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I’ve been looking into two types of buildings:
a) a metal insulated “garage” that would have a footprint of about 800 sq feet, all metal (including roof) and concrete pad for just under $19,000 (building only)
b) a modified “house” – with a small basement for utilities, 800 sq ft garage on the main floor which I would use for eBay and other business, and built above it would be a 2 bedroom apartment I would rent. The quote for this was between $40 and $60 (building only).Electrical would be between $3000 and $5000 depending on the option I choose above. Plumbing was VERY expensive – up to $15,000.
Other challenges I have is that the lot – it is connected to my homes lot, but is legally a separate lot/address – not sure what I can share or not share between my house as services. May need to separate them but the business write off may be worth it.
I also haven’t had full quotes for permits (probably $5000 to $10000 in my area), landscaping (lots of trees to take down, grass or other to put in), driveway to the building, need to decide how I want to heat it (gas or other? Have gas in my house), and do I want extras like air conditioning, drains in the floors, windows/doors in multiple locations, fencing, security systems, etc.
The reason for an apartment is I live in a tourist area and places rent for $1000 to $1500 a week for a small place in the summer (end of May to Labor Day) – the challenge after that is the dead season where you would be lucky to rent for $500 a month.
Lots of options to weigh, but don’t plan on starting until I’m close to retirement in 10 years or more.
I have a couple “Dymo Digital USB Postal Scales” – they can be used stand alone or connected to a computer to automatically fill out the weight when you weigh a parcel.
I use them for eBay at home, and a pair at work. Always very reliable.
They also have an option for an AC adapter – I have them on all the time using AA batteries and rarely change the batteries (once a year) so I would recommend saving the money on the AC adapter if looking at Dymo scales.
Curious if you are having plumbing put in as well – that is one of the things that is very expensive that we have looked into for a storage building and connecting it to the existing septic in our property is very expensive (almost cheaper to setup a separate septic bed/tank).
In my research, we also were debating how to do the electrical – have it metered separately, or combine it with our home. The separation would give us a business vs. residential split, but they we have extra charges for the separate account, meter, delivery fees, etc. in our area.
My experience is once you approve the return, a good portion (say 50-60%) of buyers never bother to return the item, especially on lower priced items.
Once they add up the shipping lost both directions, they decide it isn’t worth it to them or just are too lazy to mail the item back.
I vote this as the thread of 2017 – enjoy reading everyone’s thoughts and opinions on the jacket!
I would do the same thing for an extra $50 on the jacket, let alone $1000.
I’ve had a lot worse things done to me for the sake of money or worthless objects by other people. People I know, politicians, my employers, family, etc. don’t follow through on promises all the time – I couldn’t care less if I made a stranger across the country mad for $1000 and they are out nothing they didn’t have 2 seconds before the eBay sale.
$1000 is life changing money to me – that’s 2 weeks less I would have to work in my life, it would be a huge chunk off my mortgage. Getting an extra $1000 any day would be the greatest day of the year for me – especially if it only means burning a non-existent bridge with a complete stranger.
For me, it depends on the item.
If I have a bunch of similar items in the same category that are easy to photograph, I can easily list over 100 in a few hours. Just get the photos done, get the first listing done, hit sell similar item, and make a few changes to the descriptions and photo and move onto the next.
It gets more complex when I need to repair/restore/clean an item, test it, take detailed photos, have detailed information about the item in the listing (dimensions, other details), and need to do research on it. I’ve had items that from start to finish take 3-4 hours to get from a dirty/broken piece of electronic junk to a pristine working item – however, the profit margin is higher.
At the end of the day, you have to take into account how long it will take to do everything to get an item listed. For me, if I can get a bunch of the same or similar items that I make $10 each on that take 10 minutes or less to list, it is much better than an item I have to spend half the day on to make $100.
I also try and save similar items up from scavenging to list them all at once. It is much easier to list a bunch of items in the same category, with similar descriptions quickly. When I go scavenging, I come back and sort out my items into bins to help keep organized for when I have time to put in for a listing day.
I deal with these places all the time. Only had one issue where an item that I sent to California ended up with someone in Vietnam and either the freight forwarder or customs opened a sealed collectors item. The buyer wanted me to pay shipping back from Vietnam which was about 10x the items value. eBay sided with me that they used a forwarder and weren’t covered beyond the shipment to California.
My sales are on average – nothing really different that I’ve noticed.
Last year I saw a small spike at the beginning of December until about a week before Xmas.
Have a good holiday! It is just “Thursday” where I am…
I like listening to local sports radio – especially call in shows. I always enjoy a really ignorant caller or someone who frustrates the host. The rest is just white noise until that happens.
Also enjoy the detail that some hosts on some stations are team specific get into – I’m not sure how some of these guys spend all week talking and analyzing what went on during a 3 hour football game for 40+ hours, or how ridiculous the talk is during the off season. I listened to the local station that talks about NFL mostly debate in the summer for a whole week with listeners if a hot dog is a sandwich.
I hope that nobody seriously listens to these stations – for me passive listening seems sad enough…
Really enjoyed this video – There is a lot to be said about adding “value” into an item, presentation, and building a reputation for it.
One of my bread and butter items is a very specific type of vintage electronics – my competitors just seem to toss up bad photos of dirty/uncleaned items, and sometimes don’t test them or include everything to make it work.
I take the time to clean all my items (inside and out), restore them as best as I can, include accessories or aftermarket power adapters, and any accessories I can. I also make sure everything works (if not, I am clear that it won’t work and it is for parts that another restorer can use). I also print copies of the manuals if I don’t have the originals.
Most of my items look like they came from a 1970’s or 1980’s electronic store showroom – and I get paid for my efforts as I can generally sell a clean, restored item for much more then a random “untested” and dirty competitor.
I also get a lot of repeat collectors as the quality of my cleaning/restorations are high.
I do flip a lot of random items without doing anything to them, but there is a lot of value in putting effort into making something you find “better” then when you found it.
I like guys like Magnus – and appreciate them. My hobby after I retire from the corporate world will be doing restorations on a smaller scale for appreciative collectors – I can’t wait!
Just so you are aware, lots of sensitivity around what I’ll call the “E” word in Canada right now:
Similar to the NFL team in Washington, lots of people are asking the CFL team in Edmonton to change it’s name as it is insulting to the Indigenous Inuit community.
I see other people commonly use the term on eBay, but it has been a hot media story the last few days and someone may complain.
The majority of the items I sell are unique on eBay, or there are a few (2-5) similar items available.
When there are similar items available, I try to make mine the cheapest within a reasonable range. For example, a Sony Discman may be $25 to $35 with other sellers, so I will price mine at $23 to move it quickly.
When I have an item that a lot of people are selling (for example a Sony Playstation 2 system) I price it based on the “average” for a similar item, but make it geographically enticing with a good local shipping rate. Most items I sell like this go within a few hundred miles of my location.
I don’t bother competing on commodity items with Chinese sellers – you can’t win at their game.
My eBay strategy is to move inventory fast – 30-50% of my items I try to move within a month. For example, my current 30 day running sales are 104 items sold out of 318 that are/were listed in that period – so I’m not too happy – hoping sales pick up the next few weeks.
I usually stand in line at the Post Office, but now if it is busy I just say hello to the clerk, drop my parcels at the side of the counter, and they print off a receipt later in the day and leave it in my mailbox.
I’m in a very small town, but may be an option if you work it out with your local Post Office.
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