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Total Items in Store: 229
Items Sold: 13
Cost of Items Sold: $30
Total Sales: $259.89
Highest Price Sold: $64.99 Some (delightfully) junky plastic toys from the 60s
Average Price Sold: $19.99Listening to the podcast paid off this week. I had a return request for an item damaged in shipping. Only thing was, it had been a week since the item had been delivered by this point. Sure, some people don’t open packages right away, but something seemed a little off in the way they approached me, like it was an exploratory mission to see what they could get away with.
My feeling was that this person broke the item (a picture frame) and then said it occurred during transit. Did I have any proof of this? Nope. So I take the return and figure I’ll eat the expense.
But they didn’t send it back, so I got to call eBay and have them close the case in my favor! I wouldn’t have known to do that without the podcast, so you all saved me some money.
Total Items In Store: 225
Items Sold: 10
Total Sales: $120.40
Cost of Items Sold: $5
Highest Price: $24.99 (Calculator)
Average Price Sold: $12.04
Cost of New Items Purchased: $30That’s so funny to hear you all bring up Tai Lopez. I’ve seen his ads too, and he has to be the smarmiest “guru” types I’ve seen in a long time.
This week things settled back into the numbers I was doing before the holiday rush. The weather has been freakishly warm here, so I took today (I was off work for MLK day) and cleaned/consolidated/organized my eBay storage system in the garage.
Question to anyone that might know: I found a signed Elmore Leonard book the other day, and I was wondering how y’all handle listing items like that. The book came from a good source, so I’m confident it’s real, but I’m worried about how to handle the provenance of such an item. Just put that I’m confident about it the listing? Try to find someone to authenticate it?
I’m not a huge fan of the current use of “hustle” either, but since it’s common parlance on the internet now I sort of felt like I had to use it.
I was just reading an article about how calling a second job a side hustle only obscures how screwed up it is that so many people have to work so much just to get by, and I sort of lean more that way. eBay is a lot of fun, but if I actually made enough money at my day job so that I could pay my bills and put some money away in savings I highly doubt I’d be selling online.
Here’s the link to The Billfold article I wrote if anyone’s curious: https://thebillfold.com/the-glories-and-tribulations-of-an-ebay-side-hustle-5b0b5a7baa38#.hm6b57cb8
Like I said, it’s for a general audience, so y’all might not find anything interesting in it since pretty much everyone on here has way more eBay experience than me and I’m sure everyone’s insights would be more valuable than mine.
Interesting side note: I’ve already grown way too accustomed to getting paid instantly via Paypal. The check for the article (yes, an actual paper check) is coming by mail in 1-2 months.
Will do! I think it goes live tomorrow, so we’ll see. The piece is about selling on eBay, so it does have some crossover appeal to the forum (although it is written for a general audience, so y’all might not find it that interesting).
Total Items in Store: 224
Items Sold: 14
Cost of Items Sold: $10
Total Sales: $360.90
Highest Price Sold: $99.99 Set of vintage Conan the Barbarian paperbacks
Average Price Sold: $25.77
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $5Bummer about the necklace return. C’est la vie.
In addition to my normal day job shenanigans and my scavenging, I also sold an article to The Billfold this week for $40. I’m pretty pumped about it.
I was an English major in college and tried to be a fiction writer for a long time, but after years of effort with only a handful of (admittedly not very good) short story sales I gave it up in favor of developing some skills so I could get a promotion at work.
That was the right move to take, but as I’ve been looking around for ways to diversity my income stream, writing seemed like it could be a legitimate (although time consuming) option. This sale was the first article I pitched this year, so I’d like to get a couple more sales here and there to help pad out my savings account.
• Total Items in Store:228
• Items Sold: 9
• Total Sales $123.93
• Highest Price $19.99 picture frame
• Average Price Sold: $13.77
• Cost of Items Sold: $9
• Cost of items purchased this week $25Here’s a look at how my first eight months on eBay turned out: http://imgur.com/a/4GYvX
The profit margin would have been higher in November and December, but I did some reinvesting into the business by buying a bunch of storage stuff and a label printer. My results for the year are way better than what I’d hoped for. The goal for this year is to pay down what’s left on my wife’s car, which if this year is anything like the last is an attainable goal.
Not to get too sentimental with a bunch of strangers on the internet, but I really appreciate the podcast and the community around the forum. It’s been a huge inspiration and motivation. Hopefully we all have a good year ahead of us.
Total items in store: 209
Items sold: 16
Cost of Items Sold: $70
Total Sales: $561.51
Avg. price: $35.09
Highest price item: $150 1987 Apple Mac Superdrive
Money spent on new inventory: $30While the Mac sold (and is included in this week’s numbers) I had to open an unpaid item case on it yesterday. A new buyer gave me a best offer (that I took), but in the note he said “This is my only offer. Shipping is already way too much.” I think he’s got buyers remorse and I highly doubt I’ll see that money.
(Side note: of course shipping is a lot. It’s 30 lbs of computer heading from Kentucky to California.)
Jay, have you looked into book groups at your local library? I’m a librarian, so I feel obligated to preach the gospel of free books and community support when I get the chance. Every library system is different (particularly in more rural areas) so they might not have anything you’d want to participate in, but it’s always worth a look.
I’m still relatively new to selling on eBay so I might be missing some subtleties y’all have picked up on (and if so please tell me so I won’t keep throwing away money), but I offer free shipping on 90% of my items.
My reasoning is that small things/things that easily fit in flat rate boxes make it really easy to know exactly how much it’ll cost to ship, so I just build that into my selling price. I was under the impression that I’d get some of that shipping cost recouped in my final value fees since I’m a top rated seller, but if that shipping money is collected separately I’d miss out on that small amount.
So, for instance, let’s say I want to sell an item for $10, and I know it’ll take $3 for postage and shipping supplies, I would be better off selling it as $13 over $10 + $3 because I’d get to shave a couple of cents off fees, plus I can snag the eyeballs of people that search for free shipping, plus I get the better search ranking since eBay favors free shippers. (Hypothetically favors free shippers? I’ve heard this, but I don’t remember if that’s 100% accurate or conjecture.)
Plus if my price is such that it accounts for, say, a medium flat rate box for shipping, but the buyer isn’t far away, I just ship it out regular calculated priority and I save a couple of dollars.
• Total Items in Store: 204
• Items Sold: 18
• Total Sales $581.74
• Highest Price $219.99 Sealed copy of Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0
• Average Price Sold: $32.31
• Cost of Items Sold: $37
• Cost of items purchased this week $14It’s interesting hearing about the clothing market on eBay, particularly in light of what I’ve been observing while I’m out hitting the thrift stores. Case in point: that high-priced old software I sold this week. I picked it up at Goodwill the Saturday before last, and the place was crawling with other resellers at the time, all of them going through the clothes. I’m sure I’m probably leaving a lot of money out there by not paying attention to clothes and shoes, but if I had to sell them I’d rather just give up eBay and find another side gig.
Instead, I always hit the new racks, the home goods, and the media section only. And on that day, with at least three other people in the store obviously buying to resell, I picked up the software, two nice DVD/VHS recorders, and a TI-84 Plus calculator. That stuff was just sitting out, and anyone else could have snagged them long before I got there. I’ve already sold everything but one of the DVD/VHS players.
Did any of those other resellers find $300+ worth of sweatshirts and jeans there that day? I don’t know. Good for them if they did (so long as they keep leaving behind the software, books, and vintage stuff for me).
Jay-Too true! Reminds me of that saying about work: you can get it fast, cheap, and good, but never all three at once.
Paulo-I’m glad I’m not the only one. I’ve been at it for about 6 months, myself.
11/28-12/4
Total Items in Store: 218
Items Sold: 19
Cost of Items Sold: $40
Total Sales: $438.22
Highest Price Sold: $ 99.99 (incomplete set of Foxfire books)
Average Price Sold: $ 25.43
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $45I too enjoyed the sounds of a crackling fire. In the last week it’s finally gotten cold here in Kentucky. When I was a wee lad our house was old (built in the 1860s) and it had a massive stove in the kitchen (although, now that I think about it, it was probably more of me being a tiny person as opposed to the stove actually being large). My current house has a regular old heat pump. I doubt anyone ever has (or ever will) have evocative feelings about a heat pump.
Another above average week for me, sales-wise. I’m trying to be diligent about finding new stuff to sell as the trash to treasure ratio isn’t great for a lot of the places I hit. I’d like to get to the place where I have a few death piles lying around, if for nothing else than the piece of mind that I’m not going to run out of stuff to sell. Right now I can get everything I find listed within a few days. I know I should hit some auctions and try to snag some box lots, but it’s a lot easier to drift in and out of thrift stores while I’m out buying groceries or what have you.
Nov 21 – 27
Total items in store: 226
Sales: 25
COGS: $35
Highest Price Sold: $74.99 for a N64 console
Total Sales: $517.68
Average Sale Price: $20.70
Spent on new Merchandise: $38.15I’ve been selling on eBay since June, and this is by far the best week I’ve had. I usually sell an item per day, and I’ve been averaging five a day. The pace of orders has already slowed down, so I expect another normal week to come.
Didn’t do much in the thrifting department this week since I was here and there for Thanksgiving, but I did manage to find a N64 console and a bunch of games as well as my normal haul of books and weird junk. I’ve already sold two games and the console and managed to double my money in a few days, plus I still have eight more games to sell from that lot. I wish I could find video game stuff all time, but books are far more prevalent finds for me.
11/14-11/20
Total Items in Store: 236
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $8
Total Sales: $147.91
Highest Price Sold: $32.99–Book on Impressionist painting and fashion
Average Price Sold: $16.43
Returns: 0, but I got an unwarranted neutral feedback. Why don’t people read the condition description before they buy? Geeze. Time to call eBay.
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $78.52Been a slow couple of weeks. I was killing it last month, but I think a lot of that involved selling a bunch of high-demand vintage video games, so that boosted my October stats more than average. Now that I’ve sold most of that stuff things have slowed down. I don’t know if a post-election malaise has something to do with it as well, but I’m inclined to believe it.
I got a really good haul of stuff (mostly books) Saturday, but I overspent on a Macintosh SE SuperDrive from 1988. It boots and is in really good shape, but I spent $50 on it and the Apple Extended Keyboard and mouse. After eBay fees and taxes I don’t think my margin will be as good as I’d want it to be for that kind of investment. I guess that’s what I get for being in a hurry and not thinking everything through before I buy. I’m still super small time, so spending $50 on a single item is a lot for me. I’ll chalk it up as a learning experience.
