Home › Forums › Weekly Numbers › Scavenger Life Episode 383: Resource Hoarders
- This topic has 69 replies, 24 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 6 months ago by Julie B.
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10/29/2018 at 8:57 am #50843
Back from our work trip to SF. 35 items to pack. Not bad, but not amazing. We like to think of our sales when we are out of town as a bonus, so that
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 383: Resource Hoarders] -
10/29/2018 at 9:10 am #50847
10/21/18 – 10/27/18
Items In Store: 2,538
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $60 (around)
Total Sales: $652
HIghest Price Sold: $100 (Vintage Mr Peanut)
Returns: 1
Money spent on new inventory: $120
Items listed: 59Good week, total dollars were same as last week. Hoping that sales start to ramp up more. Will try to get 75 items listed this week.
Mark S
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10/29/2018 at 9:16 am #50848
About to listed to the show, sounds like a really interesting topic – both coming back to a pile to ship as well as hoarding resources and using them for years to come.
Week October 21-27, 2018
Total Items in Store: 978
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $120 (16.3% of sales)
Total Sales: $736.90
Highest Price Sold: $120 (Masonic Bible & Signed Card https://www.ebay.com/itm/202356781589)
Average Price Sold: $36.85
Returns: 0 (1 NPB though, also 1 return started & then closed without return)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $475
Number of items listed this week: 40
Promoted listings test: 11 sales, $423.94 (57.5% of total sales), $21.20 fees (5.0% of sales)Pretty nice week – above average totals and a good average price sold. That Masonic Bible sale was the only “big” sale, but had quite a few in the mid range including 4 other sales above $50. COGS also dropped into an area I’m comfortable – anything below 20% works for me & my model (although I strive for those under 10% weeks that I see so many of you having).
Back to the grind this past weekend – after 2-3 weeks without cleaning/processing/photographing/researching/listing items, got 40 up this weekend and significantly reduced the size of my piles.
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10/29/2018 at 9:47 am #50852
Week of 10/21-10/27
Total Items in Store: 2,801 (Up 68% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 110
Number of Items Sold: 97 (Up 49% YOY)
(Includes 2 Etsy, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether, 1 Poshmark)
Weekly STR: 15% (Down 2% YOY)Total Product Sales: $3,269 (Up 100% YOY)
Cost of Items Sold: $548
Highest Item Sold: $125 – Gathered Traditions Joe Spencer Pauline Pumpkin Witch Figure
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week (this one hurt…I had the top 5 items and in the lead, go hunting, and lose the week by $5…) and Veronica leads for the year 26-17Clothing
# Listed: 1,758
# Sold: 67
STR: 16%
ASP: $31.38Shoes
# Listed: 440
# Sold: 16
STR: 16%
ASP: $34.31Hard Goods
# Listed: 603
# Sold: 12
STR: 8%
ASP: $44.13Etsy
# Listed: 170
# Sold: 2
STR: 5%
ASP: $23.85Poshmark
# Listed: 100
# Sold: 1
STR: 5%
ASP: $25Sales for Q4 are still staying very strong. Lots of shipping going on around here! Veronica is doing great holding down the fort again while I leave later this week to go on my family elk hunt. Hope to fill the freezers for the winter.
Loved the conversation about work on the plane. I remember being a financial consultant back in the 90s, and travel day was like a day off (from the office). No cell phone, no internet, so just peace and quiet. Now you feel like you HAVE to work on the plane.
I’m interested in your ability to get photos via InkFrog. One nice thing about having everything on our hard drive with SixBit, is that when we go to crosslist manually to Poshmark (and probably Grailed when I get back from hunting), is that we already have the photos grouped by listing, so VERY easy to find and crosspost.
Funny thing happened this week. Looks like some things find their way to the Internet. Our oldest son found the episode of the game show LINGO that Veronica and I were on in 2006. Funny…you can see and hear how many times Veronica either gets the word or tells me the word. You can see why she kills me at Scrabble…
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10/29/2018 at 11:30 am #50868
Yep, can tell why she really does kill you at scrabble, but bet she can’t tell you what the total amount of points all the tiles add up to and the projected probability of which letters have the greatest chance of being used in the most variety of words. So you each have your skill sets. 🙂
So, is this how you got your first operating capital to spend on inventory? Cheez, most people save up, take out a loan, but no, you guys go and win it on a game show?
BTW.. we have never heard of or watched “Lingo”. 🙂
Thanks for the video, fun to watch. Broke up the morning.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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10/29/2018 at 11:46 am #50877
Mike: You are pretty close on strategy! She gets mad on Words with Friends because I play Game Theory (not opening her up to double and triple word tiles), so I stay competitive. Make her play small words…that is what I use a lot…small words… 🙂
Lingo was on the Game Show Network back in the day. She has always loved Chuck Woolery and loved the game, so on a whim, she signed us up for a tryout. We went in and did well, then they called us back a month later to tape. It was in LA, and her mom and sister were there, so the travel was fun.
You can see our strategy: I memorized 52 words, 2 starting with each letter of the alphabet, where I can get all 5 vowels and as many common consonants as possible in those 2 words. I set her up with the potential letters, she nails the words. All that studying and even I got a few.
Was a total blast. Found out that a LOT of the other people that were at the tryouts and the taping did multiple game shows (since they live in LA). 1 vs 100 was one that a lot had done…
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10/29/2018 at 2:16 pm #50896
You guys are posting awesome numbers week after week. How much are you spending on your helpers for this past week. Do you have a ballpark number?
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10/29/2018 at 2:48 pm #50903
Yeah, I saw where you and some others started to post your Labor numbers for the week. I like that!
So last week we paid $224 in labor. That is pretty normal when we have 2 drops (where he drops off inventory and photos and we give him the next batch). Some weeks we only do 1 drop if either he or we are out of town. We usually have a minimum of $100 for a drop, more if we get to it.
This week, he is looking for some more cash as his golf gig slows down in the winter, so he is going to help Veronica pack up more hard goods for the warehouse.
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10/29/2018 at 2:43 pm #50902
I had a T-Satt sort of day today. While packing, I first listened to Scavenger Life, then the other podcast where you and Veronica were interviewed, and finally I watched the Lingo episode!
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10/29/2018 at 2:49 pm #50904
Also, my Aunt was on a game show about 50 years ago. I don’t remember the name of it, but it was a trivia sort of show. The contestants would win prizes for answering a number of questions correctly. Here’s the weird thing, though. One contestant would be the grand prize winner, but they had to chose to keep one prize. My aunt totally toasted the rest of the contestants, but she wanted to keep all her prizes. She passed on being the grand prize winner.
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10/29/2018 at 2:56 pm #50906
Weird, but probably the best choice!
I felt like I was at another game show on Saturday. I went to a charity Poker tournament. It started at 4pm, and after 80+ people, I went out 5th at about 12:30am. We got to pick our prize in a “draft” type of mode. So the person that won got their pick, then the person that went second, etc. The prizes were so good that I had to stay (rather than just guess). Long day, but got some great Colorado Rockies Tickets and $120 at Texas Roadhouse out of it. So, my $100 landed a $500+ prize.
Funny part: I took a bad beat in the game, and all bad beats were put in a raffle for prizes. I got picked, and had three choices: Candy, tickets to a comedy club, and a portable LP player. I chose the LP player and it will shortly be listed on eBay… 🙂
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10/29/2018 at 2:51 pm #50905
Careful about overdosing on T-Satt. This could lead to symptoms of enjoying spreadsheets and saying phrases like “STR”, “ASP”, and “Move the Merch!” 🙂
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10/29/2018 at 9:50 am #50853
October 21-27, 2018
Store 1
Total Items in Store: 1,395
Items Sold: 17
Gross Sales: $369.49
Cost of Items Sold: $39.40
Highest Price Sold: $59.99 (Vintage jacket)
Average Price Sold: $21.73
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $127.06
Number of items listed this week: 18Store 2
Total Items in Store: 521
Items Sold: 4
Gross Sales: $39.98
Cost of Items Sold: $0.80
Highest Price Sold: $13.59 (vintage patch)
Average Price Sold: $9.99
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 5Amazon.ca sales: $70.38 (Approx $17.56 net profit)
Amazon.com sale: $241.00 (Approx $60.25net profit)Slow week both on the listing and sales front. Sold a fair number of items, but they were generally low priced. Got quite a few listed yesterday, and have a few more days to hit our goal of 1,950 listings before November 1st (currently short by about 20 listings).
In response to the podcast and your friend in Canada, our main account sells on ebay.com. We use a cross border shipper that takes our items across the border so that we can use USPS. The tracking and speed is much better, and in most cases postage is cheaper, even after paying the exchange and CBS to take our packages across. We pay as little as $1.00cdn ($0.80USD) to take packages 2lbs and less across.
In many cases, if someone from Canada buys from us, it’s actually cheaper for us to pay the CBS to take our packages to the US, and to pay USPS is USD than it is to use Canada Post.
Long-term, we’re planning to set up near a border and take our own packages across to USPS. I hate the thought that if our CBS went under, we’d have to completely rearrange our entire process.
We do sell small (letterpost sized) items on ebay.ca. Tracking and insurance on larger items is prohibitively expensive in many cases via Canada Post. Plus, it’s nice to have a backup account, just in case, and it seems to chug along without much work or effort, so we keep it.
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10/29/2018 at 3:45 pm #50908
Just parachuted in to say, I find it kind of amazing that we have such different approaches to CAN-US shipping. Probably just down to the kind of stuff we sell!
I basically just eat Canada Post’s high rates.
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10/30/2018 at 11:41 am #50959
I’m in Canada and can see the border from my house – the nearest USPS outlet is only a few km from my house. I only use Canada Post. Here is why:
-you get huge discounts once you have a history with Canada Post and get a business account
-the re-shipping services are only as reputable as their last shipments, and I’m not sure how they legally operate at such low rates. Not sure what happens if something goes missing or gets seized at the border, and I doubt they are doing proper customs paperwork for each item.
-if you want to legally ship your items from the U.S. yourself, you must go through commercial lanes (with the trucks) at the border, fill out paperwork for each item as the importer, and pay all the related fees. This gets VERY expensive and is very time consuming.
-you also need to have a U.S. address to legally ship in the U.S. – you can’t use a Canadian return address.I use both ebay.ca and ebay.com to sell on – you get free listings on each platform, and certain items sell better to Canadians and some sell better internationally. About 50% of my sales are in Canada, 10% international, and about 40% U.S.
At the end of the day, if postage rates are a big concern for you, you may need to re-think your model. Postage isn’t something I put a lot of thought into, as for Canadian buyers in my zone, nobody can compete with the rates and that is where the most sales for me come from.
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10/30/2018 at 2:03 pm #50965
I’ve never officially counted but I think my buyers are 50/50 US versus Canadian, with like every 20th sale international. Expedited is fine for both IMO, usually shipping costs are a small fraction of the sale so it’s easier just to keep it simple.
However, I would say it’s crazy to use Canada Post for truly international sales. I recall one item I sold to Russia, Canada Post was $400 (which the customer paid), I sent it with DYK Post via their carrier… APC I think? for like $75. Split the difference with my customer. 😉
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10/29/2018 at 10:08 am #50857
Oct 21-27
Total Items in Store: 1885
Items Sold: 24
Total Sales : $628
* below yearly average of $809
* below 2017 total week sales of $667
Highest Price: $50 (Sub-Zero Refrigerator Replacement Part Door Hinge)
Average Price: $26
Returns: 1
Cost of Goods Sold: $28
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $397
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 48This week felt really good but my total sales were just okay. I can’t complain too much, I was just a bit disappointed. I could have sworn I made at least 800 in sales. And I would have too if I hadn’t gotten a big return on a refrigerator shelf that I sold for $180. I didn’t included it in my numbers. It’s a bummer because it was my fault for putting the wrong model number in the listing. I’ll have to eat $40 in shipping. But I know it’ll sell again since these parts are being produced anymore. I already sold two other parts for $50 each, I expect to make a good bit of money from this refrigerator that didn’t work when we moved in. It only took a couple of days to disassemble it and photograph and list everything.
We went to a big auction on Thursday, but that was a huge disappointment as well. This auction house usually has really great stuff and towards the end we can buy box lots for a dollar or two. But this time there wasn’t really anything worth selling. I still ended up spending around $400, but when I got home and inventoried all my stuff, I realized that I just bought mediocre items. It dawned on me that this was the stuff that I usually throw in my yard sale pile. Things that just aren’t worth my effort to list. I think I bought someone else’s yard sale pile. Ugh. I’m not saying I won’t make a profit on it, just not as much as I normally would.
The good news though is that we got an estimate on replacing our roof, and it’s a lot less than we originally thought. So now that the mystery is gone, I feel better about eventually soon quitting my day job. I still don’t know when I’d like to do it, but I do know it just doesn’t make sense financially to continue working and losing 11 hours a day when I could be using that time to sell on eBay.
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10/29/2018 at 11:34 am #50869
Good luck when you make the leap Doubly! I’ll be pulling for you, just make sure you do it on your own terms, and know what your “low season” sales are going in. When it hits and eBay is your lifeline, you don’t want to get in a panic!
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10/30/2018 at 9:34 am #50936
Thanks, Troy. I know I keep going on and on about quitting and making a go at it with eBay. I’m just excited to see my pocket change gig grow into a full time business. I feel like I just need a few more months of data (and savings) before I feel comfortable enough to go for it.
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10/30/2018 at 11:11 am #50949
Doubly: No worries man, it is a big decision, so don’t go into it lightly! Make sure you are ready when you do.
Just don’t stay in the nest too long either. That is a hard line to walk. I was in the nest too long, but I had a great wife to help push me out!
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10/29/2018 at 1:41 pm #50890
It does definitely suck to start researching your haul and realize it wasn’t as spectacular as my thrift goggles made it seem. The beautiful thing though is that usually even our worst mistakes still result in ample profit, or at worst break even.
I try to focus on those occasions where I get something thinking it is “good” and finding out it is GREAT.
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10/30/2018 at 9:37 am #50940
Yes, Retro, you’ve got that right. I was bummed out all weekend. But thankfully the latter happens more often. There’s no feeling quite like finding a doohicky at the bottom of a box lot that pays for the whole auction.
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10/29/2018 at 10:46 am #50859
Have not listened yet, at the regular job and activity has picked up as we are now into ‘season’ down here in SW Fl, beautiful weather, and people have arrived.
10/21 – 10/27/18
eBay store totommyto
Total store items: 669
Number of items sold: 8, (2 international)
Total eBay sales (not counting s/h): $266.30
Cost of items sold: $19.50
Consignment payouts $5
Highest price sold: $120.00 – Knock off Madballs plastic toy monster bat
Average price sold: $33.0
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Sell through rate for the week: 1.2Etsy store Oldfleatoymarket
Total store items: 653
Number of items sold: 6, (1 international)
Total etsy sales ( not counting s/h): $140.00
Cost of items sold: $9
Consignment payouts: 0
Highest price sold: two items sold for $30.00 each – black cat figurine, Walco 70’s Christmas ornament kit
Average price sold: $23.33
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of items listed this week: 33
Sell through rate for the week: 1.0Below is the best sale, made my Ebay store selling week fair rather than poor! Another weird toy from the 80’s toy/novelty shop storage buyout. The buyer is from Sweden, offer received was $120 and paid he $55 to ship. This is another cheap (but cool and creepy) knock off toy, this one copying the popular 80’s Madballs toys.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by totommyto. Reason: Ooops, 0 items listed on ebay, not 20!
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10/29/2018 at 11:15 am #50862
Items in Store 1080
Items Sold 20
Total Sales $476.00
COGS $50.00
Total Profit $426.00
Average profit $21.30
Average sales price $23.80
New Listings 13I added a line to my numbers to report new listings. With the new weekly summary spreadsheet I am maintaining now, I realized I had the data to easily output my new listings as a formula. Keeping the total number of new listings in front of me will hopefully spur more listing activity.
I did finish creating listings for a rack of coats/jackets. I have photographed and listed 10 so far. I had wanted to finish the whole rack – about 35 items – this week but real life got in the way. I was pretty motivated this weekend and got a lot done though, so I’m starting this week strong.
I had to throw out 5 jackets due to moth holes in wool. Boo!!! I try to be very thorough when I shop wool, but sometimes those darn thrift goggles blind me when I find multiple Austin Reed blazers that appear to be excellent condition. I was very tempted to go ahead and list them, but decided against it. I also had two blazers that needed mending. One with a popped seam and another that had the buttons in the incorrect location from the factory. My wife mended them up in mere minutes – she is very skilled in many crafting techniques such a sewing, crocheting, etc.
Lots of small dollar item sales this week. Half of my sales were $20 or less. I know we had conversation about small dollar items last week – this is why I’m a fan.
This coming week I’m going to keep on with listing coats/jackets. I want them all done! And now that I’m reporting new listings I’ll feel obligated to try and show progress. Lol!
Have a great week everyone
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10/29/2018 at 11:35 am #50870
Retro: Completely agree on the line for new listings. This is EXACTLY why I started to include on our numbers, to drive us to keep that number up. Keeps us accountable to ourselves!
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10/29/2018 at 11:24 am #50863
I loved watching Troy and Veronica on Lingo while I am listing. Thanks for sharing.
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10/29/2018 at 11:36 am #50872
Aperture: Well, watching one half anyway… She is cute isn’t she?! 🙂
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10/29/2018 at 11:28 am #50865
I tried to quit my job a few weeks ago but owner’s lawyer begged me to stay on for 6 more months and I’m a super wuss so agreed. Anyway, had I stuck to my guns today would have been my first Monday back to full time ebaying. On one hand, glad to still have the steady paycheck; on the other hand I’m still working for the man so I’m chained to my desk and phone. Sigh… But at least now I have a full time person working under me so I’m not working 6-7 days a week. I have some “free” time again! I spent the entire weekend listing on ebay and it was great! I have so much stuff that I was saving to list for when I finally left my outside job. I sorted & began listing 1 bin full this weekend and was surprised by how many NWT clothing items I have. The stuff was put into bins so it’s not a “hoard” right?
Speaking of Hoarders, whenever I watch an episode I instinctively start cleaning my house without really realizing I’m doing it. The show makes me feel dirty.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Julie B.
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10/29/2018 at 11:39 am #50873
“Speaking of Hoarders, whenever I watch an episode I instinctively start cleaning my house without really realizing I’m doing it. The show makes me feel dirty. ”
That made my morning! 🙂
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10/29/2018 at 2:19 pm #50897
Did you get any raise or anything to stay on?
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10/30/2018 at 9:23 am #50935
No, I didn’t ask for more money because I’m already paid quite well. However, I did say that I need to be able to take leave and not be docked pay for it. This job was supposed to last only a few months and is now on month 20. In the beginning I was working 80-100 hours and then later it was 50-70 and now with an employee, it’s a reasonable 40. But over the spring I took 10 days “off”. I actually did work about 25 hours during that vacation week and my employer docked my pay saying I wasn’t eligible for leave yet. I flipped out! I never agreed to the company’s employment terms for their hourly employees because I was expecting to be there for 4 months, and I’m salaried and like I’ve said I’ve worked well beyond a normal work week. So when the lawyer asked me to stay on for 6 more months, we agreed that I can take leave when I want and will not be docked pay for it. If they try to get me to stay again after these 6 months is over, my husband and I agreed that I will give them some ridiculous number that they will need to pay for me to stay on.
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10/31/2018 at 9:49 am #51001
Ah yes, the ol’ phony salary system. We pay you for 40 hours but we expect you to be here minimum 55 hours and then we’ll give you 3 peoples jobs so you have to be here 70-80 hours. Then if you ever need to take 2 hours off to go to a doctors appointment we’ll make you use vacation time and make you feel like crap for even taking time off.
And then there was what I dealt with here at my current job for a couple years- I finish my work in 2-3 hours and twiddle my thumbs the rest of the day to punch the clock to get my 40 hours in.
WTF??
How it should work: if you pay me for 40 hours and I’m skilled/efficient enough to get my work done in 30 hours, then I can come and go as I please. OCCASIONALLY the job will require more than 40 hours. It should be give and take and balance out. The B.S. line given at my previous employer was that the yearly bonus made up for it. LOL! First off, the bonus varied from 1-2 weeks pay. Most years they would cook the books to screw us out of a bonus.
I drew a line in the sand when I switched bosses at my old employer after I worked 4th of July all weekend one year. Just flat out told him I was taking my time back the next week once things were settled down. He didn’t argue – he was new to management.
At my current employer, I set my standard from day one since I had ebay in my back pocket. I’m here for 40 hours a week. If there is something that absolutely needs to get done today or there is an emergency, I’ll be there. I will take back that time though as comp time.
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11/03/2018 at 10:17 am #51148
Retro – If you have Netflix and haven’t seen it yet, I just watched a episode 6 (I believe) of the first season of Adam Ruins Everything (docu-series). The episode is about the antiquated 40 hour work week as well as other baloney modern workers put up with in the US. The episode is an easy 21 minutes long with lots of interesting info.
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10/29/2018 at 11:35 am #50871
Total Items in Store: 364, 50 Mercari
Items Sold: 5 Ebay, 1 Mercari
Gross Sales: $123 Ebay, $10 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $8 + $11 (Shipping included) + some items ours
Cost of helpers: $120
Highest Price Sold: $65 Christmas craft kit, paid $2 thrift
Average Price Sold: $24 Ebay, $10 Mercari
Returns: 1 $10 broke in transit (supposedly); buyer sent nasty message so I refunded immediately since I was busy and it was cheap
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 6 EbaySlow week on Ebay, busy week outside Ebay. I’m working a performing arts school fundraiser. Went to the giant rummage sale at the fairgrounds before opening to buy baskets we needed for the fundraiser. It was really hard to be in there and not go back to shop but it’s time to keeping working the piles. Husband wants to get the holiday stuff into the garage. I have some consolidating to do so that will help. Don’t feel too sorry for me though because I got more baskets at the thrift store one day and picked up a Le Creuset dutch oven for $12.50 (to keep).
My goal is to test run some NIB Christmas items (Papyrus 90% off clearance that didn’t sell on Ebay last year) on Mercari this week and also list some items on Ebay. Glad you had a couple of free days in SF. Have a great week everyone!
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10/29/2018 at 11:40 am #50874
Selling in Canada. Shipping is pretty simple, really. There’s not a lot of choices – I ship anything under 30 kg=66 lbs to Canada or USA with Expedited Parcel/Expedited Parcel USA. That’s about 95% of shipments.
Yes shipping is expensive, this is part of what prompts me to go for high dollar items. Shipping a knicknack domestically is usually about CAD$14, which eats into your profits if a buyer is only willing to be $30 or $40 all in.
There are services that ship to the states by carrying stuff across the border. DYK Post and Chit Chats. I don’t use them for shipping to the states but I DO use them for international – DYK Post usually costs about 1/3 of Canada Post for international.
I just sell on ebay.ca. Don’t know why you need to do .com as well, it’s just extra hassle and you still reach US customers through .ca anyway, as long as you ship to the states.
Like I say – no big deal, BUT I wouldn’t want to try to sell cheap stuff from Canada because shipping would eat me alive.
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10/29/2018 at 11:48 am #50878
Great week for sales!
Sales: CAD$2297, 10 items, COGS: $193 –> Item profit: $1797
Expenditures: $284 –> After-tax cashflow: $1240
Listed: $2820, 8 listings
Hours: 8, $155/hr
Notable sales: sold a snowblower we got from a family friend for free, for $350. Found I like to shovel better. Lightbulbs for $210, rubber abrasives for $260, VOIP phones for $210, lots and lots of electrical receptacle covers for $566 (I had almost given up on these after a year listed with no bites – paid $50).
Scavenge of the week: paid $170 for 19 pressure switches – each should be worth about $250. -
10/29/2018 at 12:31 pm #50882
Alright, I’ll post my numbers for the week because I am falling out of the “buying” mode and into the “sell it all!” mode, so I want to see more clearly what I am actually doing:
October 21-27:
Total Items Listed: 9,900
Items sold: 47
Gross Sales: $850
Highest Price Sold: Book for $175, paid $3.
COGs: $30-35
ALSO: Sales include free shipping, so deduct roughly $125 from sales and COGS to get a more accurate reflection of actual sales (also, fees, taxes, etc,. not as pretty as of a number as it actually looks!)
Listed: 50 listings? Not as much as I wanted to do, but pretty good for not really having time to list.I got in a last-minute Christmas ephemera buy this week, which I hope to finish listing through today. Those account for most of the new listings on the Ebay store for the week. Once I am finished with that, my efforts are back to my other selling venues (Amazon, etc,.) and prep for Q1 of 2019. I got in a good collection this weekend which will be good for Q1, it just needs to get listed this week.
I still have thousands of ephemera items to sort through from purchases this month, so I’m really not going to be buying too heavily again in the near future. Gotta list it all! When I have the time to work on Ebay, I will sort/cull/list, but otherwise I have enough stock to get by on without having to about sourcing. I set it up on purpose like this, so I can focus on other things. I did not put much time at all in for Ebay this week. I’m just coasting at this point through the holidays. I’ll continue listing new items, but I’m not too worried about being stocked up for November-January on Ebay at this point. I think I already have a good number of listings up to have a strong holiday selling season without having to be constantly listing.
Sales seem promising for this week. I’ve already had 4 sales today, and it is still early.
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10/29/2018 at 1:14 pm #50888
I believe I remember you saying you also sold on amazon and that most of your listings are books, right?
Do you minds sharing info about your amazon sales too? I would expect far more sales a week on that many items.
To be honest, seeing someone with a 10k item store getting less than $1k in sales in a week gives me anxiety. $725 in sales a week does not justify the store cost of having 10k listings. Am I missing something here?
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10/29/2018 at 2:06 pm #50891
I believe I remember you saying you also sold on amazon and that most of your listings are books, right?
Do you minds sharing info about your amazon sales too? I would expect far more sales a week on that many items.
-Oh, the items I have listed on Ebay are a completely different inventory from Amazon. I don’t cross-post.
To be honest, seeing someone with a 10k item store getting less than $1k in sales in a week gives me anxiety. $725 in sales a week does not justify the store cost of having 10k listings. Am I missing something here?
-Here is how much it costs to have an Ebay store: $299.95/ mo with annual subscription
I list mainly books and ephemera on the main Ebay store. Very long-tail (or short-tail, sometimes items sell within minutes of posting). Minus COGS, shipping, fees, etc,. I have more than paid for my subscription fees AND made a profit off of 1 week of sales to have an anchor store subscription.
In terms of running a *business*, my business runs more like Popeye’s Postcards. Just a smaller amount of items. He currently has over 17,000 items listed on Ebay. My store is tiny in comparison.
On Popeye’s ebay store:
I have over 200,000 postcards on hand that I’ll be listing from.
That is pretty much where I’m at, except it’s probably more like 20,000 unlisted pieces of ephemera, books, etc, that I can sort through to list on Ebay. I probably don’t have to source again for several years, and I’ll still be maintaining $600-1k a week in sales based on what I already have. My business is not dependent on constantly running to thrift stores, rummage sales, etc,. THAT would be an anxiety producing business for me.
Different businesses for different folks.
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10/29/2018 at 2:32 pm #50900
How long does it take you to research/list each item? I’m not incredibly huge on ephemera – it seems like each piece would take a lot to research to get the right keywords. In my mind, listing 10k ephemera items is a HUGE time investment. Is there a method to it, or is it just slogging through each listing?
There used to be a person here – think his name was spinacheater or something like that – that had a large inventory of post cards. Is your process like his?
Another reason I haven’t done ephemera is that I really haven’t seen much of it available around my area. I’m probably not looking in the right place.
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10/29/2018 at 3:08 pm #50907
How long does it take you to research/list each item? I’m not incredibly huge on ephemera – it seems like each piece would take a lot to research to get the right keywords. In my mind, listing 10k ephemera items is a HUGE time investment. Is there a method to it, or is it just slogging through each listing?
-It depends. Sometimes, there are comps. Other times, you have to go on outside research. A lot of items I list will be similar, so it makes it easier to just batch process everything – photograph, research, price, list. Just like anything else, you come up with processes for it to make it easier overall.
If I list a book, I will list 10-20 other books at the same time and get through a box of them. For ephemera, I will list 20-50 at a time.
Once the item is listed, it’s just listed. I feel I can coast by now on those listings because the work is done. All I had to do was put in the work over the years. The hard part was building up processes, getting the work done, and being consistent with it. Now, I’m at the top of the paper mountain.
I enjoy listing and sorting through ephemera, so it is fun and the research is enjoyable. My eyes glaze over when I read about large clothing or shoe inventories. Enjoying what you list is key.
There used to be a person here – think his name was spinacheater or something like that – that had a large inventory of post cards. Is your process like his?
-Yeah, that’s Popeye’s Postcards.
Another reason I haven’t done ephemera is that I really haven’t seen much of it available around my area. I’m probably not looking in the right place.
-Yeah, I think you see what you want to see when sourcing. I know I skip a lot of stuff that is “good” when out in the wild, but it’s just not for me!
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10/29/2018 at 12:32 pm #50883
Total Items in Store: 694
Items Sold: 18
Gross Sales: $269.29
Cost of Items Sold: $4.78
Highest Price Sold: $39.99 (Salvatore Ferragamo knee high boots)
Average Price Sold: $14.96
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $2.44
Number of items listed this week: 47Hey everyone! Super excited to have finally taken the leap and joined the online forum. My eBay store is set up exactly as Jay and Ryanne always preach – good till canceled with everything plus the kitchen sink listed. Over time I have tried to stop posting low dollar items and refuse to post anything below $5 now. I realize this is still a really low number, but as time progresses I plan to increase this number to drive my average sold price up.
I want to brag about two scavenges I made this week. The first was from a Maxsold auction for a bunch of women’s shoes and boots. The photos were awful, but I took a chance and managed to win the lot for ~ $6.50. Turns out there were 21 pairs of shoes/boots. Out of the 21 pairs, 7 pairs are Ferragamos, 1 pair is Gucci, three pairs are Coach, and one pair are brand new Fryes in the box!!! The downside was that a lot of them were covered in mildew, and I ended up spending close to $50 on an ozone generator to help get the intense mildew smell out of them. The good news is that the ozone worked, and after cleaning all of them up most look to be in excellent condition. This was the first time I’ve ever found any of these high end brands “in the wild”. After listening to Jay and Ryanne talk about Ferragamos for so long I darn near had a stroke when I discovered I had so many!
The second scavenge came about through good will I’ve cultivated with a storage company I rent a locker from. They recently had a couple storage lockers that went up for auction that nobody bid on. The manager asked if I would help her clean out the unit. In exchange she told me I could keep anything I wanted, and emphasized that I could stop at any time. I ended up spending around seven hours there and came home with more pairs of jeans than I can count, an original oil painting, some fishing lures and a reel, a bunch of shoes, a jar of loose change totaling ~ $11.50, and a bunch of decent jackets. Paintings by the same artist are on eBay for $400 so I feel like I made out like a bandit!
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10/29/2018 at 12:33 pm #50884
J&R – surprised you didn’t mention all the vintage markers it looked like you guys sold last week. Did the buyer not pay?
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10/29/2018 at 2:23 pm #50898
The vintage markers did sell and were paid for. I guess we sell markers on a regular basis these days so not that exciting to us.
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10/29/2018 at 2:36 pm #50901
Cool! I thought it added up to several hundred dollars, was all.
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11/02/2018 at 9:02 am #51111
we posted the podcast on Oct 29th, the markers sold on Nov 1st. we’ll probably mention it this week. ; )
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10/29/2018 at 1:18 pm #50889
My Store Week Oct 14-20, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1134
Items Sold: 15
Gross Sales: $458.17
Cost of Items Sold: $57.87
Highest Price Sold: $79 (Cowboy Boots)
ASP: $30.41
STR: 5.7%
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: 63
Number of items listed this week: 13Welcome back Jay and Ryanne! This week felt very busy, but kind of like a “sweat shop” as I was basically accepting every (low ball) offer that came my way, running perma sales, and promoting all my items – anything to spur some quick sales. I realized that earlier in the game I was in such a mad rush to get a large number of items in my store that I would list just to list – simply to get volume. I’m anxious to sell off all the early crap and really focus on better quality now – even if it means lower quantity.
I had one obnoxious return – I bought a pair of expensive cole haan shoes (on ebay) two years ago – to flip and I finally sold them. One day after delivery the buyer emails me (with a picture) with a one liner: “Thanks for disclosing that the shoes are falling apart.” (I just refunded the $65, apologized, and told him to keep and go repair the shoes.) What a bummer – I have a little sinking feeling that it *could* possibly be a switch (where he already had a bum pair and bought mine in order to swap and free return) but I gave him the benefit of the doubt… who knows what really happened.. next time I will make him return but didn’t want to waste more money on return shipping. I didn’t notice any damage on these shoes when I bought them. Oh Well.. onto the next sale…
Hope everyone has a great week!
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10/29/2018 at 2:09 pm #50892
Hey Ryanne, Listening to the podcast right now – you are talking about the UPI Assistant – I use it and I love it. I used to send out invoices and personal messages – but I just set the auto UPI up for 4 days and let it do its thing. You mentioned that you don’t use it because you have to wait – but you CAN set it up to auto-kick in after only 2 days (check account settings you will see that option). I used to have 2 days but I like 4 better because occasionally a slow payer will pay on day 3. I stopped sending out invoices because I think in the end the only thing that really motivates them is the UPI strike warning from eBay and then I don’t have to worry about it. Also, the other benefit of using Auto UPI is that the buyer cannot leave feedback if the case auto-closes. (If you manually close it then I believe they can leave feedback – from what I have read online. That may be one less call you need to make to eBay…)
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10/29/2018 at 8:08 pm #50922
Week of Oct 21 – 27
* Total Items in Store: 1193 eBay, 11 Mercari
* Items Sold: 15 eBay
* Cost of Items Sold: $18.72 + $9.18 Commission
* Total Sales: $319.84 eBay + $0 Mercari
* Highest Price Sold: $63 Demetrios Strapless Ball Gown
* Average Price Sold: $21.32
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $17.25
* Number of items listed this week: 23After weeks of slow, slow sales, things perked up a bit. Hopefully it will only go up from here.
I had an exceptional sourcing week. First, I went to the Goodwill to donate a few items. I always check the donation area for boxes. They also leave out some rejects like furniture, and this time I saw two boxes of tiles. They ended up being Armstrong commercial tiles, and I should get up to $30 per box.
On Friday, I went to an auction, and I filled up my minivan for $17.25! With this auction company, they will continue to combine boxes until they get a buyer (or they run out of items from that client). Each of my 3 bids (of $5 each) was because I saw a few items that I thought might be interesting. I figured the rest was probably junk, but I was wrong (mostly)!
Most of the items will sell from $10 to $25, but there were a few items that will be higher such as two 70s era manual typewriters (one is a Smith Corona), a record player that might be from the 50s or so (don’t know yet if it works), a vintage working electrical lamp with a glass shade and chimney, and quality doll house furniture depicting a doctor’s office (although, maybe that will be in the $25 range?).
There were several incomplete sets of dishes that ended up being decent brands. I originally thought that the Laura Ashley branded dishes would be the highest priced, but a Churchill brand is higher, and a Japanese stoneware brand is the best. There are tons of other stuff, and the COGS for each item comes to about $0.25!
There was a Crosley record player that I’m keeping for myself. I haven’t had a record player for over 25 years. My kids are getting a kick out of playing my husband’s and my old records. For me, though, I will need the player to test out some records that my parents gave me to sell.
Anyway, I have one other project I want to talk about, but I’ll do it in a second post.
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10/29/2018 at 8:20 pm #50924
Since August, I’ve been setting up an online auction for a friend using the MaxSold company that I’ve mentioned before. My friend and her husband are planning on selling their house next year, so they want to downsize their stuff before they put it on the market. I typically use MaxSold for sourcing, so this is the first time on the other side.
The auction finally went live a week ago, and it will end on Friday, Nov 2. The pickup day is Sunday.
So far, over 75% of the stuff has bids and the total is over $1500. MaxSold will take a 30% commission, and then my friend and I will split the proceeds about 50%. Most of the bidding should happen in the last day or even the last 15 minutes, and I’m hoping for a $6000 total!
Anyway, if you want to check it out:
https://maxsold.maxsold.com/auction/west-windsor-new-jersey-usa-seller-managed-downsizing-online-auction-zaitz-farm-road-11373/bidgallery/
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10/30/2018 at 9:35 am #50938
My numbers for the week of 10/21/18:
Total Items in Store: 172
Items Sold: 16 + 1 Facebook Sale
Cost of Items Sold: $46 + 40
Total Sales: $501 + shipping + $1750
Highest Price Sold (eBay): $79.99 (Disney Halloween costume)
Average Price Sold: $31.31
Returns: 0I had the best sale I’ve ever had so far! A few weeks ago I wrote in about a find I scored of 5 Hamberger Display Animated Christmas Elves. I cleaned them up, photographed them, contacted a couple of collector groups directly through Facebook, and had them sold within 24 hours! Buyer is a Collector/Business owner in CA and is arranging pickup with UShip for all 5 figures. No eBay fees Yay! Before this, my biggest sale was about a year ago for a Herman Miller Shell Chair for $500. So this sale is HUGE for me.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by BethGreen.
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10/30/2018 at 10:41 am #50947
Wow. So you sold them for $1750? Thats incredible. Im not sure if I would have known they were that valuable.
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10/30/2018 at 11:14 am #50951
Yep. $40 purchase turned to $1750! Wish that would happen more often! I got them off of a local Facebook buy/sell group so I had a minute to look them up on eBay to determine value. The artist definitely has “a look” so they were easy to identify. And I was in my car picking those suckers up within 20 minutes of making the deal…I knew he was already getting offers higher than the $40 he was asking for them so I didn’t want to give any extra moments for him to be alerted to their value. I was nervous about these because they are heavy…3 feet tall each, with wood bases, but fragile faces. They would be a bear to pack and ship. Couldn’t have turned out better that the buyer wanted all 5!
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10/30/2018 at 11:23 am #50953
Nicely done BethGreen!
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10/30/2018 at 11:37 am #50957
Super job and the buyer scheduled his own delivery via U-Ship.
I had a wide format HP ink jet printer sell and it was big and heavy and the buyer used U-Ship and arranged himself. A big help to have the buyer handle the whole thing.
Good job.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
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10/30/2018 at 11:14 am #50952
Best week in a while. Loved the French cosmetic, but money is good
Week October 21-27, 2018
Total Items in Store: 433
Items Sold: 8
Total Sales: $199
Highest Price Sold: $60 Allen Edmonds Wingtips
Coolest Item: $47 1920s Art Deco French Houpette Powder Puff
Average Price Sold: $25
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $22 -
10/30/2018 at 9:22 pm #50975
What a week, I feel like a repo man! The highest amount of unpaid items and most are global Shipping.
I am wondering if global buyers are getting a weird check out process. Hoping they pay – I follow same procedure as J&R. Had to finally start an Unpaid Item Case today on one. you cannot send an invoice when they are in GSP. Posh is humming with small weekly wins.Oct 21-27
ebay store: 950, Posh 300 (cross posted, not new inventory)
Ebay: $691, Poshmark:$62 after fees – $750 sales
COGS: $101
Items sold: 19 ebay and 5 Posh = 24 total
Highest Sale: $90, appetite suppressant vitamins
Returns ebay: It comes in waves!!! 1 full return, 1 total refund in advance (noticed a flaw upon shipping), and 1 partial refund button gone. -
10/30/2018 at 9:51 pm #50978
Week October 21-27, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1538
Items Sold: 40
Cost of Items Sold: $159.65
Total Sales: $1176.47
Highest Price Sold: $93(leather biker jacket)
Average Price Sold: $29.41
Returns: 2 pending
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $231.80
Number of items listed this week: 81Haven’t posted for a few weeks and am getting caught up on the podcasts/forum after some vacation time earlier in the month. October has been a good month for me as my numbers last week show. A couple random comments: I have put my entire store on promoted listings at the lowest 1% rate. Not sure if it helps but I don’t mind paying 25 or 50 cents commission on an item vs the ridiculous rates they recommend. I believe others here have done the same thing. And a past post that I had to laugh a little was the one on shipping dinnerware sets & how anyone would be crazy to do that. I sold a complete 36 pc set of Japanese stoneware for $400 just a few days before that posting. Anyway I packed it super careful – two large boxes and over 40 lbs total – and then held my breath that it made it safely to the buyer. Unfortunately one plate did arrive broken so I had to compensate for that but overall the buyer was very happy and I would try it again, but only for a very high value sale.
I hope everyone has a good 4th qtr and enjoys their week.
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10/31/2018 at 11:04 am #51004
Regarding promoted listings, they give you some stats to show if it’s generating traffic to your site and if it’s generating sales. At a 1% fee it seems like a worthwhile experiment
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10/31/2018 at 2:10 pm #51013
Yes I sometimes check the traffic stats and sales made with promoted listings now show up on the orders page. I do track my sales and I have been doing this 1% thing all month so it will be interesting to see exactly how many Oct. sales were made with promoted listings vs not.
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10/31/2018 at 3:48 pm #51016
I haven’t added any items to promoted listings in many months now, but I did leave all of my previous promoted listings active.
At one point all of my listings (1000 approximately) were promoted. Now I maintain just under 1100 items and 603 of them are promoted. I am consistently selling 20-25 promoted listings items a month, for $40-60 in promoted fees. How many would have sold anyways…I don’t know. What I do know is that in September I sold 100 items and 20 sold through the promoted link. In October I’ve sold 90 items and 25 were promoted.
So I just changed all of my promoted listings to 1% like you have. My theory is that people are clicking on the promoted link in a typical search and would have bought it anyways if only the standard link showed in search. Yes I understand the ad can pop up on the sidebar of ebay in ads…but come one – who REALLY buys things by clicking on those! And how does that sliding scale percentage affect things? I don’t believe ebay explains this at all – someone correct me if I’m wrong.
If my theory is correct then I will likely maintain the approximately the same 20 item trend this month even with 1% because that will keep the extra length in the search list.
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10/31/2018 at 10:43 pm #51044
Retro T WV – While eBay hasn’t told exactly how things work, it’s safe to assume they are trying to make as much money as they can so they have to balance showing the most relevant promoted listings against the ones that are being promoted at the highest percentage. Someone could offer to pay 50% for as a promoted listing fee but if it’s not relevant to the buyer’s search, there’s probably no point showing it. Where 2 items appear basically identical to their algorithm they are likely to pick the one that’s going to be most profitable for eBay (final value fees + promoted listing fee).
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11/01/2018 at 12:16 pm #51070
FWIW, October was my first month of putting my entire store on 1% promoted listings, and my numbers for the month were 149 sold total – 47 thru promoted listings and my ad fees totaled $21.06. Year to year it was 21 more sales so probably the promoted listings did drive more sales but it is impossible to really know, but for $20 a month I am probably going to keep with the program – for now.
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10/31/2018 at 11:02 am #51003
I’m late to the party but here are my numbers for last week:
Total Items in Store: 2600
Items Sold: 38
Total Sales: $1510
Cost of Items Sold: $147
Average Price Sold: $39.75
Average Cost of Item: $3.87
Highest Price Item Sold: $369.95 Orbi Netgear RBK53 AC3000 Tri-band WiFi System
Number of items listed this week: 25
YTD Sales: $38756
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +20%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 330
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 177
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 69
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.46%I had a very good week. One of my best for the year so far. My biggest sale of the week was some home networking equipment mentioned above that I picked up from a yard sale on Saturday for $20, listed and sold the following day for $369. I’d love to get one of those flips every week.
Jay – I’m glad you had a chance to try the scooters while in SF. The photo you take at the end of the ride is to prove you didn’t leave it somewhere stupid like in the middle of the sidewalk like some people had done in the past. That was one of the complaints about the scooters when they first rolled them out.
Have a profitable week everyone!
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10/31/2018 at 12:05 pm #51008
Wow! $1500! That’s an amazing week.
As your inventory grows, are you running into issues with storage? I also notice your selling more hard goods in addition to the hats.
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10/31/2018 at 10:34 pm #51036
Thanks Jay!
One of the good things about selling hats is you can store a lot in a relatively small space :- about 65 – 75 in an average size tub/tote we probably have about 25 tubs of hats.
Hats are still our “bread and butter” items. Normally they account for about 60 – 70% of our sales and sales $ but this week they were 50% of the sales (18 of 38) but only 20% of the sales $ ( $300 / $1500) which was unusual.
At this time of year, I spent my Saturdays at yard sales and estate sales sourcing anything I can find. The non-hat sales generally reflect what I’m lucky enough to find on Saturdays.
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10/31/2018 at 4:43 pm #51018
Just listened to the podcast, and the “Canadian Postal Strike” was mentioned. Thought I would give an update as to what is actually going on in Canada.
Currently, Canada Post employees are on a rotating strike – they are walking out in various cities/regions for daily strikes in 1-3 cities/regions then going back to work the next day and another 1-3 cities/regions go on strike the next day, and go back to work the following day, etc.
Right now, I do not see any disruption issues in Canada – they seem to be keeping up. I am not sure how things will go (more daily or longer strikes in more cities or the whole country – this is an option the union has) – or if things will slow down more during the holiday parcel season.
The only upset people in Canada at the moment are cannabis users. They believe their shipments of weed are getting delayed on purpose since marijuana was legalized a few weeks ago and the only way to get it legally in most of Canada is through the mail from the government. The strike started the same week as it was legalized…
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11/01/2018 at 8:16 am #51055
Yep, so far things are running fine.
…Which, as a strike tactic, I don’t quite grasp the point of.
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