- This topic has 9 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 1 month, 1 week ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
Our best sale this week was the door of a clothes washer for $150. We purchased this used washer off craigslist and it turned out to be a dud. Ryanne
[See the full post at: The Numbers: Week November 24-30, 2024] -
Total Items in Store: 1200ish
Items Sold: 23
Gross Sales: $1200
Net Sales: $801
Cost of Items Sold: $136
Highest Price Sold: $250 (one new discontinued Starbucks mug)
Average Price Sold: $52
Returns/Issues: 1 I broke a figurine while pulling out to ship. 1 package got “lost” at postal office without a scan. 🙁
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $35
Number of items listed this week: 22Ebay is chugging along. I’m continuing my storewide perma-sale 15% off with an additional 5-33% off (depending on how long I had the item and what I paid). The offer opportunities are down but still better than before my post-election store reset. The retailers are running sales but nothing too tempting except some deeply discounted Halloween at Williams Sonoma. Thrift store donations seem poor since the election, so I’m just going to the flea market this week to get out. Hope to get a lot listed this week for sure to help my store keep moving.
I had one item disappear from the postal office bin. It never got a scan. Around this time last year I had a similar issue. Both were small packages with metal items (figural bottle openers), so I’m guessing someone might mistake it for jewelry. There have been some reports of issues with our local branch, but of all my packages, these are the only two with a problem.
My back is a little cranky with the pulling and packing. I’m doing a live market again this Saturday and it should be fun. I’ll be doing a smaller set up than usual and my husband will help before football. I put most of my Christmas on Ebay so I’ll probably just be doing the smaller & medium art work and mini decor, maybe a little glassware. I’m quite sick of listing Christmas on Ebay. I probably have enough for one long or two shorter sessions left.
-
-
Ikr? I thought it was some money laundering thing until I realized there were no other actives. Too bad I didn’t find any more lying around. At one point Target Starbucks had a rare sale on them and I picked up a few for less than $12.99. On occasion being a slow lister with a death pile works out well.
I had a couple of low dollar sales on Mercari as well, zero on District buy it now.
-
-
-
Items in Store: 2987
Items Sold: 25
Total Sales: $1,091.00
COGS: $242.00
Total Profit: $849.00
Average profit: $33.96
Average sales price: $43.64
New Listings: 0
Items scavenged: 0
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 35
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,598.44
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $46.22
2024 projected total sales $83,118.75I was off work from my day job last week so I was primed and ready to accomplish…nothing. That’s right folks, I did my bare minimum on shipping and just sat on my butt the rest of the week. Well not really – I did alot of non-ebay work. I did laundry…sooo….much….laundry. Lots of cooking, playing with kids, napping, and holiday crafts.
I tried again to get my oldest two to do some listing. I had created a workflow for them so that one of them could take measurements while the other made listings. I’ve always done measurements while creating the listing but it is more efficient to break it out if more than one person is involved in the process. I made a measurement template in Excel that would capture every measurement for a shirt, jacket, or pants on a roughly 2×3″ piece of paper. I set it up so a bunch could be on one sheet of paper and then cut up using a paper cutter. You fill out a measurement sheet and then tape it to the item. Then to show them it works I timed myself measuring and did 28 clothing items in just under 25 minutes.
My daughter then created 3 listings using the pre-measured items (over about an hour) and the bin was not touched again all week. Those 3 items weren’t even photographed. This just ain’t working for me. It’s bumming me out and affecting my own ability to be motivated.
I tried one last time yesterday. (I write my numbers on Monday morning in word and post whenever the blog post goes, so this paragraph is new). I explained why her help was important, and I gave her a specific deadline. The deadline passed, and only 3 new listings were made. I got a plethora of excuses. Today, a whole 3 more listings were done. So I’ve decided to no longer use my oldest child for ebay – guess I’ll be “firing” her when I get home. I’m going to keep using my second oldest for photos. He isn’t as capable, but he shows up and completes anything I ask him to do and is coachable. For a helper that is a far greater value to me than someone who has alot of potential but zero drive to actually perform at any reliable capacity (Oh my gosh she is a carbon copy of ME at that age!!!! I must have been insufferable).
At the end of the day, this is not really a job for me. I have a passion for reselling/scavenging. It is my hobby, my fun time, my relaxation time, etc. I was putting too much effort into coaching up my kid and it was slowly killing my passion. I can’t let someone leach out my passion (even my own kid), because then I just won’t want to do this anymore. It sucks because this is such a great and useful skill to be able to make money and weather the seas of change as she becomes an adult. A scavenger reseller is resourceful and never without a way to make money. I want her to have this skill sooooo bad, but I have no control over where she puts her time/passion. Having teenagers is hard when you see the class 5 rapids of life they are heading for and they just won’t listen.
I think I’m calling it a year in regards to listing or organizing. I can’t get my older kids motivated to do ebay. It’s too cold out, and we still have plenty of holiday events coming up. It looks like I’ll end up around $82k in sales this year even if I don’t list anymore, which is amazing! This also will likely be the first year I’ve ever sold more items than I’ve listed (barring an unexpected listing blitz this month). I kinda like the thought of that as I do want to contract my inventory size eventually. A 3000-3500 item store is about where I want to stay as a part time seller.
(More new thoughts since I originally wrote this)
Since I made peace with firing my oldest kid, I’ve already started to get that spark to list back. I did some organizing in my van and got some draft listings done on my lunch. My brain is cooking up some new ways to be efficient as I adapt to our new normal of having 7 kids. So maybe I’m not so ready to write off this year. We’ll see!
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 8 items for $446.
I crossed 600 total items sold and $65k in gross sales. Still plenty of stuff to list and sell. Sometime in 2025 I’ll cross $100k gross sales on this haul most likely.
-
As easy as it is to do what we all do, I find you really have to have a passion for scavenging and selling. Otherwise everyone (kids to grandmas) lose the plot. There’s something so satisfying about the cycle of finding junk, listing it, selling it, and sending it to a new owner.
I love your passion and always appreciate your posts. That Premium Hoarder find is so incredible. You could almost buy a house with the money you’re making off it!
-
100% right. My daughter (now 18) was helping w photos a couple of summers ago. It was nice while it lasted but she has not wanted to do it again. She helped me set up my business Instagram account. So much of teen’s life now is social and the internet. I think possibly later she will come back around to it.
I don’t know how you are able to get so much done with all that is on your plate, but hats off to you. I definitely share the passion for this but have too much in piles and really need to get back to righting that. Our fixed expenses, cost of living, and taxes are very high and it’s time to move more inventory. I love it but I’ve been treating it as kind of a hobby still and not a business. Though I don’t need it to do my taxes I’m considering getting flipwise in January to analyze returns and keep me more honest.
Reselling is so good for me – gets me out of the house, moving, meeting people at markets, makes me productive. It’s great that it’s flexible but I need to get on a better schedule.
Fun note, I tagged EBay on my most recent soles Insta post and they replied! https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDKpTNWSMxI/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
If anyone’s on Instagram I’d love a follow and some likes and comments. It seems like I lost some momentum on my break from live pop up markets. Ty!
-
-
-
I sold fewer items this week but had a decent average price. For the last three or so weeks, I’ve been doing a end and sell similar to 100 listings. It certainly is increasing the number of offers I can send, but, for this week, it did not end up in more sales.
Week of Nov 24 – 30
Total Items in Store: 1824 eBay, 41 Etsy
Items Sold: 8 eBay
Cost of Items Sold: $13 + $72 Commission
Total Sales: $276.65 eBay
Highest Price Sold: eBay $75 for Antique History of the World War Set of 5 Books
Average price: $34.58
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 3 -
I’ve been having a pretty good month and last week of Nov.
Total Items in Store: 446
Items Sold: 5
Gross Sales: $103.6
Cost of Items Sold: $10.
Highest Price Sold: $38.25 (British Airways B747 desktop model)
Average Price Sold: $20.72
Returns/Issues: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $8
Number of items listed this week: 5I bought a collection of model planes off marketplace about a month ago. It was supposed to be 80 planes for $250, I ended up paying $220. It was a mix of plastic and diecast planes. The ones I really wanted were the commercial airline planes such as the one in the ebay link below. Overall I got about 20 of those that were sellable and then a bunch of smaller die-cast planes. So far I’ve sold 12 of the commercial airline planes and after fees have made about $700. So very happy there 🙂
https://www.ebay.com/itm/196742480148
and ChristineR…. I’m now following you on Insta and Liked a few of your items 🙂
-
Thank you @Jaepete 🙂
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.