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Our sales haven’t gotten back to where they were at the start of pandemic, but they’ve recovered. Guess people still want our weird, decorative items.
[See the full post at: The Numbers: October 10-16, 2021] -
Total On eBay: 77
Items Sold: 1
Items Listed: 4 (Goal achieved!)
Total Profit: $22.88 (Ralph Lauren Men’s Western Shirt)
Goal This Week: 4
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Marty, even if it’s just me and you, we’ll always have this forum for our numbers. Good job on goal achieved.
Were you part of the possible union strike of the IATSE?
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I think several of us post numbers on Monday. My week runs Monday-Sunday.
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I’m laughing a lot over here – thanks Jay. I was not responsible for any IATSE strike. I work somewhere pretty small as far as stage work – and I only do the audiovisual end these days… but we are non-union.
As far as the numbers, though they be small, this Forum helps me stay steady. It helps me keep my word to myself. I came close to not making it this week.
Thanks, Jay!
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Week of Oct 10 – 16
Total Items in Store: 1389 eBay, 36 Etsy
Items Sold: 12 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $12.25 + $10 Commission
Total Sales: $201.27 eBay; Includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: $41 oil painting
Average price: $16.77
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $13
Number of items listed this week: 17I haven’t been scavenging much, but I did go to the library’s book sale Saturday. I picked up a bunch of audio books from The Learning Company. Basically, they are classes on CDs. I haven’t listed them yet, but apparently a class on reading and understand poetry is worth over $40, but Algebra II is less than $20. Go figure.
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Total Items in Store: 272
Items Sold: 5 Ebay, 4 Mercari
Ebay Gross Sales: $380.99 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $261.59 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $75
Highest Price Sold: $78 (New pillow shams, paid about $25)
Average Price Sold: $58
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: +/- $100
Number of items listed this week: 4Slow week (dead this weekend) but pretty good APS. I did a little online scavenging of clearance items at retailers. The new items help keep my store active. I’m totally in the mood for listing but spending a lot of time supporting my teen lately and working the day job. I have a few Halloween items left I want to clear out. Fun auction running on 1990s Scream / Scary Movie mask https://www.ebay.com/itm/234230909977 I happened to get lucky and hear these were worth money on a Facebook group page and then found one for $4. Hope the winning bidder pays.
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Our Store Week October 10-16, 2021
Total Items in Store: 533
Items Sold: 3
Gross Sales: $97.65 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $-(10.93) (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $33 (vintage cellophane wreath)
Average Price Sold: $32.55
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $31
Number of items listed this week: 3We were on vacation for 2 weeks, so all the shipping fees for those 2 weeks came out of this week’s sales. That’s why we were in the negative. Our granddaughter came home to spend the week so we did very little listing, choosing to enjoy her instead. Since she loves thrift stores and auctions, we were able to do some sourcing while she was here.
We are going to get our first negative in a very long time…that still hurts:( We shipped the wrong item. AND, due to an ebay glitch, it was a multiple item listing that failed to correct the quanity available when it sold. We no longer have the item they want in stock:( I hate it when we make the mistake, but there isn’t anything we can do about it except refund her, tell her to keep the wrong item, take the negative and move on. I keep hearing Jay say, “Say what needs said and then go silent.”
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I have been slacking on listing the last month or so but as always, this is not about making our own personal sweat shop so I didn’t stress about it and my listing numbers are coming back up this last week. Sales are spotty but still happening.
Had a PHONE MESSAGE FROM A BUYER!!! I hate that ebay gives our phone number out… He wanted me to call him about a vintage phone he bought from us. I didn’t want to so I messaged him back expecting the worst. Turns out much of his family lived in my town at one time and he wanted to tell me that. and also that the phone didn’t work properly when he got it but he fixed it. Way better than I was thinking it was going to be!
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Weekly sales 10/10 – 10/16
Random Item Store
Total items 1196
Items sold 34
New items listed 70
Gross sales $776.90
Net sales $474.41Patch Store
Total items 3740
Items sold 50
New items listed 140
Gross sales $381.34
Net sales $297.34Etsy
Orders 39
Gross sales $285.00
Net sales $242.25Gross sales total $1,443.24
Net sales total $1,014.00Sales were down a bit this week but I’m surprised how consistent my numbers have been for the past month or so since I started listing the same amount of items every day.
My father-in-law builds sets for movies here in Georgia and he is in IATSE. He was expecting to be part of the picket line starting today but thankfully didn’t have to since they came to an agreement.
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Sales Report for: 10/16/21
Total Items in Store: 1221
Items Sold: 15
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $546.37
Net Sales (After fees): $446.85
Cost of Items Sold: $125.32
COGS Percent 28.05%
Net Profit Margin: 58.85%
Highest Price Sold: $155.00 Vintage Dagger
Average Price Sold: $36.42
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $15.00
Sold via promoted listings: 12
Promoted Percentage: 80.00%
Average Days Listed: 300
Longest Listed: 1538
New items listed: 38Felt like a better week than it turned out to be. Had a few good sales with a Vintage Wingen Dagger selling for $155 and a few antique Christmas ornaments that sold for $49 and $58, but when all was said and done, too many of the sales were low dollar and our average was only $36, well down from our overall average for the year of $46. Christmas sales are picking up already with eight of the 15 Christmas related.
International shipping delays are beginning to take their toll. I use Pirate Ship/Ascendia for my international shipments. I have been seeing a much higher percentage of international sales for some reason, with most going to Australia. I have coffee mug that I shipped to Estonia that is at 2 months and counting. I have 5 heading to Australia that seem to be stuck at departing Ascendia’s Elk Grove, IL facility. Hopefully with the news of Australia beginning to open back up a bit it will break the log jam.
Had an unusual event with an online auction last week. Bid on and won several items on Hibid and got a note from the seller after the fact that Hibid had a technical glitch that prevented bids and some of my items were affected and would be reopened for bidding. Unfortunately, I lost track of time and missed the new bidding close and lost several items I previously won. Still waiting for the alert to pick up the items I won. The nice thing is that this particular seller delivers your winnings, so whatever I won will be dropped off whenever he gets it organized.
Missing the podcast more each week. Hope you guys are doing well and enjoying yourselves.
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Wow. The seller will drop off the items to your home!? That’s the auctions I want to bid on.
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Yeah, it’s crazy. I will bid on things I normally wouldn’t just because of the delivery. He’s in the Alexandra area, but drives the 30 minutes over to my area because several of his regular buyers also live relatively close. Supposed to have a max distance and minimum $ amount, but not sure what it is. Luray might be a bit of a stretch. 😉
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The lion’s share is still online. We do an occasional estate sale or yard sale, but I feel like 75 % comes from online auctions. We have just recently started going out more to find the yard sale bargains. With the online prices driving so much higher even estate sales start looking better. Going to start hitting the in person auctions soon I think.
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I have 5 heading to Australia that seem to be stuck
Both Priority Mail and First Class Package are still suspended for Australia and New Zealand. USPS says they are returning to sender anything they have but it could take a while. They are under serious lockdown. A friend is a FedEx pilot who takes international routes and was recently in Sydney. He told of having a police escort everywhere and being locked in his hotel room with a guard in the hall.
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Items in Store 1553
Items Sold 18
Total Sales $1,001.00
COGS $57.00
Total Profit $944.00
Average profit $52.44
Average sales price $55.61
New Listings 1
Items scavenged 0Sold some high dollar items this week that really brought up my numbers. A $200 pair of tiger woods golf shoes that I spent the extra time to thoroughly clean so they looked like new. Paid $2 at a yard sale.
$150 for a huge thomas the train set that I got for free when I was at Goodwill to donate some junk. A lady pulled up beside me with her car completely full of thomas the train stuff. I commented to her on it and she asked if I wanted it. I said ABSOLUTELY and loaded it all in my van. 4 huge boxes of complete thomas sets. I actually have another one of these specific sets I just sold that I picked up at a goodwill to list once this one sold. I’ll get that one listed this week.
Recovery update. I am able to go off of my oxygen for several hours a day now! I’m just working on building up my stamina when walking around and doing things. I still have to use oxygen at night and in the morning or when I get tired/do too much.
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Our Store Week October 10 – 16, 2021
Total Items in Store: 2032 –
Items Sold: 21
Gross Sales: $1083.61 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $726.87 (minus eBay fees, shipping, taxes & Store Subscription of $21.95)Item Sales: 741.65
Cost of Items Sold: $ 31.09
Cost of helpers: $0
Highest Price(s) Sold: 145.00 – Vintage Mid Century Bathroom Vanity Light Fixture Glass Shade 24″ Floral Roses – Julia picked it out of the trash so it was freeAverage Price Sold: $ 51.60 – Gross
Average Price Sold: $ 35.32 – Net
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $72.80Number of items listed this week: 51
A good week overall. Nice weather and lots of items to list. I miss hearing about y’alls adventures, Jay and Ryanne…
Glad to hear your recovery is coming along Retro!
Crystal
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Total Items in Store: 187
Items Listed: 11
Items Sold: 6
Total Sales: $234.50
Highest Price Sold: $112.50 Breyer Collector Club Lafayette
Kinda slow week, but since I have so few items listed I do get erratic results from week to week. I have been getting lots of emails and interest in stuff from buyers asking detailed questions, but then they disappear and haven’t followed through with a purchase. Bit of a drag to spend the time researching and responding but it has helped me organize the shelves a bit. I am still getting stuff sold with the end and relist process, I had 3 sales last week after being relisted. This week I need to get out the Christmas stuff and get busy listing!
I went to the Goodwill Outlet near me for the first time in a while – that place can be addictive! I started out with like one little thing in my hand, and stumbled out hours later with an over-full shopping cart. It didn’t seem there were many other vintage buyers there that day, and luckily everyone is really chill as I am sure I made a few faux-pas. Trolleys of new stuff were rolled out often keeping me on my toes. I think everything is either listed or priced and in the antique booth already, so I don’t feel too bad. Prices are so crazy cheap I will make money even if everything had to go to a yard sale. Can’t go back too often though unless I get an eBay store and expand the booth.
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I have been getting lots of emails and interest in stuff from buyers asking detailed questions, but then they disappear…
I get many of those, often about something clearly already in the photos, condition, or description. My theory is that they are fishing for the seller to reply with an offer.
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I did a small experiment several years ago, when I was still a newish reseller. I counted up the number of times I had answered a question over a two-ish month period and whether I ended up with a sale or not. Then, over the same amount of time, I answered each question with an offer.
I found that the number of sales I made in that second period of time was substantially higher than before, without the offer.
I believe that some people are shy about asking for or making an offer, but they want to know that they are getting a good deal.
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@Sharon – I will have to give that a try. My gut feeling that I only get a buy on a question 5% of the time.
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I would be curious what the relative success rate is sending an offer to a buyer asking a question versus sending an offer to a watcher. I have had the occasional sale using both methods once in a while. 1 out of 10? Maybe slightly more? That seems about right, considering many buyers who ask questions are clearly lowballers (or problem buyers) and many eBay users (myself included) use the watchlist without any intention to buy the item they’re watching.
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Had one of the best sales weeks I’ve ever had last week. What’s interesting is that this was a week where I only listed 36 items, when my normal number of items listed in a week is around 100. I can think of 3 reasons why sales were so high this week.
1. I sold 12 items over $100 and 6 of those items sold for over $200. A few years ago, I probably didn’t have 12 items in my entire inventory priced over $100, and I certainly didn’t have more than a few priced over $200. It has been a slow and steady grind over a few years to building up the inventory in both quantity and quality, and there is also a huge difference between pricing an item high and actually selling an item for a high price.
2. I did an end and relist batch last week. If you’re curious, more details in this thread. While end and relist isn’t a substitute for listing regularly, it does seem to lead to a brief sales boost. I was having a nice sales week before the end and relist batch, but had a massive sales day (over $1000) two days after it.
3. I listed heavily (over 100 items) two weeks ago. My sales that week were middle of the road, but this week was a reminder that you never know what’s around the corner in a week or two if you keep at it.
Hoping this is the first sign of a very busy holiday season for everyone.
10/10/2021 – 10/16/2021
Total items in store: 3425 (down from 3438)
Items sold: 72 (49 via best offer, 5 via seller initiated offer, 1 repeat buyer)
Gross sales: $4680.52 (up 229% from one year ago)
Net sales: $3322.27 (up 280% from one year ago)
Lowest price sold (net): $2.97 — Edmonton Oilers triple jersey card
This card is a nice example of what modern trading cards can look like: it contains small pieces of jerseys from multiple players on the same team. It’s not hard to understand why a fan of the team or one of the player would pay a few bucks for the card. The sale price ($8.39 + shipping) is an example of how common these types of cards have become, though cards like this get more expensive if they contain memorabilia pieces of legendary players, particularly those who played many years ago and have less memorabilia available to put into cards.
The low net sales price on this card is a reflection of how long it had been in my store. Shipping to Canada has gone up almost $5 since I listed this card! I would have kept a few more bucks in profit if I went back and edited my shipping prices to reflect today’s higher rates, but I’d rather use that time to list more.
Highest price sold (net): $337.44 — John Titus 1909 tobacco card graded SGC 4
The T206 set is one of the earliest tobacco card sets and the Titus card is particularly desired for a number of reasons, one of which is his mustache. This was one of two T206 cards that I sold this week. My knowledge of vintage trading cards is low compared to a lot of collectors, but I have been trying to educate myself more about them as the modern card market (and card prices in general) became very volatile over the last 18 months. The card market has stabilized, but my education on vintage cards paid off with these sales and I’m sure there will be more like them in the future.
I had a few other nice high dollar sales this week:
a Cale Makar hockey printing plate rookie card — printing plates are used in the making of the card, and this one was unusually valuable because it’s a desirable rookie from the most desirable hockey set, The Cup. Like many of the hockey cards I sell, this one went straight to Canada and like a lot of my inventory, it was purchased for much less than its sale price because of a poor (misspelled) title. I thought I might have overpriced this one, but there is a huge speculative market around young athletes rare cards, especially their rookie cards from the most expensive sets.
a jersey card of the late football player Sean Taylor — Sean Taylor was a very talented defensive back whose career was tragically cut short when he was murdered in 2007. Taylor’s cards have a fanatical collector base because his career spanned just before the years when companies began to make lots of autographs and jerseys for every new rookie. I had purchased this particular card from a poor listing where the seller only mentioned his last name in the title, and immediately priced it high and stayed patient through a lot of watchers and lowball offers. It took almost two years for it to sell, but the card is finally on its way to one of those fanatical Sean Taylor collectors.
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Its so fun to read the run downs of your trading card adventures. What a wild (and profitable) world.
I imagine you working on a big table with an overhead light, white gloves, and a magnifying glass.
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Thanks, Jay. My store growth has been so inspired by this community and years of listening to the podcast before I started posting.
You have a pretty good imagination of my setup and it’s pretty accurate to real life. I have one room of a two bedroom apartment with a well-loved table (picked up for $5 at an estate sale down the street) which has a standing desk converter (bought on eBay at auction for half price) and a scanner which I paid about $20 for after combining coupons with staples rewards. And this is my lamp which I believe was the most expensive purchase of everything, but well worth it to be able to see the flaws on the cards without straining my eyes.
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Congrats on the super week! For letter-sized, non-machinable (stiff) flat items up to 3 oz not more than ¼” thick I send low value items to Canada for $2.13 using stamps. Has to be an envelope (I use the cardboard 6.5×4.5); can’t be a bubble mailer or poly bag. There is no tracking but I’m willing to take the hit in that range if the buyer says they didn’t get it.
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This might be something to consider, considering that I get quite a few Canadian buyers and lower postage would probably increase sales in the $10 to $30 range. What’s stopped me in the past has been how thin the non-machinable flats have to be. I use a cardboard sandwich around the cards to protect them, and I would be nervous about shipping them without that. I can live with an item getting lost (which happens a few times a year with international packages even with tracking) but I would hate to damage an item because I wasn’t using the best shipping method possible.
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10/10/21 – 10/16/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 408
Items Sold: 12
Gross Sales: $210.76 (what the buyers paid, not incl shipping or taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $40 plus shipping – Lot of 2 Dept of the Navy Dinner China Bouillon Cups (from a lot that came to $1.25/item).
Returns: 0
COGS: $31 (including consignment commissions but not including original cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 41
$ Spent on New Inventory: $230.15The two bouillon cups noted as top sale had the mystery backstamp that I posted here and could never identify but it didn’t seem to matter.
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