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My work upgrades our iPhones a generation behind when the new ones come out (I have a 7 now) but from previous experience, there isn’t much difference between the 4 up to the 7 if you are using it for photos and web browsing or the eBay app.
I personally can’t tell the difference between the 6 and 7 other then it came with more storage space and doesn’t have a headphone jack. Between 5 and 6, it was just the size of the screen and thickness.
Evan – first step I would recommend is getting a Canada Post Solutions for Small Business account – it is free, and has immediate savings. Every 3 months they review your spending and give you a discount. I’m a part-time seller and they give me about 20% off rates. It also connects into your PayPal account to make for easy payment, printing of labels, etc. You will also get Expedited Rates for Regular Parcel costs.
I scavenge a lot in Quebec – I work for a company that has offices south of Montreal – I stay in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu when I visit, but do in the evening make it up to the south shore. The Village des Valeurs stores are usually where I find some unique items. One tip I’ll share is that Quebec has a lot of French variations for video games – even if it is just the label or packaging, people will pay 2x-5x more just because it is bilingual or French.
I’ve lowballed people with unreasonable prices before. I’m never too sure how low they are willing to go when they offer Buy It Now or Best Offer.
If a best offer seller is asking $100, and the average price is $40 from other sellers, I have no shame is offering $35 to the $100 seller if I can get a deal. If not, I’ll pay $40 elsewhere.
However, I’m not going to offer $1 or something crazy like that if the item consistently is sold for $100 everywhere.
I’m using Microsoft Outlook 2016 to pull RSS feeds. The RSS feeds populate in separate “inboxes” for each feed. I’ve been using Outlook for RSS for a long time, so I think any version can be used.
The thing I like about it is that when you work in an office situation like me, it just looks like you are reading an email when noisy co-workers jump in my cubicle.
Works great so far – every time there is a new post, it is popping up in the inbox in Outlook for the feed.
03/19/2018 at 10:39 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #35543I agree with your Day Job tips – I do all my shipping on the way to work (drive right past the post office) and on breaks/lunch I start draft listings, do research, or go to local thrift stores by the office (I have a Goodwill right across the street now).
I’ve also sourced from co-workers who are getting rid of items that I typically sell (video games, electronics, sports memorabilia).
I rather spend my lunch and breaks doing work for myself instead of gossiping with other employees.
If they only knew how much money I was pulling in a week, my co-workers would stop laughing at me when I fill my trunk with bubble wrap, boxes, and other packing supplies.
I’m enjoying this – all posts appear as emails in my inbox…
This is great! I’ve added the feed to my Outlook RSS Subscriptions so I can follow along the conversation covertly on my work computer…
A1 – the best day I find for shopping at Thrift Stores is Thursday. Monday is the worst day for inventory. Agree with the answer above as it applies to where I live as well. Also, a lot of the stores have Seniors discounts on either Tuesday or Wednesday – the stores are crowded so I avoid going those days.
A2 – I tend to find the best deals in towns/cities oversaturated with thrift stores. The one city I find the best deals in has 7 thrift stores for a population of 60,000. The nearest town to me has about 20,000 people, and one store that is overpriced.
Tourist cities are also bad – I live near Niagara Falls – everyone who scavenges and is on vacation tends to pop in these stores. They are the most overpriced stores in my area.
My wife and I are eBay sellers in Canada (Niagara/Ontario) and it is a fun hobby for us – but we’ve leaned on it when we’ve lost jobs or are in other financial situations. It has put us in the FIRE situation as well – my current employer would allow me to collect pension in my early 50’s – which isn’t that far away.
Being a Canadian seller has it’s benefits and drawbacks – on a positive side, we find if we are the only Canadian seller with an item, we can ask more than American sellers and get a buyer in Canada who doesn’t want the customs hassle. We also have unique items that we can source (lots of success over the years with Canadian icon items such as Hudsons Bay, Tim Hortons, Lululemon, Steam Whistle bottle openers, or even stupid promotional packaging like Canadian Star Wars Pepsi Cans that most people throw out.
The drawbacks are the small population, shipping costs outside of the province, and dealing with international returns and competition. Over the years I’ve had some great success though.
Look forward to your comments on the boards!
You can find out who is selling near you by using the search tools in eBay. Select a common item like “Shirt” or “hat” to search for, change you search criteria to within “XX Miles of my location”, and you will be able to see who is actively selling items in your area that may be your scavenging competition.
My post office serves about a population of 3000 people, and we have been told that there are 2 other eBay sellers in our town. I pretty much figured out who they are, what they sell, and where they scavenge from based on there listings by doing the trick mentioned above.
03/15/2018 at 3:30 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #35278Marking an item a “gift” on the customs form to avoid duty/taxes is an urban legend. It does in some cases mean different customs limits, but they aren’t guaranteed and it is still up to the customs officers discretion.
There is a show on in Canada called “Border Security” where they follow U.S. and Canadian customs agents, and they actually have shown on the show eBay shipments where the customs forms were filled out improperly. Sellers ship the items in eBay boxes, eBay envelopes, or with eBay tape and the customs agent just goes to a computer, and can quickly figure out how much the item was really sold for based on the ship from location and the matching eBay sold listings.
I renovated a house that had newspapers, baseball cards, and various bottles all throughout the wall and floor.
Unfortunately, the most valuable item at the time was $50 – but still a nice surprise.
I always wonder in older homes, how many valuable items are hidden from sight that people have been mere inches from for years, and how many owners don’t realize that something extremely rare and valuable was right near them.
03/15/2018 at 9:26 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 351: Being Frugal Is Not A Secret Club #35235The customs fee situation in Canada is absolutely random. One week I will buy an item for $100, and pay nothing. The next week it will be an item for $50 and I will have to pay. However, I would say that I pay customs on items that are non-GSP about 75% of the time.
In addition to customs, some of the major carriers charge very large fees to collect customs on behalf of the government – for example, UPS charged be $25 yesterday on top of customs for an item I purchased from the U.S. When using GSP, you don’t have that additional carrier fee for collection.
The last pain point is that some sellers overvalue an item (to match the $100 insurance) no matter what the item is worth, and you have to pay taxes based on that value. Also, customs can “revalue” an item – if it says $20 on the label, but they deem it to be a $500 item, they will charge duties/taxes on the $500.
I personally prefer GSP – I know up front what I will be paying in total for the item instead of gambling on a good result. With any gamble, the house (this case the government) always wins in the long run.
03/14/2018 at 1:06 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Rolodex, Owl bookends, Clocks, Desk lamp, MCM trash bin, Zenith Trans Oceanic radio #35179Thanks for sharing this! I have had one of these boot scrapers on my deck for years, just rusting and used occasionally – but I didn’t think it was worth anything, let alone hundreds of dollars!
I’m going to take care of it better now – and move it to a location where someone won’t be able to steal it easily.
I know this is how they handle GSP shipments to Canada – however, they come on a truck from Erlanger, KY to Toronto, ON which is only about 8 hours apart.
I would assume that Canada would be the #1 destination for GSP shipments though – smaller countries may be different or by pallet/small container load.
Also, in Canada it is a Pitney Bowes run facility like Erlanger – I doubt that they have the same facilities setup in every country.
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