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@Craig-Rex It’s amazing watching your stores transformation. Glad that the changes you are making are paying off. Must be especially gratifying to offload much of the work to COMC. Nothing can replace time and nothing is more valuable.
Thanks for the video, Steve.
I pick old cassette recorders up anytime I can find them. Always amazed that they sell quickly after all these years. With the renewed interest in cassette tapes I can understand the desire for the higher fidelity models, but the cheaper, lower quality ones also sell reasonably well.
I’m pretty sure we had that exact model pencil sharpener mounted on the wall of our garage growing up.
Nice batch of sales.
Reposting my numbers here, also:
Week Ending 1/28/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $599.50
Net Sales: $478.99
Total Items Sold 15
Total Items in eBay Store: 1105
Items Sold eBay: 13 ($448,25)
Total Items in Etsy Store: 390
Items Sold Etsy: 2 ($30.74)
Cost of Items Sold: $31.23
Highest Price Sold: $199.95 Antique Napkin Rings
Average Price Sold: $39.97
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Average Days Listed: 352.67
Longest Listed: 996 2.73
New items listed: 25
New Listings Value $1,516.67Still working my way through the huge lot of Christmas ornaments that we won at auction in November. Takes some persistence and determination to get through them all. Paid about $400 for the lot and I’m about a 1/3 of the way through with 159 listings with a total list price of $5300 and sales of $1635. It’s always amazing to me what people will pay up for and that collectors will buy Christmas all year long. Should be setting ourselves up for great sales next season.
If you haven’t already come across them, Cracker Box ornament kits sell really well. This company started out in the late 70’s making push pin, bead and sequin ornament kits and is still in business. The finished ornaments also sell really well, but it takes some research to tell if what you have is actually Cracker Box versus the many, many other companies making kits. We were fortunate to come across an estate sale last year that had several old catalogs and I’ve been using them to look up and confirm. It’s time consuming and I can spend 30 minutes or more per ornament on research sometimes, but each one I can confirm adds $30-$50 to the asking price.
@Mark-s – Yes, those Etsy ads are a killer. I stopped all ads through them when I had a cheap, heavy item sell overseas and they charged 15% of the shipping cost. I think I ended up making about $5 on a $20 sale.
For eBay, I promote at the recommended level with a 5% max. I have sold so many items where similar items for selling for less that I have to believe the ads boost sales. Yes, they boost cost, too, but I don’t have any listings that I wouldn’t take 5% off to make the sale. 43% of my sales are promoted listings.
@CHristineR – Interesting to hear you are sourcing from Goodwillfinds.com. I had thoughts of doing that when I first found them, but getting into the discipline of making a regular visit to the site has eluded me. Just took another look and the pricing is pretty agressive, but I guess just like any thift store, there is usually something that slips through if you’re persistent. Good to hear the shipping is reasonable.
@Borderrooster – Had to do a double take when you mentioned you went to yard sales, which are non-existent in our area this time of year. Then I saw you were in Ft. Myers, FL. The land of the eternal yard sales. I understand you guys had temps in the high 80s or 90s over the weekend. Looking forward to yard sales starting up here again in a few months.
Week Ending 1/28/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $599.50
Net Sales: $478.99
Total Items Sold 15
Total Items in eBay Store: 1105
Items Sold eBay: 13 ($448,25)
Total Items in Etsy Store: 390
Items Sold Etsy: 2 ($30.74)
Cost of Items Sold: $31.23
Highest Price Sold: $199.95 Antique Napkin Rings
Average Price Sold: $39.97
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Average Days Listed: 352.67
Longest Listed: 996 2.73
New items listed: 25
New Listings Value $1,516.67Still working my way through the huge lot of Christmas ornaments that we won at auction in November. Takes some persistence and determination to get through them all. Paid about $400 for the lot and I’m about a 1/3 of the way through with 159 listings with a total list price of $5300 and sales of $1635. It’s always amazing to me what people will pay up for and that collectors will buy Christmas all year long. Should be setting ourselves up for great sales next season.
If you haven’t already come across them, Cracker Box ornament kits sell really well. This company started out in the late 70’s making push pin, bead and sequin ornament kits and is still in business. The finished ornaments also sell really well, but it takes some research to tell if what you have is actually Cracker Box versus the many, many other companies making kits. We were fortunate to come across an estate sale last year that had several old catalogs and I’ve been using them to look up and confirm. It’s time consuming and I can spend 30 minutes or more per ornament on research sometimes, but each one I can confirm adds $30-$50 to the asking price.
A research tip for those who may not be very computer savvy. If you have a website that you are doing research on and are just looking for pictures, if you type “site:” before the address and then click on the images tab, it will pull up all readable pictures on the site.
It really speeds up my research time for these ornaments.
Now I just have to maintain this momentum this week, and the next, and the next.
Everything is going great that I can control, but sales still suck.
You’re doing the right things and creating the pipeline of future business. It is a bit disheartening when we don’t see our efforts pay off immediately – just have to keep the faith. This is just like stock investing, if you’re in it for the long haul, the short term ups and downs really don’t matter. From everything you say, you’re making good business decisions and putting in the effort. That’s the formula for success.
Thanks for kicking off the thread.
My big sale of the week was a pair of antique napkin rings for $199.95: Pair of Antique Meriden Silver Plate Napkin Rings Pheasant & Crystal Pattern 244 | eBay
If you haven’t come across them already, Meriden napkin rings are very collectible with some of the more sought-after ones going for around $1000. This pair was unusual in that it has the crystal insert. and seems to be rare, as I could find no comps anywhere, however, it also took a long time to sell, so not too many people are looking for one like this. I started it at $300 3 years ago, dropping the price to $200 last year since I’d seen no interest other than low ball offers. I paid $3 for them at an auction.
That’s a cool sale. DIdn’t know PSA graded photos as well, but I guess it makes sense. You’re always educating us.
Week Ending 1/21/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping $ tax): $761.27
Net Sales: $652.94
Total Items Sold 20
Total Items in eBay Store: 1092
Items Sold eBay: 16 ($451.17)
Total Items in Etsy Store: 374
Items Sold Etsy: 4 ($201.77)
Cost of Items Sold: $94.29
Highest Price Sold: $250.00
Average Price Sold: $38.06
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $110.00Average Days Listed: 407
Longest Listed: 1464
New items listed: 30
$ Amount New Listings $886.50An above average sales week which is nice to see during this time of year. Had one really nice sale in an antique Bible for $250. Didn’t feel like a great sale though as I originally thought it would sell for greater than $1000. Irrational exuberance, I guess. It had some detailed genealogy records going back to the 1700s and I thought someone would pay up for those, but after sitting for 2.5 years I decided to recoup my $60 investment.
Had two sales this week that sold on both Etsy and eBay causing me to cancel one sale on each platform. Both items sold on each platform within a 2-hour window. One sale was due to me not configuring Sixbit properly and the second was due to my computer going to sleep. That is one issue with Sixbit is that your computer must be up and connected to the internet for it to work for the auto-cancellation.
Exceeded my 20 listings goal this week by a good margin, but missed my $1000 worth of listings goal by $113.
As my dad always used to say, “If you aim for nothing, chances are you will hit it.”
My favorite iteration of this is, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Good luck on meeting your target. Looks like you’re on the right track.
@Retro – I have one of those to be listed shelves and it keeps accumulating already listed inventory, while the to be listed languishes in piles on the floor. I need to follow your lead. Maybe this week…
@ChristineR – You comment, “So I’m sort of ruminating on the differences selling fewer RA items in my store. At tax time here I’m like wow that was a great sale! but also darn that will increase our tax liability.”
How does selling RA increase your tax liability?
Week Ending 1/14/23
Gross Sales(w/o shipping & tax): $517.55
Net Sales: $400.39 (eBay: 276.72 / Etsy: $123.67)
Total Items Sold 12 (7/5)
Total Items in eBay Store: 1083
Total Items in Etsy Store: 358
Cost of Items Sold: $59.00
COGS Percent 14.74%
Highest Price Sold: $150.00
Average Price Sold: $43.13
Returns: 1 ($99.95)
Money Spent on New Inventory: $272.55
Average Days Listed: 492
Longest Listed: 1878
New items listed: 19
$ Amount New Listings $949.05Had a busy week. Sales weren’t great but better than last year for this week. My best sale was a vintage aluminum xmas tree for $150. I had listed this tree 2 years ago and it somehow fell off eBay. I thought it was weird that it hadn’t sold for two Christmas seasons so looked on eBay and realized it was no longer listed. I found my old pictures and relisted it for $175 and it sold within 24 hours for an offer of $150. It was pretty beat up or it would have sold for a lot more. A nice thing about using Sixbit is that it would have alerted me if this had happened.
Had my first glitch where I sold the same item on Etsy and eBay. I made a mistake with the setting that automatically removes items from one platform when it sells on another. Fortunately, it was a smallish sale of only $24.95 but still hated to refund. Weirdest thing was that I’d had the item listed for about 4 months and it sold to two different people within a 24 hour period.
Won some good items on an online auction this week. Best win was an antique Dresden porcelain figurine. I paid $150 for it, but similars have sold for $700. Also won a 1925 Singer sewing machine with bentwood case for $23.
Just shy of my listing goal of 20 items this week. Listed 19 for a sale value of $950.
I hit an estate sale on Sunday. Got there 2 hours before close and there was a line to get in. A lot of great stuff, but they were delusional on their pricing. Even at 50% off most items were way overpriced. I was surprised when they weren’t even taking offers. I ended up with a stack of cookbooks and a few odds and ends but put several items back when they wouldn’t budge on prices. The house was still full to overflowing and there was a big pile next to the check out where other buyers had left behind stuff because they wouldn’t budge.
