Scavenger Life Episode 422: Ready for a Recession at Any Time

[Ryanne]

 Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week July 28-August 3, 2019 Total Items in Store: 8482 Items Sold: 30 Gross Sales: $1,264.12 Co
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 422: Ready for a Recession at Any Time]

[Mark S]

2019-07-28 – 2019-08-03

Total Items In Store: 3142
Items Sold: 13
Cost of Items Sold: $50
Total Sales: $505.00
Highest Price Sold: $160 (Cornet)
Average Price Sold: $ 38.85
Money Spent on New Inventory: $197
Number of items listed: 31

Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales have started to slow. The week keep getting slower. I have noticed this summer that most sales take place during the week rather than on the weekend.

Challenge of the week: Still trying to get my shipping room in order.

Scavenge of the week: I picked up a 1940’s Air Force Wool Overcoat.

Mark S

[The_SEAM_Store]

Week July 28 – Aug 3, 2019

Items in store: 4204 Listings for 6169 Items
Items Sold: 73 transactions for 81 Items
Gross Sales: $3599.89
Highest Price Sold: $350 …. LVC Sheepskin Jacket
Lowest Price Sold: $9.72… 3 Pairs of Shoe Laces
Average Sale Price: $44.44
Cost of Goods Sold $272, Plus consignment.
Number of new items listed this week: 78 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $55
Repeat Customers: 15

The past couple weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster, three $1000 days followed by three $200 days. Can’t wait for fall.

Timed it…..3 minutes to change my handling time for vacation, loving that! So much better than an hour loading 20+ heavy pages of listings into bulk editor with all the weird system errors that pop up each round.

So far I’ve been able to reduce my summer lifepile from about 1200 items to about 350. It’s been a few weeks since any consignment came in so I’ve been able to blow through the pile a little quicker than anticipated. I’m sure they will all send huge boxes at the same time…it never fails. Picked up a new consignor from Australia….one of my repeat buyers. I’m not quite sure how that will play out yet. Can’t imagine he will be sending in any jumbo moving boxes.

My back pain came back after 6 weeks of no pain. Bummer. I just hope it’s not another 2 years before I can get relief this time.

[Doublythumbs]

July 28 – Aug. 3
Total Items in Store: 2406
Items Sold: 13
Total Sales : $268
* Below yearly average of $946
Highest Price: $30 (Cannondale Bicycle Bag)
Average Price: $21
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $16
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $24
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 0

I had some disappointing numbers to report this week. But it doesn’t really surprise me too much as I didn’t turn my 1-day shipping back on until Friday and hadn’t listed any new items for two weeks. Now things are stabilizing once I got back to working again.

So like I mentioned later last week, we took a trip to visit some friends in Seattle. We had a free place to stay, though it was four of us crammed in an apartment smaller than an average hotel room. But it was fine since we were out exploring most of the days. We explored some museums, ate lots of neat food, drove to Olympic National Park and did a lot of hiking, got to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and explored Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands (and had the best slice of pie ever!). We tried to keep it as frugal of a trip as possible. We chose Spirit Airlines which wasn’t as bad as I’ve heard. That alone saved us almost $600 vs. flying with SouthWest.

[Jay]

Sounds like a great Settle trip. What’s the next trip going to be 🙂

[Doublythumbs]

Our next trip will actually be at the end of this month. We planned a trip to Georgia for a week to visit another couple of friends of ours. We’ll be checking out Dragon Con while we’re down there.

[Paul]

Sounds like you were describing John, who still sells flags: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5sn-rRAxCba9WE1KjLoRAA

He is usually on Scott, the Bearded Picker’s YouTube channel: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/from-dead-broke-to-100000-in-cash-in-one-quick-and-simple-side-hustle-2019-06-11

[Jay]

That sounds like him. He talked in a way where I had no idea if he was real or crazy.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Items in Store 1180
Items Sold 12
Total Sales $277.00
COGS $30.00
Total Profit $247.00
Average profit $20.58
Average sales price $23.08
New Listings 27

Ughh…terrible week! I did get back into listing though, so that’s a positive.
The last few weeks we’ve been building a big pile of junk for our oldest kid to have a yard sale. This is stuff that I wouldn’t even consider selling on ebay – just wanted it gone.
She woke up early to set up, and ran the sale all by herself. She is a pretty good negotiator! She made herself $53 on stuff we were just going to take to the goodwill or toss in the trash anyways. It felt so good to take an overflowing truckload of stuff to donate.

Did not do much scavenging, but I did stop by one yard sale on the way to the post office Saturday and bought a Vitamix with accessories for $60. It is a hard to find color and I have it listed for $250. Once upon a time I would have kept this for myself, but my nutrininja gets the job done just fine.

[totommyto]

Good Morning all, have not listened yet and looking forward to a rare Monday off pack/ship with my garage friends J&R. When I start pouring you guys a cup of coffee each, I’ll begin to worry…

7/28– 8/03/19 (no cross listing is done between platforms)

eBay store: totommyto

Total store items: 725
Number of items sold: 8
Total eBay sales (not counting s/h): $295
Cost of items sold: $20
Highest price sold: $118 – Old beat Cantilever tool box, paid under $5.
Average price sold: $36.90
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $20
Number of new items listed this week: 9
Sell through rate for the week: 1.1
Number International sales: 0

Etsy store oldfleatoymarket

Total store items: 664
Number of items sold: 5
Total Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $120
Cost of items sold: $10
Highest price sold: $30 – Two rusty old wall hooks, paid $3
Average price sold: $24
Returns: Shower curtain rings – returned $20 + ship & let them keep, paid .50 cents, (weird hook up)
Money spent on new inventory: 15
Number of new items listed this week: 3
Sell through rate for the week: 0.75
Number International sales: 0

[ChristineK]

Last week was awful on Ebay but still decent on Poshmark. I need to do my numbers, but I transferred right around $500 on Poshmark after fees and shipping so decent for me anyways.

Recessions are when scavengers shine. We bought our house (a foreclosure) in the last recession. We literally never could have afforded this house or this neighborhood otherwise. We own it outright and we have no consumer debt. For us, recessions mean deals! We LOVE to cruise, and during the last recession there were so many cheap cruise deals. We took some 3-night Disney cruises for $1300 for a family of 4. That is like half of what we pay now. We’ll be cruising every month if the deals come back like that.

Jay, you are such a decent human for not judging. I admit that I definitely do judge the people around me who drive Teslas and Bentleys while not having a dime in savings (and tons in consumer debt). They are the ones to blame everyone else when the bottom falls out of the economy. Society ends up paying in the long run.

I grew up in northeastern MA on the NH border and went to college and grad school in Worcester. To me western MA is what Ryanne said…Northampton, Springfield, and whatever other towns are out there. Gardner, Orange, Athol are all still Central MA although they are borderline in my mind lol. The only time I ever went to Western MA was to go to Six Flags. It’s like another country for people from Eastern MA, and I’m sure vice versa.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by ChristineK.

[Jay]

I didnt mean to come across as someone who doesn’t judge. But for the podcast, we’ll get better reaction if listeners hear us judging only ourselves.

[So Cal Joe]

Yes, I couldn’t agree more on the western Massachusetts thing. I grew up in Boston and went to U-Mass Amherst for my undergrad. It was like another country altogether. Driving that 100 miles or so to get there, was a lot like driving to the moon.

When I grew up, everything we did was local. Nobody ever seemed to go anywhere and if they moved away, it seemed like you never saw them again.

Out on the west coast, it’a no big deal to drive from Los Angeles to the Bay area or Las Vegas for a weekend trip. It’s sure a different world out here.

Life is funny.

[ThriftShift]

Total Items in Store: 569
Items Sold: 14
Gross Sales: $459.30
Cost of Items Sold: $29.99
Highest Price Sold: $85 (RL vintage blazer)
Average Price Sold: $32.80
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 32

One of my consignor’s antique cameras was returned, that was $219 back to buyer. He paid for shipping though, and said it was his mistake (wrong size).

I had picked up 7 liturgical robes at a Salvation Army about 10 days ago for $19 each; I left two behind that were badly stained. So far two have sold for $85 each. One item from my consignor’s storage unit sold for $50 (a rusted out dinghy trailer).

[ChristineR]

Ahh…reno is about 90% complete. Will be happy to get back to reselling. Sold a total death pile mug this week that I had made myself list in spring. So happy to be rid of that.

I know we can’t talk politics in here, but I found it hard the last two mornings to be productive when up alone. Sometimes it’s a bit hard not to be distracted by the internet and to begin listing before work, which was my original intention today. I half-kondo’ed my closet and will start by listing some better clothing on Mercari since that goes faster.

Re the podcast, I was happy to hear about more data and changes for the better on Ebay. All in all, it seems like they have fewer glitches and are moving slowly in the right direction. I see zero incentive to opt in to managed payments. Grateful to get the 411 in here.

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Week July 28 – August 3, 2019

Total Items in Store: 1010
Items Sold: 13 (1 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $100 (25.1% of sales)
Total Sales: $398.48
Highest Price Sold: $110 (1995 Everclear – Sparkle & Fade)
Average Price Sold: $30.65
Returns: 0 (1 NPB though)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $466
Number of items listed this week: 19
Promoted listings test: 3 sales, $118 (29.6% of total sales), $3.86 fees (3.3% of sales)

Another pretty ho-hum week, so I’ve been bulking up my store over the past few weeks – Labor Day is less than 4 weeks away and just after that historically is when things start to pick up leading into holiday season.

[Old Dad]

It was interesting to hear that I could see orders that were sold using Promoted Listings, I didn’t know that. I took a look at my current list of orders awaiting payment and see that 6 of 13 were sold using PL. I have this on all my listings but since the listing now appears twice in eBay, with and without PL, only about half of the buyers are clicking the PL listing. It could be that some purchases were made with direct links from Google or other search engines, or even already watched.

When I searched those sold PL items on eBay (using brand and part number), where the listing is still up because I had more than 1 on the listing, sometimes the promoted listing was at the top of the page with my regular listing 2nd, but in 1 case the regular listing was 1st and my promoted listing was 10th and none of those above that listing were marked as Sponsored. In other cases, I see the exact same item at a higher price without PL listed above my promoted listing. That’s pretty crazy and I have to wonder if I am just feeding eBay extra fees.

All of these test searches were made with Best Match (promoted listings apparently don’t show if sorted by price).

I’m not sure yet what, if anything, this tells me about the value of using PL. For now, it’s filed in my brain under things that make me go hmmm.

[almasty]

Very timely podcast! Especially with the DOW being down over 700 points today due to the trade war with China.

All I’m doing is keeping my head down and listing, when I’m not working on my other projects. I managed to get over 140 items listed last week between Ebay & Etsy, which I’m very happy with. I had only planned on getting 50 items listed last week. I’m going to make this week the same goal of 50 listings. If I go over it, great. If I can’t make it over 50, still fine. I won’t stress about it either way.

This is definitely the time of year to get up Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas items. I am already starting to run low on stock for Christmas, and the season has barely begun. I’m getting up a lot of Halloween related material on both Ebay & Etsy, so I need to re-focus and find some more Christmas stock to get listed. That is, when I’m not just listing normal stuff. I feel like people are going to be really focused on the holidays this year more than ever due to the political/economic/normal news being so negative. Anything that is positive to look forward to will sell well.

I’ve currently got up nearly 60 items on Etsy. I would like to make it a goal to get up 80-100 items by the end of August.

[Sharyn]

Week of July 28 – Aug 3
* Total Items in Store: 1417 eBay, 3 Etsy
* Items Sold: 14
* Cost of Items Sold: $8.25 + $5 Commission
* Total Sales: $318.46
* Highest Price Sold: $60 Pig Chef Menu statue
* Average Price Sold: $22.75
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 52

I am continuing to list stuff I received for free from my parents’ friends, which is maybe 50% of what I am selling. My son is helping with photography and doing a decent job.

So far, most of it is housewares. However, I have bags and bags of clothing. I’m not crazy about going through that stuff, but it has to be done. From what I’m hearing on the forum, I’m wondering if I should be cross-listing this stuff on another site, such as Poshmark. Much of it is not vintage, so I can’t list it all on Etsy.

[WayRich14]

Total Items in Store:637
Items Sold: 8
Gross Sales: $95.97
Cost of Items Sold: $4.95
Highest Price Sold: $25.49 Pottery Barn Ceramic Pink Daisy Finials
Average Price Sold: $11.99
Returns: One (Pending) Customer has not accepted delivery yet with 4 attempts and is asking for refund on a item that they do not have in their hands. This is through Global Shipping.
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 7

Slow week, but happy with what I sold. I have been busy with finishing up projects around the house as I go back to work this Friday. I had hoped to get my store up to 700 listings before Friday, it is looking a little iffy.

You never know, maybe I can pull it off!

Thanks as always for the podcasts, you guys bring a sense of calm in the sometimes crazy eBay world.

[Winchester38]

July 28 – August 3, 2019

Store 1
Total Items in Store: 1,641
Items Sold: 18
Gross Sales: $450.14
Cost of Items Sold: $36.00
Highest Price Sold: $49.99
Average Price Sold: $25.01
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $5.00
Number of items listed this week: 45

Store 2 (CAD)
Total Items in Store: 974
Items Sold: 13
Gross Sales: $167.86
Cost of Items Sold: $10.5
Highest Price Sold: $27.99 (vintage patch)
Average Price Sold: $12.91
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $425.00
Number of items listed this week: 40

Amazon.ca sales: $418.16 (Approx $125.45 net profit)
Amazon.com sales (USD): $1,526.69 (Approx $610.68 net profit)

A little better week than last week. Started setting listing goals again, and am seeing numbers come up. Correlation/causation/destiny/ebay? Not sure, but having more listed definitely won’t hurt.

As for recession planning, it can’t be too far out on the horizon. Too many good years behind us for it to continue too much longer.

With that said, we’ve got minimal consumer debt (still have a truck payment), and a decent net worth. We’re about to buy a house (hopefully. Inspections on Thursday), which will take us an estimated three years to pay off completely. We’re putting about 65% down, which will mostly tap our liquid cash (still have retirement savings, and equity in a rental property/etc). Scary to think how much can change in three years, but knowing our bills are/will be relatively low, and if need be, we can hit the retirement savings and be completely debt free is mildly comforting.

[Kelly1mm]

Totals for the MONTH of July 2019. I am mainly a mens clothes seller, free shipping, free returns, 1% promoted listings, no best offer, good till cancelled.
Listings/items at end of month = 3999 / 4529 Total listed value $95,252 (did my periodic 5% price reduction on items older than 90 days)
Items sold = 270 up 3% YOY
$ sold = $6182 DOWN 4% YOY
ASP = $22.9 DOWN 7% YOY
Monthly sell through rate 6.8%
Expenses
Postage = $1401.67 (22.7% of gross)
Ebay fees = $810.37 (13.1% of gross) (includes Promoted listing fees of 73 sales totaling $1744.44 ($17.95-8.33 credit = $9.62) 27% of items sold/ 28.2% of $ sold) and return labels
COGS = $556.99 (9.0% of gross)
Returns = $286.06 (4.6% of gross)
PP Fees = 264.37 (4.2% of gross)
Total operating expenses = $3319.46 (53.7% of gross)
Total operating profit (my name for it – does not include expenses such as mileage, shipping supplies, depreciation, etc …) $2862.54
Notable sales:
Trumpeter Plastic Model Kit 05302 1/350 HMS Hood Battle Cruiser 1:350 Scale NIOB (buy price $35, sold for $112.49
VTG NWOT Wrangler Jeans Denim Pearl Snap Cotton USA Made Shirt 16.5 33 Large FS! (buy Price $4.24, sold for $66.15)
Nautica Clipper Golf Pants 100% Cotton Madras Plaid 38W 31L 38×31 Free Shipping!(buy price $3.29, Sold for $49.99)
Sales breakdown by price range:
$100+ 1
80-100 = 0
60-80 = 3
40-60 = 16
30-40 = 27
20-30 = 93
10-20 = 130
YTD Items Sold = 1885 (+21% YOY)
YTD Gross = $48,449 (+29% YOY)
YTD Net = $24562.72

Was on vacation for 6 days of July but it was still a crappy month!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Kelly1mm.

[simplicio]

Good week, but I can’t say anything terribly exciting happened.

Sales: CAD$1256, 8 items, COGS: $138 –> Item profit: $927
Expenditures: $511 (mainly storage rent) –> Cashflow: $554
Hours: 8, $70/hr
Listed: $220, 17 items
Notable sales: water valve $275, 3 door openers $360.

[Simon]

Here are my numbers for the week:

Total Items in Store: 3241
Items Sold: 35
Total Sales: $861
Cost of Items Sold: $98
Average Price Sold: $24.61
Average Cost of Item: $2.82
Highest Price Item Sold: $139.95 Red IBM Selectric II Typewriter
Number of items listed this week: 52
YTD Sales: $29818
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +9%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 392
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 203
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 109
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.08%

It was interesting timing that this podcast happened to come out just before the stock market took a big dive and got everyone thinking and talking about a recession. We’ve had a lot of good years (economically) since the last big downturn. Hopefully we don’t see another one of those big downturns again any time soon.

The caller to the podcast about Managed Payments confirmed my resolve (like R&J) to avoid that system until we’re forced into it. I don’t understand the connection between the type of items you sell and the payment system unless the new payment system has some kind of extra controls around currency. I also dont understand the GSP connection at all unless it requires a special interface with Pitney Bowes for some reason.

Hope everyone sells lots of trash this week!

[Jay]

I bet eBay is just spaghetti code with layers and layers of different systems not cleanly tied together.

[cbktreasures]

July 2019 Numbers
Total Net Sales – $8296.66 (ebay + other)
Highest Price Item Sold – $900.00 (4 new drinking fountains)
ebay Items Sold – 163
Average ebay Item Sold – $43.78
Money Spent on New Inventory – $1,242.46
Net Profit for Month – $2,617.82
Listed ebay Inventory (8/1/19) $66,366.25 / 2930 items
Good strong month for Summer
Several high dollar ebay sales.

[The_SEAM_Store]

Spotted a little glitch today.

We are away on a short 3 day vacation before the peak season push begins, returning tomorrow, shipping orders Thursday (8/8)
The handling time is set to 3 days across the board. I had a buyer purchase a suit yesterday (8/5), orders page instructs me to ship by 8/8 as expected.

The buyer contacted me asking if I could possibly ship today because he needs the suit this weekend. When I told him the suit couldn’t be shipped until Thursday, he asked how it could get to him by Friday if I wasn’t shipping til Thursday.

When I go to the shipping page, sure enough it’s showing that the buyer was given the date (8/9) when they checked out.

Anchor support had no idea, and at this point could really only issue me a service record number to clean up any mess that may arise due to the mixed information.

Fortunately, none of the other 42 orders seem to have been affected.

[mickdog]

July Sales report – things moving back in right direction

Total Listing In Store: 815
Items Sold: 45
Total Sales: $1456
Highest Price Sold: $150 (vintage 90s Starter LA Laker Wool Snapback Hat)
Average Sale Price: $32.36

2nd best month of the year behind January. Some cancelled sales but no returns. Listed 130 items this month which was great as I’m trying to get at least 30/week listed during the Summer. Still have a huge deathpile stack I’m slowly burning through.

The baseball hat above was a lucky find at a thrift store for $3.00. Had original tags and looked unworn. I listed it high but maybe not high enough because 10 minutes after listing I got an email with a $100 offer, which I ignored, and 20 minutes after listing, it sold for full price. Regardless, I was thrilled.

Put my store on extended handling for 6 days while out of town. Sold 12 things, and only one person asked to cancel after I sent my email letting them know I had longer shipping time. Love selling things when on vacation!

[Castle Rock Emporium]

Very small store but hadn’t sold anything in weeks and when I found time to sit down and do some listings, two things sold next day…

Just as an aside, our regular wholesale business, (Sales Representatives in the Gift field)) is awful! There might be deals to be had at New York Gift and Stationery Show next week if anyone buys new goods. Be warned though, unless you are Grandfathered in, most companies are restricting any new Amazon or Ebay sellers in an effort to control the market and MAP pricing. Our retail store accounts are closing left and right (they can’t compete with online sales) and we can’t open any new online retailers so forecast looks rough.

As a Boston Native, I consider UMass Amherst and Northampton the beginning of Western Massachusetts and true West is the Berkshires like Lenox (Boston Pops, Tanglewood), North Adams (Mass MOCA) etc.. Other mispronounced towns: Haverhill (hav-ril), Medford (Med-fud), Norfolk (nor-fork).

[Jay]

Its amazing how much is packed into that little part of the country. Western Mass is tiny!

[Steve List]

Store: steve-list
Numbers for July 2019

Total Listings: 1025
Had 34 Sales for a total of $631.20
Cost of Items Sold: $66.36
Highest Price Sold: $100 – WWII Lucky Bastard Club Certificate
Average Price Sold: $18.56 – Average Cost: $1.95
Spent on new inventory: $543.50
Number of items listed: 33
Longest Listed Item Sold: Listed June 2015 – Casio AC Adapter
International Sales: 1 NON GSP Netherlands / 1 GSP Canada

This has been one of my slowest months in the past year or so, probably due to only listing about half of what I normally list in any given month. About $300 of the new inventory was a catch of 10 binders filled with Tattoo Flash Sheets and a lot of Boy Scout Collectibles. I’ve always done great on both.

I made a $20 mistake somehow, I shipped a ball cap before I received payment. No idea how it happened. I probably should of sent the buyer an email asking for payment, but I thought that if they are honest they would send payment and if not an email wouldn’t effect them. First time in over 15 years of selling on eBay that I made that mistake.

[T-Satt]

Week of 07/28-08/03
Total Items in Store: 3,379 (Up 35% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 125
Number of Items Sold: 87 (Up 29% YOY)
(Includes 2 Etsy, 4 Poshmark, 0 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 11% (Down 2% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $2,400 (Up 9% YOY)
Sales Volume Variance to Prior Year: Up $223
Sales Price Variance to Prior Year: Down $29
Cost of Items Sold: $611
Cost of Labor: $124
Highest Item Sold: $120 – Canali Sport Coat
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Troy wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 18-14.

Clothing
# Listed: 1,960
# Sold: 54
STR: 12%
ASP: $24.90

Shoes
# Listed: 823
# Sold: 17
STR: 9%
ASP: $33.83

Hard Goods
# Listed: 596
# Sold: 16
STR: 11%
ASP: $30.00

EBay
# Listed: 3,379
# Sold: 81
STR: 10%
ASP: $26.42

Etsy
# Listed: 221
# Sold: 2
STR: 4%
ASP: $19.83

Poshmark
# Listed: 791
# Sold: 4
STR: 2%
ASP: $55.00

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by T-Satt.

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