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Another solid week. Not too cold, not too hot. Lots of random items selling as always. It never ceases to amaze me. How was your week? Check out our c
[See the full post at: The Numbers: September 26-October 2, 2021] -
09/26/21 – 10/02/21
Total Items In Store: 4015
Items Sold: 21
Total Sales: $ 824.85
Highest Price Sold: $ 165 (Vintage Jacket)
Average Price Sold: $ 39.28
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 224.56
Number of items listed: 124Gut Sales Report for the week: This week was opposite of last week. It started out with a bang, but then slowed down as the week went on.
Focus for the week (and this past summer): Trying to get all of my photographed items listed. Even after listing 124 items this week, I still have a backlog of 141 items that are ready to be listed. This backlog came from my push from the summer of 100 items photographed per week and I couldn’t keep up with the listing.
Scavenge of the week: I found a nice Vintage Jantzen Wool Heavy Sweater tucked away in the back of a closet for $3.50. Picked up some old golf clubs for cheap that will sell for a high price (unusual, because most old golf clubs don’t sell for much).
But my best find was some old tobacco advertizing and tobacco cardboard boxes for $20. These are from around the 1920’s, all unused. There are 3 different items with quantities adding up to about 100 total items. The potential on these is over $1600. Probably a slow seller, but I love getting items like this that will just keep selling over the years and eventually reach the potential sales amount. Just another good item in the pipeline as Jay says.
Thoughts for the week: I really feel like I am now better understanding how to scale my business. I think this is what a lot of us struggle with – we can do a few items well, but how do you scale that? Scaling the business is more difficult than it looks. This would be a good topic for discussion – How do you go about scaling your business? I have good help from a contractor and I am finding ways to do things much faster and more efficient than I have in the past. I am trying to scale my store to over 8000 items in the next 3 years. I will probably fall a little short, but I have a good plan in place and I am targeting that goal.
Mark S
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Many online resellers get attracted to Amazon because it’s easier to scale. Get a handful of sku’s. Find reliable way to re-supply. Automate the ordering and shipping. The business becomes more of a marketing job as you fight for the Amazon Buy Box, top ranking in Google Adwords, or Facebook. Easy to scale but super cut throat because the barrier to entry is so low.
For a Scavenger business, the only way I know to scale is manpower and storage. Lots of individual items cheaply purchased. But each has to be listed and stored, waiting to be purchased.
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Jay,
Yes, manpower and storage are key. However, for a part time person, the manpower issue is a difficult one. You can hire out, but you have to make sure they do it correctly. Hiring out for buying in my opinion is not a good idea. I am comfortable hiring out for photography, listing, and shipping. So, I am left doing the rest for now. That tends to make me the bottleneck. Also, you have to be ready to scale. If your processes are not good, you could scale a mess.
Mark
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@Mark S
I agree, scaling can be hard. And I’m trying to scale at an age when most people are looking to “retire”….my energy level isn’t what it once was, and I am slowly facing the fact that in order to scale I also have to improve my overall health…..which isn’t terrible, but needs a lot of improvement. And the fact is, we have enough existing (unlisted) inventory that we could stop buying today and almost certainly never run out of stuff. Which would be the smart thing to do. BUT….the real enjoyment in this is the actual scavenging, so we don’t want to give that up….I’m wrestling with how to scale mostly in order to free up more space, I can definitely improve my process…and have been, baby steps, but I have been….but at some point I suspect we may have to hire someone, or we may have to unload some stuff in bulk–auction house or whatever—for now, we just keep plugging, trying to make improvements….Hope you can find something that works for you!
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MyCottage,
I would highly recommend that you at least hire someone to take photos for you. I have this and it sets the pace for listing. For example, my pace is 60 items photographed each week. I have to buy, prep, and have 60 items ready each week for my photographer. Then take the photos, I review photos, and then list. Then I keep repeating that each week.
In this way, your photographer sets the pace. You can set the pace to anything you want, but after you do, you have to keep up with it and that is a great motivator.
You can also change it when you need to. In the Summer, when my photographer was not in school, my pace was 100 items per week.
I think that by setting the pace, you hold your photographer and yourself accountable to do what you intend to do. I think it motivates everyone involved to get the work done.
Mark
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Total On eBay: 74
Items Sold: 1
Items Listed: 4 (Goal achieved!)
Total Profit: $11.45 (Tommy Bahama Chino Shorts)
Goal This Week: 4
Returns: 1 (Camera bag being returned because “it doesn’t fit in <buyer’s> motorcycle tank bag, measurements provided were not accurate.” Thankfully, this looks like it will not be an INAD since buyer used “Doesn’t Fit.” The only dimensions I gave were interior of bag – not exterior. Waiting to see If buyer returns it.
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9/26/21 – 10/2/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 382
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $133.34 (not incl shipping or taxes)
Highest Price Sold: $39 plus shipping – USS SULLIVANS challenge coin on consignment.
Returns: 0
COGS: $37 (including consignment commissions but not including original cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 18
$ Spent on New Inventory: $2.50Sales have been very slow though I have been trying offers to watchers and putting older items on 50%-off sales. Guess it’s just not my turn right now. I have been ramping up on the listing and now my wife will be out of town for a couple weeks so I hope to continue to really crank it up for a while without distraction.
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Weekly sales 9/26 – 10/02
Random Item Store
Total items 1148
Items sold 41
New items listed 70
Gross sales $920.94
Net sales $558.46Patch Store
Total items 3542
Items sold 67
New items listed 140
Gross sales $454.21
Net sales $352.04Etsy
Orders 63
Gross sales $505.05
Net sales $429.29Gross sales total $1,880.20
Net sales total $1,339.79It’s officially Q4! I’ve got 70 orders to ship out this morning between my 3 stores…
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I guess that’s all eBay really is, finding items and relocating them to a new owner for a fee lol. The bulk of the packages on Monday were patches so just had throw them in envelopes. I finally sold out of one of the types of USPS patches I had. Sold 1,000 of them in about a year with just one listing and turned $500 into $5000. I would look for more of them but I think you’re not technically supposed to sell USPS stuff so I’m glad to get rid of them
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Total Items in Store: 286
Items Sold: 10 Ebay + 2 Mercari (our stuff)
Gross Sales: $614.95 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $402.65 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $105 (+Two items ours)
Highest Price Sold: $89 (My son’s AP Calculus Textbook)
Average Price Sold: $42
Returns: 1 (Couldn’t find an item in shipping, refunded, then found it right after :()
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: +/- $85
Number of items listed this week: 2Good sales this week but not the weekend. I was hoping to get some more items listed but had a cold or reaction to my flu shot then spent an entire day looking with my daughter for a homecoming dress (not fun) in our city where a lot of retail has closed. I also got off work early and had some fun thrifting on my birthday instead of listing. Oops.
Our city moved up to the 4th highest cost of living on some survey. Good reason to keep reselling on Ebay and supplement the income.
Looking forward to 4th quarter. Really hope to have more opportunities to list this week. Have a great week everyone.
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Week of Sept 26 – Oct 2
Total Items in Store: 1388 eBay, 36 Etsy
Items Sold: 9 eBay, 3 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $2.05 + $13 Commission
Total Sales: $254.52 eBay + $70 Etsy; Includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: $82 Nadal Figurine
Average price: $27
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 7eBay sales total was within $1.50 of last week. However, I had three Etsy sales all in one day (included two items to one person), which made it a better week overall.
I added a note on my sales numbers above that they include fees but not shipping. I’m still using Go Daddy (mostly because I don’t have the time to switch to another program), so I can easily calculate the eBay sales. I have “free shipping” for most of my Etsy items, so I have to take those out manually. I royally screwed up Etsy shipping with two items to one person, and I had to cancel two labels and buy one, so that calculation took a bit of figuring out.
I had a sale today to someone in China, and they’ve asked me to send an invoice with shipping. I’m not sure whether the sale got caught up in the current “no shipping” glitch, or if they are trying to get out of the higher cost of GSP. I sent a message saying that they need to contact customer service if they don’t see a shipping cost or request a cancellation. We’ll see where that goes.
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Total Items in Store: 150
Items Listed: 10
Items Sold: 8
Total Sales: $113.25
Highest Price Sold: $25 Hagen Renaker Pottery Siamese Cat
Wow, this end and relist thing is working like a charm! Of the 8 items I sold this week 6 were old stock that I had done the manual end/relist to recently. I continue to try to do 4-5 a day, hope to keep the momentum going! Thanks to the commenter last week reminding me there is an auto-decline feature for offers, I always use the auto-accept, but never even thought about the reverse. Hope it isn’t a trend to get a bunch of lowball offers, but I will likely start adding this to my listings for the future.
A tidbit of information for those who might be interested – Hagen Renaker Pottery will be closing for good this year. It has been in business since the 1940’s, family run and all produced in California. Primarily they make small animal figures, but started in functional pottery (plates, bowls and the like). You used to be able to find them in nice card stores and touristy places on little rotating display shelves. The actual pieces are usually unmarked, but they usually came with either a paper label on the side or belly, or on a paper card. I have seen an uptick of interest in buyers for HR figurines new and old, and also driving interest in small animal figurines in general as the word of the closing gets out. There is a business that bought the most well-made of the molds (horses mostly) and will be continuing to produce those but very small numbers and exclusive releases. If you have any pottery animal figurines in your old stock, now is the time to list or polish up your old listings. There are several good reference sites out there for identification, or feel free to message me – my eBay seller name is the same as my forum name.
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Monthly sales 9/1 – 9/30
Total listings: 1237
Items sold: 69
Sales: $1,669.64
Highest price sold: $110 x 2 (36 Type II Tapes – 2 different sales/buyers)
Average price sold: $24.20
Cost of items sold: $204.13 / average cost: 2.96 each
Spent on new inventory: $582.00
Number of items listed: 67Customer issues, a buyer in Canada after receiving the books she purchased and leaving me positive feedback made a claim that she did not purchase them. I provided the tracking number that eBay already had. They decided in the buyer’s favor but said due to seller protection I would not have to pay the refund or get a defect. Another buyer in Brazil claims he did not receive a PS2 game I sent him, but tracking shows that it was delivered. Still waiting to see what eBay does on that one.
My best scavenge recently was a box of cassette tapes. Somebody else at the sale had looked at them for a short time but was then busy negotiating the price on a bunch of stereo gear. When they were done, I asked the seller the price for the whole box of tapes, when he said $20, I couldn’t get the money out fast enough. The guy buying the stereo gear complained that if he would have known they were so cheap he would have bought them, but I beat him to it. The box held about 40 factory recorded tapes but what I wanted was the used ones as they were all Type II. So far I’ve sold over $380 worth of them (shipping included) and still have over $300 in value of them still listed. I think this was the first time I ever found Type II tapes. Strange thing is, in the past week I found another lot of about 30 tapes, but about half of these are Type IV, the rest being Type II.
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9/25/2021 – 10/2/2021
New addition to the eBay sales page this week, or new to me at least. Buyer insights, which sorts buyers into new buyers and repeat buyers. It’s really amazing how many more tools and insights eBay has given us sellers in the last year or two — send offers to watchers, coded coupons, Terapeak for all sellers and I’m sure there are other additions I’m not remembering at the moment.
The goals for any scavenger are still the same. Trust your processes. Sell trash, be free. List more, sell more. And engage with a buyer’s message at your own risk!
But it’s nice to have more tools to help things along.
9/26/2021 – 10/2/2021
Total items in store: 3438
Items sold: 65 (42 via best offer, 15 via seller initiated offer, 3 repeat buyers)
Gross sales: $2627.82 (up 102% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1830.04 (up 103% from one year ago)
Lowest price sold (net): $4.68 — Jose Canseco bat card
I’ve had this priced at 11.99 + 3.49 shipping for over a year and it’s had a few watchers but no bites or even offers. No real surprise, it’s a fairly generic modern card and there are two other active listings for the card at 7.99 + shipping and 11.99 with free shipping. I’ve had this card listed for a while. When I was building up my store from 200 listings to 1000 and from 1000 to 2000, it was a lot of $10 cards bought for $1.75 and $15 books bought for 50 cents at a library sale. I still have a soft spot for items like that, but you need to sell so many of them to make $1000 a week or whatever your $$ goal is. So I try and stick to $20 and above listings unless it’s something I’m confident will sell quickly or I have multiples and can easily relist if it sells.
I recently ran a markdown sale where I only put items with watchers on sale. This Canseco bat card was one of the marked down items, and it ultimately sold for $6.50 +3.49 shipping — about half my original listing price, less than half after fees and maybe $2 profit after it’s all said and done. But right in line with the sold price for the two other Canseco Topps Pristine bat cards that sold in the last year.
Highest price sold (net): $145.53 — Jesus Sanchez Bowman Chrome blue refractor autograph
The Miami Marlins are not one of the teams playing in baseball’s playoffs, which just started tonight. So over the last few months of the season, they started giving their younger Marlins and best minor league Marlins a chance to prove their worth. Jesus Sanchez, an outfielder, was one of their top performers, and this card sold shortly after he had a game where he hit two home runs. I bought the card at auction earlier in the season after selling another (less expensive) Sanchez autograph while he was tearing the cover off the ball for the Marlins minor league team the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. Because Sanchez was unproven at the time, his cards were less expensive and I was able to get the card for a good deal compared to what it was selling for then. Auctions are strange, so ending prices can vary wildly for any number of reasons. I figured Sanchez was likely to get a chance to play for the major league Marlins this year, and if he went on a good hitting streak, prices would rise. If not, well he’s young and there’s always next year. Most of my purchases follow this sort of thought process. Some work out. Others don’t. Sometimes I wait 6 months before something sells. Other times it takes 6 hours.
There are almost 100 Sanchez autographs up for auction as I type this, and hundreds if not thousands more at buy it now/best offer. This one was a little more valuable than most because it’s his 1st card (from 2017) and it’s a colorful refractor from the higher quality Bowman Chrome set, which has been a popular set since the 90’s. There are ten other 2017 Sanchez blue refractor autographs listed right now, and the lowest price is $300. Mine was listed for $200 and I accepted an offer of $175. Maybe the next one sells for $300. Most likely, since the season is over for Sanchez and the Marlins, those $300 blue refractors won’t sell until next season unless the seller gets impatient and sends them to auction. In which case, I will probably be bidding!
If Sanchez becomes the next big star player, his card prices will be even higher next year. In all likelihood, he’ll get injured or have a few struggles. So good luck to him, and by extension the buyer of this card. I’m rooting for you both. But not for more than the time it takes me to type this sentence, because there’s a lot more stuff to list.
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Sales Report for: 10/2/21
Total Items in Store: 1202
Items Sold: 9
Gross Sales (Not including shipping and tax): $304.75
Net Sales (After fees): $246.83
Cost of Items Sold: $14.45
COGS Percent 5.85%
Net Profit Margin: 76.25%
Highest Price Sold: $124.95 Hallmark Ornament
Average Price Sold: $33.86
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 7
Promoted Percentage: 77.78%
Average Days Listed: 375
Longest Listed: 984
New items listed: 14Another slow week of sales. Wasn’t able to get much listed this week due to Cecile being in the hospital with surgery. She’s doing fine and home already, but eBay had to take a back seat.
The big sale of the week was a Hallmark ormament from 1971. This was one of the annual ornaments commemorating “Our first Christmas”. I can imagine someone bought it for their parents celebrating a 50th anniversary. Nice sale.
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Store: OFFICIALLY OPENED
So my recovery progress has went really well for the last week.
I’m able to get up and do pretty much anything that doesn’t require lifting, moving fast, or heavy exertion.I received my portable oxygen concentrator 2 days ago and it has freed me up to go wherever I need to.
It feels good to be able to do some normal stuff!
The last couple days we’ve been working on cleaning up my eBay office (aka garage). It was “good enough” this evening to go ahead and open up the store. My daughter is doing all the heavy lifting and legwork and I’m able to stand at my workstation for a while. I will be setting up a sitting station once we do some more organizing.
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I know we’re all still learning what the long term effects of COVID will be. Does your doctor have any idea what your progress will be? Any long term damage?
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No clue. Probably some lung scarring. There isn’t much to concrete treatment or knowledge about long term symptoms or long hauler patients that keep having issues.
I’m far outpacing the schedule he thinks I’d be on, but I have the concern that it is temporary and I’ll go backwards at some point.
just one day at a time and take what I get.
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@retro-treasures-wv – Great news! So glad you are on the mend. I have been worried for you. At the same time you were battling it out, my 52 year old cousin was also in the hospital with it. He wasn’t as lucky and succumbed to the disease. He was a healthy, strapping guy, and it is hard to believe it took him so quickly.
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