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Our big sale this week was a commercial dishwasher. We purchased it used, had it in our cafe the last two years, and then sold it for a profit after t
[See the full post at: The Numbers: Week of September 3-9, 2023] -
I finally made it over 1600 listings, I was very close last month but missed it by just 7 listings.
Monthly numbers for August: 08/1 – 08/31
Total listings: 1624
Items sold: 47
Sales: $1,102.79
Highest price sold: $160 – 4 lots of vintage slides
Average price sold: $23.46
Cost of items sold: $113.52 / average cost: 2.42 each
Spent on new inventory: $0.00
Number of items listed: 87My numbers were kind of low until last Wednesday when I had a $300 plus day. That was mainly due to listing several lots of 1950s slides that were taken in Korea. I may have been able to list them higher and wait longer for the sales, but I only had $20 invested in them and I was happy to have the sales to push me over the $1,000 mark for August.
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Total Items in Store: 868
Items Sold: 12
Gross Sales: $657.27 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $457.57 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $52
Highest Price Sold: $150 (Used duvet and shams set)
Average Price Sold: $54.77
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $150 +/-
Number of items listed this week: 25Pretty good week on Ebay but I’m hoping for better listings and sales coming up. We have had a lot of extra expenses going on, I did a little RA and used shopping, and I have a ton of stuff here to list. Also have some outside Ebay stuff getting in the way. Making it hard to get into a groove.
Congrats on the dishwasher sale R&J! Amazing when you can use an item for free and then even make money on it.
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Items in Store: 1650
Items Sold: 35
Total Sales: $1,554.00
COGS: $153.00
Total Profit: $1,401.00
Average profit: $40.03
Average sales price: $44.40
New Listings: 90
Items scavenged: 15
Listing 2023 weekly Avg: 42As I sit here to write this I can’t help but think “Where did this week go?” It was over in the blink of an eye. I guess I’m kinda stressed and preoccupied as another company sought me out and wants to interview me. I’m not entirely interested but I’d be dumb not to at least entertain the idea of changing jobs. I generally like where I work and the flexibility I have I don’t think this other company could match. I have an interview this Wednesday. At least there is no pressure on me to land this job so my mentality going in will be preloaded with plenty of “FU” money confidence. The offer (and job) would have to be insanely good for me to consider changing jobs. Even then I’d bring the offer to my current boss and see if he would match it if I really was tempted. The new job has a lot more to do with PLC troubleshooting. This is out of my current comfort zone, but every job I’ve had I’ve had to adapt to an entirely different branch of manufacturing/production. Having PLC experience would open up a lot more opportunities for me if I ever wanted to move.
I guess while even though I am “content” at this job, it seems it would be nice to go somewhere else for a year or two then come back at a higher pay rate.
In other news, yard sales are pretty much dead in my neck of the woods. It only took us 90 minutes to complete the circuit and I only bought a couple items. I still was able to get a couple $100+ items between the yard sales and thrift store.
I did a major thing in inventory management this weekend. I was frustrated because I don’t have a great place to stage listed but un-inventoried items throughout the week. I just kinda pile up bins around my work area and then try to get them moved into inventory on the weekend if I have time (why can’t it all just magically sell before I have to do that! LOL!). I walked into my inventory building and took one look at a rolling storage cart at the front that I’ve had loaded with unlisted junk for several years now. Enough is enough and it was time to deal with it. Everything either had to be listed, trashed, or donated on the shelf and I did just that. Now I have all my listed new in box shoes on the top 2 shelves and I can stage my listed but uninventoried items on the bottom two shelves in bins until I have time to properly assign SKU’s and store them. Yay to having more room in my office so I can keep on listing!
When you’re listing an average of over 80 items a week, you can never have enough systems in place to keep things moving smoothly and efficiently.
Premium Hoarder update:
I am officially in the profit! This week I sold 11 items for $691. The highlight was a pair of $325 Yves Saint Laurent shoes. To date I’ve sold 89 items for $7700 gross. My COGS was $6400 and I’m at $6675 after fees.
I have 222 active premium hoarder listings for a value of $24396. I have less than 50 unlisted items left to get through. So that puts me right at around 350 total items from the haul which is about what I estimated. Total value will end up around $30k.
I’ll have about 60 hours invested in these items (10 minutes per item) once all is said & done. $323/hr after COGS & fees. A guy could get used to that!
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@Jay – Gotta love making a profit on something you buy and use. Great weel of sales.
@Stevelist – congrats on getting past 1600. With listing and selling it always feels like 2 steps forward one step back (and often 3 steps back). It always feels great to pass another milestone.
@Retro – Congrats on the profit. That has to be a relief. I know I would have been very nervous to invest so much at one time. Good for you having the guts and foresight.
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Week Ending 9/2/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $929.80 (eBay $840 / Etsy $90)
Net Sales: $790.42
Total Items Sold: 8 (eBay 6 / Etsy 2)
Total Items in eBay Store: 1191 / Etsy Store: 513
Cost of Items Sold: $84.40
Highest Price Sold: $399.95 (The Hobbit 2nd Ed.)
Average Price Sold: $116.23
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00Average Days Listed: 197
Longest Listed: 454
New items listed: 16
New Listings Value $1,939.00Kind of a slow week, so I was very happy to pull in three $100+ sales. My big sale was a 2nd Edition <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>The Hobbit</span> from 1958 for $399.95. I purchased a large lot of books for $235 for 4 Tolkien novels that were in the lot hoping for some early editions. The lots only showed the spines in pictures which made it difficult to tell how old and I took a gamble. I was surprised that a 2nd edition 11th printing still went for so much. Sold about 5 hours after I posted it. I ended up with $1774 worth of listings out of the lot and I’m happy to be in profit so quickly.
My second big sale was a 1912 silver plate trophy for a Fort Worth poultry and pigeon competition that sold for $275.
In other news, my youngest just passed her drivers test. It is going to be challenging competing for the single car we have. She has an internship this year and will need it to get back and forth at least 3 days a week. I may need to reconsider my 1-day handling time as I often need the car to run packages to Fedex or to the Post Office if I miss the postman before I’m done with packing. We’ll see how it goes. Sure wasn’t happy to add $1500/year to the insurance.
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Week of 9/3 – 9/9
Total items in Store: 404
Items Sold: 2
Gross Sales: $187.49 (before eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $82.59 (including consignment commissions but not the original cost of family castoffs)
Highest Price Sold: $125.00 plus shipping (The White House Press Secretary Challenge Coin)
Average Sales Price: $93.75 (before eBay fees, shipping, or taxes)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Number of new items listed: 23Congrats on good numbers for all, one way or the other. I broke 400 listings for the first time ever last week but only having two items sell helped that. I stopped at a Wednesday outdoor flea market while running errands and didn’t buy anything but I happened to be walking by a seller who didn’t want to load up his car and was giving everything away. The items were mostly junk but I grabbed a couple things that’ll go for $15-25 each and are easy to store and ship. They’re long tail, though, which is I guess what most of my store consists of at the moment. It’s a tiny flea market but I’ve always found something there.
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With your long history going to flea markets, what do you think of the scene now?
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With your long history going to flea markets, what do you think of the scene now?
A mere shadow of its former self. So many good ones around the country are closed, having been zoned out of existence or the land redeveloped and the remaining ones are not as filled with sellers as they used to be, especially the outdoor vendors, and attendance is way down. At one near me part of the building of indoor vendors burned several years ago and though rebuilt, now they don’t have as many outdoor tables filled. Another one completely closed for a while (pre-COVID) while I believe they were trying to sell it or redo some of the buildings or something and it has never come back like it was, either. It’s at about ¼ of the outdoor tables that it used to have. You’d think with the ones in the area that closed completely that people would gravitate to the remaining ones but it doesn’t appear that way. It’s a shame.
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I’ve noticed the same. Flea markets used to be our best and most favorites spots. It was basically guys who did house cleanouts but didnt want to list online. They just wanted to sell stuff quick and cheap.
I assume COVID forced those guys to learn to sell online and the realized they could make much more money without waking up early for the flea market.
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Great sale on the dishwasher! I think I saw it come up in your solds several weeks back, but, when you didn’t mention it, I assumed that the sale fell through. Thankfully, this time it stuck!
OK week. I did go to a few garage sales, but only bought three items for $25. I think that they will all go for good money.
Week of Sept 3 – 9
Total Items in Store: 1703 eBay, 30 Etsy
Items Sold: 13 eBay, 0 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $0 + $64.50 Commission
Total Sales: $234.94 eBay, $0 Etsy; includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $29 for 1919 Magnificat Prayer Book
Average price: $18.07
Returns: 0 (1 cancellation due to damaged item)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $25
Number of items listed this week: 4-
That first sale of the dishwasher did fall through. Someone in Puerto Rico assumed it was “free shipping” and not “free local pickup”. Seems a common error (or magical thinking on their part).
The guy who did buy the dishwasher was in North Carolina and drove four hours to get it. My kind of buyer.
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