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03/12/2019 at 3:42 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 402: Can You Build An eBay Business On Repeat Buyers? #58580
I agree and feel the same here. Having looked at and reminded of my minimum sales needed gives me some relief. Yes, I’ve been exceeding that amount in sales lately by double or more, but I’m also overly cautious by nature and would like to see higher numbers for more padding in my bank account. Plus, full time is new to me still so I’m a tad bit nervous.
03/11/2019 at 12:46 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 402: Can You Build An eBay Business On Repeat Buyers? #58467Thanks for sharing, Inglewood. It brings a lot of relief knowing that things aren’t quite so bad. It’s reassuring to get a good perspective from others in this business. I think my frustration came from having a skewed expectation from the busy season when I was selling $1K+ a week. I’m thankful that I have my numbers recorded. Knowing my average weekly sales gives me a good goal every week. And even though I’ve been on the lower end of the scale lately, at least I’m not so far away from my goal to warrant disaster.
03/11/2019 at 10:59 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 402: Can You Build An eBay Business On Repeat Buyers? #58445And I’m happy to be aboard, Jay! I did some rough estimates and my average monthly bills (mortgage + utilities) comes to about $1100. Now my partner pays half of that so that number drops to roughly $550. I still need to sign up for health insurance and I expect that to run around $600 a month for just myself (unless I find something cheaper). Add in maybe $120-$150 for food and I’ve got a bare minimum of ~$1300 a month/$325 a week needed to survive. I’ve also got to factor in taxes COGS, but for now $325 a week seems pretty easy to achieve.
03/11/2019 at 9:59 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 402: Can You Build An eBay Business On Repeat Buyers? #58435Mar 3 – 9
Total Items in Store: 2106
Items Sold: 21
Total Sales : $677
* BELOW yearly average of $909
* ABOVE 2018 total week sales of $529
Highest Price: $82 (Round Marble Top Brass and Wood Plant Stand)
Average Price: $32
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $35
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 54My numbers have been kind of sinking a little since going full time. I know it’s only been a couple of weeks but I’m not gonna lie, I’m a bit frustrated. But that’s why I saved a year’s worth of salary prior to quitting. I had a feeling it would be a rocky beginning.
So I said last week that I was going to hit the ground running. Well that didn’t pan out too well. On Wednesday I was instead hit with a freight train of a cold. I could hardly do anything all day and the next day too. I tried my best to get back into it on Friday but I was still weak. But in light of all that, I still managed to list over 50 new items. Not too shabby. This week I’ll do the best I can with my residual symptoms. I need to get better by the end of the week because I’m taking a little trip to Boca Raton, FL for a friend’s wedding. I’ll need to look and see where all the thrift stores are down there.
Regarding repeat customers, I agree that it’s more the accidental repeat customers that are coming to our stores more than once a few times a year. Whenever I see that message in GoDaddy, I’ll investigate as well and usually the items might be generally similar (e.g. kitchen item) but there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the buyer and my store. Though you might find it intriguing though how often I come across your items while researching my box lot finds. I can sometimes even guess correctly that it’s your store just by seeing the cover picture of the item and title. So maybe there might be something to the subconscious in our repeat buyers, like they’re more attracted to each of our particular styles of listings.
Forgot to post last week my What Solds, so these are two weeks worth of things. Lots of low dollar items these past few weeks. But I feel things are picking up slowly.
This lot of older electric lamp parts were what was left from a box lot after I pulled out all the good stuff. Individually, nothing here was worth my time to sell so I thought to lot it all together. It didn’t take more than a few weeks to sell for full price of $25. Not bad for junk that I nearly threw away.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303049995019I’ve been learning a lot about machinist tools since I began selling on eBay. They can be hit or miss, but I always have good luck with anything Starrett brand. This protractor head and rule was a bit rusty but worked just fine. Didn’t take long for it to sell for full price of $60.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303051043544Last year I scored a huge 35mm slide collection for around $100. I’ve been slowly going through and picking out any notable ones that I think would have some interest to anybody. These pair were an easy sell due to the content matter… exotic dancers! Well, the outside view of the famous Condor Club and Off Broadway Club in San Francisco anyways. It took about a month to sell but I got full asking price of $30 for them.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303013980946I was surprised to have gotten the full asking price of $60 for this Bulova tube radio since it had some damage. But it worked fine and kept time. I paid $4 for it at an auction.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303013980946This sale was my favorite for the week. It’s an old Chevrolet keychain that came out of a bag of miscellaneous trinkets that I risked $2 for (each sellable item only came to .33 cents). It seemed special to me somehow. I was able to find the brand easy enough. Definitely vintage. I priced it high at $40 and it sold after about a month.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/30304566649603/04/2019 at 11:30 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 401: You Don’t Have To Quit Your Job To Sell On eBay #58057I’m right there with you, Winchester. Well technically last week was mine but it didn’t count because it was my “vacation” week. Good luck with your new career!
03/04/2019 at 11:28 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 401: You Don’t Have To Quit Your Job To Sell On eBay #58056Feb 24 – Mar 2
Total Items in Store: 2074
Items Sold: 29
Total Sales : $681
* BELOW yearly average of $913
* BELOW 2018 total week sales of $873
Highest Price: $80 (New Floppy Disks Diskettes 100 Pack)
Average Price: $23
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $32
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $221
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 20Another so-so week on my end. But again, I was sort of expecting that due to not putting a lot of effort into my eBay store. I had other goals last week including fixing a damaged ceiling, painting a wall, and doing some major organizing. Plus I wanted to spend my first week “unemployed” doing some relaxing, something I haven’t had much time to do these past couple of years. And I kind of forgot how to do that. But this week I’m hitting the ground running. I’m treating it like it’s my first day back to work and I’m super motivated. I already have a lot accomplished and it isn’t even noon yet.
I don’t remember if it was me who mentioned needing a career change, or if it was someone else echoing my feeling, but that was really the major driving point for my decision to quit my job. As tech support, I loved dealing with the technology but dealing with people was killing me. I found out that it just wasn’t part of my personality type to have that kind of patience. I needed a change, or at the very least a break. I can’t say for sure if eBay will be a permanent career for me or just a temporary bridge like you mentioned. But I will say it’s making me very happy and bringing my spirit back up.
Thanks for the tip about retirement funds, millionairedojo. It hadn’t even dawned on me that money put into a retirement fund could act as a tax break. Obviously now isn’t a good time for me to begin doing that since my future is a bit hazy and I might need all the money I can get. But definitely something to think about in a year or two.
02/27/2019 at 3:28 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 400: Tax Season Advice for Newbies from Strangers On The Internet #57800Thanks, Troy! I actually just finished the major projects that I had planned. Fixed our ceiling, painted some patches in the wall, cleaned and reorganized my office. Now I’m ready to list list list.
02/27/2019 at 3:26 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 400: Tax Season Advice for Newbies from Strangers On The Internet #57799Thank you, Inglewood! I’m excited too! Or at least I will be once it finally settles in that I don’t have to wake up at 6:00 every morning. Damn internal alarm clock…
02/27/2019 at 3:24 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 400: Tax Season Advice for Newbies from Strangers On The Internet #57798Good idea, Retro. I will have to look into getting one of those. The only minor issue is that our cell service isn’t too great where we live. It would be doable, but majorly inconvenient. But in an emergency situation, little is better than nothing.
02/26/2019 at 3:59 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 400: Tax Season Advice for Newbies from Strangers On The Internet #57730Feb 17-23
Total Items in Store: 2082
Items Sold: 26
Total Sales : $477
* BELOW yearly average of $917
* BELOW 2018 total week sales of $877
Highest Price: $60 (Starrett Machinist Protractor Head and Square)
Average Price: $18
Returns: 2
Cost of Goods Sold: $28
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 20Yikes! It wasn’t a very good week of sales at all. Only about half of my average selling price. That and two high priced returns But that’s okay. I was sort of expecting this since I haven’t been putting a lot of effort into eBay over the last two weeks due to working my butt off training my replacement. But things are looking up already this week. I’ve nearly matched my gross sales from last week, and it’s only Tuesday.
Speaking of my job and all that… I’M DONE! Friday was my last day. It really hasn’t hit me yet that I’ve made this life-changing career move. It still feels like a long four-day weekend or something. My partner, Steph, made that move months ago and she says she still feels like an extended vacation in a way. I had a rough first day, though. Yesterday our internet went out due to the wind storm and we were dead in the water all day. Couldn’t list, couldn’t print labels. So we made the best of it and totally spring cleaned our house. I think I’m going to take this week and work on some other projects for the house that I’ve been putting off for too long.
Congrats on the 400th episode! It’s been a long journey so far! Here’s to the next 400!
Sales were sort of slow last week but picked up really quickly again on Friday and Saturday. Here are some neat ones…
I found this vintage Woolrich puffer vest at a thrift store for $2.50. I don’t normally deal with a lot of coats and clothing in general, but this one stood out to me. There weren’t any like it when I listed it, so I priced it at $60. I waited out all of the lowball offers until finally someone gave me a BO of $50. Good enough for me!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/302913763900So thanks to Steven’s and other’s What Solds, I’ve started paying attention to plastic vehicles. I never knew such cheap looking “junk” could be so collectable. Here’s a good example. This Marx plastic dump truck came from a box lot of toys that I paid $5 for (each sellable piece came to .83 cents). Upon further research, these things have the potential to bring close to a hundred bucks for the right model and color. Mine was just semi-rare and I managed to get $25 for it. Still not bad for something I would have otherwise thrown away without the knowledge I have now. Thanks Steven!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/302989439487Here’s a little thing to be on the look out when scrounging through box lots of misc junk. It’s a stop light finder. It attaches to the inside of your windshield and allows you to see when the light changes without any effort. This one was a newer reproduction, but if you find the older ones (especially still in the box), they can go for a lot of money! I still got an easy $20 for it.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303046701949These six photo postcards were hidden away inside a Bible that I got at an auction. They were odd because they were developed as negative images. I don’t know if that was a mistake or if it served some unknown purpose. They were still pretty cool images. They were of a family in western attire riding some alive and taxidermied (?) animals. They sold for $40.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303038960926This is great! I’ll save this link in case I want to offer them my expertise down the road. Thanks!
That use to describe me… unsure and unconfident. The major redeeming skill that my job has taught me over the years is how to take charge and be the authority. So even though I had a boss to report to, I because the authority on the technology. I learned to take charge without instruction and to do what needed done without being asked or told to. And that’s what is helping me in transitioning to becoming my own boss as a full time eBay seller. A kind of discipline to keep making major choices on my own all day long. It’s not easy for a lot of people, I know. So I’ll always be thankful for gaining that experience and talent.
Retro, wow, I’m sorry to hear about your kids’ troubles. I’m hoping everyone is doing better now.
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