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Scavenging was quiet this week. I listed two bonus items (free with my skin care order from the manufacturer) during a big sale they had before Christmas. After Christmas I went to Marshalls and bought more lotion in Christmas packaging on clearance by this same brand. I have enough product to get me through much of the year in full and trial size, and hopefully will sell the included scented products I don’t like on Ebay to get some of my money back.
Also bought and listed 6 NIP older Pottery Barn pillow shams. I paid a Mercari seller about $10 apiece after shipping on a bundle of listings offer they accepted. That’s a little more than I would pay at the thrift store, so we’ll see how that goes.
Last week was another kind of ho hum week for items selling. https://www.ebay.com/itm/235332534475 I spotted these interesting bulbs and bet people would be looking for them. The full strands would be good.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/235303336537 Sold this, which I found at the bottom of the Goodwill bins people had already gone through. Glad they didn’t go to the landfill and very happy to be selling a Thanksgiving item in January.
I’m glad I’m making you all feel better. 🙂 Lots of mediocre stuff came from my parents’ house and I was keen to learn sourcing so I have a lot of that stuff still here. I did sell my parents’ china over the holidays finally this year for roughly $500. But definitely bought WAY too much as a new seller and I was working my day job. I can also list faster and things sell a little quicker since they added make offer. I hope to get through most of this – except perhaps the really dense boxes – in 2024. Some of the linen bedding sets are so big that that they take up half a bankers box. For purposes of the challenge, I should count several of those boxes as one box.
I only made 8 listings this week, just some December RA orders that came in the mail. I spent most of the week organizing. I have a bunch of listings that need photos, including from that guest table “box”.
@Sharyn I hope you are both feeling better soon. My dad had Covid finally and is better but has dizziness.
Ok, I spent all of today in my guest room closet cleaning out and reorganizing. I think a few things remained in place since we moved in in 2009. Half the closet is now available exclusively for inventory! I bought some bins and some of those are still empty and available. This felt really, really great.
I looked in almost every box of death. There is soooo much left. Here is a list of unlisted piles/boxes (mostly listing this for my own benefit):
6 throw pillows – would like to be rid of these soon!
20 boxes of assorted linens (duvet sets, sheets, cartoon sheets, tablecloths, modern fabric)
5 boxes of vintage fabric
5 boxes of ephemera
4 boxes of coffee mugs left
4 boxes of art
2 boxes of flatware
2 boxes of stitchery kits
1 box or bin each: misc smalls, books, danish pots, small vintage light fixtures, platters, vintage wool blankets, vintage fabric covered hangers, playing cards, and Pyrex.
I have a number of other misc boxes, some marked “Ebay ceramics”, some from family and some I bought as a rookie. Gulp – 15 boxes and bins of that.
Finally, I have these boxes of family stuff: My childhood Breyer horses, my parents’ better cookbooks, some my kids’ books (need to see if any value), really old bisque dolls from my great grandmother (if anyone knows about this, give a shout), barbies and clothes (60s-90s), seashells, cameras, costume jewelry, kitchen tins, and embroidered linens.
Whew! I’m giving thought to unloading a few larger things on Facebook I think after I’m done with the reset.
I did only go out looking twice this week. The flea market is closed, which helps. Did not find much, which also helps. I did pass over some pillows, larger items, and china that was an ok purchase, so doing well on that. Obviously I don’t need anymore list at all, but it helps to mix things up, get outside, and keep me interested in Ebay. New purchases do easily get thrown into the Ebay pipeline first and not added to garage piles. I need to avoid garage and estate sales entirely for now because it’s too much volume.
2. Organize and make a list of [types of] unlisted inventory boxes on hand.
I’m working on this resolution. Well, there seem to be more than I remembered. 🙁 There are probably 6 or more boxes full of stuff that came from my parents house and early Ebay purchases – all randomness and breakable but worth listing at 15-20+. Also two, not one, boxes of paper that would take forever to list. I’m sure I will lot some of that. Then two, not one boxes of really small items that will take a while to list as well. Not to mention the flatware. Oof.
I’m working on a true death pile. I am organizing in the guest room and inside the side table I had stashed a bunch of breakable random picks that I had apparently tried to sell at a garage sale and then held on to for some reason. I have Google lens now, so was able to decide on donating several items. Then as I got to listing the remainder, found several had small flaws. Ugh. I’m going to take pics but price down and hopefully move them out quickly 🤞. It’s probably a bankers box worth.
I forgot to mention that there is new data available in the beta Ebay social page. Some of it doesn’t make sense to me but I can tell I’m averaging about 25 clicks of traffic from Pinterest per month. Unfortunately it doesn’t indicate whether those people bought the item or not or say which listings drove traffic.
You’re welcome Jay. I hope you continue to be able to find great employees. My cousin outside of Bend opened and closed a day care. Plenty of customers but good employees were hard to come by and she had to work it herself a lot. It sounds like in Luray you have done ok and the new city is larger and younger. 👍. Hopefully your housekeepers are solid. Excited to see photos of your new cool place! Glad EBay is doing well for you too. All balls in the air! Way to go.
Total Items in Store: 1,163
Items Sold: 25
Gross Sales: $1,120 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $637 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $120
Highest Price Sold: $87 New teapot, paid $19 on 12/25
Average Price Sold: $45
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $60
Number of items listed this week: 12Tough week last week. I got my first negative feedback ever from a new Ebayer. Claimed it was not authentic. I’ve done all the things and she hasn’t returned the item. I need to call Ebay and follow up. Then, I was organizing and somehow a tiny little horse figurine I had nearby inside a basket went flying and broke so I had to cancel that $40 sale. I think there is something else I forgot. Not a terrific week for the fam either. BUT we did go to the Eagles Goodbye concert.
On the upside I organized all of my shipping boxes. I’m cleaning out our guest closet to accommodate listed inventory. I kind of hate this time of year since I have to sit for a day and a half and do my COGS when I’m really in the mood for physical organizing. I’m a weird person who likes that kind of activity. Haven’t been shopping much or listing enough. My daughter dumped a bunch of clothing out of her room. The better stuff I think I will just go ahead and try on Ebay. I don’t really want to deal with learning Poshmark.
Congrats R&J for being on the home stretch. Very exciting but I’m sure stressful as well.
Apparently this has already been a thing since earlier in 2023.
Passing on the Stanley cup craze. It’s not even a thing here and the buy in is too high.
@Craigrex I love listing on Mercari. It’s very quick, no nonsense, and straightforward. Much better than the EBay app. There is also no social stuff like Poshmark to deal with. The buyers tend to be younger than EBay I think but very cheap. Mercari was going ok but they were originally supplementing the shipping prices to help w their US launch. Then over time I think they failed to cut deals with the shipping services quickly so their shipping was high. Currently shipping prices are better and they cut a deal with the very slow UPS version of smart post. Their timing wasn’t great I think due to clothing becoming oversaturated and all of the competition. I think they also struggled a little bit because many US sellers don’t do what they are supposed to like the Japanese sellers do. Mercari is harsh to those sellers. In the flip side, US buyers want to get their way with forcing returns.
Overall I personally really like the straightforward functionality of Mercari but the prices are just lower than I like to get. My listings are very stale on there now. I don’t think Mercari hides anything but appearance is in order of freshness. Mercari is a great app for people just selling stuff around their house.
