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Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week July 12-18, 2020 Total Items in Store: 7871 Items Sold: 51 Gross Sales: $1,948.41 Cost of
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 472: Biggest Sale, Biggest Scavenge] -
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We have sold 3 pieces by Jan Barboglio within the last year give or take. A rectangle serving tray for $325 , a round serving tray for $297, and a mosaic wall sconce candle holder for $251. All 3 for $873. Our cost for all 3 was $120. Each piece had the metal medallion signature welded on. We found them over a 6 month period and all sold within a few months of us listing them. They are all metal and fairly heavy.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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By the way.. A search on Worthpoint brings up over 4,000 items. The angels go for $1,500. 1,100 of the items listed go for over $150 to $175 all mostly home decor made out of various hammered metal techniques. Certainly a BOLO item. Look for the small button medallion welded on each item.
mike – MDCGFA
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Mike – this is off topic but I’ve been meaning to ask the next time I saw you comment: As a GA seller do we have to remit sales tax from Ebay to GA anymore or is Ebay doing that for us now? I know they were taking care of other states but for a while we still had to remit to GA ourselves. But now that it’s been awhile I wonder if it’s changed. I figure if anyone would know, you would. Thank you!
Julie
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Hey Julie: How’s thing up in your neck of the woods. Since sue’s cancer diagnosis last year and now the Covid issue we haven’t been over your way in about a year and half. Don’t even know if some old haunting grounds are even still in business. We stay over here mostly around the western part of Gwinnett County.
As for the local state tax, I still do but not sure if required or if Ebay is doing it. If so and it is doubling up, no big deal. It is such a small amount for us. We do not do that many Sales in GA. maybe a dozen last year. Our biggest stateas Are Cal., Florida, Texas and New York-New Jersey.
For several years the Ga. dept of Tax revenue had me filing the form monthly but most months it was zero or a few dollars. After 3 years I was able to petition them and request to be changed to a yearly filer. So now all i do is take my whole gross Sales Number, then exempt all of the Sales I made in the other 49 states and subtract that number and the final result is the total amount of Sales I made in Ga. Then multiply that by the GA. Sales tax percentage and file and pay that amount online the first week in Jan. I think I paid less than $50 dollars for all Sales made in GA. for 2019.
So if Ebay had already paid that then it is small pocket change for me to just be safe rather than sorry. But oofically I don’t know what Ebay is actually doing for busineeses in their home state. And also there is a list i saw a year or so ago, where some states don’t require it or paticipate in the program and I think i remember GA being on the list with about a dozen or so other states. I do remember the reading was somewhat confusing.
My CPA says he is OK with it and was glad I got them to put me on an annual status.
mike – MDCGFA
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Thanks for your response, Mike. It is a bit Covid-y up here so we’re staying home except for trips to the grocery store. I’ve been tempted to go out and shop because I’ve heard retail arbitrage has been great but it’s just not worth the risk. A few estate sale companies have started hosting sales but so far I’ve passed those up.
GA sent me a notice around Nov or Dec 2019 letting me know that they were switching me from monthly payments to annual so that was great news. I was only remitting like 80 cents to maybe $3 a month.
Stay safe and healthy, Mike!
Julie
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In regards to big sales, my highest was a ship’s helm off of one of L Ron Hubbard’s Sea Org ships, sold for $5000. Some of my other large sales were a robotic prosthetic leg, a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair with ottoman and a 56 gram 24K gold nugget that I found in a desk drawer.
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My Sales Week Ending 7/18/20
Notes: Still frustrated w/ work I’ve put in. Increased California Covid restrictions. Distance learning returns in August for my kids but my job is not showing any signs of furloughing me. Not sure how that will work.
Total Items For Sale: 68
Profit: $24.25
Items Sold: 2
Items Listed: 2
Average Profit: $12.18
Highest Profit: $19.99 Men’s Athletic Shoes
Cost of Items Sold: $0
Returns: 0
$ Spent Sourcing: $0
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It can be frustrating if you’re list and not selling. Without seeing your store, double check to make sure your photos and descriptions are good. Check to make sure your prices are competitive.
And lastly, make sure you’re selling items people want. We can afford to sell items that will sit for a while, waiting for the right buyer, because we have 8000 items listed. With only 68 items listed, you either need to list hundreds more items or only sell items that will sell quickly.
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Yes as Jay says. Have to list more. Way back, the number to start getting fairly consistent weekly Sales was 250+. But as things changed through the years that number, according to some of my spread sheets, showed more like 500 items in the $110-$15 to $25=$30 dollar range was needed.
But now that sales are on the upswing again that may be lower now. So still maybe 250 to 500 items needed for a good steady stream of sales. And your store may benefit from some juice such as Promoted listings, actively sending offers out, running Flash sales, and as jay states, good listings, photos, SEO your titles, descriptions, use all Item Specifics and good, bright, clear photos.
Good luck it takes a lot of hard work and consistent work. I have gotten about 45 drafts created today, but i have been sitting here since 6:00 AM with only 3 or 4 short breaks.
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old_man_marty wrote:
Jay and MDC, thanks for your feedback. I’m frustrated with my level of listings – not the level of sales. I’m completely in agreement with the 250-500 inventory concept. I just need to kick myself in the butt more. I am confident in my photos, titles, and basic SEO as well as the basic quality of what I sell. I feel the percentage of sales is correct based on the quantity of my listings. But more work is needed and I have higher expectations of myself. Between family and work and Covid, it all just takes a toll. And this week, due to Covid-related challenges, I’m being asked to work even more overtime. It is what it is, as they say. I’ve just got to keep going.
I tend to start common items like clothing a little higher than I think they will sell for and then I slowly bring them down over several months if they don’t sell. And, as far as unique items, I list them two or three times more than I think they will sell for and bring them down slowly as well. And I look at impressions and click through rates to gauge if maybe something is wrong with the listings but I will only let myself optimize my listings like this once a month. And I do offers to watchers.
I’m glad to give my eBay username but don’t want anyone to feel obligated and I am not sure it is allowed here. Anyway, I feel as though I have all the basic tools and just need to put in the work and find ways to increase my productivity. -
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Don’t worry, not all of us on the forum do the amazing numbers of the folks who post their numbers each week (or most weeks). I work full time and I only do my numbers when I get my invoice each month, so you are already ahead of me being able to do weekly numbers. 🙂
I have just shy of 1000 items listed. I average $100 a week in sales. Not great, but that number is steady now and I’m proud of that.
I started about a year ago now. I had a free account. Bumped up to a 250 item store. Posted like crazy to hit that 250 number. Saved up about 100 listings and went for the 1000 item store. Posted like crazy and burnt myself out.
So I began working on Ebay 1 hour a day, 5 days a week. I broke up my days as 1 day of photos, 1 day of research, 1 day of inventory, 1 day of posting, 1 day of book keeping. I’ve also tried posting every weekday (5 to 10 items). That worked better for me and allowed me to fill up my store without burning out. I also liked working a bit each day because if I missed doing something 1 day, it was easy to pick up the next day and not feel like I had slacked off.
My advice – Do the work when you can on a schedule that works for you and your family. You will get there.
My store – https://www.ebay.com/str/obeythejunk
The link has my old store name. I switched it awhile ago to Keps 424 but the link never changed.
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Just to chime in, as well as listing more numbers, I am a firm believer in listing daily. Meaning if you feel its necessary to set aside a certain day for pics and bookkeeping, etc., etc. then that probably means you are only closing listings on a certain day as well. We used to do things that way and seemed to be working fine as far as productivity goes, until we tried it the other way (our current method) which is to divide up each day into segments in this order – shipping, drafts, pics, closing, & bookkeeping. Not sure if there is truth to it, but I swear our sales improved and stayed that way. It could just be that we have never stopped listing since, but I think the “Algorithm” likes it when we close and are active. Hope it helps!
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My brother in law bought a house recently that has an old double enamel sink with metal cabinets that looks very similar to what you sold! His mom tried to talk him into getting rid of it but his cousin and I said “no way, you gotta keep that!” I just messaged him to find out if it’s a Beauty Queen.
My largest flip was only around $435 – 5 paintings I bought for $4 each. They looked like your quintessential 40s-50s era house art. They were framed prints by Lyman Byxbe.
My most satisfying scavenge was a Slingerland Snare Drum from 1944-45. It was also $4 and sold for $385. It was satisfying because I was visiting my parents out of state at the time. I found it in their local thrift being sold as a Christmas decoration. I listed and sold it while still visiting. My dad thought it was complete junk and could not believe I could see it had value and flip it for so much so quickly.
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Those are great sales! You must have a good eye. Amazing what is just lying around. Let us know what brand of sink your brother found. “Youngstown sink” is another good brand of the same era: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2303516.m570.l1313.TR3.TRC1.A0.H0.Xyoungstown+sink.TRS0&_nkw=youngstown+sink&_sacat=0
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Listening now. Ryanne, the additional free listings thing recently announced by ebay is NOT a limited time Promo. It is a permanent (well, at least as permanent as anything subject to change can be) change. The extent of the change depends on your seller level. For non-store owner and starter store owners, there’s an increase in the freebies, with NO category limitation. So, today, non store gets 50 free auction or FP listings per month. That will jump to 200 in August. Today, starter store gets 100 auction or FP, that will jump to 250 per month. Again, NO category restrictions for those sellers.
The Basic Store owners get a hybrid : Today, they get 250 FP, and 250 auction in “Fashion and Collectibles”, a term which actually encompasses 13 ebay categories. In August , the free FPs in ANY category will jump from 250 to 350. (Auctions stay the same). BUT…Basic store owners, if they are in Managed Payments, will get an additional 10,000 free FP listings, but those freebies are confined to certain categories.
Premium, Anchor and Enterprise , unlike Basic and below, get NO unrestricted free FP listings beyond what they get now. So these larger stores DO get additional freebies, but they are confined to certain categories. In other words, if you have a Premium (or higher) store and only sell in a category that is NOT one of the specified categories, this doesn’t change anything for you. But…let’s say you list ONLY in Collectibles (which is one of the specified categories). Then this is great for you, because with a Premium Store, you get an extra 50,000 freebies in the specified categories. With an Anchor, you get 75,000 extras, and with Enterprise, you get 100,000 extras.
So, to figure out whether this is no benefit, some benefit, or a tremendous benefit, Premium and above need to look at the specified categories. There are six full categories:
- Collectibles
- Music
- Books
- DVDs & Movies
- Stamps
- Crafts
And there are four where we aren’t dealing with EVERYTHING in the category, but ONLY a specified SUB-category:
- Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Sports Trading Cards
- Toys & Hobbies > Collectible Card Games
- Video Games & Consoles > Video Games
- Home & Garden > Greeting Cards & Party Supply > Party Supplies
So, for Premium and up, and for Basic too, it’s important to know which categories and sub-categories apply to your business, if any. For me, this is pretty great, because I’d guess about 2/3 or 3/4 of my stuff fits into Collectibles, another chunk is Books and Music, and a few odds and ends in some of the others. I also sell in some non-specified categories, but I probably have enough FP freebies to cover that stuff, since, as a Premium Store, I have 1,000 FP in any category in addition to the new 50,000 in specified categories. I might drop to Basic, my store renewal comes up in October, so if just wait a couple months, I can change to Basic without an Early Termination fee.
Sorry this is so long….
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Last week marked the first time we made less than 2k in close to a year. We’re not in the managed payments program but the day before it went into affect, our sales took a hit.
Not putting on my tinfoil hat just yet, it’s just a weird coincidence.
Anyways, here are the rough numbers for the past week. We’re getting started on tomorrows orders so I’ll have to get a more detailed idea of our numbers sometime when we’re free.
Listings in store – 14,994
Gross sales – $1,980.73
#of orders – 93
# of items sold – not sure, we had a few combined orders but we haven’t counted the # of items sold yet, but with 93 orders, we probably had 103-110 items sold once we include combined orders
COGS – Less than $20. Stuff that I paid for, a few 78s, a few comics, a hat, some other smalls
Money spent on inventory this week – $0.
Goals for next week, maintaining above 15,000 listings, get our sales back up in the $2,500 range.
Good news is I think we already had our sale of the week today, so the numbers should be back to normal by this Sunday.
Sold a Dolly Parton Jacket. Embroidered record label release. Believe it came from employee release party or something. No history on Ebay, Worthpoint, or Google.
Threw it up for $500, took offer of $375 today. Customer already paid. I paid $8 for it maybe two months ago? Local online auction, bunch of music memorabilia. There was a Bruce Springsteen tour jacket that I assume everyone was focused on. It sold at auction for close to $200, seeing comps on Ebay, I don’t see enough meat on the bone. But, part of scavenging is picking up stuff that others don’t see value in. For us on that day, it was all the music jackets besides the Springsteen one.
Hope everyone has a great week.
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Wow! I’m honestly surprised that people passed over the Dolly jacket though. You got lucky. She has a HUGE fanbase. Great sale!
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Thanks 🙂
Here is a screen shots of some jackets I got at that auction. I actually paid less for the dolly jacket than I thought. I paid $6.0 for hers and a Sony music jacket. Just a really good buy. This specific auction I buy off of, I just don’t think many people know about it. Also, the auctioneer starts bidding off a $1 and you can increment bids by $0.25. Over the past year, I’ve almost exclusively moved all my sourcing to online local auctions.
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Thanks man, a little over a year ago my wife quit her job to work at home with me. We wanted to start aggressively paying off debt. We started paying off debt using the snowball method. We paid off all our credit cards and our medical debt. We had a baby in Jan of 2019 so a few months before her birth, I bought a brand new car for the first time in my life, just because I felt safer with them in that rather than our old Truck and/or van. So we aggressively paid that down as well and should be paid off this year. Soon we’ll just have student loans left that we will focus on. We’re also trying to take any extra income and put it towards a house down payment.
Other than that, just living and business expenses. Even though it’s a decent income, we were in such a hole financially that it never seems to be enough. Life didn’t even really start to stabilize for me until my early 30s. So I have a decade of mistakes to payoff.
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July 12 – 18
- Total Items in Store: 3,983
- Items Sold: 30
- Total Sales : $1,018
- * ABOVE yearly average of $963
- Highest Price: $140 (Brother GX-8500 Electric Word Processing Typewriter)
- Average Price: $34
- Returns: 0
- Cost of Goods Sold: $58
- Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $22
- Number of New Items Listed this Week: 40
Another fine week under my belt. I haven’t really felt any slow down yet. In fact, this has been my best summer yet. I hope to keep it going, but even when I start to see the inevitable summer lag I’m still really glad to see what I’ve accomplished so far this year.
Congrats on your large sale! That’s awesome! My largest sale was half that at $1500. It was an industrial mixer that my dad brought home from work. He paid the scrap price of $10 for it. Needless to say, I took him out to eat after that sale.
We did some yard sales on Friday but I didn’t find much of any interest. I’ve been trying to watch some online auctions but stuff is still going for way too much money. We’ve got a lot of resellers like myself in my
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Items in Store 1342
Items Sold 32
Total Sales $1,845.00
COGS $398.00
Total Profit $1,447.00
Average profit $45.22
Average sales price $57.66
New Listings 20
I had a HUGE Sunday. Over $1000 in sales. I was also finally able to focus and get a bit of work done on ebay as well. I’ll have plenty of time to get things done this week….there has been a positive case of covid at my workplace so my wife wants me to stick to myself this week since management has decided to go about “business as usual”.
It’s a crappy situation because allegedly this worker just returned from a Florida vacation. Many in his family were already symptomatic, he did not alert management and reported to work anyways. Then he tried to conceal the fact he was symptomatic while at work. Our managements response has been less than stellar.
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UGH that’s awful. So do you know if you might have gotten exposed? If your work isn’t taking this seriously there must be a place you can report them to. Nobody wants an outbreak in their area caused by an employer who ignored a positive in the workplace.
BTW, I’m from Florida and I’m hiding in my house. There are TONS of people still coming here for vacation right now. It’s absolutely insane. This state is burning with covid and people think this is a great time to come vacation here?? If you are stupid enough to come party in Florida right now you should have to quarantine for 2 weeks once you get home.
On another topic, I think my biggest scavenge was this leather jacket made of what I can only describe as black and white dairy cow. I sold it for I think $699 to a guy in San Francisco. He loved it. I want to say I paid $5 for it. I wish I had a picture of it still…it was really unique.
Also, this wasn’t one item per se, but I picked up a plastic bag full of WW2 military uniforms out of a curb pile in my neighborhood a few years ago. They stunk like grandma’s attic which I disclosed in the listings. In total I made about $1200 off of that bag. I could have made more I’m sure but I stupidly tossed the stuff that I deemed in bad condition thinking that nobody would want it. I also left the steamer trunk that went with this stuff on the curb because I thought it wasn’t in good enough condition. Dumb.
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I did not have direct contact with this person but I have had direct contact with the supervisor who sent him home. I always have a mask and social distance while at work and sanitize before/after I touch anything that isn’t mine, but now that the virus is confirmed at our facility and I have no idea who has been exposed combined with the fact we have many people here who don’t take the prevention steps seriously I’m quite concerned.
Ideally it would be nice if management would re-enact the work from home policy and spread out the production employees more, but management is opposed to those steps.
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7/11/20-7/17/20
Total Items In Store: 2024
Items Sold: 28
Gross Sales: $806
Highest Price Sold: $110 (Hoover Canister Vacuum)
Average Price Sold: $28.78Returns: 1 $47
Money Spent on New Inventory: $97
Number of items listed: 30- Pretty slow week in sales and most were low dollar items. Felt like a typical summer week.
- I had a $200 sale from last week that never paid. I hate it when that happens, but better than when they pay and then cancel and you lose the PayPal fee.
- Thanks Jay and Ryanne for the effort you put in to do the podcast every week. I feel like I learn something new with every one. I’ve made a ton of changes in the way I do Ebay over the years based off what I’ve learned from you guys and others on your forum.
- I don’t know that it’s my highest sale, but one of my best sales was a double deck of playing cards from the Silver Slipper Saloon in Las Vegas. I picked them up for 25 cents at a garage sale and sold them for $500.
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Jay and MDC, thanks for your feedback. I’m just frustrated with my level of listings – not the level of sales. I’m completely in agreement with the 250-500 inventory concept. I just need to kick myself in the butt more. (And, thanks, Jay – I’ll go easy on myself. The verbal abuse doesn’t do any good.)
I tend to start common items like clothing a higher than I think they will sell for and then slowly bring them down over several months. Same for unique items – just even higher. And I look at impressions and click through rates to gauge if maybe something is wrong with the listings but I will only let myself optimize my listings like this once a month. And I do offers to watchers.
Here is my eBay link: https://www.ebay.com/usr/get*it*here
I am confident in my photos, titles, basic SEO and quality of what I sell. I feel the % of sales is correct based on the quantity of listings. Between family and work and Covid, it all just takes a toll. And this week, due to Covid-related challenges, I’m being asked to work even more overtime. It is what it is, as they say. I’ve just got to keep going.
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I took a look at your store.
Unfortunately, your items are what I consider slow movers. In my store similar brands/items take years to sell, even at lower prices.
I’d also recommend changing your backdrop to white. I use marine vinyl from a craft store. Very durable and pretty cheap.
When I first started a few years ago I ran a store with max 100 items and I had very quick turnover. I mainly sold electronics and toys. When I sourced I would only get things that had a high sales to listings ratio. Then I would always price my item competitively. Back then I also pre-boxed all my listings which is why it was important to turn over quick.
Then I found this site and started moving to slower moving inventory like clothes and shoes.
If you are time limited then I highly recommend you focus your scavenging and listing to items that have far more 90 day solds than current listings. This way you can pretty much assure you will sell it within 90 days.
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I agree, all I see in your store is mostly shoes and clothes, Those can both be great but if that is all you have (or want to have) you’ll need much higher numbers than 70 items. Clothes can be slow movers and typically not very high priced. If you are open to other items, I would recommend diversifying your inventory into many other areas. The more rounded out your store and prices are, the more rounded out your sales will get. Try Craiglist Free ads for free inventory, if you troll them constantly in the bigger cities, they are loaded with free goods to be sold. You must check constantly though because the good stuff goes quick. I mostly source this way and pay little to nothing for the inventory we list.
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Awesome sale! You guys should add it to your numbers unless it wasn’t part of last week?
I haven’t really had anything huge, but I’ve had a few items where I was very surprised at the value. Last week, I found that a glass bowl I bought in a box lot was from the 19th century. I’ve listed it at $129 with best offer. It came with a bunch of modern and vintage kitchen stuff. I’m pretty sure that the owner had no idea what it was.
Last week was very quiet for me, but I was able to list more since I had less to pack and ship.
Week of July 12 – 18
Total Items in Store: 1271 eBay, 35 Etsy
Items Sold: 12 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $8.55 + $0 Commission
Total Sales: $208.71 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $22.50 Lot 22 American Rodder magazines
Average price: $17.39
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 24 -
Thanks for the feedback, Retro Treasures WV. I am OK with waiting for things to move – no problem there. All my inventory is stuff I am still selling from around the house and my mother-in-law’s house. I have probably 200 listing on hangers and in boxes waiting to be sorted and listed. So no sourcing needed yet. But I am OK waiting for these to sell and even if I only sell a few items a week but I keep listing, I feel like I accomplished something. Just some weeks I can hardly get more than a few items listed. But it is good to know that I am on the right track and it will just take time.
I love your back-drop recommendation. That sounds great.
Oh – and all my listings are pre-packaged since I work and have three boys and I never know what’s going to happen. I usually get my listings out same day but I have them on 2 day handling just in case.
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Jay and Ryanne, nice score on the enamel sinktop/cabinets! My grandmother had a setup very similiar. Whole unit was steel and enamel. Thanks for another awesome podcast. One of the highlights of my Sundays. I find myself checking the site during the afternoon. My biggest flip and most satisfying flip were both Jura espresso machines. One I won in an auction for around $70 as New Open Box. I assumed it was broken (likely an Amazone return) but I didn’t care since I’d just sell the parts. Lo and behold it worked, and I flipped it a week later for $700. Most satisfying: found a Jura machine in an alley near my house, set out with the trash. Turned on but something was broken. Flipped it as Parts Only the next day for $225.
@Old Man Marty: Hang in there, sounds you have a lot on your plate right now. I don’t mean to come across the Wise Old Man eBay Seller but I was in your shoes about a year ago — month to month I’d have about 60 or 70 listings. This fall I put in a big push to raise my listings from 300 to 500. It was a lot of work and eBay is my only gig now that I’m retired. Guessing I spend 30 hrs/week. Any rate, at 300 listings I was selling about 30 things a month; at 500 I started seeing 60-70 items sold per month. So volume makes a huge difference. The key for me to up my listings was buying auction box lots. I learned that from Jay and Ryanne. I was surprised at the number of items in the $30-50 ranges you can find in a box of junk no one else wants. A plus is that items tend to be smallish, helping with storage and shipping. So don’t get down on yourself. It’s a long haul but you’ll get there!
Total Items in Store: 648
Items Sold: 18
Gross Sales: $639
Highest Price: $85 – DYSON DC14 VACUUM DUCT BODY ASSEMBLY
Average Price: $36
Cost of Goods Sold: $90
Returns: 0
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $9
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 18Gut reaction to the Week: BOOM! Probably my best week of the year. Mostly mundane stuff like remote controls and vacuum cleaner parts. Nice part is there’s not really any seasonality to them; bad part is it’s rare any one item sells for more than $50.
Scavenge of the Week: Did my usual Thursday-Friday-Saturday trawling of yard sales. About ready to call it quits on sales in newish subdivisions. The typical homeowners are in their mid-30s either (a) have 25 boxes of baby and toddler clothes and piles of plastic toys, or (b) have nice high-end appliances, electronics, strollers but price them super high. I finally hit an estate sale with a good collection of household electronics like Cuisinart ice-cream makers, vintage cassette/CD units, etc. Filled an Ikea bag with for $30. Very happy with my haul! Will keep me busy this week.
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Ugh just lost a big blog post. Quick and dirty version: Ebay $484, Mercari $103, COGS $98. listed 13. Lower dollar going to Mercari, better goes to Ebay at high Terapeak solds with best offer. No cross posting. Day job picking back up. Kids out of school in the Fall. College admissions scary. Great sale R&J and you saved it from the dump too!
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J&R, re your land, have you considered Derksen Buildings? They are prefabricated buildings and come in whichever degree of fitting your handiness requires. You can buy a basic shell, and do all of the insulation, walls, ceiling etc. Or a moderately fitted, where they’ve done electrical, insulation, etc and you do the rest. If you have the funds, you can have them fully fitted and ready to move in.
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Your comment reminded me of one of the ultimate scavenges. A few times when the college in my hometown has bought property with a house on it, they will sell the house for $1. The buyer has to then pay to have the house moved. If I recall the last time it was around $12K to move a 2 story 100+ year old house across town in Iowa. It’s probably much more expensive these days. Overhead power lines and bridges along the route significantly increase the costs of the move.
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Hello all,
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 3978
Items Sold: 46
Total Sales: $885.78
Cost of Items Sold: $170
Average Price Sold: $19.26
Average Cost of Item: $3.72
Highest Price Item Sold: $96.95 Jabra Speak 410 Speakerphone
Number of items listed this week: 32 worth approx. $956
YTD Sales: $31963
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +14%
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 456
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 348
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 212I put extended handling on my store and did a backpacking trip for 5 days last week. It’s been a while since I’ve been completely offline. I left my wife in charge of handling customer service which gave her the first taste of that aspect of running an ebay store. Sales continued at a pretty normal level despite the long handling times.
I enjoyed the story about the BeautyQueen. I pictured some kind of fancy color (blue/green/pink) so I was surprised to see it was a cream color. I would never have guess what that was worth by looking at it.
Hope everyone has a good week.
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Just thought I would peek out of my Covid hidey hole and check in with y’all. Ryanne I’m still chuckling about the ‘origami boxes’ every time I put one together! The week of the 4th was dead-3 days in a row with o sales. It’s picked up since then. The consignment stuff I’m selling for my friend has been fun to unpack, research and lucrative to sell. I wish I had such great stuff fall in my lap all the time! Stay cool everyone!
Ebay July 12-18
Sales $208.31. (Commission $39.99). Net $168.32. 19 items, average sale $10.96. COGS $5.59
highest priced items $35 WWII silk scarf, $27.99 Black & Decker lithium rechargeable battery
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Ryanne & Jay – I haven’t weighed in for several years although I am a regular listener & seller. I just finished the podcast and was amused by the Beauty Queen find. I have one in my kitchen and I never knew what it was called until now! It came with my fixer-upper house. It’s in daily use and does have rust around the cabinets. It’s on my to-do list to restore someday.
As for rare crazy high dollar finds. A few years back an elder retired gent put some darkroom equipment up for free. My background is photography so I knew what he had. I scored a Jobo color processor and promptly sold it for $1900 and shipped it off to Hong Kong. This still stands as my best sale ever. I also got from him a large format Beseler dichroic motorized enlarger that I still have not listed. It’s taking up space but I guess I’ve just been too daunted to deal with it as it is huge. It’s worth at least $2-3K and it will take just the right buyer. I need to make time to list it!
Building finds…many. I’ll share one. A house was being recycled locally and I bought the entire oak floor for $300. They pulled it up for me and I transported multiple truckloads of short tongue & groove pieces with nails in it. A friend looked at it and said “Looks like good kindling.” Well, I took out every single one of those nails (using a nail kicker) and it is now my downstairs flooring.
Scavenger to the core! Have a good week everyone!
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RetroTreasures: Yes I am working my way towards it! I’ve brought in some more big stuff and now it’s really in the way. I have a very sizable shop/storage area so it’s been easy to build death piles. Sometimes I don’t see death piles as necessarily bad because I can tap that source when I need it. Right now, my other biz has taken a hit due to Covid and so I have more time to work on eBay. Yes, list list list!!!
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Sometimes I don’t see death piles as necessarily bad because I can tap that source when I need it.
I’ve heard this perspective before and it’s not bad to have a surplus of items ready for listing. But its a slippery slope between items ready for listing and just an ever growing pile of stuff 🙂
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I’m with ya, I slowly built up a small hoard, like 2 Car Garage & 5×10 storage shed size death piles I mean. Meanwhile slowly listing a few things as a hobby back when I worked full time. My death piles are mostly free items I got off free Craiglist ads here in Vegas (to include free shipping materials), while working my full time job which involved traveling all over the city. So needless to say it added up rather easy, there is a ton of waste here in Las Vegas. But now that we are doing this full time so it’s kinda nice to just walk out to the garage and grab something off the one shelf and list it & then put it on another shelf for storage. If your organized you can make anything work. I have a constant supply of free goods and shipping materials, which helps a lot right now during these strange times.
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Yes the oak floors look great and it was very satisfying to reuse! Someday I want to do a light sand and refinish as there are some pieces that have water spots but that means I have to take out all my stuff. Daunting!
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Probably my best and most memorable sale (actually sales) was one that I think legitamized my part-time eBay business in my wife’s eyes. Maybe 3 months in to my serious go at a part-time store (3 years ago), I took my son and some friends to a basketball camp across town. I spied a huge garage sale on the way there and after dropping them off, returned to check it out.
I was obviously a clean out of a house, maybe a horder, and there were tons of things. I was a little overwhelmed but noticed a bunch of shoe boxes, that looked new. Went over and saw that they were SAS orthopaedic medical shoes (here is an example on ebay if you don’t know what I’m talking about: https://www.ebay.com/itm/131484952510?_trkparms=itm%3A131484952510.) My day job used to be in the medical field and I new these were expensive shoes.
I grabbed one box and went and asked how much they were per pair. In my head, I’m wondering how much I was willing to pay ($20 pair, maybe more…, do I have enough money….) and the woman running the sale said “Well how about $3 if they are new and $2 if they aren’t?” I quickly set all my stuff down (many other gems at this sale as well) and ran back to grab a huge stack of shoe boxes. I think I got 6 new pairs and 3 used pairs, for $24 total. I was so happy.
When my wife got home and saw all the shoes and what types they are (very unattactive!) scattered in our living room, she was worried about me. But I listed them immediately and started selling them. In two months, I was out of stock and probably made when all was said and done, after fees, $800+ in profit. She then actually realized that eBay could be a good business model and even during the Summer if we were out with friends, she’d be all proud and say, “Tell them about those weird shoes you are selling on eBay!”
Now she rarely raises an eye at anything I bring home….
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Hello everyone, we are long time listeners but new to the forum. Just wanted to post our numbers for the week and say hello. Our brief business run down and introduction can be read in the “Hello, Who Are You? forum section if you have any interest. Any how here is our numbers.
Our Store Week July 12-18, 2020
Total Items in Store: 1,097
Items Sold: 32
Gross Sales: $974.17
Cost of Items Sold: $13.70
Cost of helpers: $0
Highest Price Sold: $185.71 (Dental Lab Dust Collector)
Average Price Sold: $30.44
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 36
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Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. I feel recharged – despite I have to work 6 days this week. It is great to hear that others have been in the same place. I have already doubled my listings and sold 1 item more than last week with a running profit of $80.14. Yay!
Most of my items right now are shoes and clothes because my mother-in-law won’t stop giving me stuff to sell. 🙂 I really want to sell comics (and am making headway on building that pipe) but it is hard to turn down the higher end clothing she keeps giving me for free. Here are my averages for the year so far: Duration of listings: 81 days; Average Profit: $37.37.
And I have definitely experimented with breaking up the week. Consistency is key. And I do give some value to the algorithm theories but some days I list two things and some days none.
Thanks again, everyone!-
I’ve built my store with 5 homeschooled children – my oldest is only 13, a full time job, and a full plate of honey-do and children activites to boot.
The key is efficiency. When I am away from my family I want to maximize every minute I have. I get two 15 minute breaks and an hour lunch at work. I used to spend both breaks and lunch either listing or shipping (now I spend them exercising).
I have listed out of the trunk of my car during kids soccer practice before. I’ve sat in the audience during a play practice creating listings of a bag of hats.
I will take photos on my phone and then upload them to listings in every spare minute of the day I have – walking around Wal-mart, using the bathroom (don’t judge), etc.
I used to have my wife drive to places so I could be listing in the passenger seat. We’ve switch back because now my wife is writing her novel while we are in the car (again, every minute counts with 5 time demanding children).
You have to find time – even a minute or two if you can – and make it count to the max.
If I can build a store in my spare 10-15 minutes at a time, you can too! Good luck!
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This is hilarious, but straight on. I just listed two pieces of art that have concrete as the background from behind dentist office where my son had his braces removed on Tuesday. And, I hear you on listing, sending offers, uploading photos, etc. while using the bathroom.
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RetroTreasuresWV…I used to do the same when my son had baseball practice and games an hour away. We would stop at thrift stores on the way and I would list from the back of my truck during his practice. He would buy stuff for his store and list while we were driving back home.
I also thrift and list when we travel and ship boxes of merchandise back home from all areas of the country.
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Congratulations on your biggest sale ever! Way to go for knowing your price and sticking with it Ryanne!
I ordered my coffee today…first order. I got the Brazilian. I could not see where to tell them Scavenger Life sent me but I did put in the coupon code.
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Forgot to check in last week… still home with the new kiddo. It was a pretty slow week on eBay.
Sales: CAD$910, 5 sales, COGS: $110, Fees: ~$122, Postage: $112 –> Gross profit: $567
Expenditures: $139 –> Cashflow: $537
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