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The rumor is that our rural walmart is going 100% self checkout. I like it when I have 20 items or less. Its horrible if you have a huge cart of items.
Self checkout leads to a lot of theft and “theft” as well. The grocery chain Wegmans had a self checkout app where you could scan everything as you shopped and pay without dealing with any lines, but recently discontinued it because it led to too much theft.
I had my first experience using self checkout at a thrift store last weekend. Quick and painless. It even automatically subtracted 50 percent off for the yellow color sale tags. There was one regular cashier but the rest of the workers were on the floor. And, no coincidence, the store was super clean and organized.
Highest Price Sold: $152 Retired New Williams Sonoma Plates from clearance last year
You have really been on a roll with the Williams Sonoma stuff lately! Was there a theme to these like with your Halloween mugs from last week, or is it just that certain retired sets go for big bucks?
I listened to a couple of old SL podcasts this week while listing with my pumpkin candle on.
I am glad that I am not the only one who still tunes in to the old podcasts. I like to find episodes from the same month or season as the time that I’m listening. This gets me in the right mindset of dealing with slow season, or shipping being annoying, or listing consistently, or whatever is on my plate at that time. eBay may change but the basic challenges we face as sellers mostly stay the same. There is so much freedom with this life but a lot of unglamorous work and it can get lonely and even overwhelming, especially if you don’t feel well or have life challenges going on. The podcast was so full of positivity and honesty and even today, still helps me stay centered and put in the work to maintain my eBay business.
I was on vacation last week, and turning on Time Away for my eBay store led to my slowest week of sales in a long time. But I was too busy enjoying the food and sights and a nice Airbnb in Lancaster, PA to care too much. My week could have easily been much slower. I had three sales around $100 and zero cancellations. Every single buyer was fine with the wait time, which makes me excited for the next vacation.
I knew Time Away was going to slow down my sales, so I set up about 500 auctions to ensure that I would come back to at least some money in the bank. The first batch ended tonight, and the next batch will end tomorrow night, so all of those sales will be in next week’s numbers.
This was my first time running auctions in a long time, and I was very selective about what I sent to auction (mostly inventory that was 3+ months old) and how I priced it (around 50% of buy it now prices). It has been interesting to see what sells and what doesn’t. I added best offer to all auctions, and a few items sold for offers (including two on the day I listed them, and one today just hours before the auction was going to end). A handful of listings ended up in a bidding war, but the majority of auctions that sold only had one or two bids. Most of the listings didn’t sell, even some with 5+ watchers. Tonight’s final numbers: I sold 59 of 250 listings. We’ll see how tomorrow night goes. Since some items were 2+ years old and had received few or no offers, I’m pretty happy even with the ones that sold for opening bid of $10 or $20.
I’ll have to see how I feel after 2-3 days of shipping being a pain in the ass, but I might try auctions again the next time I go on vacation or take some time away, or want to raise some extra funds all at once. Auctions are very popular in trading cards which works to my benefit as well. I’d be curious to see how the occasional auctions would work for many of you who sell in other niches or a huge mix of items. I think there are some buyers who have been on eBay a long time and like auctions for nostalgia reasons, and others who prefer to search auctions for bargain deals or they enjoy the bidding war.
9/11/2022 – 9/17/2022
Total items in store: 1363 (down from 1425 last week)
Items sold: 17 (13 via best offer, 0 via seller initiated offer, 5 via promoted listings)
Gross sales: $1001.07 (down 71% from one year ago)
Net sales: $723.05 (down 70% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $58.89 (up 25% from one year ago)
Time spent searching through online auction listings for new trading cards inventory: 5 hours (down from 12 hours last week)
Highest price sold (net): $107.53 — Jerry Rice 1998 Upper Deck Prime Choice Reserve ##/100
I bought this card from the only other forum I post on, a big trading cards and collectibles message board, for all of $5. Everyone on those forums is obviously a collector or dealer, and a lot of the most active posters on there avoid selling on eBay for all sorts of strange reasons. Most people selling know what they have and price around eBay but occasionally I find some good deals. This is a once a year steal for me, more often my sales that net around $100 cost me $25 to $50.
Lowest price sold (net): $12.62— Bob Sanders Upper Deck Exquisite jersey ##/75
Two minutes of Googling taught me that Bob Sanders was an outstanding defense safety for the Indianapolis Colts whose career was shortened by repeated injuries. A lot of players like this (short career with one team, defense or other unglamorous positions) don’t have many cards with embellishments like an autograph, jersey, or serial number, so they end up with a small but devoted collector base. I sold another jersey card of Bob Sanders with a lower serial number for $20 to the same buyer in this transaction. These two sales covered more than half of my original purchase, which was an auction in late April — 14 Bob Sanders jersey cards for about $55 total. A great deal! 2 sold, 12 more to go.
Saw a particular unsavory Amazon seller earlier today at one of my favorite library sales, the kind where they are very clear NO SCANNERS allowed on Saturdays. This is a large and well-run sale, and I love it a little more after today because they kicked the guy out after giving him a few warnings. They even brought a uniformed cop in (granting the police station is right next door) to make sure his departure went smoothly!
There are a few instances where it can really pay to show up early, but only if there’s some organization to things. Like a number or ticket system. But mostly I think that what we see as chaos comes from desperation. Scavenging is not a good occupation if you’re desperate for things to sell right now. That’s just not how it works. Not like that’s ever stopped anyone from reselling because the barrier to entry is so low, and I can include myself in that. I remember so clearly the anxiety over waiting for items to sell and why aren’t they selling!!because I needed that extra money to pay bills. But maybe that’s my fault for not fighting it out at the savage yard sales to get the “best” items.
I won’t be able to tell until I actually receive it (I buy all my inventory online)
I can’t wait to see whether you got the score you think you did. I also buy almost all of my inventory online, and there is nothing like the 5-7 business day wait period between paying for an order and waiting for it to show up in your mailbox or PO Box in my case. I was away this week and finally opened all my mail earlier today, and one low feedback seller sent me a completely different item, not even close to what I ordered in size and shape. The perils of buying online. At least eBay’s money back guarantee has never let me down.
Very cool score! Basically the dream to get a huge quantity of stuff that you regularly sell all for one low price. Thinking back to these occasions with my own store, these buys led to the following outcomes (all positive):
1. Once I got everything listed (usually this took a while + happened in batches), a nice chunk of immediate profit plus more sales in the weeks and months that followed.
2. Extra confidence the next time I found myself in a similar buying situation — easier to pull the trigger on a large purchase when your instinct has paid off recently.
3. Lots of sales of older and similar inventory — I think this is mostly related to the eBay algorithm, where you get a little boost in search when you’re actively listing new items and especially when they sell quickly.
I’ve started telling people at the train shows that I’m an online reseller and they don’t seem to mind, most of them thank me for buying such large quantities.
It’s so funny how the way that we think people might respond to us is often different from how they actually respond. But it goes a long way to be polite and treat people (and their stuff) with respect. There are a lot of rude and disingenuous resellers out there. Mostly Amazon FBA sellers in my experience (no offense Amazon people). But ebay has been good the last few years about marketing themselves as the home of a million small businesses, so I’ve found that people often respond very positively when I tell them I have an ebay business.
Those are such unique items! I would never, ever think to look twice at such an ugly top or at infant costumes. The costume in particular is a good reminder to think ahead once the calendar hits November because everything unique will find its buyer at the right time. I think your title for the shirt was really excellent. A lot of sellers don’t use the full title or variations of a main keyword, but I think those types of small things are really important with eBay’s search algorithm.
I like to look through thrift stores for clothes for myself but I have no clue what is valuable to others aside from a few of areas of interest like vintage t-shirts (which I usually end up keeping anyway, lol). Do you do a lot of cleaning and prep with used clothes? Or just find it, list it regardless of condition and try and price so that it sells quickly?
I like the design of that mugs a lot but, wow, great sale on mugs that seem like they would chip very easily or maybe just be a decorative piece once a year. Would I be right to assume that Williams Sonoma has a collector base for some of its stuff, kind of like how some Starbucks mugs can be really valuable?
When I first found the podcast, I was living and going to school about ten minutes from where you were in south plainfield. Also working at a warehouse! NJ has a lot of geographic and cultural diversity but some areas may as well just be one big warehouse or strip mall.
I just got home today and here are the numbers on my auctions so far. The first batch ends tomorrow and the second batch ends on Monday so these aren’t the final numbers. But even if I get no more bids, I’m happy.
Out of 525 auctions:
3 have already sold for best offer prices totaling $50
37 have bids totaling $750.12
3 have bids which are higher than the buy it now price I had the items listed for
Auctions are a huge part of the trading card niche, so that certainly helps me. But I think there is a percentage of ebay users who mostly, or only buy at auction. I was very careful to only run auctions with starting prices that I would be happy with. So no starting prices under $10, usually no less than 50% of my buy it now prices and almost all inventory that was at least a few months old.
I would be really curious to see the results running auctions like this in another niche or a variety of niches.
We missed you too J&R. Hope everything in your lives comes out smelling like roses this week. You both deserve it.
I am taking a scavenger road trip this week to Lancaster, PA. Two library sales in the area will pay for some of the trip, maybe all of it depending on what I find, and I’m optimistic that I will come across some cool old Mennonite stuff.
But this trip is less about the sales and more about getting out there to explore somewhere new. I’ve lived in different parts of New Jersey my whole life and never had the means or opportunity to travel much. Lancaster may as well be Mars. I am nervous for my trip but also very excited. The first of many to come.
I’ll have a lot of work waiting for me when I get back. Auctions are big in the trading cards niche, and I figured that sales are going to dip while I’m away, so why not run a bunch of auctions over the course of the week to guarantee some extra money in the bank?
I spent some time this weekend carefully plotting out how I wanted to do this. The end result was about 600 auctions ending next Sunday and Monday night with starting bids between $10 and $50 (about half of the BIN price was in my store) and best offer option turned on (free for auction listings, unlike BIN which is $0.10 minimum). It cost me $0.10 per listing to schedule the listings in advance which was taken from my available funds as soon as the listing went live.
From the batch of auctions which started earlier tonight, two listings have already received the minimum bid and a buyer sent me offers on two other listings for $15 and $20, which I accepted. It’s a reminder that eBay users are all different. Some only check auctions. Some really care about negotiating over a few dollars. Auctions aren’t right for every type of item and you want to be careful with how you use them, but they are also one of eBay’s most unique elements.
9/4/2022 – 9/10/2022
Total items in store: 1425 (up from 1378 two weeks ago)
Items sold: 41 (26 via best offer, 9 via seller initiated offer, 19 via promoted listings)
Gross sales: $2006.40 (down 27% from one year ago)
Net sales: $1430.34 (down 29% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $48.94 (up 2% from one year ago)
Time spent searching through online auction listings for new trading cards inventory: 12 hours (down from 16 hours last week)
Highest price sold (net): $101.67 — Aidan Hutchinson 2018 Leaf autograph #6/15
Lowest price sold (net): $10.69 — DJ Skee 2021 Chicago National I Feel Like A Monster promotional card
Interesting; so does this mean that eBay is trying to focus on becoming a high values collectible site and the rest of us scavengers may be left in the dust since future policies will be aimed at focusing on enhancing the HVC categories?
I don’t think there is any evidence eBay is focusing on high values collectibles at the exclusion of other types of sellers. I’m sure Authenticity Guarantee took some resources to set up, but that program will only weed out dishonest and/or scammer sellers which is good for everyone who uses eBay.
If anything, I think changes like the new listing flow make it easier for casual sellers to sell a few items, which in turn makes it easier to convert those users into casual (or frequent) buyers as well. I also think that a lot of subtle improvements, for example to shipping flow, have shown that eBay wants casual users to be comfortable selling on the site. You don’t even need a printer to ship a package anymore!
There have been more than a few times in the last five years where it seemed like eBay was trying to compete with Amazon or wasn’t sure what the best plan was for them. But since the start of the pandemic, and I think a change in leadership within the country, their public announcements seem to recognize that they see the importance in smaller sellers.
Make no mistake, I buy from mega sellers in the trading cards niche all the time, and I know they play by very different rules as far as fees, policies, etc. But most of eBay’s changes in the last two years have made selling on the platform better or easier for me, and some innovations (for example, sending offers to watchers) have been huge improvements. It’s not a perfect platform but it’s amazing how different ebay is now compared to 10 years ago, and still a successful company with a pretty unique niche and much bigger footprint than competitors like Mercari, Poshmark, Etsy, Craigslist, FB Marketplace.
Nothing crazy to report this week so far, but this weekend was our anniversary, so we decided to do an all day scavenging day, hitting up a number of yard sales, thrift stores, the Goodwill outlet, and a few dumpsters here and there. Then we stopped in at an out-of-the-way Chinese buffet on a whim. $12.99 per person was exactly the kind of cheap meal we were after, and it was pretty dang tasty, to boot!
Happy anniversary! That sounds like an amazing, and full, scavenger day. Philly area food prices are just slightly higher than Pittsburgh! I don’t remember the last full-price meal I paid $12.99 for, let alone Chinese buffet.
Most of it was dry or canned goods that only expired within the last year, so it’s all still perfectly fine for eating. We figure it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $75-$125 of groceries. Not a bad haul!
There is a great app called Too Good to Go which we have discussed on these forums a lot in the last few months since Jay and Ryanne posted about it. Basically it allows you to buy expired or leftover food from local restaurants, bakeries and coffee shops for a steep discount. Each restaurants gets ratings too, so it is pretty easy to weed out the good shops from the bad. TGTG is not in the Pittsburgh area yet, but hopefully they expand out that way soon. You would love this app.
I had some strange luck earlier this year when our local Walmart marking down certain foods at huge discounts. Some were about to expire but others had a long expiration date and the packages looked undamaged. Picked up a few cases of organic extra dark chocolate bars for basically the price of Hershey’s.
we got three German & West Germany Cuckoo clocks for $10 a piece
I’d love to see these listings once you get them posted. This seems like a great bargain for older cuckoo clocks but sold listings are all over the place, probably because clocks must be a pain to ship and it is probably difficult to come up with a unique title. Do yours work or are they parts only?
Seems with the letter opener that the seller meant to write Scrimshaw; there appears to be an artist called Barlow who is well-regarded.
The misspellings happen a lot with the big consignment sellers. What they lack in quality of specific listings they certainly make up for with quantity. Many of the sellers I buy from run 10,000 auctions or more every week! I miss the days where you could type in asterisks at the end of words to catch misspellings and plurals in your searches. But the weird items are still out there if you search hard enough.
Thanks for the tip on Barlow, this piece definitely appears to fit that artist’s style. With the whale imagery and lack of noticeable blade on the item, I’m wondering if I might have something other than a letter opener.
Hopefully I’m not talking out my rear on this one, but I used to run an antiques shop a while back and got my hands on some scrimshaw pieces that got removed from eBay (and got me a couple dings on my account for a while).
Thanks for the info, this will probably keep me from listing the thing on eBay regardless of how much it’s worth. No amount of profit is worth dealing with VERO or prohibited items, not when there’s so many sellable items out there which won’t get you a ding from eBay.
