Home › Forums › Podcast Comments › Scavenger Life Episode 369: New, Exciting Projects
Tagged: IfIWasARichGirl SummerLovin
- This topic has 140 replies, 42 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 1 month ago by
Jay.
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07/16/2018 at 7:02 am #45469
A year in the making- we bought another property, this time it’s on Main Street in our little town. Exciting, scary, but it’s what we’re itching to
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 369: New, Exciting Projects] -
07/16/2018 at 7:24 am #45471
07/08/18 – 07/14/18
Total Items In Store: 2,407
Items Sold: 18
Cost of Items Sold: $55 (around)
Total Sales: $ 596
Highest Price Sold: $ 60 (Vintage Briefcase)
Average Price Sold: $ 33.11
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 22.5
Number of Items listed this week: 13Decent week for this time of the year.
Trying to get back into the swing of things after coming back from a long vacation.
I was able to get some great items at some garage sales yesterday. I had to go to a city about 20 min. away I don’t normal go to for personal errands.
I hit a bunch of garage sales on the way back. I bought 8 items for an average buying price of $2.81 and average selling price of $61.I wrote my query for WL to get all of my sales with COGS(COGS part is To do). I just have to load all my spreadsheets of cogs into WL to finish that task. That will save me a ton of time at tax time.
I started reclaiming container space yesterday. I was able to free up 3, 18 gallon containers and 2, 30 gallon containers.
I have realized that once your store gets this big, there are so many tasks to do other than listing. Sometimes it is hard to know which to do first on a limited part time basis. I feel like I need to work full time just to get caught up on everything I need to do.
Mark
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07/16/2018 at 8:31 am #45475
Its pretty incredible you can manage a large inventory with a full time job and kids. Would you ever consider selling on eBay full time? Or do you enjoy your job?
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07/16/2018 at 8:55 am #45484
Jay,
I would like to try this full time, but I need to get my listings way up before that. I do like my job, but I feel it is holding. me back from my full potential on ebay, but necessary right now. I think my store is having growing pains. I add processes as I see that I need them such as loading all my cogs, but that takes time. I am planning on taking a couple half days a month for the next severals months from work to get caught up on my store. I also need a big push of items to get listed for the busy season.
Mark
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07/16/2018 at 8:31 am #45476
“I have realized that once your store gets this big, there are so many tasks to do other than listing.”
Amen Mark. Process matters, because as you scale, every little task becomes it’s own job.
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07/16/2018 at 8:59 am #45485
T-Satt,
Yes, see my post above to Jay about adding processes. I am still trying to get to the cycle counts you suggested, because I do see value in that. I have enough work to do that if I went full time, I wouldn’t have to wonder what to do.
Mark
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07/16/2018 at 9:03 am #45488
Yeah, you always have a lot of work to do. It can sometimes feel that you are working but not getting work done. For me, that happens when I’m not listing. This is why I started doing all the Admin work (accounting, reporting, etc.) once per week, and I got the process down to about 30-45 minutes.
Just getting all the non-listing parts of the business to be as automated (or outsourced) as possible is huge. Then speeding up the listing process.
Time is the one resource we can’t get back, only spend as efficiently as possible.
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07/16/2018 at 7:38 am #45473
Main Street!
This is amazing truly exciting news!
Cannot wait to dump my dumpy numbers and head on over to the Podcast!
CONGRATS!!!!7/8 – 7/14
EBay store totommyto
Total store items: 587
Number of items sold: 4
eBay sales (no counting s/h): $135
Cost of items sold: $5
Consignment payouts: $16
Highest price sold: $50 – vintage ‘naked’ Barbie doll
Average price sold: $33.75
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $15
Number of items listed this week: 10Etsy store Oldfleatoymarket
Total store items: 537
Number of items sold: 5
Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $57
Cost of items sold: $5
Consignment payouts: 0
Highest price sold: vintage (1980’s) bible – $15
Average price sold: $11.40
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $15
Number of items listed this week: 14Interestingly, although perhaps this has happened year to year and I just never knew it, my fancy Diecast model car sales have fallen hard flat.
Also, shocking to see how low sales were this week, although I do recall sloooow times during deep summer other years back. I just did not do the weekly numbers during those ignorant days to really see it.
The big news is what’s happening down on Main Street… -
07/16/2018 at 8:29 am #45474
Week of 7/8-7/14
Total Items in Store: 2,457 (Up 62% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 68
Number of Items Sold: 62 (Up 38% YOY)
(Includes 2 Etsy, 1 Bonanza, 1 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 11% (Down 2% YOY)Total Product Sales: $2,732 (Up 141% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $318
Highest Item Sold: $1,100 – Monarch of the Glen Steel Engraving Framed Print
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 16-12.eBay Clothing
# Listed: 1,575
# Sold: 42
STR: 12%
ASP: $22.99eBay Shoes
# Listed: 306
# Sold: 5
STR: 7%
ASP: $34.94eBay Hard Goods
# Listed: 576
# Sold: 13
STR: 10%
ASP: $106.07Etsy Hard Goods
# Listed: 148
# Sold: 2
STR: 5%
ASP: $37.36So…love long tail hard goods! 🙂
We purchased the steel engraving over 3 years ago, and I spent a lot of time trying to validate the provenance of it. We were pretty much setting the price on this, so we were happy to get $1,100 for it. Thanks to Jay and Ryanne for the thoughts on the shipping. FYI – Next time we will ask if they want the frame before we package. After packaging, it was 50” x 33” x 8” and 23lbs. Shipping to China was over $1,200. He messaged us and said he doesn’t care about the frame, just roll it up and send in a tube. Information we should have had before we spent 2 hours custom making a double box!
Also had a nice sale on an M&M guitar. Message we received was beautiful…
”Hello and Thank You soooo much! This guitar is going to a little boy (8 yrs. old) that was told he has 3-6 months to live. Your guitar will make his day! He’s asked for one for a year. Can you please ship it out asap so he can still come in the Studio and record with us?? God Bless, Jack”
Congrats on the new building and new business venture. I want to hear a lot about it!
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07/16/2018 at 8:33 am #45477
Yikes. We forgot to mention about asking the seller about the frame. Many sellers plan to reframe anyway. But what an awesome sale. Did you go with DHL?
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07/16/2018 at 8:45 am #45482
At this point, when we repackage and put in a tube, we are thinking just Priority International through USPS or UPS. I figure we will give him the choice.
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07/16/2018 at 8:38 am #45480
i’ve had that happen before too when a buyer asks to have the art removed from the frame after packing, doh! i guess we should all message a buyer before we ship art, i always forget too.
one time a lady asked me to remove the frame and mat, so i did. then she opened an INAD case because she didn’t like the art without the frame and mat. what??
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07/16/2018 at 8:46 am #45483
LOL!
Yeah, when he messaged about not wanting the frame (and to his point, the potential broken glass could damage the art), I smacked my head. We have done this a lot before. Next time…ASK!
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07/16/2018 at 2:48 pm #45536
Amazing sale on that print! There’s another one currently listed that looks the same (albeit a different frame) for $175: https://www.ebay.com/itm/332691728472
Always amazing to see why someone buys something for more…perhaps you were the only one offering international shipping?
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07/16/2018 at 2:59 pm #45539
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t supposed to go International. But if an International buyer sees the item and makes an offer, it still comes through and NOT through GSP.
Just got the payment and dropped off at the post office.
Jay/Ryanne: Went USPS International Priority…
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07/16/2018 at 3:33 pm #45549
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07/16/2018 at 8:59 am #45486
Just finished up the Podcast. Funny about Ryanne doing the grilling now. Veronica LOVES when we grill, and she has started to learn how to do it herself now too.
Yep Jay, it is an orchestra on the grill!
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07/16/2018 at 9:06 am #45489
OK, I haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcast yet, but can you at least give us a HINT….that photo shure looks like a storefront, not another house rental in the works….antique mall? Your own B&M shop? Or something else entirely? I probably won’t get to listen till late tonight….
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07/16/2018 at 9:47 am #45495
did you not read the post? yes we bought a building on Main Street.
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07/16/2018 at 9:22 am #45491
Jay: Yes, Craigslist Hunter will share his numbers on Instagram or on Youtube. He isn’t consignment, he runs a pawn shop, and that is how he gets such great items.
On your comments about listing only the Best of the Best, I think that is a really good comment. For people that do this part time, THAT is what I would have them focus on, provided that they are a veteran seller.
New sellers, I would keep the cost low (sell what is in the house), and list high STR items just to get used to the process (listing, photoing, storing inventory, shipping). Plus, with high STR items, you get the rush of making a sale, and makes it feel like you are getting a reward.
After that, since part timers can only list so much, I would have them list the Best of the Best items if they can wait for the cash and are willing to sit on items. This way they are getting the best for their time.
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07/16/2018 at 9:29 am #45492
Do you remember any of then numbers that CL Hunter has mentioned? Does he share his net profit (after costs of running a pawnshop), or just his gross?
Because if he’s selling stuff people have pawned and didnt buy back, there’s always cost to those items.
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07/16/2018 at 9:35 am #45493
I only see his gross, which is really high. From what I have seen though, I think he is around a 3x-5x on his ROI. He will do 2X on some high dollar items, but no, he doesn’t have the whole numbers shown.
His most recent 60 Day total was $117,213.82
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07/16/2018 at 9:40 am #45494
So almost $60k gross a month. That’s incredible sales.
But it’s difficult to tell what he actually makes. Hs big costs are:
–COGS
–storefront
–employees
–TrucksDoes he say how many employees he has working for him?
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07/16/2018 at 9:50 am #45496
Absolutely true. I think his employees are him, his wife, and his brother that works for him. Maybe another person, but not sure.
I also know that his shop would have non-eBay sales as well. I would love to know his revenue split between eBay and Storefront. You know me, I’m a business and numbers person, so I would LOVE to see it all…
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07/16/2018 at 11:13 am #45505
Yeah, gross numbers are really misleading, especially in a large volume business like he has.
If he is really making $60k+ each month with really low expenses, then he should be a multi-millionaire.
I always think of the guy who posted here several months ago. He said his business grossed $1.5 million a year. But he only pocketed $150k/ye between him and his wife. Not bad, but expenses get really expensive for high volume businesses. I wish that guy would join us here. He said he was going back to a small business because the high stress work wasnt worth it.
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07/16/2018 at 11:26 am #45506
I agree. Revenue gives Vanity, but Profit gives Sanity.
His latest 60 day was $117k on 1,134 sold items. So 567 items sold per month at an ASP of $103.36. Solid volume and solid ASP. I’m guessing he is 10% Net Income on the low end (after employees, building, COGS, etc), so profit of $11.7k per month. Not counting the revenue from sales in his shop.
He isn’t hurting…
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07/16/2018 at 11:48 am #45509
Revenue gives Vanity, but Profit gives Sanity.
This will be my new favorite quote.
I agree he’s doing very well (he’s smart and seems to run a good business). But one number makes him look like a millionaire. One number makes him look like he’s created a good middle class income. For amateurs, the difference is not clear.
I’ve ben thinking we need to start adding the cost we pay our helpers each week. Thats a good solid cost like COGS.
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07/16/2018 at 12:08 pm #45512
You can if you want, but I think I pretty much know what your net income is each week, doing some back of the envelope math…
🙂
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07/16/2018 at 12:43 pm #45514
You’re no amateur! We are always wary of giving off the impression we’re getting rich with little work. I dont have time each week to provide a full accounting of costs/revenue, but I want new people to get a sense of that its cost money to make money.
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07/16/2018 at 1:29 pm #45524
Amen brother!
I don’t think you ever give that impression. Much different than other YouTube resellers, you keep it real. There are some that oversell the money that can be made, without talking about the work that it takes to get there. That is how a following grows and it increases the subscriber and ad revenue that can be generated, but I think that after a few years of the boom, we are sliding down in terms of how much people want to do this. After a couple of years of the grind that this business can be, many see the reality of what it takes to be successful. It ain’t easy, and how you source and process listings makes a big difference.
This is why I like how you guys have one type of store, and we have another. And why I try to explain as much as possible what the true numbers and reality is of what it takes to be successful in this business. Your route is very feasible, it just requires lots of patience and lots of listings to get consistent sales. Our model has a faster return, but requires more capital up front and requires an efficient process to list 150+ items per week. Both work, both are successful, but different risks and rewards.
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07/16/2018 at 2:50 pm #45537
Put the quote on a t-shirt or coffee mug!
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07/16/2018 at 9:59 am #45498
Ryanne, I read the post. As my post says, the building you bought looks like a storefront, not a house you’d convert as another rental….so I was wondering what your plans are for the building? But hey, I’ll wait and listen when I get a chance, probably tonight…..just excited for you guys, that’s all.
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07/16/2018 at 10:24 am #45500
She thought you were joking. We discuss the building all in the very beginning of the podcast.
It’s a retail/office space on the main floor and an apartment upstairs. We have plans but we’re still mulling things over till we’re done renovating.
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07/16/2018 at 10:28 am #45501
sorry, didn’t mean to be snippy. yeah we are planning some stuff, mostly TBD. but there is a 3 bedroom apartment up top that will be a vacation rental as well.
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07/16/2018 at 10:51 am #45504
OK, that sounds great! You guys are my idols! Seriously. I think its great the way you keep reinvesting and creating more income streams….
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07/16/2018 at 10:15 am #45499
My Store Week July 8-14, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1067
Items Sold: 21
Total Sales: $488.13
Cost of Items Sold: $41.28
Promoted Listing Sales: 6
Ad Fees for Promoted Listings: $14.21
Highest Price Sold: $70 (Vintage Windbreaker from Goodwill Outlet to Russia)
ASP: $22.19
STR: 8.4%
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $75
Number of items listed this week: 29Congratulations on your store front – I cannot wait to follow this journey and wish you much success!
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07/16/2018 at 10:35 am #45503
Items in Store 1015
Items Sold 14
Total Sales $557.50
COGS $47.35
Total Profit $510.15
Average profit $36.44
Average sales price $39.82I sold a set of Wizard of Oz dolls for $140. I was really worried when I got the sale message because I had dropped the box these were in a few times and I was sure I had lost a few accessories (shoes, hats, etc). To my surprise it was all there! Woot!
Took a break from listing this weekend to build the first new inventory shelf in my ebay garage office. 5’x2′, 5 shelves including the floor. This will hold 15 totes plus some loose bulky items. Total cost: $20. I got a huge pile of plywood for free from work to make a bunch of storage racks. I plan on making about 220 linear feet of storage shelving with it. My only cost will be for 2×3 lumber to make the frames.
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07/16/2018 at 11:34 am #45507
Fairly quiet week, but I finally sold some stuff from an auction that I had been waiting for for a long time. Basically no scavenging this week due to a nasty flu.
Sales: CAD$564, COGS: $154, item profit: $321
Expenditures: $24 –> After-tax cashflow: $368
Listed: $730, 3 items
Notable sales: circuit breaker lockouts, 2 sales for $232 and $150.Curious to hear about your new property! Going to listen now.
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07/16/2018 at 11:57 am #45510
Hi R&J — Thanks for the podcast!
Congratulations on your big scavenge of the week – a new building! That’s hard to beat.Here are my numbers for the week…
Total Items in Store: 2419
Items Sold: 33
Total Sales: $910
Cost of Items Sold: $69
Average Price Sold: $27.57
Average Cost of Item: $2.11
Highest Price Item Sold: $165 Toshiba DVR-620 Combination DVD / VHS (paid about $5 at an estate sale)
Number of items listed this week: 61
YTD Sales: $23984
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +19%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 321
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 119
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 49
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.36%
# of Hats Sold: 20 (60% of sales)It was a another solid week for me. My summer garage sale finds seem to be doing pretty well and keeping my numbers good. My biggest sale was a DVD/VHS combo. All the YouTube Ebay people have been talking about them so I think the price is probably falling but this unit was pretty recent unit which got me a good price.
Regarding the caller (Mark) that wanted to sell postcards without tracking, I set up a separate account to do that so that I wouldn’t lose my top-rated seller status. (You get lower shipping costs for being a top-rate seller so it’s probably worth keeping).
Regarding the missing-photo bug, I sent a message to the eBay For Business Facebook group and exchanged a couple messages with an eBay person (Customer Support?). They said they would refund my store fees and the insertion fees for the impacted items. It doesn’t get anywhere near compensating me for the amount of hassle but it’s better than nothing.
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07/16/2018 at 12:06 pm #45511
Did the DVD/VHS combo have a tv too? Those also sell well. The big issue is shipping.
On your hats, can you remind me how much you buy and sell them for? Our hat sales have fallen off to almost nothing, and Im assuming we’re just charging too much with all the competition.
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07/16/2018 at 7:57 pm #45583
Hi Jay,
>>Did the DVD/VHS combo have a tv too? Those also sell well. The big issue is shipping.
Nope. This one was one of those regular-looking VHS players with a slot for single VHS tape and a tray for a single DVD.
>> On your hats, can you remind me how much you buy and sell them for?
I think hat prices have come down (just like all clothing) due to all the new sellers. My cost averages around $1.5 per hat. My average hat sale for this year is $18.36 (665 hat sales this year). Last year my average hat sale was $18.72.
When I list, I start at $19.79 for anything that has a reasonably large potential pool of buyers and $14.95 for anything that just has a very small number of potential buyers (eg: Joe’s neighborhood paint shop) or anything that has lots of identical competition. Once in a great while I’ll find something very special and I put a higher price but that’s rare.
After being listed for about 4 months I’ll add hats to the pool of hats that I include in 15%-off markdown sales. I start dropping prices dramatically around the 2-year mark.
On ebay, I think the average used hat probably sells around $12. Maybe less.
Keep in mind that you can buy many types of brand new hats from retail stores for around $15 so to command a premium price it generally has to be something vintage or unusual.
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07/17/2018 at 6:31 pm #45681
Hat selling is brutal! We’re still trying to squeeze $25+ from hats (and some do sell for this)
–Do you do free shipping on top of competitive pricing and discounts?
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07/18/2018 at 11:48 am #45726
> Do you do free shipping on top of competitive pricing and discounts?
Nope. I charge for shipping.
My regular pricing is actually on the high side. (I know yours is higher.) I’ve spent a lot of time playing with my pricing so I think I have a pretty good idea where the market is at.
I could put all my hats at $24.95 but my sales would fall off a cliff and that additional $5 per sale wouldn’t come close to making up for all the lost sales. I think hat sales are much more sensitive on price than say art or mid-century decor.
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07/18/2018 at 7:21 pm #45795
You are telling me the hard truth. I keep hoping all the people that flooded the market with cheap hats would fall away. I have no idea how they can keep selling $12.99 hats with free shipping.
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07/16/2018 at 12:28 pm #45513
Slow sales because of summer?
Yes AND, after 3 weeks of ZERO sales, received a message from a potential buyer, and I quote:
“Where are the other photos”Last week I said it was under 10% of my 700-item store. I worked during the weekend to re-upload around 150 items. Always opportunities. so I made important adjustments on old items (my old items are selling like crazy), but it also messed up my policies, which is good, gave me another opportunity to add missing policies and trim out those I do not want.
After last week’s podcast, created my first 3 sales with immediate sales. Plus I am picking a handful of things I have or I buy and putting into auction. These items are more or less like those I sold in under 3 min, full price and found out I could have made a lot more.
Kinda excited again. Possibly Ryanne’s smile in front of the new property and Jay’s continuous declaration of his love for her are inspiring me 🙂
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07/16/2018 at 12:51 pm #45516
Diversification
Folks, another great example about diversification. Jay and Ryanne are strong on real estate, wow!!!
I am big fan of a diversified portfolio. I learned to play with Wall Street decades ago and that gave me good returns and comfort. That is the problem: comfort.
Today I am going after many “new things” like The Lending Club or Acorns, two things I always wanted to invest and these companies brought in digital format.
Interesting inside Acorns, there is a page “how to make clean money while you sleep”. Their first recommendation is do what Jay and Ryanne are doing with Real Estate
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07/16/2018 at 1:08 pm #45520
ebay Sales: July 9-16
Total: 9 items Sales: $455.76
Store: 518 (broke the 500 mark!)
COGS: $45I tried a 20% off sale and then as soon as the sale ended, I had 2 karge sales on items at full price. WTF ebay, you are so obvious sometimes.
Largest Sale: Copper Pan Mauviel: $120My Poshmark world is growing nicely, June 10-16
$230 after fees as of today on dead eBay inventory this week on 6 items.
It’s back to school shopping for many of the users, so if you have not started Posh yet, give it a whirl and cross list your stuff! -
07/16/2018 at 1:55 pm #45529
Very interesting direction by buying a commercial property. You’ve mentioned quite a few times about being active in local government, so buying something in town makes sense. I can see you leasing out the downstairs rather than opening up something yourselves. I understand that having a store pretty much takes up all your time. You would have to reconsider eBay, AirBnB, your occasional contract jobs, etc. But, I’m not you, so I’ll be interested in how this all plays out.
Week of July 8 – 14
* Total Items in Store: 1186
* Items Sold: 16
* Cost of Items Sold: $33.50 + $22 Commission
* Total Sales: $321.26
* Highest Price Sold: $50 new Beige Naturalizer sandals (on commission); $45 1988 Pantone book process color simulator
* Average Price Sold: $20.07
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $55.78
* Number of items listed this week: 16On Friday, I went to a different auction that what I usually to go to. The one I normally use is located in an urban area and held in a conference center. This new-to-me auction was held in a suburb to rural area in a few barns next to someone’s house. The parking area was gravel, and the barns were not air conditioned, but the deals were incredible. I originally wanted to go to just see what it was like and maybe spend $20 or so. But, I brought back a trunk full for about $55! I had never seen my usual place sell a full table, so now I know what you guys are talking about. I still want to go to my usual haunt this Thursday, but their August auction is on a weekend, and I’ll just go to this new place.
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07/16/2018 at 3:06 pm #45542
sorry we were not clear on the podcast, we are absolutely not opening up a store downstairs.
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07/16/2018 at 4:30 pm #45556
Well, we will hear about the plans as they surface. I’m interested in hearing about how it will play out!
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07/16/2018 at 3:23 pm #45546
Every auction has their won style, but if you go to enough of them, you’ll see that “table lots” or “box lots” are pretty common.
This is where the auctioneers are selling off piles of stuff that they think has little value individually. Depending on the interests/knowledge of the auctioneer’s workers, they can miss really incredible items that get shoved into boxes of junk.
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07/16/2018 at 4:42 pm #45562
I recognized one auctioneer at this “suburban” auction (Sunrise) who also works at the “urban” one, so I spoke to him for a few minutes. The owner of the urban auction wants to be able to say that he has “NJ’s biggest auction” with the most number of lots. So, he will combine no more than four boxes together rather than sell a whole table. So, I guess that is the difference. This auctioneer was actually a bit critical of the urban location.
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07/16/2018 at 1:57 pm #45530
Congrats on the new digs! Can’t wait to follow this project! Do you plan on using the apartment above as an AirBnb or a more long term rental? (I didn’t catch that on the show if you mentioned it)
Week July 9-15, 2018
Total Items in Store: 918
Items Sold: 12
Cost of Items Sold: $104 (17.7% of sales)
Total Sales: $587.45
Highest Price Sold: $239.99 (lot of 8 vintage 1970s slot cars)
Average Price Sold: $48.95
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $146
Number of items listed this week: 32
Promoted listings test: 7 sales, $387.48 (66% of total sales), $22.68 fees (5.9% of sales)Ho-hum week really saved by that big sale. Was super excited to see that come in overnight on Thursday. Another notable sale, although not super high dollar, was this Walkman (https://www.ebay.com/itm/192599319534) that sold within hours of listing. I always pick up old Walkmans & Discmans because there’s such a rabid collector market out there (although some are not worth anything). Even not functioning still has some value for parts – this particular one probably only needs a new belt and some expertise to bring back to life. I love my position in the food chain – I bought for $1, sold as is for $35, the next guy will put a $5 part and an hour into it and it will be worth $100. 🙂
Only went to one sale this weekend, and it produced a big bag full of stuff – mostly bread & butter. c1950s/60s Stardust Las Vegas Do Not Disturb sign (https://www.ebay.com/itm/202370357119), c1970s/80s Plaza NYC Do Not Disturb (https://www.ebay.com/itm/192599326620), 1950s United Airlines silverware (https://www.ebay.com/itm/192599345886), and a whole boatload of quality LPs.
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07/16/2018 at 1:59 pm #45531
It’ll be an Airbnb rental. Rents are way to low around here for long tern rentals.
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07/16/2018 at 2:03 pm #45532
Total Items in Store: 2189
Items Sold: 26
Total Sales: $1376
Highest Price Sold: $600 (Vase) Paid $200 at an auction
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $190Great episode. Very excited for your new adventure! Can’t wait to see what comes of it.
Had an okay week, soft sales mostly. I did have a vase that sold for $600, I paid $200 for it. That really helped my bottom line, I would have been in the dirt without it. 🙂 Didn’t get a ton of work done on ebay, we have been busy trying to get our house packed and also had our son visiting. Our son did get a job in Washington DC so my husband and I will be going to visit and hopefully going to stay in one of J and R’s rentals.
I also got a new phone, and iPhone 8S. Made me a bit nausea to get it but we really wanted it for the amazing camera. We are going on our 5 week walk soon and I wanted something that takes great videos and pictures.
We hate going to sales where the price is not set, it is frustrating. We have been to sales where when you ask the people how much the item is they will get their phone and look it up on ebay! I instantly was like nope! We do like estates sales for hard goods, we haven’t had a lot of luck finding stuff other than clothes at thrift stores.
I had one return, it was a pair of jeans that has been returned 2 times in one month!! I take the time to measure things and they still return it for fit. UG> I just sold them again and I will just have to burn them if I get them back again. -
07/16/2018 at 2:33 pm #45534
Speaking of the new payment platforms that eBay will be rolling out – I would be interested to hear from some of the foreign trash elves about what their preferred online payment method is in their countries. I know that Paypal isn’t the preferred platform in many countries, which I believe is a good reason for for eBay to diversify its payment options. I offer international shipping and think that the new payment options could maybe increase international sales. I hope I’m selected to be an early adopter for the program.
My “scavenge of the week” is an Hermes necktie. It’s only the 2nd one I’ve ever found. The first was NWT and I sold it for $199.99. This one is in great condition but used and not special. It will probably only net around $30 to $40 – but just the fact that its only the 2nd Hermes I’ve ever found after years of doing this, made it exciting.
My “Scavenge Heart Break” of the week was what could have been an amazing Alfred Shaheen 1950s/1960s dress. It too was only the 2nd Alfred Sheheen dress I ever found and it was a great example of a dress from its era. But the condition issues were just too great so I left it behind. Even with help from a seamstress and the cleaners I don’t think it could have been salvaged. It could have been a $300 to $500 dress in better condition. Ouch.
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07/16/2018 at 4:41 pm #45560
Hello Julie,
The major thing is the banking infrastructure, US is very different than W Europe and some countries in Latin America.
Example I shared here a while back: I have checking accounts in Brazil. If/When I want to transfer money (up to $50k per day), I just log in to my account and hit transfer. Usually if I transfer before 1PM, it arrives same day. Note if I transfer money from my Chase personal to my Chase business, it takes a week …
Banks are transaction brokers, the all do the PayPal role, possibly this is why it is so popular here and not so much out there.However it seems PayPal is ok mostly. W European countries are the ones with higher potential problems.
Anyway, PayPal acquired Xoom, a company opened by Brazilians here in FL. Originally it would allow to make these transfer one way from here to Brz same day, then they added other 5 LA countries and were acquired by PayPal, very likely we will be able to send money directly to a checking account and vice versa.
I have a small store. A good percentage of my small sales are international. The main difference is that I use not only Global Shipping but also regular international shipping. A couple of items I pay for international visibility. For example I sold this 120 years old projector to Italy regular shipping. The device weighted 75″ alone, before boxed.
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07/16/2018 at 3:02 pm #45541
Ryanne mentioned issues with buying off casual eBay sellers. I also bought something off eBay last week. I purchased 6 bowls in our kitchen dish pattern. The seller messaged me saying that he also had dinner and salad plates in that pattern. I decided buy a couple of each, we agreed to a price, and then he said to send $60 to his Paypal account. Um, no, that is against policy.
I told him to set up a quick listing, and I would pay. He said he had limited listings, and he would just send me the bowls. So, he lost a $60 sale for an additional $0.25 and the extra work of making another listing. I guess he is just a part timer making a little additional pocket money.
I hope the bowls arrive safely.
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07/16/2018 at 3:20 pm #45545
That’s so weird but mirrors our experience with amateur sellers. It’s more like a friendly garage sale to them.
You may get some free bowls, but you hope he/she packs them well or else its all for naught! Let us know what happens.
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07/16/2018 at 4:29 pm #45555
The bowls aren’t free, but I did get a good price on them. He did say that he would double box them, so I’m hopeful!
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07/17/2018 at 8:15 am #45610
The hardest lesson to learn in going to a full ebay business rather than a fun hobby is the aspect that money is an asset that must be used. Expenses are your friend – not the enemy that must be avoided.
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07/17/2018 at 10:22 am #45625
Retro: Agree…to a point. The right expenses grow your business (Inventory primarily, but also proper use and efficiently used Labor). Other expenses can kill your business (Inefficient Labor first, but also warehouse for bad inventory).
Always trim the fat…but “go all-in” when the deal is right!
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07/16/2018 at 3:10 pm #45544
July 8-14
Total Items in Store: 1571
Items Sold: 19
Total Sales : $970
* above yearly average of $726
* above 2017 total week sales of $543
Highest Price: $334 (Satellite Antenna Handheld Controller)
Average Price: $51
Returns: 1
Cost of Goods Sold: $13
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $3
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 15So I had a much better week than the previous one. And I started listing and taking photos again. I feel like I’m getting back in the game. Hopefully it’s not just a fluke and these numbers can continue throughout the summer slowdown season. That antenna controller was something that I found in a trash bin last year. I had no idea what to price it for because there were no comps. But I think I did alright.
I think you’re absolutely right about having goals and having that big idea in order to keep from burning out. My goal is to pay off my new house in under 10 years. And my secondary goal is to start making enough on eBay sales to quit my day job (which requires a nice little safety net in my savings, maybe $60K or so). So with that all in mind, I can go down in my office 4 or 5 nights a week and continue to work after working my day job instead of getting lazy in front of the TV every night.
Your idea of improving your community using real estate is awesome. I’ve seen it happen right before my eyes over the last 5 years. Wheeling, WV had become stagnant. Buildings were sitting unoccupied. The culture scene was dismal. The people were leaving to other cities. But a revival started as a tiny ripple and turned into a huge wave. It was like a few people got the idea of the potential that the city could have, opened some different stores and restaurants, and more and more people got on board with the idea. Now they’re tearing down dilapidated buildings to make room for more businesses. And all it took were a handful of people with a vision to get it started.
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07/16/2018 at 3:25 pm #45547
We dont live that far from Wheeling. All these small towns in our area are in teh same shape, so it’s awesome to hear of a revival in Wheeling.
Our goal is to not have it become the “antique mall and gift shop” revival. We’ve seen that too often (Berkeley Springs). We hope to help bring real life back downtown.
What kinds of stores are popping up in Wheeling?
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07/16/2018 at 4:23 pm #45554
There are a lot of more interesting restaurants and food options mostly. And a couple of breweries have started up in the last few years. As far as the shopping experience, it seems to be a lot of gift shop kind of stuff like art and pottery so far. But even so, it feels like there’s more buzz in the air. Festivities are becoming more common. More exhibits and events are happening. People seems more optimistic about Wheeling’s future than they were 5 years ago.
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07/16/2018 at 5:19 pm #45565
I think I mentioned a while ago that my parents & grandparents are from just up the road from you in Weirton. Your story about everything being abandoned and run down is the same story there…
Not sure if you remember the Steven Spielberg/JJ Abrams movie Super 8 (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650062) from a few years ago… the movie was set in 1970s Ohio, but they filmed a lot in Weirton because it still looked like the 1970s. Outside of that, for the scenes where they were blowing up houses & buildings, it was actually cheaper to blow up real ones rather than build sets!
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07/16/2018 at 5:54 pm #45571
Loved Super 8!
Funny about Weirton, my old company had a plant there when I worked for them…but it closed in 2016…
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07/16/2018 at 6:33 pm #45577
I went there during the filming of that movie. It was surreal! I worked with a guy who lived there and he recorded one of the house explosions on his phone. Crazy!
Steph and I drove through there on Sunday for the Greek festival. I was sad to see a lot of the restaurants that I’ve been wanting to visit closing their doors. I hope the Tudor’s Biscuit World stays open. It’s the only one this far north.
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07/16/2018 at 5:03 pm #45564
RR Store Week July 8-14, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1599
Items Sold: 37
Cost of Items Sold: $43.29
Total Sales: $780.65
Highest Price Sold: $74.99 (Tommy Bahama shirt)
Average Price Sold: $21.10
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $12
Number of items listed this week: 12I spent most of the week helping my parents pack up their house for their move to Arizona, so very little listing got done. But the good news is I now have a huge new death pile of fresh stuff to list. They have to downsize, and my sister and I are getting first dibs.
J&R, I’m SUPER excited about your newest purchase! Can’t wait to hear when you have planned!
Paul
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07/16/2018 at 6:27 pm #45575
I haven’t had a chance to listen to the podcast yet, but just wanted to say congratulations on the new building! It feels like I’m watching real-life Monopoly with you two. So cool.
My stock levels are really high right now, so I am taking it easy from both listing and sourcing. I am running an experimental sale on my store right now to see if large sales boost overall sales of long-tail stock. I will post results when the sale is done.
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07/16/2018 at 7:42 pm #45580
Congrats on the new building purchase! I’ve long been drawn to real estate-based projects, as sticky and costly as they can get – the potential is so inspiring. Looking forward to learning more as it all unfolds for you.
I’m recovering from a late night bout of food poisoning or bug, so keeping it short:
07/08/18 – 07/14/18
Total Items In Store: 883
Items Sold: 21
Total Sales: $697.93
Cost of Items Sold: $26.25
Highest Price Sold: $120 – Vintage Pendleton Glacier Park Wool Blanket
Average Price Sold: $33.23
Returns/Refunds: 1, false INAD
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of Items listed this week: 30 -
07/16/2018 at 7:56 pm #45582
Hey, It’s Jean – you played my voice message near the end of this podcast
Thought i’d share an update about the new eBay Australia fullfillment program by “fullfilio”
I exchanged a few emails with fullfilio and they were still quite vague about what kind of inventory they would allow.
this is from the last email they sent me.“Unfortunately, we aren’t currently setup to support businesses sending less than 200 orders per month.
The good news is, once your company is close to this volume, we can get you on-boarded very quickly – in most cases in less than a week!”At this stage, I’m lucky to get 50 sales a month but i’ll definately give it a go when I step my inventory up a bit more.
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07/17/2018 at 6:32 pm #45682
–Do you feel they only want people to send in “new in box” stuff? That would be my guess.
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07/18/2018 at 8:48 am #45715
Going off the rate card they just sent me, it looks like favour lots of one type of item. For a store of unique items, they would charge $0.40 for each item to be received. Then there is an admin fee for advising them you are sending in more inventory.
Their shipping rates aren’t actually that great in comparison with std Australian postage, intact it’s more expensive to use them.
I sent you guys the rate card through email
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07/16/2018 at 9:06 pm #45587
Total Items in Store: 1562
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $48.37
Total Sales: $1030.32
Highest Price Sold: $750 (Yashica 35 mm camera)
Average Price Sold: $51.52
Returns: none
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 14Enjoyed the podcast and good luck on the new venture. Another slow week for me with the one big sale that pushed my numbers way up. I don’t hit many home runs but that was definitely a big one – $2.50 yard sale find & sold in 3 days.
Wishing everyone a good week of sales and scavenging.
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07/16/2018 at 9:11 pm #45588
Jimi: Wow! Nice flip on that camera! Well done!
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07/16/2018 at 10:19 pm #45597
Thanks T-Satt! I have to give credit to this group on sourcing that one. I sort of mimicked the yard sale buying strategy of Steve and other pro scavengers here. The guy had the usual junk and I was about to leave but started talking to him & casually asked him if he had any old cameras, since I have had some modest luck with them in the past and am kind of on the lookout now, anyway he dug out a couple of old point and shoot and the Yashika was one of them. Ask and ye shall receive.
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07/17/2018 at 7:59 am #45608
I am a veteran of many many estate sales in an urban area. You can’t generalize about estate sales–sometimes the prices are insanely high and I leave within 60 seconds. However, sometimes they just want to clear out the house because the real estate has a lot more value than the contents or other reasons.
At two sales that I went to this weekend, as soon as people walked in, the people running the sale said “Make a big pile, it will be cheap.” It was– cheap as in $10 per trash bag full of stuff. And these were professionally run sales.
Jay and Ryanne, I think it would be great if you added in the cost of your employees labor into your stats. Also, that might give you insight into which items are high-enough value to spend your time/labor costs on.
I think the whole key to this business for me is to stay away from the lower value items. It is so difficult to do ack!
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07/17/2018 at 6:28 pm #45679
You are absolutely correct. I attended a poorly run estate sale. Plus hit it at the highest peak of attendance.
Some estate sales can be good.
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07/17/2018 at 8:00 am #45609
Oh and to clarify, when I discussed the two estate sales where things were cheap… They were cheap at the very first hour of the sales. This was not the last day.
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07/17/2018 at 9:38 am #45618
I ran across one of these cheap estate sale cleanouts a couple weeks ago. I found a vintage 80’s Nike running shoe in the garage and was desperately searching for the mate. One of the guys running the sale saw what I was doing and said “Oh yeah, I tossed the match to that shoe in the dumpster about 15 minutes ago.” NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
I very much wanted to climb into their big dumpster to find it, but I resisted the overwhelming urge. I did find a handful of cool vintage items for cheap at the sale so it wasn’t a total loss.
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07/17/2018 at 9:43 am #45620
Congrats Jay and Ryanne! Awesome building. Any plans on whats going in to store front?
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07/17/2018 at 6:29 pm #45680
Its another secret (or we’re not 100% sure if it’ll work yet). Wont be anything mind blowing to people on this forum. But we hope it’ll be cool for our town.
Hint: not a junk store or restaurant.
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07/17/2018 at 9:45 am #45622
Hello from Bend, Oregon. We are on vacation scavenger style staying free at my cousin’s house. It was a soft week on EBay before I left.
R&J congrats on your purchase! It must be exciting to help shape the future of your little town. It would be cool if the lower half became a coffee shop / beer & wine destination you could cross market to your guests. Having no familiararity with it, it makes me wonder if this is a riskier endevor than your previous projects. Perhaps you might stick more closely to a budget this time if true. This says the person spending mucho to redo a kitchen as we speak. 🙂
I’m the noodge who keeps suggesting you to go to urban garage and estate sales. I think some may be busts, crowded or expensive. But I still believe it would pay off in more premium inventory that sells faster. Shopping in Bend and some other places makes me realize how good I have it at home. Too much new made in China crap here. At home, lots of baby boomers and elderly, lots of rich people who donate nicer brands, and busy younger people without time to scavenge. I can’t wait to clear the piles and go to estate sales as my reward!
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07/17/2018 at 10:13 am #45624
I finally started listening to the podcast – just have to take a break from listening to say that I totally agree that long-term goals are everything. When you first start running a business, you are so involved in the day-to-day that you can’t see the the bigger picture of what you are doing at all. You are just trying to get from point a to b without failing too hard. Once you’ve gotten past that initial bump into a successful or successful enough long-term business, it’s like ? What do I do now? More of this, or other projects that more align with who I am as a person?
That’s the point when I’ve said that most people crash & burn in this business. It is so easy that processes learned can just run on auto-pilot. It is at that point that people are like “am I going to be doing this forever (until retirement or ?), just like you would at a normal job. What am I going to do now that I am doing fine enough?
You can run your business, and then do x or x or z or whatever. But there comes a point when you’re like what do I do now? I have already learned everything there is to know about all aspects of my business. What is next?
My own personal long-term goals have gotten me to start thinking in terms of an endpoint for all of this. I have been reading about what the FIRE people do when they finally have enough to retire – some say to continue working if you want to build more money, but others say that sometimes enough is enough. Just live off of what you have set-up and get out of the race to make money otherwise.
I’m at the point now where my projects outside of selling could fully absorb all of my time – but I do not have the money to do so. I first turned to online selling to give me time and energy to work on projects outside of a f/t job – now that I have a grip on those projects, I could devote all of the time that I have working on a business to working on them. But, I do not have the funds to go f/t on these projects.
So, I wish that I could find a current stopping point and just leave it alone at that, be completely free of online selling – but Ebay as it is for now will have to be my “stopping point” because I do not know how to break free of work and business completely in order to support myself doing what I really want to do. Online selling has given me a taste of what I am capable of doing outside of the normal conventions of “work.”
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07/17/2018 at 6:24 pm #45677
Huh, you have a huge inventory like we do. Even bigger I think. Right?
Not sure if any business will be totally passive income, but cant you currently take off days at a time and still make the money you need?
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07/18/2018 at 7:20 am #45707
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m doing now. Taking off a few days each week. The days I don’t work, I just fulfill orders early in the morning. The days I do work, I try to compact them down into a 9-5 at this point, or more of a 10-3 or 9-4 at the most – when I am done, I leave work outside of work. I guess now that I have been able to shrink the work day down, or get rid of it, I’m wondering how much more can I do?
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07/17/2018 at 10:25 am #45627
almasty, no need to answer if you’d rather not, but I’m curious: what are the things you’d rather be doing if you could afford to?
I enjoy doing ebay, and its something the better half and I like to do together, but sometimes I do get the urge to do some acting again, or to get back to doing local history research, or just try some new things. The urge generally passes, but it’s still there….
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07/17/2018 at 10:58 am #45630
I don’t really want to get into it on here, but I guess I could say I miss the “freedom” I had when I was younger and made less money with less overall responsibilities (I don’t even have kids or anything, so it’s not like I am even that encumbered with outside responsibilities). I sometimes make fun of the people I know who have really crappy minimum wage jobs (mid-30s as well) and degrees who just do whatever they want artistically outside of work, but I also completely get just working 8 hours a day and not caring about it .at.all. outside of work.
I guess I’m trying to get back more to the “not caring” part on my own at this point. Trying to deconstruct the business so it is more like a self-contained job, and not so much my life 24/7. I really feel like reselling changes the way your brain works to an extent when you get really good at reselling – you stop seeing physical objects for what they are, but more for what they can get on ebay. It’s weird. I want to see objects as objects again, like what life was like before reselling. The crux is that I need ebay to do that, because I realize how much more I can earn than a minimum wage job. Hah. =/
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07/17/2018 at 11:38 am #45634
Almasty: Love this thread. All of this is definitely on our minds, and continues to be something that I think about…the endgame.
Veronica started this little side business as something that interested her and a way to make money while staying at home with our boys. 14 years later, it is our main source of income. While in Albuquerque this weekend for my niece’s wedding, we talked more about the future. She definitely wants to spend more time in a service role with either our church or other charity organization where she can help out families that are in need.
Ebay, like any business, once it gets going and is a full time job, changes your life and requires a lot of time to maintain. I remember an accounting professor I had in school talking about the guys that he hung out with that owned white water rafting companies. They loved to do white water rafting, so they opened a business. Then they found themselves running a business, not white water rafting…
This is the part of the goal that I have, to ultimately grow this eCommerce business so that it generates a solid baseline income, but is not full time. This will give me freedom to pursue income stream #2 (TBD, but I have lots of thoughts). The ultimate goal is for us to generate LII (Location Independent Income). The ability to have income produced without us being in the business physically.
I subcontract with my Mom in one of her side Bookkeeping jobs. The guy and his wife “live” in Boulder, but run a medical device manufacturing business. Part of the job is that I go to Boulder, pick up the mail, sort it and scan it to my Mom in Montana so that she can keep his accounting going. Why? Because he is rarely there. He works in Paris, Vietnam, pretty much all over the world. LII. Yes, he has some times where he is physically needed. But most of the time he can work via computer from anywhere in the world with good internet connection.
This becomes our end goal. Getting eBay to generate the baseline profit we need with 25 or less hours per week is Step 1. Then invest in Step 2, and Step 3, so that we can have the time we need to enjoy our pursuits (hiking for me, serving those in need for Veronica) while minimizing the need for our physical presence.
So I love your thinking. What are your goals, how do you get there, and how does reselling fit into that?
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07/17/2018 at 11:43 am #45636
I have the opposite feeling about how ebay selling has changed my outlook. I now see objects as they are: Just objects – not something to invest personal value in.
We are literally drowning in a sea of “Stuff”. I don’t want or need any more “stuff” for myself. Ebay freed me from investing myself personally into objects. I can handle something, appreciate it briefly for what it is, then list it/sell it.
When it comes time for birthdays or Christmas I literally don’t want anything – just want to spend time with my family. Some adults are FAR more concerned about the material things coming their way. I don’t ever want to go back to constantly striving for that next “object”.
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07/17/2018 at 12:13 pm #45640
Retro: Amen! I’m the same way. Now, if I get something, I want to have it last forever…
Stuff doesn’t do it for me…
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07/17/2018 at 11:00 am #45631
I think you should go with the urge and go with your interests! Especially if they keep coming back.
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07/17/2018 at 3:00 pm #45660
I’m cautiously dipping my toes in different waters for “work”. I’m at the age (early 40s) where I’m planning retirement, have a decent nest egg built up, but curious what other ways I could make income that I enjoy more. If I lost or quit my job tomorrow, we’ve decided that we would look in different fields of work, and downsize our life to live off the money we’ve slaved to earn – at the same time looking at different experiences to make money to pay the re-occurring utility bills, food, insurance, etc.
I personally enjoy setting up home entertainment systems, putting them together, and teaching people how they work – and I have found that I can make money doing this. I only advertise my services on CL and other classified sites, and found it to be a good start to gauge the size of a business I enjoy. My wife has similar “side gigs” that are bringing in money as well – we’re just waiting to jump or be pushed into the lifestyle. I have a lot of family members that for their lives just lived off of income from random work they created for themselves – various artists, and self-taught oddball skills are what I grew up knowing as “careers”.
You at least need to test the waters with what you like or even love to do – and see where it goes. I completely understand the hesitancy to jump in (I’m very hesitant), but every journey starts with a first step.
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07/17/2018 at 10:40 am #45628
Jay and Ryanne, congrats on the store purchase! It’s great of you guys to invest in your local town and lead by example.
Only problem is I can’t get Seger’s “Down on Main Street” out of my head now!
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07/17/2018 at 11:18 am #45632
Week July 9-15, 2018
Total Items in Store: 612
Items Sold: 19
Cost of Items Sold: $42.50
Total Sales: $731.74 (not including shipping)
Highest Price Sold: $120 Vintage Galoob Toy
Average Price Sold: $38.51
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $250
Number of items listed this week: 140First time posting my numbers. About two months in, working diligently on eBay. My immediate goals are centered on building inventory and getting my active listing numbers up. This week I will source 200 items and get active listings to 750.
Great podcast and congratulations on your new property!
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07/17/2018 at 11:37 am #45633
Wow! You’re doing great for two months in!!!!
Keep up the good work!
Are you a one man operation, or do you have help?
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07/17/2018 at 11:55 am #45639
I had a soft start where I only listed around 50 items while building up inventory the first month. But the last two months I just got to work on listing!
Thank you! For sourcing I have followed what I’ve learned from the podcast (and from everyone here on the forum) and I hit an auction every Saturday (if there is a good Sunday auction I will do that as well).
I love auctions and find it easy to load up on great items. I’m not a fan of selling clothing so I don’t hit many thrift stores but I’m not able to drive by a yard sale without stopping, so I get some great items there.
I do all the pictures, listing, and shipping myself but my girlfriend helps with cleaning, testing, and she helps at the auctions. It would be difficult buying as many items as I do without her help.
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07/17/2018 at 12:38 pm #45645
Sounds like the girlfriend’s a keeper…not always easy to find someone who will help with this stuff! Looks like you’ve already developed a good sense for what sells—just keep on keepin’ on!
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07/17/2018 at 12:29 pm #45642
Don’t know where to put this Jay, so if you figure out a better place, move it on over.
But, I just got an Invitation to opt into the first roll out beta trial of the “new payment processing” that ebay is going to move over to over the next few years. This is the second page of the invitation. The first part just says we were randomly slecetd and if we do wish to “opt in”, click on the reply tab and we will be added onto the list to get one of the early invitations to try the new payment and banking system we heard about in the last Seller Summer Update. Guess it is the European company, wasn’t it Adrian or something like that.
But I then went over the the FAQ page to see what they were asking and saying. this is what is posted there. So interesting things. But I especially noticed #4. That they will be askig the Sellers who sign up and use this to use the seller Hub for Listing? Are they laying the ground work to have Sellers who use SixBit or Wonderlister or other party listing and inventory management systems to not continue with those and to only use the Ebay Seller Hub?
They said in the summer update it would take a few years to migrate over to the new payment company but once completed, then we were all guessing that will be ebay’s choice instead of PayPal.
Anyone else get this “invitation” and what are maybe some thoughts on these FAQ’s.
Mike in Atlanta
SEE BELOW …..
Tell us what you want to learn about managing payments on eBay.
This will be a multi-year journey, and you’ve been invited to participate in the initial launch this fall. We want to keep you informed of our plans to manage payments. Before you sign up for managed payments, you may have questions. Here are answers to questions that may be on your mind:What are the key benefits?
– One place to sell and get paid: manage all your selling and payments needs from within your eBay account.
– Simpler bills: all your fees in one place on your eBay bill.
– Consolidated pricing: all your fees in one place on one bill, plus special pricing for early opt-in*.
– Daily payouts: direct to your bank account. No need to transfer funds between accounts.
– New ways for buyers to pay: such as mobile payments with Apple Pay.
– Better protection: claim and chargeback seller protections provided by eBay, with one place to manage disputes.
– More control: accept your exclusive invitation now to get a head start on adapting your business to selling and getting paid on eBay.
What will eBay’s fees be?In September 2018, you will receive an invitation to participate in our limited initial launch. To access the offer, you’ll be prompted to sign in to your account for more information and specifics like fees and additional frequently asked questions.
How will I access my funds?All cleared funds will generally be paid in a daily batch and directly to your bank account, regardless of how your buyer chooses to pay. From your bank account, you can access your funds directly, with no need to transfer funds between accounts. In addition, we’re working with our financial partners to enable even more options for speedy access to your earnings.
What will I have to do to sign-up?Your invitation in September will take you to a sign up page for a quick and easy enrollment process. After you enter a few personal details like preferred bank account for payouts and your social security number to verify your identity, we’ll manage the rest. We will automatically update your existing account and listings and transfer your existing listings to the new payments model. For new listings, we’ll ask you to use Seller Hub’s listing page and any existing listings APIs you use.
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07/17/2018 at 12:38 pm #45646
Interesting Mike. My guess is that the plug-ins for WonderLister or SixBit won’t be ready yet, so they are asking to minimize the “noise”. I’ll have to talk with SB at eBay Open on this for their take…
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07/17/2018 at 6:21 pm #45675
eBy hasn’t given near enough info to make a decision if the new payment system is good or bad. Doesnt sound like we have a choice anyway! How much will fees be? Can we continue to accept Paypal? How will eBay encourage users to sign up for a new payment system?
One place to sell and get paid: manage all your selling and payments needs from within your eBay account.
Mildly interesting. Not a huge deal checking our Paypal account.
Simpler bills: all your fees in one place on your eBay bill.
Again, nice to have it all in one place.
Consolidated pricing: all your fees in one place on one bill, plus special pricing for early opt-in*.
yeah yeah, Simpler bills. we get it.
Daily payouts: direct to your bank account. No need to transfer funds between accounts.
This is cool if true. Someone pays and the money goes right into my account that day? or is it a three day delay?
New ways for buyers to pay: such as mobile payments with Apple Pay.
okay
Better protection: claim and chargeback seller protections provided by eBay, with one place to manage disputes.
eBay doesnt currently have a great reputation of making it easy to handle difficult buyers. So wait and see.
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07/18/2018 at 7:30 am #45708
Jay: In response to your question about how often the new eBay payment policy would put your sales $ into your bank account: eBay stated that they would process these payments multiple times a day so I don’t know if they are guaranteeing that you will receive your $ in the same day as the sale occurred, but it will be much quicker than having it go into your Pay Pal account and then having the seller transfer it to a bank account.
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07/20/2018 at 1:16 pm #45849
I don’t like their idea of sending payments into your account multiple times per day. I can see where some people would love that but it would be a pain for me. Hopefully there will be opt outs for some of these new features.
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07/17/2018 at 12:40 pm #45647
“and any existing listings APIs you use.”
I got the same invite, and I’m wondering if APIs include third party providers like SixBit,, since they use ebay’s API…
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07/17/2018 at 2:02 pm #45653
Congratulations!! I can’t wait to see pics of the new place!
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07/17/2018 at 5:01 pm #45667
My numbers for the week of 7/8 – 7/14/18
Total items in store: 253 eBay & 129 Etsy
Number of items sold: 27 eBay & 6 Etsy
Cost of items sold: $21.69 approximately
Total sales: $639.20 total: $599.20 eBay & $40.00 etsy
Highest price sold: $59.95 plus shipping for Janlynn Buttons + Bow Stamped Cross Stitch Baby Quilt Kit
Average price sold: $19.37
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $10.00
Number of items listed: 41Another good week for my little store. I got so close to breaking the $600 mark on eBay alone, and actually did, but then woke up to a request to cancel a sale from the evening of 7/14 on the morning of 7/15. Oh well! It was still probably the highest $ amount week I’ve had yet.
Wishing everyone a great week!
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07/17/2018 at 10:26 pm #45692
Congratulations on your main street commercial property purchase. Are you guys keeping the intended use a secret, or do you really not know what you are going to do with the downstairs? Are you hoping to lease it out to a business, or run a business yourself? I would suggest you open an art theater to play independent movies and foreign films if you really want to invigorate the local economy. Or if not a full theater, then play stuff anyway. The local donut place downtown plays old sci fi serials (public domain stuff like b&w buck rogers) in the seating area. One of the brewpubs plays kung fu movies. Or if that’s too much money and time, then one thing that might be cool no matter what you do with it is to invite local artists to display their artwork on the walls. Our town (and lots of other town around here) have a monthly art walk where all the downtown businesses get involved. Bars, restaurants, even hair salons have a different artist every month. The local business association gets behind it and it draws people into town for the evening.
Also, what’s the parking situation? Jay could park his food truck there on the weekends.
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07/17/2018 at 10:54 pm #45697
We have ideas for the space, but they need to be worked on. All small towns are different so we need to make sure our idea fits the people here.
A weird, arty theater wouldnt be very popular in our area. I’d think it was cool though.
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07/18/2018 at 8:17 am #45712
How big is the store space? Are you guys going to run the business or will you rent it out? Salons are always profitable!
Our little downtown is trying to come alive, too. A friend of ours is starting a martial arts school and living in the apartment connected which I think is really smart. He is putting up walls and hanging ceiling fans and doing electrical things to convert the space to his needs.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
lifelikejess.
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07/18/2018 at 8:25 am #45714
The last thing our town needs is another beauty parlor, pizza place, junk/gift shop, and used car lot.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
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07/17/2018 at 10:36 pm #45694
Congrats on the new building! It’s heartening when local people are willing to invest in downtown buildings. Out of town investors in real estate are like vampires. They are merely there to siphon money out of the town into their pockets. We have one shopping center owned by a big investment company in NYC. It’s cheaper for them to use it as a tax write off and let it sit empty than invest $$ into fixing it up and renting it out.
Jay, I am the total opposite of you-I Love estate sales! My problem is that I can rarely spare an entire day for an auction. I can line up 2-4 estate sales and get a pretty good haul in an afternoon. Some companies run them better than others and I have learned which ones to avoid. I actually prefer family run sales because I stand a better chance of finding bargains. I never go first thing when they open-that way lies madness (and quite possibly bruised ribs!). I’m really good at finding unmarked items and usually I tell them what i’m Willing to pay. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Anyway, good week for me considering it’s slow season….
eBay July 8-13
Total sales. $146.73
Items in store. 1,038
# sold. 13
Avg. sale. $11.29
Returns. 1
COGS. $16.60
$ spent on new. $36.60
# listed. 20
Highest sale. $30 yarn from an unfinished project that my mom started, but didn’t leave a pattern. It was expensive yarn so I deconstructed what she started and listed it with the unused yarn. -
07/18/2018 at 2:12 am #45704
I love Estate Sales- not just for ebay but for my shop and house too- all my hammers, pliers, wrenches, screws, drill bits, hacksaws, everything under the sun over the last 30 years, lots of tools. house light bulbs, weed and feed, cases of toilet paper.Cleaning products, vacuums, Tupperware,
my feet are up on a 400.00 coffee table i paid 30.00 bucks for at an estate sale.love em.I’m also having luck at local pick up, online estate and consignment auctions in the area. Really easy to dial in the few great finds with little guess work online, look for comps, go preview and bid accordingly. pick it up and list it.
Well done on the commercial property Guys!
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07/18/2018 at 11:52 am #45727
Re new payment processing, does anyone else participate in eBay Expressions (LOVE the name)? It’s their feedback survey program, where they email buyers to share thoughts and feedback on various things? The last one I did was in regards to the new payment processing and whether or not I wanted to early opt-in. I should have taken notes while doing it to share here, but they’ll start testing it out this Fall with those who opt in, and initial roll out of the new processing won’t include PayPal. They kept noting that PayPal would be added back into the payment mix later (though, why?). However a Seller pays – credit cards, etc – eBay would process using their new provider, and money *will* be deposited directly into your bank account – after a delay of 3-5 days, if I’m remembering correctly.
I’m usually not anti-change, but I find myself kinda dragging my feet WRT this. I generally expressed an overall “Meh” with early adopting the program, despite their selling it as “getting in on the ground floor,” lol. I’d rather someone else work out the kinks first, unless their incentives to participate are great. And I’m not holding my breath on that…
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07/18/2018 at 1:02 pm #45730
And the big Meh! for us is what they said in item #4, that I posted above, is that they want sellers to use the “Seller Hub” to do their listings. For those of us that use, SixBit, WonderLister, InkFrog and others, those are 3rd party apps. These app allow users to not only manage their inventory with lots of business tools but also to cross list on several other platforms all in one place. So by opting in and using the new Ebay Payment process, we would have to only use the seller Hub to list. So that is going to knock a few out.
Maybe the 3rd party apps will get access to the Ebay API’s but that would come way doen the road. Plus by listing on Ebay, Etsy and Shopify all from one dashboard we can track all sales from all 3 places regardless of how the customers pay for the purchase.
As everybody has all said, including yourself, we think we will just wait and see and let others work out all the kinks.
Mike at MDC galleries
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
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07/20/2018 at 6:46 am #45841
Thanks for the heads up on this Mike. We just received the email to opt in in September as well.
I will put this up at the top of our list to talk to eBay about at eBay Open next week, primarily the issue with SixBit and WonderLister.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
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07/18/2018 at 2:18 pm #45754
Jay: Today, I received an email from eBay with a request for me to fill out a survey. They asked me how eBay could be improved. I suggested they implement http://www.ebay.com/status and use this URL to display ongoing issue with eBay for the reasons you’ve mentioned.
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07/18/2018 at 7:18 pm #45792
Lets start a movement.Everyone call Griff up and ask when they plan to implement ebay/com/status
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07/18/2018 at 2:21 pm #45756
Hey, that makes me think. Since I’m going to be there at eBay Open, let me know some big questions you would like answered (within reason please!) and I will see what I can find out…
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07/18/2018 at 3:46 pm #45769
T-Satt: I would like eBay to provide a page or some mechanism that will tell me when my listings violate the “No duplicate listings” rule. To clarify, some time ago eBay implemented a rule that, when violated slows down your sales because you have duplicate listings. This was implemented to prevent sellers from listing the same item many times in an effort to have better search results. That is a good desire. However, for instance I had multiple HP laptop bags that look different, but have the same dimensions, color etc. Since they all have roughly the same attributes my listings could be violating the “no duplicate listings” policy and I would not know it. If they had a page where I could go and see whether any of my listings violate this policy I would be good. I just don’t want to be in the dark and I don’t want to violate the rule.
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07/18/2018 at 7:20 pm #45794
I’d be interested to see what everyone thinks is important. Here’s the wishlist from the last year: https://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/forum/can-ebay-improve/
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07/18/2018 at 7:34 pm #45798
Jay: Great point! I’ll try to scour through that list before I go and see what I can get answers on.
No promises, I can only get the answers they would be willing to give. But it doesn’t hurt to try!
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07/18/2018 at 10:42 pm #45806
T-Satt,
Here’s a good one from Jay to ask ebay about:“I wish eBay had a more automated way to deal with disputes over INAD cases.”
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07/18/2018 at 4:54 pm #45777
BrianB: Great point. I sometimes wonder about that when we make multiple listings that are VERY similar, but only the size is different. We do this sometimes to avoid the Variations Listings (I don’t like those, since things like Size are a pain to put in the listings…someone talk me into them).
Duly noted!
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07/18/2018 at 8:51 pm #45800
I got that survey too and haven’t answered it yet. I’m not a great writer. If someone wants to write a good summary for me of a couple of things like the status page being more detailed and current and maybe customer service reps having current bug information I’ll copy and paste it into my survey….I know a lot of you on here are better at describing things things ’cause I read you all the time!
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07/18/2018 at 9:04 pm #45802
Congratulations on the new building!!! How exciting. I vote for a thrift store with a coffee shop but I imagine you have better ideas.
Auctions stress me out! Goes so fast and I hardly know what I am bidding on. But it has been a while so I might try it again now that I am more experienced.
Estate sales are very expensive in Los Angeles but as you all said, go at the end and see what is left. Usually not that much but I have found some good deals. And as was said above, family run estate sales (two thumbs up) absolutely!!!!
I like the easy pace of yard sales. If I can pick up 10 items in a half day of shopping that I have confidence in and got a good deal on, I feel it was a good day. I don’t have to buy everything, just enough to get some listings up and still have time to work on my death piles. If I hit the mother load in a yard sale, I count my blessing and pull out all stops.
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07/19/2018 at 8:52 am #45812
Sigilini- I can’t imagine going to estate sales in LA. I can barely handle the parking at the midwestern ones I go to! 🙂
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07/19/2018 at 10:20 am #45816
Parking is usually ok as they are in private high end neighborhoods and I go on Friday or late Sunday. But the prices! Bloomingdales!
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07/19/2018 at 11:40 pm #45832
Hey Jay, Ryanne + forum,
Not sure if this has been talked about before somewhere else but you’ve mentioned Inkfrog in a couple of the latest podcasts.
I’ve been using InkFrog for about a year now and feel it’s everything eBay should offer in a listing management system but don’t – because they’re eBay…
I chose it for the mobile responsive template builder which is great if you keep it simple. The templates they offer are just awful. I keep my listings as simple as possible without any starbursts, clip-art, or sparkly frames. Just photos and description so it’s easy to see on a phone. That’s had a big impact on my sales.
The second feature I cannot live without is the archiving of sold listings in the library. I often sell same/similar things that I can resurrect after any amount of time, adjust and re-list. These listings can be duplicated easily for slight variations on a listing. This saves tons of time for me. Drafts stay forever too – as do archived sales as far back as you need – which provides a crazy amount of valuable business data.
The creation of a master listing template (or many) is a killer feature. You were wanting a t-shirt template. You can have any number of these templates.
The shipping profiles are really great too. I have perfected my approved list of ship-to countries and I can deploy this extensive shipping profile quickly with multiple tiered shipping options for the buyer. I offer free shipping on all listings and no longer get burned by international buyers (no GSP in Canada). I ship to 31 international destinations only.
It’s been true revolution for my business. Just wanted to share my thoughts. If you do get into it and need any help, lemme know – I can get you up and running.
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07/20/2018 at 5:33 am #45835
Congrats on the new Main Street Property. You both are artist that just got a new canvas to work with. I would vote for a commercial airbnb space that people could rent out for a few day or a weeks for different projects, pop-up stores and such.
I’ve been fighting the missing picture glitch for the past few days. Out of about 920 listings I had about 100 listings with ether all or all but one photo missing. I used this tool that was mentioned in one of the scavengerlife forums:
http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/BulkPhotoScanner.htm. I used the fast scan option, then ran the report that shows the number of images in each listing along with titles. I had about 16 that had 0 images and about 75 that only had 1. I plan to call eBay on Friday to complain about not being notified about this problem and to also ask for a reversal of some store fees.I mostly buy at estate sales and occasionally at yard/garage sales. I always make a pile of the items I want whether they have a price on them or not. I make sure to be there when they price the items I picked. When I think a price is too high, I’ll tell them no and pull it from the pile. After one or two no’s, miraculously the prices start to get cheaper. Sometimes I’ll mention that I’m a reseller and ask if I can get a better price which for me has worked far more times than not.
Now back to listing.
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07/20/2018 at 6:38 pm #45857
I really like estate sales the best! I’m never thrilled about not seeing prices on estate sale items but I usually find that it’s really cheap when I have a huge pile of unpriced stuff.
I think the sellers (or estate sale company employees) are so glad to see so much go that they give much lower prices than they would have on individual items. Or they get tired of pricing so many items on the spot and holding up the line and they just say $10.00 per bag in order to get the line moving.
It really depends on the sale though. Some companies do price high, but many seem to be just trying to get the property cleaned out and avoiding big dump fees. Their purpose is just to clean out the house so that the house can be sold.
Where I live the house and property prices are so crazy high that I don’t think a lot of heirs even care much about the $ that the home contents might bring. The most broken down shack sells for close to a million $ here. The heirs are just concerned about getting the place cleared out as cheaply as possible, avoiding the work to clean it out themselves and not incurring dump fees. They want the property listed on the market ASAP. Properties often sell as soon as the “coming soon” sign goes up in my town!
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07/20/2018 at 9:19 pm #45868
Congratulations you guys! That sounds like such a worthwhile project. I’ve been wondering what your project would be, but expected it would be something on a digital platform.
It’s been a long time since I posted my numbers, but recently I’ve improved things and thought it would be worthwhile to run the math.
eBay, July 8-14:
Total store items: 4008
Number of items sold: 64
eBay sales: $1,865.29
Average price sold: $29.15
Highest price sold: $550 Scientific Tool:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/273289871697I’m not counting Facebook sales, which have been a really good supplement. I only just got access to Marketplace, and the North Jersey scene is very profitable, both for buying and selling.
26 year old guy expanding and professionalizing over the past 3 years by paying attention to everything suggested here. Just hit 4000 and $100,000 in active inventory. I’m still selling tons of cheap CDs and DVDs because I found a cheap way of shipping them (idea thanks to your interview with postcard man). Everyone has been complaining about this summer, but my sales have never been better, thanks in part to expanded inventory of more expensive inventory, and in part to learning to isolate listing work to expand efficiency.
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