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I would like to start the numbers post if Jay doesn’t do it by Thursday afternoon. I realize that Jay and Ryanne have a bazillion other businesses now, and this isn’t their priority. I appreciate the fact that they keep this site up and check in every once in a while.
Last week, I had a silver plate tray that was cancelled because the shipping was too high. When I relisted it, I realized that I had made a mistake on the box size and the default shipping was Priority. I fixed the shipping, and, hopefully, it will sell sometime soon.
Week of Dec 8 – 14
Total Items in Store: 1806 eBay, 41 Etsy
Items Sold: 9 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $0 + $39 Commission
Total Sales: $219.60 eBay
Highest Price Sold: eBay $50 for Thigh Slimming Torsette Size XL
Average price: $24
Returns: 0 (1 cancelled)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0 -
Week of 12/2-12/8
Items in Store: 2995
Items Sold: 36
Total Sales: $1,955.00
COGS: $208.00
Total Profit: $1,747.00
Average profit: $48.53
Average sales price: $54.31
New Listings: 44
Items scavenged: 0
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 35
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,605.71
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $46.39
2024 projected total sales $83,497.14I definitely felt rejuvenated this week after “firing” my oldest kid from ebay work. My second oldest is doing great – he photographs whatever I give him without complaint and without delay. I’m trying to get him 5-10 clothing items ready for photos each day during my lunch at work. He just gets it that this is easy money that doesn’t take much time. He’s already lowered his time per item and I bet by the end of this month he’ll be down to around 2 minutes per item.
I’ve seen an overall improvement in attitude from my oldest since then. Maybe that was the sobering thing she needed to take the next step in her maturation. Everyone should get fired at some point. It can be a blessing in disguise and lead to greater success if you handle it properly. I got fired from my first job out of college after 5 years in 2010 and ended up in a job that paid more than double what I made in my best year at the previous place. Shoot, getting fired from that double pay job way back in 2015 is what started me on the path to this highly successful ebay business! I got a 4 month severance package, maintained my insurance for a year. I had the best summer of my adult life vacationing and scavenging. Hopefully this spurs a fire in her so she can be successful too. She told my wife about it and said that she was gonna start her own ebay store. Good for her! I’ll believe it when I see it (and I do very much hope to see it.)
I even took some time this weekend to do some cleaning up of my workspace. Man it was a MESS! This was just a triage session to get rid of trash, boxes, junk, and a handful of larger items I had no interest in dealing with. Now I have the space necessary to start organizing the areas around my listing and photographing stations. It’s so easy to get in a funk where you just throw stuff randomly in spots while doing the minimum to keep functioning.
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 10 items for $1179.
Sold a bunch of $150+ Ralph Lauren sweaters this week. One person bought three for more than $500 total!
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Week of 12/9-12/15
Items in Store: 3014
Items Sold: 32
Total Sales: $1,284.00
COGS: $119.00
Total Profit: $1,165.00
Average profit: $36.41
Average sales price: $40.13
New Listings: 51
Items scavenged: 0
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 36
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,599.28
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $46.28
2024 projected total sales $83,162.56Last week was a good restart to set the tone for this week. Now I’m fully back in the saddle. I was cooking on the cleaning/organizing and listing fronts. I got 51 listings live, but I had about 50 more drafts made that are waiting on photos. Every day in the morning I tried to ship a few things and photograph a few things. My oldest son did some photography without having to be asked, which is nice! Each day at work I tried to get at least 5 clothing items and 5 shoes/small items drafted and ready for photos. Then each night I tried to find a couple big ticket items laying around my office space to get listed as well. That paid off with two $100+ sales this week.
On the weekend I committed an hour to getting my listing desk cleaned off. My listing/shipping area consists of a 5’x3′ table top, a rolling shelf cart on one side, and a 2’x4′ folding table on the other side. All three were TERRIBLE and piled with junk and unlisted items. I finished the desk, processed the majority of death pile items on the folding table, and got most of the unlisted items off the rolling shelf cart and into draft status. This week I’ll finish up cleaning organizing the cart and the table.
The shelf cart is supposed to have 2 shelves for shipping supplies, and 2 shelves for to be listed items. It ended up a jumbled pile of some packing supplies, some to be listed death pile, and some listed items I was too lazy to move elsewhere. The folding table is supposed to just be an intermediate station that has bins for “to be listed” and bins for “to be photographed” that is contantly cycled through. It ended up a death pile repository that just got piled higher and higher…
I’ve also had 2 wide screen monitors sitting in my van that I picked up at a yard sale this summer to redo my listing/shipping computer setup. I finally brought them in and got them tested out. My intention is to put one or both in a vertical orientation so I don’t have to scroll so much while listing. I ordered the table mounted articulating arm last night so I can put them into service. So long to my ancient and dim 19″ square format monitor that sits on a carboard box for added height!
In regards to sales, I officially crossed $80k gross sales this year! Last year I improved on my all time high in 2020 by more than $10k and this year I’m beating 2023 by at least another 10k once the year is over. I’ve also matched my all time total sales (2020) this year. I’m currently at 1728 so I’ll finish out right around 1800 total individual sales.
At the beginning of the year I set a goal to get my store to a 40/40/40 store eventually – 40 items listed, 40 items sold, and a $40 ASP each week to get me an $80k annual business. I ended up at a 35/35/45 store, so I’ll be focused on the 40 listings a week in 2025 to keep pushing my store forward.
Sold 4 items for $335.
I am back to listing some more of the premium hoarder items this week. The highlight being a vintage Hartmann luggage bag. Shame on me for letting this one sit! I sold a pair of shoes this week for $170. Yay! I haven’t sold any premium shoes in a few weeks it seems.
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To keep myself up to date as well, here are my numbers from two weeks ago:
Week of Dec 1 – 7
Total Items in Store: 1813 eBay, 41 Etsy
Items Sold: 12 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $4 + $84 Commission
Total Sales: $287.58 eBay
Highest Price Sold: eBay $50 for Maya Bohler Pottery Serving Platter
Average price: $24
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0 -
Week of 12/1-7:
Total Items in Store: 1175 or so
Items Sold: 25Cost of Items Sold: $220 or so (two items ours)
Total Sales: $1,424; Net sales $850
Highest Price Sold: $109 (Set of three new plates, spring or summer clearance items)
Average price: $57
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $25 maybe? I lost track. Not much scavenging.
Number of items listed this week: 2Week of 12/8-14:
Items Sold: 22
Cost of Items Sold: $130
Total Sales: $1055; Net sales $670
Highest Price Sold: $105 (Used set of 4 Christmas bowls)
Average price: $48
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $70 (one online, small flea market haul) Not much scavenging.
Number of items listed this week: 14Sales felt really strong after Thanksgiving, then I’m surprised at the 12/8-14 numbers because it felt quite slow. My ASP looks pretty good though COGS is high due to more new items going out this time of year. It wasn’t a good time to slack off listing in hindsight and the second week we were all sick. I’ve been listing on Ebay pretty consistently this week and have some last minute Christmas stuff going out. Today I listed on Facebook Marketplace and thew a couple of larger fragile things onto Instagram – though most of my Insta followers are other sellers.
Sold a couple of low dollar things on Mercari, not much. (They have the Japanese CEO coming to the US and will reverse their fee changes mostly after the new year pretty much in case you hadn’t heard).
District (Niknax and VAMP) had no sales, which is pretty bad for Christmastime. The Niknax lady is trying to make things better for non-live sellers, but it’s going to be hard for her. She let way too many sellers and types of inventory in quickly. The VAMP lady is really tightening up and getting rid of inactive sellers but also they have fewer people selling live. It will be interesting to see how that all shakes out. I’m rooting for VAMP, since I’m in a pretty small group of approved sellers there.
Overall, I feel like I am needing to list more and offer bigger discounts to get Ebay sales. Had a slower 4th quarter for sure than in prior years. I am concerned about consumer demand in the new year but I will try to be really consistent with listing and – knock wood – hope to have more time for it. I’m finally done listing the Christmas! and moving on to kitchen goods for the moment. I’m also going to be joining @Retro in doing some consolidation and organizing of my piles and inventory boxes in the next two weeks. No pop up markets for me for quite a while so perhaps I will also list some more small art on Ebay.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season with your families. Be kind to yourself if the holidays presents challenges. One of our dads can’t travel and it will be just 5 of us this year around the table. Have a fun White Elephant party this weekend with family friends. Missing our lost doggie.
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