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05/14/2018 at 9:09 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 360: Is Diversification a Myth or Reality? #39837
Week May 6-12, 2018
Total Items in Store: 920
Items Sold: 16 (1 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $92 (19.9% of sales)
Total Sales: $462.75
Highest Price Sold: $60 (1792-93 French Revolution Currency https://www.ebay.com/itm/192335189859)
Average Price Sold: $28.92
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 3
Promoted listings test: 8 sales, 197.79 (42.7% of total sales), $9.892 fees (5.0% of sales)On the slower side for the week, but not terrible. Over the past year+ I’ve been averaging closer to $600/wk, but this is week certainly fine and stable for me.
I’m with you for the most part in list it and forget it. But with some recent spring cleaning and the new storage units in our basement that were installed, I’ve been reorganizing. In the reorg, I’ve found items that I totally forgot were there, listed 3+ years ago. So, I’ve sorted my items by longest on time listed and started sprucing them up – adding new product identifiers that might not have been there, adding to a description, etc. In this sprucing, I’m also putting into a group that will have a huge sale likely later this week. Will probably have at least 40% off this grouping, although I might up it even higher to see if I can clear out some old inventory. I even put a couple old listings into auction to see if anything happens.
Another week of no picking as I make these moves/changes to my store. May 26 is the next Stormville Flea, which is just massive and often times featured on shows like Flea Market Flip. I hope to be in a comfortable place to go there and come back with a load of stuff.
I paid $35 for it, really think I can get close to $300 (priced at $350 so I have some wiggle room). A few weeks ago, I got a Kiss Love Gun from 1977 sealed – paid around $40 and within about 10 days sold for $200 (gave the guy a $50 discount cause he bought several hundred dollars of other items).
Those cigarette cards sound amazing! You have anything close to a set?
O cool – gas station maps. Here’s a tip for selling them, group them by year. I’ve sold to car guys that want maps from the year their car is from… so like group all the 1968s together and hopefully the guy who just restored his ’68 Mustang will buy them!
If not that direction, group them by gas brand cause sometimes you have collectors of just Esso or Sinclair or whatever.
Yes, my brother is a full time Amazon seller. Went to his Toys R Us twice per week since the announcement… leading up to the closing, anything good was only like 10% off. The final week, however, everything went to 90% off. He was there early and bought about $1000 worth of stuff for less than $100. Key is to find the insider info on when exactly your store is closing.
I added it over a year ago now… ranges from $0.50 to $5 (if it’s big, bulky, fragile, requires a ton of packing materials) however 99% of my items are $1 handling. Unlikely that my sales have suffered too much, as last year was my best year ever doing this and this year is projecting to be my second highest ever.
I think, as R&J have said, if you have a commodity item that a million others have, you have to compete on shipping costs. If you have unique or vintage items that only you or a handful of others do, then shipping costs are irrelevant.
Sounds like an amazing sale (and now you can expense the whole trip to the meet)! I’ve seen those Cracker Jack plane cards once before – so very cool and you should have no time selling them. I love maps too – were they local, national, global?
Super interesting topic, listed to the show this morning. I think you made a really good decision on the free returns by adding the handling fee. I did the the handling fee a while back to help offset packaging costs, etc and now it helps with that return fee too.
Week April 29 – May 5, 2018
Total Items in Store: 930
Items Sold: 15 (1 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $78 (19.5% of sales)
Total Sales: $400.44
Highest Price Sold: $70 (1963 UK Pressing of With the Beatles https://www.ebay.com/itm/192479067906)
Average Price Sold: $26.70
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $115
Number of items listed this week: 11
Promoted listings test: 9 sales, $238.97 (59.7% of total sales), $12.50 fees (5.2% of sales)From my all time best week ever last posting to my worst week this year. If you average the two together, though, I’m still well above where I need to be. Nothing too crazy sold this week, 11 of 15 sales were under $30, bread & butter.
Not too many picks this weekend, but I did manage to grab another amazing sealed record from the 60s – this is one of Rolling Stones early albums https://www.ebay.com/itm/192532358837).
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
Brian Treasures from Grandmas.
05/02/2018 at 12:23 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 358: Knowing What You Know Right Now, Would You Start Your Business Today? #38920So good, MyCottage! I love the sentiment about “just stop bitching” and move forward [or, frankly, don’t if you don’t like the changes]. The world evolves, our species evolves, why can’t our businesses?
Generally, the changes I’ve seen over the past few years have been for the greater good. Yes, eBay has increased fees, reduced the TRS discounts, etc… but they are actually trying to attract more buyers which is only good for us sellers. eBay saw the need to note that it can be better than Amazon – you can get your everyday, new in the box, utilitarian goods just like Amazon… but within the same platform you can also get quirky, unique, vintage, collectible items that you can’t find on a place like Amazon [at least not easily].
04/30/2018 at 10:14 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 358: Knowing What You Know Right Now, Would You Start Your Business Today? #38768Yeah, a lot of “self gifting” as soon as tax week was over and then this guy swooped in and made my month!
04/30/2018 at 9:43 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 358: Knowing What You Know Right Now, Would You Start Your Business Today? #38763Woo! It’s here! Hopefully I can listen during the day, but if not def on the way home this evening. This morning’s commute was definitely missing something without the show.
Week April 23-29, 2018
Total Items in Store: 934
Items Sold: 37
Cost of Items Sold: $480 (19.2% of sales)
Total Sales: $2,501.32
Highest Price Sold: $400 (Lot of classic cars pictures http://www.ebay.com/itm/202076181021)
Average Price Sold: $67.60
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 2
Promoted listings test: 13 sales, $463.36 (18.5% of total sales), $23.21 fees (5.0% of sales)Yes, those numbers are correct. My week was through the roof – highest volume or sales and highest dollar sold in any one given week. The week was trending slightly above average (probably in the $800 range) until one buyer started making offers on several items. I contacted him and let him know I would be accepting some and countering others, but would also combine shipping. I was nervous it was some sort of NPB scam, but when all was said & done he had purchased 14 items for over $1800 (plus several hundred dollars in shipping with heavy items). I did a bit of online stalking and it turns out he’s a photographer in the UK – seems like he specializes in car & studio photography (so him buying those photos and huge boxes of slides and other antique photos made sense) plus he bought a bunch of Americana (1969 moon landing papers, advertising playing cards, classic records including that sealed Kiss record, etc). COGs this week are teetering right on the edge of where UI like to be (20%), but that’s mainly due to the high dollar items I sold and also giving this guy great deals.
No picking this weekend as our storage units in the basement were installed and I started re-organizing and moving things down there. This move forced my hand in reorganizing and it will be really beneficial. Also excited to really set up the second bedroom into something nice – plan on displaying some of my best picks as decor while making the room cleaner & less cluttered. As I went through things, also started pruning items – have a big box ready for donation and also started ending items sitting in my store for years and putting up for auction just to get rid of them. Auctions starting at $1 will be posted throughout the week just to move the inventory.
Yeah, he went back each week and not until the last week were there good deals at like 90% off. The store by my parents’ house is still only at like 5%-10% off because they’re not closing until July.
Space is a concern because I’m currently limited to the second bedroom. However, they are building storage cages in our condo basement and I have one on reserve. Rumor has it that they will be done this week and we can start taking them over by next weekend. I’ll assess how much more I can grow then.
And my brother still does Amazon full time and is still thriving (had over $150k in gross sales Thanksgiving-Christmas). He doesn’t do much FBA (maybe 10% of his inventory), but does seller fulfilled out of his basement/garage. Because that’s his model, rules changes with Amazon don’t hit him as hard. He still does mainly retail arbitrage and just cleaned up at his local Toys R Us that closed – paid less than $150 for $1000 worth of merch.
Week April 15-21, 2018
Total Items in Store: 972
Items Sold: 30 (2 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $99 (13.2% of sales)
Total Sales: $749.22
Highest Price Sold: $69.99 (Rolling Stones – Let it Bleed https://www.ebay.com/itm/192452984985)
Average Price Sold: $24.97
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $150
Number of items listed this week: 40
Promoted listings test: 18 sales, $453.41 (60.5% of total sales), $22.84 fees (5.0% of sales)One of my best weeks ever in terms of volume, but very low average price. 24 of my 30 items sold were less than $30. Silver lining to that low average price was also low COGS for me.
Got out to a couple estate sales this weekend. Since my store is becoming over run with records, I tried to focus on other things (although I did hit up my local shop to support them during National Record Store Day). Scored a great box of ephemera that I’m sorting through – specifically these newspapers & magazines from the moon landing (https://ebay.to/2K7fNt9) and some neat pictorials of early 1950s/post WWII Japan being rebuilt & beautified (https://www.ebay.com/itm/202295519785). Paid $10 for the whole box, so it should pay for itself 20x over.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
Brian Treasures from Grandmas.
04/17/2018 at 6:47 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 355: We Catch Up w/ Maria & Ryan from Passport Vintage Austin, TX #37877Check out what I found at an estate sale this weekend!!!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/20228889861604/16/2018 at 12:01 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 355: We Catch Up w/ Maria & Ryan from Passport Vintage Austin, TX #37765I hear ya on the record grading systems. On one side you have audiophiles that nit pick at the minutia of your system vs their system and then you have the new collectors that think that the “very good” grading means it will be new out of the package.
Before you got back into the record game, you noted that this is some of the most frustrating… but with profit margins so high, it’s too good to pass up! I’ll take 1 out of 20 returns/complaints for 10-20x my money.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
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