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Thanks for the podcast. Coffee roasting sounds fun. I really love coffee and I think it would be fascinating to learn how to create your own personal roast. Looking forward to tasting the Scavenger blend.
Bouncing up and down from week to week. Back up above our average sales rate this week. Quarantine boredom seems to be the driving force with lots of collectors and hobbyists as our main buyers. I checked my three month sales this morning and we’re running 87% higher this year than last.
Best sale of the week was a vintage Rolleiflex camera for $499.95. After turning down lots of offers over the last few months someone finally bought it for full price. My COGS are up this week as I paid more for this camera than I normally would. I misidentified it as a more expensive model at the estate sale I purchased it from. I bought the camera and a lot of accessories for $400. All the accessories should bring about as much as the camera itself. Already sold some of the accessories, so this sale finally pulls me firmly into profit. One of the reasons Estate Sales aren’t my favorite venue, I frequently feel the need to make a quick decision on a purchase before fully researching. As this turned out to be short tail, only 2 months in inventory, I guess it’s not so bad.
Week Ending 04/25/2020
Total Items in Store: 1146
Items Sold: 18
Gross Sales: $1,308.38
Gross wo Shipping $1,135.49
Cost of Items Sold: $241.98
COGS Percent 21.31%
Highest Price Sold: $499.95 Rolleiflex Camera
Average Price Sold: $63.08
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 11
Promoted Percentage: 61.11%
Average Days Listed: 196.17
Longest Listed: 832
New items listed: 31Late getting to the number for the week. Time flies when you have a house full of family to entertain.
After having one of my best weeks ever last week, had one of my worst this week. Thankfully, it all averages out over time. My highest sale was a set of Polish stacking dolls, similar to the matryoshka dolls from Russia. Apparently a pretty rare set. I had picked them up for a few dollars because I thought they looked unique.
Week Ending 04/18/2020
Total Items in Store: 1129
Items Sold: 19
Gross Sales: $576.00
Gross wo Shipping $436.35
Cost of Items Sold: $40.95
COGS Percent 9.38%
Highest Price Sold: $60.00 Stacking Doll
Average Price Sold: $22.97
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 8
Promoted Percentage: 42.11%
Average Days Listed: 477.67
Longest Listed: 1389
New items listed: 0Congrats on the new venture and good luck! We’ve been wanting to get over to Luray and rent your Air B&B spot, now just one more reason to go. Chalk up another order for the Southern Split. Placed the order yesterday after listening to the podcast. Looking forward to trying something new. Normally go for the large bag or Pete’s from Costco.
We had an amazing week on eBay with $2120 in sales. Three large sales Friday and Saturday that really put us over the top. Sold an antique lantern for $499, an old clock for $350 and two vintage Ansel Adams posters for $482. Frankly, I’m still in shock. I think that is probably our most for a single week ever. We’ve had that clock up for some time. Originally asked $895, but finally took an offer this week.
Week Ending 04/11/2020
Total Items in Store: 1148
Items Sold: 22
Gross Sales: $2,122.49
Gross wo Shipping $1,908.41
Cost of Items Sold: $139.43
COGS Percent 7.31%
Highest Price Sold: $499.95 Antique Lantern
Average Price Sold: $88.17
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 7
Promoted Percentage: 31.82%
Average Days Listed: 463
Longest Listed: 1389
New items listed: 29J&R, sorry to hear about your rentals. You continue to be an inspiration, though, living the life you preach. Never has your advice on way of life and living within your means been more applicable.
Sales felt slow here, but comparing to last year this time, sales are still ahead. Just ran numbers for March and we’re up 23% year over year. Taking a lot more offers, and at lower levels, than I have traditionally, which is driving average sale price below what my target is.
Week Ending 04/04/2020
Total Items in Store: 1148
Items Sold: 18
Gross Sales: $620.75
Gross wo Shipping $454.90
Cost of Items Sold: $62.21
COGS Percent 13.68%
Highest Price Sold: $74.95 (Tactical Holster)
Average Price Sold: $25.27
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 12
Promoted Percentage: 66.67%
Average Days Listed: 237.06
Longest Listed: 906
New items listed: 1Had 2 returns this week, which is unusual for us. Underscores why we don’t do a lot of clothing items. One return for shoes that didn’t fit and the other for a jacket. The jacket was the first item we’ve ever had returned damaged. The buyer claimed it arrived that way in their return. I reported it to eBay and they sided with the buyer claiming it was their word against mine and fully refunded I thought at first that they had pulled a switcharoo due to the extent of damage. I shipped a really nice ski jacket with no damage and got back the jacket with two ripped elbows and a tear in the front, along with gravel in the hood and pockets. Was disappointed in eBay siding with the buyer, but decided to move on and not get too worked up about it (after much initial gnashing of teeth).
Still getting not getting a lot of posts made due to having a full house, but have put on 5 pounds from all the baking and eating. Spent this past week writing up and taking pictures of a lot of items, so should see an increase in posts this week.
Best wishes to everyone. This too shall pass. Here’s a photo of a cherry tree across the street from our house, just a reminder that after every winter comes the spring.
@almasty – Congrats on your delivery time slot. Giant is booking two weeks out here in DC and then only if you’re lucky to get one of the limited slots that open up each morning. Currently waiting on my delivery for the 14th. Unfortunately, it seems you can’t schedule another until the waiting one is delivered or I’d just start my next now. The other delivery services are all booked solid and haven’t been able to get slots. Must be some magic hour that they open up slots.
I’m a little late to the party this week. Here are my numbers for the week:
Week Ending 03/28/2020
Total Items in Store: 1159
Items Sold: 15
Gross Sales: $933.40
Gross wo Shipping $737.15
Cost of Items Sold: $123.86
COGS Percent 16.80%
Highest Price Sold: $149.95 (Pair of Gorham reticulated vases)
Average Price Sold: $45.47
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 9
Promoted Percentage: 60.00%
Average Days Listed: 259
Longest Listed: 1373
New items listed: 6Felt good about the week and had a few nice sales. COGs were a little higher than I like as I paid up on the Gorham vases, buying 3 of them for $75. Sold all three for $230 (total) to same buyer the day I posted them. Originally thought we had antiques that were worth much more, but was happy to find that these reproductions also sell well.
Here is a link from NPR that should answer some of your questions:
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/27/822629588/lost-work-because-of-coronavirus-how-to-get-unemployment-skip-loan-payments-and-Thanks as always for the podcast. Appreciate hearing your voices of reason in the midst of the lunacy. Welcomed the discussion of alternatives to GoDaddy as I’m also considering moving. It continues to double import entries and causes a lot of clean up work at tax time.
Business seems slow but steady. Looking back, we’re actually doing better this year than last year. eBay says we’re up 100% over this week last year, and up 60% for the month. Looks like people are still indulging their collecting hobbies and that is the majority of what we are selling.
Having trouble getting much done eBay-wise these past two weeks with Cecile working from home and kids homeschooling. Fortunately, the kids are getting some school work sent to them, but that only keeps them busy for a few hours a day.
Indulged in an online auction this week and braved world to pick up my winnings. The operator was great. Had everything already sorted and sitting outside in crates so didn’t require any close contact. Loaded the stuff in my crates and have it sitting in the boxes for a week to allow potential viruses to die off before sorting through. Got some great deals, I suppose a lot of bidders are holding back for fear of exposure. Not sure we’ll be going out more as Governor Hogan just announced essential business only. I assume auctions won’t be considered essential. We didn’t go, but I was really surprised to see that there were still estate sales going this past weekend.
Scavenge of the week was a fishing lure from the auction. In a batch of lures I purchased for $15, there is a Pflueger lure from 1898. I sold one like it last year for $199, so I’m hoping for a repeat performance.
Posting numbers for the last two weeks as I didn’t have time to get to them last week.
Week Ending 03/14/2020 03/21/2020
Total Items in Store: 1143 1166
Items Sold: 19 19
Gross Sales: $890.38 $764.54
Gross wo Shipping $732.83 $576.30
Cost of Items Sold: $73.03 $42.34
COGS Percent 9.97% 7.35%
Highest Price Sold: $99.95 $75.00
Average Price Sold: $38.57 $30.33
Returns: 0 0
Spent on New Inventory: $0.00 $308.12
Sold via promoted listings: 9 9
Promoted Percentage: 47.37% 47.37%
Average Days Listed: 345.79 388.42
Longest Listed: 1357 1082
New items listed: 9 4Tried a code generator to create a table to display the information, but WordPress didn’t like it and gave me an illegal operation error message.
Nice sales, Steve. Surprised to see another one of those Panasonic Stereos. Still have the one I purchased after the last one you posted. Got it home and the turntable also wasn’t working. Still sitting on my shelf waiting for me to clean and lube. Seeing how much you sold this one for might get me motivated to finally open it up.
Always impressed with the quality of your videos. I’m sure you’ve answered this before, but are you taking those on your phone, or do you have a dedicated video camera you’re using.
I’ve had some good sales over the last week, much appreciated after the previous slow week. A couple of interesting sales.
Sold an old Birra Moretti bar mirror for $125. I purchased it during yard sale season last summer for $5. I had it listed high and got several offers, but always too low. Was waiting for the first offer over $100. And as a bonus, I had the perfect box for it sitting idle. Always get a thrill when ones just waiting. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133231592929
Sold a really nice antique Imperial carnival glass Ripple vase for $70. Was tempted to keep this one as it looks really cool. Got it in an auction lot of someones entire collection. Took a lot of pictures from different angles for it because the color changed so much. Was asking $99, but after the slow week last week I felt a 30% discount was good enough. Taking a lot of offers lately that I wouldn’t have last year. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133276477815
Sold this interesting metal rosary commemorating the 2000 years since Jesus’s birth. I guess the Catholic church had a pretty big worldwide celebration to honor it. Took an offer of $45 on an asking of $79. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133200780364
In another nod to Steve, I sold a new, sealed reel-to-reel tape for $19.95. I bought a fairly large lot of tapes at auction, mostly used, but this was in the lot. Been selling the used ones 4 for $20, so this was a nice boost. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133031293464
Thanks again for the video.
Expensive mistakes. Definitely had a few of those. Some of the biggest have been lost opportunities when I hesitated to buy something only to find out later that it was worth more than I thought. I’ve also had a few items that I’ve cleaned the value right off an item, or early in this eBay experience, items I packed poorly, or dropped on the way to packing. I still clean, though, just more judiciously, and have my cleaning fluids shelf to testify.
https://imgur.com/a/QkFtH3hHad a disappointing week of sales, the lowest in about 6 months. Getting motivated to post more items and bumped that up a bit this week.
Had some good wins at online auctions. Scavenge of the week is a lot of antique Christmas ornaments we purchased for $80, some extremely rare, that we hope to turn into a few thousand. Probably the nicest lot we’ve ever come across. It is a wonder any survived to get to us as they were all stacked in boxes on top of each other with no padding between.
Week Ending 03/07/2020
Total Items in Store: 1197
Items Sold: 11
Gross Sales: $380.18
Gross wo Shipping $293.80
Cost of Items Sold: $26.25
COGS Percent 8.93%
Highest Price Sold: $50.00 (pre-Columbian pottery)
Average Price Sold: $26.71
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $201.26
Sold via promoted listings: 8
Promoted Percentage: 72.73%
Average Days Listed: 413
Longest Listed: 909
New items listed: 31Have already sold as much this week as last, so looking forward to a better week ahead. Maybe there is something to that posting myth.
@The Thrift Raider – Ouch on those tickets and having to cancel your trip. That’s rough. Hopefully, as others said, you can still use them later.
We have a trip to Europe planned in June, so hoping things settle down by then. The $$ loss would be hard and mean no vacation this year. We have kids, so our travel window is restricted, so rescheduling wouldn’t be an option.
@Temudgin – I’m a Florida transplant living in DC area as well. Envious you get to go back where it is warm. 🙂 Wonder if we ever ran into each other at sales? Good luck with the move.
Thanks for being a voice of reason on the Pandemic. Though it seems inevitable that it will reach all corners of the US (and world), we can only do so much and have to go on with life. I’m in the camp that thinks it will be good for online sellers. Hopefully there will still be staples in the grocery stores to buy.
I missed posting last week, but thought it was an interesting show. My store definitely leans toward long tail. This week was a great example. My average for sold listings was 350 days, with the longest being 1345 days. I started selling in the Spring of 2016, so this was one of the first items we listed.
A better week this week. Sold another piece of the Civil War era currency to boost things at the last minute. Lower average as I’m taking a lot of lower offers to clear out older inventory and boost sales.
Week Ending 02/29/2020
Total Items in Store: 1176
Items Sold: 26
Gross Sales: $1,002.83
Gross wo Shipping $792.19
Cost of Items Sold: $128.47
COGS Percent 16.22%
Highest Price Sold: $108.00 (Civil War fractional currency)
Average Price Sold: $30.47
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0.00
Sold via promoted listings: 13
Promoted Percentage: 50.00%
Average Days Listed: 350
Longest Listed: 1345
New items listed: 25For a search power tip, when I’m trying to find something in the forum I find searching via google easier. If you type “site:scavengerlife.com mercari” (without quotes), it will search just within scavengerlife.com. I find it easier to parse through the topics that way than using the search function in the forum.
@almasty – Yes, the estate sales around here can be pretty good for ephemera. But time consuming to dig through. I’ll have a hard time passing up a junky old trunk again after this. These were buried under stacks of roach eaten newspapers, which is probably why everyone else passed them up.
