The Numbers: November 27-December 3, 2022

[Jay]

We were in Vermont to buy a truckload of green coffee beans. Shout out to our friends at Mocha Joes who have a direct relationship with coffee farms i
[See the full post at: The Numbers: November 27-December 3, 2022]

[Mark S]

11/27/22 – 12/03/22

Total Items In ebay Store: 4725

Total Items In Etsy Store: 200

ebay Items Sold: 15 $605.33 / Net $510.5
Etsy Items Sold: 2 $91.57 / Net $61.98

Total Gross Sales: 696.90 (including eBay\etsy fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $ 572.48 (minus eBay\etsy fees, shipping, and taxes)
Items Sold: 17
Highest Price Sold: $ 60 (Sweater)
Average Price Sold: $ 33.68
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 74.93

Number of items listed: 31

Gut Sales Report for the week: Yeah, I made my first sale on Etsy this past week. ebay was real slow for the week for this time of year.

Focus for the week : Still trying to get my 1800 vintage listings on Etsy. I have only 200 listed on Etsy so far.

Scavenge of the week: Found a nice Patagonia sweater\jacket for $5. I think I can get $90.

Thoughts for the week: Getting my Etsy items listed is a grind. But, here is what I keep telling myself. I will make about $9,000 a year after this is done. It will only take about 60 hours of concentrated cross listing to do all 1800 listings. That means that I can think of it as getting paid $150\hour for doing it. And, that isn’t just for 1 year, that is for this year and every year after that. So, that is good news to me and it keeps me motivated to finish this and move on to doing Poshmark.

Mark

 

[Jay]

Getting my Etsy items listed is a grind. But, here is what I keep telling myself. I will make about $9,000 a year after this is done. It will only take about 60 hours of concentrated cross listing to do all 1800 listings. That means that I can think of it as getting paid $150\hour for doing it. And, that isn’t just for 1 year, that is for this year and every year after that. So, that is good news to me and it keeps me motivated to finish this and move on to doing Poshmark.

Good to have a plan. Once your current inventory is on etsy, etc….whats the process to get all new listings on those platforms? Did you sign up for that software that does it for you? How well does it work?

[Mark S]

Jay,

I am using List Perfectly.

I copy my listings from ebay to List Perfectly. Then I select the listings I want and have List Perfectly copy most of the information to a platform (etsy, Poshmark, FB Marketplace, Mercari, Grailed, Depop, etc).  List Perfectly opens a window for you and most of the information is there in the Etsy listing  – I just have to manually complete the listing.  For Etsy, it is 3 Etsy specific fields, category, shipping, and optional tags.

So far, I just copied my vintage items from ebay to List Perfectly. This makes it less confusing. When I am done listing those 1800 to Etsy, I will copy my Shoes and Clothes listings from ebay to List Perfectly. Then follow the process to manually list those to Poshmark. I will have about 2000 Shoes and Clothes listings for Poshmark. That will take another 60-70 hours (no tags to enter will make it faster).

So, it works well, you just have to be organized and have a plan as to how you are going to do it and then just do the grunt work to get it done.

Mark

[Retro Treasures WV]

In the past I’ve seen videos of people using list perfectly to cross post. They would just screen cap the listing photos which results in low rez images for etsy.

 

Is there a better way to capture photos now?

Has list perfectly implemented an automated “squaring” tool for photos? I take all my photos in 4×6 format instead of square. Poshmark requires square photos and is a big barrier to entry for me.

[Mark S]

Retro,

List Perfectly has a Chrome Extension. In the settings for that extension, there is a general tab. IN the general tab, there is a checkbox that has, “Modify images before upload”. You check that box.

Here is the List Perfectly docs that say what that does:

Extension Settings

Just a little bit down in the url above, you will find:

<li id=”extmodimages” aria-level=”1″>Modify images before upload.

<li aria-level=”1″>☑️ CHECKED (Recommended):  When you upload Listing images, List Perfectly will resize them into a square shape (1:1 ratio). We do so by adding white borders and NEVER cropping your images!
<li aria-level=”1″>⬜️ UNCHECKED:  When you upload Listing images, List Perfectly will leave them as is, in whatever shape and size they are in. Please be aware that when you crosspost, the platform may edit, resize, or crop your image according to their listing guidelines.

So, it looks like your problem is now solved.

Mark

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Hello Mark:  Has been awhile since I last posted.

We made the transition from SixBit over to List Perfectly the first of this year. We did something almost similar to what you are doing but just further along with it.

We imported ALL of our Ebay store into List Perfectly first. Then we “pushed” [cross-posted all of that to our Etsy and Shopify stores. So all inventory [1,250 +/-] items are on all 3 platforms.

Now we are going through each listing and using the free built in LP photo editor to knock out all backgrounds of all the older inventory items and also using the slider button to lighten the brightness of all the old, darker photos. What a difference that makes. Makes each item look like brand new photos. Then also going through all the various fields and doing SEO and creating tags for the other platforms. We just click “UPDATE” after we finish each one and the new and improved version of each listing over writes the old listing on all three platforms while keeping the same ID numbers on each platform

Yes it was some work, but it all got done except for the SEO and photo edits.

 

Reason we left SixBit was we didn’t need that “Robust” and complex of a program and we are saving about $100 per month. SixBit was $160 month and LP is only $69 AND LP is cloud based so it is always there and our helpers can easily work from home and own their own schedules without having to be here in the office. One other reason is SixBit only posted to Ebay, Etsy and Shopify [even though we could push some Shopify items to several other sites], but ListPerfectly allows 13 platforms currently. Some of which are not suited to vintage hard goods though. But there is a manul method for doing more than the original 13. AND on LP there is no limit on items to list like InkFrog and some others.

 

No, LP doesn’t do as much as SixBit and not as automated but they are coming along. I am in the BETA program and also making many suggestions to their tech team on how to make LP more automated, though some things will never be able to be done because of the type of coding LP uses, but they are coming along.

 

Good luck with finishing up your whole LP catalog and getting cross-posted on all of your other platforms. If you have a Shopify store you can use it to also post to Instagram, FaceBook Market Place and get that to synch back to Ebay, thus then in return back into ListPerfectly. Again some extra manual work than SixBit but LP is getting there also.

Happy Holidays Everyone and feels nice to post back to ScavengerLife again.

Mike at MDC Concepts-MDC Galleries-Collins Creek Collections in Atlanta

[Mark S]

Mike,

It is so good to hear from you again! It feels like talking to a long lost friend.

Great to hear how things are going and what you are doing.

I did some research before going with LP and it seems like we came to similar conclusions.  I discovered just like you that Sixbit only posted to Ebay, Etsy and Shopify.  I wanted to go to Etsy, Poshmark, and Facebook MarketPlace to start. And LP is nearly $100 cheaper per month – that is a lot. I think that LP is closer to what I need. A sports car is great and so is a SUV. You just have to pick the right one for your situation and in this situation I think LP is best for me. I have about 2000 listings of clothes and shoes that want to get on Poshmark. I think my brands would sell well there.

The one feature I would like to see from LP is the ability to automatically end items.IN a listing party, I think they showed us a beta version where they give you a list of items to list. I would like the option to a) do it manually, b) pick from a list  and c) just auto end the items. Please request that if you have their ears.

Please stop by the forum when you can. I always enjoy your posts.

Mark

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Yeah. Through the years there were a lot of great threads about how to do this and how to do that on SL. Many active members back then. I have been watching from the time Mike and Wendy headed things up and Jay and Ryanne were just starting with them. Think Mike and Wendy became long distance runners and started traveling around many states.

Leanered a lot here on SL both from and along with everyone. What sold was important, but also how to do it correctly, how to deal with issues and problems, work arounds, what NOT to do from everyone.

Believe it or not, my BETA version of LP does have the ability to end everything on all platforms and also leave the name of the platform the item sold on already. But you do have to click on the item in the LP catalogue and click the Sold button.

They have also added a “What Sold” button to the opening page but again it is only in the latest BETA version and not made public yet.

Yes, I have a fairly long list of suggestion for LP and I am pushing those to the tech guys and Amanda [co-owner] slowly. The problem is the coding they use is not conclusive to doing relational database things. But I think as I feed them SixBit Inventory Management type of suggestions that they will keep getting better and better, at least on the Pro-version.

I have revamped our art and woodworking studios along with adding a huge AEON 24″ x 36″ Laser cutter and engraver to create wood items as well as laser engrave glasses, tumblers and some metal items and will be making a slow transition to items we make ourselves and mix in along with some older vintage things, but very select. By making our own items we can have multiple quantities always on hand. Plus we need to cater to a younger audience these days. In addition Susan had a 3 year fight with cancer then two knee replacements and now both types of arthritis so she just can’t get out and source any longer. Very wobbly on her feet and no stairs for her.

It’s nice to see that some of the regulars are still here. Of course Jay, and others but the list of who’s signed in at times are down to just 5 or 6 as compared to dozens in times past. When Jay began bowing out the drop off was very noticeable and SL then became more of look what I sold rather than the detailed information center it used to be. Troy Satterfield added a bunch of data back then. And I do check in on and off and find some tid-bits but numbers are just numbers and if as Jay taught us, “know your numbers”, then we all know that. But the bigger questions now are how to operate in the newer AI environments and navigate the constantly changing Algorithm’s.

As Jay used to say, “Change is inevitable” and I say “Keep on Truckin!”.

I know Jay always said I did way too long of a post. He likes short and sweet. But many convo’s had tons of data in them.

Take care guys…

Mike in Atlanta

 

[Jay]

Glad to hear that you and Susan are still alive and kicking!

Online selling has certainly continued to evolve over the years. When we were all here in 2010, there weren’t as many places to discuss things. Now I see online selling being discussed in multiple places through forums, reddit, youtube, tik tok….

I do miss our big weekly discussions. I believe Troy stopped selling on eBay and took on a full-time accounting job.

We just keeping plugging away. eBay continues to keep out daily expenses paid, which buys out time, so we can use our other profits to invest in fun projects. It’s a simple formula for us.

[craig rex]

@huncrelan

Mike, it’s so nice to see you in the forums again. Your long posts were one of the reasons I started posting here in the first place, they were full of great info and positivity. I hope the best for you and your family and please keep posting, it gets especially quiet here from Thursday to Sunday and it would be great to have fellow scavengers to chat with throughout the week!

[Retro Treasures WV]

Items in Store 2021
Items Sold 27
Total Sales $1,258.00
COGS $194.00
Total Profit $1,064.00
Average profit $39.41
Average sales price $46.59
New Listings 0
Items scavenged 7
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 37

That’s my first $1k week since the last week of July. That is the longest stretch between $1k weeks since January of 2019.  Technically since ever because that 1st week of 2019 $1k+ week was only my 2nd ever $1k week! To say my sales have been in the tank since July is an understatement.

 

Anyways, things are somewhat returning to normal around here. We’re all much better health-wise.  Sales are good. I’m starting to plan the business improvements I want to make next year.

I’ve pretty much tossed my 2022 goals out the window. I was probably too aggressive anyways considering I was still recovering from near death and had a new baby at home. I’m taking some time off work from my day job this month to use up the rest of my PTO. I may list, I may not. Even if I don’t list, my heavy listing in the 1st 8 months of the year resulted in more new listings than any previous year by a significant amount.

 

I hope everyone has a great month personally and professionally!

[Lukastreasure]

@Retro – Considering what you and your family have been through I think you should be patting yourself on the back.  And doing this while still holding down a day job is pretty amazing.  It’ll all pay off in the long run.

[craig rex]

@retro-treasures-wv

I’m glad you and your family are in better health. Hoping for a much more normal 2023 for all of you. Your positive attitude and listing goals are a huge inspiration to me and, I’m sure, many others around here. Can’t wait to read more about your sales and hopefully a lot more $1000 weeks in the near future.

[Sharyn]

I noticed a different warehouse address in Illinois for an international sale yesterday. Seems like eBay’s new International Shipping has taken over from GSP. I wonder what happened to the warehouse in Kansas?

This week was much better than I had remembered. Seems with the up and down sales, I only remember the down. The majority of my sales are consignments these days, but that is working out fine and won’t be forever.

Week of Nov 27 – Dec 3
Total Items in Store: 1801 eBay, 31 Etsy
Items Sold: 22 eBay, 0 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $16.60 + $225 Commission
Total Sales: $624.32 eBay, $0 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $141.79 Vtg Sheridan Coffee Tea Dispenser Urn
Average price: $28.38
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 9

[Zach]

eBay Global Shipping has a warehouse in Kansas? I live in Kansas and they always have my shipments go to a GSP warehouse in Kentucky. Weird.

[Sharyn]

Oh, how embarrassing. I’ve lived mostly on the east coast except for about 5 years I lived on the west coast. I’m confusing my states starting with the letter K. Hum, geography was never my best subject LOL.

Yes, they usually go to a warehouse in Kentucky, but this one went to Illinois. I did not change anything with my settings, so I think this is the new service (probably just changed vendors) for international shipping.

[Mark S]

You can now see all of your orders in ebay for the past 2 years.

Tonight is the first time I have seen this.

Mark

[Sharyn]

In Terrapeak, you can see two year’s worth of sales!

[Steve List]

Monthly numbers: 11/1 – 11/30

Active listings: 1480

Items sold: 51

Sales: $1,229.80

Highest price sold: $120 – Woodworking Plane

Average price sold: $24.11

Cost of items sold: $240.45 / average cost: each $4.71

Spent on new inventory: $7.00

Number of items listed: 62

I hope everybody will have a very joyful holidays.

[ChristineR]

Tried to post my numbers and edit but lost it.  If you can fix or let it know I’m not a spammer, thanks.

[Jay]

ChristineR wrote:

Total Items in Store:  534
Items Sold: 17
Gross Sales: $587.98 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $323.92 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $110
Highest Price Sold: $79.20 (Patagonia puffer vest, paid $15)
Average Price Sold: $34.59
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: +/- $120
Number of items listed this week:  52

Wondering if R&J are doing any sourcing in Vermont?  @Retro glad your family is doing better.  Covid is ticking up here and I’m hoping my dad’s vaccination isn’t worn off.

Sales were slow but then picked up last weekend. Lots of smaller sales.  I can tell the difference from previous years having more new RA in my store at this time of year.  That also really helped me in past Januarys when people are buying for themselves.

Had a good listing week but got drawn into sourcing again.  A church sale happened.  I went back on the beginning of day 2 and made a deal on the remaining art pottery items, some Irish and some originally overpriced for that sale.  I love love church sales and most of their prices are super reasonable but even the old ladies are starting to look certain things up.  There was some guy adjusting prices down in real time and the ladies at the register were having a fit. 🙂 I volunteered to leave a piece of art behind, but got two cool Midcentury owl paintings for $5 apiece.  It was fun.  Then I took out our Christmas stuff to decorate and found a whole bin was unlisted Christmas and mostly low dollar – groan.  I did get a large part of that listed this weekend and kind of wondering if that was even worth it. Just when I thought I was done with listing Christmas…  In January I think I will try to work on listing vintage fabric.

I’m noticing some Ebay changes and having some listing glitches listing but nothing too terrible as in years past.  Still, probably they should have waited until after Christmas.  Also noticed labels is not combining items going to the same buyer.

[Jay]

We can never pass up a church thrift sale 🙂

[craig rex]

It is nice to see some old names posting in this thread. Hopefully with a new year just around the corner, more scavengers old and new, will start posting their numbers on these forums again. I know we have more active members and lurkers than posters. Don’t be shy!

My eBay store continues to shrink in size through a combination of auctions and aggressive sales. As @Jay predicted a few months back, I am moving towards selling the vast majority of my trading cards listings through my consignment port on COMC as opposed to my eBay store. It is all a matter of what makes the most sense in terms of spending less time to make the same amount of money or more.

I have a pretty clear vision for how I can grow my eBay store once again in 2023 through a combination of trading cards listings which sell very quickly (<30 days), cards listings which don’t sell well on COMC (like my lowest priced sale this week) and other niches that I know well. For now those are sports memorabilia, books and other media. But I am excited to experiment with new types of items and get my hands dirty in different ways. That’s one of the most fun parts of selling on eBay. I have a nice backlog of interesting, relatively inexpensive items to get me started over the next few months and it will be really excited to share these listings and sales with all of you.

11/27/2022 – 12/8/2022

Total items in store: 830

Items sold: 60

Gross sales: $2621.26 (up 3% from one year ago)

Net sales: $1766.97 (down 3% from one year ago)

Average sales price: $43.69 (down 14% from one year ago)

Highest price sold (net): $134.47 — Domantas Sabonis white sparkle prizm rookie card

Lowest price sold (net): $8.90— 10 card lot of New England Patriots cards

[Jay]

I’m glad to see the consignment pipeline continues to work for you. Seems like really “easy” money? I have no idea how that company can process hundreds of thousands of individual cards. What an operation.

Could you make enough money to live/thrive just on consignment? Or are eBay sales still important?

[Lukastreasure]

Week Ending 12/3/22
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $715.65
Net Sales: $579.87
Total Items Sold 21
Total Items in eBay Store: 1091
Items Sold eBay: 17
Total Items in Etsy Store: 337
Items Sold Etsy: 4
Cost of Items Sold: $60.00
COGS Percent 10.35%
Highest Price Sold: $100.00
Average Price Sold: $34.08
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Average Days Listed: 185
Longest Listed: 1645
New items listed: 12

I thought I had posted these numbers earlier this week, but I guess there was a glitch in the matrix.  Had an above average week for the year, but way below previous years at this time.  Part of that is due to lower than normal sales average of $34.

Best sale of the week was a vintage Leica lens case for $100.  I had paid $15 for it at an estate sale.  A few other cool sales for the week were a Qatar Airways amenity kit that was branded for the World Cup for $30, and a CD for Forbidden Zone, an obscure movie that had one of the first soundtracks written by Danny Elfman, for $29.95.

I had an interesting case where a buyer sent me a note because his CD arrived damaged.  The plastic part of the case was crushed in transit.  It was a digipak case which has the plastic integrated into a cardboard case, so couldn’t just replace the jewel case.  I offered to just refund his purchase so he could purchase another one.  I even told him he could find it cheaper than he purchased it from me on Discogs.  He refused the refund saying it wasn’t my fault and thanked me for being willing to work with him.

[Temudgin]

Ooohhh LukasTreasure posted his weekly numbers late, so now I don’t feel so bad about jumping in. Speaking of; you sold a Forbidden Zone soundtrack? I might have had to keep that one. I started listening to Oingo Boingo when their first album came out in 1980 when I was in the Army. Crankin’ it up in the barracks.

Week of 11/27 – 12/3:
Total items in Store: 316
Items Sold: 5
Gross Sales: $338.46 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $161.48 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $114.00 (including consignment commissions)
Highest Price Sold: $175 plus shipping (Italian M1891 Carcano rifle bayonet)
Average Price Sold: $67.69
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of new items listed this week: 0

Way down on sales that week; but worse, a pretty crappy ROI. Sometimes it happens with the random mix of what sells.

[Lukastreasure]

you sold a Forbidden Zone soundtrack? I might have had to keep that one. I started listening to Oingo Boingo when their first album came out in 1980 when I was in the Army.

@temudgin – I have to admit that I did consider it.  I was a OB fan as well.  Saw them in concert at University of Florida in the early 80’s.  Great show.

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