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3/15/20 – 3/21/20
Total Items In Store: 3303
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $ 35
Total Sales: $ 524.76
Highest Price Sold: $ 85 (Skates)
Average Price Sold: $ 26.24
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 0
Number of items listed: 27Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales felt really bad this week. As we discussed on the blog, good sales at the beginning of the week, then they died out. But, I was pleasantly surprised when I ran the weekly report that I sold $524.76. I sold a lot on Saturday, so that helped.
Challenge of the week: I keep getting a message from my brother printer that I should replace the drum. I think this is just some sort of counter that counts how many sheets of paper you have printed and they know how many a drum should last. Anyway, I didn’t want to risk my drum going bad, so I bought a new one. I bought a generic one because the Brother brand one was nearly $90 – more than I paid for my Brother printed I bought brand new at Staples on a Black Friday (I think I paid under $50). I replaced the drum and that was easy. But resetting the counter on my printer was another issue – the manual they sent was wrong. I looked it up on the web and got it to work right away. So my new drum is in and the counter has been reset. All set to go another 12,000 pages or so.
Scavenge of the week: This week it was items I found in my own back inventory. I have been going through what I have. I have about 500 items that are “To be Listed” – meaning they are in containers\garment bags and in a spreadsheet with all the details, they just need pictures and then to be listed. I probably have another 500 items that are in “death containers” (like death piles, but organized into containers). I like to call them “surprise containers” because I really don’t know what I will find. I also have items on “death racks” – clothes that are hanging up on a clothes rack. I guess it is good to have a back log in times like these. I could go to estate sales, but don’t want to do that right now. Besides, there are really are not any good ones right now.
Movie of the week: Well, other than watching “Outbreak” again, I watched a movie called “The Monuments Men”. This was the ultimate scavenger hunt, but they didn’t get to keep what they found. Here is a synopsis of the movie, “During World War II, the Nazis steal countless pieces of art and hide them away. Some over-the-hill art scholars, historians, architects and other experts form a unit to retrieve as many of the stolen masterpieces as possible. The mission becomes even more urgent when the team learns about Hitler’s “Nero Decree,” which orders destruction of the artworks if the Third Reich falls. Caught in a race against time, the men risk their lives to protect some of mankind’s greatest achievements.” The movie was a bit confusing at the beginning (I new what was happening in the big picture, but the details were not very clear as to exactly what was happening). It ended up really good and some big names in the movie. The director was George Clooney.
Mark S
debitendcredits & Jay
Same here. Strong beginning of the week and not much since Tuesday. I have just been getting mostly low ball offers. Some low dollar items selling, but not much other than that.
Mark
I forgot to mention that my favorite thrift store closed down for I think the rest of the month due to the Pandemic.
Now I am really going to have to hit my “To be listed” items. I call them “To be listed” items and not death piles because they are already in containers or “garment bags” with a spreadsheet that says what is in them and ready to be listed when pictures get taken for them.
If the items were just in a big pile (which I have had), then I would call that death piles. I do have clothes that are close to that state – but they are hanging on a clothes rack. They are not inventoried in a spreadsheet so I guess you could say that is a death rack.
Mark
3/8/20 – 3/14/20
Total Items In Store: 3296
Items Sold: 10
Cost of Items Sold: $ 35
Total Sales: $ 339.98
Highest Price Sold: $ 85 (Vintage Skates)
Average Price Sold: $ 34.00
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 99.46
Number of items listed: 32Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales this week were about half of what they usually are. They were less than half of the sales last week.
Challenge of the week: Need to starting listing a lot of items to get my store built back up.
Scavenge of the week: Found a nice Sony VCR for cheap.
Mark S
Melnm,
Thanks for the info. Good to know I wasn’t the only one having this issue.
Also, it doesn’t seem to be updating by itself each day. Do I have to go in and download every few days?
This is too much work, I think I need to go back to GoDaddy.
Mark
I tried the Wave accounting, but it only appears to go back 10 days for my paypal account.
I went to integrations and set Paypal to go back to December 1, 2019 but I still only get the last 10 days of activity.
Is anyone seeing something different than this?
Mark
3/1/20 – 3/7/20
Total Items In Store: 3272
Items Sold: 23
Cost of Items Sold: $ 70
Total Sales: $ 738.22
Highest Price Sold: $ 65 (Leather Work Belt)
Average Price Sold: $ 32.10
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 63
Number of items listed: 10Gut Sales Report for the week: This was again a good average week in terms of sales.
Challenge of the week: Personal life took over again last week and I need to get organized this week.
Scavenge of the week: Nothing too interesting, just good bread and butter items for cheap.
Mark S
R & J (or anyone who remembers)
Was it Wave accounting (free software) that you recommended in a recent podcast?
Mark
2/23/20 – 2/29/20
Total Items In Store: 3283
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $ 60
Total Sales: $ 664.08
Highest Price Sold: $ 60 (Shoes)
Average Price Sold: $ 33.20
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 3
Number of items listed: 2Gut Sales Report for the week: This was again an average week in terms of sales. But still pretty good considering I didn’t have time to do much more than ship.
Challenge of the week: Personal life took over again last week and I need to get organized this week.
Scavenge of the week: Picked up a vintage 1920’s brochere for $3. Probably worth less than $50, but my wife and I thought it was real cool.
Mark S
2/16/20 – 2/22/20
Total Items In Store: 3301
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $ 55
Total Sales: $ 564.18
Highest Price Sold: $ 57 (Sweater)
Average Price Sold: $ 28.21
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 15.07
Number of items listed: 2Gut Sales Report for the week: This was an average week in terms of sales. But pretty good considering I didn’t have time to do much more than ship.
Challenge of the week: Get organized. Personal life took over last week and need to get organized this week.
Scavenge of the week: Picked up a vintage pair Red Wing Western Boots with a Goodyear sole for real cheap.
Personal News: My alarm clock and Lamp both broke on the same day. Went to my favorite thrift Saturday. Picked up a great alarm clock for $1 and a Lamp for $1.25. Can’t beat that.
Mark
NikeGuy,
That is interesting that you are slowly moving away from ebay. Looks like ebay is losing ground to other sites in shoes also.
You seem to be selling a lot of shoes, do you cross list on all 3 sites, or do you only list a pair of shoes on one site? If you cross list, do you have a hard time taking the listings down from the other sites when the shoes sell?
Mark
NikeGuy,
I wouldn’t make any quick decisions that you might come to regret. Make an informed decision based on the facts, not emotion.
I would answer the following questions before making your decision to quit your job:
1. Do you have 3-6 months of cash that you could live on if your ebay sales tanked?
2. Can you currently make all your bills with some extra if you were just flipping?
3. Can you ramp up your ebay sales if you quit your job? Meaning that if you are just making it, that may not be enough. You need to be making more than you need so that if hard times hit, you still have enough coming in.
4. How easy would it be for you to re-enter the job market for you job if you took a year off?
5. Does your wife work? Does she have health insurance? If not, can you cover that?
6. Do you know all your numbers and have projected sales for when you quit your job?
I don’t mean to rain on the idea of quitting your job, but you do need to make sure you are prepared to do so. If you can answer all the questions above, you may be losing money because may be able to make more money overall if you quit your job – only you would know the answer to that.
Another option may be to go part time. If you already know you are ready to quit, it doesn’t hurt to ask if you can go part time.
Mark
Doubly,
“With the dip in sales that everyone seems to be seeing, all my hard work has sort of made me feel like I’m just breaking even from last year.”
I am with you on this. My average number of listings available per month in 2019 was about 25% more than that of 2018. Yet my sales for 2019 were just about the same as 2018.
Like you said, hope 2020 is better.
Mark
