- This topic has 38 replies, 21 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 10 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
Check out our coffee! ► broadporchcoffee.com Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week May 9-15, 2021 Total Items in Store: 7531 Ite
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 514: It’s Not About Ebay, It’s About Scavenging] -
Here was our cafe this morning: https://www.instagram.com/p/CO8CnjuBATR/
Cool vibes
-
May 9 – 15
- Total Items in Store: 4,202
- Items Sold: 36
- Total Sales: $965
- * BELOW yearly average of $1,086
- Highest Price: $130 (Framed Numbered Picture Print Signed by Artist Greg Kempf)
- Average Price: $27
- Returns: 1
- Cost of Goods Sold: $62
- Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $89
- Number of New Items Listed this Week: 57
My numbers were a bit better than the previous week. Sales were definitely up, though the average sale cost was pretty low. Every time my phone cha-chinged, I was hoping for that high dollar sale to balance out the week, but only saw $8 or $15. Oh well, if I didn’t have those cheap things listed, then I wouldn’t have made any money.
This week I purchased a van load of junk from an online auction. It was a decent haul with a lot of gambles. Many of the listings were single grainy photos of “contents of shelf.” I got really lucky with one which was loaded with old electronics manuals and 1980s arcade and pinball promo fliers. All in all, about half of the van load was junk to be thrown away. But a few gems will have made my time worthwhile.
-
Items in Store 1481
Items Sold 19
Total Sales $554.00
COGS $54.00
Total Profit $500.00
Average profit $26.32
Average sales price $29.16
New Listings 36Oof, not a great week. I had a $150 sale last night that saved me from a really bad week.
The newly refurbished and giant goodwill in my neighborhood is awesome! They are turning over inventory VERY quickly, and their prices are much lower. Every time I go in there I find amazing stuff. Yesterday I got another trove of Boyds Bears. It’s timely because I’ve sold almost all of them from the last trove.
I finished my taxes, this week we are wrapping up homeschool for the kids, next week we vacation. After that, it is time to hit it hard on ebay. My oldest has been bitten by the capitalist bug and wants to make all the money. That’s good because my death piles are out of control and need to be tamed back. I need the help!
-
I haven’t listened to episode 514 yet, but I am making progress on the download of all episodes. I’ve listened all the way through now up to the episodes where Ryanne and Jay start talking about Covid. Then I started with 513 and I am so thrilled your coffee shop is open!
I am so impressed, inspired and in awe of what you two have accomplished. Truly amazing. And to listen to it in a compressed amount of time, it really moves. It’s been like my own audiobook of your lives. I am so appreciative of the way you have shared it all.
As far as throwing away stuff from an auction, I am glad to hear you do that too, Doublythumbs. I got a bunch of chipped things and stuff I don’t care about in the last auction I participated in, and have been tossing them.
I have a question and I am pretty sure I know the answer but am being a bit OCD. I got a return request with an INAD on a piece of costume jewelry. I have free returns so the return request was accepted and the status is ‘waiting for buyer to ship item’. Now do I just wait for them to return it before sending a refund? Do I message them and tell them to mail it back with the label from Ebay or just wait? I feel bad because they are probably right, the beads are probably plastic and not glass so it was my mistake.
thanks,
Carolyn
-
I got a return request with an INAD on a piece of costume jewelry. I have free returns so the return request was accepted and the status is “waiting for buyer to ship item”.
Just wait for the return to arrive, no need to message them. With free returns, if you get it back and there’s a problem, you can discount their refund. For low dollar items though some sellers would simply refund the item immediately and not want to pay for the shipping to return it but that’s up to you. Some sellers prefer not to train buyers to expect a refund without sending the item back.
-
-
-
Jay, I believe you’re thinking of EAT, aka EasyAuctionsTracker that some of us use. It really is great, automatically downloading much of the data from the eBay file exchange for orders (on multiple stores, if needed) plus purchases on eBay (optional), all account fees and a separate tax collected report, etc. and generating global P&Ls. The few times I’ve needed support they’ve been very responsive. It’s not a comprehensive accounting software, though, and anything outside of eBay like mileage or thrifted inventory has to be entered manually of course but there are pages for them. It’s not cloud based so the spreadsheet lives on your computer and it’s still only for PC.
5/9/21 – 5/15/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 332
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: $122.90
Highest Price Sold: $28 – consignment challenge coin from the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (Navy).
Returns: 0
COGS: $40.85 (including consignment commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 0
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0Things were again slooowwww this week with embarrassing numbers. I spent much of the week doing our taxes. Thankfully I find TaxAct to be very user friendly and EAT makes my eBay entry very quick and easy but we have a lot of other dogs and cats that go on the return and it takes a while plus I have to file returns for my kids. We owed money so left it to the last minute.
-
5/8/21-5/14/21
Total Items In Store: 2189
Items Sold: 26
Gross Sales: $743.56
Highest Price Sold: $75 (16mm film Midnight Ride of Paul Revere)
Average Price Sold: $28.60Returns: 1 $20
Money Spent on New Inventory: $164
Number of items listed: 25- Your café looks amazing. If I’m ever in that area, I will stop by for sure!
- There is a new Habitat Restore store opening up in my area next weekend. I can’t wait to check it out. Hopefully some great deals. I hit them up in any area I travel to. Usually hit or miss…some are expensive, but some are awesome.
- I went to a fantastic outdoor estate auction this weekend. It was pouring rain in the morning and kept raining all day, so it really kept people away. I spent $89 and filled my SUV to the brim. I could’ve gotten so much more, but didn’t have room. They couldn’t get bids on box lots and kept adding to them until they could get a $1 bid. So far, I’ve listed 10 items from that auction for $600. Probably several thousand dollars of stuff by the time I finish listing it all.
-
Total Active Items 962 (creeping towards 1000)
Items Sold: 13
Gross Sales: $702.65Highest Price Sold: $$147.24 – Vintage Rosenthal Figurine (I’ll take that for something that I probably could have thrown away!)
Returns: 0.
New Listings: 20
$ Spent on New Inventory: $30. Hit a couple of quick rummage sales. No time for a flea market when we put our garden in. So happy to have that done!!Net Gain: $458.04 (We would like to see at least $500). Fingers crossed for this week!
-
Total Items in Store: 318
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: $398.75 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $302.59 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $150
Highest Price Sold: $79 New tunic dress, paid $24
Average Price Sold: $66
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Thanks for the podcast. I was wondering where you were going with the death nun. Congrats on the continued success of the coffee shop. It reminds me a lot of my favorite shop here, which btw has stopped selling my favorite avocado toast. I’m crushed.
Finally coming out of my pandemic/stress induced coma and got some items listed and was rewarded with some sales – all comfort clothing. I have sold a handful of really old items recently that I marked down to try to blow out. Work is busy but I’m looking forward to getting back into Ebay. I don’t have much of a taste for thrifting and instead really want to focus on clearing some death piles. A bunch of saleable stuff came out of my daughter’s room that I could flip on Mercari and I’m currently resisting just donating it since I didn’t buy it for resale. I feel a Marie Kondo spell coming on. We have a lot of travel expense coming this summer with my son moving and I need to kick back into gear on all fronts.
I got a notice that a totally benign home decor item made in India sent GSP was stopped at customs. Does anyone know off the top of your head if it might clear or if Ebay will just hold the funds unless I call. I loathe calling them.
Have a great week everyone.
-
Hey! Loved the podcast. I just wanted to suggest Quickbooks Self Employed. If you get it through an accountant/bookkeeper who can get you bulk pricing, it’s only $10/month. It can track your mileage, sync your bank accounts (including PayPal, Venmo, etc.), learn “rules” to auto-categorize, send invoices, you can attach pics of receipts to transactions. You can set up tags if you’re trying to track certain things. This was my first year using it for eBay and taxes were super easy. It’s not perfect (biggest pain is it won’t let you change/add categories so for instance I use Other Business Expenses for inventory). At tax time, I do still download spreadsheets of my sales transactions to reconcile fees/taxes because I am cheap/lazy and don’t do this for each transaction when it happens as I should. I still thought it was worth it and was easy.
I am a bookkeeper by day so of course my nerdy brain likes this stuff. I am used to ysing the fancier versions of Quickbooks but I think for what we do we can get by with the Self Employed version. Quickbooks lets you take a test drive and use fake data to see how it works. https://selfemployed.intuit.com/createTestDriveUser-
Intuit sold off Quicken a few years ago and the new company who bought Quicken! [not QuickBooks] has done a big overhaul. It is called Quicken Home, Business & Rental Property.
It does everything. You can create any categories you want, add them in sequence just like a customized COA – Chart of Accounts. Pull Profit and Loss statements, and on and on. for about $70 for the year. It also synchs in the cloud in case you need a back-up. You can even generate invoices if needed.
We have done extensive discussions about EAT, Quicken, QuickBooks, WonderLister, Sixbit here on SL over the years and if you search SL on those keywords you will get a lot of tips and comparisons.
Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.-MDC Galleries in Atlanta
-
@huncrelan – Are you using it for yourself? I used to love Quicken, it was so simple and easy, but the product just got more complicated and worse over the years with each update. I haven’t tried it in years, though.
-
Yep. Have used it for the last few years. I used to use QuickBooks for many, many years but after selling my larger companies and retireing and started running our 3 online stores I knew I did not need all the cow bells and whistles of QuickBooks.
I cancelled my QuickBooks subscription and re-created my COA [chart of accounts] in Quicken, “taught it” to memorize my payees and total expense structure, very easy to do. Attached my credit cards and bank accounts, both personal and business. Now everything downloads every morning and posts to all our personal and bznz accounts. The only thing I have to do is rename any new items that are brand new vendor accounts.
I can even invoice from Quicken for other services such as some consulting I do, and I even ran the project management part of 4 houses I and my former business partner that I supervised for him.
I don’t know how it handles setting up W-2 employees and tax tables for employees but most people now days use a Payroll service instead of doing it themselves, like J&R do.
I can also call Quicken 24 hrs. / 7 days a week, get a state side rep, and these reps know accounting. As soon as they hear you are not understanding they will either ask or you can ask for them to jump on a remote access and they will log right into your account and just do the set-up for you. That is what part of your fee pays for.
Mint and Fresh books is more of just a project tracking and invoicing app. Though they are making strides but Quicken has had this down for years. As I said the most used accounting program in the world when Intuit [QuickBooks] owned them. Now, not as much, but still a great single entry bookkeeping system.
If you can’t state in the next 30 seconds why you need a double entry [General Ledger & side journals] program, then you don’t need it. Too complicated and too easy to mess up if you are not a bookkeeper. Screw up your General Ledger, then you will have to inform your CPA and he will have to make entries, or off setting entries, etc., etc. and will charge for it.
Ask Mark Tewes on here. Ask him if he thinks most online sellers operating on a cash basis instead of an accrual system need a double entry / general ledger accounting system? I would be surprised if he says yes. My CPA says no.
At year end I can furnish enough reports [.Pdf] files. Quicken also has a mileage tracker in the Deluxe or Home and Business versions. Don’t skimp on a smaller version just for a few bucks per year.
Intuit were the original owners. The QuickBooks guys had Quicken for years. It is the most recognized accounting program in the world. Intuit got more interested in Growing the Double entry bookkeeping portion of their financial interests and stopped paying much attention to the single-entry bookkeeping system used by Quicken. So, Intuit started to let updates and new growth coding fall by the wayside.
So, they Sold it to H.I.G
<span class=”ILfuVd NA6bn”><span class=”hgKElc”>Here a copy of the 2016 announcement.</span></span>
<span class=”ILfuVd NA6bn”><span class=”hgKElc”>Quicken: An Overview. QuickBooks and Quicken are two of the most widely used financial management tools in the world. Both programs were part of <b>Intuit</b> (INTU), but Quicken was sold to <b>H.I.G Capital</b> in 2016.</span></span>
Quicken is not QuickBooks and vice versus. Quicken was bought and greatly improved since Intuit lost interest and sold it. Even Microsoft started to buy quicken but developed MINT at the time. I think may MS did own it for a short period.
The Quicken staff is great. So just call them and talk with a rep. tell them how you conduct your business, how you track expenses, how you do payable [OH, OH, you can even set up to pay your bills both personal and business through Quicken], Ask them what kind of reports you can get and if you don’t know what you need let them tell you.
I used to teach on a collegiate level and the only dumb question is the one you don’t ask.
Jay has said I write “walls” of text. Well, here you go, take what I have outlined, what you see about other programs, call and talk with them. I am not afraid to question anybody for an hour or more. But I get the details I need to make an informed decision.
And as my old ending line used to say, just my opinion and that plus $1.50 will get you half a cup of coffee. But with J&R maybe 1/10th of a bag of ground up beans!
Mike at MDCFA in Atlanta
-
-
The simple answer, which I am not known for is yes and yes. Absolutely on all accounts.
But there is more to the story.
- Yes, it synchs with every account you have. Businesses, stock and investment portfolios, mortgages, savings accounts, credit cards, auto loans, HELOC accounts, any type of account you set-up with it.
- But just like with GDBK you will have to set up those accounts, give account and routing numbers, passwords, etc. It has its own password vault that is locked up inside of Quicken, very much like RoboForm.
- Every morning, all I do is click the “One Step Update” button and Quicken goes out to every account I have set up for it and does an update to all activity, deposits, payments, reimbursements, refunds, stock trades, 401k interest, and updates all of those accounts and places a red flag on those accounts. Then I get a chance to click the red flags and approach them as a whole batch or one by one if I wish.
- Then it synchs to the cloud automatically and keeps a back up of everything, plus I also have it make a separate back-up to our 4-terra byte external hard drive. Nothing like having redundant back-ups. J
- With regards to handling separate accounts and also separate businesses. That is where property Management Module comes into play. When we built those 4 houses in North GA, I set up each house as an account by it’s address. Then taught Quicken to “learn” which is nothing more than mapping certain expenses to certain accounts [addresses] and from that point on, those get categorized by that address [i.e., project, or property].
- This all functions just like Ryanne did with GDBK. Daily she clicked to update. Everything she had already categorized in GDBK went directly to that module [i.e., journal sort of]. AND ANY new type of purchases/expenses or income [i.e., payables or receivables] that were brand new, of course she had to map them to the chart of accounts.
- Those charts of accounts would have to be set-up in the beginning [Your CPA] will help you with that sequence and then each business would have its own “set of COA’s] so you could separate each type of Pay./Rec. would go to it.
- It can get as complex or as simple as you want. Example: Maid service you pay for, you can have just one COA entry as “Janitorial” for all of your business combined OR you can have a “Janitorial” category under each AB&B rental and the coffee shop as 4 or 5 different business you set up. I did the 4 houses as 2514 House, 2519 House, 2534 House and 2546 House. Set up my COA [payable and receivable categories] for each and ran those 4 projects just like 4 separate businesses. We did under one bank account, but I could have just as easily set up separate bank accounts and even separate credit cards on each.
- When using any of these programs one needs to have an understanding of basic bookkeeping.
- All the programs work approx. the same EXCEPT with Double Entry bookkeeping there is a GENERAL LEDGER that tracks every journal that satellites off of it. User entries are made in the “Journals”. Just the little green manual handwritten books. A stack of journals represented a journal for each category type. A payables journal, a receivables journal, purchasing, bank accounts, etc., etc. Modern day journals are all digital.
- The General Journal is where all of those entries are “compiled” into one main master LEDGER. The reason it is called DOUBLE entry is you would hand write everything in your daily journals, which ever one represented the topic you were dealing with. Cash payments, or payables [paying your vendors], THEN you would also have to come back and do the same thing in the GENERAL LEDGER. Thus, Double entry. You could make an error in the journals, erase and correct them, etc. but VERY CAREFUL SCRUTINY had to be paid to the GL. Usually your CPA would reconcile your daily journals, cross reference to the GL and make sure everything balanced. Thus, the rise of the “Bookkeeper” profession. Just too much work for a business owner when they had a business to “RUN”.
- Well modern tech. made everything digital. So, the journals are still used, and also the General LEDGER connected [double entry] but all is done automatically. But make an error in the journals, and if you know some accounting, one can figure out the erroneous “posts” in the journals and correct them. Make a bunch of errors and they get posted to a GL, then usually it is a trip to the CPA to get everything back in synch and balanced. Many CPA’s will password protect the GL to keep you out of it. A novice can really mess things up by adding or deleting within a GL. It needs to be handled according to the American Standards of Accounting principles.
Now this is all very basic, glossed over explanation and as we all have said for years. Talk to your CPA. Call yours Jay and ask, do I need to pay $365 per year for a Dbl. bookkeeping program or will a single do the job. He may like the Dbl. because it gives him more control and CPA like QuickBooks because they have the CPA version and can work remotely easier. Also, if you are going to have a lot of invoicing to do, carry WIP [work in process] in years end and carry these over as either assets or liabilities at years end, and need to operate on an Accrual basis instead of on a CASH basis, then the Double Entry system is a better choice.
Many reports can be printed from Quicken just like QB. P&L statements just not only for your over financial picture, but if you set up different companies [or properties], you can track P&L by each property you rent. Would you like to know which of your “businesses” are more profitable than the others? Which property is your weakest one? Knowing this may help you to decide if you want to maybe sell off one of them.
Sure, your CPA can do this, but at a cost. If you get to know your accounting software, you can do the same yourself. AND also, this applies to investments. Did you do a “Proforma” for your Coffee Business and a break-even scenario? I sure hope so. It will inform you way ahead of time if you are failing or succeeding so you can forecast a corrective measure. Like should you lower wages, fire an employee and split duties between others.
A good accounting program and knowledge of it’s use is a business tool every owner needs to have and know what the reports mean. The P&L will tell you what percentage of your income is going to which parts of your COA [chart of accounts] and show you where your overspending problems are so you can respond and correct.
This can all be done in either a single or double entry system.
Quicken also has a module for you to create personal and business budgets and will track actual against hypothetical [a budget]. Pull daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly reports on everything. The days of receivables go into my left pocket and my payables come out of my right pocket and if anything is left over in either pocket, I am OK or making money, has been over for a long time.
OK now that I have ventured into this topic, as a non-accounting professional I am sure Sharyn, Mark Tewes will shut me up fairly quickly. There are many on this forum who know there accounting very, very, well much more so than I.
You waited years to get into an inventory management system and a centralized storage area then jumped in but had to make up a lot of ground which took time. Then went to GDBK which again was not “robust” as you called Quicken and QuickBooks back in the day. Now it is time to get into solid accounting software. Troy and I were spread sheet guys, but they all fall short when it comes to locking in on an accounting program, complex or not.
Here is a suggestion, for your next employee-helper, why not hire a person with accounting experience, either Quicken or QuickBooks, let them help you guys set it up, set up a proper COA, categorize your business into separate customized categories AND cross train them to help with the Ebay business and as a fill in at the coffee shop. Cross training is a great way to cover your basis with only one employee. Teach them to take phots, create a quick list draft, serve tables, and do your books and help with simple social media tasks. Our two helpers are cross trained on 4 or 5 things they can do for us.
So how is that for a wall of text. Been a while for one of these. 🙂
Just a suggestion and all of this is of course respectfully submitted for your consideration. Now here comes all the accounting types to set all of this straight. 🙂
Kindest Regards,
Michael with the MDC Concepts, Inc. team
Susan, Lisa, Kim, Christie, Loruhama and Michael
- MDC Galleries and Fine Art
- Collins Creek Collections
- SmartParts Craft & Equip. Supplies
- “Live to Create and Celebrate.”
- Yes, it synchs with every account you have. Businesses, stock and investment portfolios, mortgages, savings accounts, credit cards, auto loans, HELOC accounts, any type of account you set-up with it.
-
Another thing just came to mind. To help organize things per project, when you get credit cards bills, especially if you have a business C/C is you can “split” the line items or even one line item into separate categories. Order let’s say 100 towels for the rentals. You can split that total purchase into the 3 or 4 places and allocate 25 to ea. of 4 or 50 to the Farm house and 25 ea. to the other locations as long as you have set-up your COA and expenses by say the b usiness names or addresses.
Also a good idea is to start issung Purchase Orders for goods and services. It helps all the way around. Ask your vendors ro bill you by your business names and or separate addresses. Have your cleaning service send you 4 invoices, one for each location and then pay by invoice.
And yep, Quicken allows you to create Purchase Orders and will remind you when certain bills are due if you set them up on reminders in your Quicken Calendar.
Never pay bills by stament. Always pay by Invoice. That way you can select and pay your payables by Inv. number. If you have a problem with a particular product or order you placed, you can pay the before and after invoices but hold up on that specific invoice until you resolve the issues at hand.
Worth mentioning since I forgot it in last post.
Mike – MDCGFA
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Total Items in Store: 164
Items Sold: 11
Total Sales: $381.71
Highest Price Sold: $85 Breyer Model Horse Diana
This was 2 weeks of work results – I skipped posting last week as I got my second covid shot and it threw me for a loop. Fever, chills, headache, I had to take Monday off but luckily recovered by Tuesday. Now I can go out and hunt again, yay! Ebay has been quiet for me, I have been redoing old listings and selling some old stock so that is nice. Plenty of low dollar sales to get me through the week.
I went to a Goodwill outlet for the first time, and lucked into a new trolley of media that was just pushed out. Not much competition (I went mid morning on a weekday) and picked up lots of fun stuff for only $2. Already sold 2 VHS tapes for $10. Not sure if I will make it a regular thing, I just like sourcing at estate sales better. I am learning to keep track of the selling company habits, some make stuff free after a certain time, some do big bundle discounts. I will do much better to time my visits and buy accordingly. Gotta keep learning and growing. Luckily this is a fun and enjoyable way to pass time and make some cash.
-
5-10-21 to 5-16-21
Total Items in Store: 1422
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: 109.78
Net Sales: 40.70
Cost of Items Sold: $ 1
Highest Price Sold: $ 29.99 General Hospital lapel pin
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 20Very slow week with 3 days of no sales. I dealt with the Ebay notice of listings that were going to have “required soon” fields on the weekend. I have a ton of suggested field notices too. Those are super annoying. 90% of the time those recommended fields do not apply to my item, and 75% of the time there is no way to enter n/a for those fields.
On the bright side, pools open soon. I will be swimming every afternoon that I can. My happy place is under water with goggles on. 🙂
-
“I have a ton of suggested field notices too. Those are super annoying. 90% of the time those recommended fields do not apply to my item, and 75% of the time there is no way to enter n/a for those fields.”
eBay’s been pretty clear on the recommended fields…ebay’s advice…if they don’t apply, IGNORE them. No need to enter n/a. Just skip over them.
-
-
Nice to hear about your coffee shop. I hope it continues to do well!
Week of May 9 – 15
Total Items in Store: 1344 eBay, 44 Etsy
Items Sold: 10 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $1 + $37.45 Commission
Total Sales: $137.82
Highest Price Sold: Tie, $33 Vintage Kramer of NY brooch
Average price: $13.78
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $10.35
Number of items listed this week: 19The same number of sales this week compared to last, but about $300 less in sales. Selling less expensive items and a good portion are on commission.
-
-
-
Hi Jay and Ryanne:
Karen aka Lavenderclothesline spent a few minutes of her 5/18/21 YouTube Video talking about you guys! She is going to head down there and see you before I head up to see you! I hope you guys get to film…interview together! That would be fund to see/listen to!
Molly
-
-
5/9/21 – 5/15/21
Total items in store: 2341
Items sold: 45
Gross sales: $1836.56 (up 16.5% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1205.62 (up 19.8% from one year ago)
Highest price sold (net): $83.32 — authenticated First Day Cover autographed by football Hall of Famers Jim Brown & Paul Hornung
Lowest price sold (net): $6.10 — gold refractor insert of Toronto Blue Jays minor leaguer Alek Manoah
Like everyone else, last week was a slower week for me. I had mostly $20 and $30 sales and in dissecting the numbers, almost every $50+ sale was international shipping or weighed more than a pound or had some quirk that meant my total shipping cost was $10 or more. And I spent a lot on new inventory. There was logic behind the purchases, and I know it will all sell eventually, but sometimes I read about everyone’s $1 box lot auction purchases and can’t help but feel a little jealous.
(Ironically, I won a nice card at auction last night for a dollar and change — maybe two bucks with shipping and tax — that will eventually sell for $100 if not more. The listing wasn’t perfect but wasn’t so bad that the auction should have ended so low. This is very rare for me, usually it’s more like spend $30 on a card and list it for $100 to $150.)
Anyway, these weeks will happen. Best to look for the positives. First is that the slow sales led to playing around with a markdown sale, which is something I think about almost every week. When I do use markdown manager (maybe once a month?), I have a bad habit of discounting the same old inventory 10%. Inevitably, only 1 or 2 things sell and I wonder why I’m wasting my time.
This time, I took a solid hour out of my day and went through and selected 500 older and/or more “stale” listings but with some thought behind the choices. I discounted 20% and really tried to put some thoughts into which listings I discounted. I’m four days into the sale at this point and already have $220 in sales with two buyers who purchased multiple sale items. Maybe there’s a lesson learned here or maybe these sales would have happened regardless, but either way it’s nice to get some inventory sold.
I scavenged something for myself this week — a nice, sturdy 35″ inch standing desk riser. Brand name is Flexispot if anyone is in the market for one. I had done the research on these a few months ago, but of course I’m not going to pay $200 for a standing desk. What scavenger would? So I saved a few ebay searches and waited a few weeks and eventually found an auction with a starting bid of $49. Amazingly I won it for that price. I was somewhat surprised, but having listened to the podcast for so long, it’s furniture so of course there is a lot of variance in price. Lots of people don’t have the room to store it and if you’re moving, furniture is one of the first things where if you don’t have the space or need, you get rid of it. So I get a steal and the seller (who had about 35 feedback) gets rid of this big box that’s just taking up space in their life.
Their loss was my gain. Literally took me five minutes to unbox the standing desk and set it up, and what a game changer it is. Makes the old thrifted desk I’ve had for a million years feel brand new. In hindsight, this would have easily been worth spending $200. But I can use the $100 I saved through waiting to upgrade something else, or on some new inventory. And the cycle of scavenging continues.
-
Late to the show this week and to my numbers. Haven’t had much time for eBay this week. My wife had some health issues that resulted in a short hospital stay. She’s fine now and on the mend. Grateful to have a job that is so flexible with time.
Had a better week last week. A few larger sales. Largest sale was a wash as I sold my daughter’s guitar for the same price I bought it for a few years ago. She liked a vintage guitar I scavenged better and so off this one goes. Very happy to have gotten full asking price, minus ebay fees of course.
My favorites sale of the week was a lot of old letters. I had 65 letters that a young woman wrote to her fiancé during World War II. Almost daily letters over the course of a few months in 1944. Lots of day-to-day details about her life waiting for him to return to her. Really curious as to what became of them. I can usually find something on the Internet but both she and him seem to have faded away without a trace. Makes me assume the worst. Sold the lot for $90.
Sales Report for: 5/15/21
Total Items in Store: 1124
Items Sold: 22
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $1,063.12
Net Sales (After fees): $895.62
Cost of Items Sold: $244.90
COGS Percent 27.34%
Net Profit Margin: 61.21%
Highest Price Sold: $199.95 Guitar
Average Price Sold: $48.32
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 13
Promoted Percentage: 59.09%
Average Days Listed: 232.81
Longest Listed: 1188
New items listed: 8-
Hope your wife is doing well, first and foremost, Lukastreasuretrove. That is always more important than any particular week’s numbers.
I am fascinated by the lot of old letters! If you don’t mind sharing, were these an estate sale find? Are there collectors of old letters, or are the buyers museum curators and local historians and genealogy nuts?
And how much identifying information do you put in your listing? With cards and especially with autographs, every so often I have a buyer who is clearly a family member because the last name is shared, or they send me a message that says this was my uncle’s neighbor or father’s best friend. I love those buyers that are so happy to have this item that they just have to send a message about it. They usually pay full price and leave positive feedback, too.
I imagine this sort of personal connection to the item would be so much stronger with these old letters which are so rich and textured with details. It’s sad, especially what you added about being unable to find any info on them, but it’s beautiful that you were able to move the letters along to their next home, allowing their love story to live on (in a way) a little while longer.
And $90 is nothing to sneeze at! Congrats on a nice sale.
-
-
@craig-rex – Thanks for your thoughts. She’s doing much better now.
The letters were an estate sale find. I picked up a large box of letters, postcards, photographs and newspapers for a few dollars and they were in the box. There are definitely collectors of old letters and series like this from any war are especially of interest. I shared the names of the writer and recipient. I have sold several items in the past – photographs and bibles mainly – that peoples descendants have purchased. It is cool to reconnect someone to their past. I would have asked more for these, but the writer was pretty sparse on details, each letter barely being one page. Here is the listing if you are interested:
1944 World War 2 Lover’s Correspondence to Army Doctor 106 letters | eBay
-
Hey J&R … Here’s a FIRST. Just sold 4 decorative plates to someone in Luray, VA., Kimbell Rd..
Sold a few pcs. to buyers in my own town, but first to someone in yours. 🙂
Mike – MDCGFA – Atl.
-
-
eBay has been sloooow. The last 3 months are about 35% lower than prior, which is never a good thing. Part of it being the slow season, but most of it being the lack of new listings as we focus on our warehouse. Reminds me of when you guys were focused on other business and saw your sales dip. We all get out what we put in. $515 gross the last 7 days. $3300 in the last month. We were having weeks like that in December! Local marketplace sales were just a hair under $5k gross–far from it net–so that is going OK while we wait on occupancy permitting from the city. Lucky us, we chose to do business in the most strict municipality in the area. We do have the county small business economic development organization going to bat for us and trying to expedite it all. Never a dull moment.
Gargolfer–I’ve had many local auctions that went that way and it’s great for filling up your money piles with low cost inventory. I generally buy all the junk nobody wants and it has been worth it every single time. I’ve been itching to get back to an auction, but Sundays have been busy lately. I don’t care much for the online variety. Also very satisfying when you are the ultimate recycler. All of that was about to become landfill.
We finally tried Southern Split and Cameroon this week. I must say that I don’t usually like dark roast, but Southern Split is some great coffee! Cameroon is good as well–so smooth I question whether I am using enough sometimes. We are thinking about using your sample packs or subscriptions as a giveaway for some of our customers. Not sure exactly what the plan is, but we’d love to share your coffee with the locals here.
-
Those of us that have been selling on eBay for a while have been through these ups and downs. I’m assuming people are tired on buying online and getting out into the world.
We know all too well the issues with building zoning and inspections. We hope the city gives you the permission you need to sell there.
Glad you enjoy the coffee. We make it with love 🙂
-
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.