The Numbers: February 20-26, 2022

[Jay]

We had a decent week of sales on eBay, though no big home runs. Our helper is working her way through photographing what seems like an endless death p
[See the full post at: The Numbers: February 20-26, 2022]

[Mark S]

02/20/22 – 02/26/22

Total Items In Store: 4272 (was 4273 previously listed)
Items Sold: 19
Total Sales: $549.61 (no shipping or included)
Highest Price Sold: $55 (Coat)
Average Price Sold: $ 28.93
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 112.35 (Still lousy Estate Sales lately, none worth going to)
Number of items listed: 18

Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales were more steady this week, but it seemed like a lot of low dollar items selling. My gross sales number just creep up a little each day, but ended up ok.

Focus for the week : Trying to keep up with listing. Trying to get taxes done.

Scavenge of the week: I hit the proverbial jackpot of shoes this week. I got 4 pairs of very good condition Allen Edmonds. Also 9 other great pairs of shoes. What a find! Right around $1000 worth between the 13 shoes.

Thoughts for the week: My STR this February (and January) has been significantly lower than last year. Is this just me or are a lot of you experiencing this?

Mark S

[Retro Treasures WV]

Allen Edmonds used to be a quick & easy $50+. Covid killed those sales. Hopefully dress shoes bounce back. I don’t buy many any more.

[Mark S]

I am still seeing strong sales for the Allen Edmonds model of shoes that I have. Covid may have reduced ASP and the STR, but they are still selling for $50+.

[Retro Treasures WV]

I just checked and I still have 11 pair of Allen Edmonds listed. One of them is shell cordovan.

i’ve sold 3 pair since Covid hit, and those were at blowout pricing just to clear something out.

hopefully they start selling again like yours.

[Mark S]

I have found with Allen Edmonds that the model is very important.

Do a search on Allen Edmonds solds in descending order and you will find a lot of sales well over $100 and $200. Some of the best selling models at this price range are: strand, Port Washington, Leeds, PARK AVENUE, McAllister.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Items in Store 1684
Items Sold 33
Total Sales $1,182.00
COGS $147.00
Total Profit $1,035.00
Average profit $31.36
Average sales price $35.82
New Listings 63
Items scavenged 466!!! WHAT??!?
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 49
Sourcing Allotment 2

Again my sales lagged on the weekend after a great set of 5 weekdays. I guess this means people really are back in the office shopping on ebay while at work instead of actually working. Lol!

 

So about that scavenging number: I scored 9 items at a local goodwill that were high dollar vintage toys. That was all the scavenging I planned on doing this week. On Friday my wife had me stop by a store to pick up something for a project she was doing. The store was having a blowout clearance sale in one section. I couldn’t help but price check a few things. It started with an item here, an item there – just a couple  easy barcode listings to offset my costs for the trip that would make me $5-10 per item. Then I went to the next aisle to see what was available…then the next. Then that pivotal moment happens when you have to decide “Am I walking away or am I going all in?”. Well, I bought 456 items for $1067.08. The large majority of the purchase were these high end art markers that will sell for $7 each that I paid $1.50 each for. All told I’ll net over $2k once everything sells. I think my turnover will be about a year. It’s all multi quantity listings and everything fits in a single bin. It was a no-brainer pipeline to set up.

I was actually pretty picky too. There was a bunch more I could have gotten, but I stuck to the higher STR items.

 

Listing every day let me hit a higher amount of listings this week. I finished listing a big pile of stuff in my office, so I spent Sunday completely reogranzizing my garage office to better utilize the space. Keep listing, keep condensing, keep organizing and I’ll get to where I want to be.

[Retro Treasures WV]

So here is the listing for the markers:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265575557719

This is the first variations listing I’ve done. Plain and simple – a real pain in the butt. Before I even started I had to organize all the markers and create a spreadsheet with all the data, UPC’s etc. I did everything line by line in the listing tool because I just couldn’t bring myself to figure out the export tool. I needed to know how the actual variant listing thing worked first. How does it work? NOT TOO GOOD PAL!

I had to reformat my spreadsheet to match how the listing tool would allow me to put in the information. You CANNOT have individual item specifics per variant. That is total crap! In my case, each model number has SPECIFIC item specifics, such as color name, UPC, tip type. I cannot add any more item specifics so I had to add the information to the variant type. Adding multiple variants to capture that data wouldn’t have worked, as you can only add photos to a single variant level.

 

Anyways, anyone who has messed with variant listings feel free to take a look and critique. I jump right in the deep end when I learn to do something the first time. Lol!

 

The other issue I had was my free shipping on 4+ promotion I tried to set up. I didn’t want to have any purchases of a single pen with free shipping. You can set up multi purchase discounts in the actual listing, but you cannot create a shipping discount upon multiple purchases. I have a shipping promotion created that should give free shipping to an purchase of 4+ pens but I cannot see any indication that it is active on my end. Can someone check this for me and see if from your end you can see that you’ll get free shipping if you buy 4?

[Lukastreasure]

Hi Retro,

I checked it out.  All looks good except for the shipping discount.  I added 4 to the cart and it says free shipping discount applied, but the amount deducted is less than the shipping amount.  Perhaps the deduction is the multi item discount and not the shipping?

[Retro Treasures WV]

Ugh…you cannot do two promotions on the same item at the same time. It’s one or the other. So frustrating.

I adjusted the shipping costs to a flat rate of $3.99 25 cents per each additional marker. That’s about as good as it gets I think.

[Clarity]

Hi Retro –

I checked out your marker listing.  I put 4 markers in my cart, discount was applied and shipping was free.

[Retro Treasures WV]

Really? That’s good to know. thanks for checking it out. I’ve had 2 orders so far of 3 & 2 respectively. If I sell 5-10 markers a week I’ll be ecstatic!

 

 

[NC]

Weekly sales 2/20 – 2/26
Total items: 7616
Items sold: 123
New items listed: 350
Gross sales: $1,109.62
Net sales: $747.65
New buyers: 87
Repeat buyers: 7

Etsy
Orders: 20
Gross sales: $182.00
Net sales: $154.70

Gross sales total: $1,291.62
Net sales total: $902.35

My worst week of the year so far. Maybe fewer people were browsing eBay with everything that’s going on in Ukraine. It would have been a much better week if the buyer paid for the $500 hat that they won at auction but I don’t think they ever intended on paying… I sold it again Saturday for $200 and this buyer has not paid yet either. Sometimes selling high-dollar items is a worse experience than $20-$30 items.

[Jay]

 It would have been a much better week if the buyer paid for the $500 hat that they won at auction but I don’t think they ever intended on paying

I understand the rational behind using auctions to create bidding wars, but we too often are burned by buyers who never pay. BIN is really the best. “Make Offer” will be awesome once eBay enables immediate payment.

At least the auction help you set a price.

[NC]

Yeah, I list things at auction if I think there is potential value but not sure what it might be. I started the auction at $19.99 thinking maybe it’d go up to $50 or something. So I was surprised to see what it went up to. I relisted it last night for $300 with no offer and immediate pay and it sold by this morning. So at least there’s that

[Temudgin]

I’m wondering did you consider sending a second chance offer to the last losing bidder on that $500 sale? Or did you figure the hat flippers were just running it up to mess with you and number 2 was a lost cause also? For sure $300 in your pocket is nothing to sneeze at so it’s all good.

I’ve done one or two second chance offers as a seller, and have received a few as a buyer. It was pretty evident to me I was being shilled in the latter cases (one guy sent me the second chance offer a half hour after the auction closed) but I swallowed my pride and took them since it was close enough to what I would have paid and they were junk drawer lots with significant profit potential.  One lot I ended up netting like $1500 on it; the other ones less memorable but still worth it.

[NC]

I had 2 or 3 people begging me to take $150 the entire auction and one person said that he’s seen it happen lots of times where the bidders will just bid the auction way up and then ask you to sell it for way cheaper. The bidder who went up to $500 had 0 feedback and immediately after the auction ended I got a message from someone else asking me to take $200 so I think it was the same person who won. I’m thinking even the person warning me about the fake bids was probably also bidding higher than they intended to pay. So, I was kinda over it by the end of the auction. I relisted it for $500 best offer and kept getting offers for $200 so I decided to just accept one of them. Then that buyer didn’t pay. I guess I should’ve tried listing it for $500 without best offer but oh well, I gave $2 for the hat

[Kati]

Week of February 20 – 26, 2022

Total Items on eBay: 193
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: $ 170.29 (including eBay fees and shipping)
Net Sales: $ 108.04 (minus eBay fees and shipping)
Cost of Items Sold: $ 2.98
Highest Price(s) Sold: $ 38 – pair of vintage needlepoints
Average Price Sold: $ 28.38 – Gross
Average Price Sold: $ 18.01 – Net
Returns: 0
Money spent on new inventory this week: $ 99.10
Number of items listed this week: 43

Feeling good that my average profits were twice what they were last week. Also got a fair amount of listing done, but I kind of burned myself out by the end of the week. Need to learn better pacing, especially now that sourcing is going to start picking up again (bring on the yard sales!).

Got a lot of low-ball offers this week. Only turned two into sales: one item I was willing to let go for a very low price because I had had it listed for over a year and there were a ton of identical listings on eBay. Wasn’t expecting to get much for it. The other I managed to negotiate a counteroffer I could live with.

[ChristineR]

Total Items in Store: 258
Items Sold: 8
Gross Sales: $327.37 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $202.21 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $58
Highest Price Sold: <span id=”mm-saleDscPrc” class=”notranslate “>US $67.96 (Pottery Barn new RA pillow cover set, paid $16)</span>
Average Price Sold: $40.92
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0

Very grateful for the sales. Not much energy or time for listing last week.

I’m happy to hear that you are enjoying the coffee business.  It’s so cool that it’s taken off. I would think as fun as having an Ebay store and a podcast and forum is, it’s more fun to create an artsy and profitable physical hang out.  Also you guys strike me as people who need a new challenge sometimes.  Lots of balls in the air now for sure.  Happy for you guys.

My day job has been busy but they just hired another person full time so it could slow down for me for sure as I am the part time / long time overflow person for these projects.  We’ll see.  Ebay I use to fill in the gaps and I do miss it.  I went thrifting just twice and didn’t see anything good but still plenty here anyway.

[Sharyn]

Week of Feb 20 – 26
Total Items in Store: 1415 eBay, 28 Etsy
Items Sold: 18 eBay, 1 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $20.90 + $90 Commission
Total Sales: $624.63 eBay, $39.61 Etsy; Includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $165 for 1940s Estey child’s pump organ
Average price: $36.43
Returns: 0 (one return to sender package)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $56.60
Number of items listed this week: 30

I have a package that was returned from an Etsy sale. I sent it once using PirateShip, but it was sent back for wrong address. I noticed that PirateShip removed a “south” from the address, so I went ahead and resent it using Etsy to buy the label. The buyer did thank me, so I thought that was the problem. It’s come back again. Unless the buyer wants to pay for shipping one more time, I’m going to have to contact Etsy and see what I can do to recover at least one shipping cost and just refund her.

I bid in my first online auction on Saturday since June of last year. Prices have been too high, but I was finally found one that was reasonable. Pickup was earlier today.

I also had the pickup for the Estey organ today. That was fun. The buyer is an organ player for his church, and he is starting up a collection and learning how to repair them. Organs were a big thing at one time. Estey has a museum in Vermont that is located in the building where the company used to operate. Maybe I’ll go someday.

[Lukastreasure]

Glad to hear the cafe is doing well.  Miss hearing about the ins and outs of your business explorations.

Sales not too bad this past week.  Total of 18 sales for gross of $780.  A bit below my historical average, but better than recent averages.  Even though I only have a small portion of my store duplicated to Etsy, it is starting to make a significant contribution.  eBay is the more mature solution and running my numbers is more difficult on Etsy, but I’ve sold several long tail eBay items for full price in a short time.

Set a new record for us for the longest held item to sell this week: 1940 days.  A vintage Cornell University Athletics T-Shirt.  Every once and a while I consider purging my old inventory and then something sells like this.  List it and forget it!

Best sale of the week was a Le Creuset lasagna pan for $112.  It came with a lot of kitchen items I bought at auction.  Funny thing was it wasn’t shown or mentioned in the listing, so free!

Most satisfying sale was a Solid State Drive I scavenged from my son’s computer.  Ran out of space and had to upgrade the drive. (yes, I thoroughly wiped the drive first)  Sold for about the same price as a new one, probably because they are in such short supply right now.

Dug into my death pile this week and listing a bunch of luggage I’ve been putting off.  Several pieces of high end luggage (Tumi, Briggs & Riley…) that I’ve been avoiding because they are so big

Week Ending 2/26/22
Total Items in eBay Store: 1066
Items Sold eBay: 15
Gross Sales eBay (Less shipping and tax): $596.60
Net Sales (After fees) eBay: $502.90

Total Items in Etsy Store: 135
Items Sold Etsy: 3
Gross Sales Etsy (Less shipping and tax): $184.90
Net Sales (After fees) Etsy: $140.44

Cost of Items Sold: $36.04
COGS Percent 5.60%
Highest Price Sold: $112.00 Le Creuset Lasagna Pan
Average Price Sold: $43.42
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00

Average Days Listed: 412
Longest Listed: 1940
New items listed: 18

[Jay]

Set a new record for us for the longest held item to sell this week: 1940 days.

I’m proud of you for not stressing about holding inventory! Obviously no seller wants to wait five years to sell an item, but I assume this is a rare example.

[BrianB]

Hello all:

 

eBay recently reported earnings. Not too bad, but the drop in users is rather unsettling.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/23/ebay-earnings-q4-2021.html

Brian

[NC]

eBay has shifted its focus from getting any and all buyers to getting high-quality buyers (ones that come back and continue to purchase from the site) so it’s not surprising that the total number of buyers has gone down but it can be a good thing for sellers because it may mean more repeat buyers. Especially for people like me who focus on a niche.

[Steve List]

Monthly numbers: 02/1 – 02/28

Total listings: 1258
Items sold: 69
Sales: $1,350.80
Highest price sold: $70 – 1995 Reprint of a Tarot Deck of Lombardy
Average price sold: $19.57
Cost of items sold: $210.47 / average cost: 3.05 each
Spent on new inventory: $142.00
Number of items listed: 66

Just checking in with my numbers. Between the many estate sales in my local area and finding free good stuff on my evening walks around the neighborhood, my death piles are overflowing now. I’m starting the process of finding a person to take photos for my listings. I’ll share with this forum how it goes.

[Kelly1mm]

Numbers for the MONTH of February 2022

Total listings :4371

Items Sold: 188

Total Sales: $6023.68

Sales costs and sales taxes collected: $2256.26

Net sales before COGS: $3762.47

COGS: $705

Profit before other costs: $3057.47

ASP (total including shipping/sales tax): $32.38

Average profit per item (before other costs): $16.26

Notable sales:

Lot of 6 restaurant scales = $418.21

Sony Microcassette Voice Recorder = $275.61

Sony Digital Video Camera = $216.66

USGI Mens Parka Extreme Cold Weather Gen III Level 7 = $150.44

Made a move of all my inventory about 115 miles to the west to our new home.  Luckily I was able to afford movers (and will be a business deduction in 2022).  This also caused my store to be on vacation mode for several days (about 8 total for February).

 

 

 

[Author]

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