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This is a revitisting of Episode 377. Hoping to get Troy back on the show very soon! Join the conversation in the forum>>
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 448: Revisiting Numbers with TSatt aka Troy Episode 377] -
totommyto wrote:
It was a good thing to listen through this brass tacks numbers podcast again. The idea of taking agency over your business (and your life) really is so freeing. I would like to tell a little ‘Gated Community’ tale.
Last Tuesday morning was a brisk, dry, and beautiful 60 degrees here in Naples, and at 6:00 AM I left the house to head out to my favorite flea market. I couldn’t get far since my car was towed off my driveway and sitting in a lot pending a $165 impound release fee. After parking the same way for 8 years, and ignoring some tickets about blocking a sidewalk, which I always disputed as ridiculous, my car was towed away at 2:00 AM. “Mommy!”, (I was thinking of a crazy old punk tune), “Can I go out and kill tonight!” Well, after taking the necessary actions with a much cooler head, I took the day off from my job, cleaned my garage and wisely killed the box monster. I got a much needed storage unit, improved my eBay work space, and parked the offending car in the garage (where it honestly belongs). Instead of staying angry, I took action in positive ways. It was the best $165 I have spent in a long time. Oh, and I’m really a lover, not a fighter.
I’ve been tracking my Sell Through Rates since the first airing of this podcast. It helped in my decision to get the extra storage, and will be a helpful stat in decisions and hopefully big moves coming up this year.1/26 – 02/01/20 (no cross listing is done between platforms)
eBay store: totommyto
Total store items: 826
Number of items sold: 11
Total eBay sales (not counting s/h): $334
Cost of items sold: $23
Highest price sold: $66 – Russian nesting dolls, paid $5
Average price sold: $30.40
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: $11
Number of new items listed this week: 8
Sell through rate for the week: 1.3
Number International sales: 0Etsy store oldfleatoymarket
Total store items: 629
Number of items sold: 6
Total Etsy sales (not counting s/h): $152.50
Cost of items sold: $8
Highest price sold: $42 – Vintage rusted tool tray
Average price sold: $25.40
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory: 0
Number of new items listed this week: 5
Sell through rate for the week: 1.0
Number International sales: 1 -
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1/26/20 – 2/1/20
Total Items In Store: 3324 was 3340
Items Sold: 23
Cost of Items Sold: $ 85
Total Sales: $ 884.23
Highest Price Sold: $ 80 (Skates)
Average Price Sold: $ 38.44
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 46.84
Number of items listed: 7Gut Sales Report for the week: Good sales. A little better than last week.
Challenge of the week: List more.
Scavenge of the week: Picked up a nice 12″ World Globe with a wood base. Had to pay more than usual, but it should sell well.
Mark S
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Is that globe vintage? I’ve had awesome luck in the past with vintage globes, selling for over $200 – especially pre-1950. There are always changes each year, but before/during/immediately after WWII, there was so much change in the world that each year. Collectors like having a globe from each year to track all those changes.
I personally use this guide to help date:
https://replogleglobes.com/app/uploads/2018/11/How-old-is-your-globe.pdf -
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1/26 – 2/1
Total Items in Store – 14,088
# of new listings ~291
Total # of orders – 100
Total # of items sold – 132
Gross Sales – $2,434.05
COG Sold ~$12
Inventory Bought – $0Pretty normal week, mostly paper/magazine sales. The cost of goods come from some hot wheel sales out of a huge lot I bought years ago, records, pins, and postcards. Just a bunch of small cheap stuff that adds up.
Listings were a bit low this week because I was down for 2 days with a wicked stomach bug. Interestingly, my two lowest sales days were the two days I was sick. Both days had sudden drops to under $200 and the following day shot back up past $400 when I went back to listing. Who knows.
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Jan 26 – Feb 1
Total Items in Store: 3087
Items Sold: 53
Total Sales : $1,266
* ABOVE yearly average of $882
Highest Price: $130 (Atomic Copper Tone Steel Desk Headboard Clamp Lamp)
Average Price: $24
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $65
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 74Another great week my way. I hope this trend continues! And I smashed my record of most sales in a week. It’s weird seeing my average sale price at only $24 and still surpassing $1k. But I’m happy to get rid of some of this cheaper inventory to make room for better stuff.
There’s nothing interesting happening my way. Just keeping my head down and listing like crazy. It’s funny – it doesn’t even feel like work anymore. Just something that I mindlessly do throughout the day with the cha-chings acting as my motivator.
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Kind of a slow week.
1/27 – 2/2
eBay Only
Total Items In Store: 788
Items Sold: 9
Total Gross Sales: $ 543.22
Highest Price Sold: $ 202.55 (Architecture Book)
Average Price Sold: $ 60.36
Number of items listed: 23Amazon Only
Total Items In Store: 1879
Items Sold: 59
Total Gross Sales: $ 1059.78
Highest Price Sold: $ 103.40 (Engineering Handbook)
Average Price Sold: $ 17.96
Number of items listed: 79Antique Mall Storefront Only
Total Items In Store: 582
Items Sold: 7
Total Gross Sales: $ 62.00
Highest Price Sold: $ 15 (Local History book)
Average Price Sold: $ 8.86
Number of items listed: 25Total money spent on new inventory (Across 3 platforms): $101.50
Goal for the year is to boost eBay up to 2000 books
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Week of 1/26-2/1
Total Items in Store: 3,288 (Up 55% YOY)
Number of Items Listed: 74
Number of Items Sold: 60 (Down 24% YOY)
Weekly STR: 8% (Down 6% YOY)Total Product Sales: $2,287 (Down 11% YOY)
Sales Volume Variance to Prior Year: Down $618
Sales Price Variance to Prior Year: Up $337
Cost of Items Sold: $374Sales still down YOY, the trend continues.
Was interesting to hear this again, thinking about where we are now and where we are going, how much has changed, and how much has stayed the same…
Had some nice individual sales, but the best was to a Master Lego builder. Talked to him for about 30 minutes. So amazing the small cultures that we can find in our society today…
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Items in Store 1560
Items Sold 32
Total Sales $1,242.00
COGS $123.00
Total Profit $1,119.00
Average profit $34.97
Average sales price $38.81
New Listings 27Busy weekend! I was finally able to pick up all the rolling stock carts I bought at a closing Kmart at the beginning of January. 4 of them were welded, and 5 were able to (mostly) break down. I was able to fit ALL of them in my pickup truck in one load. Yesterday my son and I put them back together and I started to put them to use. Needless to say I’m quite sore this morning. I put 4 of them in my inventory building and 5 stay in my ebay working space (garage). These carts are 2’x4′ and almost 6′ tall. They are heavy duty industrial carts – not the cheap chinese crap on amazon. Originally they were likely around $500 each.
I’m entering the “next level” with over 1500 items and these carts will allow me to reorganize and expand quickly. I expect I will cross 2000 listings very soon now that I have so much more free space.Sales wise, this was my 9th consecutive week with over $1k in sales! I did have 3 very soft days though, which makes me think the slowdown is coming. I’ll be very surprised if I cross $1k this week. I’ll do my best though!
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I had another decent week with two big sales from my radio auction purchase in September. I’m testing and listing those radios little by little.
Week of Jan 26 – Feb 1
* Total Items in Store: 1475 eBay, 34 Etsy
* Items Sold: 18 eBay
* Cost of Items Sold: $30.50 + $5.10 Commission
* Total Sales: $476.04 eBay
* Highest Price Sold: $100 for 1959 Zenith Trans-Oceanic Royal 1000 Radio; $90 for 1960s Zenith Royal 2000 Radio
* Average Price Sold: $26.45
* Returns: 0
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 7 -
Great to hear @TSatt again! Even though it’s an older show from a few years ago, it is still so relevant and really reminded me that I need to evolve some of my tracking if I want to take my store to the next level and actually make it something that could one day take the place of my day job income.
January Numbers
Total Items in Store: 1035
Items Sold: 83 (18 Facebook, 3 Discogs)
Cost of Items Sold: $1374 (29.9% of sales)
Total Sales: $4,586.90
Highest Price Sales:
$420 Pearl Jam Ten LP Sealed
$300 Nirvana Nevermind Master Recording
$285 Rolling Stones Let it Bleed LP Sealed
$250 Marilyn Monroe Nude Calendar
$195 Cartier Vermouth Dispenser
$155 1940s Dick Tracy Tin Toy
Average Price Sold: $55.26
Returns: 1 (1 NPB)Really pleased with the month, not quite as high as December (-10%), but about 30% higher than last January. 15 sales of $100 or more, making me think that my concerted effort at finding higher quality & higher priced items is trending in the right direction. However, those high dollar items come at a prices – those 15 items sold for approximately $2700 total, but COGS for them were about $1100 (the other 68 sales were for $1900 and had COGS of about $300).
This week I need to focus on closing out 2019 and getting my tax docs in a row. We’ve received my wife’s & my W-2s from our jobs, 1099 from Paypal, investment statements, etc. Our tax guy is awesome and usually can knock out submissions out in an afternoon, would love for that to be next weekend.
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Thanks for the podcast. I’m a numbers guy so I never get sick of hearing the details and the approaches that other people have towards tracking their business.
Even though I have some pretty detailed numbers, having this information hasn’t really changed the way I do business. I’m constrained by time and I already source and list as much as I can from the most profitable places I can find. I’m not interested in hiring a helper so there’s no much more I will change until I leave my full-time job later this year.
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 3523
Items Sold: 51
Total Sales: $1140.37
Cost of Items Sold: $181
Average Price Sold: $22.36
Average Cost of Item: $3.56
Highest Price Item Sold: $69.95 Konica Pearl II Film Camera
Number of items listed this week: 66 worth approx. $1303
YTD Sales: $4941
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +23%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 459
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 296
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 223
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.45%
Hats sold this week: 32 (62% of sales) worth $531.81 (46% of sales $)I had a very good week. I usually only hit 50 sales in a week a few times per year so it was great to have that happen this week. I hope this same volume of sales continues. I’m currently tracking well-ahead of my sales from last year.
I hope everyone has a good week.
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Anyone else have a busy day of sales during the Super Bowl? I’m used to it being slow, so I skipped listing yesterday other than a few small items and worked on my 2019 taxes instead. Big mistake. Got a ton of orders in during the middle of the Super Bowl. Oh well. Next year, I’ll list instead of doing tax prep. Spent all morning today packing orders and then immediately went back to working on current bookkeeping and 2019 taxes. Fun times, being a reseller!
I had my 100th Etsy sale this past week! It took over a year and a half to get there, but 100 seems so significant to me that I want to try to invest more time into listing on it if I can. Currently hovering at 150 active listings, the most I’ve ever had on the site. If I can get up to 200-250 listings, it should leave it being a little bit more “list it & forget it” type strategy store. As it is now, I have to promote it a bit in order to nudge in sales sometimes. Still, it’s fun to work on and I enjoy it. Next goal is 200 sales!
Surprisingly strong sales on both of my Ebay stores and Etsy for the last week of January/beginning of February. Feels more like normal January sales than most of January did. I’m hoping the momentum continues throughout February. Amazon is weak, but I’m also not restocking it as much as I should. It’s my own fault. I did hit up a rummage sale this past weekend (odd to find one in February) and got everything listed from it on Amazon that day, but it’s still not like spring/summer/fall sourcing. I’ll make an effort to get out there at least 1 day this week to get more items for it.
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I had 6 orders (7 items) yesterday, although only 1 order actually during the SB.
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I had 26 items sell yesterday, 10 during the super bowl. 1 person bought 8 items, another person bought 7, so it came down to 13 packages overall to be packed and shipped this morning. I was still not expecting that quantity to sell yesterday, so I wasn’t prepared for it. I thought most people would be busy partying, not sitting bored on Ebay. That’s how it has been every other year.
Of course today I’ve only had 2 sales so far, haha.
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I was out doing ebay during the superbowl.
I’ve lost all interest in football at this point in my life.-
I sold six items over the weekend, and half of them were during the Super Bowl. I also received two messages during that time.
The Super Bowl is the one sports game I watch all year. I grew up in Pittsburgh during the 70s when the Steelers won four Super Bowls in in five years. Pittsburgh is a very sports oriented city, and I’ve never grown completely out of that.
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Yikes, well, that was an unexpected pile-up! Please note that I never said I watched it – but I do google the time of the Super Bowl and can tell while I’m doing other things that sales are coming in during it. I am curious, sorry.
Let me name other shows I haven’t watched since I was a kid but take note of in case sales do or don’t come in – the Oscars, Golden Globes, VMAs, Tony Awards, basketball playoffs (is that what they do?). Also, any Holidays – I don’t participate in the majority of them, but I do know when the major ones happen so I will plan accordingly on the type of material I might list for it. Political events? General current topics in the news? It’s nice to be aware of what the majority of the world (or the US) is focusing on?
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Numbers for Jan. 2020, eBay store: steve-list
Total Listings: 1076
Items sold: 52
Gross Sales: $1159.37
Cost of Items sold: $97.56
Highest Price Sold: $50 – Mixed Lot of Router Bits
Average Price Sold: $22.29 – Average Cost: $1.88
Spent on new inventory: $31.15
Number of items listed: 49Another month of over $1000 in sales, I hope I can keep it up. I’m quite happy at this level as I do not spend that much time doing eBay work and I only have a little over 1000 items listed. My best scavenge of the month was a metal slide box with over 100 vacation slides in it for only $2.15 from a thrift store. The box sold for $20 and the slides for $24, both within two weeks of listing. I may have to check out thrift stores more often as normally I only go maybe once a month or less. Almost all of my inventory is from estate sales as I enjoy the thrill of digging and finding hidden treasures.
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Good to hear that interview again, it was a fun one.
I had a pretty good week on ebay, spent quite a bit too though so cash negative.
Sales c/w shipping: CAD$2056, 17 sales, COGS: $348, Fees: ~$276, Postage: $278 –> Gross profit: $1154
Expenditures: $3043 –> Cashflow: -$1263
Ebay sourcing continues full throttle, though it looks like I’m laid off at the end of March. Much tedious job searching in store. -
My numbers for the week of 1/26/20:
Total Items in Store: 213
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $42
Total Sales: $575 + shipping
Highest Price Sold: $152 (Kobe Shoes)
Average Price Sold: $28.75
Returns: 0I’ve been loyalty listening to the podcast but rarely reading the forums. I was surprised to hear this podcast with TSatt. Didn’t I read that he recently went back to a full time job? With plans to have his wife continue the eBay store solo. In the re-aired podcast, he spoke extensively about his forecasting for 2019 with a sunny outlook. I’m curious, Where the numbers so far off from the projected that he decided to go back to work or was that decision made for other non-monetary reasons? I have also tracked my sell through rate and am often frustrated that more work put in and more active listings have not resulted in a correspondingly higher sell through rate.
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Week of January 25 to January 31
Total Items In Store: 5454 (+78)
Items Sold: 145
Total Sales (w/o Shipping): $1650.50
Cost of Items Sold: $293.12
Total Gross Profit: $1357.38
Highest Price Sold: $50.00 (Sterling Weighted Pinocchio Pin/Brooch)
Average Price Sold: $11.38
Money Spent on New Inventory: $33.42
Number of items listed: 184I didn’t get much listed this week and my sales were down. I think there is a direct correlation between the two. I have a lot of the same type of items and I see several multi-item orders per week. Usually the buyer will purchase one or two newly listed items and then look at the older stuff too. It works well for me.
I wish I could be better with my numbers. It has always been a struggle for me and I always put it at the bottom of the priority list. It is something that I intend to do better in the future.
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That was a dense (meaning packed with thoughtful info, not dumb) show and good to hear again. Might need to listen one more time since I was working while listening and feel like I still missed some important thoughts.
An uptick in sales this week and hoping that the xmas hangover is over. Would have been even better but a $500 sale of a piece of art fell through when the buyer never paid. Crickets from the buyer until it went to an unpaid item case, then he sends a note that he is short on cash this month. Even more painful that I took a lower offer just because things have been slow. Here are my numbers for the week:
Week Ending 02/01/2020
Total Items in Store: 1148
Items Sold: 17
Gross Sales: $1,066.94
Gross wo Shipping $846.90
Cost of Items Sold: $98.96
Highest Price Sold: $199.95 (Confederate $0.25 fractional currency bill)
Average Price Sold: $49.76
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory: 12.66
Sold via promoted listings: 9
Promoted Percentage: 52.94%
Average Days Listed: 85.76
Longest Listed: 257
New items listed: 24That is the lowest average days listed number I’ve seen since I started keeping track.
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Total Items in Store: 3130
Items Sold: 24
Cost of Items Sold: $30
Total Sales: $825.54
Highest Price Sold: $100 (Vintage Carhartt coat )
Average Price Sold: $34.39
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $36
Number of items listed this week: 54Slower week. Only 24 items sold! This week better so far. I remember when I had 1500 item store a few years ago and thought I’d be rich by the time I got to 3000 items. Surely if I was making $1000 a week with 1500 items I’d be making $2000 a week with 3000 items — Not true. Actually my weekly sales are a few hundred more on average from then. But the fast growth slows down, as others said at the time. Newer stuff makes up at least 2/3 of my sales, with long tail being about 1/3. Key is to always be listing. Since it’s all about listing, and I can only list so many myself, to scale up may require a “helper”. To be continued…..
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