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I haven’t tried jackfruit, but I just wanted to chime in that I think Trader Joe’s has the best meatless options for taste & price.
The tofu section in the veggie area also has some good meatless options – chorizo, italian sausages, deli meat (forget if it’s in-house or tofurky).
The frozen section is AMAZING for vegetarians. The meatless breakfast patties taste better than both the Morningstar Farm breakfast sausages, and any meat sausage I have ever had. I’m also a big fan of the spanakopita, greek spiral, cheese enchiladas, cheese & green chile tamales. So many frozen food options for a vegetarian.
That being said, Morningstar Farms does make pretty good bacon for when you’re in the mood for it. Also, the corn dogs and hot dogs are pretty good imitations.
Mother In Law’s Kimchi is good vegan kimchi, if you don’t make your own, but it’s expensive. Stuff like that you have to order online.
Thanks! I looked into the cardboard envelopes a few years ago, but they seemed expensive at the time. I’ll look into them again now.
REPLYING TO MYSELF.
Yay, great job! Congrats on finding a pile of books you purchased in 2011!
Creating drafts for them now. 🙂
Then, I’ll get to the seasonal items!
At the beginning of last year, I had 3 areas I allowed my backlog to live in. At the beginning of this year, I am up to 5 areas of backlog. 🙁
I used to never allow unlisted stock in the room I keep the bulk of my listed inventory in. Now, I have 10 bankers boxes crammed full of unlisted items. Ugh. All items purchased in the past 6 months, so barely backlog territory, but they’re heading there.
The majority of my unlisted stock is kept in bankers boxes, but I also have bags, piles, overflowing boxes, and 2 4 shelf ikea bookshelves full of unlisted items. I’ve also maxed out the available space to store unlisted large paper items in, as they go up to the “ceiling” (4 ft.) of my slanted roof on the ikea shelves. If they went up to a normal ceiling, I’d be in big trouble.
Last year, I had 3 4 shelf ikea bookshelves full of unlisted stock in. I’ve listed all of those items, and now the shelves are only full of listed stock. Yay! 1 of the bookshelves is now dedicated to keeping the majority of the listed items in my 2nd ebay store in. Larger items also go up to the “ceiling” (4 ft.) of my slanted roof.
I have 2 main areas of unlisted stock in that contain 20-40 bankers boxes apiece. The fourth area is my office, with the ikea shelves and scattered piles and bags on the floor, in addition to additional unlisted bankers boxes. A fifth area contains an additional 5-10 bankers boxes.
I’ve taken the past month off from serious sourcing, and I will most likely take an additional month or two off on top of that as well. I’m actively working through the backlog, and what I list from it is selling. If it’s not worth listing, I chuck it, but I am finding I don’t have to throw out too much.
I don’t allow any area to remain a “dead” pile. I sift items from one area to another. My unlisted ikea shelves remain full because I will remove up to a 1/4 of stock from one shelf, list it, and then refill it immediately with items from a backlog box, or new stock. All areas are kept active.
I’ve listed over 100 items this week, but none of it has been from the backlog. I hope to work on some of it today, but I also need to get some seasonal items listed from new stock I got in earlier this month.
I estimate that last year I listed through 20-30 boxes of backlog. It definitely helps for days (or months) I don’t feel like seriously sourcing. I am currently at 10,000 active items in my main store, and have sold over 16,000 items in this store. Definitely not a hoarder, but need to work a little harder to pick up my listing pace!
I currently have TSR and ship a TON of smalls (postcards, tiny ephemera, etc,.) via 1st class mail at the $2.66 rate. Most items to ship at that rate weigh 2 ounces. I have always used tracking for these items and never considered changing to a non-tracking shipping method until this rate hike next week.
I am also considering moving to stamps or some other service when the new rate fee kicks in. A LOT of my ephemera goes straight across the country, so that will add quite a bit to my shipping costs. If I needed to, I could absorb the cost of the rate increase into my price and continue to provide tracking, but I doubt I could raise the prices of these items without incurring a loss of customers. I will continue to provide tracking for items shipping nearby.
Very tough decision to make. Thanks, USPS!
“If the piece is an oversized envelope or non-machineable, such as a non-flat magnet, it won’t scan and will be useless”
Would it be able to handle items with cardboard in them? Or would that be considered non-machineable? Envelope size is 6″ x 9″ Thanks!
01/23/2019 at 10:43 am in reply to: eBay minority Shareholder posts a strategy letter – interesting read #55679This sounds like a potential raiding of Ebay in the spirit of Bain Capital.
Walmart currently allows 3rd party sellers to sell on their website, but they only allow new items. I wouldn’t hold my breath that used items would continue to be allowed for sale on Ebay if they were bought out by Walmart. It would become a more restricted site under Walmart.
With Google’s (Alphabet’s) track history of running their own divisions into the ground – Google+ being the latest portion of their company to go bye bye – I wouldn’t trust them to take over Ebay, either. How many people wear Google Glass? Yeah yeah, Android phones and Youtube, blah blah. I still wouldn’t trust them to run a company like Ebay. If they did, it would be heavily for data mining purposes, not necessarily a way to “help” sellers.
Every time someone wants to “help” the marketplace, the sellers bear the brunt of it. Expect increased fees, less exposure for listed items, more catalog pages, less individual listings, less unique items, lowered exposure for used items, if still allowed on the site at all, maybe even no used items eventually. Who knows? At the very least, they’ll probably get rid of high upfront costs of listings items on the site.
01/21/2019 at 3:29 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 395: What Lifestyle Is eBay Supporting For You? #55530Shutdown’s Pain Cuts Deep for the Homeless and Other Vulnerable Americans
Unfortunately, the cascading effects of the shutdown are being felt a long way down the line from just 800,000 federal employees.
“One month after the government shutdown began, its effects have begun to hurt some of the most vulnerable Americans: not just homeless people, but also those who are one crisis away from the streets. And nonprofit groups dedicated to helping low-income renters are already scrambling to survive without the lifeblood payments from HUD that began being cut off on Jan. 1.”
Now, whether these are potential customers on Ebay, I don’t know? I’m sure there are people in this economic position that look for deals on gently used clothing and other items on Ebay. At the very least, the landlords are not getting paid, and they are more likely in a position to not be shopping out at local businesses or eating out, OR buying unnecessary items online since they are not getting paid by their renters and are most likely having to dig through savings (if possible) or using credit in order to pay down their mortgages.
Changes in weight distribution of packages will affect pricing on USPS packages starting in June.
Does anyone know what this specifically means?
01/21/2019 at 1:17 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 395: What Lifestyle Is eBay Supporting For You? #55509Actually, I think Marie Kondo would have the opposite impact on my sales if this was a normal economy – I carry a lot of historical and sentimental type items that would draw more of an interest in them if people were looking out for them. They are still “wants,” so they are low on what is necessary to buy.
My items with watchers count has surged to its highest point ever over the past month – I am currently at over 1,200 items with watchers. This includes very cheap to expensive items. They just aren’t moving at the rate they should be moving, especially the lower end. These are not items that people need right away, so they will not be purchased until the economy is better.
I have also decided not to run any sales until things improve. As soon as the announcement comes that the shutdown is over, I will immediately put my store on sale in order to jostle buyers into action. Until then, it’s not worth it. As much as buyers want to buy certain items, the money isn’t there.
01/21/2019 at 11:10 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 395: What Lifestyle Is eBay Supporting For You? #554911/14/19 – 1/20/19
Items in store: 10,250 – main ebay store. 205 – 2nd ebay store – 25 – etsy – 2 – poshmark (all unique inventories, no cross-posting)
Sales: 41 – Main Ebay Store – 12 – 2nd Ebay Store – 1 – etsy – 0 – poshmark
Sales $ 760 main ebay store – $210 – 2nd ebay store – $10 – etsy
Highest Price Sold – $110 Book Main Ebay Store – $65 cup and bowl set (Yeah, I don’t know. My husband was like ???) on 2nd ebay store – $10 + shipping for a lot of 2 books on Etsy
New items listed: 115 between all 3 stores. I don’t have time to work on Poshmark at all, though my 1 bin of laundered clothes is giving me the stink eye.
COGs for all 3 stores: $73
Money spent on new inventory this week: $4054 sales between all 3 stores, just below $1k gross. Thrifted one day this week, found hardly anything. No estate sales this past weekend. Sales this week felt busier than they were. I feel like if the shutdown hadn’t happened, or gone on as long as it has, this would’ve been a REALLY good January.
I wanted to get 200+ listings up between all 3 venues, but I was too busy. Will aim for 200+ this week, but I’ll be happy to just get up another 100+ again. I already have 90 items prepped and photographed, ready to be listed. I’ll work on those for the next few days. Those are “new” items purchased within the past few months.
Trying to divide my listing between new items (purchased within the past 6 months) and the backlog, but sometimes new items win. I’m still buying new stock, but not that much. Some of the backlog has been selling, sometimes overnight! Whatever works.
Personally, I would list that on Amazon and price match to lowest price. It has a great rank of 2,000,000 on Amazon, and should probably sell within 6 months or so. Of course, the price might go up or down during that time, so you will have to keep an eye on it in case you need to reprice.
If you’re going to list it on Ebay, I would still price match it to Amazon, but add an OBO to it. I would then accept whatever offer you are comfortable with accepting for it.
01/17/2019 at 8:59 am in reply to: Bought some Vintage 80's Disney World Family Photos-does anyone have experience? #553101990s nostalgia is kicking in hard right now. There are a lot of people in their 30s and 40s now with disposable income and memories of going to Disney in the 1990s, with not too much material available for sale since most families are hanging onto it. This is the sort of material that is not going out into estate sales yet, but will probably do so in the next 10-20 years and be appreciated more at that point.
Since there aren’t that many pieces of “history” out there now (most people think this is junk) like this, that puts an album like this in a position to get a premium.
I also believe the 90s/early 2000s are the last time you’re going to find albums like this. Since everyone has a digital camera or phone now, no one is taking amateur photographs of trips like this and putting it in a physical album anymore. They’re going into facebook photo albums and sites like flickr or dropbox.
01/17/2019 at 7:22 am in reply to: Bought some Vintage 80's Disney World Family Photos-does anyone have experience? #55302Yessss. Great find! I haven’t sold disney photos from that time period, but I have done well with the 80s-90s Disney ephemera that I find, as well as in general 80s-00s photos.
I would do a bunch of reasearch to start off with with this album. What I would do is start off with looking at the rides and attractions and writing them down in a list. Then, I would figure out what is a still open attraction and what has shut down. I would include the list of all of them no matter what, but place an emphasis on the rides that are no longer there. I would also include hotels if they took any photos of where they were staying.
If you have any ephemera included in the album, keep it to verify the time frame of the album. Also mention the ephemera in the listing.
Make sure to state in the listing that not all are Disney. If there are other theme parks or travel locations in these additional photos, include them as well. If they’re just boring family photos, say that as well. There are collectors of that sort of stuff out there.
I would prob. price this at $100 obo and expect to get around $50 out of it, depending on the quality of photos and what is specifically shown. I would probably keyword the title “1980s 1990s vintage disney world family photo album rides magic kingdom epcot” something like that, include something major like pirates or tiki room or whatever if included to get Disney fanatics to take a look.
I’ve gone thrifting twice in the past week, and both times the stores had wayyyyy less merchandise than they did in December. Only 1 store had an obvious glut of stuff they were trying to get rid of. The shelves were bare in a few stores, even. Not sure what’s going on? 🙁
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