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We just got back from a twelve day trip to NYC. Thankfully we could enjoy the city during a crazy pandemic by being triple vaxxed, wearing masks, and
[See the full post at: The Numbers: January 2-8, 2022] -
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We wont get rich from the stuff we found, but it’ll help pay for meals etc. Plus, it’s just fun to scavenge in the wild. Amazing what people put out on the street.
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There is a guy in my little South Jersey town who goes around in a beat-up old Ford pickup the day before garbage day. Fills it to the brim and then, I imagine, takes everything to the flea market on Saturday or his storage unit or sells it on eBay. I would love to know his whole story. If I ever talk to him (not likely — too many piles of garbage for him to pick through), I’ll tell him to sign up for the forum and post his numbers!
I also have an old friend who lives in Brooklyn and started a business (link is to a WSJ article, not trying to self-promote) based around rehoming stuff left on the street. Probably the #1 place for that kind of business in the world.
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Total Items in Store: 273
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $457.34 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $322.61 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $64
Highest Price Sold: $150 (Viking Glass Epic Cat – so cool. Paid $30 estate sale by my house)
Average Price Sold: $55
Returns: 1 – buyer bought wrong size $20
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Happy with sales this week, some old listings and newer sold. The last two months of 2021 were busy and kind of hard for us, and things have calmed down now. My work may or may not be slow January and February. I’m dreading it but need to do my bookkeeping for the year without the benefit of EZ auction tracker. My activity on Ebay was down, but it will still be a pain to do COGS without searching a spreadsheet. Not my finest reselling moment neglecting updating that software. My teen decided she might like to take more photos here and there when it’s a good weekend day for her. So, looking up for Ebay potentially. We’ll see. Still interested if anyone has any resources to cite explaining managed payments reporting. Thanks!
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eBay Store Owners: Don’t forget to order your free supplies:
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Items in Store 1543
Items Sold 32
Total Sales $1,513.00
COGS $120.00
Total Profit $1,393.00
Average profit $43.53
Average sales price $47.28
New Listings 54
Items scavenged 3
Listing weekly Avg 49
Sourcing Allotment 235 $100+ sales in a week can really make a difference! The highlight was a copy of quickbooks 2013 I sold for $250. People REALLY don’t want to pay for the monthly subscription model they use now.
I crushed my 40 item listing goal – had to do a bunch of photos myself to reach it as my daughter decided she would rather build stuff in minecraft with her siblings all weekend. It could be worse – at least she is a 14 year old that actually likes spending time with her younger siblings!
I photographed 23 items last night and it only took me 15 minutes once I found a groove. Alot of them were cassette tapes which only took me about 30 seconds each.
This is why I pay my daughter per item. Occasionally I will show her how fast I can photograph the same items she is doing to show how much quicker she can go and thus, how much higher her hourly rate will be. I want to encourage her to be efficient with her time rather than punching a clock for a job.
Then once I finished the photographing I chilled in the hot tub and uploaded all the photos to ebay. So I leave it to you, dear readers – is it really work if you are relaxing in a hot tub and choose to play the “game” of uploading photos instead of playing a random time waster game on the phone?
So last week my calculated sourcing limit was 17 items. I did go to the local goodwill yesterday while out n about just to look for high dollar items. I bought 2 pair of nikes that should sell for close to $100 each and a new in box lazer tag set I’ll sell for $50-75. I’ll get all 3 listed 1st thing today and then back to listing other things from my ample unlisted inventory. This week my sourcing limit is 23 items because I listed more and didn’t source much. Like last week I don’t really plan on sourcing at all so I won’t use it all.
I already have 25 listings awaiting photos for this week so I have an early jump on my 40 new listings.
Have a great week everyone!
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Retro,
What kind of cassette tapes are they and how much are you listing them for?
I found a bunch of 1980’s type pop rock cassette tapes for cheap. I was thinking of selling them each for $9.99 with free shipping. How do you do it?
Mark
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This pile I got at a storage unit sale for next to nothing. 80’s and early 90’s pop rock and some early 90’s gangsta rap.
I crank through them pretty quick using a barcode scanner.
I scan the barcode, see how many are available and at roughly what price. Then I sort by price to see if there are any super high priced anomalies to check for anything that makes some more valuable than others. Then I check solds to see what the 90 day sell-through rate is. If there are solds but it is less than 50%, I will price competively.
If STR is 100% or better, I price at the high end with best offer as long as my condition is good.
If there is no sales history or listings, I will check terapeak in case it is rare.
If there are plenty of listings at low prices and no sales at all in 90 days I don’t even bother listing it. Out of all the cassettes I processed yesterday there were 5 I did not list. I’ll probably just redonate since I don’t do many cassettes. If I did alot more, I would lot up the undesirables to sell.
I pick the best worded title sold listing and use sell similar so the title is done as well as most item specifics tp speed things up. I’ll adjust title as necessary when listing if it needs improvement.
Here’s my listing pricing info:
14 total tapes listed:
Average listing price: 12.22
Total list price: 171
Lowest price: $4.99
Highest price: 34.99
I do not offer free shipping and I always put my shipping in as 12 ounces so I can cover my fees with the discount and lower actual shipping weight.
Usually a buyer will pay around $5.80 shipping and my actual shipping cost will be around $3.50.
Creating the listing takes about 30 seconds once I’m in my flow. Same for photos. Then the time to upload the photos is 30-45 seconds each due to loading times (I wish there was a way to batch upload photos to speed this up!)
So really $12 per 2 minute listing isn’t too bad even though they are low dollar listings.
Side note: I sold a Montel Jordan tape once he started showing up in Shaq’s insurance commercials. I knew that tape would sell once I started seeing them. This is how we do it! Lol!
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Your system is pure gold, Retro, thanks for laying it out. It also will work for similar commodity items such as DVDs. I always wrestle with whether to offer free shipping, though, since many sellers in these categories do. My theory is that some buyers are attracted by the low item price and pretty much ignore the shipping charge, but many buyers really like free shipping and are sensitive to shipping charges.
Of course, SL has taught me to resist free shipping as much as possible. But if I run across one of these items that I think really needs free shipping (because there are many solds and 100% of them are free ship), I’ll offer it but if it’s a DVD or recorded cassette I ship Media Mail which is $3.19 for up to a pound going anywhere domestic. There have been rumors and complaints about USPS being persnickity about Media Mail, though, and opening packages to check the contents. So, I write “SOUND RECORDINGS” or “VIDEO RECORDINGS” on the package in Sharpie. Can’t hurt and it might help avoid delays.
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@retro-treasures-wv – I’m impressed by how quickly you’ve bounced back and how hard you are hitting it. Congrats on the great start to the new year.
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Thanks!
There are days I feel almost completely normal and there are days I feel like crap still. For instance, last night I felt exceptionally exhausted and short of breath. I had to put back on my oxygen for a while at bedtime because my oxygen level dipped slightly.
1-2 times a week I get like that. For my day job I am allowed to work from home if I am not feeling 100%. Today was one of those days.
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Week of Jan 2 – 8
Total Items in Store: 1398 eBay, 29 Etsy
Items Sold: 8 eBay, 1 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $0 + $70 Commission
Total Sales: $192.91 eBay, $35 Etsy; Includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: $60 for sterling pendant (on commission), $35 for two wood frames on Etsy
Average price: $25
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 15Last week was super slow with no sales on Friday and Saturday. I did sell some higher priced items, but many were on commission.
A curious thing on Etsy: Last year they started a star seller program (or something like that). They sent me emails saying that I had to be 95% rated in three areas, which were shipping on time, store ratings, and response time. So I was 100% on two, but 0% on response time because I never had a reason to respond to anyone. Everyone was happy, had no questions on the products, never asked for a price break, etc.
So, the person who bought the two frame listing a week ago Sunday had also purchased a listing of three frames the day before (which were in my numbers last week). She mentioned that she was interested in two frames from another listing, so I worked it out with her to combine shipping on the two purchases.
Now, I’ve got 100% in response time, so I guess I get to be a star seller or whatever until the next rating period. After which, I will probably lose it since I won’t have any reason to respond again. Hum, not sure that this is thing Etsy was looking for, but I guess it would work better for their sellers with much larger stores.
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Weekly sales 1/2 – 1/8
Random Item Store
Total items 3 (after merging my two stores the remaining 3 are auctions)
Items sold 10
New items listed 0
Gross sales $151.13
Net sales $61.17
New buyers 8
Repeat buyers 0Patch Store
Total items 6117
Items sold 127
New items listed 350
Gross sales $1,208.42
Net sales $884.80
New buyers 98
Repeat buyers 5Etsy
Orders 13
Gross sales $125.00
Net sales $106.25Gross sales total $1,484.55
Net sales total $1,052.22Another $1k week in the books. my store has done well since I merged my two stores and have been listing 10 hats and 40 patches since 1/1. I am curious to see how many sales I’ll have in a couple months of listing this much. I’ve been getting my work done in less than 8 hours even on Mondays with the weekend orders to ship out so that’s encouraging.
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How much time do you spend pulling/packing/shipping that many sales? Do you have like a designated shipping block of time each day?
Shipping 150 items a week is a lot!
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I’m doing this full time now so I start each day pulling and shipping, then get on listing. I am usually done before 10am and start around 7:30-8. I decided to just sell hats and patches going forward so I’ve got very organized inventory systems in place. I run things a lot like popeyespostcards if you listen to his episode
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Hi, I had a couple of fairly successful eBay stores about 10 years ago. Sold pretty much anything that i could find to make a quick buck. Always thought about selling patches from a large patch only store so started to purchase patch & pins lots whenever I ran into them at flea markets, auctions etc.
After a few years of collecting I had many thousands of patches 6 or maybe even 7 thousand nice patches. Perhaps even more.
Never got round to listing them as could never figure out the best way to photograph/scan or ship them, looks like it is easier now with the new eBay shipping function.
Sadly my elderly parents got sick, decided to sell up my home and move closer to them to try help them out. Sadly the huge chest full of patches & pins went missing during the move. I didn’t realize for a long while that the chest was even missing. So never got to sell even one!
Do you place in something like a patch in postcard top loader, plastic holder to ship or just in a simple single envelop or even a bubble mailer? I always wanted to know. Cheers! Suzy.
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Week Ending 1/8/22
Total Items in eBay Store: 1102
Total Items in Etsy Store: 52
Items Sold eBay: 20
Items Sold Etsy: 1
Gross Sales eBay (Not including shipping and tax): $440.70
Net Sales (After fees) eBay: $351.29
Gross Sales Etsy (Not including shipping and tax): $19.95
Net Sales (After fees) Etsy: $18.24
Cost of Items Sold: $29.06
COGS Percent 7.86%
Net Profit Margin: 73.91%
Highest Price Sold: $90.00 Antique Jewelry Box
Average Price Sold: $21.94
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 16
Promoted Percentage: 76.19%
Average Days Listed: 463
Longest Listed: 1549
New items listed: 1A below average week this week. Historically, first week of January has had great sales for me, so a bit disappointed. I shouldn’t expect much better, though, as I haven’t been posting much lately and my numbers are dropping. Guests left Friday, so hopefully get on a listing spree to bring sales back up.
Had my first Etsy sale last week. A small $19,95 item that I’d had up in my eBay store for a few years. Processing was pretty straight forward. Did have to Google how to get it to print the postage on my 4×6 labels.
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01/02/22 – 01/08/22
Total Items In Store: 4220 (was 4226 previously listed)
Items Sold: 24
Total Sales: $ 965.33 (no shipping included)
Highest Price Sold: $ 225 (Coat)
Average Price Sold: $ 40.22
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 136.99
Number of items listed: 0Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales were very consistent.
Focus for the week : Get more organized.
Scavenge of the week: Got a nice little old HP desktop for $15. This will be my backup computer. It has Windows 10 loaded.
Thoughts for the week: Spent a lot of time shipping this weekend. Good for sales, but didn’t get far with my youtube endeavor.
Mark S
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Great to read a bit about your NYC vacation, J & R, and so happy to see that it was a time for rest and recharge for both you and your employees.
Like all of us, I’m trying to ride the New Year energy into a productive and profitable January. This week was a good start. I’m sure that some of my buyers this week were spending their eBay bucks from last quarter, so I will be curious to see if these sales will keep up.
1/2/2022 – 1/8/2022
Total items in store: 3308 (down from 3312, but I pulled almost 100 low-dollar listings from inventory and replaced them with close to the same number of new, more valuable listings — basically that’s gonna be my life for the next few months)
Items sold: 59 (41 via best offer, 6 via seller initiated offer)
Gross sales: $3041.96 (up 30% from one year ago)
Net sales: $2277.69 (up 38% from one year ago)
Lowest price sold (net): $4.20 (dude!!!) — Bill Almon autograph
This type of autograph card is consistently my lowest seller every week, since I built up my inventory with hundreds of nondescript autographs like this. A small step up in quality from this type of autograph which was personally obtained by the seller since the autographs that I sell have third-party authentication from the card manufacturer or one of the large grading companies. I’m not an autograph seeker or expert by any means. I bought these cards through auctions for $1 or $2 each (usually in large lots) and have sold a few every week, week after week, through best offer or (often) buy it now. Many times (like with this sale) the buyer will purchase more than one. I’m down to 2 boxes and half of one shelf of these types of autographs. Soon enough, they will all be gone and replaced with more expensive, unique and valuable items. The circle of eBay.
Highest price sold (net): $232.35 — Joe Burrow Flawless patch
2nd high priced sale (net): $129.81 — Hunter Renfrow National Treasures autograph button
Two modern football cards of star players whose teams are about to play in the playoffs for the first time in quite a few years. Both from very expensive sets and the cards show this cost in quality, features and thickness. The thickest modern cards are 1/4″ thick, which doesn’t sound like much until you actually look at it next to a thin piece of card stock.
Joe Burrow was the #1 draft pick a few years ago, and really had his breakout season this year, so his autographs (even the most generic ones) are in the ~$200 range. Probably better, if you are into his cards, to get a nice patch card from one of the more expensive sets than a cheaper-looking autograph.
Hunter Renfrow is one of a few wide receivers who have emerged to set records this season and seen their card prices rise accordingly. I was very fortunate to come across a number of auctions of Renfrow cards last spring, before the season started, and won some (including this one) which ended at prices that were unusually low.
Cards have a somewhat natural ebb and flow to the pricing, where players are always at their most expensive after big achievements, like a great individual game, or if their team goes on a championship run, and the prices always drop in the offseason. It’s not at all rational to someone with a scavenger’s mindset. But I think for a lot of people, emotion plays a big part in how they spend money. Especially on themselves.
Both of these buyers purchased from me again tonight just before writing this post. They also left very kind feedback. I can think of a few reasons why and figure they are worth sharing.
1. I sent both buyers a few small bonuses with their purchase. Nothing more valuable than about $5, but thoughtfully chosen cards of the player on their card & other players on the team. Easy to do when you sell small items like trading cards, and especially when you’ve accumulated thousands and thousands of them like I have.
2. My shipping and packaging is meticulous. I buy most of my inventory on eBay, and like any large-volume eBay buyer I could write a book on the “creative” and unbelievable shipping methods of amateur sellers. There are also a lot of 100,000+ feedback massive card sellers who prioritize volume above everything else. Their packaging is usually fine, the very definition of 5 on a scale of 1-10. I package the same way I want to receive an item, and often upgrade $50+ items to priority mail and $100+ to priority small flat rate boxes at no charge to the buyer. It costs me a few bucks in extra shipping costs, but I think it’s worth the peace of mind and often the items arrives in 2 or 3 days instead of a week.
3. I sent both buyers a 20% off coupon. This is a fairly new addition to eBay’s repertoire of seller tools, and like any other tool, it takes time to learn how to use it best. I have been sending coupons to buyers since last June with only a handful of successes over months. Then tonight I had both of these buyers return to my store and use the coupon within an hour of each other on fairly expensive items. Most likely, it is a fluke. But this is also the first time I’ve sent a 20% coupon instead of 15% or 10%, and maybe that has something to do with it.
Obviously the most important factor is having similar items that the buyers were interested in purchasing. That’s really what building an eBay business is all about.
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Anyone else hear or see that Padded Flat Rate Envelopes are not on the USPS website (at least as I write this)?
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