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can’t wait to see the art magazines (hint hint) as you push towards 1000 listings! I had a nice sale a month or two ago of FMR (Franco Maria Ricci) magazines from the 1980s.
That boat sculpture is so intricate. craig rex who used to be intimated by items that don’t fit in a flat rate envelope or box took one look at your listing and went, Oh no, that must be a nightmare to ship. But I have grown and changed and I know better now. Your sculpture is metal and wood so it’s pretty sturdy and it’s not like gigantic or anything. I think you’ll do well with it and will probably pack and ship it in…15 minutes or less?
It’s not a surprise that you’re finding all these other hard goods at the hoarder place, but so smart that you’re taking the time to research and add to your haul. Were the dinner chimes also from the hoarder house? It feels like the kind of thing you’d see in an old movie or something. I have a good feeling you’ll get a nice sale on that one, probably after you’ve completely forgotten about it in your inventory.
Case in point, this group is fine for casual reseller chit-chat but not very many folks in here sell at a volume where you have to worry about employees, SKU systems to track your inventory and the logistics of hauling a carload of items to the post office every day.
@JasonK is your goal to have a team of employees and a warehouse for your eBay store? Or is that born out of how much inventory you have and not enough time to process, list, etc?One of the things that I always loved about Jay and Ryanne was that their eBay business was always a means to an end — it was about getting $1000/week so they could pay their bills but still have flexibility to live their life, then to pay for their first Airbnb, then their second, then the coffee shop and now in my mind they’re basically the First Couple of Luray. But they didn’t do it alone. They have had employees to help along the way with mundane tasks like taking photos (for eBay) or cleaning the Airbnbs and they have their partners in the coffee shop who have more experience with a coffee business. They have the outdoor storage shed with a mostly organized inventory system which IIRC was based around SKUs.
I was in a place when I first started doing eBay full-time two years ago where I had thousands of items in my store and I was making daily post office trips. Honestly I could have used an employee! I’m fortunate that my spouse has always been super supportive of my eBay business and she helped a lot in those days. Especially in the last year when I still had another job and there just weren’t enough hours in a day.
Today my eBay store is much smaller, around 400 items. I am fortunate to specialize in a niche (trading cards) where I can sell a lot of my stuff on consignments. Here is how the model works. Essentially I ship my consignment cards to a company on the west coast, they handle all the scanning and identification for a fee of about $1 per card, all I do is set the price and they take a few percent of each sale. My inventory was a mess before I started sending boxes to consignment. It is easier to buy than sell and I’m working out of an 800sf apartment. So once I tried consignment, I was really thrilled. Maybe I am not always getting top dollar but that’s not always what’s most important. I have more space and time now. You can’t put a price on that. There was a period early last year where I was basically sending a full flat rate box to the consignment company every week. I have over 15,000 cards in my consignment port and it’s developed into a nice, consistent income stream for me.
I also get 500 auctions free every month with my eBay store and make a few thousand dollars in sales by sending cards to auction twice a month. Those days are a lot like you describe, I bring full bins to the post office two at a time. But it’s only on a few days each month.
I’ve also had some success with selling wholesale sized lots of 250+ cards my leftover cards which aren’t worth sending to consignment or listing individually in my eBay store. Again, not getting top dollar but there is always more inventory to find.
Is any of this applicable to your model train business?
If not, I bet @retro-treasures-wv would have a ton of ideas with the volume he buys at and the incredible commitment to listing and storage.
I am not sure how much we can truly learn from the lives of the big grind/hustle Youtube sellers. How much of their customer base are fans? How real are their numbers? I met a guy at a library sale a few months back who sells books on Amazon and he learned everything he knows from these different Youtube sellers. But will he still be at it next year when I go back to that sale? How much of a grind is his daily life? Maybe I’ll ask him and report back.
I haven’t had much time for posting on the forums this week because I had another batch of auctions ending this past Monday (will be in next week’s numbers) and I missed it. I enjoy reading everyone’s stories throughout the week. It gives me that little boost of motivation knowing that there are others who enjoy this life (and this podcast) enough to still hang around here. And everyone is doing things slightly differently. It is supposed to be a rainy weekend which usually leads to me spending some extra time organizing my workspace and reflecting. I am looking forward to squeezing in a few posts (OK, maybe more than a few) in between all that.
9/17/2023 to 9/23/2023
Items sold: 26 (15 via best offer, 5 via seller initiated offer, 19 via promoted listings)
Gross sales: $980.48 (down 68% from one year ago)
Net sales: $630.84 (down 69% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $37.71 (up 16% from one year ago)
Highest price sold (net): $75.31 — Willie Mosconi JSA authenticated signed pool stick
This was a scavenge of the week in May, cost me $30. Then it sat on one of my shelves until last week. Got it listed and it sold within 24 hours for my full asking price of $100. Probably could have priced it a little higher, but I was happy to get it packed (unscrewed the full size stick and wrapped each half in bubble wrap, used a 30″ x 10″ x 5″ box). Never let fear of shipping a weird item get in the way of actually getting it listed.
Lowest price sold (net): $11.31 — Chicago Bulls lot of 10 basketball cards
I have sold about 250 of these 10 card lots organized by team since the beginning of this year. This has been a new way of selling for me; I only sold about 50 of these lots all of last year. I make between $5 and $15 profit on each lot. I have developed a really good system to organize my inventory, create each listing, and price them so they either sell or I change out the cards. Some days I make 5 or 6 of these lots and that’s my eBay time for the day.
It will be interesting to see how many of these small lots I can sell next year. Would it be possible to sell 500 in a year, which is about 10 a week? Not sure, but it seems like a nice round number to shoot for.
I won a bunch of train stuff for pennies recently as well. A few weeks ago, when I was sick with COVID and had nothing better to do than buy even more inventory. Fortunately I have more self-discipline now than I did in March 2020 and reined myself in. I still came away with a small lot of Life-Like brand trains ($25) and a box of random parts and bluekits ($5). Completely forgot to write about this in scavenge of the week because of brain fog. Possibly all going to sit in my death piles forever. But I hope I’ll get inspired by your find.
Some super unique stuff – the first of which was a collection of vintage mid century medical equipment I bought from a retired doctor. There’s probably over 100 individual surgical instruments of various size/complexity. Plenty of other cool stuff as well. It may be a while before I can start listing this stuff.
Your last line is probably the understatement of the year. You’ve got a premium hoarder haul to finish up! so I look forward to reading about sales from this weird collection sometime next year. But you have an amazing ability to list a ton of stuff in a short period of time, so I won’t be too shocked if you get these listed sooner than you (and I) think.
The other unique item was a collection of 35mm film trailers from a movie theater. I paid $10 for the bag. Here’s two of them:
There are two other active listings for Ratatouille 35mm film trailers and they both have the stock photo as their first picture. Total amateur hour. I bet yours will sell faster than theirs and for a higher price too.
Sony Handycam HDR-CX330 High Definition Camcorder TESTED WORKS Lots Of Extras
Paid $20 at a sale where I bought a bunch of stuff. They didn’t have a price and asked for an offer. I offered $10. The guy struggled with price as that $400 original price they paid was giving him heartburn. He came back with $20 and that sounded fine to me.
Those people, always going on about what they paid for something, as if most things we own are forever worth their original purchase price. My second favorite grumble is how much something is listed for online.
When I am at these sales, I often feel like I can’t get into it for resale. Especially at the early morning ones that are amateur hour. Or ones overrun with Amazon scanner dorks. But I’ve gotten much, much better at identifying potential value even at the terrible sales. And these sales are (mostly) cheap enough that it’s true scavenging.
I have to get a new pair of sneakers lately, and I’ve been considering Hokas. Looks like you’ll do quite well with your lot.
I had a bedspread growing up which was very similar to your Pottery Barn quilt! Maybe not the exact one, but something close to it. If only it lasted 25 years, I could be rolling in a (small) pile of twenties right now! Bet that is a bear to ship…
Spider-Man Pogs 1995 Marvel Near Complete Set 1-120
Pogs, that’s crazy. That’s junk from my childhood bedroom, along with all the baseball cards and TTM (through the mail) autographs. Not a lot of near-complete sets of base baseball cards from the mid to late 90s selling for $60 these days. Maybe a few premium sets with key rookie cards. Inserts, on the other hand…there is MONEY in 90’s inserts, especially the lower serial numbered ones in basketball, football and baseball. Search 1997 precious metal gems on eBay next time to see how much. Add green (the rarest color) to the end of your search and you’ll have to pick up bits of your brain off the floor and walls.
The Legend of Drizzt R A Salvatore 2008 Collector’s Edition Hardcover Book 1
Very cool to see a Wizards of the Coast book from the same era. Your listing redirects to one which is priced at $40 with a $55 BIN, so I think you got a nice price on yours.
Louis Vuitton Bidart Espadrille Monogram Denim Shoes 12 US 11 LV
From the premium hoarder collection. Sold within 24 hours on offer. I really wanted to cross that $500 threshold, but it wasn’t worth risking the sale. Note: The buyer did not request the chewed on box. LOL! Why someone would spend this kind of money I personally don’t understand but I do realize money is subjective. How I view $500 now is completely different than someone else views it.
Your last line is something I have been thinking about a lot recently. I also don’t understand why people spend this kind of money, but there is always the possibility that they’re reselling or “investing.” I see this all the time within the trading card world, and often get a reminder that not everyone who flips or “invests” is good at it, or even all that committed to the process.
I like to think about these random low feedback buyers who occasionally buy luxury items (like brand name shoes or expensive baseball cards) once every few months and do something, who knows what, the rest of the time when they’re not buying on eBay. Buyers who I imagine have like eight expensive things in a drawer or in a closet. They all have jobs with important titles and do things like play racquetball. I understand these buyers more with cards (which can fluctuate in value) than I do with something like shoes, but maybe shoes fluctuate in value too.
And of course some people really care about wearing certain brands, like to the point it’s a part of their identity, and that is the most bizarre thing to me of all. Like I can’t wrap my head around it. It’s even more bizarre to me than buying $500 on “junk”, which is something you and I do pretty often. One person’s trash, another person’s treasure?
It seems like every time I hesitate to list an item, then list it anyways even damaged it sells quickly. Such a strange quirk of this business!
I saw this with my big Chicago haul (no spoilers) a few times. But this works best with more expensive items or very unique ones. I think those buyers are more forgiving, especially if you accurately describe the damage to their precious.
I wonder what that old 97’s cd would have went for if you had it listed last year after the guardians of the galaxy christmas special. They had a moment for sure. I spent some time on their apple music channel.
I have a bad tendency to let things sit in death piles, but surprisingly I only had this one for maybe a month before I listed it and the sale happened after about two months. So I missed the bubble completely. No huge outlier sales in Terapeak going back two years unless I am not using the right search terms which is definitely possible. Kind of surprises me, but this is truly a collector’s kind of item and I would think music buffs have a few higher priorities related to their favorite band (live shows, merch) before you get to unauthenticated signed CDs.
I was way into alt-country for a bit, less the last few years. The Old 97s have shifted in and out of the genre over 20+ years and I’ve liked it all.
It was such a joy to see an old fashioned bidding war, reminded me of buying on eBay a decade ago.
Your needlepoint is so striking visually. I love the colors. So the sale price doesn’t surprise me completely (especially considering the size of it) but I’m still so curious. How do you research and price something like that?
You are closer to the big 1-0-0-0 listings than it might feel like. Get 10 done today if you can! You’ll feel great about hitting that listing milestone and probably see a boost in sales for making the algorithm happy.
Fortunately, several of the books I bought with my Tokien lot a few weeks ago are selling. I still shake my head when I think of all the Amazon scanners at book fairs, while antiquarian books sell for decent amounts and can often be picked up at auctions in lots for so little. I guess their business model is all about volume.
I hit 4 library sales last week, so this has been something I’m seeing constantly. I cruised into a room at one sale hours after opening and found two old RuneQuest games from the 80’s which were probably worth more than the combined profits on half the books at that sale. I have a favorite sale which is no scanners on Saturday and about an hour after opening, saw someone get kicked out. That was really just a treat to watch, very cathartic.
In July, when I went to the large sale in Chicago which constantly restocked, I ended up chatting with an Amazon seller for a chunk of the last day as we waited for more stuff and more stuff. Once he saw I was going for different stuff than him, he explained his general book scanning process to me. Sales rank is a big factor as well, often more important than selling price. Essentially almost every scanning person is looking for something which has a proven history of selling for a certain target price. My pal for the day passed up a lot of items with bar codes which I bought and made a nice profit on. Some of which sold within a day or two of listing. Basically eBay and Amazon sellers are two different ballgames. Good to know AI (Artificial Intelligence or Amazon Idiots, you pick) aren’t coming for our jobs anytime soon!
It has been a blast following your growth in the last year. I speak for all the lurkers when I say it’s a real privilege (and education) to see the reports of your premium clothing hoard and your many, many smaller hauls. It has also been inspiring to me as my store is going through its own evolution. It’s crazy to me to see how much you can accomplish with your reselling business while retaining your day job!
Figuring out when to share that you resell and when to mask is one of my favorite puzzles. I’ve had a few of those run-ins lately (most of them documented in the scavenge of the week threads) and I kind of love them because it feels like I get to play a character. I’m a musician, I’m a collector, I’m an artist, I’m whatever you want me to be so I can buy your thing in peace without getting a bizarre (and uninformed) lecture about ethics.
I like to think that the people who complain about sleazy resellers would change their mind if they knew the truth about me. I am not keeping their thing forever, no, but I love it deeply anyway. The profit is important (obviously) but what I really, really care about is getting this random item to its next buyer, who is hopefully the forever buyer. I care so much that I take good pictures of the item and try to advertise it so someone who loves it as much as the original owner can find it. I use clean bubble wrap and actual cardboard to protect their valuables from the big bad postal workers. I have a real label printer and I get the package scanned at the post office instead of dumping it in the blue bin five days after I mail it. If a customer has a problem with one of my items, I send them a message with empathy like a normal person and usually I just refund them. Do people complaining about resellers think about any of this? Probably not.
The barrier to entry to selling online is comically low, but I would like to believe that there are as many of us good eggs as there are lowballers and scuzzbuckets. At least among the pros.
Auction looks amazing. You did a great job with the pictures on the lot items in particular. How do you plan to handle all of the different pickups? Will you have different time slots for different rooms/types of items? I’ve never done something like an estate sale before. None of my family who’ve died have possessed anything that resembled an estate when they passed, which is kind of sad now that I think about it. Anyway, can’t wait to follow along your auction, I hope the bids come fast and furious at the end.
I have been slacking badly on posting my numbers over the last 4-6 weeks. No single reason, lots of little ones. I’ve decided Wednesday nights will be my forum posting nights until I get back on track. Maybe this will get some more conversation happening here towards the end of the week, too.
Despite not posting in the thread as often, I’ve been thinking more about my numbers than ever. How I sell online has changed dramatically over the last year and has become a process of consistent change and evolution. I am thinking about another vacation in the next few months and I was in Chicago just seven weeks ago. I never made more than $35,000/year working for someone else, so money was always a problem for me. Especially on the rare occasions I traveled or did anything fun. Still some work to do to fix that, but I have a lot more options and flexibility now and the next few years are going to be amazing. I am trying to keep that in mind all the time so I remain humble and appreciative of what feels like a whole new life.
9/10/2023 to 9/16/2023
Items sold: 47 (16 via best offer, 7 via seller initiated offer, 18 via promoted listings)
Gross sales: $1916.15 (up 88% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1156.88 (up 66% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $40.77 (down 28% from one year ago)
Highest price sold (net): $196.19 — Flat rate box of 54 graded and encapsulated cards
The buyer of this lot was located in Australia, so this was one of the most expensive items I have ever sold in terms of fees — $112.02 shipping label, $53.35 final value fees, $28.42 promoted listings. So my net profit is maybe $50, and even though I sent the cards in a large flat rate box, the tracking has been painfully slow — last update 9/14 in the international hub in Jamaica, NY.
But I had another motive beyond profit. A lot of my international card buyers become repeat customers because so many card sellers use the Global Shipping Program (or whatever it’s called now) and the fees are much higher than shipping direct. And international buyers are some of the most active on trading card groups, too. I sent the buyer a small envelope with some bonuses. If they’re happy, maybe they tell their collecting friends and I get a few more repeat customers from down under. If not, for once I put in some real, honest work to make my $50.
Lowest price sold (net): $6.55 — Golden State Warriors lot of 10 basketball cards
I had a lot of contenders for low sale of the week this week because I had auctions ending last Monday. I had one crazy bidding war where this lot of Vegas Golden Knights hockey cards went from a $10 starting bid to a $53 final price! It was two bidders back and forth and the winner had bought from me in the past. Not sure which card in the lot had hidden value (even after I did some research out of curiosity), but seeing that sale was a thrill and really felt like what eBay was like a decade ago. Or Yahoo auctions a decade before that.
But most of these small card lots, which have become a core part of my business model in the last few months, sell for their opening bid. Usually that’s $10 with higher quality lots at $15. In the case of this Warriors lot, it had sold for $10 and went unpaid and then sold again for $10 and went unpaid. So I dropped the starting price to $8, which is the price it sold for, but at least this buyer actually paid. I might have made $2 profit on this lot when I usually make $5 to $10 on each one. Oh well, I’ve already got a new one posted.
