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We had a good solid week of eBay sales. Ryanne has been on a listing spree as we get through our death piles. We’re constantly amazed at what sells. Y
[See the full post at: The Numbers: November 21-27, 2021] -
Total Items in Store: 294
Items Sold: 3
Gross Sales: $211.93 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $140.65 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $8
Highest Price Sold: $99 (Pottery Barn Halloween item (ours))
Average Price Sold: $70.64
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Nice listing R! Glad to hear things are going well. I wonder what effect the new Airbnbers will have on pricing. I always look at ratings and filter.
Well, Ebay is still on the back burner. Really enjoyed having family here including my son home from college finally. Putting the seat belt on for the new variant business.
I posted this last week but if anyone knows how Ebay will be reporting sales and expenses vs. before managed payments, would love to hear about that.
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Yeah, we’re not sure if more local vacation renters will push down all prices, or just set a race to the bottom. So far, there’s still a segment of people willing to pay for quality. Not everyone wants the cheapest. It really is like eBay when you see sellers pricing dirt cheap vs sellers willing to price for quality.
This year will be interesting doing taxes for Airbnb since its a mix of old eBay payments and Managed Payments.
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I hear ya on the crazy real estate prices. There has never been a bubble here in my area of WV. It’s just been up,up,up!
the out of staters are so used to the absurd home prices where they are from that EVERYTHING here is a deal. My current neighbor is from NOVA and they way overpaid and it didn’t phase them in the least.
Our first house we bought for 76k in 2005. We sold in 2012 for 135k.
our current house we bought for 176k, and when I refinanced this year it is worth $240k according to appraisal.
if we decided to sell, we would likely get multiple offers within days for OVER a high asking price due to the neighborhood we are in and the crazy market.Last spring a house on our street sold for $50k more than it should have been worth.
Even crappy houses here are listing for $200k. It’s nuts.
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if we decided to sell, we would likely get multiple offers within days for OVER a high asking price due to the neighborhood we are in and the crazy market.
I’ve had to talk a couple people through the idea of their their home. Sure, you’d make boodles of cash, but then where do you buy affordably? The people making bank are the people who had extra property/homes to sell.
It really feels like eBay/Amazon in 2012 when the general public realized there was money to be made selling online. Now the general public knows you can make money with vacation rentals or moving outside urban areas.
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11/21/21 – 11/27/21
Total Items In Store: 4209 (was 4172)
Items Sold: 21
Total Sales: $ 557.06
Highest Price Sold: $ 150 (Jacket)
Average Price Sold: $ 26.53
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 201.18
Number of items listed: 58Gut Sales Report for the week: Slower week, but expected with Thanksgiving.
Focus for the week : I was trying to prep a number of items to list and also list a lot. Thanksgiving and football games got in the way.
Scavenge of the week: Holy incredible deals Batman! I found a vintage Stetson hat in like new condition in the original box at an estate sale. Paid $30, will list at around $1000. At the same sale, found a number of “Big Golden Books” (as opposed to the Little Golden books). Some of these books were in the $100 range that I got for close to nothing.
Thoughts for the week: Starting a Youtube Channel! I have put a lot of thought into starting a Youtube channel about selling on ebay. I am in the process of getting this set up to go. Stay tuned for more details in future posts.
Mark S
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I am really excited to see the debut of your YouTube channel. I have never really found an eBay or scavenging podcast that held my interest in the same way that Scavenger Life did. There are even a few sports card focused podcasts (in my opinion the best one is Wax Museum) that should reel me in as a listener, but I listen to one or two episodes and go back to other stuff I like better.
I think it’s because most podcasts are designed to be entertaining storytelling, rather than process or method based. When I work on my eBay business, I like to be in a mindset of analyzing and improving my processes so I can fully enjoy the benefits (time and financial flexibility) of doing this full-time. That’s just one of the many things that made this podcast so meaningful to me, and I assume so many of us still posting here. I’ve noticed that the podcasts I returned to again and again have some kind of mental health discussion or theme, even if they’re technically about sports, or creativity, or comedy, or whatever, and usually it leads to a tightly knit community because most people just don’t talk about self-care or all these other taboo subjects.
I love the way you break down your posts, and you find such interesting items often at incredible prices. The outcomes are fun to read about, but I’m sure there is a ton of knowledge behind your processes which lead to your great sales and scavenges, and it will be great to hear more about those things.
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craig-rex,
I plan to make it a practical approach to selling on ebay, minus the hype.
I am going to start out basic, and then go into detail on subjects that I don’t see others doing. I have a number of the subjects already planned and outlined.
At the beginning, those here may not learn much, but may see things from a different perspective. Then, as things get going, I will go into more detail on certain topics that you may not find here.
I will let you know here when my first episode is ready.
Mark
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Our Store Week November 21-27, 2021
Total Items in Store: 529
Items Sold: 11
Gross Sales: $347.61 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $175.61 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $12
Cost of helpers: $0
Highest Price Sold: $41.00 (3 pc stacking stoneware child’s plate/bowl/cups set)
Average Price Sold: $31.60
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $22
Number of items listed this week: 5Felt like a good week. Since I’ve made myself post my numbers I’m always amazed at fees. It makes me face reality. Thanks for continuing to post your weekly numbers Jay. I know there is a cost to doing business. Sometimes my brain sugar coats it. Actual fees were about 22% of sales instead of the 45% that ebay showed with shipping added to it. And we usually do make a little on the shipping since ebay gives us a discount and we use calculated shipping based on weight.
Did a little thrifting at the Goodwill outlet this week and hit the local auction house on Saturday night. Working through the new stuff this week. Like several others, we had company 4 days this week so didn’t get a lot of listing done.
I worry about the housing bubble too. Scares me when I see our kids refinancing to pull their equity out. Must be my age. I’ve saw things go south economically before and I worry it will again and they will get caught in the trap. My goal is to get it all paid off, sock enough away enough that we can weather a crash and hope it doesn’t actually happen.
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Happy Holidays, everyone! I didn’t reach my goal this week due to the holidays. I’m going to take off 3-4 months due to a divorce that started about 2 months ago. I feel weird dumping this on here but some of you might wonder so why not just say it.
I am still living at home and will till about February. My wife and I are still good friends, albeit, with a lot of ups and downs. We are fine. The kids are fine. One is 18, one 16 – they are really fine… the 10 year old is doing well. The transition is a long one and that seems to help.
I might get to list during this time but it seems best to put new listings on hold as I just have a lot to purge or pack and it is pretty important that I focus as much creative energy on the house search as my options initially seem limited. And, of course, the creative energy in making a change in my relationships with my family.
I’ll see you come March. 🙂
Marty
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Marty, we wish you luck on this next adventure. Emotional sobriety, which you have, is a thing to treasure. See you in March. We’re all here if you ever want to check in, regardless of eBay.
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Thanks, Jay. I appreciate your vote of confidence. “Emotional sobriety” is quite a compliment and I hope I do it justice. My mantra is, “What could (and will) I do differently going forward?” As for eBay, perhaps I’ll just keep posting here on weeks when I have sales as a sort of check-in. Thanks, again.
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@martyholthaus – Hang in there Marty! Best wishes with your circumstances. eBay will be there for you when you return.
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Hey Marty – That’s rough, but sounds like you are handling it well. It’s no use working on eBay when the shit hits the fan. Good luck to you.
Week of Nov 21 – 27
Total Items in Store: 1407 eBay, 32 Etsy
Items Sold: 19 eBay, 2 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $12.95 + $38.50 Commission
Total Sales: $364.13 eBay, $63.70 Etsy; Includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: $41.60 for 1987 Ken Zylla Framed Matted Commemorative Print on Etsy; $40 Box 1940s Centrix Rough Cylinder Ophthalmic Lenses on eBay
Average price: $20.37
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 1My highest sale, the framed print for $41, was shipped to Hawaii for $72.
I put my whole eBay inventory on a 25% sale starting on Wed and ending this coming Tues. This is the first time I’ve done such a thing, so I don’t know if my decent sales were due to the holiday or the 25% off. Probably a combination of both.
I had computer issues this week that prevented me from listing. All the parts for my new PC arrived this past week, and my son put it together today. In the meantime, my iMac decided to work just fine again. I can’t count on it, though, so now I’ve got to upload software, figure out what I’m going to do for Microsoft Office, and transfer my files. It might take me a while.
Last, but not least, I liked the Matching Pajamas coffee so much, I ordered the larger size!
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I forgot to mention, my brother-in-law purchased a home within the past few weeks in the Florida panhandle. He was looking for something specific and wasn’t able to buy anything where he was in Tennessee. He purchased it sight unseen and offered cash at about $10k higher than asking price. Looking at the listing and comparing to recent solds, I think he did OK, but I’m glad I’m not in the market right now. Holy cow!
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Sharyn, instead of Microsoft Office you may want to try Open Office, which is a free public domain set of office software. I have been using both the word editor and calc spreadsheet for at least 15 years or so with no problems. I use it with Ubuntu, but versions are out there for PCs, Macs, and a host of other systems. It will also let you import or export Microsoft and other format files. It’s available from The Apache Software Foundation at: https://www.openoffice.org
I do not have any relationship with OpenOffice other than that I use their software.
Haven’t done my numbers yet for November, but after the 30th I’ll post them here.
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@steve-list – Thanks for the suggestion! One other idea I had was to use the free online versions of Microsoft Office, but I find don’t care for them. I’ll take a look at Open Office.
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Items in Store 1585
Items Sold 29
Total Sales $940.00
COGS $99.00
Total Profit $841.00
Average profit $29.00
Average sales price $32.41
New Listings 0
Items scavenged 0Sales were weak Wednesday-Friday, but this weekend I sold almost 20 items! Hopefully that high volume continues this week.
I’ve been selling more low dollar items as I clear out old inventory. Any time an old shoes or clothing item comes across my “send offers”, I’ve been sending substantially good offers. I’ve been selling alot of $10-15 shoes and shirts.
No listing or scavenging this week. Since it was my last week home before returning to work today, I just focused on resting and spending time with my family.
Now it’s “back to the grind” of work. While being near fatally sick is NOT fun, I must say that I greatly enjoyed being home for a few months.
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My step daughter and son in law bought a house site unseen back in Sept. He was being transferred across country by the military. The house they got had 10 offers on the first day. Many were all cash offers from investors looking to buy in a small lake town outside of Savannah that is about to take off. They only got it because the house flipper was retired military who had the same job as my son in law so he chose their offer, even though it meant some extra hoops for him. I don’t know how young people can otherwise buy a house these days.
Ebay sales have been strong the last few days. Switching to sourcing hard goods over clothing was the right decision! But that stuff takes up so much more room. I need to come up with some additional storage. I think I can fit more into my basement but it’s going to require quite a bit of manual labor.
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Random Item Store
Total items 1399
Items sold 34
New items listed 70
Gross sales $616.48
Net sales $375.31
New buyers 30
Repeat buyers 1Patch Store
Total items 4273
Items sold 74
New items listed 140
Gross sales $588.30
Net sales $449.47
New buyers 58
Repeat buyers 3Etsy
Orders 31
Gross sales $282.00
Net sales $239.70Gross sales total $1,486.78
Net sales total $1,064.48Better than last week, but a bit disappointed with my random item store’s performance. Patch sales continue to rise though and that’s my long game focus anyways.
Zillow says my house has appreciated over $60k since we bought it back in MARCH and I thought we were paying top dollar then. I think we’re at peak craziness in this economy and it’s about to blow up…
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Sales Report for: 11/20/21
Total Items in Store: 1195
Items Sold: 33
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $2,001.86
Net Sales (After fees): $1,663.93
Cost of Items Sold: $178.41
COGS Percent 10.72%
Net Profit Margin: 74.21%
Highest Price Sold: $500.00 Model Goddard Rocket
Average Price Sold: $60.66
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $34.45
Sold via promoted listings: 18
Promoted Percentage: 54.55%
Average Days Listed: 330
Longest Listed: 1491
New items listed: 9What a difference a week can make. Had the best week since last December. First time breaking $2000 in a week this year.
Had two $500 sales of items I’d recently listed which really helped. One sale was for a small desk model of Goddard’s original liquid fuel rocket. This was a commemorative given out by the Goddard Space Flight Center to retirees and visiting dignitaries. I picked it up a few weeks ago at an estate sale. It was unmarked and I gathered it with a bunch of other unmarked items. I figure it cost me about $10. I had no idea how much it would be worth.
My other $500 item was an antique roll-top lap desk that I won at an auction for $67. I grab these writing desks whenever I can get them. They always sell well. This was the coolest I’ve gotten so far and sold for the most.
Did a small bit of thrifting on Black Friday. No great deals and ended up spending more than I should have on a few items I didn’t look up for value because I though I knew better. The thrift stores in my area are rarely great buying opportunities. They all seem to research eBay for prices. Cecile likes watching some of the YouTubers that thrift and it is amazing to see what they find on a regular basis. I assume the DC area and perhaps other large metropolitan areas are just too savvy and over-shopped.
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@Jay – It is interesting to see that home values there are rising so rapidly. I recall checking home values in Luray a few years ago during a visit and coming across data reporting that home values had been stagnant and there for decades. This pandemic is really shaking things up.
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11-21-21 to 11-27-21
Total Items in Store: 1780
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales:$ 197.94
Net Sales:$ 125.72
Cost of Items Sold: $ 3.00
Highest Price Sold: $ 50.00 Ectomobile Owners Workshop Haynes Manual
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 0
Number of items listed this week: 25Regular week for me sales wise on Ebay. Selling is so random as you all have said.
Best wishes Marty! Take good care of yourself.
I apologize to everyone, every time I move real estate seems to go crazy. Not really but I was in the midst of the insane market myself specifically in the Luray area. Took me forever to find something I liked and was willing to pay the asking price for. Sold my NoVA home in less than a few hours on the market for an all cash offer. Paid off my new home and have some extra money to cover the normal new home expenses of repairs/fixes/updates/changes/new stuff.
I can’t speak for others as I have no interest in AirBnB but I was ready to get out of NoVA for a LONG time. With full time telework now an option, it was the time to make the move. I’m still within reasonable distance of DC for the few trips I will need to make but I might as well be living in another universe day to day compared to a booming DC suburb.
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I can’t speak for others as I have no interest in AirBnB but I was ready to get out of NoVA for a LONG time. With full time telework now an option, it was the time to make the move. I’m still within reasonable distance of DC for the few trips I will need to make but I might as well be living in another universe day to day compared to a booming DC suburb.
Agreed. We’ve always seen our area as a little secret since its so close to DC and has always been so reasonable. With the pandemic pushing work from home, the secret is now out.
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Good to see everyone still posting 🙂 We had an ok week after several very slow ones. Also have been working thru death piles as the estate sales around here have been really bad. I am about a year away from retirement and would like to ramp up ebay a bit but I need to find better sourcing options for that to happen! Have a great week everyone!
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And lets try that again….
ABL! – Always be Listing.
I finished up a non-scvagaging related Gig on October 9th and have had my nose to the listing grindstone since then. It’s (finally) starting to pay off.
WE: 11/27/21
Total Items In Store: 3,529
Items Sold 45
Cost of Items Sold: 92.24
Total Sales (Sales + Shipping does [not inc sales tax]): 1,355.64
Ebay / Paypal / Shipping Costs / Fees : 441.94
Net Profit: 913.70
Highest Price Sold: 99.00 Fugitive Girls Blu-Ray 1974 Vinegar Syndrome OOP
Average Price Sold: $20.30
Number of items listed: 125
Scavenge of the Week: Very little scavaganing but seriously attacking my death piles.
Most Satisfying Sale : x6 Vintage Mid century Modern Moulded Plastic Salad Bowl Set 60s Fruit Pattern
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Two weeks of numbers from me since I missed last week. It is getting cold here in New Jersey, which means a nice opportunity to work through some death piles and reorganize inventory. I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and here’s to a great December.
11/21/2021 – 11/28/2021
Total items in store: 3543 (up from 3505)
Items sold: 63 (40 via best offer, 8 via seller initiated offer, 3 repeat buyers)
Gross sales: $2780.33 (up 92% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1903.88 (up 96% from one year ago)
Lowest price sold (net): $9.45 — Nick Margevicius Topps independence day parallel
Every card company does different variations (or parallels) of the base card using different colors or designs, and often these parallels contain an individual serial number indicating its rarity. These independence day parallels, which Topps has been doing for a few years, are each numbered to 76. The card I sold was an uninteresting player, and almost any other serial number except #17/76 would go for $2 or less. But this one was #17/76. I can understand why a collector might shell out $10 for that particular serial number, even if it is a little kitschy for my taste.
Highest price sold (net): $104.34 — Curtis Jones gold prizm
Premium soccer cards have only become an option in the last 3-4 years, so almost every new set has designs or players that are popular or become popular within a few months of release. I’m not a big soccer fan (in fact I don’t think I’ve ever watched a full soccer match), so it’s been a fun challenge over the last year to learn about all of the different players and teams. Plus every sale is an opportunity to learn which cards sell quickly and for high prices. This one proved particularly special as it had 25 watchers and 20+ offers by the time it sold. I actually raised the price twice before it sold. The player and team are quite popular and prizm is a pretty iconic set in modern cards, with gold prizms (usually serial numbered to 10) especially popular.
A year ago, I’m sure I had less than 100 soccer cards in my inventory. Today I’m at 350 and growing. Even though most of the best soccer (and soccer cards) are based around European teams and leagues, a lot of my buyers are American. Maybe soccer is more popular in the States than I think, or more likely it’s simply another type of card for collectors and dealers to buy and sell and make (or lose) money on. I would also guess that the early pandemic introduced a lot of fans to soccer, and collectors to soccer cards, and some of those are still around 18+ months later.
11/14/2021 – 11/20/2021
Items sold: 53 (33 via best offer, 12 via seller initiated offer, 1 repeat buyer)
Gross sales: $2722.19 (up 57% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1829.09 (up 67% from one year ago)
Lowest price sold (net): $8.55 — Doug Nikhazy autograph jersey
Nikhazy was an extremely successful college pitcher for the Ole Miss Rebels who just started his minor league career this past year. The buyer was located in Mississippi and left a nice feedback about how much her grandson was going to love the card. Cool grandma!
Highest price sold (net): $253.62 — Giancarlo Stanton Topps Chrome blue refractor autograph rookie card
This is one of the nicer (colorful, good set, serial numbered) autograph rookies of one of the best players on the New York Yankees. It’s an unusual sale as I bought the card for less during the season and sold it for higher during baseball’s offseason. Usually prices dip during the offseason.
If you click on the link, you will see why. The name on the card is “Mike Stanton” which is the name the player used his first two years in the big leagues. Then he changed his name after a trip to Europe (good article if you’re curious why) and the rest, as they say, is history.
But his old cards will say Mike Stanton, always and forever, and every few months I come across a valuable one which only has Mike Stanton in the title because that’s what’s on the card. Sometimes those listings sell for a good price anyway. More often, like with my initial purchase of this card, they don’t sell as well as you might expect based on previous sales history of similar cards until they’re listed correctly.
While I don’t know this for sure, my theory is that my buyer who spent $300+ on this card didn’t care about finding their card for a good deal or waiting for the right one to come along or searching “Mike Stanton” “autograph, auto” chrome. They decided to buy a Giancarlo Stanton autographed rookie, had a budget in mind and perhaps a type of card, and they came across my listing and clicked buy it now. Such a different mindset than how scavengers approach things, but I’m thankful for buyers like this all year long. They often make my week.
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@craig rex – wow thanks for all that detailed information. I know nothing about sports and I know less about cards. It’s always interesting to get a peak into other peoples expertise.
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@debitendcredits
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed my post. The accountability of writing these posts every week has helped keep me on track this year, and it’s fun to try and translate my knowledge in a way that makes sense to people who aren’t card experts. With all the money that’s spent on modern cards, I am sure that some of you will find them “in the wild” at random estate sales and flea markets in the near future. My hope is that my posts will allow you to separate the junk cards from what’s more valuable and make a few bucks (or more) on something you would have otherwise passed by.
One of my scavenger goals for 2022 is to apply the knowledge I’ve learned from your posts and so many others in this community to expand beyond my niche when it makes sense. I love thrift stores and flea markets but I could never build a business on my finds there. Tried and failed for a couple years, in fact. But now I have a sustainable pipeline, and I can afford to supplement the cards with weird gewgaws and random finds and see what works and what doesn’t.
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I have nothing vital to share except that I love the word “gewgaws”
GEWGAWS!!
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Total Items in Store: 165
Items Listed: 10
Items Sold: 11
Total Sales: $155.25
Highest Price Sold: $29.75 Breyer 2020 Breyerfest Celebration Horse
A bit late to post, but as others have said this helps keep me accountable and on track. Christmas keeps selling which is nice, as I have more to list, but I think I will wind that down this week and just pack away the rest to next year. I managed to get my stash down to 1 box from 3 so that is a win for me. Went to another great estate sale over the weekend. A bit odd, the seller didn’t stage much so we were digging through closets and drawers. I found neat things and already listed a few. My tables in the family room are still covered with stuff from the huge sale a few weeks ago, Monday was free day so I got a car full on top of what I bought over the weekend. Lots of work to do here!
My favorite word in our world is tchotchke. I do Burma-Shave style signs for my garage sale in the front yard: Drive around, Fill your trunk, With stuff and tchotchkies, Treasures and junk! Then a Yard Sale sign with an arrow around the corner to the driveway. Also, if you like scavenger word play have a listen to Wierd Al’s ‘I bought it on eBay’, he is so talented!
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- @cdils – Regarding the Christmas, don’t put them away, Christmas sells well year round. Real Christmas addicts are always buying. Strike while you recent research is still in your mind.
Good luck!
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