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Dec 16-22
Total Items in Store: 1960
Items Sold: 34
Total Sales : $1381
* above yearly average of $906
* above 2017 total week sales of $1215
Highest Price: $360 (Drake HAM Radio Transmitter)
Average Price: $41
Returns: 2
Cost of Goods Sold: $88
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $5
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 53I’m kinda late with posting my numbers. There’s just a lot of craziness happening in my world right now. But I’m glad you’re enjoying your stay in NYC! I can’t wait to be able to take trips with Steph without worrying about syncing our vacation time at work and only being able to plan it during our slow seasons and taking my work phone with me anyways because I know things will somehow blow up while I’m away.
I had a pretty good week number-wise. It’s fun watching my yearly weekly average rising steadily. At $900+, I think i can safely say that this business can certainly sustain me financially. Which is a major relief right now because we got some troubling news last week. The university which I work at is in some major heat. We might lose our accreditation which would absolutely mean we would close. We were told that the university has a month to come up with a financial plan to satisfy the DOE or they’ll be shutting us down. And even the president seemed pretty hopeless in his meeting with us. So ultimately, my plan is to stick it out until we know what’s going to happen since I already have my backup plan ready. I know there won’t be any severance packages for the employees, but maybe there’ll be some sort of assisted health insurance or something that I can take advantage of.
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. And enjoy your New Years Eve!!
12/17/2018 at 3:41 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 390: Building a Business to Build a Life #53551Good point. Then I’ll just stick with the $50-70 range. Thanks!
12/17/2018 at 3:10 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 390: Building a Business to Build a Life #53548Mark, I’ve been meaning to look into purchasing an ozone generator. I think I may finally bite the bullet. I wouldn’t mind spending a bit on one as it would be a nice investment. What would you recommend as a price point? Or which model do you use?
12/17/2018 at 3:07 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 390: Building a Business to Build a Life #53547Now that would be a great topic! Numbers for Dummies with special guest T-Satt.
12/17/2018 at 1:30 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 390: Building a Business to Build a Life #53525Dec 9-15
Total Items in Store: 1949
Items Sold: 24
Total Sales : $850
* below yearly average of $892
* above 2017 total week sales of $663
Highest Price: $150 (SubZero Refrigerator Freezer Shelf)
Average Price: $35
Returns: 1
Cost of Goods Sold: $55
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $387
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 16Jay and Ryanne, I’m totally with you with the whole complicated numbers thing. I feel like I just lack the ability to wrap my head around all of the statistics and percentages and acronyms that get thrown around here on the forums. I can certainly appreciate many of Troy’s and Mike’s and other’s posts about numbers, and I do read them all by the way, but whoo boy sometimes I feel real dumb afterwards. LOL. But if I’ve learned anything from SL and the forums, it’s that there’s always a lot of successful ways to do anything. I only go as far as the information above and I let GoDaddy and my CPA handle the rest. And my business has never been more profitable.
It’s been a hectic week at my day job, so I couldn’t get much eBay stuff done. But we did go to an auction on Thursday that turned bittersweet. We bought so much stuff that we could barely fit it all in our car. But when we got home and organized it all, nearly half of it smelled like strong cigarette smoke. I was so disheartened because I know how hard it is to get that smell out. We just never thought to sniff what we were buying, and it was all outdoors anyways so the cold kinda muted the smell. I know the fabric and paper items are a lost cause, but I’m hoping the hard goods can be saved with some scrubbing.
My scavenge of the week came from an estate sale on Saturday. We don’t normally have these things in our area, but we’ve gone to three in the past two weeks. This was ran from an old run down church with no power. Basically it was used as a hoarder overflow. There was stuff everywhere. We went in with our flashlights and made little piles of goodies. I found a brand new, never opened vintage CB radio that sells used for over $100.
calljac86, could you expand on what you mentioned about dropping off your card at yard sales? I’ve been thinking about a similar idea, but didn’t know how well it would work. What does your card say? And what kind of call backs do you receive? Thanks!
I totally agree, Retro. And I’ll usually disclose in the listing that the original price tag is from when the item was originally sold. I just forgot to do that in this case. Regardless, I think I was messaged either by a loon or someone trying to negotiate with rude tactics.
I just sold an antique pickle castor last week as well. Maybe they were featured in a article or show recently?
Dec 2 – 8
Total Items in Store: 1959
Items Sold: 34
Total Sales : $1723
* WAY above yearly average of $887
* WAY above 2017 total week sales of $597
Highest Price: $650 (Keystone View Company Tour Around the World Stereoscope Library and Viewer)
Average Price: $51
Returns: 1
Cost of Goods Sold: $375
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $68
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 37I’m glad your sales have bounced back to above normal! Another impressive week on my end. This marks my 6th 1K+ week in a row! I hope this gravy train keeps on a rollin! My COGS are quite high though because of another experimental purchase from a year ago. I paid $275 at an auction for a huge lot of stereoscope photographs (those cardboard picture with two almost identical images next to each other that can be viewed in a thing and makes them look 3-D). I did some quick research when I spotted them and thought I could stand to make over a thousand if I got them cheap enough. Well someone else thought so too. Long story short, I listed them a while ago and finally took a best offer of $650. I don’t think I’ll be making risky high-priced buys anymore where my profit will only be $200-300 after fees. I just don’t feel comfortable sitting on inventory that I dropped hundreds on. Now if I could stand to make over a grand profit, that’s a different story.
I had my first crazy eBay user message last week. Out of the blue, some guy sent me a message totally flabbergasted over my price on a model train car. He said my $40 price was outrageous and was offended that I would charge that much when the price sticker showing that it originally cost $1.38 was shown in the pictures. Nevermind that that price tag was from the 1970s or earlier. He said mine should be sold for no more than $5. I had to fight the urge to respond with something snarky. Instead, I just ignored and blocked him. Responding would have only given him what he wanted.
We went to a few estate sales this weekend and made out like bandits. My scavenge of the week was a mid-century tension pole floor lamp with three spaghetti lamp shades. This thing is gorgeous and in really good condition! Only paid $20 for it. I’ll have to fight the urge to keep it. I also scored some brand new expensive flatware for $22 that I could profit close to 10x on. Estate sales don’t happen very often in our area, but when they do, it’s usually a gold mine.
Nov 25 – Dec 1
Total Items in Store: 1948
Items Sold: 37
Total Sales : $1618
* WAY above yearly average of $874
* above 2017 total week sales of $1016
Highest Price: $180 (Sub-Zero Refrigerator Metal Grille Vent Cover Part)
Average Price: $44
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $121
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $42
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 41Another good week of sales. And I made my goal of $30K net sales for the year! That’s not accounting for taxes, but I’ve been paying quarterly estimates anyways so that won’t be much. I’m sorry you two have had a crumby week of sales. I know the feeling. But you’re probably right about how the constant changing of the handling time might be affecting things. Things’ll pick back up next week.
So the auctions this year have been disappointing. My backlog of items to list is starting to dwindle because I just haven’t been able to score a lot of loot lately. Reasons being either the auctions have nothing that I could resell (selling absolute junk) or there’s just too many people who are willing to overspend on everything of value. I’m lucky anymore to fill my backseat with box lots whereas before I would have trouble cramming everything I bought in my car. I hope this isn’t a growing trend or I may have to rethink my buying strategy.
Speaking of auctions, I went to an outdoor one Saturday. It was cold and pouring rain the whole time. They had flimsy canopies but everything was getting rained on anyways. But I did manage to buy a complete 8 setting stainless flatware set that was practically unused. I’ll have to debate whether I should sell it as a whole or sell the pieces individually. It’s a very desirable pattern and I could probably get close to $200 if I sell it all together. But individual pieces are getting $8-12, so I don’t know.
12/02/2018 at 12:36 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Auto compass, Hats, Books, Levitron Globe, Creepy Blow Mold Santa, Sansui Amp, Leather satchel, Teac Reel Tape Deck #52529Great week of sales all around. Though almost half of my sales came from this vintage aluminum Christmas tree with a music box rotating base and color wheel. I acquired this at an auction for way over my normal budget… $185.00. I came home and listed it right away. It didn’t sell before Christmas, but afterwards I acquired the rotating Christmas color wheel at another auction. So to sweeten the deal, I relisted it with the color wheel and added some video to the listing. Well it finally sold for a best offer of $730 with free shipping. Unfortunately, a piece broke during shipping and I refunded the buyer $25 for the cost of repair, but he was overall satisfied with everything.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/302938968344I won a bid on a stack of old board games at an auction a few months ago. Most of it was junk, including an old Lite-Brite. If you look on ebay, there’s a ton of these up for sale for not a lot of money (anywhere from $10 to $25). And it was bulky too which is always a turn-off for whether I want to sell an item for not a lot of dough. But apparently, people also just sell the colored pegs. Mine had a container included which, after counting, contained around 800 of these little things. So I listed them, threw everything else away, and they sold within a couple weeks for $30.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/302961225120These Craftsman Robo-Grip pliers came up at an auction recently and I got them for $10. I wanted them for myself because I bought a pair for my dad when I was a kid and man, these things are quite versatile. But when I price checked them on eBay, I decided I could do without them. They sold for full price of $70 within weeks. For 70 bucks, I can deal with using my normal pliers for a while.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/302962389474These Star Wars overalls were one of those items that I had no clue what someone would be willing to pay. They were youth sized, probably for a 4 or 5 year old. But they were true vintage, most likely from the year the original movie came out. So I decided to let the market decide what they were worth. I started them out at $40, but they just didn’t get any interest until the end when they sold for that amount. I can’t complain though… kids clothing usually doesn’t garner a lot of high prices. Plus, I only paid a couple bucks for them.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/30296238947411/26/2018 at 8:14 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 387: Do Black Friday, Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday Matter? #52321Thank you, Brian. It certainly has been a hard road. Right after the disaster last year, I really didn’t think I would have the energy or desire to rebuild my store to anywhere near what it is today. I think the ambition to leave the 9-5 office work life is what’s driving me to work so hard every night.
11/26/2018 at 8:00 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 387: Do Black Friday, Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday Matter? #52320Thanks, Jay! Yes, my fears are now quite diminished. I’m now only working to save up what it will cost to fix our roof (on top of what I have saved already), so here soon I’ll finally be calling it quits with the office life. I’m thinking sometime in Jan or Feb.
11/26/2018 at 3:03 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Doc Martens, Gun case, Vintage bike radio, Speaker stands, Electric stapler, Panasonic TV #52301Thanks for the info! That’s really interesting. I came across a little information while researching the ship, but got some more info from a person on eBay whose grandfather actually worked aboard the vessel. I’m glad for the sale, but I’m even more glad that I could rescue such historic pictures.
11/26/2018 at 2:04 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 387: Do Black Friday, Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday Matter? #52296Nov 18 – 24
Total Items in Store: 1944
Items Sold: 30
Total Sales : $1628
* WAY above yearly average of $849
* WAY WAY above 2017 total week sales of $270
Highest Price: $720 (Vintage 7” Aluminum Christmas Tree with Musical Rotating Stand and Color Wheel)
Average Price: $65
Returns: 0
Cost of Goods Sold: $265
Costs of Goods Purchased this Week: $0
Number of New Items Listed this Week: 23Another +1K week of sales! That’s 4 weeks in a row! I hope this trend will continue for months to come. Though almost half of that number came from one big sale. I paid big money as an experiment around this time last year for a gorgeous 7” tall aluminum Christmas tree… a little over $200. But I knew it would sell for at least twice as much. For the heck of it, I put a $800 price on it. And it sat… and sat for a while. But then I got a nice little message from a family who seemed really interested and we settled on the price of $720 with free shipping. It cost about $53 to ship, but I got a good price for it so I couldn’t complain. And it freed up a lot of space in my storage!
I almost had a $200 sale for a tripod. The guy wanted it shipped overnight, and I said sure. I’ll get the price for shipping and send you an invoice (he best offered so I couldn’t edit the listing). Well shipping overnight would have cost $196! I sent the invoice not expecting him to pay, and lo and behold…he didn’t pay. I just opened a non payment case so we’ll see what happens.
About little junky things that you wouldn’t expect anyone would want but actually sells. I too find it awesome when things like that actually finds a buyer who’s interested. For example, I just sold a bunch of old car window decal stickers of some aerospace program for $20. Or back a few months ago I sold a VIN plate off of an old dump truck for $25. I always try to picture the people who buy these weird little obscure things.
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