Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
So Cal Joe,
I am glad you liked them. These originals really stick out to me since I grew up with them. I still have my original cars, but they are not in great shape. Also, I don’t have many of the sweet 16, which makes this find even better to me.
This was a 1 in a million find at an independent thrift store. In 6+ years, I have only found 4 other Red Line cars in the wild that were not high priced. Those 4 are in decent shape, but these are fantastic. The pictures may not represent them well, because they are in fantastic condition and 5 are from the sweet 16. That is why I say $1500 because the this condition is so hard to find, If I were to sell them, I would price them really high and I bet a collector would eventually pay my asking price.
That is what also surprised me: the surf boards for the Deora were still both there! These cars must have sat in that case for a very long time.
Mark
So Cal Joe,
No, I get it. If it sounds too good to be true, then it just may be not true.
I have taken some pictures so that you can see them. I think the Sprecaflame Orange Custom Cougar is worth the most. Let me know if you spot any other ones with a very desirable color.
Mark
So Cal Joe,
The paint on the replicas is different – it is a lot more shinny. It is not the original spectraflame that Mattel used. Also, the color of the paint is different from the originals.
The cars I picked up have the original paint and color. Also, the base of the cars are not shinny either. The base and wheels of the replicas tend to be very shinny.
I’m pretty sure the cars I picked up are the real deal. I will keep them in my collection for now and do some more studying on the value. My initial assessment is around $1500. That includes some other cars and the 1966 car case that they came in.
Mark
2019-11-17 – 2019-11-23
Total Items In Store: 3379
Items Sold: 21 (20 ebay, 1 Bonanza)
Cost of Items Sold: $ 90
Total Sales: $ 936.09
Highest Price Sold: $ 200 (Pokemon Game)
Average Price Sold: $ 44.58
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 101
Number of items listed: 26Gut Sales Report for the week: Good consistent sales. Not quite the busy season I hoped for, but still good. The Pokemon Game sale really made the week.
Challenge of the week: I still have a lot of items I need to process and list.
Scavenge of the week: I picked up a whole box (14) of Red Line Hot wheels cars for $25. I didn’t look too closely when I bought them because I knew they were easily worth the $25. It turns out that 5 of the cars were from the Sweet 16. If you are not familiar with these red line cars, that means they were the part of the very first 16 Red Line Hot Wheels cars that Mattel introduced in 1968. Tour Guide Barbie talks about this in Toy Story 2 at Al’s Toy Barn. The other great thing about the cars is that they are all in mostly excellent condition and a few in near mint condition. But, they are not for sale. I grew up with these cars and I can spot them a mile away. For now, they are going into my personal collection.
Mark S
Kaninekleenup,
Do the clothes really need cleaned? If they were hanging up in a closet they may just smell. If they just smell, you can either sit them outside for a day or so. Or, you can use an ozone generator.
I have posted about the ozone generator in the past. Here is what I wrote:
I have a story to tell about how I got smoke out of some cool racing snowmobile jackets. I bought the 2 jackets at a garage sale today.
I really like them and they will go for about $100 each, but they smelled like smoke. I know there are a lot other methods that have been discussed on the blog, but I don’t think I have heard about this one.
My wife bought an Ozone Generator and we tested it out on the jackets. It took about 1 hour of running the Ozone Generator with a small fan in a small bathroom. The jackets smell great now.
These are the type of generators that are used to get the smell out if someone died in a house. I just used the “Bare Bones 3500 mgh Ozone Generator” which is $49 and good enough for what I need.
I look forward to using this in the future to get nasty smells out. If you buy it off the site below, it is $49 plus $10 flat shipping. If you buy it on Amazon, it is $49 with free shipping (not sure if you have to have Prime or not).
Check out this site.
— Good site on how ozone works
http://www.ozoneapplications.com/products/Residential/q&a_ozone.htm
Note: Ozone is very powerful and must be used with caution. Everyone must decide on their own if it is right for them. I forgot to mention in my text above that after you turn off the ozone generator, you should keep the bathroom door shut for an hour with the bottom of the door covered. Ozone doesn’t stay around long., just don’t expose yourself or any living thing to it while it is going.
Mark
2019-11-10 – 2019-11-16
Total Items In Store: 3374
Items Sold: 25
Cost of Items Sold: $ 80
Total Sales: $ 871.77
Highest Price Sold: $ 51 (Boots)
Average Price Sold: $ 34.87
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 0
Number of items listed: 56Gut Sales Report for the week: Started out a very Slow week, but ended very strong. By Thursday, it started feeling like the busy season. Sales were up about 25%. so I will take that.
Challenge of the week: I still have a lot of items I need to process and list, but I am making progress.
Mark S
purpleparkvintage,
There are some people on here who use it.
Sometimes when we are researching an item, and the other price we can find for it is on Worthpoint, we will ask someone who has a Worthpoint subscription to tell us how much the item went for.
I don’t think I have a lot of need for it, but could help out for those special items.
R&J are adverse to paying monthly fees for most things, and I tend to agree with them on most things you pay a monthly fee on. This can suck your profits away. For my business I pay for Go Daddy accounting and Wonderlister. Each are $10 a month but not sure I could live without them.
Mark
Retro,
“I should consider shutting scavenging down for the rest of 4Q”
That was also what I was thinking. However, I will still buy some here and there, but not nearly as much as normal. Like you, I have a ton of items that I can list and are great items. Better to get the cash reserve now as you say.
Mark
2019-11-03 – 2019-11-09
Total Items In Store: 3343
Items Sold: 20 (19 ebay, 1 Bonanza)
Cost of Items Sold: $ 60
Total Sales: $ 722.02
Highest Price Sold: $ 70 (Fireplace Set)
Average Price Sold: $ 36.10
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 48
Number of items listed: 59Gut Sales Report for the week: Started out a very Slow week and could have ended poorly. I knew the only way I could turn it around was to start listing a lot. So, I listed a lot and sales picked up and ended somewhat normal. We are now half way thru the 4th quarter and sales have not picked up much. Needless to say, as Steve mentioned above, it is a disappointing 4th quarter so far.
Challenge of the week: I still have a lot of items I need to process and list, but I am making progress.
Scavenge of the week: Bought 139 more new baseball hats that I got for $43.50. I am really getting into these hats.
New ebay Shipping products:
I am going to try out these two new products with the next coupon (if they still have these new products)
1. NEW PRODUCT eBay-Branded Boxes With Black Color Logo 12.5″x12.5″ Flat Adjustable
2. NEW PRODUCT eBay-Branded Boxes With Black Color Logo 4″x4″x4″ Flat Folding
My ebay Christmas wish: What I really wish ebay would do for the quarterly coupon is let us buy $50 or $150 worth of shipping supplies with free shipping from uline. Then we could get exactly what we need.
Mark S
autumnforest,
There are basically two kinds (there are all sort of twists, but I’m generalizing) of auctions:
1. A weekly auction at the auction house.
Pros: a. You always know when and where the auction is.
b. If it is a good auction house, you can milk it for years.
c. You get to know the auctioneer and the people that go thereCons: a. Everyone knows when and where the auction is and they tend to be well attended (meaning the bidding usually goes high.
b. If there are certain things you don’t like, they usually don’t change
2. An on-site auction – either at a house, business, etc.
Pros: a. These are usually not as well attended because it is a one time thing is a distinct location. That usually makes for good prices.
Cons: a. You have to look harder for these.
I prefer the on-site auction because you can get some great deals.
Thoughts anyone?
Mark
Mike,
I still list on Bonanza and TrueGether. Well, ebay store is linked up and lists automatically.
Bonanza has been fairly consistent – 3% of what my sales are on ebay. Meaning, if my gross sales on ebay (not counting shipping) were $10,000, then Bonanza sales would be $300. That is well worth it to me because my annual ebay sales will be approaching $40k this year.
Note: Bonanza was not ending my sales in ebay. We contacted Bonanza and they had us redo (I froget what that was exactly) and that fixed everything. Everything has been great since.
However, TrueGether has been a waste of time lately. I haven’t had a sale since June 2018. However, at some point all my items got dropped (not sure when), so I am going to wait and see if my TrueGether sales turn around.
Mark
2019-10-27 – 2019-11-02
Total Items In Store: 3304
Items Sold: 16
Cost of Items Sold: $ 60
Total Sales: $ 585.33
Highest Price Sold: $ 125 (CD Player)
Average Price Sold: $ 36.58
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 18
Number of items listed: 31Gut Sales Report for the week: Slow week. We are nearly half way thru the 4th quarter and sales have not picked up much. I am afraid that if things don’t pick up this next week, the 4th quarter may be a bust because at that point we are about halfway thru it.
Challenge of the week: I still have a lot of items I need to process and list.
Scavenge of the week: I found about 90 new baseball hats that I got for $36. My total of my selling price for these is about $1300. Long tail I know, but that is a good income stream to start.
Mark S
J & R,
I was just listening to the podcast. You were asking about how to check each container that it didn’t get the wrong SKU on it. I will do a high level check by going to “Listings-> Active->Custom Label (Not Item Title the default)->Contains->Enter 1”. This will return all active listings in container 1. You can at least check that you have the correct number of items in that container or bin. I also check the total price because I have that also, but you probably won’t.
For clothes, just put an Avery tag over the hanger with the SKU number on it. Then just put them in order on the clothes rack. If rack 1 ends at SKU 30, then start clothes rack 2 at SKU 31. In addition, I put clothes together in lots of about 5-7 items. I use a 33 gallon black trash bag to hold them. I cut a hole at the top where the hangers go through. Then tie the ties at the bottom. Then I put a sticker on the bag for the SKU, say 2. Then then clothes are numbered 2-1 thru 2-7.
In addition to this, I have a map of my storage area in a spreadsheet. The reason for this is that it can be hard to find a certain bin over time. This is because mine are not in order. Why? I combine bins when they start getting low on items. I move lighter containers to the top so that I don’t have heavy containers on top (I just stack the containers on top of each other). In this way, if I need to find bin 351, I just search for it on my spreadsheet. If 351 moves, I just move it on the spreadsheet. I have set up Wonderlister query to give me a pick list of everything that has sold and not shipped in the last 3 days. It will link the SKU to the container number and print out a list with where the container is located. I have names for about 20 different areas. Within each area, I have 3-7 different stacks. So, the pick list might say that bin 351 is in the Furnance Area, Stack 2, bin 351. Then it is very easy to find and I can also see it on my spreadsheet map.
Mark
2019-10-13 – 2019-10-19
Total Items In Store: 3277
Items Sold: 21
Cost of Items Sold: $70
Total Sales: $805.52
Highest Price Sold: $80 (Hockey Skates)
Average Price Sold: $38.36
Money Spent on New Inventory: $18
Number of items listed: 13Gut Sales Report for the week: Good week, but still doesn’t feel like the busy season yet.
Challenge of the week: I still have a lot of items I need to process and list.
Scavenge of the week: Found a Sony CD copier for $18 and it will sell for over $150.
Mark S
2019-10-06 – 2019-10-12
Total Items In Store: 3285
Items Sold: 20
Cost of Items Sold: $ 70
Total Sales: $ 715.78
Highest Price Sold: $ 100 (Vintage Bike)
Average Price Sold: $ 35.79
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 59.11
Number of items listed: 37Gut Sales Report for the week: Good week. The start of the week felt like the busy season, but then sales went somewhat flat.
Challenge of the week: I still have a lot of items I need to process and list. I think I have about 300 ready to go. Just when I think my purchasing will slow down since garage sales are gone, I keep finding stuff elsewhere.
Scavenge of the week: Found 3 pair of shoes for $12 at an estate sale on the last day (I bought more, but these were the best deal). They just wanted to get rid of things. These 3 pair I will list for $100 each.
Mark S
