Scavenger Life Episode 363: Scavenging Off The Joneses

[Ryanne]

Last week we talked about not “keeping up with the Joneses” and a listener had a much better way of putting it- Scavenging off the Joneses. We love th
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 363: Scavenging Off The Joneses]

[Mark S]

05/27/18 – 06/02/18

Total Items In Store: 2,414
Items Sold: 19
Cost of Items Sold: $50 (around)
Total Sales: $ 532 (480 for ebay + $52 on Bonanza)
Highest Price Sold: $ 85 (Red Wing Boots)
Average Price Sold: $ 28
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 22.50
Number of Items listed this week: 41

Slower week of sales, but still ok. Bonanza has been on fire for me lately. I have had 5 sales for $190 on Bonanza in the last 30 days. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider I only had 13 sales total for 2017 on Bonanza, that is pretty amazing! Nothing has changed for me on Bonanza, so I’m not sure why so many sales there lately, but I am not complaining. I just hope that keeps up.

While out at garage sales this weekend, I found a great history book on my town that was written in 1968. It has a large number of pictures from my town from the 1800’s through 1968. What a great find for $5! It will take a while to digest everything because there is so much information in the book.

Mark

[T-Satt]

Posting my numbers now, going to listen to the ‘cast on the way to the contract job…

Week of 5/27-6/2
Total Items in Store: 2,167 (Up 42% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 95
Number of Items Sold: 76 (Down 10% YOY)
(Includes 0 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether, 0 Amazon)
Weekly STR: 15% (Down 9% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $1,784 (Even YOY – within $2…weird!)
Cost of Items Sold: $363
Highest Item Sold: $100 – Kiyoshi Saito Japanese Woodblock Print
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week (again) and leads for the year 12-10.

eBay Clothing
# Listed: 1,344
# Sold: 55
STR: 17%
ASP: $20.75

eBay Shoes
# Listed: 236
# Sold: 13
STR: 24%
ASP: $33.57

eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 587
# Sold: 8
STR: 6%
ASP: $25.83

Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 165
# Sold: 0
STR: 0%
ASP: $0.00

May 2018
Number of Items Listed: 476 – (1 short of our Record from last month)
Number of Items Sold: 295 (Forecast: 318)
Monthly STR: 16% (Forecast: 16%)
Monthly ASP: $25.85 (Forecast: $22.75)
Total Sales: $7,627 (Forecast: $7,239) – Increase of 15% YOY

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

I like the theme of the show this week… a couple examples below (one good sale and one bad sale) about scavenging off the Joneses.

Week May 27- June 2, 2018

Total Items in Store: 946
Items Sold: 21 (1 Facebook)
Cost of Items Sold: $167 (29.2% of sales)
Total Sales: $572.43
Highest Price Sold: $90 (Fred brand prescription glasses https://www.ebay.com/itm/202271980984)
Average Price Sold: $27.26
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $110
Number of items listed this week: 14
Promoted listings test: 8 sales, $218.98 (38.3% of total sales), $12.87 fees (5.9% of sales)

Pretty decent week of sales, nothing crazy but moving out some old inventory I have on deep discount. Also started a store promotion, 20% off 3+ records, since I’m closing in on 500 records in my store and need to move some things for storage sake. Nothing sold through that promotion yet, but I just started it.

On to a couple sales about Scavenging off the Jonses. First, the bad/mistake… a few months ago I went to a super high end estate sale – multi million dollar home, couple liquidating their goods due to a divorce, etc. I ended up spending about $1200 on high end items – Chanel & Valentino shoes, Cartier sunglasses, a pile of designer prescription glasses, etc. I got caught up in the quality and brand names and admittedly overpaid on several of the items. I sold one of those items – the Fred prescription glasses – this weekend. I thought I could get $200+ for them, but after several offers I finally cracked and took a $90 offer (I paid about $60 for them, this was one of the big drivers of my poor COGS ratio). I didn’t lose money, but none of us can survive on low margins like that.

Now the good example. This past Saturday morning I was at a similar sale – tons of super high end goods, but I stuck to my budget. Instead of hitting those Gucci loafers, I looked at the table of accessories and spotted a brand new Montblanc passport cover. Perfect. And the sellers were too focused on the thousands of dollars of hand bags & shoes – I picked it up and asked how much and they said “take it for $1”. Amazing. Listed and sold within 2 hours of listing for $75 (which was a steal based on other listings https://www.ebay.com/itm/202330441405).

Felt good to get back out to sales – hadn’t gone to an estate sale for nearly a month due to other commitments & holidays plus reorging my inventory (which is awesome now).

[simplicio]

More auction hauls this week, listing has been good! We got out camping with friends this weekend and had a great time, too. Sales a little slack.

Sales: CAD$784, 6 items, COGS: $65 –> Item profit: $598
Expenditures: $471 –> Cashflow after tax: $37
Hours: 8, $5/hr
Notable sales: UV light $200 (paid 10), miter saw laser guide $130 (paid 15, have 3 more).
Notable buys: cool mexican wool rug $20, pump for radiant heating system $70 (hoping for $1200), and a bunch of random HVAC parts I still have to go through but I’ve got hopes.

[Marie in Florida]

Wonderful use of Ebay store and soft week, but I do not care.
Total Items in Store: 345
Total Sales: $76
Highest Price Sold: $40 Il Palio horse race scarf
Average Price Sold: $25.30
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
So why wonderful? Because I earmarked several months of Ebay $ and went to London with my daughter! Planned it out and paid almost everything in advance. Researched and crunched numbers then bought British Airways flights with extras. Stayed in Bloomsbury hotel and a Wimdu(like European Airbnb) with ensuite. Bought London Pass and went to Dickens House, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, in Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey,British Museum, Hampton Court Palace, Handel/Hendrix House, Cutty Sark, Queen’s House, Chelsea Physic Garden-favorite, National Gallery…. Daughter had a tiny inheritance that she spent on London. Ebay payed the under $1600 that I forked out for 8.5 days. Now back to work and listing

[Jay]

Huge congrats. $200/day in London is amazing. Glad you got to take the trip with your daughter.

[T-Satt]

Marie: That is awesome!

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Awesome! We also use our eBay money for vacations/trips that might not otherwise be possible!

[Nancy]

Sounds like a wonderful trip. I love visiting gardens. I’ll bet you made a lot of good memories

[VintageTreasures]

Week of 5/27 – 6/2/18
Total Items in Store: 213 eBay / 143 Etsy
Items Sold: 16 eBay / 4 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $27.39 (Approximately)
Total Sales: $414.61 eBay / $28.00 Etsy
Highest Price Sold: $44.96 Lamborgini Italy Silver Collection Desk Set Card Case Letter Opener Magnifier
Average Price Sold: $27.39
Returns: 0
$ Spent on New Inventory: 0
Number of Items Listed: 22

[T-Satt]

Jay & Ryanne: Loved the discussion of “The Scavenger’s Manifesto”. I’m going to have to read that book. I love the discussion of the “Joneses” and different lifestyles. I think you have some very valid points about how people use their money, conspicuous consumption, etc. I always say that people can do whatever they want with their money. They earned it. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.

When you talked about conspicuous consumption, it made me think of all the people I worked with as a kid that had a lot of money, and you would never know it. Ever since then, I started to see that most people with flashy stuff really didn’t have much saved or invested. They couldn’t handle an emergency without selling that flashy stuff at a discount.

So while thinking of your book “The Scavenger’s Manifesto”, it made me think of “The Millionaire Next Door”. It fits well in our thinking.

And then on your car… the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”… 🙂

[T-Satt]

Regarding sales and 30 Day Listings: For us, we are keeping the 30 Day Listings. My analysis of the sales boost on Day 1 and Day 30 show that it is worth it for us to keep listings as 30 Days. We do run periodic sales when things seem slow, but those are a side piece of the business.

It will hurt the items we put in Clearance that we want to get rid of, but in a way, it may work to our advantage. For the first 14 days, if we get watchers, then when the sale kicks in, it might prompt some sales when they get a message that something is on sale.

I think this change may hurt some like Cyndi at AmazingTaste who used to run weekly sales. Now those items won’t be on sale for 2 weeks. Again, it may not be a big deal, who knows.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Hold that thought T-Satt. I wanted to talk over his topic since we just finally got everything re-schedule onto the 30 relist rotation process using WonderLister. We spread the relisting dates out over the whole month, so we would not end up with a bunch of listings, which would have happened if we had just bulk convereted them. With close to a thousand now all end and relist on the same day is not what we wanted to happen. Of course new items we can spread out with the scheduler.

But we are down in Orlando helpng ou daughter pack for a big move back to the Atlanta area this Friday, so I was going to hit that topic of the 14 day dwell period on new listings when we got back

Speaking of being down here, the extended time didn’t stop sales. 6th time doing that to come down here in last two years and sales just kept rolling in and same thing again this time.

So hang on to that new Ebay topic and maybe I can join in the discussion when I get back.

Oh by the way we got convreted over to the Guaranteed Delivery program last week two days before we left.

Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art.

[T-Satt]

Sounds good Mike. We are still going forward, but if you get good information from another perspective, I want to hear it!

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

OK.. Wife and I are Back from putting in 117 man hours since last Friday of packing and moving our daughter back from Orlando to Atlanta. She is temporarily back with us in guest rooms and balance in storage. Man what an ordeal. Never again. But it was for a promotion, new position and a big, big salary increase. But we told her we are just to old for this.

She will be buying her own home over the next few months.

So back online but have to catch up on over 60 Scavengherlife posts and need to review the last two podcasts.

So, T-Satt: I told you to hold the thought on the two week dwell time before a relisted item can go on sale.

So with us and you using SixBit and WonderLister, we now have all of our items converted over to the 30 days, the cancel and relist automatically. What is your take on the 2 weeks dwell time that Ebay won’t allow Sales.

My quick view is since we spread our converstion of the 970 items in our store out over the whole month, we have items that end everyday and relist, but we also have items that are hitting the 15th day-30-31st day each and every day. So I think what will happen is if we highlight all listings [970] and put the whole store on Sale for say 15% off, then Ebay will automatically filter out the newer ones and just not allow those to go on Sale and the older ones will allow those. So, in summary, any time we want to create a Sale, then about half of our items will be allowed and half will not? Is that the way you see SixBit working it?

As our store grows, to Say 1500 items, the same will happen. 750 items will go on Sale and 750 will not depending on how many relists with WonderLister each and every day.

We usually run a Sale starting every Wed. and let it run through Sunday night. Then wait two days, rinse and repeat. So with our 3rd party app always ending and relistings daily I assume we can never have the “whole store” on Sale, only half of it, give or take?

Am I seeing this correctly?

Thanks,
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta and GLAD TO BE BACK!!!!

[T-Satt]

Welcome back Mike!

I think you are spot on. If you are auto relisting items and they are spread out over the month, then every day something is going up, and not on sale for 14 days. Then when it hits the 15th day, it goes on sale until it ends on Day 30.

This could work to our advantage. For the first two weeks, listings will get views and watchers. When the item goes on sale, I believe that eBay sends a message to the watchers that it has gone on sale. So not only is your sale price enticing buyers that are looking from Day 15-30, you could be alerting your buyers that watched the item from Day 1-14 that it is now on sale.

[Paulo H Leocadio]

Gonna merge two topics here with the mark of the beast on listings older than 18 months.

Couple years ago in January, when I first started listing and joined this community, in that order, i only knew how to do 30 days listing with the 3 max auto renews.
Then I started to hear the list and forget it thing which I could no grasp how. Then I found out if you go to bulk editor and select everything you can add an option “list continuously untill the item sells”

Which is a pain because every three months hundreds and hundreds of lists generate 3 x the quantity of email about each item expiring and then stating it is time to renew and once more confirming the renewal.

Then I saw the light: THERE WAS AN OPTION LIST ‘TIL CANCELED
So I started to do that for new listings

However I still had a backlog of ~400 hundred of the old.

As soon as this last may I found a dozen of items with the mark of the beast. So I ended all of them and boosted, they were among my first listings, they were too simple.
Took the opportunity and I am grabbing like 20 of each of the old ones to end and then edit/boos and relist with the Good ‘TIL CANCELLED OPTION

At the end these things are good to keep us up on our toes

[Retro Treasures WV]

Items in Store 878
Items Sold 9
Total Sales $260.00
COGS $32.00
Total Profit $228.00
Average profit $25.33
Average sales price $28.89

No sales promotions this week. Interestingly enough, I’ve sold 5 items for full price BIN in the last 6 days. I also sold more items this week than I did last week running sale the entire week. I don’t have concrete statistics in hand, but I can tell you that the only thing that consistently drives sales is listing more stuff. You can’t sell it if you don’t list it.

I was just thinking about “scavenging off the Joneses” this weekend while out shopping yard sales. The best houses for yard sales are the houses that are on the higher end of middle class, but not too high. Regular middle class typically will overvalue their items and have mostly junk. The cheaper/older houses have mostly junk bought at walmart unless they are clearing out vintage stuff. They too tend to over-value.

In this area we have neighborhoods that have $300k houses practically built on top of each other. These are the gold mines for clothes/shoes and the occasional electronics. They are the folks most likely to keep up with the Joneses and then unload last years stuff for $1 each. They might have $3-5 on each item, but they always take low offers, espcecially if you buy a pile. I cleaned up in these neighborhoods on Saturday.

So thank you to the Joneses of the world – you all make America great. Keep on spending! Lol!

[T-Satt]

Retro: “You can’t sell it if you don’t list it.” Amen brother!

Plus, I like your concept of keeping listing. I think the best way to be successful at anything is to love the process of it. Sales are great and that is what we live for. When we get the “Cha-Ching!” on the phone, that is like an adrenaline hit. We love that!

But it is also fleeting. And if you live for that…you can fall into the depression trap when it is slow.

So I love the process of the business. That is why I like to focus on improving our number of items we list per week. Our new goal is to get to 150 items listed each week (which I’m sure we can do if I’m not contracting!). But by focusing on the process, working on getting more good listings up, looking for how to get better at what we can control, then while we still celebrate the sales, we start to love the business again.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by T-Satt.

[Mark S]

T-Satt,

I couldn’t agree more. We have to focus on what we can control. In turn, doing the basics right will generate the sales we need.

I could compare it to sports. In football, if you focus on the basics of good blocking, tackling, establishing your running game, and executing well, you will score points and win games.

I have found the same to be true in this business. If I list, ship on time, delivery a great product, and treat the customers right, all is good and that puts me where I need to be.

Mark

[T-Satt]

Mark: Amen brother.

For me, it is baseball. Tee work, short toss, swing mechanics. Infield, outfield. Pitch mechanics.

Do the little things right…and the big things take care of themselves…

[Doublythumbs]

May 27 – June 2
Total Items in Store: 1590
Items Sold: 22
Total Sales : $720
* below yearly average of $777
* above 2017 total week sales of $624
Highest Price: $162 (Vintage International Harvester Cooling System Cleaner and Neutralizer Can)
Average Price: $33
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $40
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 0

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAY!! It’s funny, I always picture you (and Ryanne) being closer to my age in the early 30s. Maybe it’s your enthusiasm and positive outlook on on everything.

It looks like my average is going to be in the $700 to 800 range for a while, but I’m okay with that. We’re going to be so busy with moving and getting the new house in order that I won’t really have time to sell a whole lot. I’ve got the opposite problem of burnout. I want to list and get back into eBay so bad, but I just can’t at the moment. But it’ll be so great to have a much bigger work space and tons of storage room at our new home.

So it’s been about a month or so since I switched back from free returns to buyers pay for returns. It seems like sales have dried up slightly, but not as terrible as I thought they would. There could be a bunch of factors accounting for that other than my return policy too, especially summer slowdown. I’ll continue this through June, but once July hits I’ll make my store almost completely compliant with eBay’s suggestions (free returns, 1-day shipping, “free” shipping on first class items) and see if I notice any spikes in sales.

Not much in the way of scavenging this week except while loading up some cardboard and plastic boxes that were being thrown away at a local business, I found an old industrial grade Jiffy fabric steamer. I thought it was probably broke but the parts could sell easily enough. Brought it home and ran some vinegar through it and it works perfectly! Now I’ll either sell it or keep it replacing the small cheap steamer I have already.

[jimi]

Total Items in Store: 1379
Items Sold: 6
Cost of Items Sold: $32.88
Total Sales: $152.77
Highest Price Sold: $39 (set of 4 dessert bowls)
Average Price Sold: $25.46
Returns: 3 shirts, $46.01 (just turned on free returns the week before)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $123.51
Number of items listed this week: 3

Just finished my worst sales week in the 3 years that I have been full time ebay selling. Not really sure why it was so slow except that I had been on 2nd week of vacation and mostly neglecting my store. I did hit the yard sales hard on Saturday and this week will be back to work and hopefully sales pick up. I hope everyone has a good week.

[ChristineR]

Total Items in Store: 363
Items Sold: 6
Cost of Items Sold: $42 + 3 free shipping
Total Sales: $149
Highest Price Sold: $50 Jars vase on best offer https://www.ebay.com/itm/332192732594
Average Price Sold: $25
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: About $30
Number of items listed this week: 12

Slow week. I think it’s pretty liberating being older (I’m 49) and you really just don’t care what people think. I do like nice things, and I’m very happy to get them discounted on clearance / off season and mostly used. We buy reliable, quality cars just under luxury class – Subaru, Honda, Volvo one to two years used and get all the bells and whistles someone else paid for driving off the lot. Then we hold our cars a very long time. I feel like we are somewhere between your extreme frugalness and the Joneses. Definitely more toward your end on the spectrum than the Joneses.

We are fortunate to live in a place where either because of time constraints (working families), energy constraints (elderly), or no money worries (rich), and sometimes ignorance people get rid of really nice stuff. I have a plan to better capitalize on this in the future. There is less pressure in our area I think to buy expensive goods because it’s California casual and the LA race is not really happening in our smaller city.

[T-Satt]

ChristineR: “I think it’s pretty liberating being older (I’m 49) and you really just don’t care what people think.”

Yep! We are right in that age group as well, and we care less and less each day… 🙂

[ChristineR]

I had an older coworker who told me that the time while your kids are young is so short and valuable when you look back. I’ve taken a huge pay cut to be with them while they grow up, but I’ll never regret that. We also get spendy on vacation locations once a year, maybe twice. Experiences are worth it to us not stuff.

Also, PS I got into guaranteed delivery and turned on free returns for certain categories of items – about half of my store, mostly first class, and some higher dollar flat rate box new items. I left free shipping on first class and also added a .75 handling fee across the board. I hope Ebay creates a mobile toggle for free returns. I didn’t get the free returns promotion.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by ChristineR.

[T-Satt]

Amen on both counts. I chucked the $120k/yr career…but saved a marriage and the relationship with my kids. 1000% worth it.

And we are similar. Experiences and memories over “stuff”…

[Paulo H Leocadio]

Amen Cristine. My wife and I did the same for the 5 kids, NO REGRETS, on the contrary, made us bliss in joy, made us completely accomplished in our lives, we would do everything again.
We literally live for our most precious things, we do everything with them, for them.

My daughter is already 31, so she comes 2x a year, imagine the day she leaves, a bunch of men crying like idiots for hrs unend.

Nick is in College 3 hrs from here, he comes often, but it is ridiculous, my wife and I treat him like a baby.

They are all doing great: Elise is a well succeeded Data Scientist, Nick is in Electronic Engineering Grad School and Cristian is in Aeronautics Engineering undergrad

The twins are just babies 🙂

They are my life, my pride, my everything. Not to mention my wife, it should be forbidden for men to decide things or be majority on any type of government. Men and Women ARE VERY DIFFERENT. Women are strong, powerful, they take care of everything and still find time to work and make money
My kids never ever raised a voice one decibel to my wife, I demand absolute respect because she was there for all of us. When Erica was in hospital with cancer, she would find time to go come and play with his pre-toddler twin and still back to hospital in the afternoon.

Sorry, got really excited, I am absolutely crazy for my wife and kids.

[Simon]

Thanks for the show Ryanne & Jay.

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 2319
Items Sold: 34
Total Sales: $836
Cost of Items Sold: $179
Average Price Sold: $24.6
Average Cost of Item: $5.28
Highest Price Item Sold: $94.95 Pioneer 301 CD player Changer
Number of items listed this week: 51
YTD Sales: $18,538
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +19%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 332
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 145
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 47
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.47%
# of Hats Sold: 23 (67% of sales)

I used the long weekend last week to force myself to test and list some electronics that I’ve been sitting on for a while. That helped get my numbers up a little this week.

I don’t know if this has already been discussed but I got an offer from eBay to cover the cost of returns for me during June if I offer free returns on my items. I haven’t got around to offering free returns yet but I may try it. I’m going to switch on business policies first to make these kinds of things quicker to adjust in future.

It was good to hear Dan call in to the show. Melbourne Australia is my home town though I’ve live in the U.S for decades now.

Hope everyone has a great week.

[T-Satt]

Simon: “I don’t know if this has already been discussed but I got an offer from eBay to cover the cost of returns for me during June if I offer free returns on my items.”

That is really interesting. Did they send you a message through eBay messaging? That would be a great promotion if they did that…

[AdventureE]

Hello Simon,

There is a thread about the Free Returns Ebay Promotion you may want to view.

Free Returns Ebay Promotion

[Jay]

You’re from Melbourne?! We love that city.

[Simon]

Yep. I grew up in Melbourne but I always wanted to see the U.S so I got a contract job in San Francisco. I planned to do a little work, do some traveling and go home but I met the woman that became my wife and I’m still here decades later.

[Rhianna]

Total Items in Store: 2154
Items Sold: 53 (1 Bonanza)
Total Sales: $1284.83
Highest Price Sold: $118 (Puzzle)
Returns:3
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $158

Great episode! Had another good week between our platforms. My husband does Amazon Merch and is steadily making money each month ( I do not include his sales in with my sales 🙂 I have been having issues with Bonanza having items in my booth that have already sold on ebay. Seems like they are not communicating correctly. I had to cancel two sales so far this week. I have also had a couple issues with ebay. One thing that drives me bonkers is when my custom label is not on my listing. So I use the custom label area to put which box the item is in, and for some reason some are being deleted. Not sure what is going on. So we are having to go through a ton of bins to find the items. Not fun when it is 93 degrees outside and the garage is like a sauna. We had three returns this week and that has me worries since we turned on free returns, hoping it doesn’t bit us in the butt.
We have also been doing a lot of walking and hiking to prepare for our upcoming trip in September. So that does take a lot of our time on the weekends.
We did hit some yard sales this weekend and didn’t find much. We are wondering if our time would be better spent just going to the thrift store.
We are also going to start the Keto Diet so I am looking forward to seeing what recipes Jay and Ryanne have liked as well as sharing some recipes that we have liked.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Anyone else seeing anomalies in listing metrics? I just checked out a few items that I listed over the weekend just to make sure they were “turned on” and several of them have 0 views, but with watchers. How can you watch something if you don’t view it? Specifically this listing shows 0 views and 4 watchers since listing on Saturday: https://www.ebay.com/itm/192557239390

I’m sure it’s just a glitch, just strange.

[Doublythumbs]

I’m having the same problem with my views. Everything is at zero. Over on Reddit, a ton of other people (but not everyone) are having the same issue. This isn’t the first time it’s happened to me. It will correct itself after a few days, but it’s annoying!

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Yes, in the grand scheme of things doesn’t matter… but on days like today when I haven’t even received a message or an offer let alone an actual sale, I always like to check.

[T-Satt]

Interesting. We have a lot more items that show 0 views than normal, but it is random. We don’t usually have items that end with 0 views, but we have a lot that are in that position now.

When I look at our Traffic numbers though, we are holding steady at about 700 page views per day. So I’m not sure if the number of “views” is accurate.

[T-Satt]

Actually…that may be the same data. When I drill in, we had 1,437 listings (current and ended in the last 30 days) with 0 views…

The total views for the time frame are 19,330, which is 644 per day. But that data I can’t see past 2000 listings. From listing 1-2000 (sorted by least views to most), I get 1,437 with 0 views, and the rest with 1. When I try to go beyond that… I get an error.

Sorted the other way, I can also only get 2000 listings. Starts with 176 views and listing 2000 is 5.

If that is accurate…I gotta lotta stuff not getting looked at…

[indomatt239]

Regarding the caller with 3,500 45’s. Oh man, you are in for it…

Like was said on the show, you’ll find some emeralds, and maybe even some diamonds. I don’t know how much about pop music you may know or how old these 45’s might be, but if you recognize the artist or song as top-forty its likely not worth your time. There are exceptions of course (like Ryan said, Bowie is an example), but the big money is in obscure R&B, Blues, and even doo-wop. Use discogs.com as a reference. Organizing by label is good way to start. Put all of the major labels (Columbia, Atlantic, Sony etc.) aside and focus on the unknown labels.

I have been down this road before, and it is an exhausting one. At the very least, if every single record is a dud, hopefully the covers are intact. If you are lucky, maybe each 45 is in a generic green/gray sleeve. I have sold those in large lots at ~ $0.50 apiece (usually 100 for $59.99 or best offer), and donated the vinyl itself to a creative reuse center. Collectors sometime favor the vintage sleeves to the plain white ones that you can buy cheaply on Amazon. You could have over $1,000 in just empty blank old paper/cardstock!

[Steven S]

Agreed, that’s a lot of tedious research and listing, if I’d have been there I would’ve advised against buying those.
One thing you might try is to sell in lots for juke box owners looking to swap out large numbers of titles. I have not done that research but it may be an avaenue worth pursuing.
I gave up on a bucket full of 45’s I obtained for free, just so much trouble, I finally donated them all.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Similarly, I pulled out like 10 Ringo Starr 45s from a big lot I bought to list separately, but everything else I put together. Priced high, ended up selling for a $125 best offer: https://www.ebay.com/itm/192242089549

[Paulo H Leocadio]

I have over 10,000 items in my music collection, mostly LPs but also CDs, DVDs, BluRays, Cassetes, 45’s in 7″, 10″, 12″

Almost impossible not to find a handful of gems at least. Discogs.com has the best appraisal anywhere in the world.

ALSO, PAY ATTENTION: there are many that are WORTHLESS, HOWEVER, there is a twist, sometimes they have a wrongly printed label that was recalled before some were sold, others with wrong song, and other mistakes. These guys go by the hundreds.

Discogs.com you can make a sample search on what is looked after. At the very least, for example I have one 7″with beautiful cover by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the flip side is supposed to be an unpublished song. I bought from a batch that came wrong with their cover of Born to Run from the boss. On these you can make $20-$30 which is not bad.

“the rest” I would make first band packages and second genre packages.

Tons of collectors like me are looking for the 7″ original release of several bands which mostly is what is missed from completician collectors.

[Steven S]

My numbers for May 2018
Total sales $6360
Items listed in store 830
Sold 58 (eBay 55 Bonanza 2 FB marketplace 1)
Gross sales eBay $6174 Bonanza $6 FB marketplace $180
Returns 0
Highest sale $1700 Marantz amplifier
Average $110

https://imgur.com/gallery/XuKnldr
Happy birthday Jay.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

As always, incredible sales on that vintage stereo equipment!

[Jay]

Thanks Midge. I wish I could pet you.

[Sharyn]

Week of May 27 – June 2
* Total Items in Store: 1175
* Items Sold: 15
* Cost of Items Sold: $62.50 + $7 Commission
* Total Sales: $546.57
* Highest Price Sold: $125 for Vintage Sewing Machine, $120 for Donald Drumm Menorah
* Average Price Sold: $36.43
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20.12
* Number of items listed this week: 29

Sales were really good through about Thursday, but dropped off drastically Friday through the weekend.

I was definitely a much happier person once I was in my 30’s and later. I’ve read that your brain doesn’t truly stop developing until about 25. Maybe you are happy because your brain is much more stable, or maybe it’s just because of life experiences.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Sharyn.

[Jay]

Thats a very good point. My brain feels much more stable.

[totommyto]

Happy Birthday Jay!
Loving the podcast, on second whirl around while Doing this.

5/27 – 6/2/18

eBay Store totommyto

Total store items: 539
Number of items sold: 10
eBay sales (not counting s/h): $278.50
Cost of items sold: $13.50
Consignment payouts: $51
Highest price sold: $50 vintage doll house furniture lot
Average price sold: $27.85
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of items listed this week: 20

Etsy store Oldfleatoymarket

Total store items: 497
Number of items sold: 6
Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $92.80
Cost of items sold: $15
Consignment payouts: $8
Highest price sold: two items tied – $17.60 antique wood frame, $17.60 Rubber vintage car toy
Average price sold: $15.46
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of items listed this week: 31

I only have a handful of items left from a huge buyout some months ago. $600 in mostly old toys has turned into $5,450 gross with God willing more coming. I must mention that this buying opportunity came as a direct result from my relationship with a thrift shop manager who knows I sell online. I don’t tell the world that I sell online. My gut moves my mouth in this area.
I cannot wait to hit the fleas hard! I don’t want to depend on these old toys so much that I cannot keep prices high and hopefully sell high as we close in on the Holidays.

[LongGoneGeek]

re: The person who bought all the 45rpm records: You could sell them on ebay in bulk lots (100-200-500) for crafts. Search ebay for ’45rpm craft’ or ‘decoration’, etc., or something like that, and then narrow the search to ‘sold items’, then high to low. Lot of 500 sold for $85 with free shipping. Nice thing about shipping records is that even though you sold them as craft items, you can ship them ‘media mail’ which is so much cheaper.

[DantheDiner]

So I concentrate on records, and came onto the forum to suggest exactly this. 45s are worthless individually, but I have sold lots of 100-200 at very decent prices. There is nuance to how to divide it that depends mostly on content of the larger collection. If you comment on this thread, I would be happy to help you think it out.

[The Thrift Raider]

Hi Jay and Ryanne,

Happy bday Jay! As far as records go, my dad collects vinyl so I feel like I should know what’s worth anything, but I’m still learning. I do know that vinyl was a lot more scarce in the 90s, so I’ll always look up any I see. I also look at anything rock. Like J & R, I usually see the waltz, polka, Christmas albums that are a dime a dozen. When I see anything 60’s, I generally just call my dad and see if he can tell me what to pick out. I did find a couple 45s recently, but just a Prince one (wasn’t worth anything) and an Elvis Costello promo 45. The Costello one might go for 10-15. 45s tend to be worth even less without their covers.

As for that return your caller did, I would just refer him to the phrase, “Get it how you live.” Basically, do what you gotta do. I personally see nothing wrong with it.

[Anonymous]

I don’t see an ethical issue with the sink return. The original owner transfered all rights for use, return, resale, etc. with the sale. As long as HD’s OK with the return, not a problem.

I had an experience similarish last year: got a very clean, deluxe Keurig machine off the curb, but couldn’t get it to dispense properly.

Called Keurig’s customer service; told the agent that I’d gotten the unit 2nd hand, and after about 10 minutes of guided trouble-shooting, she offers to send a replacement machine. So of course I accepted and only had to mail in a part from the old one demonstrating that it’d been retired.

Admittedly, Keurigs are like ink-jet pinters, where the profit’s in the consumeables, and I personally think it’s a stupid plastic-waste generator, but hey–free machine for resale.

Happy Birthday, Jay!

[SilverFoxFinds]

Midge!

Happy Birthday, Jay!

RE the sink return: I also don’t see an ethical issue. Sellers were happy to unload it for $20 (when they could have returned it for a full refund themselves), and you were bright enough to think of a return, in lieu of a resale. It’s a slight variation on the scavenging we do, and a practical, insightful one. I’ve also got a lot of home reno work going on, so there’s also that bias…

J&R, I’m still having trouble this week with the Thumbs Up icon – not working at all for me. Anyone else?

I’m joining efforts with the summer slowdown via ongoing travel, yard work, and various house projects. Not listing much right now as a full-timer. And feeling like I need to cull my inventory to stay within my store limit, and push my sales to where I’d rather they be in general (higher dollar items). The red velvet granny pants I have up for sale are no MCM painting that’s going to yield real $$ in 4 yrs time…

05/27/18 – 06/02/18
Total Items In Store: 939
Items Sold: 19
Total Sales: $828 (~half of which is single item commission sale; I rec’d 30%)
Cost of Items Sold: $39.20
Highest Price Sold: $400 Meyer Sound CP-10 CP10 Two Channel 5 Band Parametric Equalizer (commission sale); $140 Set of 2 MCM lamps
Average Price Sold: $22.52 (not including commission sale)
Returns/Refunds: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $32
Number of Items listed this week: ~20

Scavenge of the week: Possibly some barkcloth curtains from an estate sale. We’ll see how the patterns appeals to Buyers. Planning to hit up some thrift stores while out of town, and see what new places bring.

[Jay]

The Thimbs Up seems to be broken at the moment. We’ll try to fix it.

[Tiger289]

Happy Birthday, Jay!! Thanks for all that you and Ryanne do for us.

[Habnab]

Happy birthday, Jay! My teens and 20’s were also pretty rocky — my 30’s and 40’s have been much better.

This past week was a good one, after a few too soft — nay, flaccid — to discuss.

Total store items: 250+
Number of items sold: 7
eBay sales (not counting s/h): $1325.00
Cost of items sold: $37.50
Highest price sold: $650 Robert Indiana sculpture replica
Average price sold: $189.00
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $150

I got out and hit two big sales on Memorial Day weekend. Between the two sales, I bought a carload of items for $150. I’ve already made back everything I spent and then some, with more good items to list. The Robert Indiana sculpture replica was just something I grabbed at a thrift shop because I liked the look of it, it was cheap, and I thought I could probably clear $30 on it. So glad I dug into the research before throwing it up for sale! My next highest sale was some Japanese woodblock prints that, had they been in good shape, could have sold really well — unfortunately, they were quite old and the worse for wear. They sold for around $330. I also sold an art pottery plate for around $100 and some carved wood American primitive Christmas Trees for $100. I’d never heard of the brand before — Wolf Creek — but it’s worth knowing. I also had a pair of $50 sales (a broken clock which — again — had it been functional would have been really something, and some old china). All in all, not bad. I also listed quite a few items (well, quite a few for me) and have about 270 at the moment.

The school year (and the school income) comes to an end in just 2 more weeks, and soon I’ll be trying to fit my scavenging in around everyone’s volunteering/social/camp schedules. I feel like working at the school has been a good experience. I get a different kind of fulfillment there than I do scavenging and selling — I feel more explicitly like I’m helping people, which is important.

Oh, and finally — re: cars, etc. — our neighbor splashed out on a fancy muscle car. He drives it only when its nice outside, etc… I don’t understand it at all, but at the same time I can see that owning it, and working on it, and polishing the engine (I’m not kidding) and washing it every week even when it hasn’t been driven (ditto), and turning it over and letting the engine rumble in the driveway and rattle our windows… it all gives him such immense pleasure, such JOY, that I can’t argue with the expense, for him. It’s money well spent.

[Jay]

Are you finding most of your are piece at Goodwills or small independent thrift stores? I’m always amazed at the awesome pieces you find.

I’m so glad you started teaching at that school. Being in the community is important to us too. We enjoy volunteering and getting to know people in our town because it makes us get out of our own heads.

Buying and enjoying items isn’t bad. Only getting the thrill out of the purchase, then needing to purchase again to get another thrill seems to be the national issue.

[Habnab]

I almost never go to Goodwill; I live in a small town, but I’m 5 minutes away from 3 very nice independent charity thrift shops and I do the majority of my scavenging there. I’m between Boston and New York and live on the “wrong side of the tracks” in an area peppered with high-end summer enclaves for people from NYC. Our thrifts get some very interesting items and even our dump has great stuff from time to time. Since September, I’ve been swooping in to a thrift shop for the 30 minutes between when I get off work and when the kids get home, and I’m still consistently finding decent things. There are a lot of scavengers around, but we each seem to have our own niche (with some overlap, of course.) I occasionally hit estate/rummage sales. I haven’t been to an auction since September but may drag the kids to one once school is out. Goodwill is about 30 minutes away, so it’s way less convenient.

[Jay]

Its interesting to me when some people say they cant find anything to sell in their area. Or that its all overpriced.

Though we do enjoy a good auction, we also scavenge from a handful of local independent thrift stores. There’s just a flow of goods that seem unending, especially for the weird, old stuff that we love.

I bet these days that we might stop into a Goodwill or Salvation Army only once per month.

[Habnab]

I think we both live in areas with a decent amount of history, and I think that’s part of it. My area also has a ton of old money cheek by jowl with “swamp Yankees” and everything in between, as well as that infusion of items from retired NYC publishers and advertising folks who summer here. I bet good scavenging is harder to come by in areas of newer development and sprawl.

[Jay]

Good point. I can see how newly developed urban sprawl might not have as much special stuff to scavenge.

[almasty]

I had an interesting “buying” experience this weekend at a super rich person’s place. I had talked the seller down from an incredibly high amount to a more reasonable amount by going with my gut and and just saying from the getgo that I was a reseller and could only afford x amount.

The seller was like, “oh, that’s great!” and offered to throw in additional items. The seller ended up giving everything to me for FREE and thanked me for taking what I did.

It was over $500 worth of stuff that I ended up getting. I usually never, ever say that I am a reseller, but I made an exception in this case and it worked out well.

The place being sold was worth A LOT of money, so at a certain price point for incredibly rich people money becomes an abstract concept. I believe that’s why the prices were originally so high for them – the seller was not currently aware of what the actual prices were to base a good value on them in either direction.

I was supposed to pick up these items the weekend before, so I can only imagine the sort of items that were donated that I missed when I was sick and couldn’t make it.

These people were not “Joneses,” but the type of people that Joneses aspire to become. Still, they were incredibly nice, all things considered, and I’m glad I was honest for once.

I still don’t have a car, so I’m not keeping up with anyone haha.

[buytikiselltiki]

Have to say that the week here was flaccid – days went by with nothing happening. But interesting!

Total Items in Store: 366 (small fry!)
Items Sold: 5
Cost of Items Sold: $10
Total Sales: $90.98
Highest Price Sold: $35.00 building set – Best Offer
Average Price Sold: $18.20 (not far off the usual)
Returns: 0 (don’t take em!)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: ~ $50 (much more than sales warranted!)
Number of items listed this week: ~ 25

Funny how not having to pack and ship items frees up time! If this keeps up I’ll be listing decorator tumbleweeds!

But honestly, what other endeavor is fun to do and allows you to generate such high margins?

In other developments:

Did have 4 offers that came in for various items – and every one of them had comments about shipping, requests for free shipping, free free free free, I’d buy except you pay shipping.

Though it’s difficult to override, all the offers were about 25% of asking price too.

So I am against free shipping, and against sellers who build all of their profit into overcharging for shipping, and remain so.

The customers seem to be getting a lot of noise about free shipping, though!!!

Enjoyed the podcast, and really connect with
“Scavenging Off The Joneses” – Just can’t believe what people throw away or discard or donate or give away. Of course, a lot of “regular” folks would look at y garage and basement and say they can’t believe the stuff I have stacked up!

Don’t get me started about 45 records – UBIQUITOUS – I have stacks that people have given me – and except for mint picture sleeve from Elvis Beatles and the Rolling Stones, (Clash quote there) would stay away. So many of them are great songs but are totally played out, scratched or mishandled. Are there collectors items about? Yeah, I guess. But for every copy of “Grunion Run” (very cool b-side but still not worth that much) that you find in a box of 100, there’s easy listening, overpressed pop and little value. Local iconic record store ditched all of their singles about a year or 2 back, there are thousands in every thrift store. Unless you have an OCD gene that gives you pleasure checking 99 singles for condition, stay away.

Think I said “don’t get me started!”

Also have a gut reaction to returning product to retailers – but, really, they all promote liberal return policies, so serves them right, but they are also buying at a cost that is higher than usual, but if the product is new in box and sellable, (and turns quickly enough) they might not lose money. Still feels a little “scalpy” but absolutely ok!

Lastly, the ebay “Guaranteed auction value” offer that came through was a complete bust. Item sold for half the market value, and hmmm… no info from ebay about claiming the difference.
BUYER SEEMS HAPPY THOUGH!!

Will update my original thread on that one once the dust settles.

From the cool and verdant gateway to the gateway to the gateway to the west…

[cmtella]

On the question about 45 RPM records:

In my experience, the key is to buy only ones that are in good condition with the sleeves. No cracks, warping, missing labels or deeper scratching. If the sleeves are missing, the records get scratched very easily and then they are worthless. Sleeves can also get expensive if you have to replace them.

I used to buy out warehouses of 45’s from old jukebox distributors and sell them in unsearched lots of 250, 500 and 1,000. Shipping through media mail really helps with the cost for the large packages. I generally asked 10 to 12 cents a piece, sometimes a bit more. In my opinion, it is not worth the effort to search through them. You may find one or two good ones after a few hours of work if you know what you are looking for, but removing them will make it far more difficult to sell the others because you can no longer claim they are unsearched.

Keeping in mind that condition is the most important factor, some other things to look for include promo records (not for resale), older records (pre-1960), good songs/titles, good artists, good labels (Blue Note, Sun, etc.) and good genres (Doo Wop and Jazz). For promo records, the best ones are songs that were not commercially released.

[Paulo H Leocadio]

Good news and avoiding the Jonesses

Friends, some comment Jay made last week about the Jonesess inspired me to talk about my own experience. At the end, I decided to spare you. Listening to the cast today continuing the topic and Jay mentioning about the twists and turns of his life AND their friends saying the “must live their lives while they can”, it was the perfect stage for me to tell you about my mother going from Mrs. Joness with steroids to ruin mostly because she lived her life like there was no tomorrow.

Anyway, instead of giving more details, just wanted to say that I do not think it is a good advice for personal experience. And my mother married twice to very rich men, being my father and after he died my stepfather.

Well, the good news: my Engineering Consulting contract was renewed long term plus all expenses, a top health insurance for all family and a couple of other benefits to make the deal sweeter.

Sunday night I closed my first international licensing contract with the company that owns the eBay store (remember eBay is the means I have to fund the core business). Talking about “passive income”, nothing better than this.

Lastly, my wife ran an “estate sales” and I got everything for free 🙂 🙂 🙂
Little over 100 items to sell, and I decided to put in some BluRay and DVD I do not care much and can add me between $15-$25$ each.

And still donated 8 large trash bagged sized packs to the American Cancer Society, including excellent condition clothes, all sorts of toys and utensils.

Feeling good, listing like crazy (listed Lost Season 6 BlueRay box this morning already have two offers)

Happy

[bcfol440]

Ugh. What a dud week! I listed daily, high-end items and death aka profit piles. Alas.

Sales from May 30-June 5
Store: 403
Sales this week: 12, $299 – a few free ships in there, so probably more like $275.
Cogs:$50
Best Sale: vintage Gucci slip-ons, highly unusual brogue pattern w/ lots of wear. Took about 6 months. $59.99
New Inventory Acquired: $150 (way more than normal for me, but I am in stock pile mode). I have been sourcing way too high dollar lately but my thrifting here is solid, it’s just not super cheap.

I am about to list a ton of stuff from my own house (wahoo) and am also going to cross post to Facebook Marketplace over June. I’ve resisted this, but I want some stuff gone quick for cash.

I’m feeling the eBlues :). Hoping it passes soon! I started about 20 auctions to move things along.

[JasonK]

Having worked my fair share of retail sales jobs when I was in college I’ll say what you did with the sink is fair play so long as the item was in new condition with all the proper packaging so the store could resell it as new. Compared to all the stupid scams I saw while working retail what you did was fairly normal.

The most deplorable thing I saw was when I worked at Radio Shack. Basically, a relative or acquaintance would pass away and these people (I called them scavengers ironically) would go through all the deceased person’s stuff looking for anything they could try to return to a store for money. Since Radio Shack sold a lot of stuff with their own logo on it I would get people trying to return all kinds of old, yellow, broken electronics with no packaging and no receipt. They would typically demand to see the manager and then rant about how we had to take the item back simply because our company’s logo was on the item.

[Jay]

I cant imagine working at the returns desk at a huge corporate retail store. Does management just tell you to accept stuff that’s an obvious loss?

[Steve List]

Numbers for month of May
Total Listings: 916 (1194 items/total value $26,499)
Had 47 Sales for a total of $987
Cost of Items Sold: $93
Highest Price Sold: $75 I, Robot Marquee/$59.95 Hawaii Real Photo Postcards
Average Price Sold: $21 – Average Cost: $1.98
Spent on new inventory: $295
Number of items listed: 50
2 GSP, Italy and Netherlands

I sold my 3rd “I, Robot” Marquee in May, that makes a total of $245 for the 3 I sold so far.

Right before the end of a church sale, I spent $20 for 3 plastic aircraft models, I was surprised to see them still there. 2 of them have sold already for a total of $100.

I spent a total of $150 for this stuff from various vender’s at a town wide sale. The 2 Pendleton shirts are vintage made in USA, I haven’t tested the Colortone Color Wheel yet but it appears to be unused still in its original box. Most of the money went to the letter press printing blocks and type, 28 miscellaneous, 248 Chinese characters and a lot of 42 small leaves images. There is a Lionel Trains Instructions book from 1951 and a Marklin Trains catalog form the 70’s along with some other publications I think I’ll do okay with. The two bronze boat props are damaged but I think they will make nice decor for somebodies nautical or Tiki bar.

[Idahoarder]

Cool stuff!

[Jay]

Nice finds. Reminds me of all the cool stuff Martin finds over at https://garbagefinds.com/

[Idahoarder]

Store Week 5/27/18 – 6/2/18

Total items in store: 1683
Items sold: 14
Cost of items sold: $30.76
Total sales: $520.94
Highest price sold: $110.00 (Vintage Nikes)
Average price sold: $37.21
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory this week: $51.00

A very “soft” week again. Like you, I’m grateful for a few decent sales that helped keep my head above water. 3 sales of $100+ saved me. I’m still making my way through tons of men’s clothes, and listing lots of heavy shirts, hunting stuff, etc, so hopefully that will help a lot in the fall. Also, I FINALLY hit 1700 listings. I hit 1600 in October and it has taken me this long to gain another 100!

[Julie B]

This week’s episode was one of your best IMO. You both hit a lot of points right on the head for me. You also captured the mood really well of what a lot of us are feeling with current & never ending eBay changes; which I suspect is attributing to eBay fatigue. I was recently thinking back to 8 or 9 years ago when I started selling some of my old stuff on Ebay. It was either very simple back then or I was just clueless and lucky that it didn’t result in any defects. I just put the items up for auction. I don’t recall reading any instructions, any shipping deadlines, policies, return issues, calls to eBay or anything. Stuff simply sold, I shipped it, feedback was left, transaction over. I don’t think I would be able to be a new seller on Ebay if I started now – there’s just too much to know.

Another topic that resonated with me was conspicuous consumption. Growing up in Iowa if anyone bought anything lavish, everyone in town would whisper about it. “Who does that person think they are? Putting on airs. Show off.” When I was in my 20s in Cedar Rapids, IA a town of 130,000 people, a transplant from another state bought a Hummer vehicle. In a town that size it was still a huge deal. No Iowan would dare be seen driving such an expensive vehicle back then! Later I moved to DC and then to an Atlanta suburb, both areas where conspicuous consumption is a way of life. I’m very glad I’m not on that bandwagon but grateful that I’ve found a way to profit from it.

[Jay]

Yeah, people who buy ostentatious items want to be seen. But they should know that they’ll get the “wow, that person is cool!”, but they’ll also get the talk of someone showing off or being wasteful.

If you want to be seen, the you got to accept all opinions!

[Rydell Relics]

RR Store Week May 27-June 2, 2018

Total Items in Store: 1615
Items Sold: 34
Cost of Items Sold: $32.74
Total Sales: $843.81
Highest Price Sold: $150 (jazz record)
Average Price Sold: $24.82
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 18

I never cared about keeping up with the Joneses, or anyone else for that matter. Flashy new stuff does nothing for me, but put me in a store full of old stuff and I go bananas.

Personal issues kept me from listing much last week. Slowly working through them and being more productive. But another big factor is lack of inventory. No estate sales last week, and the thrifts have been awful. I’ve been leaving empty handed after every visit. Last weekend was Yard Sale Weekend in a neighboring city, and I spent the entire morning and early afternoon out picking. I found nothing. Absolutely nothing. So frustrating. My death pile has been reduced to a death shelf, and there ain’t much on it. I’m about to dig through my closet and see if there’s any vintage I can part with. I have a ton of clothes, so it shouldn’t be difficult.

Hope everyone is having a great week.

Paul

[mickdog]

My monthly numbers for May 2018

Wow what a “soft” month. Downright squishy! My worst month in my store’s 14-month history.

25 sales (for the month! So low!)
$ sold (minus shipping): $659 (goal $1k, way under, half of last month’s sales!)
Per sale average: $26.37 (goal over $25, so that was ok)
cost per item average: $3.74

Items in store peak for month: ~550 (yay for listing!)

Returns: 0

Biggest sale: Levine’s Guide to Knives and their Values 4th Edition for $70.00

Trying to stay positive I will not say much about those dismal numbers. The knife price guide was a pleasant surprise, I paid $8 total for two knife price guides, one is worth $10-15 that I’m keeping to help me ID scavenged knives, and this one which sold within a month. The later editions don’t sell for as much because of some changes to them.

Also, June has started well with decent sales over the past few days. Hope that continues. I’d did Promoted Listing for my entire store, and 25% of my sales so far have been promoted so maybe it is helping.

June should be the start of a big listing spree for me. I want my death piles dealt with come September. Might hit an auction this Friday, that always gets my juices flowing after a dismal month!

[Gone Junkin]

Weird Issue – wondering if others have noticed or can check if they haven’t seen the discrepancy I am having – Not Sure where to put this post – so going to start here and can list in a different place later if seems helpful.

In the last week to 10 days, I accidentally noticed that items that I had sold were still in my Active listings in My eBay (both in the classic view and in the seller hub for stores). Of course I panicked and thought perhaps I accidentally double listed the item. So I went in my active listings and ended it. Whew – thought that was over.

But then – I started to check through my listings each day to see if there were more. Sure enough – each item that sold was still in my ACTIVE listings – so I ended each one. This has now been going on daily and I wanted to wait and see if this was an eBay glitch that would correct itself. After several days of doing this – I decided to see if the listings that showed as sold but also ACTIVE in
my EBay could be seen under my user name or store. As a matter of fact – NO, they do not show as saleable to a customer. So at least I don’t have to worry about a double sale with no item.

So, I opened multiple tabs and looked at my active classic, active in seller hub and at my items for sale under my user name. Sure enough the number did not match. Today I sold three items. They did not show for sale, but did show in my active items.

Question is this – Is this happening to anyone else?

And also, does this mean that if gone unnoticed eBay would be charging all of these items towards the monthly store quota and additional listing FEES if they keep renewing in our dashboard and don’t show for sale to a customer”

I can’t take the time until next week to call eBay, but if anyone else has this issue – love to see a post on this.

[Sharyn]

Here is a related topic. Perhaps you can look in here. Other people are having issues:

Item sold on Ebay, only notified by Paypal.

I don’t appear to be having the issue.

[Gone Junkin]

Thank you Sharyn,

One additional note on this. When I end the item in my Active Listings in the dashboard – it does not show in my “Ended” listings. Its so strange. Definitely can be seen in active listings after sale, but when I manually end it – then it does not shoe in the “ended” or “unsold” listings as with other listings that have not been previously sold.

[Jay]

–How many items are in your store?
–Do you list “Good till cancelled” or re-list every 30-days?

If you’re re-listing every 30 days, I’m just guessing that you may accidentally be re-listing sold items.

[Marjean28]

Well, I had an interesting week. First the numbers:
total listings (approximate) 1200
total sales including shipping 810.92
cost of shipping 333.16
cost of goods 6.86
ebay & pp fees 105.42
ebay promoted listings fees 19.02
number sold 55
average sale price (less shipping) $8.69
sell through rate 4.58%
returns 0
expense for lost stock 22.74
net 323.72
avg. net per item $5.89

After sales dropped off the cliff last week, I took a deeper look into several things, the first of which was promoted listings. It galls me to have to pay advertising fees on top of insertion fees. So, I paused my promoted listing campaign. The $19.02 reflected in promoted listing fees represent the few sales which occurred prior to me pausing the campaign. I knew I had just received TRS status which would only help me with search rankings, and I suspected free shipping would push me up in the search rankings. I switched to free priority mail shipping on all items over 1 lb and free first class shipping on all items @ 1 lb or less. That is why my sales volume increased and my net decreased. No sales, no promoted listings, nothing except the suggested practices from eBay.

You’ll notice there were expenses for lost inventory. Again, that’s my fault for (still) not correcting my inventory problem. Also, putting priority on everything cost me more than if I had gone through and selectively put larger and heavier items at parcel post.

I encountered incorrect charges related to promoted listings. After I had paused my promoted listings campaign, it was still running and charging me. I had to call eBay. After 2 calls, I got a credit for those which should not have been charged. They have a technical glitch with promoted listings which negatively impacts sellers with incorrect charges. There are so many other defects with the promoted listings program, that I won’t be continuing it for now.

Also, I had a photographer I hired who did a good job, but she didn’t show for work for 2 days, so that is the end of that. At least for now.

[retiredtreasures719]

Crazy busy week, my youngest is getting married in 9 days. Keeping up with eBay as best I can, but needless to say, it’s not my highest priority right now. I am going to take the day off tomorrow and go to garage sales. Two fairly affluent neighborhoods are having sales and it’s too good to pass up. I am making death piles for myself, but I won’t have anything to do after the wedding right? Missed posting my numbers last week, so here they are for the past two weeks.

eBay May 20-26
Total Sales. $135.91 (1 Bonanza)
Items in store. 1,033
# sold. 13
Avg. sale. &10.45
Ret/unpack/canc. 1 canc
COGS. $19.46
$ spent on new. $32.05
# listed. 36
Highest sale. $20 vtg short silk robe kimono

eBay May 27-June2
Total Sales. $163.29
Items in store. 1,040
# sold. 12
Avg. sale. $13.60
Ret/unpd/canc 0
COGS. $5.35
$ spent on new. 0
# listed. 21
Highest sale- $65 Fitz & Floyd Egret Bookend (commission item)

eBay isn’t replacing my retirement income, but it continues to be a nice supplement to the existing income-and that’s perfectly okay with me! I don’t want another full time job!

[KatieScott]

5/28/18 – 6/3/18

ebay + ebay + ebay + Poshmark = total
# items in stores: 916 + 535 + 242 + 455 = 2,148
# items sold: 35 + 16 + 15 + 3 = 69
$ sold : $651 + 294 + 241 + 40 = $1,226
Average Price: $17.77
High Price Lilly Pulitzer dress $63, Joie Top $67
Returns: 4 (2 didn’t fit, 1 didn’t like, 1 “defective pants” seriously).

Notes: So I’m doing my numbers almost a week late and I’ve been grumbling about sales being down and returns being up. I do feel like 4 returns is a lot for one week; but my sales numbers are still on track for this time period. I think my sales numbers for this past week starting on 6/4 are going to be down and my returns are going to be up. Keeping track of numbers is so helpful in gaining perspective on how I’m actually doing. But emotionally, as mentioned in my other thread about stopping free returns on ebay – I’m pretty discouraged right now. I do have a quote calendar on my day job office desk and the quote today is “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are tow of the surest stepping stones to success. – Dale Carnegie” So, I guess I’m just on a stepping stone right now.

[Mark S]

Katie,

I am going to be down in the St. Pete FL area from June 29th – July 5th.

Remind me the name of the good pizza place.

Also, let me know if there is a good time to go picking.

Mark

[Gone Junkin]

Hello Jay,

Thanks for the reply, but I generally used Good ‘Til Cancelled, so in the scenario I previously described, this is not the case. I am going to continue to monitor. If I do have ended and relisted items, I delete in seller hub and then go to classic view in another tab because it refreshes and gives a line that says – you have relisted this item. And then I delete those. Because I am so cautious about double listing is why I noticed this discrepancy in the seller hub “active listings” vs. items you see in your store for sale. I am going to monitor this a bit longer and see if it corrects itself or if anyone else notices this issue. Thanks much.

[Author]

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