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Yoweeeeeeeee…. It was a slow week for us. We sold some cool items, but only 13 of them. We have almost 9000!!! items in our listed inventory so of c
[See the full post at: The Numbers: June 26-July 2, 2022] -
Total Items in Store: 309
Items Sold: 8
Gross Sales: $532.77 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $373.33 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $89
Highest Price Sold: $90 (New gamer headset – we got to keep an extra for free when my son’s Xmas present was late years ago)
Average Price Sold: $59
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $75 (RA and thrift combo)
Number of items listed this week: 16It was a good week for me even though I listed fewer items than last week, which wasn’t great. I am doing all of the things – taking and making offers, running a sale, etc. but haven’t yet ended and done sell similar on my sale stuff. A lot of my items are selling based on offers. This week was a mix of old and new listings selling, but generally I’m noticing newer listings moving for the past few weeks since that views change. I have a hunch something is up. I’ve got three weeks of my daughter being in camp to hopefully grind out new listings, then August will be tough until school starts.
Happy 4th to everyone. Seeing everyone running around in their patriotic gear makes me hopeful we can come together for a bit and be grateful. I made a listed and sold video last week and I think Steve must have had the week off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qki1hco-sEM
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J&R: Wow those are slow sales. Hope it picks up.
I hope you don’t consider this to be spam because that’s not how I intended it, but I recently listened (again) to a Planet Money podcast on escheat laws. You might have $ being held for you.
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/24/799345159/episode-967-escheat-show
I went and check, filled out the form for Illinois escheat funds. The Illinois comptroller’s office sent me a check for $17.30. For Illinois residents go to: https://icash.illinoistreasurer.gov/
For escheat websites for other states just Google: escheat <your state>. Most states have these laws where the state holds abandoned bank accounts, old uncashed paychecks, etc. I looked up some friends and relatives on the Illinois site. Some had $ being held for them too.
I recevie no payment or kickback by telling you to check for your escheat funds. Just passing along info I have learned that might help others.
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I heard about this a couple years ago and searched every state we had ever lived in. NY state owed me $500 (!!!) and TX owed Jay about $100 from a job he had when he was a teenager! I encourage everyone to check any state (or all states) to see if they are holding money owed to you from old jobs or old tax filings. I think I used a site like this https://unclaimed.org/search/ to check every state’s site.
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Thanks for the tip on this site, Ryanne. I had used a similar site a few years ago, but I don’t think it was as thorough as this one, which sent me straight to my state’s website. Using that link, I found a few accounts in the name of a relative (my mom) who passed away years ago. Within a few minutes, I received an email from the state with all the information I need to provide them to claim the accounts. I’m not sure how the claim process will go since I don’t have all the info they need, and I will probably have a hard time getting it, but it’s a few thousand dollars so it’s worth a try. What a surprise that this money exists at all, and it’s amazing to be able to find out about it so easily.
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Thanks–I just checked an old address and have ~$90. What do you do if it is an old address in a state you don’t live in anymore? Can it still be claimed? Thanks for letting me know about this 🙂
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it should be able to be claimed through your name and social, what did that state ask for?
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It didn’t ask for anything with my old address yet but since it was associated with my old address, I wasn’t sure if I needed to prove I used to live at that address. Thanks!
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Week of Jun 26 – Jul 2
Total Items in Store: 1602 eBay, 33 Etsy
Items Sold: 10 eBay, 0 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $34.75 + $21 Commission
Total Sales: $164.70 eBay, $0 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $28 Tankini on commission
Average price: $16.47
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 13Yep, standard, low value items, nothing special is selling. Someone asked me to divide up a group of silverware for them. I was going to tell them no, but then I realized it’s probably the only way I’m going to get rid of them. I guess I will make more in the end.
COGS are high because one long tail item from the year I started sold, and I had way overpaid for it.
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Monthly numbers: 06/1 – 06/30
Active listings: 1334
Items sold: 42
Sales: $982.95
Highest price sold: $175 – Hand Carved Duck Decoy
Average price sold: $23.40
Cost of items sold: $96.22 / average cost: each $2.29
Spent on new inventory: $218.75
Number of items listed: 67
Returns: 1 – $24.95 Giants Baseball Cap
I did have over $1,000 in sales for June – then the return happened. At least it was for ‘buyer changed mind’ so I got to deduct the original shipping.
At an ephemera clearance sale, which was $1 per item, I spent $188 on a very random collection of old paper. I was in line when it opened, the first room was full of tables of postcards, many people already in the chairs provided and shifting through the boxes. It took me about 10 seconds to make my way to the back patio and to start digging through the boxes of other ephemera stuff. I’ve listed only 25 of the items so far, but already 5 have sold for a total of $182. Old paper is one of my favorite things to research and sell.
Did anyone else have problems with eBay’s shipping excluded regions form? My listings show 11 excluded countries (all added by eBay), but I haven’t been able to add them to the list. With the new requirements for shipping to Germany, I tried to add them, but no luck. The form is on the Manage Shipping Settings Page: https://www.ebay.com/ship/prf
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Slow week for eBay as well. I got ‘phoned up by a rep yesterday, checking whether I am going to the business thing next week. I was asked if I’d like to bring any more guests along; had the impression they’d be happy if I rounded up a busload.
As for the German VerpackG- the registration process appears to apply only to companies. It also seems to be the case that neither the German post office nor German customs are responsible for enforcing the regulations. Seems to be some kind of internally-regulated thing, with an emphasis on companies dibbing out other companies for breaking the rules.
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It’s been a weird month for me too. Because I am working at my old job as a consultant, I have not had as much time to list. My June sales were low (net profit of $2,800), but that is still a 20% increase from June 2021.
W/E 7/2/22
Total Items In Store: 4,399
Items Sold: 28
Cost of Items Sold: 79.83
Total Sales (Sales + Shipping does [not inc sales tax]) 1,256.97
Ebay / Paypal / Shipping Costs / Fees 318.08
Net Profit 938.89
Highest Price Sold: 210.70 – Vinegar Syndrome 5 Movie 5 Years Blu Ray
Average Price Sold: 33.31
Number of items listed: 28It’s hard to pin down a specific trend, but I think people are still shopping but are much more focused and specific when purchasing a higher-dollar item. That said, sales were all over the place. 25 of the last 28 sales were items I listed in the last 365 days (I’ve been steadily listing Jay & Ryanne style since Jan 2019).
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Items in Store 1982
Items Sold 25
Total Sales $622.00
COGS $63.00
Total Profit $559.00
Average profit $22.36
Average sales price $24.88
New Listings 59
Items scavenged 13
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 50Nothing real special about this week. One fun story from this past week. So several years ago I went all in at a sporting goods clearance sale and bought hundreds of pairs of smartwool socks. I listed pretty much everything but I was pretty sure I had a whole extra tub of the socks that I did not list. They’ve crossed my mind occasionally over the last couple years as I pondered where in my death piles they were, or if I was mistaken and they didn’t even exist. Well they turned up! Jackpot too as I have about 25 pair of each style so I only had 5 listings to do. Back then there was a bit of competition but now I’m the only seller on the ‘net of these styles. Full retail price it is! I could not tell you why I never listed these but did list everything else. I must have done a reorganization and put them away.
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I love the Smartwool socks so much (thanks Jay!) so I would love to know what kinds you have. I could use a few more pairs.
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Items in Store 389
Items Sold 19
Total Sales $1789.68
COGS $60+ (Another mix of stuff I picked and things we no longer use, so it’s hard to nail down COGS exactly)
Total Profit $1149.01
Average sales price $94.19The highest sale was a $1100 guitar amp my husband no longer used. I think he paid $1400 for it a few years ago, so technically we “lost” money on it. But he used it for several years, so ? COGS always feels fuzzy for those kind of items.
Without the amp skewing the numbers, my average sales price was about $39 per item.
I had 2 people initiate returns for a total of $200, but they haven’t shipped the item yet. *insert eyeroll here* My buyers always send stuff back at the last possible minute.
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I listed nothing new this week for the first time in 5+ months, and instead spent a little while each day ending older listings, repricing and selling similar in batches of 50 to 100 items at a time.
At the beginning of the week, I was very selective in only ending items which were 6 months or older and had 0 or 1 watchers and no offers in the last year. I would end the items, sell similar with the bulk editor, drop the price by $10 and my minimum offer settings by the same amount. By the end of the week, I was ending, repricing and selling similar on most listings older than a few months, and sometimes I’d cut the price by $20 or even more.
I hadn’t done much in the way of end and sell similar, or any repricing, in about six months. I guess I was overdue because my sales were up almost $1000 on last week and about even with a year ago, which is better than it sounds because I had almost 1000 more items in my store a year ago and “feeding the beast” (aka new listings) took up a lot more of my time than it has this year.
I had a large order of about $500 which was mostly composed of $20 to 40 items with offers ranging from $15 to $30. From what I could tell, the buyer liked a few of my “newly” listed, newly repriced items, went digging through my store for more and sent offers on everything. I accepted every offer and they paid within a day. Truly the dream for any eBay seller.
It still would have been a nice week of sales even if that buyer never found my store. There were quite a few one off sales of ended and repriced items, including a few listings that were over a year old and hadn’t seen any offers in that time.
I have been pretty methodical about listing 5-10 items per day, every day, for the last six months. It was nice to take a break from that “grind” and still have a nice week of sales. The new bulk editor made the process of end and sell similar a breeze. It was much faster than the old bulk editor. I would definitely recommend trying this end, reprice and sell similar process if you haven’t, and especially something to keep in mind if you plan on taking a vacation but still want to keep the store active or want/need to take a break from creating new listings for a short time.
6/26/2022 – 7/2/2022
Total items in store: 2043 (down from 2091 last week)
Items sold: 64 (50 via best offer, 5 via seller initiated offer, 22 via promoted listings)
Gross sales: $2953.11 (up 1% from one year ago)
Net sales: $2082.51 (down 1% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $46.14 (down 16% from one year ago)
Time spent searching through online auction listings for new trading cards inventory: 14 hours (up from 11 hours last week)
Highest price sold (net): $144.16 — Giancarlo Stanton 2010 Bowman 1/1 black printing plate rookie card
Giancarlo Stanton is one of the big home run hitting outfielders for the Yankees, who are having one of the best years in their storied history. This card is from when Stanton was coming up with his former team the Marlins and has the coveted rookie logo, but the real value is that a printing plate is used in the making of the card. While printing plates of lesser players regularly sell for $10 or less, the nicer ones with an autograph, jersey piece or simply a desirable card (like the Bowman rookie of a star Yankees player) can get up there in price.
A few years after this 2010 set was made, Stanton changed his name from Mike (his middle name and childhood name) to Giancarlo (his given name) after a trip to Europe. The name change is why I was able to acquire the card for a good price originally. Many fewer searches and listings for Mike Stanton than Giancarlo Stanton. I actually have another Mike Stanton printing plate from this set, and I’m sure it will find a good home sometime this summer if the Yankees continue winning with Stanton leading the way.
Lowest price sold (net): $11.35 — Ji-Hwan Bae Leaf Metal green autograph /10
One card of many from the large order. It was fascinating to see how this buyer selected the cards they were interested in, it was a real mix of players from different teams but they definitely had a certain type of autograph card they liked (lots of colorful ones with low serial numbers) and there was a clear focus on “undervalued” players who were either on the verge of making it to the big leagues or having a tough time right now but with the potential to do better in the future. There were a few items which didn’t fit this pattern (maybe for their personal collection?) but overall they seemed to have a similar buying mindset to my own.
I sent the buyer a pretty significant coupon, 30% off, in the hopes to entice them back to my store again in the future. I’ve had mixed results at best with the coupons. A few buyers really love them and come back to my store again and again with them, but the vast majority of my customers are one-off buyers and I get some repeat buyers who don’t use the coupon for whatever reason.
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Does the card market seem to still be full steam ahead? Or are buyers softening with the talk of recession?
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Does the card market seem to still be full steam ahead? Or are buyers softening with the talk of recession?
On certain trading cards message board threads (the ones I avoid), this has been a weekly debate for the last year if not more and the discussion just goes in circles.
The market is definitely softer than the pandemic bubble peak of two years ago and probably softer than it was a year ago. From what I’ve read, prices on most high end cards ($5000 and up) are down slightly (maybe 10 to 25 percent?) and I would guess the same for prices on less valuable cards.
Most weeks, my eBay sales are down about 20% from last year in terms of number of items sold and overall dollars. But these seem like just normal ups and downs to me. If the high end card market starts to completely disappear, or the low end cards start going for pennies, then it would be time to worry.
And this year I started with the consignment selling, so my overall income is higher than last year even if eBay is a bit slower. Even though I’m as worried about the economy as everyone else, I expect my sales to continue to increase as I get more and more experience figuring out what to sell on which platform and how to maximize my time. eBay is becoming home for only the most unusual and special cards, or ones which I think will sell quickly, and the rest go to consignment. The overall market may be soft, but there are always buyers chasing those rare and special cards for a personal collection, and sometimes lowering the price by a few bucks or taking a slightly lower offer turns a watcher into a buyer.
I try and look at all of it like this: when you sell things online to make money, you’re at the mercy of change all the time. Sometimes it’s slow season. Other times it’s a change in your niche or eBay’s seller hub or your mail carrier or a million other things. You can build a successful eBay business by finding a system that works, sticking with it week after week and hoping nothing ever changes.
But what we buy, where we buy, what we sell and how we get the item to the buyer is always subject to change. It’s hard to stay one step ahead of possible changes because a lot of them (like slow sales or eBay’s many changes over the last few years) come out of nowhere. If you can anticipate the possibility that anything might change, you can be ready to zig or zag when everyone else is caught flat-footed, arguing on message boards about how much better eBay used to be.
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when you sell things online to make money, you’re at the mercy of change all the time.
Well said. We’re kind of powerless over who buys what when. The only power we have is what we list and how often we list.
Since we don’t depend on eBay for our income anymore, we’re just listing items we find easily and are fun to us. We’re really testing the hypothesis of “what happens as eBay sellers if we don’t change” 🙂
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We’re kind of powerless over who buys what when. The only power we have is what we list and how often we list.
The other power we have as sellers are the tools eBay gives us and our pricing strategy. It’s not as important as listing regularly and listing good items, but it does matter somewhat. I have been thinking about this a lot while repricing some of my oldest inventory. It is very rewarding to end a 0 watcher, 0 offer listing, cut the price by $10 or $20, sell similar and see that listing sell in the next day or week. I don’t think this is a good strategy for every item or every niche, and it’s not a substitute for listing new items, but it’s been a nice experiment while things are slow and probably something I will make time for every few months.
Since we don’t depend on eBay for our income anymore, we’re just listing items we find easily and are fun to us. We’re really testing the hypothesis of “what happens as eBay sellers if we don’t change”
I imagine you two will change and experiment eventually, if for no other reason than to get rid of some of your older stuff and make room for the new. It might take another new project or two before you get to that point, but you guys are due for a new project soon anyway!
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You bring up a good point. We use promotions and sales, but find most eBay tools are unhelpful for our kind of items. Or we possibly just aren’t hip to their power.
I still believe that many of our weird vintage items are not price sensitive. And if they are price sensitive, then our sales (10%-25% off) should flush out any deal finders. Or we have “make offer” on every item so deal finders can tell us what they want to pay. Sometimes we do accept 50% offers, but otherwise I’d rather just sit on the item and wait.
But we like this community because we are always listening and learning to what other sellers are doing. There are a number of changes people have suggested over the years that have kept us in the game.
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Still slow, but a bit better this last week. Not bad for a holiday week. Best sale of the week was a 1950’s Napco Noel angels candle holder for $174.95. Picked this up in an auction lot last year and had about $12 per item in cost. Most of the others sold during Christmas season and I expected this to sit till next season so was a nice surprise.
Another nice sale was an antique French real picture postcard (RPPC) for a Paris restaurant from 1912. I had it listed for $99 but took an offer of $45. Spent the week posting items I had purchased during the previous week and a few of the sales were from those new listings.
Week Ending 7/2/22
Gross Sales: $405.92
Net Sales: $332.06
Total Items in eBay Store: 1062
Items Sold eBay: 8
Net Sales (After fees) eBay: $302.53
Total Items in Etsy Store: 254
Items Sold Etsy: 2
Net Sales (After fees) Etsy: $29.53Cost of Items Sold: $22.65
COGS Percent 6.82%Highest Price Sold: $174.95
Average Price Sold: $40.59
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 4Average Days Listed: 227
Longest Listed: 626
New items listed: 14 -
I have been scouring the lost money sites for decades. The lists were printed in the newspaper every year prior to being available on-line. (still are in some places) Never found a penny. The joke in my family is that we are so tight, our names will never appear on those lists!
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Items in Store 2010
Items Sold 22
Total Sales $453.00
COGS $53.00
Total Profit $400.00
Average profit $18.18
Average sales price $20.59
New Listings 20
Items scavenged 20
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 49Very busy week at my day job. Listed what I bought this week, which is an accomplishment.
I’m just very very busy and I don’t have enough time/energy for everything.
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