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Yes, eBay & Amazon spend hundreds of millions of dollars on TV advertising. That’s why I think this is really thing – attracting more people to the platform can’t be bad.
Pretty huge (good) news for all the Etsy sellers out there:
https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/etsy-ramps-marketing-reversal-after-pullback/2170546Interesting topics today. My wife sells things out of her closet on Poshmark, but that’s less than 1 item per week. I can say that buying & selling as a stream of income are me only, and occasionally it has caused friction – mainly figuring out storage of items & do business (packing, photographing) while keeping tidy & not disturbing the rest of the apartment. The filter of what type of furniture we picked for the second bedroom (where I do most of my store work) had to not only look good but also had storage functionality. Also successfully lobbied for our building to build storage units in our basement – for a fee that works out to about $90/mo, have been able to store packaging material, big/bulky items, etc down there. It’s currently working, but have seen the friction it could cause.
Week April 21-May 4, 2019 (2 weeks)
Total Items in Store: 1,006
Items Sold: 20 (1 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $227.99 (24.6% of sales)
Total Sales: $925.41
Highest Price Sold: $129.99 (1966 Beach Boys – Pet Sounds original mono pressing)
Average Price Sold: $46.27
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $725
Number of items listed this week: 45
Promoted listings test: 11 sales, $472.96 (51.1% of total sales), $21.99 fees (4.6% of sales)Solid numbers if this only covered one week, but iffy since they cover 2 weeks. First week I only sold 5 items for $215 – I’ll blame not listing leading in and also up to 5 days handling time because I had to be away all week travelling for work. This past week was much more “normal” – 15 sales for a hair over $700. COGS remain a bit high due to higher dollar items selling, would love to still get them back down under 20%.
This weekend I plan to get out to a lot of estate sales & maybe even the flea market if the weather holds. My wife is going to Scottsdale with her sister, mom, grandmother for mothers day and is leaving me home alone for 5 days – WOOO, bachelor pad! But seriously, haven’t been out to sales in a couple months with holidays, work, etc getting in the way. With the weekend to myself, I can get up and in line at big estate sales and then have all day/night to list when I get home.
Was it one of the gold ones? If I remember correctly, normal games that had competition versions were shiny gold colored instead of the normal grey or black. Is that correct? (so i can make sure they’re on my BOLO list)
Week April 14-20, 2019
Total Items in Store: 987
Items Sold: 16
Cost of Items Sold: $221.74 (28.2% of sales)
Total Sales: $787.18
Highest Price Sold: $170 (c1962 Barbie)
Average Price Sold: $49.20
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Promoted listings test: 5 sales, $327.99 (41.7% of total sales), $18.67 fees (5.7% of sales)Pretty solid week – several high dollar items sold, but with that comes the high COGS. I’ll live. Outside of the Barbie (down to 4 left of the collection of 28 I bought), other higher dollar sales included Pearl Jam poster coffee table book for $125 (+$90 Priority Shipping to Australia) plus 6 more items over $50.
Two+ solid weeks in a row, would love to keep it going, but nervous because I have to travel this week for work and will have extended handling time, shipping Friday night/Saturday morning when I’m back. Fingers crossed there is little to no effect.
*how well SOME LPs do 🙂
Think I’ve noted before that finding something like this Miles Davis is rare – not only an original pressing from 1958, but also in really great condition. Have to dig through A LOT of polka to find something like that.
Similar to y’all, life got in the way of posting numbers last week so here are the past 2 weeks. You note in the show that eBay has been pretty “meh” for a few months and I agree… but these numbers are a point in the right direction, for me about 30% high than the previous weekly average for Feb & March.
Weeks March 31 – April 13, 2019 (2 weeks)
Total Items in Store: 1001
Items Sold: 35 (7 Amazon)
Cost of Items Sold: $290 (19.4% of sales)
Total Sales: $1,493.08
Highest Price Sold: $179.99 (1958 Miles Davis Milestones LP)
Average Price Sold: $42.66
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $330
Number of items listed this week: 17
Promoted listings test: 17 sales, $681.17 (45.6% of total sales), $28.75 fees (4.2% of sales)The past 2 weeks check all the boxes – avg sale price over $40, COGS under 20%, avg over 2 sales per day, and no customer complaints/returns.
That Miles Davis sale was really awesome to wake up to a few days ago – buyer paid full price, no negotiations. No other high dollar sales, but a lot in the $40-$50 range, which add up quickly – 45% of my sales were over $40 but only 1 was higher than $75.
Week March 17-30, 2019 (2 weeks)
Total Items in Store: 996
Items Sold: 22
Cost of Items Sold: $153 (20.8% of sales)
Total Sales: $735.35
Highest Price Sold: $125 (Queen Greatest Hits LP Sealed)
Average Price Sold: $29.41
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Promoted listings test: 8 sales, $198.72 (27% of total sales), $8.65 fees (4.4% of sales)The past 2 weeks have felt slow and these are the numbers to prove it out. Usually I’d have close to these numbers weekly. I’m going to chalk it up to not listing for the past 3 weekends – one at a wedding, one away for a quick excursion for my wife’s birthday, and then this past weekend enjoying our one day of spring outside. Gotta get back on the listing horse this weekend.
Yeah, cringe and check the color of my hair when I hear Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Green Day, Soundgarden, etc on the “classic rock” station in NYC right after The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, etc. Awesome that they are being remembered, but seems like only yesterday I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit for the first time (28 years ago!).
My good friend and also my brother are avid disc-golfers (helps that they are both in the service industry/work evenings/make their own hours and have days free). I’ve played one round with each of them. Really a fun way to get out of the house, move around, and still be competitive. Much lower barrier to entry than golf (which you’ll need to invest in things to get started). But the challenge still remains on how/where they build frolf courses – many parks around me won’t take the valuable real estate from other park activities and/or regular golf courses.
Week March 10-16, 2019
Total Items in Store: 1018
Items Sold: 15
Cost of Items Sold: $231.33 (35.6% of sales)
Total Sales: $650.06
Highest Price Sold: $135 (1974 Kiss debut record)
Average Price Sold: $43.34
Returns: 0 (1 might be coming through cause I received a nasty-gram from the buyer although all of the flaw of the $12 item were described in the listing)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
Promoted listings test: 2 sales, $33.73 (5.2% of total sales), $1.18 fees (3.5% of sales)Pretty average week, which is good and I’m happy about. I’m not pleased with the % COGS this week as several things on sale/clearance went for much less than I anticipated. All in all though, good to get them out of the house because they’ve been listed for years with no movement.
@Jay – you’re high school self cruisin’ around will have to wait until next time as that sealed Def Leppard album I mentioned last week sold for $100. Other big sale was this Beatles Abbey Road master pressing for $90. My three top sales accounted for 50% of my total sales, the other 13 averaged right around $26.On the Promoted Listings front, I totally hear you and have been tracking. As you can see from above, my sales going through promoted listings is way down – usually I’m in the 25%-35% of total sales coming that way but this week was all the way down to only 5.2%. On the bright side, that means that I didn’t pay the extra fees on 94.8% of my sales, but the negative makes me wonder if it’s doing anything any more.
The Cars have picked up in popularity again since being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year. Back in 2016, you couldn’t get $5 for a Cars album… now I can’t keep them in stock. Just like anything else we sell, music is cyclical too.
It’s really not fair that she had a 68 Camero to drive to school. Keep up with it and that thing will run forever (and wake up the neighbors in doing so as it rolls down the street).
Sweet ride! Way better than my Ford Escort – but back then, just having a car was cool, but having a ride like that Pontiac American Muscle was next level.
Back at home we used to do the dumbest thing – instead of just hanging in a parking lot to meet up pre-cell phones, we would drive in a circle around the strip of fast food places and everyone knew where to go… drive in to the KFC parking lot, weave into Burger King, then McDonalds, then Dairy Queen, loop around and do it again. Dumb as hell, but the only way to find every one.
I love this sentiment… I come from small town USA and unfortunately there are just too many abandoned or torn down buildings. And the only way for them to get rehab’d properly and with care is for locals like yourselves to take that initiative. Outsiders/investors coming in will only either rehab to the bare minimums, not keep the historical integrity, or tear down altogether. I love hearing your labors of love to keep them original-ish (like exposing the original brickwork on the storefront instead of the “easy” job of covering in drywall).
