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Check out our coffee! ► broadporchcoffee.com Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week January 3-9, 2020 Total Items in Store: 7686
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 496: Can Your Business Run Without You?] -
In response to the woman who has a buyer claiming that they have not received an item even though the USPS shows it as being delivered, I had the same issue only I was the buyer. I never contacted the seller because I thought porch pirates stole my package and it was a $5 item. To me, it just was not worth the drama or time. Three days later, the item was in my mailbox. This has happened twice more since then, but the items arrived the next day instead of a few days later. It is no secret that the post office was slammed this year. The employees may be marking things as delivered accidentally or possible to clear impossible deadlines placed on them. Regardless, they have continued to come through in the end.
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Items in Store 1431
Items Sold 29
Total Sales $1,028.00
COGS $97.00
Total Profit $931.00
Average profit $32.10
Average sales price $35.45
New Listings 48
Items scavenged 10
Sourcing Allotment 19
So fate threw a wrench into my sourcing formula plans this weekend. In my original formula I allowed for 2 “white whale” items even if my formula drives my sourcing to zero. So…what happens when I find MULTIPLE $100+ items in one place?
Well you buy them of course!!! My wife REALLY enjoyed making fun of me when she came over to see me carrying multiple things. I believe her comment was “So, how’s that nerd formula working out for you?” LOL!!!
Here’s the best 2 items of the lot:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265008865973
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265009469810
It won’t be an issue now since my allotment this week is 19 items based on my formula.
2020 goals:
– I want to hit 2000 active listings as soon as possible this year. Because I’m a numbers nerd and engineer by trade, I OF COURSE created a spreadsheet to forecast how long it would take based on the difference of my average weekly sales count and the number of new listings. If I average 25 more new listings than my weekly sales, it will take me just under 23 weeks to hit 2000 listings. On the extreme end, I would need to average 143 more new listings than my sales count in order to hit 2000 within a month.
So based on those numbers, end of June is a realistic goal date for 2000 listings.
– I’d like to increase my average weekly sales count to 40 as well. 2019 was 21, 2020 was 33. Hitting 2000 active listings with steady listing should get me pretty close to an average of 40 sales a week.
– Reduce my backlog of unlisted inventory by controlling purchasing and incentivizing listing. I’ll accomplish this via a performance based formula that limits my scavenging. If I want to buy more, I have to list more and sell more.
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1/3/21-1/9/21
Total Items in Store: 1685 (all Etsy)
Items Sold: 23
Gross Sales: $3,713.68
Cost of Goods Sold: $1,139.94
Highest Price Sold: $543.13 (14K Amethyst Bracelet)
Average Price Sold: $161.46
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of new items listed: 13I said that last week was a good week. But I’ll take this.
I have a few death piles I need to get busy on. They are all non-jewelry items…usually large lots that I get for so low a price that I can’t resist, but I have to do more research to figure out how to price them, and how to price the shipping. I offer free shipping on anything over $35, so the shipping can kill me if I don’t get it right.
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Items: 503
Items Sold: 13
Profit: $98.90
Purchase Price: $21.46
Total Sell Price: $119.94
Avg Sale: $9.15
A lot of sales this week but really tiny sales which is a bummer. Finally, have gotten past a $1,000 day total so that feels good. Also, for 90 days at 55 items sold which for me is a new record! I’ve been asking around and figuring out my workflow more and more. I have 20 or so boxes setup o on shelves with a 3-digit number sequence. I have two shelves of stuff listed and 2 others with stuff to list. Now here’s the thing…..
I have 2 items that I can’t seem to find. It’s happened before about a month or two ago. I’ve searched up and down, tomorrow and Tuesday I’ll search some more. I did decide to take precautions and message the buyers. They’re cool with it and both wished me luck searching. In my search, I found some things that I thought were listed but as it goes. I’m in the process of going bin by bin and adding the bin number into the custom label field. Should be done by the end of the week.
My inventory spreadsheet is going really well, and it’s tweaked enough that it’s pretty effective. Without getting too much into it, concentrating on my eBay stuff has been a welcomed reprieve from the news this week. My goal this week is to list 50+ listings, I have 14 or so that I’ll take photos of and list tomorrow morning. Dabbling in trying out ListPerfectly, hoping to get moving on it this week. GoDaddy isn’t quite right as Managed Payments isn’t syncing as regularly. Wave wasn’t really working well for me but might be open to coming back to it. Finally, I got one of those wheeled grocery wagon things, going to use it for packages and grocery shopping in my large city!
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“I have 2 items that I can’t seem to find. It’s happened before about a month or two ago.”
“My inventory spreadsheet is going really well…”
These two statements are very contradictory 🙂 If you’re losing this many items, I’d take a good look at your storage situation. Otherwise, congrats on growing business. It’s going to get messier without a good inventory system.
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Haha, your absolutely right the statements contradict each other! I think the better way to phrase it is that due to misplacing those 2 items, it’s retaught me just how important the organization is. Spending the next couple of days doing my best to get organized. Thank goodness for the custom label field, makes my life far easier.
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I’ve added dedicated cleaning/organization time to my process. I made the decision last night that every Monday, after I’ve done my shipping I will clean and organize the ebay room. I’m not an organized person, but my husband is. For his sake, I want a clean space since he has to walk through it to get to the laundry room. He’s always been very supportive about my reselling but I know he quietly cringes when he has to walk thru my mess.
Regarding the Amazon return stores, my town of 30K people has two and I love them! They do contain a lot of private label garbage of questionable quality but for the most part stuff is in good condition. And I do find brand name stuff as well. So far the people at my stores have been great, no one is territorial, no fights have broken out. Some people camp out every week the night before the stores open. I’m not that hard core. I find that getting there right after opening makes me feel too frenzied so I wait a few hours and I still find great stuff that everyone else passed by.
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Can you give an example of the normal items you can find and sell? Not the home runs, but what are regularly finding and selling?
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Vitamins and supplements (both for humans and pets) that are sealed and still within date. That’s what I find most consistently. This year I added a column on my sales spreadsheet to record where I sourced each item that has sold. So far as of this morning January 11th, 29% of items I sold this month (13 items out of 45) were sourced from an Amazon return store and account for 34% of my profit.
But besides sales, I’ve also found things for my business. A week or two ago I found a huge box of over 1,000 Rollo thermal labels for $5 and also fancy poly mailers for $5 that I can use for Poshmark sales since they aren’t branded with ebay.
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This is a great step to add to your process. I am VERY guilty of getting the critical work done and getting out in my ebay room. I end up with adhesive covers and label backings EVERYWHERE after shipping.
I also let new listings pile up in one corner of the room until the weekend when I take the time to get them properly stored in my storage building. If something sells without an inventory tag number I know it’s in my “new listings” pile in the garage. Lol.
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Dec 27 – Jan 2
- Total Items in Store: 4,106
- Items Sold: 31
- Total Sales : $896
- * BELOW yearly average of $1,054
- Highest Price: $100 (Sony TC-800B Tapecorder Portable Reel-to-Reel Player)
- Average Price: $29
- Returns: 1
- Cost of Goods Sold: $31
- Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
- Number of New Items Listed this Week: 34
It was a pretty good week of sales. Almost $900 is way above my survival point, so I’m happy. Not much new going on over on my end. Just sipping some Costa Rica BP coffee and staying busy.
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I sold a large number of items this week, but they were mostly lower cost. I expect that people are spending those $25 gift cards they received during the holidays.
Week of Jan 3 – 9
Total Items in Store: 1441 eBay, 27 Etsy
Items Sold: 29 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $80 + $21.80 Commission
Total Sales: $463 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $59 for 2 sets new Charles Heidsieck ice bucket + empty champagne bottle
Average price: $16
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 18My high COGS are due to the two ice bucket & empty champagne bottle combos I sold. I paid way too much for them, about $20 each, during my first or second year of selling on eBay. Glad they’re gone, though.
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1/2/21-1/8/21
Total Items In Store: 2227
Items Sold: 44
Gross Sales: $1054
Highest Price Sold: $79 (Iridescent Snap-On Tools Hat)
Average Price Sold: $23.96Returns: 1 $39
Money Spent on New Inventory: $31
Number of items listed: 13- Fairly slow week as expected in early January, but sales picked up late in the week and I ended up hitting my $1K goal with $300 in sales on Friday. Also, a very low average price sold and no items over $100.
- I found a few items to list at some thrift stores we visited while on our ski trip up in Wisconsin, but still very low on inventory. Looking forward to a couple of auctions that I usually do well at that start back up next week.
- I am interested in getting my 1099’s from eBay and PayPal to see how they match up with switching to managed payments in the middle of the year. This will be my first full year of not having a regular W2 job, so I can’t wait to get my taxes done and see how it all plays out.
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Total Items in Store: 119
Items sold: 7
Total Sales: $121.45
Highest Price Sold: $30 Littlest Pet Shop Zoo Baby Tiger in box
I was SO nice to take a break from listing and have items still selling over the holidays. I did notice a steep decline in sales, so I am back to posting here to prod me into getting back into the groove. My experiment in listing items for auction first, then if not sold relisting buy it now with free shipping (only first class items, and after increasing price $5 or so) is working well, over half the items sold this way, and from my notes I ended up with a bit more profit than if they had sold initially. There is the occasional mistake, I really need to weigh stuff BEFORE listing, I get bit a few times a month with having to ship priority because I under estimated.
Hit two amazing sales in the last weeks, sources may get fewer but they are still around. One I picked mainly from their trash pile, filled the car and will be listing and putting stuff in the booth all month. Oil cans from the 1930s, old wooden advertising crates, two sturdy shelves to help me organize, vintage golf shoes, sealed VHS tapes, Playboy magazines and more. I also stumbled onto an auction site I was not familiar with, and for some reason there were few other bidders. I spent a total of $6 on 10 pieces of patio furniture and 10 nice purses. Keep scavenging!
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Total Items in Store: 221 Ebay, about 70 Mercari
Items Sold: 5 Ebay, 2 Mercari
Gross Sales: $225 Ebay, $48 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $71
Highest Price Sold: $79 (New jungle animal art bamboo tray, paid $36 in June) Ebay
Average Price Sold: $45 Ebay
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $400 +/- (Hitting good clearance sale today online RA)
Number of items listed this week: About 15 on Mercari (ours)Sitting down to list and thought I would throw my numbers out there. Today I’m doing some online RA. The retailer was pretty stingy over the Fall/Winter with sales, but a lot of items were cut loose early this morning. Some of the orders might end up getting canceled but a pretty good haul of reliable sellers and free shipping.
Now, back to the death piles. All of my son’s college apps are done! and it’s quiet while we wait for more answers. I will need to start on my COGS and other bookkeeping. I use Easy Auction Tracker which I like, but I *#@$%! forgot to load the numbers for one month on time. So annoying that Ebay doesn’t keep more than 90 days. February has historically been my worst month of sales but maybe this year will be different.
Our community has been doing relatively well with Covid until quite recently. We are only 1.5 hours from LA, so it’s concerning even though supposedly hotel and restaurant tourism is fully shut down. The locals are pretty good about staying home and wearing masks compared to other communities so I am hopeful that it’s just a holiday spike that will trend down, unless we get what my son calls “Super Covid” up here. My husband and his coworkers get their second vaccine dose tomorrow. Stay safe everyone!
I have to say that the events of last week really affected me and I was doom-scrolling too much and not working basically. All of the political and social media stuff was really distracting for my older teen this semester as well. I feel better today and hope the month finishes without more violence. Fingers crossed.
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On the podcast you guys mentioned a seller who gave you an offer on an item, you accepted and then he came back being angry about the shipping and whatnot. You mentioned how you just cancelled the sale, but didn’t mention if the buyer requested you to cancel it. I always thought you would get penalized if you cancelled a sale unless the buyer requested it.
I had a similar experience recently with a buyer and I really wanted to cancel the sale and would have had he asked me. Situation was that he gave me an offer on a vintage vase, which I accepted and then he never paid. After 2 days I sent him a payment reminder and then he messaged me about how the shipping was way too much (also going across the country). I ended up finding a cheaper shipping method through FedEx and he said that would work and to send him a new invoice and then he would pay. I sent him the new invoice and never heard back. Ended up opening up an unpaid item case after 3 days and he immediately payed. Sent the vase. After he got it he immediately opened up an INAD saying the vase had a chip in it and how if he would have known that he wouldn’t have put an offer on it and said how disappointed he was and he expects a full refund. The vase had a chip in the rim that was included in the description & photos of the listing. I of course had to accept the return and am currently waiting for it.
Anyway before opening up the unpaid item case I thought about just cancelling it since he had already proved to be untrustworthy, but have never done that before unless the customer requested it.
Thanks so much,
Julie v.
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I would have cancelled after he complained about the shipping. For reason I would select Buyer Requested.
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I always enjoy the show, thanks for continuing to put them out on a regular basis, truly inspiring.
Just a note, around 17 minutes and change you mention the guy who wanted to buy a pallet of nickles and sort them, and Ryan was like “what, that’s crazy”, and Jay in his odd voice” Yeah, I’ll get a sorter and sell the copperrrrr” with Ryan laughing in the background again.
Look, I was the one who made that comment about sorting pennies with a machine, perfectly legal, and fairly straight forward way to make a buck or three on every dollar invested. Someone else had brought up the subject and I chimed in with the idea.
I understand this is obviously not for you two, but no reason to literally make fun of someone else’s idea.
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I apologize Scott. We were not making fun of you in particular.
We didn’t mean to say “this is a stupid idea” but “this is a crazy idea”. And you must admit, it is pretty extreme way to make some money. If I had a nickel for everthime someone thought I was nuts, I’d be rich.
People made fun of “the pudding guy” but looks who’s laughing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Phillips_(entrepreneur)
Healthy Choice was running a promotion offering 500 miles for each pack of 10 Healthy Choice bar codes (UPC) mailed in as proof of purchase.[2] Valuing each mile at 2 cents, Phillips calculated that the return per UPC ($1) was worth a significant part of the price of a frozen entree (which were selling for $2), but while shopping he also found Healthy Choice soup cans for only $0.90.[2]
He later discovered the same promotion also included individual pudding packages at 25 cents apiece, while shopping at a nearby Grocery Outlet.[2] He subsequently visited ten Grocery Outlet stores in the Sacramento area, buying every case of pudding available, totaling 12,150 individual servings of pudding,[2] for $3,140.[3] He also had the Grocery Outlet manager order additional cases. In order to divert attention, he claimed he was stocking up for Y2K.[4] Clerks started calling him “Pudding Guy”.[5]
The promotion included an early-bird bonus if the packages were mailed during the month of May 1999 (the mileage earned would double from 500 miles to 1,000 miles for every 10 UPCs submitted). Phillips, unable to remove all the UPCs himself in such a short time, recruited members of a local Salvation Army branch to help peel the UPCs off the pudding containers; in exchange, Phillips donated the puddings. This donation allowed him to receive $815 in tax write-offs further increasing his return on investment.[2]
Phillips submitted proof of mailing the certificates and Healthy Choice Foods awarded him 1,253,000 frequent flyer miles.[6] He would apply some of the miles to his United, Delta, and Northwest frequent flyer accounts, and the majority (over 1 million miles) to his AAdvantage account, in the process earning him lifetime Gold status.[2]
It is also speculated that neither ConAgra, the owners of the Healthy Choice brand, nor the airlines were seriously disadvantaged by the outcome, due to the small price paid by ConAgra to the airlines and the resultant publicity gained.[2]
Since 2000, Phillips continues to take advantage of frequent flyer promotions, and is earning points five times faster than he is spending them, now having reached lifetime Platinum status on his AAdvantage account.[7]
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Hi Ryanne & Jay – Thanks for the podcast this week. I listed while I walked in the hills near my house at sunset.
Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4355
Items Sold: 64
Total Sales: $1343.18
Cost of Items Sold: $195
Average Price Sold: $20.99
Average Cost of Item: $3.05
Highest Price Item Sold: $79.95 Men’s Puma SL Street Scuderia Ferrari Shoes
Number of items listed this week: 76
Hats sold this week: 43 (67% of sales) worth $723 (53% of sales $)I had a pretty good week. I enjoyed seeing the sales rolling in at the time of year. (It happens every year but it always surprises me that so many people are still buying given that Christmas happened so recently).
Notes on this weeks show:
– wheresmycoupon.com gets you to your shipping supplies coupon too
– I heard “pallet of nickels” as “pallets of nipples” and I wondered how many nipples you’d get on a pallet.
– a number of youtubers do videos in those Amazon returns type stores eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4jFzMAg0k4 (jump to 1:45) I’d visit if I had one nearby but, like Jay said, that kind of stuff doesn’t interest me much either.
– Empty Boxes. When I get boxes, I toss them in a pile until I have created Box Mountain in my garage. If I see hikers in my garage looking for a trailhead up my box mountain I know it’s time to do something about it and I spend some time cutting them down. I have a whole shelf rack that I use for large broken-down boxes. I organize them based on the longest side (eg: shelf 1 has 12″ boxes on the left and 14″ boxes on the right, shelf 2 has 16″ boxes on the left and 18″ boxes oh the right etc). I taped a tape measure down the leg of the shelf unit so that I can easily hold up a box to it to measure it.I’m out of your coffee so I’m going to order a new bag tonight
I hope everyone has a good week.
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Hah! I like your comment about process. Process really is where it’s at. You start thinking carefully about that and you can often improve your business nearly overnight.
I had another slow week on ebay… December and January have been very quiet, and what I am selling is mostly low dollar (I am trying to blow out some 2+ year old marginal inventory).
Sales: CAD$1074, 9 sales, COGS: $691, Fees: ~$154, Postage: $181, Gross profit: $48
Expenses: $203, New inventory: $342 –> Cashflow: $194
Managed payments is finally coming to Canadian ebay. I signed up and it looks like it will be activated for me by Feb at the latest. Hopefully whatever learnings came from the US rollout will be duly applied.
Slowing down on the scavenging till my tax bills are all paid off. I’ve got zero working capital at the moment… still, might do one auction this week.
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Good show. Loved Ryanne’s guffaw there towards the beginning.
- Regarding the box coupon, I’m amazed each time how difficult eBay makes it to find. I keep thinking, “oh, I’ll remember this next time”, and each time I waste extra time finding it. It was nice to see the increased variety of boxes available. I purchased about twice the worth of the coupon since I’d run through so much inventory during the holidays.
- I still have several waylaid packages that I’m tracking. Opened several research cases with the USPS. Actually got two calls from the Postmasters in the destination cities apologizing for the delays and promising they will keep a look out for my packages and deliver them safely. So far I’ve refunded two people only for the items to be delivered after the refund. First person repaid me, but the second is sending the package back. Will be happy when this comes to an end.
- With the new year, I decided to rethink how I factor my numbers. My gross numbers are now my sales not included shipping and taxes. I’ve also added “Net Profit Margin” which is profit after all fees and cost of goods are deducted. What could have been a mediocre week was boosted by listing new in box Radko Christmas garlands that we had 3 of. All 3 sold with a few days of listing for a total of $485. Unusual for something to sell so quickly. My average for all of last year was about 300 days from list to sale.
Weekly Numbers 1/9/21
Total Items in Store: 1165
Items Sold: 21
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $1,135.15
Net Sales (After fees): $957.88
Cost of Items Sold: $126.43
COGS Percent 13.20%
Net Profit Margin: 73.25%
Highest Price Sold: $174.95 Radko Tree Garland
Average Price Sold: $45.61
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 11
Promoted Percentage: 52.38%
Average Days Listed: 320
Longest Listed: 1305
New items listed: 35-
My gross numbers are now my sales not included shipping and taxes. I’ve also added “Net Profit Margin” which is profit after all fees and cost of goods are deducted.
This is really the true way to share numbers. I was too lazy way back in 2014 when we started sharing our weekly numbers.
What is this number? “Net Sales (After fees): $957.88”
Is that the gross profit minus eBay fees? What do you assume eBay fees are?
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- @Jay – net sales = gross sales – eBay commission – promoted item fee – paypal fee. I’m using the newest sales report to pull these numbers.
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Cool! Minus COGS as well, I assume.
I have thought hard about how I display my numbers and the philosophy is as follows.
For each week I like to consider two perspectives on my business.
First: which items I sold, and what I bought them for. This is a very natural way for a reseller to think; I call it “tell a story” mode – “I bought that widget for $5 and sold it for $100!!” Formally:
(Gross profit) = (Sales) + (Shipping Income) – (COGS) – (Fees) – (Postage)
This is also more or less how Uncle Sam sees your numbers. Note that your COGS, which is an important part of this story, typically occurred a long time ago, not this week!
However, there is another perspective on your business that is useful – cashflow. Consider: it is possible to make good money on every item you sell, and yet still lose money. This usually occurs either because your fixed expenses (storage, supplies, etc) are too high, or because you’re buying a lot of bad inventory that doesn’t sell at all (or both). So to see how much cash your business is generating for you on a weekly basis, you can also calculate cashflow:
(Cashflow) = (Sales) + (Shipping Income) – (Fees) – (Postage) – (New inventory cost) – (Expenses)
Note that “New inventory cost” is whatever you spent *this week* on new inventory, not the COGS for the items you actually sold. Strictly, fees come out every month but I estimate them in these weekly numbers as a % of sales.
IMO, cashflow is often the more useful perspective to take for improving your business.
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@simplicio – Actually, the Net Sales number is not including COGS, it is just the sale price minus fees. I do use COGs to calculate the Net Profit Margin, however.
Your Cashflow theory is interesting. I can see how that would be useful on an established business that has somewhat of a steady state, and these days as I see the business making profit, that could have some value. Early on, when just starting out, cashflow was always negative while I was building inventory.
I recall from my early investing days, that The Motley Fool always paid a lot of attention to cash flow when evaluating whether to buy stock in a company.
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Simplicio, I agree that cashflow is really important for your eBay business. From what I remember, its not uncommon for you to spend $3k-5k on an auction. That’s big money fo inventory. How much do you think you spent on inventory in 2020?
If we spend $500 on inventory, it’s a big day. I’d be surprised if we spent $5k for inventory in the entirety of 2020.
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Yeah, it definitely depends how cash intensive your business is. I spent CAD$44k on new inventory in 2020 so it’s critical to my numbers.
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Does anyone know whether you can configure Go Daddy Bookkeeping to import expenses for postage from Pirate Ship?
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