Scavenger Life Episode 424: 1 Year Later, Our New Rental is Done!

[Ryanne]

 Check out our newest Airbnb rental. It’s up and ready to go! Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week August 11-17, 2019 Total Item
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 424: 1 Year Later, Our New Rental is Done!]

[BrianB]

Congrats on the latest rental.

[Mark S]

2019-08-11 – 2019-08-17

Total Items In Store: 3205
Items Sold: 16
Cost of Items Sold: $50
Total Sales: $587.90
Highest Price Sold: $125 (Bible)
Average Price Sold: $ 36.74
Money Spent on New Inventory: $54.40
Number of items listed: 9

The new rental looks pretty snazzy!

Gut Sales Report for the week: Decent Sales. Just a lot of returns.

Challenge of the week: Getting all of my supplies ordered and filled up in preparation for the busy season. Seems like the longer I am in this business, the more supplies I need. The $150 in supplies from ebay from having an anchor store is really helping. I sell a wide range of items and I need some very large boxes in non-standard sizes. I like stocking up and getting ready, it makes me feel that I can handle anything that comes my way now.

Scavenge of the week: I bought some really old golf clubs in a bag. I was going to sell them as a set, but it turns out I can make a lot more by spliting everything up and selling them separately. I paid $17 for the whole bag, and my total listing price by separating it all out is $376. Not the easiest way to do it, but definitely most profitable. Jay recommended this method to me and it is a winning approach.

Mark S

[Jay]

We’ve had good luck with golf stuff but it really does depend on the brand. Parting out lots is the way to go.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Yep, I did the same thing with some golf clubs. I had a near full set of womens irons I was going to sell as a set and I was going to be lucky to get $150. I decided to sell them separately – been selling them for $30-50 each. Already made over $200 and I have a few of them left.

[Mark S]

Retro,

It seems counter intutive at first to split the clubs up because hey, i have a nice set here. But i guess few people want to pay that much for the whole set. In my case, i thought a near antique set would be worth more as a set, but no.

Mark

[Jay]

Here’s the logic we use: there are more buyers trying to complete an existing set/collection than there are buying wanting to buy a complete existing set/collection. Our target buyer just wants to buy individual pieces.

[Mark S]

Jay,

Yes, it seems like that would be true.

Mark

[The_SEAM_Store]

Yes, and trust me….there are many many 5 irons in the water hazard, but very few golfers throw their whole set in the water.

[Mark S]

lol

[The_SEAM_Store]

Ha! I grew up on the Eastern Shore. All my family and friends still live there.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Congratulations guys. Good job! Now you want to come visit Atlanta and help me on the next two spec houses. Bet you guys are old hands at the scheduling subs and dealing with city and county officials by now.

When are we going to see Luray tourist guides having entries like “visit the Jay and Ryanne Valley”, or “visit J&R Estates while touring the Shenandoah Valley”. Hey that sounds like a RANCH.. J&R Cattle Ranch. Maybe get a local blacksmith the make you guys iron branding rods and burn your J&R logo into local wood products like rough sawn round stake platters, wooden coasters, screen print the J&R Logo on BBQ aprons. A whole line of self made products based on the J&R Branding. Soaps, mugs.. etc., etc.

Build your rentals around the “Alpine”, “Farm”, “Small Town, and “Ranch” themes and offer discount coupons to area activites that tie into those themes. Let a local farmer have some land beside the Farm House and plant a large garden and in return guests to the Farm House get to help plant, weed, pick some veggies, City folk get coupons to local events, music, visit town hall, city court, whatever and whatever. 🙂

Strike while the “iron is hot” 🙂 [sorry about that, couldn’t resist]. LOL

All kidding aside good job. Onward and upward.

Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by MDC Galleries & Fine Art.

[Jay]

Good idea. If we had $1,000,000 we could buy up half our town and make it our own 🙂

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Hey Jay.. Looking at the new rental photos, I think I got “lost”. How do you get into the place? Where is the door / entrance? Down the side stairs to the sides or back, then back up a set in inside stairs to get to the top level? Not through the main store level?

I see from the front view a set of stairs on the left and a shot up a set of stairs, guess that is one and the same.

Love the 3 horses and large “jack stone” on the top shelf over the coffee area! 🙂

mike at mdcgfa

[Jay]

That’s a good suggestion. Airbnb doesnt do a good job letting you build a “tour”. We say the apartment is on the second floor but show that you use the private stairs on the side of the building.

[totommyto]

Listening while posting, great news!

8/11– 8/17/19 (no cross listing is done between platforms)

eBay store: totommyto

Total store items: 714
Number of items sold: 9
Total eBay sales (not counting s/h): $258.45
Cost of items sold: $13
Highest price sold: $55 – GM Silverado decal set – dealer throw away, no cost!
Average price sold: $28
Returns: One – 0
Money spent on new inventory: $65
Number of new items listed this week: 7
Sell through rate for the week: 1.0
Number International sales: 2

Etsy store oldfleatoymarket

Total store items: 660
Number of items sold: 4
Total Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $79
Cost of items sold: $8
Highest price sold: $40 – 8lb rusty boat anchor, paid $5
Average price sold: $19.75
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $20
Number of new items listed this week: 7
Sell through rate for the week: 0.6
Number International sales: 0

[Doublythumbs]

Aug. 11-17
Total Items in Store: 2452
Items Sold: 21
Total Sales : $438
* Below yearly average of $938
Highest Price: $40 (Welby Kundo Anniversary Clock FOR PARTS/REPAIR)
Average Price: $21
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $44
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $48
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 33

Congratulations on completing another rental! It looks so nice! It’s been another soft week for me. But this was expected. August is historically my least profitable month. I just see it as less time having to pack and having more time to list.

Last week I tried my hand with an online auction… and I suddenly remembered why I hate online auctions. I won a few crappy lots right off the bat, but the items I really wanted went way beyond what I would ever be willing to pay. So I had to drive an hour just to go pick up junk. And it really was just junk. I’ll be lucky to even make a couple hundred bucks out of the whole thing, which isn’t bad but it was a lot of work. While I was there, I overheard a conversation between the workers and a guy who was apparently responsible for buying most of the stuff (and driving up all the prices). From the sound of it, he was in way over his head. He didn’t really even have a way to transport or store everything that he bought. It reminded me of the amateur storage auction buyers who dream of making tons of money but don’t know how much extra work goes into it once they’ve won the units.

So after putting it off for so long, I decided to set up my business policies on eBay. It wasn’t as confusing as I thought it would be once I understood what I was looking at when it pulled all of my different shipping methods. I managed to concentrate it down to about a dozen policies. The whole process took a couple of hours, but I reckon it’ll take me about 5 minutes to put my store on vacation mode with extended handling as opposed to the 30-40 minutes it usually takes.

[Jay]

Last week I tried my hand with an online auction… and I suddenly remembered why I hate online auctions. I won a few crappy lots right off the bat, but the items I really wanted went way beyond what I would ever be willing to pay. So I had to drive an hour just to go pick up junk.

Keep reminding me of this. I forget and go back to buying online….only to miss out on the good lots and drive an hour for junk.

[Old Dad]

I have several carefully filtered searches on eBay and get daily results by email. I rarely look at more than the few items featured in the email. I buy a few items that way, but only after looking at seller feedback and current selling prices. In my case, I am generally looking at lot purchases, not individual items, and I need to be able to resell for 5-10 times my cost. I sometimes set up a snip on an auction but prefer a buy-it-now, Make Offer is best.

It’s something to do while I sip my first coffee in the morning, it isn’t a major part of my product sourcing.

[Jay]

Yes, buying an eBay auction makes sense because the item gets mailed to you. Smart.

We’re talking about buying online auctions from local estate sales that may be an hour or more away.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Hey DT. May I make what I would think would be an obvious suggestion? Try just bidding on the good stuff. You may only win 1 out of 50 bids but at least the trip would be for an item that would be worth the trip. 🙂

mike at MDCGFA

[Doublythumbs]

Hey Mike. I see what you mean. That way if I don’t win anything, I don’t have to drive there in the first place. It was all a psychological trick though. For the whole week that the auction was live, and for the first couple hours of the closing of the beginning items, nothing was being bid on. It kinda made me feel like I would get the stuff I wanted at the end of the line for cheap so why not grab a few of these mystery boxes in the beginning for a few dollars? So I felt kind of foolish when the prices of the good stuff at the end suddenly shot up beyond what would be a good deal. But hey, lesson learned. No more online auctions for me.

[The_SEAM_Store]

Week August 11 – 17, 2019

Items in store: 4307 Listings for 6229 Items
Items Sold: 93 transactions for 111 Items
Gross Sales: $7170.80
Highest Price Sold: $580 …. LVC Sheepskin Jacket
Highest Single Transaction $1139.81….19 Wallets
Lowest Price Sold: $4.99….Shoelaces
Average Sale Price: $64.60
Cost of Goods Sold $576, Plus consignment @ roughly $600
Number of new items listed this week: 109 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $348
Repeat Customers: 6

The wallet sale was a big relief after 5 months with only 1 low offer on a large batch of wallets I picked up. Out of no-where some guy comes in and buys 2 of them, then about 8 hours later comes back and buys 17 more, all without even making an offer. Gotta love that. So many more to go, they should pick up for the holiday season, as they are all new in gift boxes. Glad to get a nice chunk of that investment back, after thinking they may have been a bad buy.

[Jay]

Great week for you. I wonder why someone would need 19 wallets?

[The_SEAM_Store]

I’m assuming they are gifts. He bought 4 styles in multiple. Hoping he likes them so much he comes back for the other 200+

[Retro Treasures WV]

Items in Store 1201
Items Sold 21
Total Sales $3,052.00
COGS $1,552.00
Total Profit $1,500.00
Average profit $71.43
Average sales price $145.33
New Listings 28

Summer sales goal:
$625 over my weekly goal of $875. Currently trailing my cumulative summer goal by $800.60
This big week put me in the ballpark of meeting my goal.

I sold a pinball machine this week for $2500, paid $1500. I would have liked to get a bit more for it, but the buyer is a very reputable dealer so I know it will be a smooth transaction. Their shipper will pick it up this week.

I noticed that ebay turned my clothing sales tap on this week. Hopefully that trend continues. I definitely need to get a BUNCH more clothing listed.

Nothing much to talk about scavenger wise. The yard sale season is pretty much over. This time of year the yard sales suck. That’s ok – it will be time to hunker down and attack my death mountain (it’s way past “pile” stage) this fall.

[Mark S]

Retro,

Yes, clothes started selling for me too this week. Hope the facet stays on!

Mark

[Brian Treasures from Grandmas]

Congrats on finishing another rental! Are you going to continue t renovate the other floors while you have guests? Is that going to cause noise problems?

Week August 11-17, 2019

Total Items in Store: 1034
Items Sold: 13
Cost of Items Sold: $166.99 (22.3% of sales)
Total Sales: $748.95
Highest Price Sold: $155 (1996 Soundgarden Down on the Upside)
Average Price Sold: $57.61
Returns: 0 (2 NPB though)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $138
Number of items listed this week: 39
Promoted listings test: 7 sales, $420.97 (56.2% of total sales), $19.35 fees (4.6% of sales)

Decent week, would love that volume to increase, but the high average sale price is working out. Last week I mentioned picking up a big box of smalls/bread & butter stuff that will sell for $20-$30 each – I’ve listed 30 items out of the box and so far have already sold 4 items for $90, so already turning a profit and the rest of the box is gravy.

Outside of the high dollar record I sold, this was another good sale: 300+ early world stamps, paid $10 and wanted $150-$200 but took a $100 offer after a year.

[Jay]

Down on the Upside FTW 🙂

We’re done with all the major demolition and renovation work to the building so noise will be not too bad. We’ll just have to schedule loud work downstairs when people aren’t staying. Its a good question we’ll have to figure out.

[ChristineR]

Hey Jay and Ryanne I just wanted to stop in and say great job on the new rental and exterior! I wish they were closer since they all look great. Love the pops of color and modern style. Best of luck trying to spread yourself among the various businesses you are managing. Back to spinning plates. Hope you have reliable help.

I’m still on hiatus as we are back from a great vacation – admittedly not scavenger style enough but enjoyable. We saw four colleges. Now moving packing and moving my dad this weekend from Northern California, while trying to work the day job a couple of days in between.

Looking forward to getting back to Ebay and stocking up for Fall. My store is closed and down by about half to 200+/-, and it’s tempting to do some cleaning up of listings and bite the business policies bullet. Have a great week!

[Jay]

Absolutely. Creating a flow around the businesses is key.

[ChristineR]

I know please direct me to do the maintenance! I need to hear that.

[Jay]

We found a great local guy who’s become our handyman. We pay him well for our area ($30/hr) so he’s happy to do anything and everything we need done. Finding reliable help takes time, but once you find someone good do everything you can to keep them interested.

[ChristineR]

Yes, handymen are $45 here and they often bring and sub (cheaper) help at that price, so that’s probably really good pay for your area.

[simplicio]

Congratulations on the new rental unit!

It’s been a fair to middlin’ week on ebay.

Sales: CAD$911, 9 sales, COGS: $192 –> Item profit: $565
Expenditures: $111 –> Cashflow: $647
Listed: $320, 9 items
Hours: 6
Notable sales: nothing earth shattering, my favourite sale is $120 for 4 knives from a big lot of silverware purchased 2 years ago.
I got my hands on some nice toners but again, nothing staggering.

I had $600 worth of offers on Thursday but I got greedy and stupidly countered them – crickets in return. Oh well.

[simplicio]

Had a look at the airbnb listing. My compliments, it’s beautifully done in all aspects.

[racrac7]

Have a few questions. Why do you not input commercials in your podcast and get paid for that? I wouldn’t complain too much about a few commercials weaved into these wonderful podcast! How do you ship your Capadimonte (Italian Porcelain)? I have a few listed (none sold yet). But I’m not looking forward to shipping when they sell. I appreciate you guys every week! I look forward to your podcast! I always listen to it while shipping my weekend sales on Monday morning. Also, you should design a “Sell Trash, Be free” Shirt.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by racrac7.

[Khakushia]

First comment! Just wanted to say as far as managed payments, they do send payments daily. It just takes 2-4 days to hit your account. So, if you have daily sales you get daily deposits. I had one day since switching where I didnt have a sale, so there was one day I did not receive a deposit.
As far as managed payments in general goes, DO NOT do it if you are living transaction to transaction. My second week I had to borrow from my husband’s paypal to cover shipping because it took so long to transfer from my bank into paypal. I have since switched back to pirateship for the convenience of using my bank card as you cannot ship through eBay with anything but paypal.
You also cannot use GSP with managed payments, so keep that in mind. I ship directly so it didnt affect me there.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Do they take out fees as they go, or do you still get an invoice?

[Jay]

Welcome Khakushia. I have the same question as Retro.
–Do they take our fees as they go, or do you still get a monthly invoice?

Also, why is shipping still coming out of paypal? In the future when using Managed Payments, will eBay still make you pay for shipping with PP? Because as you say, how do you pay for daily shipping if eBay profits dont go to PP?

I’m confused if eBay is continuing to integrate with Paypal or completely cutting them out.

[Khakushia]

Thanks! You will still get invoiced as usual, only real difference there is that your refunds will also be billed to your invoice rather than immediately debited like with PayPal.
eBay claims that it is part of their USPS contract for payments to go through paypal only and that there will be an end to PayPal-only shipping payments once that part of their contract is up. I do not recall when that will be, but I want to say it is before we are all forced to integrate to managed payments, perhaps the next year or so.

Also, I forgot to add in original comment that PayPal was added as a payment option a few weeks before eBay open

[Khakushia]

You still get an invoice. Also, returns are billed to your invoice instead of instantly taken back.

[T-Satt]

Kakushia: Thanks for being on the front lines on this.

Question on the daily deposits. What kind of data are you getting and in what form? Right now, I download the PayPal weekly activity into a CSV and cut and paste into an excel file. This gives me the breakouts for Sales, Shipping Revenue (what the buyer paid for shipping), Sales Tax, and Fees.

1) Is there a similar breakout for each daily deposit?
2) Is there a CSV or some other download that can be done with this? I would want to make sure I can correctly account for each penny that hits the bank account each day.

Thanks!

[Khakushia]

My pleasure!
As far as I can tell nothing really looks different as far as eBay goes. Except you have “final value fees” and “ad fees” as usual,but they added “eBay payments processing fee” on the invoice. Any data you would be interested in exporting would have to be done through your bank. Mine offers csv files so I can use that (I ship through pirateship and use the same bank account to pay that my deposits go into), but I’m sure not everyone has that option. I would definitely look into it ASAP if that is a big concern of yours. Otherwise you will have to build your own spreadsheet by hand.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Khakushia.

[T-Satt]

@Khakushia: Yeah…not good. The bank won’t know spit except that cash was deposited. All the data relating to the sale would have to come from eBay.

Take last week for example: We had 87 cash transactions into PayPal. Those have to be broken out between Sales, Shipping Revenue, Sales Tax Collected (for Colorado Sales), and take out the fee. Before I got a process to do this with Excel and CSV2QIF, it took too much time to do manually. I already have that problem with Etsy (their cash management process is REALLY bad).

Thanks for the heads up. If you don’t mind, can you see if there is anything you have on the ebay side that details the breakouts of each deposit? They have to have that to reconcile their own books too…

[Amatino]

Lovely job on the rental. It looks awesome!

And… wow! I wish we could pay a handyman $30 per hour! In Corpus Christi we get nailed a whopping $75 per hour on our rentals!

[T-Satt]

Week of 08/11-08/17
Total Items in Store: 3,387 (Up 33% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 141
Number of Items Sold: 96 (Up 45% YOY)
(Includes 0 Etsy, 10 Poshmark, 1 Bonanza, 0 TrueGether)
Weekly STR: 12% (Up 1% YOY)

Total Product Sales: $2,886 (Up 66% YOY)
Sales Volume Variance to Prior Year: Up $790
Sales Price Variance to Prior Year: Up $357
Cost of Items Sold: $528
Cost of Labor: $263
Highest Item Sold: $175 – Tecovas Boots
Competition: Highest Priced Sale: Veronica wins the week and Veronica leads for the year 19-15.

Clothing
# Listed: 1,949
# Sold: 61
STR: 13%
ASP: $28.47

Shoes
# Listed: 845
# Sold: 23
STR: 12%
ASP: $37.92

Hard Goods
# Listed: 593
# Sold: 12
STR: 9%
ASP: $23.09

EBay
# Listed: 3,387
# Sold: 86
STR: 11%
ASP: $28.38

Etsy
# Listed: 216
# Sold: 0
STR: 0%
ASP: $0

Poshmark
# Listed: 862
# Sold: 10
STR: 5%
ASP: $44.50

Congrats on the new rental. Always nice when a new little gold mine starts to produce income. One little mine at a time. We are looking to get into the game ourselves very shortly. Stay tuned…

Trying to crank away today and tomorrow. Veronica and I are leaving Wednesday for a 1 week trip to Montana to help out my mom on some projects. After that we have the Junk Jaunt at the end of September, and my hunting trip in late October (that Veronica may hang with me a few days at the beginning, which would be GREAT!), then the hard push through the holidays. Where has the year gone…???

[Jay]

Your sales are up 66% from this same week last year? If ture, do you think its just your volume are bigger now?

[T-Satt]

@Jay: Yes, Sales $ are up 66% over the same week last year. $2,866 this year vs $1,738 last year.

This is mostly volume, and some on increased pricing. If you look at the Volume Variance and Price Variance that I put out each week, you can see that.

In this week’s case:

We are up $790 on higher Volume – 96 sales this year vs 66 sales last year @ last years average selling price of $26.34 = $790

We are up $357 on higher Price – $30.06 ASP this year vs $26.34 ASP last year on 96 items sold = $357

That is precisely why I do this each week. I can see if I’m up or down, and the Volume and Price Variance tells me why.

[Paulo H Leocadio]

The good, the bad and the ugly of Poshmark selling

Friends – specially Ryanne – I was introduced by Lonnie from Garage Flips to Amber’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCExQA82vipSKRs1ayVb_eLg) called Amber Resells.

As usual I was a little skeptic but my perception changed from the get go. It is something like “everything you ever wanted to know about selling on Poshmark but was afraid to ask and did not have a clue of whom to ask”

Further, Jay (and possibly T-Satt), she supports her cases, her tips and hints with actual data. There is a video where she mentions 4 tips to avoid cases and low ratings where she starts off detailing the numbers and data she used to reach those conclusions.

I am sure many of you will love it.

PH

[almasty]

Yay on the rental! Pics look great. Wish I could go on vacation, but there’s always work to be done.

Last summer was a break from sourcing and relaxing. This summer has been crazy with work for my other business, plus working through the backlog. I haven’t seriously sourced in over a month and a half, but I have started buying stock again on Ebay and listing through huge chunks of backlog at a time to make up for it. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve even been in a thrift store since late June. Who even am I?! I almost went thrifting today, but just knocked out a bunch of backlog instead and fought the urge to thrift. I am going to make it a goal to start sourcing again out in the world in September. Sort of feeling FOMO about it at this point.

To continue with this “mentorship” discussion, if people do want to learn, a mooc in general business courses would probably do a lot of resellers some good. I’ve been taking non-business classes through edx that are just free straight up college courses, including some at the grad level! There’s no need to pay anyone to learn, especially something as easy as just listing random junk on Ebay.

[bcfol440]

Hi scavengers! Been listing like crazy this summer. Sales were strong for me May-Jun-July and August I am down 6% thus far all things same. I am so ready for fall clothing sales!

New air bnb looks amazing! You do such a great job decorating and making it look comfy. I have stayed at too many rentals where it’s very cheap/collapsible feeling.

Re: Paying for mentorship -I do think there is value in it! But there is a difference in Mentorship and Courses. And some people don’t get they are different. I would not pay for reselling courses, but I would pay for custom mentorship catered to my business / life specifically.

[Jay]

What would you say a healthy mentorship looks like for an eBay seller? How much one-on-one interaction? How much follow up over what period of time? Is it emails or phone calls or video chat?

[Winchester38]

Congrats on the new rental being up and operational!

Re: paying for courses/mentorship: No thanks. I’m terribly stubborn, and have heard way too many horror stories about bad, overpriced courses. I don’t really learn well in a conventional manner anyway. I’ve pretty much got to learn by trying, doing, failing, correcting, and improving at my own pace, on my own time. A course would likely break that cadence, and I’d end up either frustrated or feeling like I’d been “taken” They might work for others, but I won’t be a customer…

August 11-17, 2019

Store 1
Total Items in Store: 1,698
Items Sold: 19
Gross Sales: $445.43
Cost of Items Sold: $39.00
Highest Price Sold: $49.99
Average Price Sold: $23.44
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $290.38
Number of items listed this week: 40

Store 2 (CAD)
Total Items in Store: 1008
Items Sold: 16
Gross Sales: $197.84
Cost of Items Sold: $10.25
Highest Price Sold: $16.99 (vintage patch)
Average Price Sold: $12.37
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $76.00
Number of items listed this week: 25

Amazon.ca sales: $1,250.08 (Approx $375.02 net profit)
Amazon.com sales (USD): $2,236.10 (Approx $894.44 net profit)

Pretty average week in both ebay stores. Steady, but lots of low dollar sales. Doing a bit more listing, so numbers are slowly trending upwards between the listing and summer coming to an end.

Amazon was rocking last week. Canadian sales came up substantially. Largely due to some book sourcing/selling I’ve been doing. I’ve been sending used books into FBA for the last month or two, and I’m starting to see consistent sales there. Partner that with school season about to kick off, and away we go! In the USA, Amazon sales have been trending up. I’ve added another eight replenishable/refillable skus to my offerings, and have been doing a much better job of keeping everything in stock. The two combined have pushed my numbers back up.

On an amazon note that may be of interest, they’ve just rolled out a beta program where they’ll allow your items to sell, even before they hit the warehouses. The give the buyer an estimated delivery date based on the expected arrival of your units to the FC’s. I enrolled two days ago, and it’s already resulted in a sale for me. Might help to smooth out short-term inventory outages going forward.

On Friday, we went to a large annual flea market about an hour away. We were there when the gates opened at 8:00am, and finished around 6:30pm. We stopped for about an hour total for snacks, lunch, and to drop merchandise off at the truck. Got a lot of bread and butter items, with a few higher dollar items. I wore my gopro, and have about three hours of footage, I’ve just been so busy that I haven’t been able to condense it into a shorter video. Maybe this week at some point…

On a personal note, we’re in the midst of lawyers, lenders, and realtors as the paperwork gets finished for our new home. Closing date is next Friday (30th). The house itself is move-in ready fortunately. I’ve picked up some new LED light fixtures for the garage (our new work space), and have started getting quotes for someone to mud/tape/sand the drywall in there. Have to order the paint/urethane that’s going to go onto the floor this week. Fortunately, we have a month between possession and having to be out of the home we’re currently renting, so we can take our time moving and getting the work space ready.

[Jay]

With Amazon doing so well for you, do you think you may back off eBay and put your effort into Amazon?

[Winchester38]

I can’t really ignore amazon, but eBay has my heart.

I enjoy eBay a lot more in almost all respects. I think amazon will continue to feel more like a “job” to me than eBay does.

I don’t have any intention of purposely focusing more on amazon long-term, but am still not quite to where I want to be numbers-wise there. When I get there, I’ll ease up on new products and just refill existing skus as needed. I’m close, but haven’t hit my target numbers yet.

[So Cal Joe]

Hi Winchester,

Once you’re done with the interior walls of the Ebay/storage building, will you be bringing in existing shelving and fixtures, or building new ones?

My new place has a large garage. I made many trips to my local Home Depot and bought lots of wood to build my shelves and shipping station. It was nice to be able to custom build it for the maximum use of my available space. The downside is that it was a lot of work and took longer than I anticipated. I doubt I saved much money doing it this way.

In the end “Done is done” and I’m very pleased with the results. Of course, you can never have too much storage and i’m already thinking about adding more.

Congratulations on the new place and the big move.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by So Cal Joe.

[Winchester38]

Thanks SCJ.

From the get go, we’ll continue using the existing shelving, clothing racks, packing/prepping tables, etc that we’ve got. Partly to keep costs down, but mostly because it’s all easily movable from one spot to another.

I want to set the space up to work as efficiently as possible, and that may mean setting it up, only to move and rejig things a bit over time. Once we’re content that everything is in the right spots, we may start building more permanent fixtures.

[So Cal Joe]

That makes sense, especially if you’ve already got the tables etc.

I’m already seeing things, I wish I’d done differently, but again “Done is done” and it will take a lot to convince me to take any of the shelving down and redo it.

You are right about one thing, The space is always evolving. I use screws, when I’m building wooden shelves, because they can be taken apart and moved or rearranged later.

[Winchester38]

Yeah, I’ve already drafted a scale version of the space on paper, along with everything that will go in it. Tables, shelves, chairs, photo umbrellas, clothing racks, listing space, packing area, etc.

I keep moving things around and revisiting it. I’ll likely set it up in a logical progression working around the space. Receiving, unlisted inventory, photography/listing area, listed storage (shelves/racks), packing/shipping. Combined with the packing/shipping will be a few tables to unload, prep, and pack amazon inventory. Packing/shipping will be near one of the roll up doors so that when the weather is foul, I can pull my truck into the space to load/unload if needed.

The whole thing may change again before we move into the space, and it will likely change a few times after we’re in, but eventually, we’ll have it set up as efficiently as possible.

[Sharyn]

All of your AirBnBs look great! I’ve been listening to the Shampoo & Booze podcasts even though I don’t have one. Maybe some day, after we get out of our current house.

I agree with your assessment that sales are strangely consistent. My sales every week in August is about the same amount. Just the number of sales and the average sale price changes.

Week of Aug 11 – 17
* Total Items in Store: 1438 eBay, 3 Etsy
* Items Sold: 13
* Cost of Items Sold: $43.40 + $0 Commission
* Total Sales: $313.05
* Highest Price Sold: $74.65 Duck wildlife painting
* Average Price Sold: $24.08
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $10
* Number of items listed this week: 9

This past weekend, I visited a family friend to pick up items he wants to sell. His wife passed away early January. I was already doing commissions for her, so this is just an extension of that. It’s a lot of glass and china, some fabric and jewelry, and two coats. Not terribly exciting.

This summer, I’ve been getting mostly free items and this commission stuff, but I still want to source. That’s the best part of eBay selling, isn’t it? I have a neighbor running a MaxSold auction, and I might bid on some of her items (it won’t be the hour drive to pickup my stuff!). My next auction isn’t until the middle of next month.

[So Cal Joe]

Hi Jay and Ryanne,

Regarding the auction you guys went to that you ran out of room in the truck:

U-Haul rents trailers for $15 to $30 a day. There are a bunch of different size open and enclosed trailers to choose from.

There is no mileage charge, as long as you return it to the same place you rented it. They’ll also do one way, but will charge you for the drop off fee.

Putting a hitch and the wiring on your pickup shouldn’t be more than a couple of hundred dollars. Once it’s on there, you’ll be set. No need to buy a big box truck yet.

Congrats on the new rental…

[Jay]

Ha. We talked about renting a uhaul in the energy high of a good auction. I have a hitch and wiring for the lights.

Issue is that its always difficult to know when an auction will be good. 95% of the auction we go to are poor, mediocre, or good enough to fill our truck. Its rare to be able to buy so much I need to stop buying.

[Megahaus]

I’m having withdrawals for episode 425. I’m guessing J&R are doing their “career jobs” and haven’t uploaded it yet. Just missing hearing you guys on my Monday which is now Tuesday. Stay safe! Sell trash and be free!!!

[Jay]

We’re just about to record and upload this evening. Yes, still trying to find work balance taking on some new work.

[Megahaus]

Thanks Jay!!

[Author]

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