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I would say about 10% of my sales are sports fan wear. Most of it is vintage (1990’s or older) but the odd modern jersey does OK if it is unique and genuine (lots of Chinese fakes sold on eBay).
I tend to stay away from NCAA merchandise – almost anyone can make it (they hand out licenses to anyone, especially state owned schools that anyone can make) and it is still very cheap to buy new because of this.
My best sales have always been authentic minor league (baseball and hockey) jerseys, or foreign (European) hockey jerseys – especially Russian ones. I’ve sold some for well over $200 if very rare. These rare jerseys are usually cheap, as most thrift stores can recognize a major league team jersey, but not most minor league teams. Defunct teams also do well from the past – as long as the team wear is from the era the team existed and not a reproduction. Some teams like the Hartford Whalers have more stuff made today then when they existed.
College stuff that is great though is vintage letterman or leather jackets – the leather ones, even in poor condition tend to sell well if they are vintage (pre 1980 in my experience).
Congrats!
My wife and I just over the weekend bought a property in a very cheap location that we will eventually be moving to. It has an insulated out building (about a two car garage size), unfinished large basement, and 5 bedrooms for us to have our various business spread over. We’re getting this new property that is about double the size in every way for 1/4 to 1/5 the price of our current home (depending on the sale value). We’re very excited – however, it does need some renos, but is functional 1970’s décor.
Still waiting for my current job to get rid of me – every week more and more people are leaving, but the package to stay until the end is worth it. In fact, it may pay for my new property and I can invest the money from my new house for retirement or a rainy day.
I understand your excitement, anxiousness, and overall happiness with the potential future! Let us know how it goes for you.
10/10/2018 at 9:37 am in reply to: Fixed-price listing fee above free allocation for anchor store subscribers #49921I think you also need to think of the listing fees spread over all your items. 50 cents a listing over 10,000 should be divided with the 10,000 items that are free – so you would be paying less than 1 cent an item.
We’ve been scaling up (not close to 10,000 – reaching 500) and don’t see the listing fees as a deterring me from listing more (we get 500 free listings as part of a Canadian Promo – $0.40 a listing after 500). Paying the listing fees in my opinion is a safe option before committing to the next store level – I rather pay a few dollars (well, maybe a few hundred) for a 6-month period to see if I can handle the next level and then make a decision, then commit to a subscription store and not use it. We all can calculate the tipping point when the fees outweigh the next store level based on what eBay charges us individually, however, listing fees in my opinion are one of the lower costs of doing business on eBay.
10/09/2018 at 2:15 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #49874@Doublythumbs – To minimize risk, and to put your mind at ease, have you thought about acting like you just have eBay income, even though you are still employed?
This is the exercise my wife and I are currently doing – it is VERY hard work to do both a job and as much eBay and other part time work, but we are minimizing our risks.
We have a very good idea of what our eBay income could be (we are conservatively extrapolating our numbers if we had more time to focus on eBay), and how much we need to live off of. At this point, we need to make $23 a day just to pay the bills and eat. We’ve pushed ourselves to the limits for a few months, and at that rate we can get by.
At the moment we are putting together some nest eggs with our extra income – making sure we have a retirement fund when we hit 60 (trying to make it to 55), making sure we have a pot of money for house repairs, and also a pot for a new vehicle in the future.
However, if things change quickly with our jobs, we know what to do, what we can do, and re-adjust our long-term goals. We have our short-term costs and goals covered for several years.
If you are thinking of the full-time eBay + odd job lifestyle, I really thing putting the time into seeing what it really is like on top of your current job is a good indicator of what you can achieve. It is short term pain, but will give you peace of mind in whatever decision you make to test the waters fully.
As Jay mentioned as well, kill all debts – I don’t think this lifestyle can be achieved with money going out the door every month. We’ve also eliminated most monthly bills (cell phone is pay as you go, no cable TV, no landline) to make sure if we have a bad month, we just go without until the good times come back.
10/05/2018 at 3:17 pm in reply to: Is there an Ebay glitch adding Best Offer to everything newly listed right now? #49662This glitch comes and goes with me as I list items. It’s a annoyance to fix, but the worst case is you will get an offer.
I list on my computer – from what I can tell, it’s just something to pay attention to when you list to see if the Best Offer box is ticked. I’m not sure why it happens (I tend to copy items that don’t have Best Offer in the first place) but it’s a good reminder to pay attention when you list. I know I’ll go through 5-10 listings before I notice it on all of them and have to go back and correct and pay attention for the rest of the listings in that sitting.
It use to be on constantly on BBC America, but it seems BBC America isn’t much BBC UK programming these days.
There are several posters who post new episodes on YouTube – most of the new episodes are up from September 2018. Just do a simple search in YouTube for Bargain Hunt, and for full episodes (they are about 45 minutes long) just filter to get the full show instead of highlights. They are also several hundred episodes available free on the BBC website, but you need a VPN to pretend you are in the UK to watch them.
The company I work for is constantly involved in trademark infringement cases (we make some private label products that look like big brands with similar colors, size of packaging, etc) that most stores like Walmart have 1000’s of.
We rarely lose – as long as you are not doing the exact same thing with the same name and appearance, you have nothing to worry about. The only thing I would be concerned with is if the person is super serious, they may file a lawsuit – if they do, just change your name if you don’t want to fight it.
Trademark only applies to the name, or similar names and appearances to what someone else is doing. For example, if I make a red/white can with the same design as Coca-Cola, and call it “Cola-Coka”, then it is an issue. If I’m making barbecues called Char-Cola, they can’t do anything about it.
I wouldn’t sell it – just for personal peace of mind.
I remember a guy in my grade in High School in about Grade 10/11 tried making explosives from a copy he had. He went to a local farm to play around with some chemicals, disfigured himself really bad and caused a lot of damage.
I know this stuff is out there, I just would feel guilty if I provided the information to someone who does something stupid with it. If they do something really stupid, you probably don’t want to be part of an investigation as the supplier of the information that caused something really bad to happen.
It’s not for everyone. Some people want a new car every 2 years. Some need large homes filled with stuff and closets full of clothes they may never wear. Some people need to go out for coffee, lunch, dinners, etc. all the time. They choose to live like that, and need to be a slave to a corporation/employer to keep at it.
I get called cheap by co-workers all the time, friends and family think I live in a small home for my income level, I like to drive my car until it is completely dead (15+ years).
In the end, I think that some people need stuff to make them happy, or feel good about themselves. I personally prefer my time and less in my life to stress about.
I think I’m lucky that I’ve had financial hardship in my early 20’s – if not, I may be a consuming corporate robot until I’m 65…
I also feel some people don’t realize that everything comes to an end at some point. I know people in their 60’s financing luxury cars, re-financing homes, and for some reason don’t think the “party” is ever going to end…and then the complain when someone else retires in their early 50’s and can’t figure it out.
Oh well, we all make our life choices – some of the people who spend without care are probably our best customers…
As a buyer, all the promoted listings, bold/highlighted listings, etc. etc. are just annoyances. If I’m looking for something, I’m going to sort through everything that matches to get the best deal for me (condition/quality, price, and shipping).
It’s just a way for eBay to make a few more dollars off sellers, but do they have any real factual information by item type/category that your listing will sell quicker? I haven’t seen it. Most of my items probably don’t even have statistically significant data behind them to justify spending money to “promote” them.
If anyone’s sales are down through mid-December, then it is time to panic. My sales keep going up year to year as I become a smarter scavenger and seller. If your trend is going down significantly, then you may want to re-consider what you are selling. Not everything year to year has the same value.
My goal on eBay is to make the most $ for myself – not to make extra $ for eBay.
@simplico – Free Shipping Tuesdays is back at Canada Post – hold off any returns from Canadians until Tuesdays and provide a return label for free 🙂
October is my most profitable month because of this promo if I can hold off shipping to buyers in Canada until Tuesdays…
If you are looking for a TV show, try finding BBC’s Bargain Hunt. I’m up to season 51…
It follows around teams as they go to various sales in Europe (antique fairs, boot sales, thrift stores, antique markets, community sales) and then try to resell the items at auctions for a profit.
It’s a good show just to learn about different things and their values as well. If you are into Antiques Roadshow on PBS, a lot of the people will be familiar on Bargain Hunt that serve as experts.
My guess is $35-$40 per positive feedback when I look at others…
I’ve had some odd messages this weekend from buyers who said they couldn’t complete transactions – not sure if it was widespread, or just issues with these two users (one had 14,000+ feedback, so they weren’t rookies to the system). Other sales went through OK.
My wife and I have a split tactic when we go shopping or to auctions – I’m an expert in some areas, she’s an expert in others, and we rarely cross on our knowledge.
This really helps in going through stores quickly – she hits her sections, I hit mine. I would estimate that 4 out of 5 items we buy are not researched – we just see it and know to buy it. The other items we do on the spot research on, and usually those are good buys based on knowledge of similar items.
Most of my learning is done when my wife has a larger selection to go through and I’m done with my sections – then I go off into areas I’m not an expert in and pull out my phone and start looking things up. I find some good things this way, but it is not efficient if I could move onto the next store to find products in my areas of expertise.
I would estimate we spend 15-20 minutes in most stores. I have a real peace of mind when I know that I’ve found a basket full of good items in that time frame and can move onto the next store and do the same. On a crazy day, we’ve hit 15-20 stores in a day if they are close together – however, I would estimate hitting 5 stores is about one solid day of photos/listing afterwards, and I have a zero death-pile rule before I go out again.
It also brings up the issue of scheduling – at the moment I pick the odd work lunch, evening, or spend all day Saturday looking for items or auctions. Sunday is listing day. When going from part-time seller, full-time employed to full-time seller, I need to figure out a schedule of when to go where, days for listing, etc. Also, grouping stores, trips, etc. to find items. Haven’t given much thought to how to build that part of the business plan yet…guess it is the next step.
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