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10/22/2018 at 9:02 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 382: Treasure Hunting with a Fishnet #50503
$5.50 each.. WOW! I’ll come list for you! 🙂 just kidding. Very generous.
We have two listers. One for Tues. Wed. and one for Fri.-Sat. Both doing the complete listing including researching each item on several paid databases. They both complete drafts and save in a Readt for Review folder I created in WonderLister. There I review and have to do very little to complete them.
They both, depending on the complexity of the research, do 4 to 6 per hour. We pay one $10 per hour and the other $8 per hour. So, at 4 per hr that is $2 per and $2.50 per but they almost always get 5 or 6 per hour so at the 6 per hour each that comes out to $1.33 per and $1.66 ea.
One makes about $250 per month the other about $320 per month. About $550 to $600 per month and after the first of the year we plan on cutting back to just one assistant but letting her maybe do a few more hours, cutting back to about $350 a month for just the one.
Just run the math and at $5.50 per item that would mean a very substantial monthly increase.
One assistant also does our Etsy listings but that is mostly a cut and past job from our Shopify Store over to Etsy and that is piece work at $1.50 each and she does that at home during the evenings on an “as time permits”.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
Ryanne.. At first I thought it might be connected to using InkFrog, because some time back SixBit and WonderLister was inputing some code into listings at the very end to embed it’s logo and a touch of advetising with a back link back to there web sites. But both have since fixed that and stripped it out. Both even tried charging $5 per month to not embed it but that also fell by the wayside.
So I first thought maybe InkFrog was link tagging something at the bottom.
But after reading through the code seems to be no sign of that and mentions “passwords” so think you are on it with LastPass.
mike at mdcgfa
Sharyn: LastPass is a password “vault”. I use RoboForm. These apps will create a unique, very long and complex passsword for any site that you go to and register with that wants you to create a password. Then stores that password in the “vault”. All a user has to do it create one Master Password that opens the vault. Then when you login to a site all you do is click on the sites name inside of the vault, and the app takes you to the desired site, opens the sign in window, fills in the site’s / your ID name and enters the password for you, all blanked out then automatically opens the sie for you. Viola’
RoboForms allows for notes about the site, you can create many folders for other information you wish to save. It is like a digital version of a bank safety deposit box for documents, passwords, notes, details, etc.
Each morning I fire up my rig, I open my browser then next I open RoboForm with my master password. It resides as a small icon in the upper right side of any browser window. Then when I want to go to any particular site that I have isited before all I do is click on the RoboForm icon, down drops an alphbetical listing of all of my previous sites, [I personally have over 250 sites I have used and created passwords for] and then RoboForm does the rest. I have my PayPal, banking, investment sites, Facebook, intagram, social security, GA state tax comm., DMV, you name it, it is there in the vault all double password protected and it is a one stop shop to sign in anywhere.
When you go to a new site for the first time, RoboForm pops up and tells you this is a new site and do you want it to create a new password for you, or you can use your own. It will then ask you if you want it to save it and that’s it. From that point on, Robo will be your gateway to that new site.
Clark Howard of Radio fame highly stresses the use of password vaults to keep all your passwords in one place.
Thought I would chime in with a few details..
Good coffee this morning..
mike at mdc galleries and fine art
Late to the party this week. About 25 posts behind. But holy Cow! T-Satt. What a monster project. Those kind of tough projects I left behind at retirment and glad not to be involved anylonger.
We did a little remodeling after the mfg. job and boy, subs are just problematic. You can’t force them into your time schedule because they are not your employees so as independent business people [i.e. 1099’s] they can just cut there own trail. Mostly late, many times call to sluff off to another day, late agagin, start then have to leave because they are doing 3 jobs at once, the take 3 days to do what should have been a 6 to 7 hour job. Then throw in their phone time to take requests for estimates.
You sure had to have the patience of Jobe on this one. Congratulatons for getting through it, and if you could charge $180 per hour to do multiple hours of talking them through what seems to be people who have no idea of what “Project Management” software is, then where do you send your $2,5000 invoice to??? LOL 🙂
I guess you learn from this, ‘ya think!!
Mike at MDCGFA
It is so hard to tell. But here is my current Promoted Listings stats.
This is campaign no. 7 and was started on Aug. first and is still active [10 weeks +/-] and it is set at 1% over the category average. This resulted in 249,910 promoted impressions, those extra exposures resulted in 3,024 clicks to items as a direct result of clicking on the promoted impressions view, which resulted in 18 Sales for a Total of $495.97. The Promoted listings fee has been $40.75 total which equals an avg. of $2.26 per item sold. The avg. Sales price [$495.97/18] = $27.55 per item.So, would we have sold these 18 items for $495.97 if we did not receive those extra 249,910 impressions which resulted in the 3,024 clicks??? Who knows. So it equals out to be about 10% of the total Sale went to Ebay on top of their regular FVF, and PayPal stuff all at about 17%-20% +/-.
If I turned it off now, and it being 4th quarter would it result in less sales, or would it not matter because 4th quarter sales are up traditionally anyway??? Again, who knows.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
That is very interesting. I have used PL for a good while. In the beginning I selected a flat amount of approx. 5% to 6% which was about where most of my categories were and also ran it just for 30 days and then manually renewed agagin if desired. Then i went to just using the average per each catgory and letting it run contionously, but have noticed a good increase in the promoted listings fee line item.
Think I may try your approach and use 1% across the board but still leave it running on a GTC type time frame and see how it goes.
So hard to tell about any of the does it work type of questions because so hard to set up test groups with one of a kind items.
But interesting all the same.
The other insane thought is the rate. It was over a year ago this topic popped up here at SL and I think someone back then attached a link that took a reader to the Chinese data that showed what the “Chinese First Class Packet” cost was. It was something like for a padded bubble, manailla mailer weighing less than 6 ozs. the Chinese shipper paid $.25. We have to pay about $2.66 for the same size and weight.
My neighbor gets stuff all the time from China through Alibaba and he says they pay pennies to our dollars for shipping stuff in and as Jay has always said.. “Cheap junk from China flooding our market”. To add insult to injury China still has a ton of extremely low income, almost slave houses where by workers are paid pennies per hour and US citizens buying this stuff is contributing to that.
I agree the plug should have been pulled long ago. I look forward to the day, that two identical items sit side by side on a shelf, the prices are the same or close and the only choice I have to make is buy the item from China or the one made in the USA. Wouldn’t that be nice. Probably never happen but at least making the postal rates universal would help to level the playing field somewhat I am thinking.
mike at MDCGFA
Wow! .. That’s a whole lot in that space. Essentially a 20’x26’=520 sq. feet holding 8,000 items. But then I assume you go fairly high up to acquire cubic sq. feet.
A regular 2 car garage which we are in is usually about 22×24 sq. ft. so not much smaller in flat sq. footage than the area u have allocated to Ebay inventory. We have about 1,200 items in there and on4 7 foot high shelves x 14 feet deep.
We are quickly running out of room but do have some spaces on the shelves left and can do some condensing. It does help if like you, to have some items like patches, trivets, shirts, caps, etc. or smaller flatter like items, We have a lot of 12x12x12 in type of stuff, dish sets, water pitchers, bread box sized items. Don’t think we could squeeze 4,000 items in [half of your inventory] in the same 4,000 sq. feet UNLESS we start to use smaller than and flatter than a certain number as a metric and criteria for future buying.
And we do have 3 isles for walking in between our rows of shelves which also takes up some sq. footage.
Luckily, we have a storage center right up and around the corner from us, about 3 minutes driving if we don’t hit the two lights. So that is our back up plan when we outgrow the garage and some attic space we haven’t used yet.
Re: bcfol440 … Well what do you know. The last sale we went two was a residential house, located at the end of a cul-de-sac street, way up on a hill. I grabbed one of her business cards then looked up her LLC on the Sec. of State site and she is listed as the owner of that house. Her listed business and location states, Reselling Service Industry with the business location stating as a non-commercial residential area. So Bingo.
Wonder if you are located in the greater Atlanta Metro area and we ended up going to the same lady’s residential showroom?
Her business card also says she does house staging for real estate agents. These perminent items in her showroom could easily be loaded on a truck and taken to stage a home. She may have a bunch already staged around the area and she uses this high end home as her storage unit for her inventory and periodically opens it up for an estate sale to either thin out her inventory or to sell it at such high prices that if you are one of the “sucker” customers she makes extra income. She had items marked at over $700 and $800 dollars that should be about $125 to $175 which we would like to get in the $25 range.
Same concept we figured was going on at the first sale. Hundreds of people buying a few items at a time but yet no one empty space out of thousands of items.
I overheard one of the floor walkers asking an antendee was going to the “Auction” next week. They said no, but where was it going to be held. The floor walker said some address where it was going to be and also said, it was a rented commercial space for the “supposedly large collection” that did not sell at the estate sale this week. So, a slam full estate house after thousands of buyers and not one empty space inside and a rented commercial space for an auction.
Yes, there are professional estate sales companies, buying items, merchandising houses and or locations and calling them “estate sales”. I am just guessing but maybe the use of the term “estate” is from either the items came from real estates all around the country then trucked into these big city location, or it is bought merchandise, and the fact it is being sold in a home they can legally call it an “estate sale” or even stretch it to the point that if you buy this item it can be displayed in your current “estate” [i.e. own home].
I asked a few questions to dig deeper and didn’t get any answers. i asked who the former owners were, did one spouse pass and the remaining person was down sizing, did anyone go into a nursing home, if they were collected it seemed that they collected everything and had no focus, etc., etc. but no valid response. Just generic answers, like they traveled and bout stuff.
So if you are in Atlanta these two were Mary Monroe LLC and Peachtree Battle LLC. [but the pEachtree Battle was a dba of another corp. name I saw on some collateral material up on the check out desk.
Just some tips for those who are hitting the highly advertised estate sales in this area.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
I was just typing a reply.. Congratulations on the Uniform and going to inform you that 2+2=4 not 5 LOL.. :-). Have you had your coffee this morning? 🙂
Great grab on those higher end items. we went to an huge estate sale yesterday. It was last day and there were hundreds of cars. we had to walk blocks to just get to the front door. Lines of people filing in and lines waiting at 4 cashiers to check out. Uniformed police officers on each of the 3 floors and atleast a dozen or more of floor walkers. No bags, purses allowed inside, had to be checked. all items had to be hand carried out and placed on holding shelves. Everything was priced sky high. So even at 50% off and no extra negotiations by the way, the half off price was almost the retail selling price. Very unusal and nice eclectic items but a small folded Fenton vase that sells all day long for the $40 range was priced at $95. Most items, and there were thousands all over the place, and for being the third day, we think they were bringing in items to re-stock each day, were in the hundreds of dollars each.
Susan had a few small items, but after what I was telling her what we would have to list them for, she just got frustrated and put her box down and said let’s go.
We then hit one more sale down the road and it was the same thing. A whole house full to the brim on 3 floors. The lady said she owned the house. But I think what we have figured out, is some of these people actually buy these high end homes, them “BUY” a lot of the merchandise or import some, then use the actual house they pay a mortgage on as their showroom and run perma-estate sales out of them.
There was no way the lady in the last home was living there. All of the bedrooms were full, the bed and floors covered and all the walls, even up to the ceiling and everything had a price tag on it.
So, we never thought of this, but maybe rents in the strip malls or commercial rents anywhere are super high and some require a 5 year lease, that maybe buying a home, or renting a home for 6 months, then just move in stuff, set it up as a display space, and run estate sales out of it. Then go rent another home, and move the sale there for another six months.
We don’t know, but something, we think is fishy is going on. There is a law now about a company having a prepetual ‘going out of business” sale running, but maybe this is a way to get around that, and just have a perpetual “Estate Sale” running. Maybe they then buy complete estate sales else where and just keep loading it into the owned home or rented home until, slap full, then run a sale followed by an auction, then close up and move on.
Any thoughts from others on this experience?
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
10/12/2018 at 2:13 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #50076JUST FYI.. Shipped today an item we paid $75 for on Sept. 18th and it sold yestrday for $350. We knew what the value was. A couple of weeks ago we purchased 4 items for $50 to $75 that we have listed at the $250 + range. But we also picked up 62 items that are listed in the $40 to $65 range.
So it is always a mixture, like Jay mentioned, and you do both the low end and the higher end at the same time.
We also now have gotten to know who the estate sale managers are and what kind of clientele they cater too. We know if we see a sales by estate seller A then expect to see items in the hundreds of dollars all over the place. Also in Atlanta we see where they are located geographically and we immediately know it will all be fairly high end because that area is all one to four million dollar homes. On the flip side we know areas that the highest median home prices are $150k and they are going to be full of Tupperware LOL 🙂 [you get the point].
If you use the paid databases, which we do for research and or as you said, have some knowledge in certain areas it is not as big of a gamble.
Plus our best high end items are almost always at the estate sales in the high end areas vs. auctions. And as we have discussed before, at estate sales, you know you have the item if it is in your hands. At auctions you wait hours for something to just present itself, then it is a coin toss if you end up getting it.
Just tossing in a couple of cents worth. 🙂
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta.
10/09/2018 at 10:30 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #49852Jay.. Oh I agree by all means. The $100 items are much harder to find and we don’t limit ourselevs just to those price points. Gracious no. But my point was same as yours, it is nicer to sell the same dollar amount and have to pull, pack and ship a whole lot less.
I was just commenting that it’s nice to have that few items to deal with to get $600 plus dollars in Sales.
FYI.. Our current inventory shows $6,000 in cost and we have it listed as $50,000 to sell at [which is approx. 8 times the buying cost]. Who knows after we either take some offers or have a Sale of some sort. But we haven’t used a Sale in about 2 months. Things seem to be selling OK without running a Sale.
Breakdown out of 1,124 items as of today in our store: The avg. buy it cost is approx. $5.50 per item and the Avg. selling price is $45.00
17% of our inventory is listed at under $20
83% is listed at over $20.00 per item
52% at 583 items at $20-$50 ea.
26% at 296 items at $50 and higher
5% at 55 items at $100 or moreSo as you see the $100 plus items are certainly in the minority.
For Funsies and Giggles here are you and Ryannes numbers from Sept. 2014.. You had 3,553 items listed and they broke down this way. That you would just like to reminisce. 🙂 🙂
3553 Range 9/2/14
.01 > 5.00 10
5% 5.01 > 10.00 49
182 10.01 > 15.00 12315.01 > 20.00 449
34% 20.01 > 25.00 335
1222 25.01 > 30.00 43830.01 > 35.00 6
35.01 > 40.00 771
35% 40.01 > 45.00 28
1248 45.01 > 50.00 44350.01 > 60.00 257
60.01 > 70.00 42
70.01 > 80.00 128
15% 80.01 > 90.00 57
516 90.01 > 100.00 32100.01 > 200.00 225
200.01 > 300.00 75
300.01 > 400.00 26Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
10/08/2018 at 4:11 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #49791I’m with you TTR: We use our Ebay supplies for Etsy also. We have developed a “cocoon” process of protecting our items since almost all are glass, ceramic or pottery and porcelain. Our Ebay feedback is loaded with compliments on the heavy duty packing. Only had 4 things broken since 2002.
I was packing the items we sold yesterday and as I was packing we kept getting the cha-chings. Wife Susan said we should post on the forum what these sales were about.
Quickly it is something Jay brought up several years ago and after we closed down 6 antique booths we divested ourselves of the cheaper items. Jay said he rather pay $20 for something if it could sell for over a $100 and then sell less items but for the same monthly dollar amount and have to ship less, than sell hundreds and hundreds of cheap items and Ryanne pack herself to death on all those items.
So, one of the few times, going to throw a few quick numbers out there. Only sold 7 items between yesterday and noon today but for a total of $606 [avg. $300 per day] and those cost us $110 to buy.
And over the last couple of years we have been finding items that we have listed for $100 up to 3 or 4 hundred. Just picking what we feel is higher end items and we don’t mint spending $25 on something if we can sell for $150 +/-.
Just thought I would mention it.
By the way, since this week is about all time numbers, back in 2013 when Susan and I were deciding about shutting the antique booths down we were trying to decide if full time online e-commerce was going to be for us we tracked all of Jay and Ryanne’s sales for that full year. Highest item they sold, how many they sold, what they paid for it, how many items were under $10, and every item they had in increments of $10 per tier.
I still have that spread sheet, Btw the way I did that for every member of Scanveglfie that reported numbers that years. i tracked thousands of solds, cost and selling prices. That makes a very interesting buy list by the way.But back on point. Jay said in 2013 that is when he wnated to buy higher end items and sell them for higher dollar amounts and get out of the “sweat shop” mentality.
I wonder if I ran that anaysis now, how many items J&R have under $10, $15, under $20, 25, 40, 50, 75 etc., etc. and see how that compared to what he said his goal was back then.
But in our case what he said really stuck. Back then our avg. per item buy price was $22.00 per item. Now we have that cost down to an avg. of in the $7 range and the items selling in the 10 times that and up. And we haven’t even started on all the art prints in our formewr company portfolios.
Just thought I would throw some numbers out for a change. But I rely on general ledger and journal accounting and P&L sheets mostly.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
10/07/2018 at 6:00 pm in reply to: Need identification help from someone knowledgeable about golf! #49717The two small round discs are ball markers, used on the putting green. When you land on the green or make a putt, especially if you ball is close to the cup and possibly in the way of another golfers line you place one of the small round buttons right behind your ball to “mark it’s place” and then pick your ball up. When your turn to putt comes agagin you place your ball right back down, directly in front of your ball marker, let go of the ball then pick up the marker and put back in your pocket.
The long two prong tool is a divot repair tool. This is used when you make your final approach shot to the green and you hit a high arching ball up in the air and it land down hard and solid on the green. You walk up to the spot where your ball first hit, especially if the green is alittle wet and push the tool down into the grass on 2 or 3 sides of that ball depression your ball just made and push down and twist a little, thus pulling the compressed dirt and gress back up to level and “repaing” the hole-depression you just made. After fluffing up the turff, then slightly tap it a little with the edge of your putter to “pat” it back down smooth. Sort of like repairing a “pot hole” in a road.
The third tool you have is a spike tool [wrench]. When you clean your shoe spikes, many times a golfer needs to unscrew the spikes and clean them and the threaded studs that they screw onto. The two small points fit into two small holes that are on standard spikes, but metal and the newer soft spikes. You use this tool like a wrench. Insert the points into the holes in the spikes and twist counter clock wise to remove, then after you replace the spikes after cleaning and have finger tightened, you use the tool to “tighten” and snug the spike back up.
The divot tool and ball markers are carried in a golfers pocket during a round. The spike tool is used only at home or the club house to clean your shoes. When finished, everything is stored back in the pouch and the whole thing is usually kept in one of the many side zippered areas on the side of a golf bag.
Hopefully this gives you both key words and a complete description for that area.
P.S. they don’t go for much. Most golf gloves come with a snap on ball marker on the wrist section of the glove. Snap it off, use it, then snap it back on the back of your glove. Purists usually use a dime, place it down and then tap it on the top with their ball to push it level with the grass. It seems to not deflect your opponenets ball as much as some of the snap markers. And some purists complain about rounded bumpy markers and if they miss a putt will blame your marker if it is too thick.
Create a divot and not repair it, everbody will yell at you, not clean your spikes, when your wife will yell at you. That’s why most golfers just leave their shoes in the garage. easier than cleaning.
As Jay says, many, many corporations hand these out at Charity and Corporate golf outings, usually imprinted with their company logo. Some golfers collect ball markers, but mostly for large corps. like Shell Oil, Coca-Cola, Mobile Oil, Buick and things like that. They also collect logo golf balls and display on a wall rack. Sure you have seen many of them.
Unless this is something from a tournament where someone like Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Bobby Jones [or any of the great hall of famers used], then not worth much.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art.
Yep.. Our assistant Lisa just Googled grapefruit bowl and then followed a Pinterest photo by visiting a store called countrykitchen.com and There they were. So Bingo! .. Antique frog. Non-slip grapefruit bowls, who would have thunk! “What a Country!”
mike at MDCGFA
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