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Over lunch I am prepping some NY Times tomato sauce and some sweet italian sausage for baked ziti. I was listening to the podcast and heard a shout out to me!!! I am so internet famous!!!
Thanks for the congratulations and well wishes. Happy Tuesday to everyone.
Best wishes for a happy Birthday week Ryanne (sorry I am late to the party).
06/10/18 – 06/16/18
Total Items In Store: 256
Items Sold: 9
Total Sales: $153
Cost of Items Sold: $9
Highest Price Sold: $45 Talavera plate
Average Price Sold: $17
Returns/Refunds: 1 refund due to a snag on a tie I missed.It is my 2nd to last week of work. I have one Monday left. Not much eBay work this past week, I have been focused on finishing projects and handing off my work at the 9-5. My daughter and I are taking a month long road trip in July and August and I need to get my minivan converted into a camper van. We’ll be on the road starting July 8 headed to MN and Ottawa, Montreal and Acadia NP. Unless I get a bolt of energy, I am probably not going to do much with the eBay store until I get back in August.
I like Jay’s suggestion, but might require investing more time/energy than you want. Why not sell the whole lot as a treasure hunter’s lot – estate find – unsorted & unexamined. Describe attributes – United States locales of decade (or range). Then stick the bundle up for whatever $s will cover your investment and storage.
It is pretty easy to go down a rabbit hole with a large lot of something. A relative gave me a box of 1000+ baseball cards. I have zero interest in these things. I passed them on to a friend that is into them. He will some day pass something to me that I am interested in. This is a much more efficient use of both our time/interests.
Presently, I am sorting a big lot of 1960s HO gauge trains and stuff. I was into it 3 hours ago, but I am starting to feel buggy. Hope you all have a good evening, Daniel.
@T-Satt, I totally get where you are coming from. There are things out there that are too much pain for small gain, and I have been learning to avoid them. For me clothing is moderately hard to photograph and measure and list. $10 is not a good return for that work, even if I no money invested.
As a relatively new seller, I do value the opportunity to build feedback and sales momentum that comes from selling low $ items. The trick is to have low investment of all three areas: money spent, time spent in listing and storage space. Patches are a nice fit for this space. I acquired a bunch of them (~50) for $2 (and the labor to remove them from a jacket). Each is ~2-minute listing and sell for $7 to $10. I have gotten regular sales from them, and I appreciate that they may be lifting the rest of my store up in eBay search. Thanks, Daniel
I forgot “Dog Stars”. I read and enjoyed it a few years ago. I liked how it was somewhat philosophical without being pretentious.
@SilverFoxFimds, my wife is a pharmacist. When we first met, one of our first conversations was about financial security. We each had lived through poverty, and were not interested in any more of it.
@Sharyn – that is THE UGLIEST lamp I have ever seen. Wow! It looks Godzilla vomited his seafood meal onto something metal that melted into a blob. I love that you picked it out, and found someone that loves that particular aesthetic. Best wishes, Daniel.
Thanks Jay for the well wishes.
We are mostly in stock index funds and plan on a 4% withdrawal rate starting in about 4 years when mrs. aperture stops working. We live frugally and know how to tighten the belt when times get tough, so I think we are running low risk of running out of $s in our old age. Knowing how to make a living with eBay is also a great safety net and I am grateful to you Jay and Ryanne for sharing your knowledge.
Online, and in my personal life, everyone I interact with is frugal and working towards financial independence. Yet at work, the parking lot is full of brand new cars (and my 2002 Civic) while my peers all tell me how jealous they are. I think they must assume I have imherited wealth, but the truth is I lived hard poor in my 20s, was briefly homeless and graduated college with $70k in debt in 1997. I am glad for communities like this one where people understand that the $10 choices you make compound to a million dollars over 15 years.
Best wishes all, Daniel.
By the way, my favorite end of the world novel lately is SevenEves, another book by Neal Stephenson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SevenevesTotal Items in Store: 263
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $9
Total Sales: $180.48
Highest Price Sold: $78.50 vintage youth boxing gloves
Average Price Sold: $20.05
Returns: 1 – 50 year old GE Bubble Clock that broke in first use (likely buyer broke it)Days until retirement: 15
My 40-hour week job is still ridiculously busy because I am trying to wrap up projects and hand over the reins to my younger, better, more enthusiastic replacement. Mrs. aperture is going to keep working her part-time job and I am looking forward to ceasing renting space in my brain to Megacorp.
Jay likes the numbers, and I don’t blame him. It is too easy to say “I am retiring” and that could mean almost anything. I am 56 and only just reached retirement eligibility at work. We have ~$1,400K in 401K and a pension that has a cash value today of $560K. We have ~$50K in cash, a paid off house and no other debts. My wife’s salary is $90K/year in a 24 hour per week job she loves. We have high-school age kids that we plan to support through college (including tuition and etc). Presently our household expenses are all covered by my wife’s income.
I do eBay because I really love it. It is treasure hunting, photography, and an income stream in one. On the spectrum of hobby <—-> professional, I think I walk about halfway in between. Sometimes, I will spend lots of time restoring an item, or researching/photographing/listing when I would be better compensated by churning on my death pile.
I have sniped a lens or two and you have to be careful to be certain that you are bidding on the lens you think you are bidding on. For instance, Canon has a 100mm f2.8 USM and a 100 mm f2.8L. They are $100s apart in price and it is impossible to do an eBay search that does not pull both in. Examples similar to this are the norm rather then the exception.
Setting up a snipe on an underpriced “L” lens, I have had the experience of realizing it is not the “L” lens, but the regular lens and that is why it is underpriced. Good thing about snipes is that you can check and recheck your work.
Thanks for the great thread butikiselltiki.
Sweat stains in arm pits and at neck. Worn out collars, cuffs. Missing buttons.
I agree with the general rule of paying very little for everything. When I am contemplating spending >$3/item, I really want to slow down and look at it and ask myself all the questions about how will I list it (are there easy key words), does it have stains? all the parts there? can i ship it easily? will shipping costs be prohibitive to capture value? is it really valuable (did I do my research)?
I get suckered in sometimes when someone says “I bought this for $400 in 2012, now I am selling for only $75, and I talk them down to $40. Then I get home and find that I can get $50 for it… Did some version of this two weekends in a row and then swore off buying anything that is >$10 without walking away, checking all my resources first.
Happy sales, aperture
KatieScott, thanks so much for sharing your experience. I sell mostly hard goods on eBay, but just in the last week started putting clothing into my resourcing stream. With your shared experience, I am going to try listing some clothing on Poshmark. I just downloaded the app. We’ll see how it goes. Best wishes, Daniel.
Great story Jenn – thanks for sharing it.
Sharyn, I have almost the same history. I opened an account when I first heard of eBay, but then forgot my password and had to start a new account (because I was lazy and not much feedback yet on the 1st account).
First thing I ever sold was an auction for a Norm Abram video and blueprint. I listed it under the wrong category (DVDs instead of Woodworking) and only had one bidder. This was in ~2004 or 2005. I was done with selling on eBay after that.
In early 2015, I heard Jim Collin’s interview with J+R and discovered Scavenger Life. I got excited and busy and sold enough stuff in 9 months to take my wife and I to Ecuador (and Galapagos) where we met Jim Collins and a bunch of other great folks.
In 4 weeks I am retiring from my FT job at the age of 56 thanks to Jim Collins and Mr. MM and others. I think for now eBay will be 1/2 hobby and 1/2 business. I am so grateful to J+R for all the content and community they have built. Learning eBay has given me elasticity in my budget. For now, I am an eBay hobbiest, but I am confident I can ramp up as needed. Who knows, in two years I hope to have my first in college with a second following in his shoes.
Best wishes, Daniel.
Thanks for the input. Knitting loom makes some sense, but I cannot make sense of the fact that this one is made out of >1 inch-thick solid hardwood. Anyway – it was part of a lot and I think I am going to unload it at GW. Much too heavy to ship, and unlikely to have much value. Best wishes, Daniel
Jens Quistgaard designed objects sold by Dansk – there are a huge variety and not unusual to find.
