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Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee Join the conversation in the forum>> Our Store Week August 15-21, 2021 Total Items in Store: 7448 It
[See the full post at: Scavenger Life Episode 526: Are You Happy? Do You Feel Trapped?] -
Glad to hear J&R are happy about where they’re at right now. I’m getting there as well although I still feel a little overwhelmed with all the work, ebay, and parenting tasks.
It was a good week on ebay.
Sales: CAD$3654, 8 sales, COGS: $226, Fees: ~$475, Postage: $246 –> Gross profit: $2708
Expenses: $351, New inventory: $2977 –> Cashflow: -$394
Trying to make some investments in inventory. Auctions have been a little scarce lately so I’m mostly looking on ebay, with decent success.
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Thanks for the podcast! I guess we’re all trapped in a way, nobody gets out of this thing alive lol.
Weekly sales 8/15 – 8/21
Random Item Store
Total items 893
Items sold 36
New items listed 79
Gross sales $1,210.32
Net sales $839.97Patch Store
Total items 2898
Items sold 56
New items listed 147
Gross sales $438.86
Net sales $332.50Etsy
Orders 13
Gross sales $157.85
Net sales $134.17Gross sales total $1,807.03
Net sales total $1,306.64Wow, I had no idea I had this good of a week. I know I sold a dirty wedding dress for $150 and a motherboard for $100, but didn’t realize how many other decent sales I had. I discovered this week that I can list 45 patches in an hour if I list on my computer instead of my phone so that’s good information to have. If I can start listing 50 patches a day, things should pick up nicely. Will have to see if I can actually do that or not though.. I’m sticking with 10 random items a day and focusing the rest of my efforts on patches.
I’ve started creating extra drafts on the days that I list and averaging out my listings every day so that I list the same amount 7 days a week. I think this helps show eBay that I’m active every day and I believe it will help sales. It only takes 5 minutes to get my drafts listed on the days I don’t create new listings. Now I know how many listings I need to do, how many items I need to source etc. It helps me feel like my day is actually done when I reach my daily goals.
I heard a story of someone who gets lots of stuff every 3 months and they would get everything up as soon as they got the inventory. They switched to spreading out the listing of that same inventory a little every day and sales shot through the roof. I think there’s something to it. I also think eBay likes to see us ship out as quickly as possible because it shows that we’re going to fulfill the orders quickly. eBay gives the traffic, we’re supposed to have quality listings, good customer service, and order fulfillment. Anything that shows eBay we’re doing a good job surely helps get more traffic to our stores.
I’ve been using Wave and it works well for me. I still use my credit card through Paypal to pay for eBay shipping and my credit card links to Wave so it’s easy to track. I use Ally bank which is an online bank and it connects to Wave as well. You can link other bank accounts to Ally so it’s super easy to transfer money in and out of. I’m also working with my dad 2 days a week and have an antique booth so it’s nice to use Wave and keep everything organized. The only issue I have with Wave is that it won’t learn to categorize all of my eBay shipping transactions so I have to go in every couple of days and categorize them. It only takes a couple of minutes though.
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Week of Aug 15 – 21
Total Items in Store: 1360 eBay, 40 Etsy
Items Sold: 10 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $1 + $24.75 Commission
Total Sales: $181.46 eBay
Highest Price Sold: $32 vintage brass menorah (on commission)
Average price: $18.15
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 2 -
8-15-21 to 8-21-21
Total Items in Store: 1652
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: 134.24
Net Sales: 66.35
Cost of Items Sold: $ 5
Highest Price Sold: $ 40 Rupert Giles Funko Pop
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 0
Number of items listed this week: 25Recovered from crazy week. Was proud of myself for listing 25 items. Feels like consistent listing is the easiest way to keep Ebay’s algorithm happy. I’ve experimented a bit and found that sales are more consistent when I am listing. When I’ve shut the store and not done anything, my sales always return right after I send offers and list some things again. Of course my salea are no where near where most of you all are so YMMV.
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8/15/21 – 8/21/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 344
Items Sold: 13
Gross Sales: $359.16 (not incl shipping or taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $66 plus shipping – bronze and wood presentation wall plaque from the USS VELLA GULF, a US Navy cruiser.
Returns: 0
COGS: $82.05 (including consignment commissions but not including original cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 27
$ Spent on New Inventory: $1 -
Thanks for the podcast R&J. Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 4672
Items Sold: 65
Total Sales: $1249.74
Average Price Sold: $19.23
Average Cost of Item: $2.6
Highest Price Item Sold: $59.95 Nikon Series E 50mm 1.8 Black Pancake Lens
Number of items listed this week: 72 worth approx. $2014
YTD sales compared to this time last year: +28%
Hats sold this week: 48 (73% of sales)I had a pretty average week. There were no high value sales for me this week so my total sales number reflects that.
Regarding this week’s topic, I don’t feel trapped at all since I’ve taken control of my time and given up the 9-5 life. If I didn’t have savings in the bank, being a full-time reseller would be more stressful and maybe I’d feel trapped trying to feed the reselling machine.
I hope you get your accounting stuff sorted out. I’ve been using the spreadsheet approach since I started. I’ve been tweaking my spreadsheet for years and it does what I want now. I should probably be using a proper accounting tool but I can’t bear the thought of going through that pain to switch over. I doubt I’d get many benefits from switching.
Regarding Jay’s comment about the eBay community forums, he should take a look at some of the big Facebook reseller groups. They are absolutely teeming with tales of woe. Scammers/switcharoos/mean buyers etc. Anybody that spent time reading those forums before starting to resell would assume it’s going to be a nightmare to sell online.
I hope everyone has a good week
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Interesting topic this week. It’s hard to imagine that anyone doing what we do would feel trapped, as it is such a freeing lifestyle for me after being in the corporate world for so long. That said, as Simon mentioned, if I was relying on this for my total income and didn’t have savings in the bank it might be a different story.
I’m trying to kick things into gear and raise my numbers back up. Had a productive week posting the most items in a single week in about 2 years (49). Have taken it pretty easy over the summer with trying to keep the kids entertained and vacation travels, but we’re around the bend now and Christmas is coming. I need to keep up a good pace as I’ve fallen behind a bit this year. I averaged listing about 19 items per week in 2020, but this year I’m down to only 13 on average.
Another slow week of sales.
Sales Report for: 8/21/21
Total Items in Store: 1118
Items Sold: 13
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $266.85
Net Sales (After fees): $213.22
Cost of Items Sold: $21.00
COGS Percent 9.85%
Net Profit Margin: 72.03%
Highest Price Sold: $60.00 Antique Cut Glass Crystal Compote
Average Price Sold: $20.53
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 9
Promoted Percentage: 69.23%
Average Days Listed: 340
Longest Listed: 1115
New items listed: 49 -
Hey guys,
things are bad. Real bad. I’m in ICU. IT SUCKS. I shut my store down and cancelled my sales because I couldn’t ship. Now my wife is in the hospital too. Newborn has to sit formula and loss that mommy connection. She is with mother in law and with other kids at home.
I applied fir short term disability which I pay for at day job. Who know how long until I go back to work.
probabky my last update here for a while until I improve.
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Sending best wishes to you @Retro!
For anyone who follows Alabama Pickers on Youtube, Dusty posted from ICU on his channel this evening. This Delta variant is no joke. Please, please if you aren’t vaccinated, reconsider and get it. My parents finally got their first doses last week after seeing the havoc this variant is causing here in the South where schools have been open for 3 weeks. Now that schools have started opening in most of the rest of the country, it’s going to be everywhere!
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Please please please get vaccinated. I work in the ER where jay and ryanne live and it’s just devastating to hear these stories of sick people when we have really good protection. I’m yet to see a single vaccinated person very sick with covid but I’ve sure as hell seen a lot very very sick without a vaccine.
wishing you the best retro
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I had my first Pfizer jab in February, my second at the end of April. As far as I remember, the vaccine takes two weeks to become effective- the first gives 60% effectiveness, the second 80%. I think the time between jabs has now been shortened to something like a month. If you have your first vaccination now you’re probably going to have full antibodies end of October, beginning of November.
I get tested once a month for antibodies- still got ’em.
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@Retro thinking good thoughts for you and your family.
Well I dropped my oldest off at college and feel enormous relief. His college has a serious vax mandate for everyone, though the students are taking some liberties with the initial mask mandate. They caught 10 cases on the initial arrival testing, half are staff, 3 are international students. School population is 4200 in NY. I guess I kind of get fixated on something and obsess a bit so I’m glad my son seems to be settled where he is supposed to be. Now I have some time to get back to Ebay and my younger is vaxxed and back in person. I’m finding it hard to dive in on listing so please use this space to yell at me! Lol. I’ve done a terrible job being productive during the pandemic but I think a lot of it was due to anxiety that my son’s future college life would be disrupted and the insanity of US selective college admissions.
New England was great and people were really friendly and have great manners compared to California. It seemed a bit strange how little of the land is populated and looks the same (from the freeway anyway). We checked out Boston and Mystic – had to scrape Cape Cod because of Henri.
I have about 300 items left in the store and did very little shopping during the pandemic. There is definitely more competition when I do go. I like the Youtuber videos where they show you what they are passing on. I feel like I’ve graduated to the thrift quick and walk out empty handed group now.
R&J glad your sales picked up a bit!
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Retro – Sorry to hear you and your wife are down with the COVID – I finally talked with my youngest sister about her and her family getting vaccinated, if she ever wanted to resume our thrifting trips. Happily she was open to at least me mentioning it, which is different. Her husband of 43 years passed last month, not COVID related, but she’s coming through it like a trouper. She’s and her family members are the only hold-outs in our family thankfully.
Our adult children are both home and Jules Bijoux Vintage is now the family business. We just broke 1900 items and are rockin’ and rollin’. Daughter continues to work full-time as Asst Store Director at our local thrift and I volunteer there twice a week sorting books…so we have ample Inventory without traveling too far to get it… although I miss the trips.
I’m a big-time lurker but I really enjoy hearing everybody stories about this crazy eBay trip we are on…
Thank you Jay and Ryanne for your podcasts and this group.
Crystal and Jules
Jules Bijoux Vintage
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