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We haven’t done any serious scavenging in months as we work through our backlog of inventory. We’re hoping that when we’re ready to buy from auctions
[See the full post at: The Numbers December 5-11, 2021] -
12/05/21 – 12/11/21
Total Items In Store: 4252 (was 4237 previously listed)
Items Sold: 34
Total Sales: $ 1458.44
Highest Price Sold: $ 100 (Ski Pants)
Average Price Sold: $ 42.90
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 220.02
Number of items listed: 49Gut Sales Report for the week: Excellent Week. Nothing over $100 sold, but had several at $100 and some other strong sales to bring a great week.
Focus for the week : Just trying to keep up with listing and shipping.
Scavenge of the week: I found some great Allen Edmunds shoes for under $5 each. I have a few items that need more research before I will know.
I seem to have no problem in finding quality items at a good price. Maybe it is just that I have become more knowledgeable, I don’t know. I repeatably go to estate sales with great quality items and no one seems to even look at these great items. I am convinced that people who go to estate sales around here have no idea what the great items are. I think most are just people looking for things for themselves and then never get beyond that. Great for me!Thoughts for the week: Still working on getting my Youtube channel going.
Mark S
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I seem to have no problem in finding quality items at a good price. Maybe it is just that I have become more knowledgeable, I don’t know. I repeatably go to estate sales with great quality items and no one seems to even look at these great items. I am convinced that people who go to estate sales around here have no idea what the great items are. I think most are just people looking for things for themselves and then never get beyond that.
I agree that there’s still lots of places to find good items if you have the knowledge. How many hours a week do you scavenge?
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Jay,
I scavenge about 6 hours a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. Let me break that down.
I go to an independent thrift store 2-3 times a week. They have a ton of new inventory always coming in and they have great prices. No need to haggle. This allows me to get great items for cheap and very quickly.
The other part is that I go to estate sales 1-2 per week, sometimes more, sometimes less. But, the key here is that I have a vetting process where I spend 1-2 hours a week vetting the estate sales in my area. That is because there can be 30-50 estate sales or more in a 30-50 mile radius from me. Usually I am not driving more than 20 miles, but I will if the estate sale is good enough. The end result: I go to the best estate sales in the area with the best items I can find. I usually get there when the sale opens, but not always necessary. But, I find that if I get there when the sale opens, I have access to all the best items. In the first half hour, I get most of the great items uncontested. If I wait for several hours, the good items start to disappear. I don’t think the people know what they are doing, it is more like a broken clock that is right twice a day.
With these two strategies, I get way more items than I can list, but I don’t have death piles. I put them in a numbered container with all the details in a spreadsheet so that when I am ready, I have pictures taken and then they are ready to list. That sure beats death piles!
Mark
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Mark, Just trying to understand your process when you bring home purchases. You inventory them in a speadsheet, photograph them and are the photos tied to a number in the spreadsheet?, and then box them in numbered boxes (or containers). Does everything go in a box, or do you have different boxes for certain items (shoes in this box, clothing in here) etc?
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MyCottage,
I will try to make this as simple as I can.
1. I create a Buy Lot (BL) Entry in my purchases spreadsheet.
This contains the following information:
Date, Address
Item Title, BL#, cog, Price
Example: 12/17, 123 Main St., Allen Edmunds Shoes Size 12, 100a, 5.00, 49.99
I take the items that I buy in roughly the same timeframe and try to group them with like items as much as I can into a listing Lot that all go into 1 container.
2. Listing Lot (LL) Entry
Item Title, BL#, cog, Price, LL#, Condition, Notes, Dimensions, weight
where Item Title, BL#, cog, Price are copied from the BL entry.
Example
Allen Edmunds Shoes Size 12, 100a, 5.00, 49.99, 200-1,NA, 15-8-6, 3 (lbs)
Note: The LL# becomes the Custom label(SKU) in the listing
So, for this example, this would be Container 200.
The Shoes are put in a bag with 200-1 written on a Marking Tag and tied to the bag.
Rest of items are put in container, with 200-2, 200-3, etc.
Then, I store container 200. When it is time to photograph container 200, the photographer takes out all the items and then starts taking pictures 1 item at a time in any order they want. The first picture they take of each item is a picture of the tag (200-1 would be the tag for the Allen Edmund shoes). In that way, I know exactly what item it is and when the next item starts. That is why the order they take the pictures is not important.
I copy the pictures to a folder (200 in this case) on my PC and each item gets a sub-folder under it. 200-1 would be the first sub-folder. All pictures are reviewed and corrected if needed.
Then, when it is time to list, the lister opens the Listing Lot 200 spreadsheet. All they do is copy and paste the information into the ebay listing. For the pictures, they point to the item folder and import the pictures.
Advantages to this
1. I have all the pictures for each item saved on my computer by Listing Lot #.
2. If there is a question about where I got the item, I can use the BL and I can say exactly when and where I bought the item. I could also see which BL lots were the most successful.
3. The listing lot spreadsheet is used for cog entry. It gets a little complicated here, but I read in the Listing Lot spreadsheet into my Wonderlister database into a cog table. At the end of the year, I have a custom SQL Server query that I wrote that links all the cogs to the sold items (by linking the LL# to the SKU number of the sold item). I run that 1 query and I get a list of all my solds with the corresponding cogs for the year.
4. I have a database table with a list of every item that I have listed in a single table. I can query this table if I ever need to find any information about that data.
Let me know if any part of this explanation is not clear.
Mark
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Weekly sales 12/05 – 12/11
Random Item Store
Total items 1494
Items sold 34
New items listed 70
Gross sales $672.75
Net sales $405.83
New buyers 32
Repeat buyers 1Patch Store
Total items 4431
Items sold 71
New items listed 140
Gross sales $531.04
Net sales $414.03
New buyers 51
Repeat buyers 7Etsy
Orders 29
Gross sales $227.00
Net sales $192.95Gross sales total $1,430.79
Net sales total $1,012.81A bit better than last week thanks to my patch store. It still surprises me how consistent my number have been over the past 5 months or so.
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I’m not sure why my previous post has visible HTML. I entered my comments on my Pixel 5 phone.
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Total Items in Store: 170
Items Listed: 10
Items Sold: 7
Total Sales: $114.00
Highest Price Sold: $30 Vintage Ceramic Snoopy Football Christmas Ornament
Quieter week than I was hoping for, but worked out fine as I am busy with other obligations. No estate sales to speak of last week and I figure it will be quiet for the rest of the year. I will spend the time organizing and preparing to up my game next year. I need to move more stuff out of the storeroom and it is easier to list and ship when I can get to stuff.
Went to a hobby show over the weekend and saw some interesting things going on. High end stuff seemed to move well, and middle of the road items also were selling decently. Cheap and free items however sat until the end of the show. Rather odd when collectors walk past free stuff. It was a smaller event, mostly friends, but still got serious collectors to travel a distance for the show. It was also 2 days and I only went on Saturday so there might have been more action on Sunday. Not sure if it was just the holidays that dazed us, but I did take away that there is good money being spent on pricey stuff to the right people!
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Items in Store 1531
Items Sold 31
Total Sales $1,044.00
COGS $106.00
Total Profit $938.00
Average profit $30.26
Average sales price $33.68
New Listings 0
Items scavenged 2Sales continue to consistently come in even though I haven’t listed anything since 11/7. I can’t think of anything really worth mentioning last week ebay wise. I did sell a Geosafari for $180. That was pretty cool.
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Week of Dec 5 – 11
Total Items in Store: 1398 eBay, 32 Etsy
Items Sold: 13 eBay, 1 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $11.75 + $9.50 Commission
Total Sales: $204.75 eBay, $25 Etsy; Includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: $47 for lot handmade stoneware bowls & candleholders
Average price: $16.41
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 6For a number of years now, I stopped bothering with auctions in mid-fall, sometime in October/November, knowing that the prices were going to be too high. Prices usually don’t normalize for a month or two into the new year as well.
Every once in a while, I will follow an online auction, mark the things I’m interested in, and wait to see how it ends. However, I’ve not bid on anything for quite some time, and I’m sort of glad because I’m making progress on my death pile area.
If, for some crazy reason, I don’t get to bidding on anything before I run out of stuff to list, I have plenty of my own things to sell. For instance, my childhood stamp collection is sitting tight waiting for me at any time.
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Total Items in Store: 275
Items Sold: 8
Gross Sales: $298.51 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $173.67 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $80
Highest Price Sold: $40 BO set of Midcentury brutalist candle holders
Average Price Sold: $25
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Cruising along without listing. Lots of highs and lows in my non-Ebay life. Struggling teen. Send good coffee. LOL.
I would dearly love to get a New Year’s podcast if you would consider that update R&J. Happy holidays everyone.
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12-5-21 to 12-11-21
Total Items in Store: 1813
Items Sold: 11
Gross Sales:$ 284.48
Net Sales:$ 191.02
Cost of Items Sold: $ 3.00
Highest Price Sold: $ 49.00 Ghostbuster Visual History Hardcover
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 0
Number of items listed this week: 40Got back to consistent listing and lookie there, my sales were way up. Sometimes it is really simple. Wasn’t my biggest sale of the week but it brought me great joy – uncovered a Choose Your Own Adventure promo button for the book series. It was probably worn by the librarian running a School Book fair back in the day. I was ALL about Book Fairs when I was in school. Just made me happy.
I echo everyone’s thoughts on finding new inventory in the new world. It will be an adventure. I shopped my own store and broke up about 20 lots I had listed a long time ago. 20 lots will equal about 75 new listings.
I’m also all about parting stuff out recently. Bought a new Surround Sound system for the new house so have all the pieces listed now from the old one (sold 2 already). And found a Toy/display piece that was broken so I stripped it and am selling each clothing piece and all of the accessories individually. Will see how it goes.
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December 5-11
Active Listings: 11,800ish (sorry, can’t find the exact count from 12/12)
Number of Items sold: 106
Gross Sales (including shipping): $2691.53
COGS for Sold Items: $80
Highest Sale: Vintage Wallace Silver-plate Tray for $194.77
Average Gross Sale Price: $25.39
Returns: 2 (clothes, for fit)
Sourcing Cost: Zilch (though the previous week I spent about $600 on an estate auction via online bidding… it’s 600 miles away in my hometown. My car will be QUITE loaded down returning from Christmas!)Hellooo everyone! It’s been so good to get back on the forum and read this week’s responses. Sometimes when I’m in overdrive in my business or stressed I reach maximum information saturation and I don’t get on the forum too much. That’s where I’ve been the last few months due to a pretty much total plateau in sales from April-October…the shape of my revenue graph has been SO wonky this year! My response to that plateau was to dig in and keep listing, but the numbers were stressing me out, so I tried to focus on activity rather than obsessing about sales (or lack of). November finally picked up in a substantial way, and December has finally brought about the expected Christmas time volume of sales. Still not quite on par with what I’d expect for nearly 12k listings, but I am extremely grateful nonetheless! Now I’m in a positive kind of overdrive, shipping a ton and scrambling a bit to prepare for Christmas. I’ve got a new estate clean out project that has already yielded some really fun treasures, and this past week (and the numbers above) reflect my most profitable week to date. So maybe Q4 will end up where it seems like it’s supposed to be after all!
On another positive note, I want to encourage everyone in this community to apply for the Up and Running grant from eBay and Hello Alice. If you don’t know about it, they launched it in 2020. It’s basically a small business growth initiative. I applied in 2020 and didn’t get it; I think only 20 people are awarded each year so far. This year, applications opened for a few weeks in August, I believe. I reapplied, and YOU GUYS! I GOT IT! IT’S REAL! I am so excited to jump in, because not only do you get 10k with which to build your business, you also get access to what seems to be an awesome small business resource center/community/webinars in the first couple months of the program. So please, APPLY NEXT YEAR if they keep it going! It seems like they’ve had a lot of success with it so far, and I can’t wait to see how this opportunity will shape my business.
I would love to know from anybody who is willing to share their perspective, if you have a miscellaneous resale business like mine, big or small, what would you do with $10,000 to grow your business? I’ve got lots of ideas, but I highly value the perspectives of my fellow scavengers! I’m all ears!
I hope everyone gets to enjoy a fulfilling season, both on eBay and in our personal lives. I will try to be more consistent on the forum; you guys mean a lot to me!! My plan for 2022 so far is to soak up everything I can from the small business resource stuff associated with Up and Running, and to keep on listing — my sister in law is still contracting a ton for me, and we are both going to have our work cut out for us with this new estate we are cleaning out. I want to spend this grant wisely and focus on some big-picture stuff, but I’ll also be doing plenty of the dirty work myself, as always. I am ever striving to scoot closer and closer to the higher-end side of inventory, but I still have a hard time resisting the low hanging fruit, lol. Cheers to all my fellow scavengers!
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So when you applied for this grant, did you have to make a video, submit a plan or something? How did they select you? Do you have to update them later to show what you did?
I remember seeing this but I never applied since I assumed I would need some kind of reality show style backstory and make videos and the like.
As for what I would do with it? Hire an employee to do my death pile listing. $10,000 in free labor would break down like this:
$10000 divided by $15/hour = 667 hours
Assume 1 solid 40 hour week of training to get the person to the point they could do all the work necessary to do everything needed to create a listing except for the price.
That leaves 627 hours.
Assume on the low end that they can do 4 listings an hour – photograph, minor cleaning, measure, weigh, title, item specifics.
That is 2500 listings they could create in roughly 31 part time 20 hour work weeks. I estimate I have 2500-3000 items in my death pile so it would require no scavenging on my part (Don’t judge – it was all by plan to go full time – it’s just that my day job career turned out better than I planned)
My historical average of net profit minus COGS (not including ebay fees which are partially offset by net positive shipping income) is $34 per item.
So that $10k in part time labor over the course of about 8 months will list my entire death pile (which is already organized and permanently stored where it would go in inventory I might add) for an eventual income of $85000.
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Applying wasn’t too bad–just answering some essay-style questions about me, my business, how this kind of money would help it grow etc, and of course I had to provide some basic business info, enough for them to deem that I meet the criteria and am in fact a real business haha! I didn’t have to submit a plan of any kind, and as far as I know, there are no strings in terms of how you spend the money as long as it’s in reasonably in the realm of growing your business. I’ve been thinking generally along the lines of inventory, infrastructure, and more help! I did have to submit a headshot after I accepted the grant, and I agreed that they could follow up with me about my business and how I used the grant, but I think that was optional.
I didn’t have to submit any kind of video, but they might want one from me eventually! I’m up for it I think, but again, I don’t think that was a condition for accepting the grant!I’m not sure what the selection process was like, but I believe they awarded 20 of these grants in 2020 and this year they awarded 50 from over 10,000 applications. eBay officially posted a press release about it on December 7th if you want to know even more about it. Seems like they were very successful with their 20 people last year, so I’m glad to see them expanding the program accordingly!
Thanks for your thorough response on what you’d do with the money! I love your math–I find myself mocking up similar scenarios regularly. $85,000 of inventory available to buyers would certainly be a smart move. Hiring more help is on my radar for sure, and while I don’t have a death pile per se, I do have a whole estate clean out that just began a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure the quicker we can get all of that listed, the better!
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@annaesthetic23 – Congratulations on getting the grant. What a feat! Is this a no strings attached grant? It seems the most obvious expenditure is to plow it right back into inventory as that seems to be the surest way to turn it into profit. Other ideas might be infrastructure: improve storage, computers, etc…. That is unlikely to increase the bottom line, but could help on the sanity front. Another is software tools that may make you more efficient. Others here use sixbit and it is costly, at around $120/month, but it could help cross-post applicable listings to Etsy or Shopify to expand your visibility.
As a coincidence, I applied for and won a local small business grant from my county in Maryland just this past week. Only $1300 but I’ve been thinking of the same type of things as you; where is the best place to put this money. I’m looking at Sixbit as an option, but it is more complicated to use and has a steeper learning curve than I expected.
I’m sure you’ll put it to good use. Good luck!
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Sanity is a high priority in my world, haha! I definitely think some small chunk will go to maximizing my storage situation even more (additional shelving, bins, etc). I haven’t delved into cross-posting too much, though I’ve always had an interest in listing some of my higher end vintage clothing on Etsy and going full-stop Etsy with it… photoshoot with models, pretty packaging, etc. I’ve just never had the resources or mental bandwidth to do that without feeling like my focus was spread too thin. But maybe some additional resources changes that! I like the idea of diversifying in that way, but also wonder if it would be acceptable to use money from an eBay-related grant to expand onto a different platform. In any case, I think I will eventually do that with the cream of the crop vintage clothes.
Congrats on winning a local small business grant! That’s awesome! How did you find out about that program? I wonder how many local grants like that are available, right under our noses! Any amount is so vindicating when you work hard on your business, and I can certainly appreciate the desire to spend the money effectively and wisely. I will certainly keep everyone posted on what ends up happening in my decision making.
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@annaesthetic23 – We found out about the grant on the Nextdoor app. Someone from the county government posted a link to the application. The only requirement was to register your company on a county website for local small businesses. They set aside $789,000 earmarked for “Online Sales and Telework”. Amount of award was based on the number of qualified applicants.
Regarding Sixbit, the cross-posting is one of its features, but it has many other features that could be justified for a business of your size. It backs up all of your listings to a database and includes all your photos. It can be used for inventory tracking. It allows you to schedule listings to be posted by the app so that you don’t pay eBay the scheduled listings fee. You can work entirely offline, except for uploading, of course. I’m still digging in but finding more as I work through it.
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So cool! Good for you, and good for your county for prioritizing that. Sixbit admittedly sounds intimidating to me; I have mixed feelings about cross posting, but I do use ink frog to back up my listings at least! I’ll be curious to know if you go with Sixbit or not!
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Always fun to read your updates. Having watched you grow the past handful of years, it’s extremely inspiring to grow an eBay business and not burn out. Most people I’ve seen drop out after a year because it’s so many constant details to keep up with.
$10k would go a long way towards building storage if you’re having issue organizing that many items.
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I’m glad to hear that… sometimes I feel bad for posting so inconsistently on here. I really appreciate the consistency everyone else seems to have haha! My monkey brain can only really be consistent with a handful of things in life, but I will hopefully become more consistent over time. I actually think some of my lack consistency is what helps me not burn out. One of my graduate school professors told us all that it’s okay to drop the ball, just don’t drop the same ball twice. Running an eBay store does take a lot of time, energy, focus, and wrangling of details, so sometimes I just have to take a break from building and do the bare minimum for maintenance (shipping and some admin, mainly!). Even oscillating somewhat, staying in the game this long (4.5 years since I started my store) is extremely rewarding and surreal.
Speaking of storage, I am pretty dang organized with my inventory now in three climate controlled storage units. I overhauled my inventory system over the spring and summer in order to maximize the units I have and not need a fourth. Also, I want to be able to teach someone else to pull and ship items if it becomes necessary later due to just volume of sales or other life circumstances. At this point, even with my husband helping me on a crazy shipping day, having a cleaner system is SO beneficial. That being said, I would love to have some kind of appreciating asset instead of storage units as soon as possible, but I’m not sure we’ll be living in this area long term, so I’m hesitant to try and build something or even buy something. We’ve lived in GA for ten years, are considering having kids in the next few, and my entire family lives in the midwest. I have a sneaking suspicion we may be relocating somewhere along the line, but who knows! I’ve always wanted to start a midwestern branch of the store due to having amazing access to cool vintage stuff in farm auctions near my hometown, so maybe that will come into play!
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CONGRATULATIONS on your windfall! I don’t have any suggestions for where to use it, but am excited to follow along as you figure it out. Please keep us updated as your year progresses.
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Thanks, that was inspiring to read, almost 12k listings! I just reached 1,400 the other day and still growing, so I am little stoked on that.
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1400 is AMAZING! I think crossing 1000 items is an incredible feat; it feels like you did something impossible! It still feels that way with other milestones after, but I guess you’re a little less surprised that you actually did it, because you know you’ve done it before. I didn’t really intend to go much beyond 10k, but when things got slow after abut April this year, it felt better to just keep aggressively listing when the numbers were lower than expected. I probably for real won’t let it get much bigger volume wise, and instead focus on replenishing the value of items rather than the number of items. It’s a shift in thinking for me, and I might even change my mind on that later. When sales are good, let that motivate you. When sales are slow, let that motivate you. Like a scavenger, use it all!
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Sales Report for: 12/10/21
Total Items in Store: 1182
Items Sold: 26
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $1,241.25
Net Sales (After fees): $1,015.21
Cost of Items Sold: $146.56
COGS Percent 14.44%
Net Profit Margin: 69.98%
Highest Price Sold: $225.00 Vintage Toy Outboard Motor
Average Price Sold: $47.74
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 19
Promoted Percentage: 73.08%
Average Days Listed: 330
Longest Listed: 1190
New items listed: 17Good sales week. Interesting that I sold the exact number of items this week as last, but average sales prices were higher so made another $500. My best sale was a toy outboard motor from the 1950’s for $225. I bought it along with its original boat for $100, but the boat was in pretty rough shape, so I sold it separately for $75. Motor was originally frozen from rust, but being from 1950, it was pretty simple to take apart, clean, lube and get running again. Had it up for less than a week for $300 and had several offers. Something to keep an eye out for.
As I mentioned above, we applied for a small business grant from our county and received $1300. I decided to use the money to try out Sixbit and have spent a good portion of last week and this trying to figure it out. It’s a bit more complicated than I anticipated and not very intuitive, IMO. My main purpose is to hopefully cross post to Etsy. Not currently selling on Etsy so have both learning curves to master at once. I’ll keep you posted on how it plays out.
Some of Etsy’s restrictions have already raised some roadblocks. I have about 45 hand-painted Christmas ornaments from a local artist that passed away that I thought would be perfect for Etsy, being the hand-crafted marketplace it is. Then I come across this prohibition:
“Examples of prohibited reselling include the following:
- Curating a collection of others’ handmade goods that you did not design or make”
I could just say they’re older than 20 years and thus vintage, or fib about creative involvement, but I hate to misrepresent items. I actually have no idea how old they are as I haven’t been able to find any information on the artist, not even an obituary. I guess they don’t want their marketplace flooded with goods mass manufactured in China or other countries.
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Jay,
Sourcing in 2022 is shaping up to be a challenge. All those people who haven’t gone back to work, or who quit their jobs? Around here, it sure seems like they’ve all gone into reselling LOL. MUCH more competition, some of it is from resellers, and some is from people who are buying for their own use, and have simply decided they don’t need brand new. And people who once would have donated to Goodwill are now selling on Facebook or whatever. I have plenty of unlisted inventory, so it isn’t a major concern, but I’m definitely finding trips to the thrift store or yard sales are often yielding less than I used to get….and I’ve broadened what I buy, or it would be even less. Fortunately, I like to learn new things, and there are always new things to learn, new categories to try, etc.But, despite the fact that this country is overflowing with, well, STUFF…..I think we are going to find it more and more challenging to find stuff at an affordable price to resell. We WILL find stuff, I’m confident of that, true scavengers find a way…but , as always, we’ll need to adapt to the changes…
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Jay, $215 for an antique business card? Wow! Can you share any info about that card?
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https://www.ebay.com/itm/333120681003
I call it “drunk junk” in a lovable way. There are collectors who buy items from the early movements that became Alcoholics Anonymous. Or, someone owns that house now and we have the card from then house.
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