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Thanks Amatino!
Time for the annual death pile photos. Piles for 2020 I really made good progress this year. On the other hand, it’s still a lot of stuff.
I really didn’t buy a lot of inventory this year at all and basically discontinued RA. Skipped most of the rummage sales and way fewer thrift shops. The few times I shopped, I mostly kept to fewer, higher value items.
Lately, I’ve just been grabbing a box. But looking at these photos makes me realize that I’m now leaning toward cherry picking the higher priced items though I still feel obligated to step up on the things I purchased unless they are under $10-15.
12/30/2019 at 12:57 pm in reply to: Seeking advice on college admissions / application process #72270Once again I want to thank you all for your input on this. I’ve revisited it as we will be narrowing my son’s list in earnest with the college counselor within the next three months. In a nutshell, it’s a rub between a better ranked (and maybe suited) school and getting a break on tuition. It’s also a rub between his preferences and desire for a name brand school vs location.
We toured UC Boulder, loved it, and their honors program is our safety school. He should get some merit aid there and Minnesota. The better UCs are definitely in play and a couple of private schools (Notre Dame and Santa Clara) that we expect should afford him some real advantages in the work world but he won’t get much if any aid there. We would be digging deeper and having a serious look at ROI before committing to one of those. The private schools suit his preferences and he doesn’t prefer to live in a big city (except Seattle).
While we are keeping generally to the West, I feel like we are still probably overlooking some options where he would be eligible for merit aid. I’m trying to find resources with real merit aid info besides College Data. If anyone is awaiting responses this year, you might try Tuition Fit. You send them an offer letter and you get to see what similarly qualified students are being offered. Pretty cool database.
History Nerd if you are willing to chat by email offline please reply and maybe we can exchange email through Ryanne and Jay. Thanks!
Sharon I hope your child enjoyed her first semester!
Zero for me this week. I was feeling pretty unmotivated Ebay-wise and distracted by college research and the kids being off. This week I’m home mostly from my day job, so plan to make a push.
This past year, I think due to app improvements and my willingness to compromise on picture quality and getting top dollar, I’ve definitely learned to list more efficiently. I’m hopeful about 2020. I have access to good items, Terapeak is making it easier to set a good opening price, and listing is a little bit faster than when I learned over the last couple of years, even with the new item specifics, which I hope Ebay will cut down. I’ll have to take a hard look at my piles this year though and decide what is worth my limited reselling time. I’m not a goal setter, but I do want a strategy.
Total Items in Store: 282 Ebay, 40 Mercari
Items Sold: 7 Ebay, 3 Mercari
Gross Sales: $87 Ebay, $45 Mercari
Cost of Items Sold: $40 + one item free
Highest Price Sold: $29 offer to watcher (Target Christmas Bird Decor sold after Xmas, paid $12 thrift xmas boutique
Average Price Sold: $12 Ebay, $15 Mercari
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $42 (mostly RA)
Number of items listed this week: 0Thanks again for the Sunday podcast. Pricing at thrifts has a lot to do with manager staffing. Over time our indy thrift pricing has gone up and down. When the prices are raised too high, stuff really starts piling up, then they advertise that they have lower prices than before. At Goodwill, they have a hard time keeping staff. The old manager was sending out most of the good stuff for online selling, but they are remodeling now and the current pricing on hard goods is great and the emphasis on movement. That store already turns over very quickly due to it’s prime location downtown.
This week was all about low dollar for me on Ebay. Speaking of low dollar, even though the garage is looking much, much better, my spouse is starting to question whether it’s worthwhile for me to continue to sell on Ebay. This is mainly because that profit taxed on top of all our other income at high rates. So, perhaps I should consider cherry picking in my backlog and making death piles? We’ll see. I told him I love to sell on Ebay, it’s good for my stress level in some weird way and we can use the extra $ even post-taxes due to our high cost of living.
12/27/2019 at 1:26 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Soap on a Rope, Distressed messenger bag, Gold coin #72172Me too. Every year when I was little I got my dad an old spice soap on a rope for Christmas.
You’re excited to get a label printer for Christmas and take it as a deduction.
I listed 16 unique items.
I will work the day job a bit this week and be pretty much off next week. I hope to continue with the early morning listing shifts while the kids are out and sleeping in.
I’m continuing with the piles. The last box was small framed original paintings, Starbucks mugs, a Pendleton purse and some linens. Most of my unlisted items are boxed by type, but apparently not all of it. Slow to list a hodge podge. Some of the mugs were a bit scratched up. Kind of makes you wonder if it’s worth it. I’m trying to make myself list $15 minimum on Ebay, $10 on Mercari (because it’s faster).
The garage looks pretty good. Pretty much everything waiting is boxed up. I was able to consolidate some half empty boxes of sold and unsold so the perimeter of the garage is looking better. I also tidied up my shipping supplies. I hope by summer things look even better and a lot more is listed.
Total Items in Store: 297 Ebay, 45 Mercari
Items Sold: 7 Ebay, 2 Mercari
Total Sales : $247 Ebay, $21 Mercari
Highest Price: $60 BO Vintage Atomic Platter, paid $2
Average Price: $35 Ebay, $10 Mercari
Returns: 0 – USPS paid asap on last week’s claim, including shipping reimbursement.
Cost of Goods Sold: $52 Ebay, $4 Mercari
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $7
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 14 Ebay, 2 MercariThanks for the Sunday podcast. It is truly amazing how you do manage to keep everything going. I’m glad you were able to find employees with high standards where you are located.
Mercari cooled off this week. I never did shut off my stores. My husband had surgery so not a great listing week.
I’ve not been buying much at all for RA this year, but the vintage items did quite well this month with good ROI. I probably only have about $800 left in brand new inventory. I grabbed a death pile box and found some of the items were scratched up. Kind of second guessing myself on making myself list all of the piles, but I’ll keep plowing through I think with few exceptions. I have a list of what might be good to list during different months of the year, so will try to keep that in mind going forward. Garage is looking good. Not many loose unlisted items any longer.
Happy holidays to the trash elves. Goal for 2020 – keep after the piles.
12/21/2019 at 1:55 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Cassette decks, Reel tapes, Iroquois China, Hats, Typewriter #71925Cool finds up there. TFS. I haven’t posted in a while so sharing some vintage items I sold in the recent past.
Just took a best offer on this Hawaiian Art Pottery Vase of $50. Took a long time to sell for some reason. Went back to Hawaii. Picked up at a thrift store for about $8.
Took a / made a best offer of $60 on this retro Silver Pine Atomic Franciscan Platter . Love it. I found an odd lot of this china on my second pass at rummage sale, $2 apiece. If I had found the whole set I might have kept it to use.
A tiki mug! I love genuine tiki but hardly ever find any because it’s very popular here with other pickers. I almost kept these but really I have a small collection of mugs and don’t need any more. Found at GW, $3 apiece. Sold quickly offer to watcher @$25.
Multiquantity Target Goodwill find. Elf on the Shelf Clothes Paid $1 on sale day and $2 after that when I went back for more. Sold super quickly on Mercari and Ebay. Should have gone all in on sale day but didn’t because it was a boy outfit. This is the second year I’ve found these elf accessories at GW. If you don’t have kids, the poor parents need to change the elves each day so new outfits are in demand.
Happy picking!
I have too much stuff already, but I know some people buy on Mercari from people selling their own stuff to flip higher on Ebay. I have searches on there for things I want to keep and sometimes things go very fast and low.
A lot of YouTube channels do have some good information, but it sometimes feeling like I’m panning for gold to find it
Yes! It’s been a challenge to ferret out the ones who are actually sharing useful new-to-me identification / valuation about things I like to source or talking about what’s no longer fetching good prices. I’m down to three or four channels. On a couple of those, I have to watch 15 minutes of other footage with a gem thrown in here and there. Those are ones that have morphed into QVC-style selling to their own subscribers and have incorporated their less talented significant others – pet peeve. I don’t really watch tv any more so Youtube is kind of down time. I miss Sheldon and Mad Maine.
Happy birthday VT.
I listed 11 unique listings last week. My day job is slow, so hoping to get more listed this week.
12/16/2019 at 11:39 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 441: How Do I Go From Rookie to Veteran Scavenger? #71733* Total Items in Store: 284 eBay, 40 Mercari
* Items Sold: 13 Ebay, 5 Mercari
* Cost of Items Sold: $81 + $12 free shipping + some items ours
* Total Sales: $239 Ebay, $50 Mercari + $20 Facebook
* Highest Price Sold: $43 Best offer Fitz and Floyd Dogs, paid $20 rummage sale in November.
* Average Price Sold: $18 Ebay, $10 Mercari
* Returns: 1 broken item 🙁 – claim submitted. Plenty of bubble but in flat rate box.
* Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: <$10
* Number of items listed this week: 8 Ebay, 7 MercariEnjoyed the podcast. A good sales month, but this week’s theme was definitely low dollar. I’m really in the mood to move things, so that’s ok. A lot of recent listings are selling off.
Spent a small amount of time consolidating bins of listed items. Little by little my garage is looking better and the perimeter is starting to clear out. There are still plenty of piles and parent house boxes, but I definitely see good progress. I’m also doing a little bit better with popping up a few listings here and there during the week.
Not doing much sourcing these days, but I love love love the new manager at Goodwill. Just wants to get stuff moving and on the floor. He is pricing hard goods inexpensively. Unfortunately this weekend I just missed a huge lot of small, new looking Patagonia bags – some he stuffed inside the others. Some picker chick got them all literally right in front of me. Oye!
Have a great week!
I got an offer from a buyer the other day. Negotiation ended with “I don’t pay shipping.”
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