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My hands-down favorite one of these started with the buyer saying this was a “Christmas present” to herself. Next, she doubled down with a long, incoherent story about being in tears over a falling-out with a childhood friend over religious differences, and here I was telling her she couldn’t have her Christmas present.
I am 100% not the person you want to try to manipulate with your religious beliefs, but let’s set that aside. Also, P.S., it was past Christmas.
I got a third message, I guess after she’d sobered up. She didn’t know if I’d received her previous message, but I should really explain why I wouldn’t sell the item to her.
Through the whole thing I was just repeating to myself over and over, “Don’t engage with crazy.”
I did have a moment of smug enjoyment with one of these.
Best offer, I accept, then get “My account was hacked, please cancel this.” I’m from the “Cancel and move on” camp, so that’s what I do.
Then the buyer sends me another offer on a different item! I assume she just didn’t notice it was the same seller.
I reply to her, “You just told me your account was hacked.” And ignore the offer.
She has the nerve to message me later and ask if I’ll accept the pending offer. No acknowledgement of her “hacked” account.
I message her back, “Sorry, I can’t sell to you because you told me your account was hacked.”
Then I blocked her, obviously. Felt good.
Haha, for me the question is more like “How many times per week do I dream about scavenging?”
Hi, this is by Mara of Mexico. I sold one last year that had animals on it for $20 or so.
I also do Ebay strictly as a side gig, and had a lot of similar concerns. I started tracking my time this fall so I could actually answer those questions. You could consider doing the same just for a few months to get a reality check. My net is something like $22-$24/hr, which is a living wage. But like you, I could make more by doing freelance work. I think “is it worth it?” is ultimately more of a subjective, personal question. For me, it’s right on the edge of “not worth it” so I’m trying to make some adjustments.
Raise my ASP from $34 to $50. I think that’s a real stretch, but what the heck.
I don’t do it, except for with a few social acquaintances I sometimes run into at thrifts. I guess that’s partly because of my personality, but also because there are tons of pickers in my town, so the shop-talking would never cease. There’s one particular Goodwill in the middle of town where it seems like half the customers at any given moment are looking up merchandise on their phone, and very assiduously not talking to each other about it.
Almaty, you make some really good points. If I were doing this full-time with fewer time constraints, I’d probably be thinking about all this a bit differently.
Interesting! Here’s how my listings break down:
Under $25: 33%
$25-$50: 49%
$50-$100: 14%
$100-$375: 4%Then I went a step further and looked at my sales for the last 90 days:
Sales under $25: 31%
$25-$50: 45%
$50-$100: 21%
$100-$375: 3%I guess it’s nice that 21% of my sales are in the $50-$100 range, even though only 14% of my listings are.
As of last month, I have a new rule that I don’t buy anything that I don’t think I can price at $50+. I’m leaving behind a lot of cool pottery, knickknacks, and books that I would always scoop up in the past, but I know won’t sell for much. My previous low price was $25, but honestly, that turns into $15 and even $10 once I start taking low offers on stale listings. I can’t justify spending my limited time on those kinds of sales. I’m hoping if I set the floor at $50, my actual lowest price will be more like $30, which I’m happier with.
My average sale price per item has been about $35 for years and years – whether I look at this month’s data, the whole year, or all my cumulative sales data ever. I would love to move that up closer to $50. Would anyone want to do some kind of “Raise Your Average Sales Price 2019” challenge here? Could be a fun way to keep ourselves accountable.
I’m also in Portland. Lots of good scavenging here, but also lots of competition.
Hooray, a question where I can use my day job (preservation) skills. I’d be most concerned about heat + humidity in a dark, closed space. That’s a perfect environment for mold and mildew. It can spread shockingly fast – if you’ve ever left damp clothes in the washing machine for too long, you know how fast. Bugs and rodents also like that kind of situation.
Dramatic fluctuations from cold to hot are also bad over time, but short-term it’s probably not as much of a risk.
If you do go that direction, you could store just the durable hard goods (basically, anything that pests won’t eat and you can wipe clean – like metal and ceramic) in the shed, and keep everything else in your house.
Well, I found the page and sent offers for 4 of the 5 items that showed up. There was one that I don’t want to take a markdown on just yet. My offers were 10%-15% off the BIN price. We’ll see what happens. The number of watchers that it notified seems kind of arbitrary – For one item, it notified all 3 watchers, but the rest just went to one watcher. If I actually make a sale, I’ll report back.
Fun thread!
For me, vintage women’s Lucchese boots. I overpaid for them ($20) thinking I could get $80-$100ish. I think I’ll be lucky to sell them for $50. No offers all year, and they’ve never had more than a couple watchers. They’re a small size, and although they’re beautiful, I recognize now that they’re not that flashy or special.
