when I hear some use this term. Slang and vernacular usage of words change over time, and to me it feels like that’s what has happened with this term in particular.

[Jay]

I get it. And again, everyone can use their own terms for what they do. But I bet if you walked into a room of people and said “I’m a hustler”, most folks would not see it as cool and awesome.

You have the new internet slang terms:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hustle
“To have the courage, confidence, self belief, and self-determination to go out there and work it out until you find the opportunities you want in life.”

But then you have what most people define it from the dictionary:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hustle?s=t
–to earn one’s living by illicit or unethical means.
–to pressure or coerce (a person) to buy or do something
–to sell in or work (an area), especially by high-pressure tactics:
–to cheat; swindle:

You got to love the english language when we take words and then use them as the opposite. Those crazy kids.

[s]

I think we’d both agree that it would really depend on who was in that hypothetical room. I wouldn’t expect my grandma to understand what I meant, but my peer group would understand without assuming anything negative.

Also, I don’t mind getting of your lawn… hehehe.

[Jay]

If you’re saying it on youtube/instagram/”the internet”, I always assume it’s not just the cool kids seeing me. Anyone can google your name.

Again, it’s just a personal preference. I have no burning need to take back the word “hustler.”

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

[s]

Certainly, but if the use of those social media platforms is specifically designed to market to younger demographic it makes sense to attempt to communicate in a way that speaks to the targeted audience. But then again I’m sitting here listening to Outkast and taking pictures on 09 Nikes, so I probably am looking at things through a specific lense.

[Jay]

You go hustler.

[s]

I consider myself more of a flimflam man, ala Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels…but no offense taken.

[almasty]

i am 35. i don’t automatically fall in line with the way a subset of my generation, or the generation to follow, gen z, use words. i also feel that no matter how you attempt to separate those words from their original meaning, they will eventually come back to the underlying intention of their original definitions (of which explaining that will take a lot more than just a simple response to this thread). i’ve actually always found the new definition of “hustle” to be sad. it assumes that you have to have 3-10 side gigs in order to make what once used to be considered a decent middle-class income, and that you have to constantly advertise yourself in order to keep the work flowing. no matter what the new or old terms are, the connotations of them are generally leaning more toward negative, no matter what.

i also don’t believe that all of the people in my age group would understand the new term for hustle. i am an older millennial. people my age have normal jobs and families. we are pretty much just an extension of gen x, to an extent. not as impacted by the 2008 recession as those 5-10 years younger.

if you’re 37, you’re actually not a millennial. you’re technically a member of gen x. when i was a kid, we were considered the first of the “millennial” generation due to graduating in the new millennium, the year 2000.

[Jay]

Shout out to all my GenXers

[Inglewood]

I’m GenX, where the term “lit” meant the opposite of what “lit” means to Millenials…just had some kid in the warehouse tell me at lunch that team was really “lit up” this morning…I assumed the worst – especially after a weekend – but I guess “lit up” means good things now…

Soon I’ll know what it is like to be my parents with all this young-people talk!

At least I know what all the good stereo equipment is to re-sell to these Millenials and there love of vinyl and cassettes…

[s]

The definitions of when generations begin and end are remarkably vague, honestly I find affixing labels to groups of people based on something like that to not be particularly relevant. I can only speak my personal experiences and those of the people I know. I never said everyone from any group would understand everything the same way, and I also find it odd to proclaim that everyone your age has normal jobs and families. It seems reactive and counterproductive to label something negative on a whole because of the way you personally feel about it. There’s a million different paths through life, I’m just of the opinion that differences are something to celebrate, not something to deride.

[almasty]

i’m just an older millennial, what do i know about how people my age tend to overwhelmingly live their lives *shrug*

i could pull up legit statistics showing how people my age were not as effected by the recession as people younger, but it’s just a comment thread. 🙂

[almasty]

“You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.”

To a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005”

― George W. Bush

[s]

Do you really think that working hard is a uniquely American thing? I can’t say that I share that opinion. In regards to generational differences, by your age you and I were in high school at the same time. I’d bet that despite our generational difference we have far more similar experiences then I do with someone who graduated high school in the late 80’s, despite that person and I both being a part of Gen-X.

[Steven S]

I think the term hustle as it is used by the younger generations (I’m 59) because of the dictionary definitions, it outsider, risky, back alley cool like we’re not regular.
For me it’s like saying I’m not averse to ripping someone off.
I don’t like it.

[Ryanne]

for me the word hustler is almost the same as pimp (although i realize it’s not exactly the same). i also associate it as the name of an adult magazine published by larry flint. so, no, i’m not going to use the word hustle and hustler to describe what we do. we run a business.

[s]

Which is totally and completely appropriate to you and your business. My only point was to the thought that it’s an inherently negative thing. I’d think that the people using the terms are using them in a context and a marketing tool to the audience that they are trying to affect.

[almasty]

which leads back to the definition of “hustle” that jay got from the dictionary:

But then you have what most people define it from the dictionary:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hustle?s=t
–to earn one’s living by illicit or unethical means.
–to pressure or coerce (a person) to buy or do something
–to sell in or work (an area), especially by high-pressure tactics:
–to cheat; swindle:

snake eating its tale!

[s]

And cool only means cold? Language constantly evolves.

[Jay]

It’s not inherently negative. This whole thread has simply been that outside of small sub-group, many other people may find the term “Hustler” negative. Not a big deal. To each his own.

[s]

I totally agree with that, just tying to provide context from a different point of view. Also, if anything this has been an interesting philosophical discussion. Which makes it fit right in with the title of this weeks podcast.

[Ryanne]

won’t call myself a hustler, will call myself a Trash Elf. makes sense right? hmmmm

[s]

I actually was thinking of exactly that point earlier, but I just kinda let it go!

[ChristineR]

Total Items in Store: 444
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $44
Total Sales: $267
Highest Price Sold: $112.50 Needlepoint kit (Paid $10 estate sale)
Average Price Sold: $30
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 9 (ugh)

I love this forum and to philosophize and strategize. I have a lot of short blips of time to listen to audio and participate in this during my choppy days – while driving the kids around, work lunch break, having coffee in the morning, etc. I also truly love selling on Ebay because I’ve been at my day job a long time and need the mental stimulation. I am wired though to prefer listing in a good chunk of time, and this is where I fall down. Lately it’s been especially tough to get that freedom and we have some travel coming up to boot.

Sales only happened on two days. One of the days I was shopping on Ebay for my tween’s favorite brand of clothes. She’s finally done with the hand-me-downs and my selected thrifted items but used Ivivva ok. Also made some offers on Poshmark. As a buyer, I love best offer.

Enjoyed the discussion about all of the Ebay’s changes. I don’t love the fee increases but I’m hoping staying ahead of the curve and playing along with Ebay’s preferences will give me an edge over other sellers. Just a bummer to have a big backlog during this time of change because I think it required sourcing pivots.

Ok, now you know J&R that I love to do a little armchair quarterbacking since you share so much. I would love to see you find a way to do a (bimonthly?) trip to the City, you could get a camper shell for your truck, do your city Craigslist/Facebook/Offerup/Ebay furniture deliveries on the way in, hit estate sales and garage sales during your stay. As I’ve said before, you can pick up stuff for more than a buck but less than auctions because you have a great eye, lots of experience, and aren’t afraid to price high. You’ve got the storage to make it work. As always, feel free to ignore me. 🙂

[Jay]

It’s a great idea to go spend a couple nights in a city to buy. That’s basically what we do when we hit city auctions. It’s all about figuring out the numbers paying for fuel, food, Airbnb/hotel.

[ChristineR]

Sure, and maybe more of a seasonal idea due to weather out there. I’ve mentioned before that we met a retired couple who had stayed in some awesome places using this service. https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/how-it-works/

[PickingPair]

On eBay emails, go to your communication preferences under account, and you can pick and choose the ones you want or don’t want. That is how I shut off the listing confirmation ones recently.

[Simon]

Thanks very much for your podcast guys.

Here are my numbers for the week:

Total Items in Store: 2223
Items Sold: 59
Total Sales: $1132
Cost of Items Sold: $119
Average Price Sold: $19.18
Average Cost of Item: $2.03
Highest Price Item Sold: $49.95 Broken PS3 (inc. shipping)
Number of items listed this week: 67
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 320
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 145
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 80
Sell-through rate (for the week): 2.65%
# of Hats Sold: 43 (72% of sales)

I had a great week. I added best-offer to about 1000 hats about a week ago and that caused a lot of activity in my store. I put auto-reject to eliminate very low bids but I accepted lots of reasonable offers. Last night (Sunday) was so busy it was starting to get annoying – it’s a good problem to have!

I know that the scavenger life model is to source and list high-value items but I’m actually fine with selling a higher volume of low-value items. Each sale has almost zero risk. If a hat goes missing or gets damaged or returned it doesn’t matter to me. I generally only have a dollar or two invested in each item.

In terms of a long term plan, I wonder if you guys have a contingency in case one of get too sick to work. For example, could Jay handle your store alone if Ryanne was incapacitated? Does Jay know how to ship items for example?

I’d be interested in hearing a quick update on your rentals from time to time. (It looks like you’re not doing your Shampoo & Booze podcast often these days).

Hope everyone has a good week.

[Jay]

The fact that you have over 1000 hats in your store is incredible. You’ve really made a pipeline.

Our emergency plan would be to shut down eBay and live off our rental income. With two vacation rentals, it’d be no problem. We’re now paying people to help us clean. It’s about as the most passive income we could have doing what we love.

For the record, I could figure out shipping. I wouldnt be an expert, but stuff could get out the door!

[Sharyn]

Week of Mar 18 – 24
* Total Items in Store: 1169
* Items Sold: 21
* Cost of Items Sold: $55.64 + $21 Commission
* Total Sales: $540.93
* Highest Price Sold: $125 Pre-9/11 NY Lighter Vendor Display
* Average Price Sold: $25.76
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 14

Good week for me. It was buoyed by one person who bought eight items from me! I looked up her address, and she runs a fancy thrift shop in NY. She bought stuff that I didn’t have priced very high, mostly because I’ve had them for too long!

Comments on the podcast:

I don’t know why you guys are paying sales tax at auctions. It was very easy for me to sign up for a NJ resellers certificate, and I can’t imagine that it could be that different in VA. Unless you went to an auction in a different state. In that case you would have to pay sales tax. If I buy something at auction that I decide to keep for myself, I just have to pay sales tax on the amount I paid at the end of the quarter.

Regarding haunted dolls, I once sold a doll that looked “creepy” because its eyes were worn, hair was messed up, etc. In my listing, I said that I picked it up at an auction, that it was obviously nice looking and loved by a child years ago, but time had not been good to it. It sold for $18 in a week or two. So, yes, people look for them and for haunted dolls. I would personally stay away from listing anything as haunted, but, as Jay said, you can tell the story behind the doll. Someone might be willing to pay decent money for it.

This week I had someone buy multiple items from me (mentioned above), and all the priority items were automatically combined for one shipping label. This was domestic, not global shipping like the caller. There was also one Parcel item and one FedEx item that were separate. I combined the Parcel and Priority items and then purchased one label for the art pieces (long and wide but thin). I then went under Orders – Shipping Labels, and purchased a second label for the regular items that needed a different box. When I look at tracking in eBay for those items, I can see both boxes listed (after scrolling). That is the way I’ve done it a few times. I’ve never seen a way to remove items, but that would make more sense. I’d like to know how to do that.

[thebugman]

I’m excited to have a chance to talk about my philosophy and have someone listen who gets it.

I’m a middle school science teacher, and I don’t hate my job, but I don’t love it either. My wife is a high school math teacher and she feels the same. Since I got into reselling, my philosophy was molded early on. I want to buy lots of things, hopefully they are interesting items, and resell them for profit. I don’t really spend out of my eBay money and I’ve been able to store up almost $12,000 in one year. Now for the philosophy…

I like it. It’s interesting. Listing is a bit of a chore sometimes bc my deathpile is growing. But I’m having fun. And one day, I’m going to pay this house off early and do whatever I want. Yep. If I want to teach I’ll teach. If I want to eBay, I’ll eBay. Selling on eBay makes me feel like I’m daily making strides to my goal of gardening more and giving my time away less. That’s it. It gives me a sense of control over how I spend my time in the future.

Sidenote: Ryanne’s perspective and pricing and Jay’s constantly real and positive attitude are good boost each week and remind me that the minor hassles really aren’t a big deal. I appreciate this community so very much.

The end.

[MyCottage]

Just going to throw this out there. I had posted this ebay video before, but at the time you needed to register to view it. it is now available here, without the need to register. As I stressed before, while the video is aimed at auto parts sellers, this tool can be used in ANY category:

https://www.gotostage.com/channel/80dbae9921fb49a1958bb7c339611f81/recording/49023a886cd045bda8fb7744643c33e0/watch

[Jay]

Still need to register. Is there an eBay page that has this info laid out? Im confused why they would hide it in this one presentation if its a feature we can ll currently use.

I’m also confused how we would use this?
–buyer messages us about an item
–we send them a private offer for that item and a bunch of items they didnt ask for?

[MyCottage]

Jay, sorry—I see you DO need to register—although I think the registration is the same one used for all ebay webinars, so no big deal.

It’s something you can use or not. let’s say a buyer asks me a question about a dinner plate I’m selling. I answer, and I mention that I have other pieces in the same pattern (listed or unlisted)…would the buyer be interested in buying more than just the plate? If the buyer’s interested,and if we can come to an agreement, I can bundle the items together in one lot (including items I don’t even have listed yet on eBay—although in that case, I’d want to share photos and details in the ebay messages)—-I can send buyer an invoice and buyer can pay via payPal right from ebay messages.

Now, if upselling is something you have no interest in, then ignore all of this. But if you like the idea of taking what might have been a ten dollar sale and turning it into a $100 sale, it might be worth looking at this. There ARE more details, but I don’t have time to go into that right now. Have you watched the video?

[Jay]

I’m glad you’re excited. I’m trying to think of a sale where a buyer would want to buy more items of ours that weren’t already listed.

Maybe we have a smoking pipe listed, and then we say “we have all these others that arent listed yet”. But then we have to take photos anyway since a buyer wont buy sight unseen…Just doesnt solve a problem for us.

Haven’t seen the video. (I know know, I’ll sign up and look at it)
I just think its strange that this info is not publicly available anywhere on eBay.com.

[MyCottage]

Jay, there’s a segment of ebay radio devoted to it, a couple weeks ago I think. You can find it in the ebay radio past shows section, Episode 715, Segment 7. Also, last week’s Weekly Chat was devoted to it, but I know you tend to avoid the ebay Community Boards like the plaque.

[Jay]

Okay I registered and watched the 8-minute video (you can use a nonsense email address). I guess I’m still not sure the use case for seller’s like us. It’s just using “send offer” like we already have.

MyCottage, you want to role play?

As a buyer, I’d send you a message like “What is the measurement of this jacket?” So how do you upsell me on buying more stuff through this feature?

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

[MyCottage]

Jay, Measurements on a jacket? Not sure I’d try to upsell, would probably just provide the info, thank them for their interest. It would really depend on the question , the item, and the extent to which I want to move stuff. But what if the jacket is from a certain sports team, and I have some more jackets and jerseys from that team? Now, I would answer the question and probably mention them, to gauge interest. If the buyer wants to explore it further, fine, if not, fine again.

I don’t see this as something I would necessarily use frequently, just think its something most sellers don’t realize and some might find it helpful. Sorry if you don’t see any use in it for your store.

[Jay]

No problem. You just seemed really excited about this feature as if it was a game changer. I might have misread your enthusiasm. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something cool.

For me, if someone wanted to buy a Boston Red Sox jacket, I could just send them search link to the other Red Sox stuff I have in my store. Maybe this feature is a little more streamlined?

[AdventureE]

Just a note to share about the upselling/private offer opportunity noted in the radio show. I called and spoke to an ebay rep who noted that while it may be okay to do, any items bundled that have not been listed will not be covered under ebay seller protection eventhough they were invoiced. For example, if a buyer messages a seller about a dress listed and the seller lets them know about a pair of shoes that would match the dress but are not listed and the buyer agrees to purchase both at a certain amount, they would be invoiced for both using the original listing. The only problem would be if the buyer acknowledges receiving the dress and but says they never received the shoes the seller would not be protected for the shoes because they were not listed and sold as a seperate entity.

[MyCottage]

that’s good to know.

[SilverFoxFinds]

RE: philosophy
Going from selling off my own items a little over 2 years ago, and into selling sourced items (and doing so now as a FT job), I’m constantly assessing what I’m doing/where I’m at – financially, with my time, in my selling. I’ve mostly disliked working in offices, for other people, tethered to a desk during set hours, etc, etc, and am grateful to be able to pay the bills and manage my time via eBay (and find time for afternoon naps and gardening and house chores, etc; side note: I have no kids. Just 2 barky dogs, and a partner who doesn’t clean and rarely cooks….).

Re: process
In recent weeks, when I haven’t been feeling motivated to list, I’ve been trying to dig deeper and determine why. It’s certainly not from a lack of items; I’ve got plenty of backlog I can work through. Some of it might be seeing little value in some of the items that are waiting to be listed. Some of it is certainly lack of sales of the other 800 items sitting in my office/storage room that I see every day. Am I doing it right? Not that that thought should hinder listing, but it can introduce some lack of motivation. Trying to just keep my head down and list and not think too much about it (save for some improvement week to week in what I source) lest I get another motivation leak. I have been giving some thought to taking on a part time job, mostly for the chunk of time it would insert into my schedule, which would force me to be more efficient and action-oriented with my eBay time. Sound silly? Could I just as easily fill that chunk of time with something else (even if unpaid; part time work wouldn’t provide much $), and be more productive with higher paying sales? Blargh. Maybe I just need Spring to come, and my project house to show more visual progress! 🙂

In any case, #s for the week – showing some consistency:

03/18/18 – 03/24/18
Total Items In Store: 853
Items Sold: 21
Total Sales: $787.87 (not incl shipping)
Cost of Items Sold: $41.70
Highest Price Sold: $309 Seiko Spirit watch, sold on commission following eBay valet %s
Average Price Sold: $37.52
Returns/Refunds: 2, both clothing items that had measurements noted (both have a 10% restock fee)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $93.90
Number of Items listed this week: 69

Scavenge of the week? Meh, last week wasn’t awesome for sourcing. Only item of note is a large lot of Fisher Price Little People figures and such for $2 at a yard sale. Put them on auction today, after seeing similar auction lots go for well over $100. Wish me luck!

[Jay]

I think a part time job wouldn’t be worth the money for the amount of time waste it would generate. UNLESS you like that kind of work (then its really not working:)

Why not just use that time for eBay or other things you enjoy doing? Or just volunteer somewhere fun if you feel a need to be social.

[AdventureE]

Your sales look good. As for motivation, maybe shifting the focus from ebay selling to implementing your larger plan and seeing ebay as a part of it might be of benefit. Some questions come to mind that might be benefit. What is your larger goal? Is there something you have been wanting to do that you have put off or have not worked toward in awhile that you might be able to work toward now? Have you challenged yourself with identifying and being able to sell some BOLO items or other items you have not sold before? Have you tried any other platforms to see what they are about and as to whether they might provide an new opportunity/area of interest for you?

[T-Satt]

Week of 3/18-3/24
Total Items in Store: 1,894 (Up 27% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 80
Number of Items Sold: 62 (Down 21% YOY)
(Includes 2 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether, 0 Amazon)
Weekly STR: 14% (Down 8% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $1,704 (Up 4% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $284
Highest Item Sold: $126 – VTG Harris Tweed Three Button Sport Coat
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Troy leads the year at 7-5.

eBay Clothing
# Listed: 1,132
# Sold: 43
STR: 16%
ASP: $26.60

eBay Shoes
# Listed: 119
# Sold: 8
STR: 29%
ASP: $39.77

eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 643
# Sold: 9
STR: 6%
ASP: $22.03

Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 154
# Sold: 2
STR: 6%
ASP: $19.87

We start a new phase in our business today, when our photographer starts with the first batch of items. We found someone who will work on a contract basis, and he has his own studio where he works. He will take items to his place, do the photos, then bring them back with the photos and we can list. Hoping this goes well, as it could really help our plans.

Love your conversation on the sourcing road trip. That is something we are going to plan as well. When we have our second person to list/ship (maybe later this year), then it will free us up to focus on sourcing and pricing listings, and we can do that from the road.

Also love the lifestyle discussion. First identify what you want for a life, then put the plans in motion…

On that lifestyle, I did some more training for the Colorado Trail yesterday. 17 miles with a 42 lb pack, 4,692 ft of elevation gain, 8.5 hours. A big part of that ended up being one HECK of a climb (2000 feet up in 1 mile). Now, I just have to be able to do that 30 days in a row…

[Jay]

Do you mind sharing how much your paying per listing?

[T-Satt]

$1.50 per item.

[totommyto]

Hello to all! Another great Podcast!

EBay store totommyto

Total items in store: 531
Number of items sold: 6
eBay sales (not including s/h): $308
Cost of items sold: $21
Consignment payouts: $60
Highest price sold (tie betw 2): $75 diecast 1:18 scale car X 2
Average price sold: $51
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of items listed this week: 17

Etsy store Oldfleatoymarket

Total items in store: 458
Number of items sold: 6
Etsy sales (not including s/h): $108
Cost of items sold: $14
Highest price sold: $25 Vintage vinyl zipper mini bag w/ doll
Average price sold: $18
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $1.00
Number of items listed this week: 23

Still working through the mother lode of old toys and dolls I purchased some weeks ago. Again, feeling that scavenge in the wild itch, but will probably continue to sort and list what I have.
It is interesting to look at the numbers weekly (something new for me!) Last week $1,400 or so sold on eBay, and this week almost 1/5 of that! I turned down quite a few offers, that sure would help slow things down, and hoping this week the offers will be juicier!
Take care all! Thank you again Jay and Ryanne!
Tom

[Doublythumbs]

March 18-24
Total Items in Store: 1483
Items Sold: 38
Total Sales : $1408
above yearly average of $672
above 2017 total week sales of $552
Highest Price: $155 (Rare Sony Discman CD Compact Disc Player D-88)
Average Price: $37
Returns: 1
Cost of Goods Sold: $71
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $168
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 88

It’s been another fantastic week of sales on my part! Every night I was packing stuff up, getting annoyed every time my phone went cha-ching. But I loooove seeing my total sales at the end of weeks like this. I started using Promoted Listings on the 15th this month on my entire inventory, and it was about that time that my sales started to take off. I have my ad fee set to 5%. In the last week and a half, I made 26 sales through PL for a total of $1087 and accrued $54 in ad fees. I have to wonder if these items would have sold eventually without the PL program, but I do like that I’m selling things that’s been in my store for forever.

We went to an auction on Saturday and it was almost a total bust. It was probably the largest auction I’ve ever been to, but it was about 90% glass stuff. And it was all going for insane prices. Like, lots that I wouldn’t pay more than $10 for were selling for hundreds! I did manage to score a flat of vintage German drafting tools for cheap. But my scavenge of the week was actually on Friday. I went to an estate sale and bought a huge bag full of old 8mm home movies for $6. Mostly vacations and Christmas stuff. I’m going to keep an eye out for a cheap 8mm viewer so that I can check these all out.

[Steven S]

I’ve been holding on to my Bell & Howell 8mm projector. I made the mistake once of selling a projector only to come across some more movies.
I need to find a Super 8 and a 16mm as well.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Steven S.

[Ryanne]

i have a super 8 viewer but no take up reel! also have a bunch of 16mm home movies and need a viewer, but they are kinda pricey on ebay. i would love to see whats on these films so i can price accordingly. guess i just have to bite the bullet and buy this stuff as work tools.

[KatieScott]

March 18-24
Total Items in Store: 884 + 514 + 223 + 1057 = 2,678
Total # Items Sold: 45 + 7 + 6 + 11 = 69
Total Amount Sold: $870 + $166 + $112 + 166 = $1,314
Highest Price: $100 (St. John blazer); $86 (Karen Warren Dress); $70 (Vintage Ramones T Shirt)
Average Price: $19.04
Returns: 3
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $50
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 80

Notes:

* My 14 year old daughter started taking ebay photos for me! I’m very excited about this, she takes great photos, is fast, and I pay her $1 an item which makes her happy. She photographed 13 things for me on Saturday and by Sunday 5 of them had sold including two of my highest sales this week.

* I had a buyer try to return an item on Poshmark because she didn’t like the fit and then called the Free People pants counterfeit, I left a comment that it seemed like the buyer didn’t like the fit and therefore called them fake, Poshmark sided with me.

* I’m still working on getting my house ready to sell which is taking up most of my time. This coming week is my kids’ spring break, we don’t have anything planned but I’ll be taking some time off to spend with them.

* I had my best day ever in my big ebay store on Sunday: $346 in sales in one day! yay.

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

[indomatt239]

My favorite baseball player as a little kid was Pete Rose, AKA “Charlie Hustle”. Finding out what an absolute horrible person he is as I grew older has permanently soured me on the use of that word.

Very soft week this past week, and very strange patterns. A ton of low dollar sales. Last Monday I had a great day, selling almost $1,200 with 60 sales. By Friday? I had under $100 in sales that day.

March 18 – March 24, 2018
Total Items in main Store: 9,526
Items Sold: 169
Cost of Items Sold: $150
Total Sales: $2339
Highest Price Sold: $100 (southwestern Terra Cotta pottery)
Average Price Sold: $13.84
Returns:1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $80
Number of items listed this week: 260
Total hours logged: 42

[jamie]

Great Podcast as usual. Yes if you are listing on your phone then your listings are NOT mobile friendly. I know its crazy! Something ebay really should fix. That’s why I draft on my pc make sure they are mobile friendly then add photos from my phone then list them.

Also another great youtube channel is binpickers. They are a couple who have been reselling since 2000 and have moved across the country to find the perfect ( or close to perfect) location for how they like to source. Check them out they’re great.

[Rydell Relics]

RR Store Week March 18-24, 2018

Total Items in Store: 1529
Items Sold: 37
Cost of Items Sold: $28.35
Total Sales: $701.60
Highest Price Sold: $80.99 (Ice Cube record)
Average Price Sold: $18.96
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $74
Number of items listed this week: 60

My personal philosophy has two parts, and they’re very simple: I want to work for myself, and I’m passionate about vintage things. Combining those two desires into an eBay business was almost a no-brainer. For many years, I wanted to open a vintage clothing store. I bought and stored clothes, hoping to one day have a have my own retail space. Those clothes were like my nest egg. But as the realities of brick and mortar vs. online shopping became more clear, having a store didn’t seem feasible anymore. That’s when I turned to eBay. Technically, I still made that dream come true, just in a different format.

Yesterday I sold a Boy Scouts Campmaster jacket to a customer who requested Local Pickup. They were close by, so we arranged a meet up. Turns out they are both Co-Campmasters at the camp the jacket was from, Camp Trask, located in the foothills above Los Angeles. They were over the moon! They’re trying to piece together a definitive history of the camp, and they said the jacket was a big piece of the puzzle. Moments like this fuel my passion for vintage and selling on eBay; pulling stuff out of the waste stream and connecting it to people who want/need it. It’s creative recycling, and I love that I can make a living doing it.

Have a great week, everyone.

Paul

[Steven S]

Nice jacket story.
I parallel your thoughts on being passionate about all things vintage. Having them pass through my store making me money and letting me experience them is what keeps me going.

[BethGreen]

My numbers for the week of 3/18/18:
Total Items in Store: 128
Items Sold: 22
Cost of Items Sold: $63
Total Sales: $571 + shipping
Highest Price Sold: $54 (Vintage cookie jar)
Average Price Sold: $25.95
Returns: 0

What I lacked in average sale price I made up for in quantity this week. So I’m happy with the numbers.
My thoughts about the podcast and the above conversations:
1. Re: Mobile Optimization. I list on my PC. I click the Fix It link just as a regular thing on every new listing I create. If it isn’t working that day (sometimes it’s glitchy) I add that meta tag to the html. If I don’t do this, 100% of the time my listings aren’t mobile optimized. Not sure why this isn’t automatic on eBay’s side, but they have stressed that this is very important. Do you guys not do this?
2. Jay and Ryanne, I second that it would benefit you to use a Sales Tax Exemption form for purchases. Easiest thing in the world to do. You have thousands and thousands of purchases through the years. It adds up.
3. Re: Philosophy. I started selling on eBay when my kids were little ones. It was a way to contribute to the family finances while staying home with the kids. I enjoy being thrifty, but eBay helped us with reaching savings goals quicker, home improvements, a bit more travel. I’m pretty sure I do eBay for the goal achievement aspect of it, more than for the money. There are a lot of tasks about being an eBay seller I like (sourcing, shipping), other tasks not as much. But I get a lot of fulfillment out of setting goals and reaching/exceeding them money wise. It never seems to get old going to a garage sale filled with junk and coming out with those items that that no one else knows are eBay treasure. It’s always cool when you sell that thing and it reaffirms you were right in sourcing it. It gives this personal feeling of success that I wouldn’t have had without eBay. That’s what eBay has provided for me.

[Jay]

When you use Sales Tax Exemption, don’t you then have to pay taxes on those items later on? Maybe Im misunderstanding how it works. Seems like its just about shifting the time of when you pay the tax.

[BethGreen]

I’m in Ohio. When I purchase items for resale, it’s as simple as showing the Tax Exempt Form with my Vendor’s License # on it (takes seconds to register online for a license and Ohio Law requires it). Sales tax in my neck of the woods is 6.75%.
I am only required to REMIT sales tax on purchases to buyers in my state. It’s only a small percentage of my total sales that sells to an Ohio buyer…less than 5%. It’s quite a benefit. There may be slightly different rules in different states but your accountant should be able to guide you and there’s no reason not to do it.

[Sharyn]

You charge tax for the state where you have a presence. You live in Virginia, so you charge tax to someone with a shipping address in VA. I have to submit taxes quarterly. I assume VA would allow you the same. Larger businesses have to submit each month.

And it isn’t exactly just changing the time that you pay taxes. If you buy something at an auction for $1, and tax is 7%, then you pay $0.07. If you sell it for $100 to someone in VA, then they owe $7 in taxes. It’s not the same.

Of course, you are paying taxes on all your purchases at the auction, and not many of them will go to VA residents. So, perhaps it will come out even in the end. However, in an audit, I think that the government wouldn’t look at it that way.

[BethGreen]

But regardless of whether you use the Exemption or not, you are required to remit sales tax to your state, aren’t you? In Ohio, it isn’t a choice. You can collect it from the buyer or you can pay it yourself, but you have to pay it.

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

[Jay]

Yep, you always have to pay state sales tax on items sold within the state.

[T-Satt]

Yes, if you are selling something to a buyer that is in your state, then you have to collect and remit sales tax.

The Sales Tax Exemption is something you use when you are buying items. By presenting to the retailer, you are stating that these items are for resale, and you don’t have to pay the sales tax. And you don’t have to collect it and pay it later if the buyer is in another state.

[s]

Sales tax laws very from state to state, but here in Michigan if you are purchasing something as inventory for a business you can get the sales tax waved if you have the appropriate sales tax exemption form from the State. Personally I find it kind of a hassle, and since you can just write off state sales tax paid on items as a part of Cost Of Goods Sold I don’t really find it something to worry about.

[T-Satt]

Regarding Sales Tax: If you are purchasing the item for resale, and you have a Sales Tax Exemption Certificate, you do not have to pay sales tax on the purchase. For us in Colorado, that is about an 8%+ savings on inventory purchases.

Collecting and remitting sales tax is a different transaction, that will change state by state based on the nexus of the business (where you are) and where the transaction took place.

Bottom line: You will not have to pay sales tax on your purchases of inventory with a Sales Tax Exemption Certificate.

[Jay]

So can a person get a Sales Exempt license and then just purchase items for their own use? They would just say they never sold the items. Seems like a sneaky way to get out of paying tax.

Does the state not monitor this? Like you buy $10k worth of stuff over the year, but then only say that $500 was purchased in state.

Am I missing something?

[T-Satt]

No, you cannot use them for personal use. If you purchase an item for resale, then later use it for personal use, you are to self report that use as Use Tax and remit to the state.

They would catch that in an audit.

[T-Satt]

Yes, you can write off the tax you paid as COGS, but you are still losing in the long run.

Here are some examples for a year using a sales tax exemption form:

Purchase Cost: $24,000 (no sales tax paid)
Revenue: $100,000
Profit: $76,000

Tax Rate: 15%
Income Tax Paid: $11,400 (76,000*.15)

Without a sales tax exemption:

Purchase Cost: $25,980 (8.25% sales tax included)
Revenue: $100,000
Profit: $74,020

Tax Rate: 15%
Income Tax Paid: $11,103 (74,020*.15)
Sales Tax Paid: $1,980 (24,000*.0825)
Total Taxes Paid: $13,083

All in all, you save money on taxes by using a Sales Tax Exemption Certificate.

[flim]

Flim Store Week March 18-24, 2018

Total Items in Store: 1007
Items Sold: 40
Cost of Items Sold: $283
Total Sales: $1560
Highest Price Sold: $130 chenille blanket
Average Price Sold: $38.97
Returns: 0

Even though I hadn’t listed for about a week and had a 10 business day handling time, I still made decent money while I was away. We did have wifi at the condo, so I was able to take offers while lounging in an infinity pool. And while the rest of my friends had to go back to work the next day after a delayed flight and a mostly full day of travel, I slept in and took it easy the next day, mostly shipping. What a pampered life! 😀

Also: just kind of a fun trash elf/NYC story. I had to return something in store on the Upper East side on Madison Ave. It’s a super money area with all the high end shops and boutiques located in gorgeous old school townhouses. It happened to be trash day, so there were trash bags outside some of the stores. While waiting for the bus, I looked down at the recycling bags in front of Prada. There were a bunch of nice clean (empty) Prada boxes with tissue paper inside as well as unused shopping bags. You bet I reached in and grabbed em! You can sell these now on ebay. R+J, we need to do some curb picking when you guys are back here.

[Jay]

It’s always awesome to go on vacation and come home to…whatever you want to do. But not a job!

yes, lets take some “trash day” walks in NYC. We have some cool rugs in our house from those walks.

[The Thrift Raider]

First things first, haven’t sold much of anything, am up to 116 listings on ebay and only 11 on Etsy, so I really got to up my Etsy game. I’ve been listing in my spare time this month because my listings on ebay went down to only 98. I need to bust my ass a little more to get my backlog done. What sucks is that garage sale season is so tempting! I keep going out and finding stuff while not finding enough time to list. This week I’m putting that on hold.

Even though I hardly have anything on Etsy, I still sell things there, at least once a month. This month I sold a pair of USA made vintage men’s swim trunks. They had planets and bolts of lightning on a red background. They looked like something one of the Rugrats would wear. Picked them up for $1, sold for $35. Someone on ebay offered me 15 but I held out.

Weekend before last I picked up some really neat Trader Vic’s Tiki mugs from an estate sale. Got four for $1.50. I also picked up some RPG books from a garage sale. The guy who owned them pulled out four boxes, but as soon as I got to them, the vultures descended, so there wasn’t much time to check them. The old D&D and Star Wars books that I managed to get should do well, but I picked up another game thinking it was rare and possibly more valuable. It wasn’t, so I’m going to lot those all up and try to get rid of them that way. Each book was a dollar.

[mdm123]

Honored to be mentioned this week and as always, I appreciate your “nuggets.” I’m definitely more of a mercenary type, and frankly have little personal interest in pretty much anything that gets sold on ebay, which is probably both a strength and a weakness (upside: not getting ‘high’ on your own supply or making emotional purchasing decisions, downside: boredom, having little pre-existing knowledge to work off of).

I’ve lived my entire adult life in some form of self-employment and enjoy the flexibility and control that entails and ebay/amazon are just a new avenue for that. Not really sure where all of this will end up in the long run, but it’s probably not going to be a lifelong thing as I tend to hop around.

I do think though that even with my churn and burn style I can get to a place where I could stop sourcing/listing and still make good money. I think it’s just a matter of consistently outlisting your sales, which just takes some time. How long did it take to you guys to get enough inventory to be able to do nothing other than fulfill orders for, say, a month, and still make good money?

Anyhow, on to this week’s eBay sales:

Week of Mar 18 – 24
* Total Items in Store: 251
* Items Sold: 25
* Cost of Items Sold: $103.81
* Total Sales (inc. shipping): $1074.74
* Highest Price Sold: $153.29 Courtney Boots, purchased for $4 at an estate sale.
* Average Price Sold: $42.98
* Returns: 0

Most interesting item from this week was a harness/halo for blind dogs that went for $73. I had no idea what it was but I always research odd looking things, especially when they still have the tags. Brand is Muffin’s Halo, https://muffinshalo.com/. If you see one out in the wild for less than $10 I’d say pick it up.

[Jay]

When we hit 2000 items in our inventory, we realized we had enough items that would sell for up to a month without listing, and still make the money we needed each week.

Who knows. You obviously know how to find and sell. Do what makes sense to you. The big key is finding a way to not burn out if this is a long game for you.

[Julie B]

Like Jay with his experience working for the Census, I have a job that takes me to Atlanta where I hit up thrift stores in the evening. The goal was to find enough items while there to pay for my hotel, which has never been a problem. I find the best clothes in Atlanta! The downside is since I’m working at a non-Ebay job for about a year now, I have little time to list and the unlisted items have accumulated exponentially. This fact was made quite evident while cleaning and organizing my ebay room 2 weeks ago. We wanted our guest room back so I moved a lot of stuff to our basement. I now have the most organized ebay room imaginable. During the cleaning process I found so many great things that I can’t wait to list but I also found that I have almost an equal number of unlisted items as I do listed. My naive husband asked, “so how many things do you still have to list, like a hundred?” HAHAHAHAHA! Dude! It’s more like 1,000 maybe 2,000. At least it’s mostly clothes that are stored neatly in bins. But I need to get busy listing before all of it goes out of style. I’m toying with the idea of hiring someone to photograph and take measurements but I’m not excited about having someone at my house nor am I excited about handing over inventory to someone to handle off site. Decisions, decisions.

[Mark S]

Julie,

I have gone the off-site route. Just make it clear that they need to stay in a smoke free environment at all times.

I would be more concerned about the measurements. I had someone doing that incorrectly and that caused some issues.

Mark

[VintageTreasures]

Sales 4/18/18 – 4/24/18
Total # of items in store: 135(ish)
Total sales: $281.70
# of items sold: 12 🙁 1 of the 12 was thru Etsy.
Cost of items sold: $24.25(ish)
Highest price sold: $69.95 Vtg Playmobil 5321 Master Bedroom Victorian Mansion Doll House Furniture NIP New (plus buyer paid shipping)
Average price sold: $23.47
Returns: 1 is on it’s way back, I will eat the postage for the free shipping I included when I sold the item but at least the buyer is being honest and not claiming INAD so I won’t have to pay shipping back
# of NEW LISTINGS this week: 36 – I’ve decided not to include relists anymore, seems more accurate that way
$ spent on new inventory this week: $48.15 (for some not very wise, I’m shopping because I hate to Spring clean purchases)

About $25.00 more in sales than last week. eBay continues to be very slow for me which is disheartening after I had more than 30 days in a row with sales every day starting in Feb thru the beginning of March. Etsy has almost completely died for me since January, so not doing well there either. It’s unfortunate timing – I am currently spending a lot of time, effort and $ to convert my sewing room into an eBay/Etsy inventory/sales office. But it will really help me to list/organize/find items so much faster once it’s completed!

Wishing everyone great sales this week!

[sonia]

Vintage Treasures, 12 sales in a week in a store of 135 items is an EXCELLENT sell-thru rate of almost 9%! Very few people on here have sell-through rates that high.

[The Thrift Raider]

With you having 135 things in your store and selling at that rate, it makes me wonder if I’m not selling stuff for too high. I have 116 at the moment and haven’t had a sale since the 20th; before that it was the 13th on Ebay.

[Amatino]

There’s a threshold at which you don’t have to charge tax, as far as I’m aware. In Texas, it’s around $3,000. If my sales in Texas are less than the threshold, I don’t have to charge tax. However, it’s a bit of a crapshoot. If I don’t cross the threshold for six months, and then I do, I’m liable for all the taxes for the year, even though I didn’t charge them. I got burned in a brick-and-mortar business by registering for taxes before I needed to. Ended up adding hugely to my workload for absolutely no reason. I’m watching my sales to see how I’m doing, but I was nowhere near the threshold last year, and so much of my Death Piles are donations, I made no real saving on taxes on purchases either.

[ice_queen]

This week was only $23 better than last week overall, but higher average sales price made it feel like less of a grind.

3/19-3/25

Total number listings – 648
Items sold – 20
COGS – $23
Total sales – $377.98
Highest price sale – $115 (pair of PSYCH bobble heads to the U.K.)
Average price sold – $18.89
Spent on inventory – $30
Items listed – 20 (spring break for kids)
Goal for sales- – $500
Short of goal – $122.02

Significantly better than this time last month when I was $248.50 short of goal

Off to read everyone else’s comments.

[ice_queen]

On the topic of storage auctions. I bought one. It was huge 15×15. Gross. Hard work.
Made some money, but not enough.
I probably won’t do it again unless it’s dirt cheap and much smaller.

[retiredtreasures719]

I missed last week so here are my sales for the last two weeks
March 11-17
Total Sales $169.25
Items in Store 992
# sold 9
Avg. Sale $18.81
COGS $12.32
Returns 0
$ spent on new $9.08
# listed 3
Highest Sale-$85 Eddie Bauer leather bomber jacket

March 18-24
Total Sales $151.14
Items in Store 977
#sold 20
Avg. Sale $7.56
COGS $9.68
Returns 0
$spent on new 0
# listed 6
Highest sale- $39.99 Vtg Hakata Washable Doll figurine from Japan

Normally I would just skip posting the week I missed, but I thought it was interesting that the weeks were so different. The first week I didn’t sell much, but the items were higher priced. The second week I had put pretty much my whole store on sale and I sold 20 things, but they were all lower priced items. Only around $17 dollars difference in grand totals for the two weeks. I guess it’s a good argument for having a range of prices in your store. On slow weeks the big items can bump your sales up. I think the sale really helped this past week. I’m bursting at the seams in my Ebay office (and my husband resents my inventory creeping it’s way into the rest of the house) so I am pretty much taking any non ridiculous offer on items. Usually when I have a sale I don’t see that much of a boost, but it really worked for me this time. I want to get some of this older inventory out of my way for the new garage sale season. I didn’t get much listed because to be honest, I just couldn’t get myself worked up to do it. The things I did get listed were some of the more complicated items from my parents stuff.

So that was all process, but I have been thinking a lot about the why and the podcast this week helped gel some of those thoughts. I’m retired and it became obvious to me early on that if I wanted to continue with certain little luxuries in my lifestyle that I was going to have to do something to earn more money. I hadn’t really planned to retire at 54, but my dad and my husband’s health combined with the approaching changes in the state retirement system made it a good time to get grandfathered in on benefits. I’m frugal, but nowhere near the level of some of you, lol! I love the thrill of the hunt in searching for items. It just makes sense for me to sell on Ebay right now. I make enough to supplement my income, I get to go thrifting and garage saling with a purpose and I get to keep enjoying things I like in life. Last week was a combo of being busy with the guys and no motivation to list. Now that I have almost 1000 items listed, I can be a slacker when the mood strikes because of the pipeline. After having been at this seriously for just over a year, I have a much better understanding of what works and what doesn’t work for me. I have become much more discerning in what I purchase to resell. I have a better understanding of what works for me and my store. The nice thing is the flexibility. It’s my life story Part 2 and it lets me go where I want and sometimes leads me to things I might not have found otherwise.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Surely I wasn’t the only one who caught Ryanne’s F Bomb in this weeks podcast? 😀

[Ryanne]

oops!

[Edward]

Another great podcast episode to keep me motivated while on the road for my regular job.

It was mentioned that eBay was going to start offering the guaranteed delivery option to more sellers. I received the following email from eBay to inform me about it.

Your eligible listings will soon feature delivery dates backed by eBay.
From:eBay
Sent:Mar-23-18 02:30

Dear ,

We’re contacting you today to share the exciting news that you have earned a spot in eBay Guaranteed Delivery because of your consistent on-time handling performance. Between May 1 and May 31, your listings that already meet Guaranteed Delivery requirements will feature a guaranteed delivery date backed by eBay. We’ll contact you again in May once this change takes place.

As you may know, eBay Guaranteed Delivery is the program that lifts listing visibility and sales potential by allowing buyers to filter for listings guaranteed to arrive in three days or less.

To learn more about eBay Guaranteed Delivery and how it benefits all eBay customers, visit Seller Center and register for the live eBay Guaranteed Delivery webinar, March 28.

No Action Required
You don’t need to do anything to take advantage of your new status. With eBay Guaranteed Delivery, eBay guarantees the delivery dates and makes it right if a buyer ever experiences a late delivery—no matter the reason. Simply keep meeting same- and 1-day handling time on the listings you’ve set those times for.

Opt Out Any Time
We want you to know you’re always in control of how you sell. To remove yourself from the program at any time, visit Site Preferences, select eBay Guaranteed Delivery Setting, and click “I want to opt out of eBay Guaranteed Delivery.”

Thank you for your consistent on-time handling and thank you, as always, for selling on eBay.

[Jay]

This is good, correct?

[Edward]

I, too, have received the emails from Ebay about customers with one of my items in their cart. I tried lowering the price on a couple items for 48 hrs to see if the items would be sold. Neither did. The Bob Marley t-shirt had 6 watchers on it, so I decided I would raise the price by $3 above the original price. Voila! It sold the same day. Today I received another email that shows 8 items in carts. I will wait 24 hrs to see if they get finalized or not and may revise prices on the old stock.

[totommyto]

I received the Guaranteed Delivery email as well. I signed up for the Webinar, hopefully cleave some solid scoop, though going to try and listen at my regular job. I guess I’ll have to offer Priority Shipping on most of my items to benefit from this. I don’t see how else 3 days can be guaranteed. I enjoy offering Regular post or parcel or whatever it is now called, bump it up to Priority once an item sells, often actually make money on shipping with USPS discount and the buyer is happy with an upgrade in shipping. I really love that! Helps balance out the various fees that sting like bees, and get great ratings for shipping speed.

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

[Amatino]

I got the Items in Carts email today. 10 items. After giving it some thought, I chose those particular 10 items, put them on a 5% sale and called it Easter Madness sale. It is running until Monday only.

The last IiC email I got was for two items and neither sold, despite me reducing the price. And now I have to remember to go change them back. If the promotion works, even if only 1 or 2 items sell, I may use that as my go-to response in future. Certainly easier to set up.

[Rob]

I got an email last week that a Lego set was in someone’s cart, recommending I lower the price. I checked it out, and noticed my wife had priced it at $50 plus shipping, which was a bit high for the set. So I lowered it to $40, and it sold the next day. Testimonial that it can work.

[Jay]

I believe it. a 20% discount is a good enticement to buy!

[Rob]

Well, it was priced 20% too high, hoping someone would make an offer.

[Jay]

Im glad it sold!

[Marie in Florida]

Total Items in Store: 352
Items Sold: 6
Total Sales: $135
Highest Price Sold: $37.50 Doc Martens Last of a small pipeline
Average Price Sold: $22.50
Most Fun: A ridiculous vintage computer tie from 80s/90s Had for too long. Goodbye for $14
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $51 I stumbled onto an estate sale on the way to a shower. Noted it and returned after the shower. I thought it was weird, because I has looked up estates on estate.net, and no there weren’t any estates in our county this weekend. Asked them where they advertised. In the newspaper and on their mailing list. Yes I signed up for the list! An old lady had passed away. She had inherited her mom’s estate a few years ago. They only took cash and I spent every dollar I had on me.

[cmtella]

I’ve been working like crazy to relieve $50,000 in death piles, so sales YTD have been pretty good, especially since I only do this part time. My numbers:

Current items in store: 184
Items to be listed: 500+
Inventory balance: $43,188.82

Last week (Mar 18-25)
Sales $3,710.48
COGS $1,772.21
Net profit before fixed expenses $1,595.21
Items sold 29

Month to date
Sales $7,497.59
COGS $3,479.74
Net profit before fixed expenses $3,218.40
Items sold 101

Year to Date
Sales $22,586.14
COGS $10,603.22
Net profit before fixed expenses $9,169.79
Fixed expenses $903.77
Items sold 390

[Jay]

Wow, you’re average price on the stuff you sold last week was $60. Can you remind us what you sell?

[T-Satt]

cmtella: those numbers are very impressive! Are these large items? Or are they easy to ship?

[cmtella]

Antiques and collectibles. I try to stick to lower and middle range stuff ($50 to $500), but sometimes some good deals appear in the $500+ range and I can’t say no!

[cmtella]

Size is all over the map. Most would be medium sized items but there’s a mix of freight shipments and first class shipments as well. My Largest profits come from the bigger items as most dealers don’t want to deal with them.

[Jay]

Do you mainly buy at auctions? Do you specialize?

[T-Satt]

cmtella: Looks like your model is mostly on a 2X return (your sales are 2X of your purchase price). Is that by design to limit your time and the amount you have listed? I have no problem at all with that model at the ASP and Profit you are generating (in fact, we are looking to add more of these items to our mix.

[cmtella]

It’s tough to say what model I use. Basically I buy anything that I think I can make a reasonable amount of money on. Sometimes it’s a $1 item that I can sell for $50 or a $500 item I can sell for $600 if I can sell it quickly. Once the mistakes net out with the home runs and average profit items, it works out to be that my sales are twice my purchase price.

[Ferengi]

A lot of people have solid numbers on what the cost of their items sold was. I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that. I tally up the money I spend on sourcing every month so I know what I spend monthly. I don’t keep a spread sheet of every item I have listed and what it cost me though. Is that how everyone knows their weekly COGS?

[T-Satt]

Ferengi: We starting using a Spreadsheet on each item, and we have now moved to SixBit to do that. When we list each item, its cost is added so that we know what the COGS was automatically.

I have been tempted to move to an average cost model, but I don’t know at what level (All items, or segregate by ???). I could do clothes in one pool, shoes in another, and hard goods in a third, but for now, it is easier to add the actual cost into SixBit.

[Sharyn]

Yes, I have a spread sheet where I keep track of every purchase. If I buy an auction lot with many items, I’ll break out the cost for each item. For instance, if I buy 10 items for $10, I can break out the cost evenly and each item will be $1. Or, I can vary the price if a few items are much pricier than the others. So, one item is $2, another is $0.25, etc.

In my bookkeeping program, I transfer in the cost of each item that sells, and the program will automatically subtract that number, along with fees, to get the profit.

If you are selling enough where your sales are part of your income for tax purposes, the cost of goods sold is a big deduction. You need to keep track of it.

There are some sellers who use the cost of their inventory at the beginning and the end of the year to determine their COGS, but someone else would have to explain that.

[cmtella]

I used to do auctions all the time years ago (probably 100+ a year), but I have since shifted toward other models as the buyer’s premiums take away most of the profitability. I still do auctions occasionally if they have enough stuff to warrant a trip. I have a network of pickers that I buy from as well as flea markets, online auctions, Craigslist, estate sales, antique shows, yard sales, wanted ads and Goodwill bins, etc. Pretty much anywhere with prices low enough to make a profit!

[Ferengi]

T-Satt Thanks for the help. I do a spreadsheet to keep track of what I have in each bin. I’ll just add a column for item cost and start tracking it.

[Marjean28]

I can’t believe I didnt do this before, but I used the sold report download to grab my sales for the week. Then I just added a couple of formulas to get my data. Here’s what I ended up with:

total items in ebay/etsy/poshmark (again, these numbers are current as of this posting and not as of Saturday night)-1052/35/4
total sales ebay/etsy/poshmark – $271.95/$0/$0
total number of sales ebay/etsy/poshmark – 20/0/0
total COG (just the price of the sourced item) – $19.17
Gross Sales (not counting shipping) – $318.66
total COGS (price of sourced item, ebay FV & marketing fees, & PP fees) – $65.88 (this doesn’t include any calculation for eBay’s listing fee and monthly store subscription)
I listed quite a bit. Its all notated in the 2018 Challenge post with a breakdown between what I listed from death piles v. newer sourced items.

As for the creepy doll…..LUCKY FIND!!! I love it! I’m always looking for creepy dolls. I didn’t know about the haunted aspect! I’m gonna start having seances for dolls and then selling them. WOOT WOOT!!! I absolutely love the whole story aspect of the sale. I’m down for that. Mostly because its good humor.

I’m still feeling very positive about the numbers I’m putting up. Definately a combination of a sales price and promoted listings is what’s driving some of my sales. 6 of the sales were a result of the ad rates I paid for promoted listings. So, its statistically significant (6/20).

Have a great week all.

Marjean

[Gompers]

In regards to the D & D books. Be sure you have them for sale thru GSP as well. I sold 2 of these books to Spain and Germany for approx $150 each. I have some more lowered valued D & D books to still go thru. D & D books are one of the only items I always pick up whenever I see them. (unless of course the price is too high) its one of the few items that is basically gold every time.

I was in a savers last week (after not being there for about a year) and someone had donated all their D & D stuff + fantasy paperbacks. Savers had the D & D games priced at $100 and believe it or not someone bought them. I looked them up on ebay and they weren’t worth $100, so I don’t know what they were thinking.

This donation also included about 50 fantasy paperbacks, but at $1.79 each it wouldn’t be worth the effort to research all those books. I looked up a few and some series were selling $12-$15, but that’s not high enough a price for me. If I could have gotten the books for .50 cents or less each I would have bought them.

[Ferengi]

The D&D books are an awesome find. I used to love the artwork when they were still printed by TSR. I’ve got my players handbook from 2.0 advanced edition out in a tote bin somewhere. Hopefully you guys also got some campaign modules and maps. Those can worth more than the books because they came in paper boxes and got trashed pretty easily.

[Jay]

Yeah, the old modules and dungeon maps are my favorite finds because they are more rare than the handbooks.

[Gompers]

Something you may find interesting.

D & D in prisons. About 10 mins long.

People are still discovering D & D even today.

[almasty]

Totally jealous of the d&d haul. I was able to get 2 collections of the 3rd edition within a week of each other a few years ago, but it’s been dry since those hauls. I will occasionally find a few volumes here and there out in the wild, but that’s it.

Around 10 years ago I found a collection of the older ones (not as old as the ones in your haul) in a Goodwill, but yeah, I can seriously count the number of times I find actual collections of them while out sourcing. My husband had some of the original booklets from the 1974 set growing up, but someone tossed them at some point. Ah, well.

I did find some rare modules a few years ago out in the wild that went for a lot, but even those don’t pop up that frequently. You’re more likely to just find the manuals rather than the modules most places.

[Sigilini]

Jay I am just listening now to the podcast: you might have thought of this already but a friend of mine has been house sitting. She gets to live for free in these amazing homes for several weeks and all she has to do is watch the dog or make sure the garden is watered. She gets to go skiing and do her artwork. She loves it because she is not nailed down and she gets to travel.

Just my contribution to your scavenger vacation ideas!

[Jay]

Yep, great idea. There are also sites that let you swap houses, so we could swap one of our vacation rentals for someone else’s place.

Whenever we buy our electric car, it’ll be a scavenger adventure.

[SilverFoxFinds]

Jay, I heard on the radio this week that power companies are starting to work with electric car companies directly in creating incentives and rebates to purchase electric cars (ostensibly because of what $ they’ve lost in the push towards energy efficient appliances over the last decade). So, time may be nigh… 🙂

[Jay]

You would think they would be at the forefront of building infrastructure for electric vehicle charging. Ten years ago, solar and wind power was said to be too expensive to install. Instead its now the fastest growing part of our energy mix. It’s coming.

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

[KatieScott]

My son has had severe social anxiety since middle school. For almost a year, he has been in a D&D therapy group and he loves it. NPR (or maybe just the local station, I’m not sure) did a story about it – here’s a link to the story:
http://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/post/negotiating-dragon-role-playing-games-group-therapy

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

[Jay]

In the early 1980’s, there was all kinds of fear mongering about D&D being satanic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies
I was lucky that my mom was very supportive about my playing the game because she saw it as being very social and healthy.

[Ferengi]

KatieScott That’s an awesome use for D&D. I never thought about it that way but D&D is one of the more social things I get my introverted self to do. As an adult it’s fun because it’s an excuse to get people over on a Friday night.

[Habnab]

My kids are totally into D&D… and my son started a D&D club at his middle school. They play whatever the newest edition is, but I’m still stuck back in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s, with the paperbound modules. I used to buy them just to read (although I played as well.)

[Author]

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