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Aug. 27 – Sep. 2
Total Items in Store: 531
Items Sold: 14
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $472
Highest Price: $125 (Vintage Thomas Mills & Bros Cast Iron Monkey Lollipop Candy Mold)
Average Price: $34
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $41
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $130I want to start off by saying that I am super jealous of your trip! It’s always been my dream to go on long adventures like that. I hope you guys have a great time! Maybe you can take some video like your Amsterdam trip before. I’d love to see it.
I had a lot better numbers last week. I took a lot of best offers for clunky items that I wanted out of inventory so that I can make room for new and better inventory. And I’ve been quickly getting my stock up again, going to auctions and yard sales just about every weekend. In a weird way, the flood helped to get rid of a lot of dead inventory so now I can kind of start fresh with the knowledge of what sells and what sits for a long time.
I got my new photo setup all finished and started taking pictures again. Right now I’m using this little Canon point and shoot and it’s so frustrating. I was used to my Nikon DSLR with a tripod. I’ve got big hands, and trying to take pictures with this little thing is really difficult. I feel like I’ll break it soon, but I will admit it takes some fine photos.
Have a safe trip! And have fun!
Thanks! I didn’t even think to use image reverse search. After doing some digging through that, it appears to be Bakhtiari in design, specifically “kheshti”. And you’re right Jay, I don’t think it’s truly vintage at all. No tags to go by, but the stitching is too uniform to be handmade. But I’ll definitely use these keywords in my listing and see what happens.
August 20-26
Another kind of slow week for me. I really need to start listing more if I want those higher sales weeks again!
I came across a pile of bobble heads at my local thrift store several months back. Most of them were the players for our hockey team, but there were a few of some local icons, including this B.E. Taylor bobblehead. I’m not sure if he’s that much well known outside of my area, but he was really into Christmas concerts up until he passed away last year. I paid $2.00 and listed him for $65. He sat for a while until I took a best offer of $45.
B.E. Taylor BobbleheadThis was my highest single sale of the week. I went to a tool distributor liquidation auction last winter and spent a LOT of money. Unfortunately, it hasn’t paid off yet. But I have been slowly selling things, including these tarps. It never really dawned on me that tarps can be pricey until I did some research. I kind of paid up on this at $17, but I sold it for $50.
Brand New 16×20 TarpMy Korean slide auction experiment is really paying off! I’ve mentioned it before, but I bought a whole box of 200 slides for $40 from a guy on LetGo. I’m listing them individually and starting the auction prices at the price I would have set for buy-it-now. Most are just selling for the opening bid, but I’ve had a couple of bidding wars so far. Several more sold last week for a total of $104.
Korean Glass SlideHere’s a funny sale. I found this cast iron ashtray in a box lot at an auction. It’s a two-sided ashtray depicting an older guy squeezing a woman’s butt. Not really PC in today’s culture, but I giggled. It was really rusty so I let it sit in some CLR for a day or two and it cleaned up really nice. Unfortunately, there are a million of them on ebay for sale. I priced mine competitively and it finally sold for $18. I paid .22 cents.
Risque Metal AshtrayAug 20-26
Total Items in Store: 508
Items Sold: 11
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $268
Highest Price: $50 (NEW Polytuf Heavy Duty Forestshade 16×20 FT Green Tarp)
Average Price: $24
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $24
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $372I really enjoyed the video! It’s really neat to see how you guys spend your day. With your storage sheds, do you have any issues with humidity or temperature? I’ve been wanting to store more things out in my garage but I’ve always been afraid of rust and mold and that kind of stuff.
I’m still trying to get back into the swing of things, but there is still so much I have to do around the house. It’s been hard to find time to do any work on eBay (except going to auctions, but that’s more of a fun getaway more than anything). Even with my store coasting along with no new listings, I’m still selling almost everyday. Maybe not the volume that I was before the flood, but I’m happy with the sales.
I went to one of my favorite auctions on Thursday. It’s about a two hour drive to Zanesville, OH, but this guy’s auctions are unbelievable. I spent almost $400 for a car load, but I know I’ll probably make thousands. My buy of the week… for $12, I bought an album full of black and white medium-format negatives from the 1920-30s. Mostly family pictures, but there are some of Navy battleships and Navy training things. I know original war photos can fetch really good money, and the original negatives probably more so. I’ll have to figure out how to scan them in though. My scanner only does small-format film.
August 13-19
I haven’t done one of these for a while. Sales started rolling in slowly after I put my store back up on Wednesday so there weren’t very many notable sales. But here are a few…
Here was my high sale of the week. I bought a box lot of fishing junk on a whim at the tail end of an auction for a total of $9.00. In it were these galvanized metal fishing net buoys. They were kind of rusty and smelly, but I was surprised to find that they’ve sold for decent amounts in the past. I priced them at $75 and took a $50 best offer after they’ve been up for almost 6 months.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/302242315160The next thing I’ve sold was a workout replacement DVD. I don’t know if I’ve talked about these in the past, but I never hesitate to pick up these sets of DVDs if they’re cheap. I paid a dollar for a whole set of 14 Turbo Fire workout DVDs and I’ve been selling them individually for $15 a pop. They’re easy to list and easy to ship. I just put them in a thin plastic cd case and throw them in a bubble mailer. Out of this set, I’ve made $110 so far.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/302060474577I sold my last piece of Longaberger flatware. This was a dinner spoon that I found in the bins at the Goodwill outlet store. One good indicator of good flatware is it’s weight. These pieces just felt heavy, so I knew I would be able to sell them at a decent price. I paid .54 cents and sold it for $12. Not a great amount, but just think if you had a whole bunch and kept selling them individually. Easy to store, easy to ship, and they sold rather quickly.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/302345111326Finally, I wanted to give a shout out to Suzy here on the forums. Back before everything happened with the flood, she bought a Le Creuset cast iron frying pan from my store and sent me a very nice message. I acquired this skillet from an auction box lot that I paid too much for. It came with some other kitchen appliances but I had my eye on the skillet, as did some other people. I paid $50 for everything, only to find that this particular skillet didn’t go for as much as I had hoped. It still sold for $60 and I’ve still got a few other things from that lot that may sell eventually.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/302381897891I’ll have to try a different selling outlet then. It is kind of cool to own something that has been sort of outlawed, but I’m sitting on four sets now and they’re taking up room. I might keep the nicest one as a token of olden days of fewer safety restrictions. 🙂
Beverly, it was very surreal. I must have been in a legit state of shock because I still can’t remember a lot of that night. But I’ll never forget the feeling of sitting on that top step looking down at a swimming pool of a basement and feeling completely hopeless.
I don’t know if I feel like Hercules quite yet (although I should look like it with all the shoveling I’ve had to do), but in due time I’ll be back on my A-game and making sales like crazy.When you say Jarts, do you mean the lawn dart game? I’ve been stockholding those for no other reason other than they’re sometime included in my box lots. I know you can’t really sell them on eBay. How much did you get for them?
Thank you! That means a lot. I would love nothing more than to just put all this behind me. I feel like once I get the ball really rolling, it’ll just be a distant bad memory.
Yeah, $112 is definitely a lot lower than what I was used to making. But it’s understandable given that it’s the slow season and my store was essentially cut in half. That first cha-ching was like music to my ears!
I do have a complete inventory of what I lost, but unfortunately I’m not covered in terms of insurance. I’m going to schedule an appointment with a tax person to see if I can at least write anything off as a loss.
July 9-15
Total Items in Store: 543
Items Sold: 5
Total Sales (Gross Profit): $112
Highest Price: $50 (Antique Vintage Nautical Buoy Fishing Net Float Galvanized Metal Marker)
Average Price: $22
Returns: 0
Cost of Items Sold: $2.00
Costs of Items Purchased this Week: $250I’m back in business. It took almost a month, but I was finally able to put my store back online last Wednesday. `I was afraid I did something wrong but i started making sales the following day. It was a big relief to be selling again.
I spent a while doing inventory and checking to see what made it and what didn’t. I crunched the numbers and here’s how I did…
Total items before flood – 1938 (combined listed and unlisted), 955 (Listed only)
Total items after flood – 1111 (combined), 521 (listed)
Items destroyed – 827
43% of my inventory was lost. That was a lower number than I originally predicted, so that’s nice.There’s still a lot more work to do though. We had some damage to our foundation so we’re still getting water in the basement when it rains. Finally got the yard leveled out with a tractor so now we’ll lay down some grass seed. We’ll still need a new furnace, but the good news is that we’ll finally get central air installed since we’ll get the bundle price.
I wanted to thank everyone here for all of your support. It really helped to hear from everyone who commented, and it was therapeutic to talk about it with people who understand what selling on eBay is about. I made an album of the flood if anyone is interested in checking it out. http://imgur.com/a/j41gu I’ve shared these with coworkers and family who don’t know I sell on eBay so just know everything on those shelves are items intended to sell.
We had a good scavenging haul on Saturday. We got a tip that a guy was trying to clean out his parents’ house who passed away years ago. We went there and there was stuff everywhere. They must have been hoarders. We filled our car up for $150. I got a lot of cool vintage electronics and books and just random stuff. There was so much that we couldn’t get to, so we made a second trip on Sunday and spent another $150 for another car load. Though that sounds like a lot, I know I got some really nice items. We’ll probably make a couple grand at least.
That’s awesome! I got to see the partial eclipse in West Virginia which was pretty cool. On a similar note, has anyone seen some of the prices of sold solar eclipse glasses on eBay? The next one is in 2024…BOLO! 🙂
This will be week 3 of cleanup after the flood. I think the initial shock has gone away and now I’m facing a lot more depression and doubt. I’m looking at all the hard work we’ve done since that day and there’s still so much more that we’ll have to do to get back to normal. I’ve started ending my listings of items that I know were destroyed. There are still some that I’m unsure were salvaged or not. Everything is still so chaotic. But so far, my number of listings went from 955 to 571. What a hard blow. By goal of 1K by September was so close…
The garage is now clean at least. We’ve got almost everything that was saved back down into the basement. Shelves have been put back together too. The problem we’re facing now is rust and mold. Even with everything dried out, the wet weather we’ve been having is keeping our concrete damp. The landlord said they’ll get us a dehumidifier to replace the ones we’ve lost, but I don’t think that will be soon enough. I might consider going out tonight and purchasing one.
My day job has been both a blessing and a curse. I really appreciate the steady paycheck through all this, and the support I received from my coworkers was nice. But I could be doing so much more at home if I wasn’t sitting here for 9 hours a day. This has really brought out the impatient side of me. But still, I’d rather have the security now than anything.
That’s an awful thing to happen to you. I’ve used govdeals to source a little bit. While I don’t always win the auctions, I have gotten quite a few really nice things to resale. But to retract the sale like that… that’s just shady. Like you said, they probably were expecting to get a lot more for the uniforms. I would definitely call and complain if they come up again. That would mean the township was abusing the site.
