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We had another solid week on eBay. Selling random things we find is always so much fun. We still love it so much after all these years. That hit of do
[See the full post at: The Numbers: Week of November 5-11, 2023] -
Total Items in Store: 1096
Items Sold: 27
Gross Sales: $1,230.09 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $853.42 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $216
Highest Price Sold: $143 (New Pottery Barn duvet set, purchased on Facebook for $75)
Average Price Sold: $45.56
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $30ish thrift and flea market
Number of items listed this week: 21Ran a 20% off sale and it seemed to pay off. I had run a 15% off sale previously that did not. The sale expired and I’m going to 15% until Wednesday and will see how that goes. I did not do well with listing daily this week, since I was in bed this weekend not feeling well, so I guess it may have been the sale and approaching holidays. A majority of the items selling are new items and my experiment Target RA Christmas items so could be finally the 4th quarter sales are showing up.
R&J it was sketchy times last time and the coffee shop has done so well. So I’m sure the cafe will do well too. Thinking good thoughts for you. I have been reading that consumers at all levels are spending but feeling tight and some are running up credit cards. It does feel like the party might get spoiled soon. I’d like to make as much as I can on Ebay before that happens. Will consider running a 20% off sale again this weekend.
There is a lot of chatter on Youtube about people calling in to Ebay to “reset their stores”. Some people seem to just be talking about sell similar with some tweaks, or that in addition to scheduling the sell similars to drop daily. I’m going to focus on listing more items for now. In the new year have some plans to go over old listings and pricing on them. It is wise of @Ebaymom to do this daily. I’m such a boom and bust kind of person.
I almost finished listing all of the recent hauls except the needlepoint kits which are handy for my 3 daily listing goal. I am really having an aversion to listing large – mostly breakable – items and running out of space where I want to put them. Need to think on that in 2024. The linens are selling well so even though I avoid listing those they have better sell through. Some of the larger kitchen items, dishes, no name pottery maybe not so much.
Still some organizing to do but I did get some things out of my living space and started a new row of bankers boxes in the garage…
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Christine, You can do your own store “reset” without calling eBay (not that I think it does anything, really… but I have tried it before in moments of slowdom) It is essentially a bulk edit on all the items in your store… you don’t even need to make any changes (although you could raise or lower the price by 1 cent or something).. just the act of loading all the items into a matrix and then hitting ‘submit all’ is what does it, even without any edits at all. Although.. here we already know the best “store reset” of all… and that is to simply start listing more items, lol 🙂
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@Ebaymom one is just bulk sell similar that people are talking about, which I have done. Apparently, some are saying you can also call Ebay and they can “flip your switch” or something if you complain about slow sales. I assume the theory is that there is some sort of rotation cycle and Ebay can move your store up on request. Someone I listen to is supposed to dig in on this and report back. We’ll see…
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There is a lot of chatter on Youtube about people calling in to Ebay to “reset their stores”.
Is this a real thing? Can you call eBay to reset your store?
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Yes, Jay, the cha-ching will never get old! It does feel like a recession is looming, doesn’t it? Great week, Christine… all your hard work is paying off and I hope you are feeling better. Not much to say about the week… it was just on the low end… and looking back, I can see I had minimal promoted listings going and only one very low markdown sales (5%)… Going forward, I have decided to turn dynamic PL’s back on and run a 24-hour sale each day this week, so stay tuned for an improvement in next week’s numbers.
My Store Week November 5-11, 2023
Total Items in Store: 840
Items Sold: 24
Gross Sales: $498.53 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $224.91 (minus returns, supplies, eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $34.12
Highest Price Sold: $38 (Seven 7 Jeans)
Average Price Sold: $20.77
Returns: 2 (1 was a stain that I “missed” and 1 was a cancel due to out of stock, I washed a pair of kid’s jeans with our personal items and I think they ended up getting sucked into the vortex, ugh!! defect!!)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $68.07
Number of items listed this week: 35 + 3 into a brand new, baby draft bank, woohoo!$ Amount Listed this week: $1203.65
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This week was better, but not great, and I had two sales from Etsy after a pretty long dry spell there. My biggest sale was a lamp that I should have sold for higher, but it’s a larger item that I have had for a while, and I need the space.
Week of Nov 5 – 11
Total Items in Store: 1759 eBay, 35 Etsy
Items Sold: 10 eBay, 2 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $13.69 + $51 Commission
Total Sales: $252.65 eBay, $23.78 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $60 Quoizel Brass LENOX Swing Arm Lamp
Average price: $23
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 7 -
Items in Store: 2789
Items Sold: 29
Total Sales: $1,411.00
COGS: $239.00
Total Profit: $1,172.00
Average profit: $40.41
Average sales price: $48.66
New Listings: 33
Items scavenged: 17
2023 weekly new listings Avg: 44
Sourcing Allotment: 13Forum ate my numbers post after editing. I had written some cool stuff too! Oh well…not gonna type all that again.
Was out of town all week for a ‘day job’ business trip with time away on. No listing and time away reflected lower numbers…but if this is my ‘off’ week I’m SUPER happy with it!
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Damn it the one week you don’t hit ctrl+c before typing your numbers post!
Glad you’re back this week, missed you last week and glad it was just a day job trip and you and the family are well.
What’s sourcing allotment? I have a few posts to catch up on so maybe I missed it, but don’t remember that number from previous threads.
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Oh, I didn’t realize I copied that in. It’s a formula I set up two or three years ago in my spreadsheet to limit how much inventory I could purchase each week based on my sales and listing activity of the previous week. I haven’t been copying it into my weekly numbers and I’ve never deleted it from my spreadsheet.
it was kind of a dumb metric which, if I would’ve applied to the premium order score, I would not have been able to buy any of it!
I kept having to make exceptions to the rule, so this year I changed my scavenging rules to take STR and sales price into account to limit my scavenging.
I loosen the rules a bit during yard sale season but when it comes to thrift stores I’m pretty strict.basically anything under $50 has to have 100% or better 90 day STR. Items $50-100 to be greater than 50% STR. items that sell for over $100 are no brainerd unless it is huge or awkward.
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Thanks, I thought that was outside your normal rules but I got curious. Even if it’s no longer a hard and fast rule, it’s an interesting way to think about scavenging if you’re space limited or deal with bulky items.
The STR scavenging rules have become a way of life for me this year. I feel very lucky to know you through these forums, it’s changed my way of doing business almost as much as finding the podcast so many years ago. Following your rules (with my own modifications, off and on) has been extremely successful for me within the trading cards niche and it worked with my big Chicago haul as well. So I think it would apply to almost anyone regardless of what types of items they sell. Take note, lurkers and those of you grumbling about slow sales!
Think about what items you’ve scavenging and selling. How can you find higher quality items or items which will sell faster? There is always luck involved with reselling, but it’s not all luck! Focus on STR and sales price, and you will start to see some higher dollar sales and some items which sell quickly. Do it over and over again, and that’s how you build a sustainable eBay business.
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Jay, I’m curious what is stoking your fears of recession. I don’t see a lot of big or small signs that’s what happened this year (despite repeated warnings) or what will happen in the next 3-6 months (despite lots of gloom and doom). Obviously there are situations in the US and around the world which could change quickly and dramatically, and income inequality is as bad (or worse) as it’s ever been. Don’t mistake my lack of worry about a recession as an opinion that everything is fine. 🙂
But you and Ryanne have really good instincts for your various businesses and I think you’ll weather any economic storms just fine. You didn’t start the coffee shop without a plan or try to learn everything yourselves, you leaned on your partners expertise throughout the process and I think that’s why your business is flourishing. Very similar to how you expanded your Airbnbs and even how you grew from the early days of your eBay business. You used to model all your clothes and do all the work yourselves! Remember those days!?
People will always need (or “need”) a vacation, or a good cup of coffee and place to catch up with friends, or some random gewgaw which reminds them of their childhood or fits perfectly in their home. Plus you have the ability to adapt. Lots of people struggle with change, or new situations, or taking risks. But when you sell on eBay, all of these things are a way of life. So if a recession does come, at least we’ve got a leg up in terms of being prepared.
I would have written all that even if I sold 0 items this week because it’s what I genuinely believe, but I happened to have a good week of sales after one of my worst weeks. I don’t think it’s a reflection of much except the randomness of sales over a period of time, especially in my weird niche which is very busy right now, and I put in a little extra work on eBay this week.
I had auctions end last Sunday and I put all the unsold inventory back into my store with sell similar and I dropped some prices and I created a bunch of new listings towards the end of the week and my sales were strong throughout the week. As you would hope. As they should have been.
Ideally, every week would go like this. But some weeks I don’t put the same level of effort into eBay. I might put in close to the same amount of time, but it’s not as focused on the money making aspects. Or I will have weeks where I spend my time enjoying other interests or I use the flexibility eBay gives me to take care of other things. It’s a nice life.
In an effort to continue the good vibes, I’m running a 20 percent markdown sale this week. My first markdown sale in almost six months. Also sending offers to watchers on top of the sale.
Do I want to sell things at 30 percent off or 35 percent? Not necessarily, I’d rather sell them for full price. But at this time of year, I will push a little harder for sales. There will always be more inventory out there. So let’s get a little weird and try some things, see what works and what doesn’t.
11/5/2023 to 11/11/2023
Listings: 404 (up from 371 the previous week)
Items sold: 66 (38 via auction, 13 via best offer, 6 via seller initiated offer, 25 via promoted listings)
Gross sales: $2468.67 (down 10% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1613.12 (down 16% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $37.40 (down 7% from one year ago)
Highest price sold (net): $65.26 — Joshua Dobbs Panini Prizm blue autographed rookie ##/149
Joshua Dobbs is basically the talk of the NFL right now with an easy underdog story to root for. And his card prices are skyrocketing in response. Check out these Terapeak solds for the same card!
While those prices seem crazy, you should know that Panini Prizm is one of the most popular sets now and autographed rookies with a serial number are some of the most desired cards to collectors and flippers. With hindsight being 20/20, I sold too early, but I can’t be all that disappointed. I bought this card in August for $3 including shipping. And I bought a bunch more Dobbs cards just before the season started. I don’t always buy like this, but sometimes there are errors in the market and I try to buy low with the goal of selling high. I’ve sold all of my Dobbs autographs over the last few months and am down to his cheaper cards which I will feature in my curated team lots. I sold one of those at full price during the Vikings game on Sunday and hope to get another lot listed and sold between now and their next game.
Lowest price sold (net): $7.49 — Atlanta Hawks 10 card basketball card lot
Not every team has their Josh Dobbs, and not every card has the potential to spike in value from $5 to $50. So sometimes doing the work is just grinding out $10 sales. Still wouldn’t trade this life for anyone else’s.
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It’s the stress of pouring money into a new cafe and stick our necks out financially. On the other hand, it’s difficult to just turtle up and hide. We like taking chances and doing what feels fun. Here’s a photo of one of our partners in front of the mural we just had painted on our new building: https://imgur.com/a/HdYL0dj
Whats the worst that could happen. We’d just go broke and start scavenging again 🙂
Glad to to see sales back for you.
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Looks awesome! Also looks like it was an auto repair or car wash or some kind of garage at one time. Might be nice in the warm months, but what are the plans for the cold?
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@Jay exciting! At least you are not in the venture alone. Love the mural!
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Something tells me you and Ryanne are not likely to go broke and start scavenging again, but if you do, please start a podcast about it. I think you’d find an audience!
Love the mural so much, it reminds me of some of my favorite murals in Philly which is a great city for street art, some of it great and a lot very generic. I’d love to know more about how the mural project came about. What was the inspiration for the design? And is there anything similar anywhere else in Luray?
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This mural is on our new building in Harrisonburg VA which is a college town (about 30 miles from our home in Luray). We partnered with a local artist: https://www.instagram.com/timskirven
Definitely a big investment for us, but as you can see in the photo, beautiful artwork attracts the college kids.
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@ThriftShift – Seems like you tried twice to post your numbers. When you post, do not try to edit it right away. Wait about five minutes, and then edit. It’s a special glitch here on Scavenger Life.
You can also try pasting your post as plain text (ctrl-shift-v works on my PC) so that all the excess crap doesn’t end up getting added in.
I hope I’ve saved your post for you:
Total Items in eBay store: 312
eBay Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $172
Cost of Items Sold: $8Facebook Marketplace: sold two items for $125 (ottoman and rug)
Cost of Items Sold: $0
Total Sales: $297New items found this past week:
– rock climbing backpack NWT, valued at $220, but has some marks on it. Was at apartment complex bulk item area.
– two solid wood painted pieces, a small buffet and coffee table. Will sand certain areas bare to stain, then paint remainder gray. Found at garage sale for $7, my only non-free items this week.
– upholstered office chair (from Office Depot), from apartment complex dumpster area.
– two outdoor rugs, about 3×5 and a 5×7, from apartment complex.
– about 30 vintage 4th-5th grade level books from my childhood such as Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, and more. They were free from garage sale leftovers when I drove by AFTER the sale hoping more stuff would be on the curb. My daughter is currently working on reading them.I did sell another pair of my free Lucchese cowboy boots on Nov 12, but that number will have to wait for next week’s numbers.
Probably my favorite sale this past week was six Victoria Secret bras that were free in a bag of clothing left at an apartment complex last week; fast sale for $48. I wouldn’t buy them for $5 at a thrift store to resell, but would do it for $0 COG.
The rest of the clothes were fast fashion so not worth resale for me, but I made them my “painting clothes”.
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Week Ending 11/11/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $837.55 (eBay $538 / Etsy $300)
Net Sales: $696.64
Total Items Sold: 14 (eBay 6 / Etsy 8)
Total Items in eBay Store: 1196 / Etsy: 564
Cost of Items Sold: $94.77
COGS Percent: 13.60%
Highest Price Sold: $299.95 LOTR 1962
Average Price Sold: $59.83
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 4Average Days Listed: 608
Longest Listed: 1911
New items listed: 16
New Listings Value $732.20Not a bad week overall but still not quite what I was used to for this time of year. Etsy had been slow lately but picked up this week with a lot of Christmas decorations selling.
I’ve been going through and relisting a lot of stale inventory over the last 3 weeks and it does seem to be making a difference. Five of my sales from this week were relists. I’ve also been re-examining my pricing on older items as I relist and 3 of my sales were of these repriced items. I’ve done relists in the past several times, but this is the first time I’ve actually noticed a consequential boost from it. I’ve also been adding more items to Etsy as I’ve been relisting.
My big sale was a 1962 Fellowship of the Ring from the Lord of the Rings series for $299.95. I wrote more about that in the sale of the week thread.
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@Jay – I still don’t have Etsy figured out. No doubt that it contributes a significant portion to my sales, but it just isn’t as consistent as eBay. Perhaps if I went all in with the cutesy backgrounds and fancy packaging I would do more. Maybe that is what Etsy buyers are looking for. I have gone weeks with hardly any sales, only to follow with a big week. They have a much smaller customer base, so it makes some sense. Still, it accounts for about 20% of my sales this year for a marginal increase in weekly effort. And their fees are less than eBay.
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I am using Sixbit, still. It has a steep learning curve but now, except for occasional glitches, it works pretty smoothly. Not happy with the $123/month subscription cost, though, and probably would never have done it if I hadn’t received a small business pandemic grant that basically paid food the first year. Considering the sunk cost and effort it’s tough to give it up. As long as it continues to pay for itself in extra sales I will probably keep it. Really wish they would put it all in the cloud. It has too many limitations being desktop based.
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