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I use Gimp also – it’s pretty good but for easy touch-ups the photo editing software included with Windows 10 is easy to use.
The only problem with Gimp is that everytime I start it up, I think of the movie Pulp Fiction….”BRING OUT THE GIMP!” I get a crazy smile on my face and my wife thinks I’m nuts.
I read an interesting sourcing technique on the weekend. As someone who dabbles in vintage video games, I thought it was brilliant – and it was front page on the local newspaper.
A local video game store (who also has a large ebay store) is now offering to “recycle” your old vintage video games as a free service! Just bring in your old video game systems, cartridges, cables, controllers, etc. and they will make sure that the plastics and other materials don’t damage our environment. Instead of going to a landfill, they will take care of them.
I thought it was brilliant! Just a genius way to source.
I always like sending things to buyers in correctional facilities, and then finding out what they did to get in there. Some are just your run of the mill criminals (theft, fraud, drugs), but others have some crazy schemes they were involved in or did horrible things.
07/02/2019 at 10:40 am in reply to: Disneyland guests are stealing Star Wars Galaxy's Edge items and listing on ebay #64392I think coming up with a “copy and replicate” item is a small gamble at first, then becomes bigger as more and more “copy and replicate” items flood the market.
I think a good example is fidget spinners – they were crazy for a few weeks a couple years ago, however, they were simple to replicate, anyone who could make one did, and now every discount store, dollar store, liquidator has pallets of them for sale for pennies. If you got in at the beginning, you made good $, however, those who jumped in at the end got burned.
I feel the challenge is to find something that won’t get too popular, but will sell consistently – but not too consistently that it will get noticed and copied.
We already bought the new house just over a year ago with a small mortgage on it – we used a portion of the proceeds from selling our other house to pay it off and the mortgage just got cleared this morning!
I feel like a kid on Christmas getting this all sorted and done with. Just have to be patient until I get my parachute from my job and get our new lives started.
06/28/2019 at 1:32 pm in reply to: Disneyland guests are stealing Star Wars Galaxy's Edge items and listing on ebay #64226Every time I see something like this spork, I almost want to jump on Alibaba, find a utensil manufacturer, send them a photo, and order thousands for pennies each.
I once went deep into this idea with a vintage bottle opener that was popular (sold one for $150). I contacted a manufacturer off Alibaba, made some CAD drawings to send them and photos, and got some good pricing and 3D printed samples sent to me. The brand on it is still active, so I was scared to knock it off. The pricing was 30 cents each – but had to order something odd like 7000 units.
The house sale was very exciting – almost all the offers were above the list price, but we did price lower then our competition to start (it was 5% cheaper then the closest comparable home on the market and others that sold). It was almost like an auction – by the time we could read through one offer, others were coming in, and some were “cancelled” so they could up there number. To get out of the home in 2 weeks was great – we thought it would take much longer (at least 8-10 weeks). In the end we were able to get just over (about $15k) what other similar homes sold for in the area, but with the quick closing and no conditions.
I’ll probably grab a Beaver Tail tonight – I’m addicted. I usually only get a treat or fast food 2-3 times a month, being in the center of it all I go almost every day. Probably best I move to the country soon! I just feel I need to take advantage of it while I can.
June 2019
Probably the biggest roller coaster ride I’ve been on in my life the last few months. The biggest thing is that after months of planning, we finally listed the house we are selling. The house went on the market at 1pm on the first Monday of June (3rd). 15 families/couples were waiting outside (and this was a working weekday…). We sat in our car down the street. There was a frenzy. 6 hours later after lots of offers, counter-offers, and counter-counter-offers, we had a clean cash offer with no conditions and it closed in 14 days! We tripled our money in 10 years. When we moved to the town, it was rated the #2 worst market in the country. Now it is one of the hottest, and house was located in the hottest neighbourhood in town. We feel like we won the lottery. Just pure luck!
Mortgage on what is now our new home is going through the process of being paid off completely any minute. We’ve completely moved into our temporary rental until my job is done (which is now sounding like it may be a month or two), and got a bunch of our stuff in our new house. Life is good at the moment…for the first time in a while we will have zero debt and cash on hand.
The June numbers…(as of the 28th)
Listings – 424 (424 end of May) – exactly neutral!
Sales – 27
Total Listings added – 27
Inventory To List – still boxes and boxes of personal items, and after moving realized more “stuff” can go.
TOTAL Profit – $575.27 (eBay only this month)Lessons learned this month…
Nothing to do with scavenging, just it is extremely weird living in a 24/7 tourist area in our temporary apartment. It’s loud, it’s crazy, but there is always something entertaining (especially people watching) out the window. It’s also weird to look out your window at an international border crossing. We even watched a movie last week called the Rainbow Bridge Motel since it is just outside our window. It was weird to watch a movie about something so close. The movie itself is a big 0 out of 5 for those who are curious. We also have fireworks – professional ones – every single night at 10pm. And I mean every night – even a quiet Wednesday. It is like Canada Day / Independence Day every single night.
Next Steps for July…
Photograph and list the piles/bins of personal stuff we’ve been collecting. We have a lot of good stuff to get listed.
We also haven’t gone scavenging in weeks…I have the itch. There is a local auction house a good 10 minute walk from our apartment – we think it is worth checking out while we are here on a weekly basis as they have auctions every Thursday evening. It’s probably a tourist trap on a regular basis (we’ve been before, it’s an odd environment but fun). Where our permanent house is there is only farm equipment auctions for hundreds of miles with the odd eBay-able item up for auction. Guess I can learn about parts for farm implements as a new source of inventory…
Where our heads are at…
We need to just get back in the listing groove…but it is hard when you live near a Beaver Tail stand and three Dairy Queen’s all within a 10 minute walk 😊 I’m a sucker for Beaver Tails…and DQ sundaes. I just know I the closest of both will be a good 30-45 minutes away when we are done in our temporary accommodation. Beaver Tails are soooo addictive…
I also have a feeling my job will end any day now. I just feel that now that we have our old house sold and done with, and spent all the time getting a temporary place setup, I’ll have to quickly move again and be done my job. Just a gut feeling.
I repeat what I ended with last month – I REALLY can’t wait to go out scavenging again!
Everyone have a good Canada Day / Independence Day!
06/27/2019 at 1:33 pm in reply to: Link within my listing was removed by eBay…anyone know why? #64185Thanks for the link! This is actually very helpful…my 1995 HTML coding skills are slowly becoming more useless by the day, and I can free up some space in my brain now and avoid the coding struggle for imbedding a video file.
Might as well erase the all the C=64 Basic programming skills from my brain while I’m at it ,8 ,1
06/27/2019 at 11:03 am in reply to: Link within my listing was removed by eBay…anyone know why? #64180I’m surprised eBay doesn’t allow videos to be uploaded to their servers just like any photo. Would make more sense for them to host them instead of a 3rd party like YouTube.
It would save me a lot of hassle – I rarely do a video, but they are valuable when you have something odd that you want to show working, moving, a defect, or how to assemble and a photo won’t give it the proper presentation.
I also wonder if it would be quicker to video something from multiple angles then take multiple photos…how Steve shows his sales in his “What Sold” videos is a good example of a good way eBay could implement videos – it also makes it feel more personal on some items to hear someone describe an item instead of quick text blurbs.
“Ultimate list of brands that sell on eBay”…the same list is on my local mall’s directory board…
They are all brands I can buy new, locally, and at dozens of locations within a few miles. Plus the same brands are on every new scavenger’s list, are abundant, and all over eBay. Thrift Stores over-price these items all the time.
While middle-of-the-road mall brands like PINK, Lululemon, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, etc. do sell, it’s a tough game with lots of competition and lots of picky buyers. Don’t play that game unless you are looking for little profit and long sales times. If you can get those brands for free or next to nothing, great, if not, don’t put too much money into them and inventory.
My advice is to have a niche – where you know some very unique brands that have a small audience that is willing to pay big $ for and most other scavengers look over trying to find the next Nike or Nautica shirt. These same brands get priced low as the Thrift Stores have no clue what they are. You will not end up with a shopping cart full of clothes at the end of a scavenging trip, but a few very nice items that will bring in good profit once you identify a few brands in a niche area. Plus, a few good items that make $100 or more each are much easier to list and ship then 50-100 items that may make you $5-$10.
There are also lots of local brands or corporate shirts that have a wide appeal across the country or internationally to the right buyer. Typically if you find these items, you will be the only one selling one on eBay, and buyers will pay top dollar for it. There is a local company in my area that has a huge niche following with certain nerd subset that I buy anything I can find with there name on it.
Also, anything that is on a publicized list that is a common thing to find and sell will become a bread and butter item very quickly on eBay. The stranger, weirder, odder, or overlooked items are where the money is at with clothing in my opinion.
You can make money with common brands, but I would not recommend playing in that space as the time, effort, and profit were not worth it for me when I’ve tried.
06/24/2019 at 11:40 am in reply to: Answers on Finance, STR, and ROI to Mr Vintage Estate Liquidation from eBay #64014At the end of the day, it is a game – with only a few rules and different ways to play it. I don’t see it having winner or losers though – I see it having a chain of winners.
Most items scavenger sell are unwanted – someone feels like a winner just getting rid of it. The thrift store that gets it feels like a winner selling it. The scavenger who buys it and makes a profit is a winner. And maybe it goes to a buyer that intends to flip it for even more and they win.
It’s a supply chain of winning – and everyone’s viewpoint is different in the process.
I’m personally all over the place now…I was a fast nickel guy, but now I have some fast nickels, slow dimes, slower quarters, and super-slow silver dollars – and the occasional super-fast penny.
The game can be played any way you want – as long as it is fun and makes you happy, keep on playing!
The laws in Texas are always something I personally admire…
Where I live they are trying to pass a law that police no longer have to respond to shoplifting calls at retailers…ugh
As we are having multiple moves this year, we decided that we would limit the size of most of our items to “shoebox” size or less to make it easy to store and transport until we are permanently settled. The larger/bulky items are a pain to keep moving and storing, and were in our opinion not worth the effort. We were able to sell most of the large items in a yard sale and donated the rest – it makes life much easier to stay small when moving a lot.
I’m sure most people aren’t in this situation, but if you are a snowbird or travel frequently it would be neat if you could have a storage container/trailer that was purely for inventory – just have it moved between locations as you go! Shipping is cheap if you have a container these days.
06/18/2019 at 4:52 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 415: Importance Of Being Honest As A Business Owner #63683The Sunk Cost Fallacy is something that they need to teach every kid in school in my opinion.
I think every company I’ve worked for that failed was because of sunk costs. People have a hard time letting go of bad or misinformed decisions for some reason.
The quicker you accept mistakes/failures, the more time and money you will save.
I’ve seen way too many money pits and white elephants in my life – some of them were identified at the outset and people still poured 99% of the money and effort into them…and I can’t imagine the stress that some people cause themselves by not letting go.
The first person you need to be honest to is yourself in this world – it’s very hard to accept mistakes, and the “dream” may not come true, but in the end it is worth it.
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