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Things are selling. That’s good news. Shoes and cooking pots and wooden drawer knobs and old software and vintage xmas cards and weird folk art and us
[See the full post at: The Numbers: Week July 16-22, 2023] -
I suspect the answer to your experiment question is mostly no, especially for the older stuff. Dead inventory really is a thing on eBay. Before I purged my ebay store of all non-train items I ran a 30% off sale on all of it for like 4 months. A few items sold but most just sat there. After I delisted all that stuff I gave it to my brother and told him he can sell anything he wants on his personal ebay and the rest goes to the thrift store. He’s sold almost everything from the pile he’s listed within a few weeks often for more than what I was offering with the 30% off sale. Why did that stuff sit in my store but sells for him? My best guess is that it’s a combination of the “newly listed” boost items get when you first post them and my strong suspicion that after an item has been listed for a certain amount of time eBay stops promoting it. It’ll still show up in generic eBay search but not in google adwords and not in the “related items” lists that pop up when you view listings. I know for a fact those two things drive sales, especially the “related items” lists. I’ll often get somebody who buys a train car, then gets shown more similar items and ends up buying multiple others from me. They will then message me after the fact and ask for combined shipping and tell me they didn’t know I had those other items when they bought the first.
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Dead inventory really is a thing on eBay.
Our super lazy method still shows that old stuff does sell. Everyday we sell things that may have been listed 5+ years (!) ago.
It’s just not a huge number each day. And this is the forever question: are sales slow because our items are “dead” in eBay search? or because no one ants this weird used item?
So whats the solution? Delist everything after x number of days?
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Items in Store: 2400
Items Sold: 50
Total Sales: $2,761.00
COGS: $395.00
Total Profit: $2,378.00
Average profit: $47.56
Average sales price: $55.22
New Listings: 100
Items scavenged: 65
Listing 2023 weekly Avg: 35
Sourcing Allotment: 23Twas a busy week! I was able to get my van cleared out finally (only to fill it again!). I got all my listed items caught up with inventory storage. Those are two big tasks that really needed to happen to pave a path to close out strong over the next 4 weeks. 1000 new listings is within reach.
My daughter reverted and went full blown teenager this week. I got barely anything out of her this week on ebay – about 30 items photographed. I did the rest of the cleaning and photography this weekend. Thankfully I had a big draft bank to work with.
I sold 5 premium hoarder clothing items for $400, and 4 pair of premium hoarder shoes for $710.
I received positive feedback on 3 of the pair of shoes I sold last week. The one I was most worried about hasn’t contacted me or left feedback. So….no news is good news?
Even with another week left, this is my best July ever – even better than bonkers 2020. A guy could get used to these $2000 weeks! The daily ebay payouts to my bank account have been very nice!
Now everything above I typed on Monday so it was fresh in my mind. Then I save it in word until the numbers post goes live. Thanks Jay for keeping this site alive even though you are crazy busy. It is greatly appreciated! This place is like my own personal brain dump and has been crucial to my growth and improvements over the years. I’m sure I’d figure something out if it were to end, but it wouldn’t be near as fun.
This current week after 3 days I’m already up to 21 sales for $1100 and have created 55 drafts. 6 of the sales are from the hoarder collection for $550. Looking to be another great $2k+ week!
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@Jay –
I’ve followed your store for years, and I can see that you are making lots of sales through your deep discount. I would say it is working.
I just saw that you sold a Barbie doll yesterday. You might want to go through your store and increase the price on any other Barbie mech. With the movie out Friday along with a big merchandizing blitz, you can expect older stuff to start selling as well.
In my other stalking activities, I can see that Steve has two vids on YouTube that haven’t been uploaded to SL.
I’m looking forward to the photos of the new house. I assume it will be another AirBnB.
In my own news, I noticed that I had two orders with USPS for free shipping supplies that were coming up as completed even though I had not received the orders. One was from May. I called their customer service, and the rep put in the order for me. She didn’t know why my orders haven’t gone through, but said it might be a glitch. Anyone else have issues recently? I had to modify my business policies for the flat rate padded envelope because I have run out.
My sales were decent for this time of year. Interestingly, I’ve had one Etsy sale each for the past three weeks. It had been mostly quiet since the beginning of the year.
Week of Jul 16 – 22
Total Items in Store: 1707 eBay, 26 Etsy
Items Sold: 11 eBay, 1 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $4.06 + $49 Commission
Total Sales: $269.01 eBay, $61 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $45.86 Black Dress NWT; Etsy $61 Vintage Womens Wool Coat Fur Collar
Average price: $27.50
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 15 -
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Week Ending 7/22/23
Gross Sales (w/o shipping $ tax): $1,017.53 (eBay $903 / FBM $30 / Etsy $85)
Net Sales: $849.36
Total Items Sold: 22 (eBay 17 / FBM 1 / Etsy 4)
Total Items eBay Store: 1204 / Etsy: 516
Cost of Items Sold: $143.89Highest Price Sold: $400.00 Vintage Cast Iron Toy Motorcycle
Average Price Sold: $46.25
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00Average Days Listed: 197
Longest Listed: 2008
New items listed: 8
New Listings Value $358.60
@Jay – Looking forward to seeing what you are doing with your new house. You guys always have something in the works.Like for Retro, this was a great week of summer sales for me, both with number of items sold and dollar amount.
That cast iron motorcycle really helped. I had been greedy and listed it originally for $1000, lowering it more recently to $750, having seen some sales for that much within the last two years, but couldn’t resist the $400 offer since it was still way over the average selling price for these. My recurring Christmas ornament buyer came back and purchased another lot of 6 ornaments for $160. And my favorite sale, a stuffed Hansa Bald Eagle that I got in a l$2 ot of stuffed animals sold for $112.
Getting ready to leave on vacation Sunday for two weeks. Dreading putting my store on vacation mode since sales aren’t terrible. Will be nice to get away for a bit and recharge.
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I’ll be interested to see what you think of our renovation of the house you guys looked at on that rainy weekend. It was in horrible shape but is in an excellent location.
Have a good vacation!
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@Jay – can’t wait to see it. It had a lot potential for the right vision.
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Ugh. Lost my post with an error message.
Bottom line was an ok week with bunched up sales. R&J I guessed right last time with the coffee shop but I thought it would be a restaurant. Congrats on closing in on another great project! Going on vacation soon and started business policies this week but still haven’t updated old listings. Have a great week!
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Had a very good week, this week however, very bad.
Total Items in Store: 15,672
Items Sold: 135
Gross Sales: $2,570.17 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1612.59 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)Cost of Items Sold: $135 (approx)
Highest Price Sold: $458.48 (Tuner Preamp)
Average Price Sold: $19.04
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $250
Number of items listed this week: 371For context, these were my 5 best selling categories for the week:
Consumer Electronics > TV, Video & Home Audio > Home Audio > Receivers & Amplifiers > Amplifiers & Preamps
Collectibles > Holiday & Seasonal > Villages & Houses
Music > Vinyl Records
Movies & TV > DVDs & Blu-ray Discs
Video Games & Consoles > Video Game Consoles
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