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Hey gang! Been a LONG time since I’ve posted, but I’ve been listening every week and following along – eBay sales, rentals, coffee shop, and R’s real estate Instagram. Just stopped by to post my 2020 total numbers since I just did my taxes last week.
Overall, it was my best year ever in terms of volume of sales, gross sales, net sales, and avg sale price. Since I used to source most of my items from estate sales, I had to change course last year. I joined several FB groups, not only to source but also to sell. It’s been great – because of the competition of online sales groups and online estate auctions, my COGS were higher than ever before and my profit margins were lower, but it was in a concerted effort to get higher quality items.
First vaccine dose scheduled for Wednesday morning, so fingers crossed we start to get back to normal… itching to get to an estate sale!
Total items sold: 1297 (+58% over full year 2019)
Gross Sales (excluding shipping): $75,600 (+114%)
Avg Sale Price: $58.29 (+36%)
Net Profit after COGS, fees, supplies, etc: $32,889 (+26%)
Net Profit Margin: 95% (-39%)
Highest Item Selling Price: $600 – Nirvana Nevermind promo (+100%)
Highest Item Net Profit: $350 – 1965 Barbie American Girl (+135%)Thanks Ryanne! My post must be caught up in spam filters. The thing that didn’t get transferred in the copy & paste is the screen shot of my monthly numbers & trends year over year. Hopefully this link works:
+77% in total gross sales, +23% in average sale price per item
YoY Monthly Numbers & Averages-
This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by
Brian Treasures from Grandmas.
I made that exact same mistake when I first got in to coins/silver. Polished every single American Eagle round I got and put them in airtite case, costing me hundreds over the course of a whole collection. Since then, I’ve switched over to only buying junk/cull coins & sterling scrap for the silver content only.
I know it’s an unproven theory, but I agree with the statement on the show about listing supercharges your sales – I had $80 in sales this week going in to the weekend. Started listing and then had $700 in sales over the weekend. 🙂
I’ve been listening every week, but haven’t been posting enough… life has been getting in the way of posting & catching up on things like this. So here are some numbers for the month of February:
Total Items in Store: 1,040
Items Sold: 58
Cost of Items Sold: $725 (29.1% of sales)
Total Sales: $2,490.71
Highest Sales:
$250 Led Zeppelin I Quiex pressing
$180 Lot of loose He-Man figures & accessories
$170 NWA Straight Outta Compton 1st press
$120 1997 C3PO Wind Up Toy
Average Price Sold: $42.94
Sales drop from January: -46.87%
Sales vs. Feb’19: -4.53%Since sales had such a huge drop from January to February, wanted to compare to February last year and that was much less dramatic.
02/03/2020 at 2:21 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 448: Revisiting Numbers with TSatt aka Troy Episode 377 #73629I had 6 orders (7 items) yesterday, although only 1 order actually during the SB.
02/03/2020 at 10:40 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 448: Revisiting Numbers with TSatt aka Troy Episode 377 #73611Is that globe vintage? I’ve had awesome luck in the past with vintage globes, selling for over $200 – especially pre-1950. There are always changes each year, but before/during/immediately after WWII, there was so much change in the world that each year. Collectors like having a globe from each year to track all those changes.
I personally use this guide to help date:
https://replogleglobes.com/app/uploads/2018/11/How-old-is-your-globe.pdf02/03/2020 at 10:31 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 448: Revisiting Numbers with TSatt aka Troy Episode 377 #73610Great to hear @TSatt again! Even though it’s an older show from a few years ago, it is still so relevant and really reminded me that I need to evolve some of my tracking if I want to take my store to the next level and actually make it something that could one day take the place of my day job income.
January Numbers
Total Items in Store: 1035
Items Sold: 83 (18 Facebook, 3 Discogs)
Cost of Items Sold: $1374 (29.9% of sales)
Total Sales: $4,586.90
Highest Price Sales:
$420 Pearl Jam Ten LP Sealed
$300 Nirvana Nevermind Master Recording
$285 Rolling Stones Let it Bleed LP Sealed
$250 Marilyn Monroe Nude Calendar
$195 Cartier Vermouth Dispenser
$155 1940s Dick Tracy Tin Toy
Average Price Sold: $55.26
Returns: 1 (1 NPB)Really pleased with the month, not quite as high as December (-10%), but about 30% higher than last January. 15 sales of $100 or more, making me think that my concerted effort at finding higher quality & higher priced items is trending in the right direction. However, those high dollar items come at a prices – those 15 items sold for approximately $2700 total, but COGS for them were about $1100 (the other 68 sales were for $1900 and had COGS of about $300).
This week I need to focus on closing out 2019 and getting my tax docs in a row. We’ve received my wife’s & my W-2s from our jobs, 1099 from Paypal, investment statements, etc. Our tax guy is awesome and usually can knock out submissions out in an afternoon, would love for that to be next weekend.
01/07/2020 at 9:27 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 444: Is Cross Posting The New Reality? #72599There are hundreds of authenticators out there, but there are only really 2 that are the gold standard/hold gravitas in the collecting world: PSA/DNA & JSA. Both of these companies have sparkling reputations & have a database system that is really attractive to collectors. Every authentication has a unique serial number that can be looked up/verified and also tamper-proof markings on the items to ensure you can’t duplicate or switch. Yes, they provide a certificate for each item – the standard is a small card the size of a concert ticket or baseball card and the premium (for rare or unique items) is a full page letter.
In general (although there are exceptions), authentication is $20-$25 per item (can go up for something like a full team signed baseball or autograph of George Washington, etc). PSA/DNA is located in Las Vegas (they’re the ones you’ll see frequently on shows like Pawn Stars), JSA is located in New Jersey. You can save on both way shipping and take advantage of on the spot authentication if you go in person. I took all of my items to a JSA appearance in northern NJ – saved at least $100 on the shipping & insurance, plus because I brought so many items, got a discount to $15 each. It was expensive when all said & done, but with COGS $5-$10 per item and authentication at $15 each, I feel like most of what I have will sell for at least $50 and some will be well over $100.
01/07/2020 at 9:11 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 444: Is Cross Posting The New Reality? #72597Crazy story @jadowa! Were you actually selling a counterfeit/unauthorized shirt or was it a false claim by the NBA because you got them wholesale/closeout? Doesn’t matter to me personally, just wondering if all this upheaval of your life was getting caught or a complete misunderstanding.
01/07/2020 at 9:02 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 444: Is Cross Posting The New Reality? #72594This story is much like the vinyl/record business. Yes, there are plenty of places to stream every piece of music, but that’s been fueling the discovery (& re-discovery) of music and driven the desire to physically “own” the music. Vinyl was the first to make a comeback and might be at the very peak right now, reel-to-reel tapes are incredibly hot, cassettes are just starting to make their comeback, and CDs certainly will be next. Streaming makes music convenient and portable, but having a collection you can actually use is very attractive to a lot of people.
01/07/2020 at 8:52 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 444: Is Cross Posting The New Reality? #72588Thanks, I have – but have probably skewed my store too far. Need to make a real effort to balance out my inventory. Right after Christmas, went to a few estate sales and focused on getting high quality, but non-LP inventory. Got a few really neat pieces:
Hersheys chocolate mold
WWII Army division decor
1940s Marx Tin Toy
Sealed vintage Guerlain ShalimarAlso bought a lot of about 50 NFL Hall of Fame autographs at an auction for a few dollars each. Just got them authenticated (all good) and will be listing within a the next week or so.
01/06/2020 at 10:40 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 444: Is Cross Posting The New Reality? #72550They use algorithms to not only scan the text of you listing, but also the photos. And if it’s flagged once, they also flag your photos and if you reuse them, it’s auto-flagged. This is a huge problem in my record collecting groups – anything with a semi sexual name, something that looks like a gun/weapon, or something that references items that are often illegally trafficked… you know how many records/band names violate this? EVERYTHING by the Sex Pistols, a lot of jazz that has double entendres, U2’s “Boy, the cover of Nirvana Nevermind, etc. The list goes on and on.
Gotta change those to “Sax Pastels” or cover the Nirvana baby’s ding dong with a post it note.
01/06/2020 at 10:32 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 444: Is Cross Posting The New Reality? #72547I’ll start posting weekly again now that the holidays are over and I’m back on schedule! For now, my December numbers (which were quite good for my store).
December Numbers
Total Items in Store: 1050
Items Sold: 127 (1 Bonanza, 3 Discogs, 23 FB)
Cost of Items Sold: $1848 (35.6% of sales)
Total Sales: $5186
Highest Price Sold:
$300 Led Zepp II MFSL
$200 Nirvana Unplugged
$165 Radiohead Ok Computer
$140 RHCP Californication
$130 Biggie Life After Death
Average Price Sold: $40.84
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 38 (took on some family items and I’m taking 25% commission)Really a whirlwind holiday season – a lot of sales, a good bit of family travel, a lot to do end of year for the day job, etc. Hectic, but all worth it in the end – maybe my highest volume of sales ever for a month and likely highest dollar sales. January through the first week has slowed considerably – swear I will start posting weekly again now.
Noticing above, my COGS are incredibly high. I like to keep them around 20% or lower ideally, but throughout December I was selling higher dollar items that had higher COGS, but wasn’t selling lower dollar items with little to no COGS to balance them out. Can’t complain, even though at 35%, I’ll buy something for $35 and sell for $100 all day long and I bet most of us would too.
This week I also plan on reconciling my FY’19 numbers. At first glance, 2019 was one of my best years in terms of gross sales nearly hitting $36k. I need to calculate all my COGS and ROI %.
Yeah, there are plenty of those low-ballers, especially in “yard sale” type groups. But for every 10 low balls, there will be that 1 person that gives you a reasonable offer. And, if you have something collectible, it’s easy to find closed groups that focus on an area and you’ll get much better prices but obviously lower scale/volume.
There’s definitely an element of trust, just like anything we do… but that Paypal G&S provides the same/similar protections as eBay or any other platform. Now, if you use Paypal Friends & Family to avoid the 3% fee, then you relinquish those protections and I reco against that.
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