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22 listings for me last week.
I can’t think for the whole year but went ahead and posted my short term goals here. @Retro posted some Ebay goals that are in line with mine. I’ve been catching myself thrifting $15-20 items which I really should stop doing since I have a big backlog. Also need to list and discount pillows and larger items – they take up so much space and I want to get my Ebay stuff out of the guest room closet. I have a bit of inventory consolidating to do as well.
Total Items in Store: 598
Items Sold: 16
Gross Sales: $664.15 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $406.65 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $123
Highest Price Sold: $119 (Vintage spaghetti Santa, paid $5.99)
Average Price Sold: $41.51
Returns: 1 (But hasn’t shipped yet)
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: +/-$40
Number of items listed this week: 22Sales were pretty dead right before Christmas but were brisk yesterday and this morning. I didn’t realize today was a postal holiday. I have a lot of stuff to ship by tomorrow and it will be pretty annoying. Grateful for Ebay. I know the really dreadfully slow time is coming but I will be listed more this year during that time so hopefully that will help.
I was hunting RA today and the discounts aren’t really impressive enough for me. Many of my favorites aren’t doing an extra % off but I have had better luck in February and even early March. One store discounted early and I spent about $100 last week, scooping up some returns that landed in my local store and were nicely marked down. Today Goodwill Finds is running a sale as I posted elsewhere so that was my arbitrage.
I also noted that Macy’s has created like an outlet in the top level of their store. I’m under the impression it is supposed to be like a TJ Maxx. Their extra sales discounts don’t apply so I’m not impressed with the pricing or brands. However, I’ll keep an eye out because nobody locally seems to be shopping in there heavily at least for home goods. Happy bargain hunting to those who participate.
@Mark I’m honestly surprised about your Etsy success. I know it has been very slow for some others who tried it. Curious if you are promoting your Ebay listings? Between Ebay having the item specifics and Etsy having the tags (and a higher standard of photos imho) I’m sticking with Ebay but I feel like I need to make deals and give them a bigger cut now.50% off sale items today. I’ve been keeping a favorites list since their prices went sharply up following the grand opening.
I bought three items for $50. Two were very good deals and one was an Arabia Finland piece that I paid up for a bit. It’s a little bit of a gamble since the condition notes are vague but it brought some of their ridiculous prices down quite a bit. I’ve bought 3 items before this and they were all well packed.
@Retro these sound like great goals and I should also adopt them, though I don’t have a lot of $50-100 items lying around. I have some larger items I should 100% prioritize listing to cut down the space needed for storage. I also should mark down the pillows in inventory as they take up a lot of space and tend to sell slowly but are still profitable.
Oh duh I guess I was looking at the screen that says the percentage of costs that was FVFs. I needed to pull up a statement and that looks lower. Shipping definitely takes a bite from gross as I sell a lot of breakables.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/234816527864 Found this piece of art and learned the cool technique is called linocut. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. Searched but could not find the artist or read the signature. Just noticing a couple of my last photos are blurry. Oops.
Happy to report that both of the early Department 56 pieces sold last week. I featured one of those on the find of the week post.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/234727725741 Sold this item that had been listed a long time. I knew it would either go to the old lady type or someone young and hip. It ended up being the former and we had a little message exchange and she left me really awesome feedback.
Only 11 items for me this week. Lots going on and I had a number of items to pack. I was happy to move on from listing Christmas items. I have a box of random purchases to catch up on next – some yarn, art pottery, etc.
Total Items in Store: 594
Items Sold: 22
Gross Sales: $874.26 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $465.89 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $153
Highest Price Sold: $83 (Vintage owl art on wood, paid $5)
Average Price Sold: $39.74
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $150
Number of items listed this week: 11Happy with the sales this week. I am seeing over 30% final value fees (not counting promotions). This seems so much higher than I remember them being a couple of years ago. Wondering what others are seeing and recall? Total fees are pretty high (I’m promoting at 4%) so I guess it’s good I’m selling more used items now that I can source at a lower COGS.
I did do a little RA this week and a little bit of thrifting here and there. Sales have been aggressive at my favorite retailer so I figure it will be slim pickings by the day after Christmas when I traditionally go. Didn’t get a lot listed last week unfortunately. Should be flipping that equation this week but will have more family time. I also need to do some organizing of inventory.
Hope all are having a good holiday season!
Hi Amatino, you sure are good at motivating.
I’m thinking a little smaller than this but here goes.
Diet. Started app tracking, eating more veggies and less wheat a couple of months back. It’s helping but need to add in more regular exercise.
Mindfulness practice. I’m so lousy with this but under quite a bit of stress so need to remind myself.
Ebay. I have some listed and unlisted stuff living inside two of my living spaces that needs to get put in the garage. Keeping up with any purchases. In the new year, I plan to start with listing the love-to-buy-but-hate-to-list-but-it-sells-well linens and vintage fabric. I also need to Marie Kondo my personal closet and list that stuff on Mercari.
Bathroom Remodel. We have our insurance settlement and I need to pronto get on choosing a vanity. I’m trying to be cheap and don’t really want to deal tbh. Needs to happen. Then I get lost in the tile process. I love love tile but can’t choose and pick expensive tile.
Total Items in Store: 581
Items Sold: 23
Gross Sales: $1,023.31 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $637.46 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $144
Highest Price Sold: $135 (atomic starburst coffee mug)
Average Price Sold: $44.49
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $22
Number of items listed this week: 48On paper this looks ok but I feel like I’m working a lot harder and making a lot of deals to make less money without the RA items. Plus I’m trying to raise money for Christmas gifts. Will need to work hard at listing. Lots of life ups and downs but keep on truckin’ as they say.
On a podcast they discussed working harder to make the same money. I also ran into a really experienced local reseller who said this is his worst year ever and higher dollar items (60+) aren’t moving as well as usual. He said he tracks his packages and USPS is doing very well so far.
I listed a lot of Christmas and nearly finished. I’m a bit sick of Christmas stuff TBH. It will be nice to switch out to something else. I haven’t decided yet what I will pull out from the piles.
I got burned one year with not being able to buy a Fed Ex label on Ebay for a large gift order right before Christmas. I went ahead and ate it in the spirit of the season but then started each year after that to turn off my store on the USPS shipping cut off day until Christmas Eve. I think this year I’m going to go ahead and leave it on. Fingers crossed.
If you want to consider an occasional podcast, I wouldn’t complain about that. 🙂
@Zach you are inspiring me to list my vintage wrapping paper. I had heard it wasn’t selling well anymore…
48 for me. I’m pretty sick of listing Christmas items. Still have like maybe 5-6 linens left then I think I’ve covered it all…
@I typically price at the highest Terapeak solds then allow make offer of roughly 15%-20% off (with a $ floor). I also try to remember to run sales 10-15% off but then don’t take offers on the sale price unless I’ve had it listed a long time or want to get rid of it. I include all of my items in those sales. For damaged items I’m more flexible since pricing is harder to get right on that.
That sounds like a cool book. It would be fun to look at the clothes and hair. I’m picking up a lot fewer coffee mugs than I used to since the shipping is up, but there are definitely some worth selling. I have quite a few in the piles.
This week I picked this item out of the piles and found another in the wild. https://www.ebay.com/itm/334661080844 I was surprised to learn it’s the original Department 56 snow village. This one has some condition issues unfortunately but they can go over $100 for these 1970s early crude ones. They had paper sticker labels that can be missing but now I can recognize them.
