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It’s been fun to read everyone’s updates. Scavenging is such an ever changing business that pivots on what’s available and what people want. And for t
[See the full post at: The Numbers: December 19-25, 2021] -
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Weekly sales 12/19 – 12/25
Random Item Store
Total items 1565
Items sold 26
New items listed 70
Gross sales $388.71
Net sales $211.08
New buyers 16
Repeat buyers 0Patch Store
Total items 4572
Items sold 83
New items listed 140
Gross sales $729.71
Net sales $563.18
New buyers 58
Repeat buyers 6Etsy
Orders 23
Gross sales $275.00
Net sales $233.75Gross sales total $1,393.42
Net sales total $1,008.01My random item store keeps diving down in sales each week. Not sure why eBay doesn’t like that store lately. Patches have been doing well at least. Happy Holidays!
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12/19/21 – 12/25/21
Total Items In Store: 4253 (was 4270 previously listed)
Items Sold: 20
Total Sales: $ 558.83
Highest Price Sold: $ 70 (Vintage Jacket)
Average Price Sold: $ 27.94
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 70.07
Number of items listed: 3Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales were slow as expected. Sales were actually better than I expected.
Focus for the week : This week I am going to get my basement more organized.
Scavenge of the week: I was waiting in line at the thrift store and saw some Hummels. I thought those were worthless now, but looked them up anyway. Turns out some of them are still worth a lot. I bought several that are worth good money. Also bought an Apple TV 4th Generation for cheap.
Thoughts for the week: Still working on getting my Youtube channel going.
Mark S
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Thoughts for the week: Still working on getting my Youtube channel going.
Look forward to watching/hearing it. Producing a regular show is a lot of work!
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Jay,
Yes, it does take a lot of work. That is why it is taking me so long. I am not sure how regular of a show I will be able to produce.
However, I have put a lot of thought into how to do the show. I have the outline for many shows. Now, it is just getting down to the details of exactly what I will say.
Mark
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Funny, I pasted my numbers into an email before I left on a trip, and the new notes program I used with my new PC converted it into a photo.
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Items in Store 1495
Items Sold 20
Total Sales $580.00
COGS $62.00
Total Profit $518.00
Average profit $25.90
Average sales price $29.00
New Listings 3
Items scavenged 0Had a wonderful Christmas. My wife got me an Occulus Quest for Christmas and wow, it is FAR better than I expected it to be. It is every bit the VR we 80’s kids always dreamed of and more! I figured it would be good, but admittedly I didn’t know much about it and so I did not know it was capable of tracking your position in a room. I wish I had a bigger room now!
Sales were down as expected. This week started out good though with a $250 sale. Still keeping to my no ebay work December (with the exception of shipping). I will likely make this a yearly tradition.
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So happy to see you and the family are doing well. I’ve played in the Oculus Quest a handful of times, and I’m not a huge video game person, but I enjoyed my time with it anyway. My favorite games were:
Beat Saber, which is a fun workout game which is also very customizable if you download certain modsKeep Talking and No One Explodes, a co-op puzzle game
Both of the mini golf games (Walkabout and TopGolf)
There are a lot of other games I tried and enjoyed a few times or would have enjoyed if I was more of a regular gamer. I would also recommend looking into some of the accessories which make the quest more comfortable to wear. They made a huge difference in my enjoyment of the system and being able to play for longer than about 30 minutes without getting a headache.
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The one I finished up yesterday was red matter. It was awesome.
We do have beat saber which everyone loves.
I’ve had to build up my VR endurance for the big challenge: resident evil 4.enjoyed playing that in ps2 many years ago. Can’t wait to do it in vr.
I’m also gonna get the ping pong game. Reviews say it is as close to the real thing as it gets.
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I have heard great things from friends about Red matter, No Man’s Sky and RE4. Not my types of games but if you like those kinds of games, all 3 sound like a lot of fun.
I played the ping pong game a little bit and it was a lot of fun once I got the hang of it. Very realistic. One of the mini golf games Walkabout was similar in terms of incredible realism.
One other game that I really loved was tilt brush which is VR painting. I found it to be very calming and soothing and I am not much of an artist with a canvas (or so I thought)
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Sales Report for: 12/25/21
Total Items in Store: 1137
Items Sold: 20
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $1,168.60
Net Sales (After fees): $962.87
Cost of Items Sold: $112.00
COGS Percent 11.63%
Net Profit Margin: 72.81%
Highest Price Sold: $325.00 Vintage B-1 Soda Thermometer
Average Price Sold: $58.43
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 15
Promoted Percentage: 75.00%
Average Days Listed: 411
Longest Listed: 1521
New items listed: 1Had a much better week than expected. Two large sales really boosted the week. Biggest sale was a cool 1940’s/1950’s advertising thermometer for B-1 Lemon Lime Soda. I paid $39 for it on an online auction. Second sale was the coolest though, a set of 3 antique hand-colored prints from the late 1700’s. Sold the lot of 3 for $300.
Also had a cool sale of a vintage educational video game called Quake Busters. It was produced by the United Nations in 1996 to educate people on the dangers of earthquakes. I was asking $200 but took an offer of $100. I got it in a huge lot of CDs, so had about 0.25 in it.
Found another benefit of having SixBit this week. Somehow, eBay ended one of my listings without notice or any input from me and SixBit flagged it. I called eBay about it and their records show that I ended it with “Item No Longer Available”. I received no notice from ebay and it wasn’t in my Ended items, just disappeared completely. I’d have never known except for Sixbit. Now I am considering going through my listings and reconciling to see if their are more like this.
I have 13 items cross-listed to Etsy and feel like I’ve got the process down now. Have had visitors for the holidays and haven’t had time to do more, but plan to cross list about 200 over the next two weeks to see what comes of it. Had one of the items sell on eBay that I had cross listed and the program ended the item on Etsy as promised, so that is looking good.
Hope everyone had a great holiday and enjoys the New Year.
Mike
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I love seeing the unusual media items that you find for pennies, and sell for such impressive prices. It’s made me very excited to get back out there to library sales in the New Year for the first time since before the pandemic. Nothing like the true scavenging of digging through a box of CDs, computer games or books to find those obscure gems, and doing the research to find their true value.
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I did go ahead and close my store for 5 days and it seemed like they simplified time away. I got an offer pretty shortly after it expired. January can be good for me since I have new items in my store. My daughter is bored so I might hit her up to take photos. Happy new year everyone!
I’m stressed about bookkeeping since I did a bad thing and didn’t download EZ auction tracker last year. I’m hoping managed payments simplifies reporting and my sales were down as I was less active, but it will take some time for sure. I loathe that Ebay only saves 90 days of info.
I almost forgot to use my shipping coupon, which expires 12/31!
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I’ve had a laser focus these last few weeks on consolidating and organizing lower cost inventory, especially $20 and under items. It’s been extremely time consuming, definitely cleaned up my eBay room quite a bit, and made me a few extra bucks. Maybe the details merit a separate post. But I’ve been a slacker on posting my weekly numbers and need to keep up that accountability first and foremost in the new year.
12/19/2021 – 12/25/2021
Total items in store: 3345 (up from 3029 — but it’s been three weeks since I posted my weekly numbers, and a lot of this increase is from relisting old inventory, not brand new listings)
Items sold: 47 (32 via best offer, 12 via seller initiated offer, 0 repeat buyers)
Gross sales: $1724.83 (up 31% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1220.85 (up 41% from one year ago)
Lowest price sold (net): $6.17 — Sammy White autograph
I sell a handful of autographed cards like this one every single week — a card made recently, but the card is very plain and basically only a vessel for the professionally authenticated signature, rather than more expensive modern cards which are valuable for the player, design or set type. These types of autographed sets don’t feature current players (since producing cards of contemporary players requires expensive licensing that’s only available to a few select card manufacturers) and most of the players in the sets are nondescript since buying their autographs is cheaper.
I built up my store inventory from less than 500 listings to over 1000 with items like this — buy them for $5 or less and sell them for $10-$20. I don’t seek them out like I used to because they’re just not that profitable, but I like selling them because the buyers often fall into one of two groups:
1. A relative of the player (usually their grandfather or something like that) and they want to share this with someone, so they’ll mention it in a feedback or send a message thanking me for the item. Those are some of the best moments of selling on eBay.
2. Collectors who focus on a specific team, like this buyer who has probably bought 20+ similar autographs from me over the last few years. Because I package with a lot of care, these buyers are often buy from me again as long as I’m willing to negotiate. One sale with $5 profit doesn’t do much, but a few of those every week starts to add up. Especially in those slower weeks.
Highest price sold (net): $149.26 — RJ Barrett autograph /2 with inscription
This sale was quite the adventure. RJ Barrett is one of the young stars on the New York Knicks, and this card is from the year he was drafted, which is why he’s pictured in his college jersey, not his Knicks jersey. The autograph inscription is a reference to the fans of his college team, the Duke Blue Devils, and I can see why someone would pay a few bucks for this card in particular. I originally won the card at auction a few months ago for just under $50. I have been fortunate to purchase more and more items in this price range over the last year, and I’m excited to see what effect that has on my sales in 2022.
This Barrett card sold the same day I listed it for my full asking price of $199.99, and the buyer paid immediately which is a real specific thrill to selling on eBay. Then, 20 minutes later, they sent a message requesting a refund because they purchased the item by mistake.
Years ago, before I found this podcast, this would have ruined my day. I would have been angry, sad, maybe even sent an argumentative message back to the buyer. I’m sure I might have lost some motivation to list after that, especially since there’s a day lag with managed payments. The refund wiped out an entire day’s profits and I didn’t receive the money from the “sale” until 3 days later since this all happened on a Friday.
But I know the way now. I sent the refund. I sent zero messages to the buyer. I listed a few other cards later that night, and of course one or two of them sold within 24 hours because quality items sell when you create new listings with good prices. Then I relisted this Barrett card, and later that night it received an offer which (after some negotiating) led to a sale the next day. This time the buyer paid and didn’t cancel. Everything always works out.
Happy holidays and merry New Year’s to all my fellow scavengers. 2022 is going to be a great year for us. Part of the scavenger mentality is adapting and changing, especially in times of uncertainty and change.
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Then I relisted this Barrett card, and later that night it received an offer which (after some negotiating) led to a sale the next day.
@craig-rex – always love hearing about these; reinforces the positive side. It just isn’t worth wasting the cycles worrying or getting angry. That energy is better spent on working for the next sale.-
Yep, my thought process in these cases is “thank you for sparing me a headache problem buyer after I ship.”
I have no problem at all cancelling and delisting.
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It can be so painful in the moment of cancelling those $100+ sales, but it’s always better to get through them as quickly as possible and onto the next sale.
I was thinking earlier this week about how few INADs and return cases I get — maybe 5 in all of 2021, and I sold 50+ items a week and some weeks as many as 100 items. My return rate is shockingly low compared to what a lot of people assume about eBay selling, especially considering that I sell cards where you would think buyers would be pickier and returns higher. But I think most sellers can reduce their return rate by focusing on 3 areas:
1. Be extremely critical about condition and very clear about describing any flaws in the condition notes and in the listing description, and in the title if possible. With most of the cards I sell (certainly anything $50 and up), I give them a once-over inspection while I’m creating the listing. Any major flaws get added to the end of the title, like this listing which I sold yesterday. This adds a few extra minutes to how long it takes me to list, but I have more confidence that a picky buyer will be satisfied because the description is more than just “see picture.”**
** Granting that “see picture” is good enough for many buyers and many items. With $20 and under listings, I focus more on speed than perfection. It’s rare that I miss a major flaw, but on the few occasions I have, I refund the buyer and tell them to keep the item. They’re usually thrilled, and I move on to something else that sells for more.
2. Package very carefully. As we all know, this seems like it should be obvious to any eBay sellers but anyone who’s used eBay has a story about crazy, terrible or crazy terrible packaging. What fascinates me in particular with card sellers (even ones with 100,000+ feedback) is how often they cheap out on the proper cases and packaging. Every card I sell gets shipped in a brand new case. I buy them in bulk quantity in all different sizes (for different thickness cards) a few times a year. Each case is a few cents extra cost on top of what I pay for the item, and those few cents add up over 2000 sales, but I’d rather make a little less profit and look more professional. I save that money in other ways anyway.
3. Accept any and all cancellations for any reasons. I also take returns for 30 days for any reason, but I can’t remember the last time a buyer actually returned an item. Usually they are thrilled with “my mistake, sorry, here’s a refund and please keep the item” and I’ve been able to send out a replacement or equivalent item on a few occasions.
I don’t know if any of this would work for drop shippers who are just competing on price or people who sell Iphones and electronic where there is a lot of potential for fraud and unscrupulous buyers. But for most sellers, I think this is how you can avoid most returns.
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Is anyone else using Go Daddy Bookkeeping? I know J&R used it some time ago, but switched to something else.
Anyway, my issue is GDB and possibly the way I have it set up hasn’t worked correctly since I started eBay Managed Payments around March 2021. I had GDB syncing with eBay, My credit union checking account and Pay Pal. It was recording my profit significantly higher than what it actually should have been. I removed my credit union checking account. Now my profit seems to be less than what it should be. I have Pay Pal configured because my postage labels get paid through Pay Pal.
How do you have yours configured?
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12-19-21 to 12-25-21
Total Items in Store: 1932
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales:$ 275.16
Net Sales:$ 185.17
Cost of Items Sold: $ 5.00
Highest Price Sold: $ 150.00 Bud Ice Beer Sign
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 0
Number of items listed this week: 50I know I’m late but I promised myself I would post weekly numbers this year. And I did it. I shut down the store from Wed to Sunday this week just for a break from shipping. Still sold stuff and shipped it out Monday. Pretty neat how that works.
Sound like most of us had a better than expected week. That is a nice present for everyone.
Onto 2022
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