Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
@Temudgin – There is a trick to using Pirate Ship. They have a simple export rate that for some reason they will only make available to you if you send them a chat request. Without the request, the rates are more expensive than eBay. Their prices seem to be only better for International first class packages under 4 lb. and 1 cubic foot. Screen shot of prices below.
Just got a reply from ShipSaver regarding my query:
Hello,
Our underwriter (ShipSurnace) is not currently offering coverage for eBay International Shipping which is why you are getting that message. Unfortunately we do not yet have a date of when they plan to start accepting coverage on those shipments.
<div>
<p dir=”ltr”>ShipSaver Support</p></div>
<p dir=”ltr”>Looks like I’ll be looking into other insurance options.</p>@Temudgin – Thanks for the input. Interestingly, I just started offering direct shipping via FCMI to give buyers more flexibility when eBay came out with their new method. It undercuts FCMI by a few dollars, so I’ve been offering it as an option.
I’m curious how you’re handling labels for that. I’m using Pirate Ship when I have FMCI eligible packages as it saves a few more dollars and have been considering reconfiguring my shipping policies to pass some of the savings on to my customers in hopes it makes me more competitive. Have you done anything like that, or are you just using the rates eBay provides?
@Lauren – You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought. You look at the facts and seem to be thinking this through rationally. That tells me that you are organized and ambitious. The key to success in this type of endeavor is all persistence and determination. Unlike many careers and jobs, especially retail, what you put into it comes back to you. You’ve already seen that it is something you enjoy doing and you’ve found some things that you know you can sell. The safety net helps. I think you can do it! Good luck!
Mike
Good podcast this week. Lots of nuggets to pan for.
I really connected with the comments from Neil regarding selling more expensive stuff. Without a doubt, the single most important thing that has increased my sales with more expensive items is knowledge. Most of the knowledge has come from random accumulation as I research items that have fallen into my hands over the years. A few of those random items have prompted me to buy books to help me understand the market better. As the adage goes, read a book on a topic and you’ll know more than 95% (possibly more) of the people out there. I know this applies to me now on certain types of vintage glass, vintage tin robots, cameras, certain audio equipment, vintage coin banks, etc…
Regarding posting increasing sales, even though sales have been better this summer than last (up 10% YOY over the last 3 months), I know they would have been much better if I didn’t have the whole family here at the house all the time due to quarantine. I haven’t been able to post near the volume I’m used to due to constant interruptions. Glad school is at least restarting next week so that there is something for the kids to focus on during the day.
My biggest sale this past week was a rare for me consignment piece. Reminds me why I turn down consignments. I took a set of 6 vintage Arabia mugs from a friend. These were from the 50’s and much different from the trendy ones you often see now. Thought they’d sell quickly, but they took 932 days. In that time took two sets of pictures and changed the listing from selling individually to as a lot. All for 30% of the profit. Interesting though, the mugs were sold back to someone in Finland.
In a milestone passing this week, I sold the last of the confederate/civil war era currency that I found at the bottom of a trunk last summer. Had an envelope with 21 notes of various denominations. Total sales of the lot was $1609. Quite a nice pipeline. Another treasure from the box with the historical documents I sold.
Week Ending 8/22/20
Total Items in Store: 1130
Items Sold: 12
Gross Sales: $827.21
Net Sales (after fees, shipping, etc.) $560.59
Cost of Items Sold: $60.76
COGS Percent 10.84%
Highest Price Sold: $150.00 Arabia Mugs (consignment)
Average Price Sold: $46.72
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 10
Promoted Percentage: 83.33%
Average Days Listed: 378
Longest Listed: 1210
New items listed: 30Back from our vacation in Luray last week. Had a great time there and am really impressed with all there is to offer in such a small community. I was checking our the local real estate listings by the end of the week. As long as you’re not trying to get waterfront property there are some great deals (compared to the Washington, DC are we’re used to). Great running into Jay, even if only from a distance. The Hawksbill looks great!
I had the same problem regarding keeping glasses until my distance went bad, also. Now I have a pair of transitions with those lenses that turn into sunglasses outside. Solved two problems at once.
Sales aren’t off the charts, but steady. Always fun to go away for a week and have a bunch of sales waiting to ship.
Week Ending 8/15/20
Total Items in Store: 1111
Items Sold: 14
Gross Sales: 480.6
Gross wo Shipping 365.87
Cost of Items Sold: 26.4
COGS Percent 7.22%
Highest Price Sold: $69.95
Average Price Sold: $26.13
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 7
Promoted Percentage: 50.00%
Average Days Listed: 591.07
Longest Listed: 1188
New items listed: 0The area seems real nice. Beautiful country. We’ve only ever been here for a few hours previously, so looking forward to getting to know the area. By coincidence, we hiked to Hawksbill Summit this morning. Is that your building’s namesake? Look forward to sharing a cup of Joe in your cafe next time.
@old dad – Regarding the Large Flat Rate “Game Boxes”, I agree, the only time I’ve found them cost efficient was when I sent a Mahjong game to Hawaii. Might work for Alaska, too.
I’m in the no-double-box camp as well. I try to make sure that I have 2 -3 inches of padding on all sides of the item and have multiple layers with newspaper and bubble wrap. I will occasionally double-box if something is really expensive or appears extra fragile.
This week’s sales were a bit of a let down after having my best week ever last week. Back to normal summer sales levels and well below my average of $1000/week. Still, for not listing a lot lately.
(un)Scavenge of the week: I purchased a vintage Aladdin blue-flame heater at an estate auction last week. Would have been a great buy at my $22 bid, but when I arrived the heater had disappeared with the house painter. 🙁 Quite a disappointment as I have done well with these in the past and wouldn’t have bid on anything at the auction if this hadn’t been there. Still ended up with a few pieces of interesting art and a vintage Danish cast-iron fondue pot which should sell well.
Week Ending: 08/01/2020
Total Items in Store: 1136
Items Sold: 12
Gross Sales: $434.70
Gross wo Shipping $316.49
Cost of Items Sold: $17.20
COGS Percent 5.43%
Highest Price Sold: $44.95 Playmobil Advent Calendar
Average Price Sold: $26.37
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $84.12
Sold via promoted listings: 8
Promoted Percentage: 66.67%
Average Days Listed: 323
Longest Listed: 1001
New items listed: 10@KentuckyPicker – I agree about your assessment on FBM. Though I have found a few good deals there occasionally list there, I find the prices are usually high eBay and when I post anything I get very lowball offers, similar to my experience of Craigslist. I also find there interface clunky and don’t find it user friendly as a buyer. I normally only list items there that are too big to ship easily.
Good show. Smart to get the term life insurance. The younger you start, the cheaper it is. Obviously, one of those things you do for your loved ones and not for yourself. Probably even more important for people in our line of work that don’t have some of the benefits that come with normal jobs.
What a week! Had our best sale ever, our best week ever and all while we were away on vacation with 10-day handling turned on. I mentioned a few weeks ago that we acquired a vintage Japanese tin robot at auction. We listed it and it sold within a week for $1800. We were asking $2995, but this one wasn’t working and had some cosmetic issues, so we were thrilled to get the offer. We paid $40 for the lot of toys it came in. This was one of my “bucket” items to find and sell, so doubly rewarding. Sent it off to Singapore. Also had a few other high dollar sales with $299 and $120 sales for some vintage Tonka toys to round out the week nicely.
I’ve had a mini-project where I changed the majority of my listings to self-ship for international sales in order to reduce the shipping costs for buyers as much as possible. Finalized just before leaving for vacation. I decided to do this after reading some posts about it on the Facebook Thrifting Board group. It was more complicated than I initially thought it would be due to setting up shipping policies, but hopefully will be worth it in the long run with more international sales. I signed up for shipping through Pirate Ship to reduce cost on shipping items under 4 lbs. internationally. Saves my buyers as much as $10 on some shipments over what eBay would have charged for international first class. 5 of my 13 sales this week went internationally.
The Numbers
Week Ending 07/25/2020
Total Items in Store: 1139
Items Sold: 13
Gross Sales: $2,594.67
Gross wo Shipping $2,402.30
Cost of Items Sold: $116.36
COGS Percent 4.84%
Highest Price Sold: $1,800.00 Vintage Japanese Robot
Average Price Sold: $184.79
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $94.00
Sold via promoted listings: 9
Promoted Percentage: 69.23%
Average Days Listed: 303
Longest Listed: 609
New items listed: 0Something changed either with Google Sheets or with the website. Pasted my numbers the same way as always and this week it came up with all the behind the scenes code showing. Had to edit to clean up.
Good show. Always interesting and inspiring to hear you discuss your frugal lifestyle and investment choices. We’ve greatly pulled back on buying stuff for ourselves since starting on eBay and done what we can to reduce our monthly outflow. I actually think the act of scavenging stuff to sell short circuits some kind of primal urge to purchase stuff. I get the thrill of having something new and then passing it on to someone else and get the second thrill of the sale.
Not a huge week for sales, but what I did sell had low COGs so that was satisfying. Also satisfying, sold one of our longest tail items, a tea cup and saucer we’d had for 1474 days. For reference, the oldest thing we have in our store is 1484 days.
Week Ending 07/11/2020
Total Items in Store: 1158
Items Sold: 18
Gross Sales: 806.03
Gross wo Shipping $592.50
Cost of Items Sold: $21.00
COGS Percent 3.54%
Highest Price Sold: $74.95 Lot of Music CDs
Average Price Sold: $32.92
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 10
Promoted Percentage: 55.56%
Average Days Listed: 298.89
Longest Listed: 1474
New items listed: 7@Almasty – I feel your pain. My pickups get missed a few times a month due to fill in help on the route. Have a great rapport with my normal mailman, but whenever he is off it is a toss up. My normal guy must have a lot of seniority because he is off at several times a month. I installed one of those doorbell cameras primarily so I can see when the mailman comes (my office is in the basement). Now I will chase the sub down with the packages if I catch them, but at least can see when they came and didn’t grab the packages and try to get them to the nearest post office.
Looks like an awesome set up and that view is amazing. Congratulations!
You’re living the dream. We live close-in to DC and I often dream of the rural life. Took a drive north about an hour this week into the foothills. What a difference an hour makes. Space, quiet, light traffic, and the houses cost 1/2 or less what we find near us.
How is the sourcing in your new area?
For me, it depends on how long I’ve had it up and whether I was able to find solid comps. If I just put something up and get a quick offer, I usually will wait, especially if it is something I’ve found multiple higher sales for in the past. If I just pulled a price out of the blue and couldn’t find comps, I think I would take it.
