Scavenger Life Episode 502: Have Four Solutions

[Ryanne]

 Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week February 14-20, 2021 Total Items in Store: 7462
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 502: Have Four Solutions]

[ChristineR]

Total Items in Store: 372
Items Sold:  9

Gross Sales:  $956.03
Net Sales: $751.59 (after eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $320
Highest Price Sold: $240 Duvet and shams set from winter clearance, paid $125 January)
Average Price Sold: $106
Returns:  1, and I did offer a discount due to out of stock item (quantity mistake)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: +/-$150
Number of items listed this week:  5

A solid week for me in February.  I look forward to the podcast after work.  Cases are down very low so I got a thrift store run in this weekend. Pickings were slim but good to get out.  Costco packed so I wear a full on N95 there.  Thrifts are counting customers at 25% max but Costco in not in compliance.

Working on finishing bookkeeping for Ebay (COGS) so I can finish my taxes.  Made a couple thousand more profit I suspect this year due to a strong spring and early summer (stimulus?) boost.  Have a great week everyone.

[LongGoneGeek]

Hi Jay and Ryanne

Re: calling Anchor Store number.

Anchor Store service reps will answer questions and give help to non-Anchor store members. I’ve downgraded my store from anchor to premium back in November and have had to call a couple times since then and had no problems getting help.

Also, check out Prime Time Treasure Hunter’s video about contacting Ebay to talk to a real person – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMjHvjY5Z4I

Part of the video is about the talking to Anchor Store reps. (around the 18:30 mark)

Thanks for all your efforts, Ryanne and Jay. Your podcast is a Monday highlight!

 

[Retro Treasures WV]

Items in Store    1521

Items Sold           30

Total Sales          $962.00

COGS    $274.00

Total Profit         $688.00

Average profit   $22.93

Average sales price          $32.07

New Listings       66

Items scavenged              18

Sourcing Allotment         22

COGS were high because before Christmas I bought a couple clearance Switch controllers that came bundled with a game. My intent was to sell the 3 extras to fund the one I gave to my kids. It worked out and I recouped the cost of the gift, but I was hoping they’s sell for a bit more. I waited 2 months for the higher prices, that was long enough, so I lowered to compete and sold all 3 this weekend.

 

Sales picked WAY up this weekend after I did a bunch of listing. I was off work all week due to the severe weather knocking power out at our plant. I could have done more, but I was just not in the mood to work most of the time. Spent lots of time with family and hung out in hot tub alot. Man, I kick myself repeatedly for not getting one of these portable hot tubs sooner! Soooo nice.

 

My local goodwill will be closing here in a couple weeks and will repopen mid-april. They are MASSIVELY expanding their store. They are located in an old strip mall and they took over the next two empty storefronts. The existing store will become their donation and processing facility and the new space will be the retail store. It will be one of the biggest goodwill retail spaces in the area once complete. I’m so excited! Now if only they would do tag sales it would be perfect.

 

Note on podcast, I definitely loved the interview episodes! I’d love to listen to a couple a year if you were interested in doing them again. Troys interviews were especially interesting. I wish he was still here.

 

 

[Jay]

Sounded like Troy got back into full-time employment. A good, well-paying opportunity. Difficult to say no to a regular paycheck if they treat you right.

Not sure if his wife still sells online.

[Jay]

Speaking of interviews, we’ve done a lot more than I remembered: https://www.youtube.com/c/ScavengerLife/search?query=interview

[Retro Treasures WV]

Oh and I have a coffee update for you. So my wife started drinking coffee a while back to aid digestion. I started drinking it too so I could share the experience with her.

So fast forward to her current pregnancy. She quit drinking it immediately due to the caffeine content. Then one of her morning sickness triggers she developed was…you guessed it – coffee. The smell of it makes her instantly nauseous.

 

So I can no longer have coffee at home. I still drink it at work, but I have been working at home or on vacation for 6 of the last 10 weeks. I tried brewing in my garage with pour over, but no dice. Even the slightest hint of smell is a no-go.

[Jay]

Yikes. Good for you sacrificing coffee for the cause. I’d be making it in my car.

[simplicio]

Great to hear from you guys again!

I am now officially in managed payments, which was finally rolled out to .ca sellers.

I had a good sales week, and I also spent quite a bit sourcing on ebay. In the hole this week but OK for the month overall.

Sales: CAD$4284, 25 sales, COGS: $87, Fees: ~$579, Postage: $630 –> Gross profit: $2988

Expenses: $350, New inventory: $5680 –> Cashflow: -$2955

[Doublythumbs]

Feb 14 – 20

• Total Items in Store: 4,085
• Items Sold: 59
• Total Sales:  $1,794
• * ABOVE yearly average of $1,082
• Highest Price:  $170 (KENNEDY KITS Machinist Chest Model 520)
• Average Price:  $30
• Returns: 0
• Cost of Goods Sold:  $143
• Costs of Goods Purchased this Week:  $0
• Number of New Items Listed this Week: 39

This was the best week of sales I’ve had in awhile! And I set a new record for number of items sold in a week. That was thanks to two different customers who browsed my store and bought a bunch of stuff. The first guy sent me an offer on 13 different items. He got a pretty good deal, but I was thrilled to move some old inventory. I created a custom listing for him to make it easy. The second person went through and bought 15 of my advertising pencil toppers. They must be just starting a collection.

I’ve been debating about downgrading to a Premium store. My renewal is next month, so I think I’ll give it a try. If I did the math right, I’ll be saving over $150 a month, but I’ll be losing $100 in free packing supply coupons. But that’s fine if I’ll ultimately be saving money. And I believe that upgrading again is free so if they do away with the free collectable listings, I’ll just go back to being an Anchor store.

[Jay]

Let us know how downgrading your store works out.

[DarlinDils]

Total Items in Store: 123

Items Sold: 9

Total Sales: $268.00

Highest Price Sold: $60.00 vintage toy cars and Jeeps (Lido and F&F)

A good average week for me. Mostly easy shipping, took a couple offers (some higher some lower), overall happy with how things are going.

I got a great tip on an estate sale with a huge collection of vintage VHS tapes that they did not advertise. I got 36 mostly horror and action tapes, all opened but nicely cared for that I am looking forward to listing this week. All those plus a bunch of other random stuff for $9! I also am working on a bulk sale on another platform so February is shaping up to be a very nice month.

[Temudgin]

2/14/21 – 2/20/21
Total Active Items (3 different IDs): 324
Items Sold: 15
Gross Sales: $667.22
Highest Price Sold: $285 –1895 Dutch Mannlicher Cavalry Bayonet.
Returns:  0
COGS: $105 (including commissions; not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 22
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0

The eBay gods do like me to be listing, it appears.

[Sharyn]

Jay & Ryanne:

You can see how many of your Anchor store listings are being used. One way is to go to Seller Hub, scroll down all the way to the bottom, and, on the left hand side, there is a section Promotional Offers. For me, it says “Premium Store Subscription – 1000 Fixed Price Listings”, and it will give me a tally for how many used and how many left. You will need to wait until the last day of the month to get a more exact count. This information is also provided at any of the eBay emails you get when something is sold.

It is in the third week of February at this moment, so, if you’ve already hit 1000 or more in your anchor store, then you will need to calculate how many extra listings you would need before you go over the anchor store subscription. Then wait until the end of the month to get a better count.

Of course, this information has been there for a year or more, but who really looks at that stuff?

[Sharyn]

Here’s a shot of what I see, first shot from Seller Hub, second from my last eBay email.

https://imgur.com/a/ZE1bm6h

[Sharyn]

I was just thinking: you could find the last eBay sold email from January (PST), and that would give you a better idea of your item count. In fact, you could go through the past few months and see find your count to see how you average.

[Jay]

agood info. As out Feb 23 it sasy

Our of 10k listings, Used:4,130 and Left:  5870

We’d need to change about 3500 listing into into Collectible Category to be able to switch to Premium.

[Sharyn]

For my numbers, this is the first week in 2021 where I’ve been below $600, so a slow week for sure. I sold mostly low dollar items. However, I’ve already sold a few items for higher amounts this week, so maybe I’ll be up there again.

Week of Feb 14 – 20
Total Items in Store: 1394 eBay, 26 Etsy
Items Sold: 23 eBay, 1 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $13.18 + $42.50 Commission
Total Sales: $339.96 eBay, $28 Etsy
Highest Price Sold: $40 Vintage book 1898 copyright
Average price: $15.30
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 6

I’ve been listing linens, which just take much longer. I’ll be finishing those up this week, and then I’m just selecting something fast to list because I’m going crazy over here. Linens are definitely decent sellers, but not my favorite to list.

[ChristineR]

@Sharon I feel the exact same way about linens.

[Timo]

@sharyn:
I understand what you mean about the item counts on the my eBay page but
what counts are you talking about in the eBay sold emails?

Update: I see your 2nd uploaded image but there is nothing like that in any of my emails from ebay. Not for sales, nor for items listed. Must be a settings thing.

[Sharyn]

I get emails from eBay where the title starts “Your eBay item sold!”. After all the item information and shipping details, the last section is called “Listing Offers You Can’t Miss”. All the item count information on Seller Hub is repeated there (although it might be different depending on timing as items keep ending and restarting throughout the day).

This information started showing up on the emails over a year ago, maybe two. It wasn’t always there. I have no idea why you might not have it or why I do have it.

[Lukastreasure]

@sharyn – Interesting regarding the emails your getting with the listings information.  I don’t get any information in mine beyond the item sold and who it is going to.  I guess that is somewhat typical for eBay to not be consistent across the board.  Probably rolled out some new feature to you and never rolled it out the rest of the way.  Kind of like those orphaned pages I come across from time to time that seem to have been omitted from the style updates that eBay has rolled out over the years.

[Lauren]

Happy Monday!

Items in Shop: 795

Items Sold: 7

Net Sales: $177

COGS: $7

Donation Fund: $15

Profits: $160

 

So, I expected this week to be slow. We got completely snowed in on Monday and my roads dont get plowed (if you buy a house CHECK YOUR SNOW ROUTES. UGH.) so I set my store to vacation mode from Monday to Friday, and shipped everything out Friday. Included this week were sales from the 300 piece dish set that my old university gave me. I’m donating back $5 a lot to them for the dishes, so that’s where the donation tagline is in.

RE: Can I go down to a smaller store. I’ve been running the numbers lately because I’m about to hit 1000 in the next few months, and as long as youre over 3 or 4 thousand non collectible items, it’s worth going to anchor. Anything less than 3 or 4 thousand (I think the number was like 3500 but I’m not sure. I did the math before on the forum for a new seller, I’ll try to find it) its worth paying the extra fees. That being said, how much do you value anchor support?

Building update: Concrete guy comes tomorrow. Maybe slab poured before the end of the month? They seem to be trying to do it before another cold snap comes in. We’ll see how it goes.

 

I’m setting a goal to sell 5 more items a week. Focusing first on crossposting to FB Marketplace because that’s my second best shop, but it could be better. I’d like to use another store that goes well with Listperfectly, and I’m leaning towards Poshmark, but it doesn’t look like they offer USPS scan sheets.

Another day, another dollar.

[NC]

The interview episodes are awesome! I really enjoyed the one with Terminal99. You should do another interview with him sometime. I follow his store and he’s still trucking along.

Someone I would like to hear an interview from is the owner of the ebay store Patch Peddler. I’m trying to replicate them. They have just under 40,000 patches listed. After 8 months of going at it, I’ve got 2250 individual patch listings and have sold over 1,000 patches.

I decided to go all-in on patches when I came across patch peddler and did some math. eBay shows they sell about 6,000 patches every 90 days. If you just sold each patch for $5, that’s still $30,000 each quarter or $120,000 annually… Judging by their sales, I bet patch peddler is closer to $10 average sale price.

[Jay]

I decided to go all-in on patches when I came across patch peddler and did some math. eBay shows they sell about 6,000 patches every 90 days. If you just sold each patch for $5, that’s still $30,000 each quarter or $120,000 annually… Judging by their sales, I bet patch peddler is closer to $10 average sale price.

Would be a good interview. My main two questions:

–Where do you find 2000 patches to list each month? are they vintage or is he just buying new in bulk.

–How does he list that many patches? That’s 300 new listings a day (5 days a week) or 37 pacthes an hour (8 hours/day). Either he’s insane or pays multiple to list which needs to be put into the cost.

[NC]

Yeah I’d like to know his process too. I can list about 20 patches an hour with my current process. Honestly you can buy all the patches you’ll ever need from inventory right from eBay. I’ve got a pile of about 10,000 to list and I just started doing this 8 months ago. They’re pretty much all vintage too.

here’s his store: https://www.ebay.com/usr/patchpeddler

[Jay]

It’s super impressive what he’s built (and what you’re building). I’m always amazed at the sellers who are listing machines. It’s the key to success that we preach. Always be listing.

But it’s one thing to list 20 items in an hour. Or even spend all day listing. But then to do the same thing the next day and the next and the next. My mind would melt from the monotony.

[NC]

Lol yeah, I still have a full time job so my current goal is to just list 20 patches a day. I’m only selling 5-10 patches a day right now so I my active listings keep going up. I think if I can get to where I’m selling 50 patches a day and list 60 or so, I will have a good balance and be able to live off the income. It probably does take a specific personality type to do this kind of selling. Listening to podcasts certainly helps me get through the drudgery

[Jay]

It’s amazing that you sell 5-10 patches a day even now. I had no idea there was such a demand for patches and that they were so easy to scavenge.

We’ve sold patches but they certainly dont sell fast.

[NC]

Yeah I guess a lot of people collect them. There’s basically a patch associated with everything in the world so you can cover all types of interests with them. I don’t know much about boy scout patches but I’ve seen some go for hundreds. Those are hard to come by though. I think the most I’ve gotten for a single patch so far is $60-$70.

[Jay]

I’ve looked at patch lots before and most look really generic. But I guess its all about selling a many many of $5-$10 patches versus selling special patches for $100.

[Lukastreasure]

Thanks for the show!  I’m always impressed that you are able to sell on Facebook Marketplace.  I’ve tried there with item after item, always cross-posting to eBay, and it always sells on eBay first.  I usually only list items on FBM that I have for local pick-up because I don’t want to ship.  If I do get interest it is normally someone with a low-ball offer.  Not as bad as Craigslist though.

I also am finally on Managed Payments as of this last weekend.  Will have to keep an eye out on the GoDaddy Bookkeeping issues that have been raised as I am still using them.  Looking forward to getting the cash in the back automatically.

I’ve sold some of the Virginia Metal Crafter pieces, also.  They are good sellers.

This last week was my worst week of sales since I started doing my weekly numbers.  Nice to see that others are having their best weeks.  It is also nice to know the solution: list more items!!

Weekly Numbers 2/20/21
Total Items in Store: 1138
Items Sold: 15
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $392.34
Net Sales (After fees): $314.87
Cost of Items Sold: $62.00
COGS Percent 19.69%
Net Profit Margin: 64.45%
Highest Price Sold: $100.00 Antique Storage Trunk
Average Price Sold: $26.16
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 7
Promoted Percentage: 46.67%
Average Days Listed: 215
Longest Listed: 1085
New items listed: 14

 

[gargolfer]

2/13/21-2/19/21

Total Items In Store: 2161
Items Sold: 26
Gross Sales: $717
Highest Price Sold: $100 (Brass and Marble Table Lamp)
Average Price Sold: $27.56

Returns:  0 $0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of items listed: 21

 

• Not a great week for sales, but most of the week was on an extended handling time as I was out of state.
• There is a Habitat for Humanity store opening in my area in a couple months….I can’t wait, I usually get some great items at them.

[Simon]

I’m a little late post my numbers this week (as I was out in the hills hiking on a Monday!) but here there are now:

Items Sold: 74
Total Sales: $1743.74
Cost of Items Sold: $199
Average Price Sold: $23.56
Average Cost of Item: $2.7
Highest Price Item Sold: 2 sales at $174.95 i) Sony DCR-TRV103 Camcorder ii) Sims Boat Bag
Number of items listed this week: 46 worth approx. $1744
YTD Sales: $9277
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +19%
Hats sold this week: 53 (71% of sales) worth $884 (50% of sales $)

I had a great week.  One of my best weeks ever.  I had a couple of decent high $ sales (mentioned above) but mainly it was just a very large volume of regular sales without any real explanation as to why there were more of them.

I’ll echo the other comments here about having enjoyed your interviews in the past.  Jay asks interesting questions when he interviews.

I hope everyone has a good week!

[old_man_marty]

Total Items For Sale: 56

Profit: $0

Items Sold: 0

Items Listed: 4

[TopNotch]

That patch store is mighty impressive.  I think I’d need employees listing those things–I can list 50-100 items in a day, but I couldn’t do that 6 days a week.  That store has 6637 sold patches…unreal.  Stamp shipping is key for sure.

Highest priced patch I ever sold was a boy scouts patch.  Sold within a couple hours for about $160.  I found it while listing a scrap book(still haven’t sold that book after a year)

[Author]

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