The Numbers: Week April 7-13, 2024

[Jay]

Sales continue to roll in. Coolest sale? We sold a digital still camera that we found in the trash still in the box. It’s one of those early digital c
[See the full post at: The Numbers: Week April 7-13, 2024]

[Retro Treasures WV]

Items in Store: 2920
Items Sold: 27
Total Sales: $929.00
COGS: $139.00
Total Profit: $790.00
Average profit: $29.26
Average sales price: $34.41
New Listings: 0
Items scavenged: 28
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 31
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,540.53
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $43.93
2024 projected total sales $80,107.73

 

Yay! Yard sales! Not a ton of yard sales, but I was able to hit about 8 sales Saturday. I just didn’t have time to list this week. The weekend was full of baseball Saturday and yard work on Sunday. I was able to make a draft bank of about 40 items during breaks/lunch at work that need photos. I’m continuing to add to the bank this week but I don’t know if I’ll get them photographed.

I waited till this weekend to do taxes. Fortunately I have a pretty good methodology down now for taxes. I always have all the data. It just takes some time to go through it all and pull the actual numbers. This year I made Uncle same happy. I reported a business profit of $26000! 2020 was my highest reported income and it was only like $12k. Clearly I’m gonna have to find some more deductions to write off. LOL!

I still get a refund from the fed thanks to all the credits for having 6 kids, but I owed the state an additional $900. BOO! WV has pretty much zero deductions or credits. I expected I’d owe so late last year I made an adjustment to my state withholdings for my day job pay. I’m going to make another adjustment of an extra $25 so I can keep what I owe as close to zero as possible.

A couple weeks ago I went ahead and fully paid off the van I drive daily. I bought the van in 2021 (Toyota Sienna) and I’ve been able to pay for it completely with ebay profits. I’ve paid extra every month and went ahead & did a payoff of the last few Thousand just so I don’t have to have the monthly payment on the books anymore.

 

This week is probably the roughest week of the year for me. A full slate of baseball games, two kids have birthdays 3 days apart, and I started out the week in the negative on the sleep bank thanks to staying up and finishing taxes Sunday night. I’m exhausted.

Premium Hoarder update:

Sold 2 items for $172.

Eh, at least it’s something!

 

[ChristineR]

Total Items Listings in Store: 934
Items Sold:  16
Gross Sales: $583 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $365 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $89 (plus two items ours)
Highest Price Sold: $78 (pair of new pillow shams)
Average Price Sold: $36
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $260 (some business supplies included)
Number of items listed this week: 4

Life is settling down finally this week and working on listing again.  Ebay did respond with some sales this time.  I’ve been gathering up inexpensive display items for my live booth and I need to start sorting and putting prices on.  I’m also networking on Instagram.  Finally, I’m selling some larger household items and throw pillows off on Facebook because they take up so much room and there is too much stuff everywhere.  They are actually doing pretty well and I can buy standard square feather inserts at one thrift store for $5.

I did a minimal amount of RA purchasing and found a number of things the few times I went sourcing last week.  I found and tried an online estate sale auction and it was super fun.  We normally don’t have those here.

For fun, I’m trying to figure out what Gen Z is looking for now in clothing.  I started following some college student locals on Instagram who sell and model vintage clothes (usually 90s and Y2K).   I will only have a small clothing rack in my booth but I thought it might help bring younger people in to look at my hard goods.  Normally I only buy clothing for resale if it’s truly exceptional vintage and I happen to run into it. It doesn’t light my fire but I can scan through the racks pretty quickly.  Since I’m not super confident on clothing picks, I should look at garage sales and places with lower prices.  Also Gen Z is showing up in force at the thrifts lately. It’s fun to hear them chatter about it.

[ThriftShift]

April 7-13

Total sales from Ebay, FBM, Whatnot:  $820

Items sold:  34

COGs:  $76

Net profit after fees and COGs:  $768.90

—

Breakdowns:

Ebay Items in store:  328

Ebay Items Sold: 7

Ebay total sales:  $145

Ebay fees: $13

COGs: $18

Ebay net profit: $114

—

FBM items in store: 57

FBM items sold: 7 (roman weight chair, patio throw cushions, nightstand, rug, three paperweights, office rolling chair, wood console table

FBM total sales: $ 285

COGs: $0; all items were free, found at apartment complex dumpster areas

FBM profit:  $285

—

Whatnot items:  I had about 50 items per auction. I spent 5 hours and 21 minutes streaming in four auctions.

Whatnot sales:  $390  ($150 was a seller bonus described below)

Whatnot COGs: $58

Whatnot fees: $9.96 on $240 of sales

Whatnot profit:  $369.90

I had Whatnot seller onboarding for an hour on Wed afternoon, April 10.  The moderator said that we would be given up to a $150 match if we met these goals within the next 7 days:  2 hours of auction time, sales to five unique buyers, and made $150 in sales in those 7 days.  Whatnot fees are 2.9% and 30 cents per transaction.

So I grabbed all my vintage clothing, some Silver Age comic books of my uncle’s, and Care Bear items.  I held a live auction on Thursday afternoon where I sold NOTHING and was online for 60 minutes.  It was painful.   The 40-some people who attended my comic book auction didn’t want my stuff, and I struggled through the app tools.   Then I held an auction Friday night, Sat night, and Sunday night.  I had more fun with the vintage clothing crowd.  Saturday and Sunday was a good time, reading and responding to comments.  It actually felt like hanging out with people.   I understand the app tools then too.   You can add items to your Whatnot store as “BIN” or just add them to scheduled auctions.   I am planning on holding a “vintage décor” auction on Monday night, with BIN options beforehand and during the auction.

I made $240 in the three auctions where someone bid, for 20 items.  NOT a great payback for those 20 items.  But these are vintage clothes that have sat in my store for a year, that I get at bag sales.  The ones that sold were my “best ones”.   I guess that face that I am getting an additional $150 helped allay that pain.  So $390 in sales.

I did gain “followers”, which means I have folks that will be notified of my next auctions. Customers on the app can choose from categories to watch auctions.   My thumbnail picture matters and I can add notes like “vintage clothing and décor starting at $5.”

After doing Ebay, Whatnot, and FBM in the one week – the same thing applied.  You have to have stuff that people want, or you have to be patient to wait a long time for that right buyer.   I truly realized that, because Ebay moved me to a “below standard seller” the first week in April.   I had to cancel three items after I returned from Africa in March, because I just couldn’t find them.  I had clicked the reason “buyer requested to cancel”, because I did ask the buyer.  I know that was sneaky.  But ebay said “you clicked the wrong reasons or abused the process”.  They took away promoted listings for me.  But I am still selling items, and those items are the desirable items like collectibles or nice clothing brands I picked up.  So it was nice not to pay promoted listing fees!

[Jay]

I like that you’re willing to experiment. Thinking about it now, it’s funny that no one thought to make a “home shopping network” website for eBay sellers.

[craig rex]

Thinking about it now, it’s funny that no one thought to make a “home shopping network” website for eBay sellers.

Jay, this is basically what eBay live is. Click the tab from the homepage on mobile or desktop and you can see all the streams available. The consignor I use (comc_consignment) runs a stream four times a week basically from 12pm to 12am and they get 1000 total viewers in a day. Usually their streams are organized by sport. Bids start at $0.99 and run 15 seconds, plus a 10 second extension when someone bids. I’ve started watching the streams off and on throughout the day while I’m doing my usual buying and selling and photo editing, and anything I win, I can just transfer the cards to my digital COMC account and reprice them there. Or get them shipped to me. Or send them to auction again next week, or next month. Lots of options. I’ve been sending a lot of my cards to auction through the platform as well. Still learning what sells and why, but it’s been profitable the last three weeks. Live auction buyers are a unique species, and live auction card flippers value different cards in different ways, so there is a lot of potential in this format. I’m a little surprised at how much I’ve been enjoying COMC’s streams, but the hosts have unique personalities (one very over the top and silly, one a true sports nerd) and the chat during the streams is well-moderated and surprisingly positive.

I believe eBay live rolled out last fall (?) so right now it’s a lot of collectibles, comics, coins, and luxury goods like handbook. I would love to see a future eBay where you could submit items for a fee (COMC charges $1.50 to $2.00 per card) and your item runs in a future live auction stream. The beauty of the COMC stream is they run it from a room with a table and a COMC card stand in front of a COMC banner, and they auction off one card and open the bidding and congratulate the winner, then put the next one on the stand and repeat all day and night. A little harder with weird gewgaws and oddball items. But I think it would find an audience, slowly, over time. eBay elves, if you’re listening, give me a cut of all future streaming profits and a real answer on what factors go into Best Match search results, and you can take my idea and present it to your boss at eBay as your own.

[craig rex]

@thriftshift

Great numbers on the Whatnot auctions, really interesting to see. Looking forward to hearing more about your future Whatnot numbers as I buy and sell from livestreams, albeit through a consignment company so it’s not me running the stream. As mentioned in my reply to Jay’s post above, my experience has also been surprisingly positive. It really does feel like hanging out with “our people” in the best moments, and some items sell for more than you would expect. Though most don’t. Maybe as these platforms grow?

Does whatnot offer other bonuses beyond the initial $150? Low fees are nice but it’s nicer for things to consistently sell. I suppose, in theory, you could continue to build a Whatnot brand with those bag sale type of items. Seems like a lot of grinding for a few hundred bucks, though.

[ThriftShift]

I was wrong on the selling fees. Turns out it’s 10.8% – 8% commission and 2.8% processing fees.  I held another auction Monday night and sold two items in an hour for $42.  Yes, I think you have to gain followers and hold them on good nights/times. I had good stuff, but Whatnot is also about cheap prices.  Most vintage sellers start at $1 or $3.  I was selling vintage blowmolds and wasn’t going to do that!

You could probably source off there. People open storage units and start selling at $1.  I see the names of people bidding and they are named as thrift stores and eBay sellers!

I am not interested in a brand or getting popular on social media to gain followers. So, I’ll probably not do it again. I would rather do a booth at a vintage flea market popup.

[Retro Treasures WV]

That’s pretty cool you are giving whatnot a try.

I think unlike ebay, the expectation is that you will break even at best for a couple months before building your whatnot into a profitable portion of your business.

The youtube influencers definitely have an advantage over there. I would recommend you connect up with some of them, get your name out there. I venture a guess that is how they do so well – other whatnot sellers gaining favor basically purchasing advertising on the influencers whatnot channel by purchasing items. I’ve seen some people win auctions and then “reroll” the item – basically making a donation to the whatnot seller and having the item auctioned off again immediately.

[ChristineR]

@Thriftshift thanks for sharing this honest post.  I had a series of issues, including just a late USPS scan but also a couple of lost items and I’m down to above average after years of TRS.  Sux.  Interesting that taking away promoted is a punishment – and also interesting that you are still having sales though.  Brave of you re Whatnot.  Are you doing porch pick ups for FBM?

[ThriftShift]

I store my furniture and inventory in a storage unit, and normally set up a time to meet there for furniture; that is 12 minutes from my house.

I  only do porch pickup, or meet at a grocery store about 300 meters away, when I can’t leave my house for some reason for a period of time, or when the buyer can’t commit to a certain time. And only when I have a good vibe about the person.  I don’t let men pick up from my porch or others I think are too picky/ask too many questions. I don’t want them knowing where I live.

[ThriftShift]

And I don’t want my neighbors to get upset with me. We live in a court with about 5 little girls, so everyone knows everyone, and “strangers” are definitely noticed – there is no reason to be on our street unless you are visiting someone, it’s out of the way.

[Sharyn]

Seems like I occasionally miss the weekly number post when I’m busy at my “career” job. I recently got a new boss, and it sounds like I might get more hours in the future. The pay is better, but eBay is more flexible. So, I’ll continue to trudge along as best I can.

I don’t know exactly when digital cameras became widely available, but I was a bit late to the game (probably because of the cost). All my kids’ baby photos are from a 35mm (born 2001 & 2003).

Somewhere along the line, I did get a digital camera (maybe around the 2008 timeframe +/-), but I think I lost some photos along the way due to a computer crash. If I still was using 35mm, I would still have them, so which is better? Today, all my photos are automatically saved with my dad’s Amazon Prime account, so I won’t lose them if my computer goes again.

Week of Apr 7 – 13
Total Items in Store: 1630 eBay, 28 Etsy, 50 Ruby Lane
Items Sold: 11 eBay, 0 Etsy, 0 Ruby Lane
Cost of Items Sold: $0 + $56 Commission
Total Sales: $330.85 eBay
Highest Price Sold: eBay $75 for 14k Yellow Gold Bracelet
Average price: $30
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $13
Number of items listed this week: 6

[craig rex]

This past week, for really the last month, I have spent a good chunk of daily eBay time tending my garden, to steal Jay’s term that I loved from last week’s thread. Really went through my inventory methodically. Run auctions, end and sell similar, sent out to 20 to 25 percent offers to watchers. Any individual cards that I thought would sell in my consignment port, I removed them from my eBay store and into a 400 count card storage box to get shipped. I really put in the work and grinded to organize my unsorted inventory, which has been the bane of my existence since as long as I remember reselling. Way back when I started, I used to keep all my eBay crap in the trunk of my car. Now I have a lot of shelves with random crap on them and piles of cards sitting around. I didn’t like it, but I never had the time or energy to really fix it, so I got used to it.

But I am starting to see my progress visually which is very dramatic and exciting. I didn’t have a big week of sales this week, but you can’t put a price on taking steps forward towards your goals. I’m not sure if I can truly finish my spring cleaning before it becomes early summer cleaning, but I’m excited to find out and even more excited to think about what eBay and life might bring for me after that.

4/7/2024 to 4/13/2024

Items in store: 178 (up from 159 last week)

Items sold: 14 — 5 via best offer, 6 via seller initiated offer, 13 via promoted listings

Check out that promoted listings number — 13 out of 14 sold. My PL percentages are 5% and 7.5% and I’m wondering if it might make sense to raise those numbers.

On the surface, 14 seems like a horrific number of sales in a week — just two a day! But for a <200 item store, it’s really not that bad.

Gross sales: $710.36 (down 55% from one year ago)

Net sales: $445.64 (down 55% from one year ago)

Average sales price: $50.74 (down 11% from one year ago)

Highest price sold (net): $85.14— Honus Wagner and Dave Bancroft 2014 National Treasures bat card /25

Honus Wagner was one of the greats of early 20th century baseball and I held on to this card until I received an offer over $100 because I get a real pleasure out of selling cards like this. A little piece of baseball history.

Lowest price sold (net): $8.24 — Dre Greenlaw 2019 Panini Contenders Draft blue autograph rookie card

[Lukastreasure]

Been quite a while since I posted as life has been busy.  eBay, not so much.  Most of our listing lately has been from the old unlisted inventory piles.  Hope everyone is well.

Week Ending 4/13/24
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $261.51
Net Sales: $164.36
Total Items Sold: 5
Total Items in eBay Store: 1135 / Etsy 427 / FBM 7
Items Sold eBay: 5

COGS Percent: 90.05%
Net Profit Margin: 6.26%
Highest Price Sold: $125.00
Average Price Sold: $52.30
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory:
Sold via promoted listings: 5
Promoted Percentage: 100.00%
Average Days Listed: 356
Longest Listed: 953
New items listed: 20
New Listings Value $495.00

[Jay]

Good to see you again. Life gets busy. That’s definitely the challenge as a scavenger. Hope things are well!

[Author]

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