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We spent the week in NYC and are heading home soon. Been a great time to relax and scavenge. Even though our store was on Time Away, we had great sale
[See the full post at: The Numbers: January 1-7, 2023] -
I’m so happy to see that you two had a nice vacation and a great week of sales! Did you find a lot of food deals on Too Good to Go while you were there?
I slacked on posting my weekly numbers towards the end of last year, so time to get back in the habit. My approach to selling online has changed a lot over the last year, and the last few months have helped me get a good grasp on what my approach will be in 2023. I created a few threads this weekend in Random Thoughts if you’d like to discuss your own changes and lessons learned as well.
1/1/2023 to 1/7/2023
Total items in store: 584
Items sold: 30 (19 via best offer, 6 via seller initiated offer, 10 via promoted listings)
Gross sales: $1670.09 (down 44% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1164.00 (down 45% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $55.67 (up 8% from one year ago)
Highest price sold (net): $120.01 — Sean O’Malley Panini UFC autograph relic card ##/49
I’ve never watched a single UFC fight willingly and don’t know much more about MMA than you do, but I know how to use Terapeak and this guy is a popular fighter. Sold to a buyer in Canada along with another UFC card.
Lowest price sold (net): $8.44— Dave Bancroft 2012 National Treasures bat card ##/99
Dave Bancroft was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971 and played his last game in 1930. I think it’s pretty cool that they cut up an old bat of his to make some cards and I can understand why a fan of baseball history would shell out $12 for this card. I have been curating the items in my store more carefully over the last few months instead of just buying, listing, shipping and repeat at all hours of the day. This sale was a nice reminder that there are a lot of different ways to make a buck because the buyer bought this card and 6 or 7 others totaling over $200. This card with multiple bat and jersey pieces from different players was the most expensive ($71) and most complicated item. I had quite a few buyers this week who were a repeat customer or purchased multiple items, and I hope thats a good sign of things to come this year.
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Did you find a lot of food deals on Too Good to Go while you were there?
Yes. We have a favorite bagel place. $4 for 15 fresh NYC bagels. Its almost too much.
I forget. Is Net sales: $1164.00 just for your eBay sales? Do you the also have the consignment sales as well in addition? If so, what’s that number look like on average?
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Yes. We have a favorite bagel place. $4 for 15 fresh NYC bagels. Its almost too much.
Philly is an amazing city for Too Good to Go. I got dinner this weekend from my new favorite Greek spot. The surprise bag was a huge container filled with rice, beans and cabbage, vegetables and the main. I bought two bags, one bag had two stuffed peppers and the other had braised lamb in a tomato sauce. All still warm when I got home!
The best deals on Too Good to Go have brought me so much joy and good food. The best places I’ve found near me are an artisan chocolate shop, a deli and a coffee shop which makes these amazing tarts. I love the app and really hope they keep up the same high standards as they grow and expand to more cities.
I forget. Is Net sales: $1164.00 just for your eBay sales? Do you the also have the consignment sales as well in addition? If so, what’s that number look like on average?
Yeah that’s just eBay. My gross consignment sales are in the same range. My net from the consignment is about $500 a week, $750 on good weeks.
It’s an interesting platform with a lot of flippers doing different things. There are a bunch of sellers who price very high and run basically a perma-sale where everything is 50% or even 75% off and a good number of sellers who do that on a smaller scale where all the cards in their port are like 15% or 20% higher than their worth. I think a lot of them price above solds in case the player goes on a hot streak or gets traded to a new team and there’s a new set of collectors and flippers interested in their cards.
I price around the average of actives and solds, or even a little below. It means that a lot of times when they post my new submissions, the best deals will sell within an hour and some within a few seconds. Often those buyers then reprice the card they bought from me even higher. Do they sell after that at the higher price? Beats me. I’m just happy with a sale and move on to the next.
This service has really transformed my business (as you predicted months ago) and it’s made me grateful to operate in the niche I’ve found. Not every niche has so many flippers and very few niches allow you to sell on consignment with this level of control over price on individual items.
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01/01/23 – 01/07/23
Total Items In ebay Store: 4644 (was 4654 last week)
Total Items In Etsy Store: 435 (was 375 last week)
Total Items listed: 5,079
ebay Items Sold: 18 items for $ 841.41 Net $ 679.82
Etsy Items Sold: 8 items for $ 369.59 Net $ 250.92Total Gross Sales: $ 1,211 (including eBay\etsy fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $ 930.74 (minus shipping, and taxes)
Items Sold: 26 items
Highest Price Sold: $ 100 (Vest)
Average Price Sold: $ 35.80
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 763.9 (Did some large retail arbitraige)Number of items listed: 12 ebay, 77 Etsy
Gut Sales Report for the week: Seemed slower and lower dollar than it was. I guess compared to last week, anything would seem slow. Etsy helped out more than I thought this week. Low ASP selling on Etsy, but it added up.
Focus for the week : Still plugging away to get all my 1800 vintage listings on Etsy.
Scavenge of the week: Bought a pair of Yeezy’s for $7. I think I can sell them for about $400. I bought 10 Buyrberry’s of London dress shirts – all still new in the package for $5 each. That was part of a huge buy at the thrift store.
Thoughts for the week: Things are calming down a bit. I posted this elsewhere in another forum, but i will post it again: I have been thinking about my Etsy sales, and I think I may know why they have been so good. I think it is in part to the time I have spent learning about tags and entering them for each item. But more importantly, I have been listing consistently on Etsy nearly everyday. I think that goes a long way. So, now instead of being in a big rush to get for 1800 vintage items listed, I am going to list 10 a day Jan-Feb Mon-Fri. Then, for the rest of the year, 5 a day Mar-Dec Mon-Fri.
That should take me right to the busy season to rack up the sales. That is going to be my approach on all the new sites I start listing on, regardless of whether I automate it or not. I think most sites will reward those who have
an active store that is continuously listing new items.I now have my sights set on getting listed on 10 more sites in addition to ebay and Etsy. That may take all year or more. I have done a lot of research and have picked the best sites I could find. I don’t think I will have any issues with things selling once I am on these sites. I am more concerned of being overwhelmed with sales that I can’t ship in time during the Holiday season. Working a full time job limits your time.
Mark
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I now have my sights set on getting listed on 10 more sites in addition to ebay and Etsy.
what are the ten other sites? When something sells on one site, will you be able to centrally delete it so it disappears from all sites at once?
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Items in Store 1963
Items Sold 23
Total Sales $540.00
COGS $143.00
Total Profit $397.00
Average profit $17.26
Average sales price $23.48
New Listings 2
Items scavenged 20
Listing 2023 weekly Avg 1My ebay office is a disaster right now as we finish putting up the Christmas decorations. We also had a bug go through the household this week. THANKFULLY it was a minor bug that just took each kid out of commission for 48 hours or so.
I hope to get my ebay space more organized this week so I can get to work listing.
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eBay Store Week January 1 – 7, 2023
Total Items in Store: 1141
Items Sold: 13
Gross Sales: $349.86 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $180.43 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Goods Sold: $45.00
Highest Price Sold: $44.95 (Pettibon – Chiropractic Head-Weighting System)
Average Price Sold: $26.91
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $11.00
Number of items listed this week: 1My net sales were 44% of gross sales this week. That seems too high to be a good business model. I was giving some good deals to blow things out the door.
One DVD sold and I could not lay my hands on it, so I did something I learned from Resale Rabbit on his YouTube channel. I purchased another copy from an eBay seller and had them “Drop-Ship” the item to the buyer. In this way my buyer got the item they ordered, I did not have to disappoint them with news that I could not fulfill the order, and I did not receive any “demerits” from eBay for canceling an order (that’s a thing, right?)
Happy New Year, Ya’ll!
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I had a sale this week on a piece of samsonite luggage. I meticulously packed the item, then weighed/measured it only to find it was WAY bigger than my input measurements. I looked closer at the photos and realized it was the wrong thing. An hour later of failing to find the right item I went through my history to find I sold this bigger item I had in hand in April 2021. Apparently I grabbed the smaller item back then and shipped it.
The measurements would have been smaller so I probably just thought I overestimated. The buyer clearly enjoyed the wrong item more than the one he bought from me as I never heard from them.
They were both samsonite 1910, but one was a rolling laptop bag and the other was a rolling garment bag.
Anyways, explained the situation to the buyer and they were ok with the cancellation.
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@Jay – Wow! That horse sale is phenominal. I see those for sale every once and a while, but usually they are the ones you pick up from Ikea. I’ll have to look a little more closely next time.
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I was on time away last week. Glad to hear you enjoyed NYC and had great sales.
I need to hurry up and work on COGS so I can figure out with the CPA a quarterly to send in. If I had matched 2021 profit we wouldn’t have owed a quarterly (due to leaving my day job) but 4th quarter was quite good for me. My COGS should be quite a bit lower since I sold many more used items in 2022. Fees will be a little higher. So probably won’t get a ton of listings done this week. Obviously would be better to do COGS monthly or quarterly but I’m not that disciplined.
I’m enjoying hearing about everyone’s reflections and goals.
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If you file jointly with your husband you won’t need to do quarterly – just have him withhold a bit more from his check.
I’m usually fine with my federal since I get so much child tax credit, but State taxes always gets me even with extra held out. WV pretty much doesn’t have any deductions. Boo!
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@Retro he does already do extra but my income has varied quite a bit.
Forgot to mention that Goodwill Finds sent me a 40% off one item coupon for late shipping even though I never complained. Tempting to ship off the boxed items in the same packaging when sold but unfortunately they used GW branded tape. It looks like the same thickness as Ebay tape so should be able to peel it off.
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Week Ending 1/7/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $628.71 (eBay: $314.21 / Etsy: $314.50)
Net Sales: $523.25 (eBay $245.47 / Etsy: $277.78)
Total Items Sold 21 (eBay 12 / Etsy 9)
Total Items eBay: 1074 Etsy: 346
Cost of Items Sold: $49.76
COGS Percent 9.51%
Highest Price Sold: $49.95
Average Price Sold: $29.94
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Average Days Listed: 148
Longest Listed: 671
New items listed: 16
$ Amount New Listings $652.20Nice start to the year with 21 items sold. Average sale price was a bit low, but I had a few multiple item sales to a single buyer. Mutli-item sales to the same buyer is something I am seeing more with Etsy that I don’t see as much of with eBay. These were for Christmas ornaments which also seem to do better on Etsy.
Starting to track a new metric with the new year that I’ve seen a few others mention in the past: $ amount of new listings posted. I’d like to get to the point where my store is averaging $1000 per week. Feels like if I want to make that much I need to at least post that much consistently. Didn’t quite get there this week, but without a goal…
Thought it was interesting that my gross sales for eBay and Etsy were on $0.29 apart.
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Last week Tuesday started with me bringing about 10 items into the post office from the time I was away plus a large number that sold on Jan 1. I’m not able to ship on Wednesdays, so I came in Thursday with about the same number of packages that sold Tues evening through Thurs morning. Things quieted down after that, but sales are better than they were the two or so weeks before Christmas.
Week of Jan 1 – 7
Total Items in Store: 1790 eBay, 29 Etsy
Items Sold: 21 eBay, 1 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $46.35 + $22 Commission
Total Sales: $472.12 eBay, $14.50 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $110 Analog Tektronix 485 Oscilloscope
Average price: $22
Returns: 1 (sent wrong item, resent correct one, buyer keeps wrong one)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 3 -
Week of 1/1 – 1/7:
Total items in Store: 333
Items Sold: 8
Gross Sales: $166.22 (w/o eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $20 (including consignment commissions)
Highest Price Sold: $30.00 plus shipping (Peruvian Navy training ship 2008 world cruise challenge coin)
Average Sales Price: $20.78 (not incl eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of new items listed: 15With the loss of my beloved Easy Auctions Tracker for 2023, I’ve been spending much more time than I’d like to in figuring out my recordkeeping going forward. I find the eBay reports to be too difficult to work with for my day-to-day requirements. EAT is recommending My Reseller Genie but last I checked, MRG does not accommodate consignments so they have to be done manually. That’s a non-starter for me – I’m not paying for anything that doesn’t handle consignments since I have all these consignment challenge coins. Wonderlister or Sixbit seem to have what I need but to get consignments capability they’re $50 and $68 a month, respectively, and are way overkill for me otherwise. I guess I’ll be spending a lot of time messing with the eBay reports to manually create a spreadsheet I can use.
I had an interesting encounter with another seller using my photos for their listing this week. I sent a polite but firm message, to which he quickly and apologetically replied, saying he’d taken and added his own pictures and removed mine. He said he’d gotten them off the internet and didn’t know they were mine. (Sure, and using my title verbatim and pricing the item at exactly $10 less than my listing was just a coincidence. Whatever.) I then checked the listing a little while later, and saw that he was still using my photos but he had simply cropped them to remove my background. He had added one photo of his own, but not even as the main photo. The main photo was still mine. So, I sent a less polite and more firm message and he finally removed all of my photos.
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Post office shipping going up on January 22.
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