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Every year I like to set some goals for the new year.
Do I want to grow? Do I want to change my sourcing? etc.
This year I have a few goals that kind of feed each other:
1. Reclaim my garage space so it can be a family space.
I want my family to be able to hang out in the garage in some form. I’ve let the space kind of be taken over and become unorganized. The space also shrunk when I added a weightlifting platform and a hot tub. I need to get unlisted inventory OUT of the garage. I want my listing area to be clean and organized. Then I’ll have my photography area, a cart to stage items that are in the process of being listed, and a shipping supplies storage area. I have some dedicated shelves and carts for LISTED inventory storage ( that is full of unlisted stuff), but everything else needs to go.
2. Reduce the death piles.
Yeah…I have alot. I’m 6+ years into this business. My day job turned into something I actually enjoy and I have a long term future here. The purposeful backlog of listable inventory has really become a problem that I need to resolve. Last year I created a tool to control my sourcing by tying sourcing limits to listings created and sales. Yeah…I abandoned that plan. This year though, sourcing has kinda lost its shine to me. I think it’s a combination of things: Poor thrift store inventory, higher prices, not as great health due to covid, general lack of time. Sourcing has become more of a “meh, whatever” experience for the most part. I need to leverage that mental state and source…in my death piles. It’s ALL high quality stuff!
3. Consider short term storage unit rental.
This is a controversial one for me. On one hand, I hate wasting money. On the other, it could allow me to start the year off with the garage space I desire. It could increase my productivity and drive the motivation to work my way out of a storage unit faster.
4. List new purchases within 1 week.
I simply can’t add to my death piles to meet my goals this year. If I buy it, I have to list it immediately.
So what kind of numbers do I need to accomplish these goals?
Let’s look at historical numbers first
Items Sold Items Listed
2019 1131 1492
2020 1735 1752
2021 1034 1125
So I have year over year inventory growth. This year’s sales are impacted by my store being closed for almost 7 weeks. I also took off effectively the last 7 weeks of the year from listing. Taking that into account and going by my active week averages, that equaled 161 less sales and 406 less listings.
So this coming year even without growth I should easily be able to sell 1100 items and list 1500 new items. To push myself, I would like to set a goal of listing an average of 40 items a week this year to get over 2000 new listings. I can’t really control sales, but I suspect listing 2000 items should result in around 1500 sales if 2022 is an uneventful year.
With these goals, whether I use the storage rental or not I should be able to meet my goal of emptying the garage of unlisted inventory by year end.
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I’m still working on my goals for this year. And my list for the Trash Elf Challenge. One thing I’m definitely going to do (barring illness, etc): 5 new listings every day for the first two weeks. Probably increase it at the end of the two weeks, and going forward, until I hit a level that I can do comfortably. I’m borrowing from Chris at Daily Refinement—I can do more than 5 listings per day, but 5 actually go up, and the rest get banked for those days when we are running errands, sourcing etc, and I might not have time or energy to list. I don’t KNOW for a fact that ebay’s algo considers daily listing activity, but , like many, I’ve always suspected it is a factor…..so hopefully consistency will help with sales. And, if nothing else, it will force me to establish a daily listing habit, which will help reduce my unlisted inventory piles.
Like Retro, I’d like to get all my unlisted inventory (except the stuff we’re going to be working on in the immediate future) out of the house. That’s a lot of stuff, and will be a work in progress, but I’d like to have that finished by no later than the end of Q3.
I’m giving myself the first week of the year to define my goals, so will add more later. Stuff that I’ve been putting off or that I think will be more “fun” is going onto the Trash Elf Challenge….because it is stuff that doesn’t have to be done in any particular order….
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Oh, another goal. I’ve been considering adding more venues (presently really only ebay), but I’ve decided to focus on ebay for Q1…if I can do half again what I did in 2021 Q1, I’ll probably stick with ebay. If I can’t reach that goal, I’ll look into other venues. (So, Q1 2021 x 150%=Q2 2022 Goal)
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Consider short term storage unit rental.
If you have the room on your property, have you considered buying/building a storage shed specifically for eBay? If you can decide that online selling is a long term business, the investment is worth it.
You’ve heard our story: We sold on eBay for almost 10 years and had our inventory spread out over three properties and two storage units. Not only were we paying rent on storage, we wasted a lot of time driving around to manage items. Plus our home was a storage area. In our defense, we’re cheapskates so it was what we needed to do to store thousands of items. Time was something we had in abundance. eBay as our life so we slept among our junk.
But then two things became important: our time + our living space. We wanted to wake up, walk 25 feet, get an item and ship it. We also wanted wake up and not have eBay inventory all over the house.
So we decided to spend $20k on a storage building behind our house. You could do it cheaper, but we decide to excavate a specific part of our land, pour a concrete pad, insulate, and run electric to a 40′ x 26′ metal building. We took out a Paypal Working Capital loan, so eBay profits paid for the building over two years.
Over 16 years, our “rent” is about $100/month for that building. It buys us our time, our clean house!, + our property is more valuable because everyone loves a storage building.
To me, it sounds like you’re at this point. Do you invest in your business? Or rent space because it may not be a long term business?
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I already have a 12×20 building outfitted with shelving, modular shelving carts, sealed wardrobes, and two lofts that houses all of my 1500 listed items plus some unlisted stuff.
I have a 14’ v nose enclosed trailer that I fully outfitted with shelving. It is full of UNLISTED inventory already organized into tubs.
in the garage I have 2 built shelving units for listed inventory (full of unlisted stuff) and 8 shelving carts on wheels ( also full of unlisted stuff).I have all the inventory infrastructure (and unlisted inventory) I need for the size of business I want. Just gotta list the stuff now.
the storage unit would be temporary so I could deal with the unlisted stuff in the garage without it being in my face.
either way I have to deal with the garage stuff first.-
bro, you have a lot of unlisted inventory! If you get it all listed, do you have enough space to store it all? Storage really is key to business.
I’d put a moratorium on buying more items until you make a serous dent in what you already have. Is all that unlisted inventory quality and worth listing? Or do you need to cull the herd and redonate?
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Yes all high quality. All organized and stored in the place it will go when it is listed. I’ve always pre-researched anything I’ve bought. No box lots here.
I’ve drastically cut back my scavenging – pretty much only buy $50+ profit items. Never buy clothes anymore and few shoes due to my $50 profit limit.
It’s really not a great idea to 100% stop scavenging because I would miss out on items like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265394844761
that is an item I got on a yard sale day this summer when I was telling my wife I shouldn’t be scavenging. We saw a yard sale next to Walmart and she said I should look. I bought a large lot of manga books there. Paid $100 and have it all listed for several THOUSAND dollars.
So i have to allow myself to at least look for new items but be very picky. I have to list anything new I buy immediately. I have to only buy high profit quick selling things. I also like to collect my mileage for tax purposes. My mileage offsets $4k in sales – don’t want to lose out on that!
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Out of all our community members that I know their numbers, you’re the most profitable one that also has a full time job (and big family). So you know you’re business.
Since you’re putting your goals out there, curious what your toleration for certain things are:
–You said you wanted to clear out all eBay from your garage, so where will it go?
–How much are you wiling to pay for storage per month? And for how many months?
–What’s the limit of listed inventory you think your storage can currently handle?
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I have some room in my main building. I am due an inventory consolidation as well to make more room. So I have room right now to put About 75% of the stuff I permantly want out of the garage. Most of garage stuff will just stay on the existing shelves they are currently on. The other 25% of stuff will eventually move out as stuff sells to make room.
the unit I’ve looked at is $100 for a 10×10 per month.
the permanent storage I have can hold about 5000 items. So yeah, I have about 3500 unlisted items.
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I average 30 a week. Yes, it is a lot. I wanted to have enough stuff so I could list full time for over 6+months and double my listed inventory if I lost my job without spending a dime on new inventory or supplies.
I accomplished that goal…and then never lost my job. What a conundrum!
at one point I was very close to quitting and this backlog would have been put to use, but instead talked my way into creating a new position that Makes me very professionally fulfilled (and more money).
the 40 I want to average should be pretty easy with my daughter helping. We did 30 today. I listed and she photographed.
I still won’t get everything listed this year, but listing 500 more items than I sell is a start to reducing the backlog.
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Jay,
I think buying/building a storage shed on your own property is definitely a good idea if you can do it. Unfortunately, most HOA’s do not allow such things for those of us who live in neighborhoods.
My solution has been a 10′ X 30′ storage unit near my house. It is less than $200/month. I was forced to do this in mid October of 2021 because I was out of room at my house and if I wanted to grow my business, I had to do it.
This solution has its ups and downs. It was great to reclaim the space at my house that Retro Treasures talks about. My Inventory is so much more organized and easy to get to. On the other hand, making the trip to the storage unit is kinda a hassle. But, in the end, it had to be done if I wanted to grow, so I did it. No regrets. I can now grow my business as large as I want.
Mark
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Totally understand. You do what you got to do. Like I mentioned, we drove up to an hour a day between storage areas each day getting inventory to ship. Our time eventually became more valuable.
Unfortunately, most HOA’s do not allow such things for those of us who live in neighborhoods.
It’s good to get involved in your HOA and become president. (Modern problems require modern solutions 🙂
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