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[Andrew]

Happy to hear of so many having good weeks. I unfortunately did not have such a good week, at least not compared to where I have been recently. My Numbers:

Total Items in Store: 410
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $0 – Lots of old things and things just handed off to me.
Total Sales: $146.59
Highest Price Sold: $33 – Imation SuperDisk drive for Mac
Average Price Sold: $16.29
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $3.18
Number of items listed this week: 74

Sales just seemed to trickle in this week, and mostly for a bunch lower priced items. The good thing is a lot of those items are ones that I had sitting around for a while. 2 of them were among the very first things I listed, so that felt good even if I was hoping more head gone out the door.

I did get a lot of listing done this week which feels great. I have a bunch of boxes given to me by some friends that are moving cross-country, and it’s some pretty good stuff (books, records, home decor). So I focused in and listed a bunch of it, but there is plenty to go.

I also had to do a bunch of listing this past week because I didn’t think I would have any time to this week due to family stuff. But now I am sitting in snow/ice storm with time to list. As long as our power doesn’t go out.

[Andrew]

Oh Ryanne, These are awesome! My wife and I just watched ‘The Punk Singer’ documentary about Kathleen Hanna, so I got really excited and have been watching all these great shows. We are supposed to get a big snow storm here this week, so now I have something I can watch while I am at home working on my ebay Store. Cheers!

[Andrew]

I’ve been parting with a lot of my vinyl as part of a march towards financial independence. A little sad at times, but most of it has just been keeping my closet company for years.
This was particularly tough since Fugazi is also my favorite all time band. It was a really unique Fugazi bootleg too. A ‘Live in Rome’ bootleg 7 inch on Violet Vinyl.

[Andrew]

Congrats on the 300th episode Ryanne and Jay! Your podcast has been an incredible resource for me. So much good info, so much helpful advice. All the best for 300 more.

As for my week.

Feb 26- March 4

Total Items in Store: 350
Items Sold: 15
Cost of Items Sold: $8.00
Total Sales: $305.33
Highest Price Sold: $48 Fugazi 7″ Record
Average Price Sold: $20.35
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $5.20
Number of items listed this week: 30

Things got off to a bang for me in the beginning of the week, and then slowly calmed down. I had 7 sales on Monday which had me wondering if there was some kind of holiday or something. But that was the week before, right?

Nothing spectacular this week, just a nice swath of mid-priced sales.

[Andrew]

Awesome. Thank you both for the info. I guess I will give it a try on a few upcoming items.

[Andrew]

Thanks Jay. I”m not much of a stats and data person, but I am slowly starting to pay attention and learn what it all means.

[Andrew]

MarkS:
I don’t have experience selling foreign/non-region-1 DVD players on eBay, but I do have experience buying them. But that was several years ago, we bought a Japanese region 2 dvd player close to 8 or so years ago. At that point it was difficult/expensive to get one from Japan or to buy a region-free player.

These days it seems easier to get them. And there are a lot of dvd hacker sites on the internet that show you how to reset the region for a cheap US region-1 players. That is what we did for our last player, and it works well for us, and for a lot of folks in our little Philly ex-pat community.

All that to say, I wonder if the value of foreign-region dvd players hasn’t gone down quite a bit over the past few years?

[Andrew]

Really enjoyed the discussion this week. I am still new at this and just starting to piece together what numbers are important for directing my energies in my store and , of course seeking control.
Just to confirm, when you say ‘sell-through’ rate, are you referring to the ‘sales conversion rate’ listed under the Performance menu? Or something else?

As of now, I am really just trying to pay attention to listing, listing, listing, and then gradually refining a few things around that.

My numbers this week:

Total Items in Store: 335
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $13.00
Total Sales: $313.90
Highest Price Sold: $115 – A small winter landscape painting
Average Price Sold: $28.54
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $3.18
Number of items listed this week: 12

My listings were low this week because I was waiting for eBay to up my limits. I was asked to call back today, and they did indeed raise my limits, so now I have some piles of stuff ready to get listing. I’ll be focusing on doing that this week.

Also, my biggest sale this week was a winter landscape painting I did a few years back. It isn’t really what I consider my style as a painter presently, but I was excited to see there was an audience for this work. That, coupled with all the art talk surrounding last weeks episode has me excited to try a few more pieces.

[Andrew]

Ha! Those are some great finds. I sell some art at my shop, and I always check the art sections at any thrift shop I go to. I wonder if there is any kind of market for art like that? College kids looking to fill their walls?

[Andrew]

I think in this case it’s a little bit tricky. The 10% is definitely Polyurethane, but the 90% could be wool, but more likely some kind of blend of natural hairs like alpaca/cashmere or something. There is a way to write wool that is very clearly ‘wool’ of a sheep. That is not the character used here.
So I don’t know what the correct translation would be, natural fibers? Natural hair?

[Andrew]

My numbers for the week.

Total Items in Store: 335
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $12.50
Total Sales: $186.41
Highest Price Sold: $42.00 Heavens To Betsy 7 Inch Record
Average Price Sold: $16.95
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $5.52
Number of items listed this week: 26

I definitely feel this has been one of the slower weeks in my young eBay career. Just trying to keep listing, although life stuff slowed me down a bit this week.

Also, I reached my eBay selling limits as well. They are still fairly low I guess because I have only been at this for a few months. The limit is 500 listings but only $6700 of value. So I am now within $20 of that value limit.

I called eBay to get the limits raised, but they told me I would have to wait until the 27th since there is a 3-week waiting period between times they can raise your limits. I was a bit bummed about that, but I’ve decided to take it as a sign to focus on a few other things.

Namely, I need to review my organizing strategy. I have gotten some new shelving units to install in my basement, and I am planning to come up with a new spreadsheet to track what I buy and sell a little better.

I really enjoyed the podcast this week. I was a bit of a collector in my life. Or at least I held onto number of things for a long time. A lot of my collection habits are now being turned into fuel for this eBay business. I have a ton of music I am selling, as well as some old toys I held onto for way too long.

That said I don’t like having a lot of stuff around. I am thrilled to see all this stuff leaving. Even things I am buying now, I like that I can look at them, see what is neat about them, enjoy them for a short time, and then work to get them out the door to someone who wants them.

[Andrew]

You’re very welcome.
Hard to say if PanAm was involved. I suppose it’s possible, but my feeling is that it’s just using a similar design for the logo. The text on top of the sphere is what says the ‘1 minute world travel,’ so I feel PanAm wouldn’t allow that without their own name up there. That kind of logo appropriation is fairly common in some commercial design in Japan in the 60s/70s.

[Andrew]

I couldn’t find a reference to the series online after a quick search. I wonder if it isn’t a travel brochure produced by a company like JTB or HIS. They are the 2 big travel companies in Japan and often produce magazine-like brochures especially for overseas destinations. The picture on the front is from Semana Santa or Feria de Abril in Seville.

[Andrew]

This is a travel guide. It says ‘Spain’s Spring Festival’ along the top. And appears to be part of a series called 1 Minute World Travel

[Andrew]

I’m fluent in Japanese and would be happy to help once you update this.

[Author]

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