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Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week April 26 – May 2, 2020 Total Items in Store: 8162 Items Sold: 60 Gross Sales: $1,809.86 Co
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 461: Sourcing During The Pandemic] -
My eBay Sales (No Store) Week April 26 – May 2, 2020
Total Items For Sale (No Store): 35
Items Sold: 2
Gross Sales: $49.30
Cost of Items Sold: $0
Highest Price Sold: $30.05 (Boy’s Bed Comforter)
Average Price Sold: $24.65
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number Of Items Listed This Week: 7 -
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To comment on sourcing, I bought a non running motorcycle that came with a bunch of extra parts for $620 on Facebook marketplace. With the intentions to part out and sell on ebay, listed about 10 items already.
To give you an idea I hope to sell the engine for $450, the gas tank for $200, and there are a couple dozen parts to sell for $25-$30. A few $50-$60 parts and a few dozen $10 parts.
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I got an email today from Goodwill North Georgia and they are re-opening a select set of stores and career centers on May 6.
In addition to a limited number of stores, there will be COVID-19 measures in effect, including occupancy limits.
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Thanks for your question, Jay. I changed careers back in 2008. I have been in the hospitality industry since then. From my understanding, there is still some post production still going on with people working from home, etc. But everything is pretty much shut down.
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Hello all, long time listener and lurker but first time to post. Wife and I have recently stopped the day job (both respiratory therapist- had to leave the hospital due to extenuating circumstances related to Covid and immunocompromised family members) and are mainly existing on ebay for now. Would really like suggestions for sourcing from home.
Thanks in advance and stay safe and stay well,
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Welcome. As we discuss in this week’s podcast, sourcing will take a lot of creativity and will likely depend on your area. No easy sourcing.
Have you been selling on eBay? Or are you starting from scratch? Best place to start is just selling all the unused stuff in your own home.
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04/26/20 – 05/02/20
Total Items In Store: 3467
Items Sold: 28
Cost of Items Sold: $ 100
Total Sales: $ 1056.10
Highest Price Sold: $ 150 (CD Recorder)
Average Price Sold: $ 37.72
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 0
Number of items listed: 54Gut Sales Report for the week: Again, it felt like the busy season.
Challenge of the week: Still trying to take pictures of about 10 items everyday Mon-Sat. Also, trying to get all back logged items listed – Won’t happen unless the lock down goes till the end of the year.
Scavenge of the week: Nothing.
Trends of the week:
1. This is basically a second busy season and large items have been selling such as
roller blades and stereo equipment.2. Certain shipping supplies that I need to pack up the roller blades and stereo equipment
have been running out. So I have had to some running around to get the supplies I need.3. I am glad I have a good inventory method of keeping track of all my supplies. The larger
you grow, the more important this is. Especially if you ship larger items that require
certain supplies.4. I have been going to FedEx so much that they know me there now. I seem to go everyday and
sometimes twice a day.5. Last Wednesday I sent a package USPS 2-Day Priority to Florida. They just received it
yesterday, so about 10 days time. This seems to be a common issue with USPS lately. I think
FedEx is doing a much better job during this time for delivery time. I wonder if customers
are realizing this? Also, I had a customer select Fedex, but USPS was a lot cheaper so I
sent it USPS. Then I wondered, would they have a legitimate complaint that I switched it
even though the stated time for USPS is much better?Questions of the week:
1. In Sept. 2019, I bought 12 rolls of 2″ x 60 Yards 4 Mil Fiberglass Strapping tape for
$47.56. Now, the same supplier wants $67 something. What Happened? Does anyone know where
to get this for closer to the $47?2. The cheapest I have seen Large 250 Feet of Bubble Wrap® 24″ Wide! 1/2″ is for $51.99 on
ebay. Anyone know where to get it cheaper? I have seen people here on the blog say they
found some great deals locally, but what about online?Mark S
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We have no real need to source, as we have more than enough inventory to last us a good while….but if we needed to source, I’d definitely be watching online: ebay, etsy, Facebook, Craigslist, etc. Local Facebook groups, people are selling stuff, and some local antique malls are selling some of their stuff online for local pick up. One antique mall ( I used to have space there , years ago) opened up this past weekend, I think knowing full well the police would close them down, which is what happened. But some businesses are definitely trying to find ways to skirt the various state orders.
We went for groceries the other day and stopped for a free pile along the road….picked up a few things, but we may keep the stuff and use it. But it was the closest thing to a yard sale we’ve been to in ages….no one around, so no social distancing issues…
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Items in Store 1561
Items Sold 54
Total Sales $1,697.00
COGS $244.00
Total Profit $1,453.00
Average profit $23.82
Average sales price $31.43
New Listings 37It’s funny how quickly perception changes – this felt like a slow week! It most certainly wasn’t – I just didn’t have as many big ticket sales this week as last.
In an “only relevant to me” way, I’m glad the thrift stores have been closed. I needed the mandatory sourcing break. I’ve been working hard organizing and listing and let me tell ya, I was at max capacity on unlisted inventory. Now that I have it all organized and streamlined, I realize I need to keep on plugging on my death piles instead of shopping even when the stores do open back up. I will do garage sales as they start back most likely, as that’s where I get the unique and interesting stuff. The cool stuff rarely hits the floors of thrift stores anymore.I did do some sourcing this week though – I was at home depot and they had two HUGE items on blowout clearance – a Riding mower jack stand , and a riding mower bagger unit. Both were only $50 and new in box. I sold the bagger unit for $250+shipping within 2 days. Yeah it’s a huge box, but $200 to haul a big box home and then to shipper? I’ll take it!
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Total Items in Store: 249 Ebay, About 70 Mercari
Items Sold: 11 Ebay, 4 Mercari
Gross Sales: $312 Ebay, $110 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $101 Ebay, Mercari our stuff + $8
Highest Price Sold: $80 (new clearance pillow shams)
Average Price Sold: $29 Ebay, $28 Mercari
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: About $75 online RA for 6 items.
Number of items listed this week: 27A good week again on Ebay. I did some online clearance sourcing, including a new store brand I haven’t tried before and I will try to flip on Mercari as an experiment. I found a handful RA items sitting around unlisted and finished with that. Finished all of my daughter’s clothes she’s outgrown that are worth listing. So it’s back to the vintage piles this week. Had to take a break from sitting at the computer over the weekend so I wasn’t too productive but now I’m feeling super ready to list. It’s been seven weeks now and I finally got buggy last week. I’m so grateful I have Ebay to work on when I don’t have day job projects.
Out of curiosity I did look at estatesales.net and only one place was listed with a few items and their prices were WAY too high for resale. The paintings I would be interested in would be $7.99 at the thrift store vs. $50-100+
Have a good week scavengers.
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April 26 – May 2
Total Items in Store: 539
Items Sold: 25
Total Gross Sales includes s/h: $1,123
Highest Price: $350 (Wine Enthusiast iFAVINE iSommelier Smart Decanter)
Lowest Price: $7.99 (Sony PlayStation 2 PS2 DVD Media Remote Control SCPH-10420)
Average Price: $45
Cost of Goods Sold: $50
Returns: 1 (St. Johns Bay womens shoes – $25)
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $157
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 30April
Total Items in Store: 539
Items Sold: 77
Total Gross Sales includes s/h: $2,632
Highest Price: $145 (Vintage Drink Coca Cola Things Go Better With Coke Tin Advertising Sign 54″)
Lowest Price: $9.99 (Gates 6G-6FJX90M – G25180-0606 Hydraulic Hose Fitting)
Average Price: $34
Cost of Goods Sold: $112
Returns: 1
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $157Gut reaction to the week: Amazing. One of my best weeks. Got a nice boost from the sale of a $350 item (iFavine Smart Decanter) I got new-open-box for $20 at an auction. This past week was also my top sales week in terms of number of items sold (25). I’m surprised at the number of long-tail items that are selling. Things like pin-back buttons and military stickers. They’re low-dollar but when you’re selling a lot it does add up. Learning the low-collar stuff can be a pain to list, but they do sell and can end up netting a lot of cash. Maybe this period of gold-rush eBay sales is just a freak period. People with lots of time to kill spending a few bucks on trinkets? Who knows? Happy to ride the wave for now!
Scavenge of the week: Actually two. Made a 3-hour trip to pick up 220 TV/DVD remote controls I got for $40 through FB Marketplace. A long way to drive but it’s looking like a decent buy. There are a few gems that will sell for about $35. Many others for $10-15. Takes time to test, clean and list each, but the good news is they’re selling fast. Nice cash flow to fill in the time I can’t spend doing traditonal sourcing. My other scavenge was another FB Marketplace buy of 120 car owners’ manuals from the 1960s-70s. They cost $117, including shipping. I asked the seller (in NJ, I’m in KY) if he was willing to ship, and at first he said no. Then a day later he asks if I’m still interested, and without too much back and forth we had a deal. Haven’t a chance to look closely at them, but think it will be a good buy.
Gut reaction to the month: One of my top months in 2 1/2 years of eBay selling. The only thing that concerns me is my top-dollar items are dwindling — items I typically find at auctions or yard sales. In Kentucky retail businesses are OK to open on May 11, so we’ll see how auctions and yard sales come back.
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226 items went out last week. 52 items are going out today. 30-40 items are going out tomorrow. Our normal mail person has been on leave for the past week and all the mail has been picked up, which was my main worry, so I tried Saturday pick-up with the substitute and it worked fine. I’ll continue doing Saturday pick-ups from now on.
Sourcing online has gotten trickier over the past week – not sure if I’m competing against other resellers or collectors at this point. Still, I have the backlog and a number of items still waiting to come in the mail to list when I get back around to listing mode. Mail has been so slow to arrive in my area that it sometimes takes 2-3 weeks for an order to come in. It’s no big deal. I think I listed 50 items last week and didn’t touch the backlog because I was too busy dealing with the daily ship outs. I’d rather do one task well – getting packages out to buyers in a well-packed, quick manner – than to try to list items AND get items out to buyers with all the packages not packed well and working late to squeeze the time in to get up another 10-20 items. If I had a smaller inventory I might worry about doing both, but I figure that I can coast by for several weeks without having to get new stock listed on an inventory of 13,000+ for my main store alone.
In meh news, I have to go in for an emergency wisdom tooth (teeth maybe?) extraction tomorrow or later this week. Yay for developing a problem in the midst of this pandemic. I’m not sure if they’re going to yank out 1-2 or all 4 of them at once, but this is definitely not something I was expecting to happen now. Ugh. I was just really happy to find dentists seeing patients for emergencies at all where I am, as I heard it was impossible to find any last month. Still, the place I’m going to seems to be doing everything possible to be safe in the midst of this with stringent rules to keep out sick people, so yay for that. I’m also worried about having to take an uber during this (I was hoping to avoid taking one for the rest of the year), but I really have no option in this case. I’ve already put all my stores on vacation and will pack up whatever stragglers there are tonight to be picked up tomorrow while I’m dealing with this mess. I do still have all of the items in my Ebay stores available for sale with the normal vacation banner on top of them. Once I get to the point of not being able to actually ship them for a few days or potentially longer, I’ll contact each customer to remind them about the delay and see if they would like to cancel or not.
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I have help, but I do the bulk of the work and don’t have time to get it up to speed by tomorrow. It’s easier to just take a few days off. Ebay orders are still coming in, so at least there’s some income coming in. I wish Amazon worked the same way with vacation settings!
I spoke with the dentist this afternoon and they’re not playing around about seeing emergency patients during Covid. Temperature checks, no groups of people allowed to sit in the waiting room, no one who has had Covid allowed period, etc,. At least they’re very on top of how to deal with this. No complicated surgeries. Not allowing people to get all 4 wisdom teeth out at once – I’ll either get 1, 2 or none out depending on how complicated my situation turns out instead of all 4. If I get none out tomorrow, at least the stores can come off vacation. If I do get some out, I’ve got plenty of stuff sitting in my netflix queue to watch.
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April 26 – May 2
Total Items in Store: 3,971
Items Sold: 39
Total Sales : $962
* Below yearly average of $993
Highest Price: $70 (Wagner Wide Shot Power Paint Sprayer)
Average Price: $25
Returns: 1
Cost of Goods Sold: $98
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 66I had a fairly good week last week. Like the previous week, it’s been mostly low dollar sales… just a lot of them. No scavenging again either. We’re both lucky that we’ve got a backlog of items that’ll last us a couple months, but there will come a day when we’ll need to figure out how to source more items. Some of the local auction houses have tried the online thing. The prices were just too high for the low quality pictures and lack of descriptions that they’re offering. I’m like you – I need to dig in there and physically hold what I’m bidding on. Otherwise it’s just a crapshoot.
Regarding putting local pickup on every item, I tried that for about a month. After about the fifth buyer thinking they’re getting free shipping, I turned it off. Now what I have is a little blurb at the end of each of my listings saying “MESSAGE ME ABOUT FREE LOCAL PICKUP IF YOU’RE NEAR MY LOCATION IN HOPEDALE, OHIO.“ I’ve had one inquire about it so far, but no actual sales.
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I agree. I tried the local pickup for some furniture we were selling before we moved. I had several people who thought it meant free shipping. One of the items was a very heavy Paul Bunyan bed. I think it’s because ebay shows it as free local pickup (or at least they did the last time I tried it). People see “free” and nothing else, I guess.
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Thanks for the show this week Ryanne & Jay
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 3851
Items Sold: 80
Total Sales: $1525.72
Cost of Items Sold: $210
Average Price Sold: $19.07
Average Cost of Item: $2.63
Highest Price Item Sold: $99.95 The Interpreter’s Bible : 12 Volumes 1957
Number of items listed this week: 74 worth approx. $1408
YTD Sales: $19486
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +23%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 467
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 355
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 261
Sell-through rate (for the week): 2.08%
Hats sold this week: 63 (78% of sales) worth $1004 (65% of sales $)Another busy week for me. Once again, the sales for the week exceeded sales for any week for the whole of 2019 and it was one of the best weeks I’ve had in the last 5 years. Loads of hat sales this week and I only had a couple of sales of anything over $50. Hopefully things stay busy as parts of the country reopen and people find activities other than online shopping to do.
Jay, I’ve been listening to the show for 5 years and you’ve always said that you need $1000 in gross sales to pay the bills however your lives are much different from where they were 5 years ago with 2 (or is it 3?) AirBNBs and a retail space. It feels like that minimum number you need to pay the bills should be much different these days.
I hope everyone finds creative ways to source and sells lots of trash this week.
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Yeah, I think sellers will be disappointed when things get back to “normal”. We need to remind ourselves that these are the flush times. Enjoy it while it lasts.
You’re correct that our expenses have gone up some over the past 5 years. Maybe I should start saying we need to net $1000/week, so maybe gross $1300 assuming eBay/Paypal takes 25%? $1000 is such a nice simple number. Mortgage, electric, water, internet, food, gasoline.
Our monthly costs haven’t gone up much because we’ve expanded with cash. Some people have 401ks. We have property with (hopefully) income generating businesses. Once we stop expanding, we can save cash.
We drive the same old paid-off vehicles. Live in the same small house in a rural location. Homecook the same affordable food. Heat with free firewood. We’re simple people. No kids.
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Almasty, I had a wisdom tooth removed about 3 weeks ago when all this was just getting going. It was my bottom right one, it had been there for YEARS and never really causing much fuss but I guess it had a growth spurt and the pain was unbearable, like wake me up at 3 in the morning bad.
Here they don’t put you under for removal, it was three shots of which I only felt the first one, then put a cover over your face with only an opening over your mouth i guess so you don’t see whats happening. They had to break and extract it in 4 pieces as it was grown in at a terrible angle. The surgeon was very good, telling me what he was doing and telling me what to expect through the surgery, like “you’ll feel pressure now and hear a crack” etc, whole thing was done in 20 minutes.
Best part aside from no more pain, total cost was about $125 dollars and I went to a nice place!Will post numbers after lunch and a quick run to DHL…
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Oh god, mine is also my lower right one! The freaking gum flap is just sitting right on it so I can’t eat on that side of my mouth. The dentist told me that he’s not doing any risky procedures at all, so there’s no chance of getting all 4 out tomorrow. Just the lower one and possibly the one above it if possible. If it looks complicated, he’ll just take care of the gum and schedule an extraction once this first wave has stopped here. If it is done, novocaine only. He’s not risking anyone taking general anesthesia at this time. I don’t know how much it’s going to cost, it depends on the x-rays tomorrow, but I know it’s definitely not going to be that cheap!
So jealous of cheap medical care in Mexico. 🙁 The facilities down there probably look nicer than most places here, haha. NYC is one of the dirtiest places I’ve ever lived in or visited.
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The two auction houses that I normally go to have moved online temporarily. I’ve considered bidding, but the prices have been way too high. I’m sure that there are many more collectors bidding compared to when the auctions are in person. I just hope that the auction companies don’t think “we are making so much more online, why go back?”.
Week of April 26 – May 2
* Total Items in Store: 1395 eBay, 33 Etsy
* Items Sold: 19 eBay, 1 Etsy
* Cost of Items Sold: $19.25 + $63.80 Commission
* Total Sales: $641.40 eBay
* Highest Price Sold: eBay $124 Zenith Trans Oceanic radio, Etsy $108 for 9 Crawford’s whiskey pitchers
* Returns: 0 (but one broken item -$21)
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
* Number of items listed this week: 10I had another great week. My big Etsy sale took about 3 or so weeks of back and forth messages to get sold. The buyer’s last name is Crawford, so they are either related to the original Crawford whiskey founders, or they just collect things with their last name. She bought out the four I had listed separately on Etsy plus the ones I hadn’t listed yet and one I had on eBay. She wanted them all!
My big eBay sale was another Zenith Trans Oceanic radio. I have three more left. One doesn’t work, but the other two do and one of those is in really great shape. I’ll list that one even higher!
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Items in Store 2868
Items Sold 89
Total Sales+shipping $1898
Shipping and Fees $673
Net before COGS $1225
COGS: I dont know…too many junk auction purchases. $100-200
Average sales price $21.32 shipped
Highest sale: $138.30 2 Pabst bar mirrors
New Listings 50
Spent on new items: $495Gut: Week felt extremely slow. Tues-Thurs is pretty stagnant, but weekends were crazy. I’m running a 10% sale and sending 5% offers every couple days. Clearing out a lot of old junk inventory. Many, many items sold under $10. ASP increased by only a couple items.
Issues of the week: Accepted offer on a Victorian clock for $265 shipped. Buyer had great feeedback and asked to wait until Monday to pay, sent me reassuring messages, etc. Of course the biggest sale of the week was a non-pay and is relisted. Got a negative and neutral feedback, but eBay removed the Neg. Not worrying about the neutral.
USPS issues: slow or no tracking on 1st class items. I had 8 items at 1 point without tracking. 1 item shipped within the state took 8 days.
Sourcing: I’ve been looking more into lower profit items that are easy to source. Bought some bulk lip gloss for cheap that has almost 0 sales on eBay. I’ll be the only one selling it if it ever does start to sell. Definitely a long term high risk gamble. Auctions are still closed here and I REALLY want to be listing 200 items/week right now while sales are going so frequently.
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Another nice episode. One thing about amazon right now, and always I guess, is there are lots of sellers who do their own fulfillment even with commodity items. There’s alot more to amazon than FBA for selling.
The whole 2 day hold on banking there really stinks, i had totally forgotten about that. I guess it’s just a perk for the banks built in to the system and all banks agreed on it, they get to hold your money for 48 hours and not pay any interest. No need for that sort of thing in this day and age with everything being electronic and instantly connected and confirmed. Here if I deposit a check, even if it’s from a different bank, it is credited instantly to my acct and available, and this is MEXICO…
Scavenging is tough here right now, gov auctions are paused for not sure how long, facebook marketplace is loaded with overpriced stuff here. The few stores I buy from to flip online are mostly closed, it will be nice when all that opens up again…
Sales, just sold a stainless rotating spice rack for $35, one cycling uniform top and bottom for $40, action figure for $40, some used go cart racing tires (!) for $75, and an air rifle scope for $125.
Still listing stuff from our last auction purchase slowly. We’ve got a pile of women’s dresses that would be best for the flea market but all those are closed until who knows when so we are just boxing them up and putting them on the back shelf for now…
Happy hunting all! -
Hello again!
Another good week.
Sales c/w shipping: CAD$3427, 31 sales, COGS: $465, Fees: ~$487, Postage: $842 –> Gross profit: $1633
Expenditures: $967 –> Cashflow: $2098
Notable sales: some medical items for $650, paid $60.
Yeahhh sourcing is a problem. I am still sourcing on ebay but I can’t find the time for enough of that to really supply me much. It seems like there aren’t as many flippable deals on ebay right now… maybe people are trying to squeeze every penny out more now. Also, one of my favourite accounts to source from has shut down.We cleaned up our entire 2-car garage this weekend. It was full of junk, and we threw away mountains of stuff. I know I threw out some valuable stuff, but I did not have the time or storage room for any of it (we gave away what we could). THIS is why you will always have scavenging opportunities, because lazy people like me can’t be bothered, even though we know it’s worth more. When you’re trying to comprehensively clean out a garage filled with 5 years of detritus from 2 households, the last thing you want to do is interrupt your flow to try and list little pieces of it on ebay or locally. We pulled it all out onto the lawn, purged it, and put it back in. Now I have a workshop instead of a very dark labyrinth full of tripping hazards! It’s wonderful.
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Items in Store 14,878
# of orders – 120
Total # of items sold – 135
Gross sales – $2569.23
COGS: ~$14Steady week, other than being back in the $2500 range instead of $3kish, no complaints on our end. This past week was a big week of ending and tossing items. I took down around 100 listings and thew away about 5 times that amount of books that were taking up way too much space. Cheap books that have been sitting for years without moving. I figure I’m getting to the point with them that I’ll start losing money in listing fees. Plus I needed the room for better stuff. I ended up condensing 6 shelves full of books down to just two.
Very busy weekend, we had close to 100 items go out today. We had a item sell on Amazon for $85 that we had listed on Ebay for $55 yesterday as well, weird, but we’ll take it. One of my repeat buyers put in an order for around 22 magazines today. He’s one of my favorite repeat buyers because always pays shipping on each item, instead of requesting a combined total. I think we both have a unspoken understanding, I do give him good deals on items. His order total was $181 and he paid $273 total, it’ll cost us about 12 bucks to ship it. This will go on to next weeks sales total .
I’m off to pick up some auction items tomorrow and the day after. The one I’m going to tomorrow is kind of a bummer because I completely forgot about the auction end time, only won 3 of the dozens of lots I bid on, and is an hour away. The items I’m picking up Wednesday is one of my favorite auctions to source from. I spent a little over $300 on paper, ephemera, and some small easy to ship stuff. I was able to score some antique scrapbooks for $10 each. I will be spending the next week or so cutting the valuable stuff out of the scrapbook, or using a heat gun to loosen the adhesive and remove the scrap paper all together.
One book in particular is about half full of paper dolls/barbies. The other is full of old 1920s-50s theater and actor advertisements. All this stuff is gold to me. It gets a bit tricky to get a cost per good with this stuff, but I should be able to pull at least 50 listings from each book, so I’m thinking at the end of the day, I’m looking at maybe 20 cents or so per listed item from those lots. I would love to get my COGs down to that kind of number on everything I buy, but online auction prices have jumped up since thrift stores shut down.
Now back to listing, it never ends haha. Hope everyone has a great week 🙂
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4/25/20-5/1/20
Total Items In Store: 2065
Items Sold: 32
Gross Sales: $896
Highest Price Sold: $100 (Apple Mini Mac)
Average Price Sold: $28.02
Returns: 1 $40
Money Spent on New Inventory: $4.30
Number of items listed: 10• My sales this week dropped back down to a little less than normal after a few weeks of very high sales.
• I was also notified this week that Ebay is rolling me into managed payments by the end of July. Looks like my holdout is about to end. Great idea Jay and Ryanne to wait to enroll. I never thought about them starting me up early.
• Sourcing inventory continues to be a challenge. The online auctions in my area all ship nationally, so the prices go very high. Still finding a few RA items to list. Been keeping an eye on FB Marketplace, but I haven’t seen much in this rural area worth going after yet. I’m keeping an eye on the next state over from me for possible sales or auctions. They are in the process of partially opening a majority of their counties.
• Still working on household projects…organizing garage, basement and attic. This has led to some extra income by selling some large items on the FB Marketplace.
• I’m kinda envious of those of you with death piles to attack. I usually hit an auction and then try to list everything possible as quickly as possible before going to another auction. I might have to adjust that strategy and load up on more than I can list this summer in case we go through this again in the fall/winter.
• Oh, and I got $1000 deposited in my checking account today from the EIDL disaster grant that I applied for last month. I’m pretty shocked that I got anything. I’m setting it aside for inventory purchases once we open back up.-
I’m confused about the disaster grant. It looked like you had to apply for the small business loan thing to even get considered for a grant so I didn’t do it. Is this basically just a pool of free money and we should all try for it? I was super-confused about the criteria so I skipped it and now I’m wondering if that was a mistake.
Same here about managed payments. It looks like I’m also being forced in by July. I plan to just hold out until they force me.
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Numbers for April. 2020. eBay store: steve-list
Total Listings: 1123
Items sold: 69
Gross Sales: $1,248.55
Cost of Items sold: $140.31
Highest Price Sold: $60 – Small Leather Holster
Average Price Sold: $18.09 – Average Cost: $2.03
Spent on new inventory: $0.00
Number of items listed: 57No scavenging this month although a few of the local estate sale outfits have started doing virtual estate sales via Facetime – I have no desire to participate as I still have quite a few death piles to go through.
I haven’t been notified about managed payments yet, but I plan to hold out as long as I can until I am forced into it. When manage payments do start does that mean that buyers may no longer open a case 3 to 6 months after they have purchased something like they now can on PayPal?
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Sales are good here as well. I’m not actively sourcing at the moment but I could if I wanted to. We’ve had yard and estate sales here right along as most people here apparently think that the pandemic is fake news. I’m in FL and I’ve been getting notices that the thrift stores are open. You couldn’t pay me to go into one right now though. This past weekend here was an unmitigated disaster. It was way worse than spring break. I can’t imagine what’s headed our way now.
I guess that this pandemic is the one time I’ve ever been glad to have death piles lol.
My 11 year-old has made over $100 selling her old toys on Mercari in the past 2 days. I’m not sure how it is for other items, but it’s a hot market for toys from what I can see. So far she’s sold mostly Monster High and Every After High doll stuff but it seems like toys are in huge demand on there. She’s really into it…she’s using my account of course because she’s a kid, but she’s handling it all on her own from taking pictures and making the listings to sending offers and answering questions lol. This is homeschooling, scavenger-style!
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ChristineK, I applied for the EIDL only back in mid-April. It offers up to $10K that did not have to be paid back if you qualified. I never heard anything back and then the program ran out of money. It was funded again last week with additional money. I called the SBA last Tuesday and a rep told me my application number was still active and I would only get an e-mail if they got to my application in the order it was received before funds ran out again. He told me that if I qualified, I would get $1000 right away and then my application would be reviewed to see if I qualified for any additional funds. I got the $1K, but have not heard anything else back at this point.
My application also included lost revenue from rents, so I don’t know if that made any difference. I really did not expect to get anything, so I was pretty surprised to just have the money show up in my checking account.
WabashValley, if you still have the number that was given to you when you originally applied, you can call the SBA and they can check to see if it is still active. The number I called was 800-659-2955.
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My eBay Sales Week April 26 – May 2, 2020
Total Items For Sale: 807
Items Sold: 14
Gross Sales: $229.38 (eBay) $48 (Instagram)
Cost of Items Sold: $45
Highest Price Sold: $50 (Danbury Mint Gary Cooper )
Average Price Sold: $19.81
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $150
Number Of Items Listed This Week: 11 (+a bunch of Instagram posts)
Gut Reaction: Eh. I knew cost of goods sold would be down. I sold 4 things $10 or under. Yuck. But I am making space! I participated in a local “virtual market” on Instagram and decided to focus on a tiki theme. This motivated me to take photos of the 56 (!) Hawaiian shirts I had in my death pile. So I sold 3 of them, but the big gain is that now I can list them this week. I got to know (virtually) a lot of local makers and vendors which was really a great experience. I think I spent just as much as I made, but I am happy to support local artists, so win, win.Scavenge of the Week: I threw down on a metal chandelier that is either William Hunt Diederich’s Hounds and Hares Chandelier or a good replica. It’s quite risky as this was through Facebook Live auction so I’m not sure if it is a copy or not (probably at that price). But this artist’s work sells for $10,000+ so I think even a copy should do well. Excited to get it and see if my gamble pays off.
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Everything is still shut down here, so no thrifting. I have been flipping RA items. My partner was called back to work this week. Apparently it is an essential job, even though it is factory work. I am dubious about how essential it really is. Everyone has to have their temperature taken prior to entering the building, and wear masks. I hope this doesn’t continue into summer, because wearing a mask in 90 degree heat will not be good.
I haven’t been invited into managed payments yet and I am going to wait til the last minute until they iron out the kinks. The fact that it effects global shipping is what concerns me. It would be nice to know if they will subtract their fee before depositing in your account. I guess I am just used to the Amazon method, it makes it easier for me to see what my numbers are. I think etsy does it the same. Enjoyed the podcast as always, thanks guys.
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