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Hey Ryann, question. You did end your Bonanza account didn’t you. I think I read that you did.
We hardly ever get any activity from them. Only a couple of sales this year. But they are always synching up with Ebay and pulling every new listing into Bonanza.
mike at mdcgfa
That’s interesting Joe. I think several memebers here including Jay and Ryann also closed down their Bonanza account. Ever since then I have been meaning to do the same with our account.
We also have a Shopify account but have been just using it as a “parking place” for a backup of our store. We never did or have submitted the Shopify store to get verified or submitted the site map to Google to crawl the site. Probably reading what you are aying it was a good thing. Between the Shopify store and Bonanza that would probably be seen as a triple duplicate of information?
So, guess I will take a few minutes and go and close out our Bonanza account and will make sure we don’t go live with the Shopify store.
Now what about cross listing on Etsy? We have 284 of our 1,132 Ebay items also cross posted on Etsy. I think the fact that Ebay and Etsy have their own internal traffic that Google is not as involved with the crawling of these platform stores and duplicate items would probably not be seen as such?
Mike at MDCGFA
Oh of course. I use Quicken for Business and all these types of reports are readily available to us also, which we do use on a monthly basis along with the company balance sheet and P&L statement. I was just replying to Jay who said he did not have numbers any further back than 90 days in Ebay and I was telling him the long way would be to just copy his SL posting numbers. But he and Ryann also us GDBK and probably have the numbers there as well.
Jay.. a simple way to get your annual numbers would be to just go back and look at the first post of each pod cast you guys have created. You should see 52 weeks of your nmbers that contains the data you post each week. several years ago, I tracked you guys numbers for a whole year and ran a spread sheet on them watching your higest items sold, your monthly sales and then an year end look at your numbers. Back then you guys were more like 3-4k items, but gave me a good picture of what it would take for us to pull out of the booths and go full time online.
You wouldn’t have some of the detail T-Sat has captured, but the year long numbers are there. Then maybe some numbers from any hard copies or digital Ebay invoices you may have saved.
Just a thought.
mike at mdc galleries and fine art
Now this is the way I like to see the numbers. As an agrregate or atleast a cumulative of several months at a time. Watching numbers weekly is like watching the stock market swings hour by the hour. But this type of [posting tells a whole different story.
jay… How about a thread with a challenge. A thread that will hold anyones whole year end numbers for 2018? What you listed for the year, total sales for the year, total costs paid for the items for the year. Your top 10 yearly solds, the bottom 10 lowest price solds, the years top 10 biggest blunders, the years top successes, the years worst customer nightmare, how many positive reviews, how many returns.
Data like this can be analyzed, torn into, exstrapolated, interpolated, charted, graphed and any thing else you want to do with it. [hear that T-Satt?].. I will post my year end numbers if you create the thread, I challenge others to post and follow suit. Include what you know and are going to report on your taxes, leave out what you don’t know. One large, long thread for all 4,000 SL members numbers in one great big year end lump sum. Then it ends but there for posterity. Then when newbies come on board and ask, can I make a living on Ebay, should I quit my job, how much can I make, what should I buy, what should I sell, what is a good niche, then it is there for all to see.
Make this an annual Big event.
Cool..Thanks. Will try to posts short progress type reports / updates as we progress.
Sure thing.. Land in Atlanta isn’t cheap. Inside the I_285 is crazy and, it is hard to find in most places. What land is available will usually have ledge [rock] buried underneath or have other issues.
Most small .25 to .33 lots run $38k to $65 k per lot. WAY TOO high for a start-up or a first time home buyer. Builders all around here want to build $350k to $600k homes.
So we finally found 4 lots 25 miles up I-85 north in a small bedroom community right outside of a small downtown street like where your store front is located. 5 minutes into the town.
We got the lots at $11k each=$44k total plus some small over due taxes, etc. for about $45k total.
Having my friend as a partner who is a Georgia licensed General Contractor, we will be pulling all our own permits and supervising everything myself. So the GC profits and the Superintendants cost is all going to profit.
These homes will be starter homes for first time buyers. About 1,800 to 1,995 SF each, with some stone work, fireplace, screened back porch, hardy plank siding, tile, granite counters but everything contractor grade.
We have all of the subs we used to use, actually 2 or 3 for most of the trades and still have good credit standings with them.
Of course at this stage, this is very broad brush, but…We are targeting to list the two ranch styles which will be on slab grade for about $175k to about $180k. Then the last wto will be ranch style but have walk out basements [unfinished of course] and will list at about $195k-$199k.
We are very confident we can build at approx. $50 per SF and think we can squeeze out at $40 to $45 per SF cost to build. So about $90K to build plus $11k for lan = $100k gross total and trying to Target about $100k gross per house, then of course will come some “soft costs” out of that and what we have to “throw in” to close, like some commissions, perks, etc.
We can build a house from scratch in 4 months +/- weather, rain or cold depending. We are going to do the first two slab ranchs fairly clsoe together, then the 2 walk outs late next year.
We are hoping to get as close to approx. $350k to $375K as possible in about 14 months or less +/-.The money comes from several sources. A small investor friend who has kicked in enough for the land and we will re-pay out of first house, the we will self fund the 2nd house, using personal resources. Then use the roll-back retained earnings for the last two. Projects like this you can’t dig into the income up front and run willy nilly with your profits. You have to be willing to plow back most into the company, but still keep a small revenue stream coming.
And we could of course go to the bank and do a construction loan of but prefer not to go that route if we can help it.I can do some periodic posts if anybody is interested as we go, but know SL isn’t a place for real estate transactions.
Mike at MDC Galleries
RTWV: We too use promoted listings and a fairly good amount of our sales come from “Promoted Listings”.
So here is a part of a thought process. We usually have enough margins built into our prices to allow for us to be comfortable with having periodic sales of 10%-20% +/- [we alternate] and also take offers on anything over about $30-$35 on top of that. So, we use the 5% to 6% Promoted Listings selection, then what we do to offset that is to just only run 10% to 15% Sales and also not take anything much less than another 10% or so on offers below the Sales price [when we are running a Sale].So in other words we always have about 30% to 40% built into our pricing over and above what our market research shows as the higher “SOLD” prices we find on Ebay Solds, PicClick Solds, and WorthPoint Solds. That EXTRA Margin gives us room to play with Promoted listings, running Sales off and taking Offers all combined.
Example if we are not running a Sale, do not have promoted listings on then sure we may contemplate a 35% to 40% low offer and still be good to go. But if we have a 6% promoted listings turned on, have a 15% Sale running, then we would only accept an offer on items of no more than about 15% +/- below that.
Just like FREE SHIPPING. There is no such thing, just build it into your pricing structure.
Interesting thing is that when we cross list on Etsy, all this extra is built in and things are starting to sell and at the listed prices, so all that extra fluff goes into our coffers.
Just a single viewpoint..that and my morning cup ‘o java. Now on to building my roject Management Spread sheets for the new houses 🙂
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine art.
Sharyn: Well that is sort of crazy. But most of it will be supervising. No self performance or putting on a tool belt anymore. Maybe a little spraying foam around windows and sealing cracks, sweeping up and then doing all the admin. work, phone work, ordering, scheduling and meeting the subs and inspectors on the job site and co-ordinating things. So more like admin. office type work and being on the road a few days a week.
But this will pay much better than the Ebay-Etsy gig, but Susan and I, and our helpers will still keep that up.mike at MDC Galleries
Hey guys.. Might not have much time going forward, but wanted to update.
One of my former businesses was home remodeling but 2008 took the winds out of our sails big time.
But my old partenr called me back up and long story short, we bought 4 building lots in a small town in North Ga. and will be starting the first of 4 new homes we are going to build as spec. homes for first time home buyers.
This project along with trying to keep the Ebay and Etsy stores going will take up most of my time going forward. Unsure if I will be able to read all of the SL posts and do much replying but will if I can.
The SL community has grown so much through the years and so has the amount of the posts, inquiries and it will be hard to keep up.
Jay I don’t know how you do it buddy. I am 70 years old, but couldn’t pass up this opportunity to give it a try again. Entreprenuership is a cruel, but creative mistress at times.
You know the drill because as you said long ago, with a good, strong membership base on SL it can be more self susstaining as more members participate. I can see that happening through the years.
But now I am going to also be focused elsewhere and will see what time I have. But I woke up this morning to being 69 posts behind on SL and spent the last ten hours working up a sequence of events and costing spread sheet for the new construction company that I probably won’t be able to keep up, especially once I start co-ordinating all the subs. Again, you lknow the drill.
I will particpate when I can.
Go SL and all that it stands for…
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine art
and Capitol Atlantic Properties, LLC.Not much time but a quick look using different terms did produce some odd looking small shot glass like items.
Try aperitif, liquor, cordial glasses. I actually saw a set but with the bubble coming out from the bottom and they used the term roly poly liquor glasses.
It’s small size would indicate to me that it is an after dinner cordial glass for the sweet dessert cordials. Maybe even sherry glass but those usually have a small stem on them.
But bounce around in Google images or I was looking in Worthpoint, maybe even Kovels.com but those are mostly antique items.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Super job and the buyer scheduled his own delivery via U-Ship.
I had a wide format HP ink jet printer sell and it was big and heavy and the buyer used U-Ship and arranged himself. A big help to have the buyer handle the whole thing.
Good job.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Yep, can tell why she really does kill you at scrabble, but bet she can’t tell you what the total amount of points all the tiles add up to and the projected probability of which letters have the greatest chance of being used in the most variety of words. So you each have your skill sets. 🙂
So, is this how you got your first operating capital to spend on inventory? Cheez, most people save up, take out a loan, but no, you guys go and win it on a game show?
BTW.. we have never heard of or watched “Lingo”. 🙂
Thanks for the video, fun to watch. Broke up the morning.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
I use plastic periodically but I bought a roll at Home Depot that is 8 mils thick. The 8 mil is twice as thick as a garabage bag which clocks in around 4 mils or less. The plastic is in the painting deprtament. Painters use it to cover the whole floor of a room and then move ladders around and it holds up fine.
IHD only has milky clear or black. I use the block because it is opaque. It comes 12 ft. wide and 100 ft. in length. I bought one roll and it has lasted a long time. I also found the same size and thickness at a U-Haul moving place and it was light blue.
I also use it to do a total wrap over some boxes when I discover that the weight and oversize of an item would be better off than going Priority so I wrap and tape the box and ship by other methods [if you catch my drift].
8 mil is very durable, like a poly bag you mentioned, and if you tape it up good, no loose edges to snag on postal equipment and use extra tape. And if you ever do want to ship a blue or black plastic taped box by way of USPS Priority, all I do is place several of the USPS Priority decals on all corners of the box and Viola’ you convert any size box into a USPS Priority box as long as it’s small emough to keep it under the DIM Weight prices.
More food for thought,
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
