Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Rob,
You can drop off Smartpost at fedex or the post office. For fedex home or FedEx ground, you have to take these to a FedEx site.
Mark
Rob,
In general, smartpist is cheaper when you have smaller dimensions – usually less than 15 x 8 x 6. FedEx ground is good for large heavy packages. But you have to check for each individual package because it does vary.
I am not real happy with smartpost right now. The package has to be real small. Also, they seem to take a long time going cross country. Also, they have damaged a few items that I have sent and getting reimbursed was impossible. USPS rarely ever damages an item. So, I tend to not use smartpost now.
Mark
2019-05-19 – 2019-05-25
Total Items In Store: 3015
Items Sold: 21 (20 ebay, 1 Bonanza)
Cost of Items Sold: $90
Total Sales: $972.10
Highest Price Sold: $ 150 (Antique Sports Equipment)
Average Price Sold: $ 46.29
# Items Listed: 34
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 88Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales took off while I was up North. What was nice is that a lot of higher priced items sold. This is right in line with my strategy to get higher priced items, and now they are starting to sell. It is nice to see my strategy working.
Challenge of the week: Packed and shipped for most of today. Now to get back into the swing of things now that I am back from up North.
Strategy of the week\month: I had a great time scavenging up North. Our cabin is in a small town and they have a ton of garage sales \ rummage sale during the Holiday weekend every year. I couldn’t sleep so I got out there at about 8:15AM on Friday and cleaned up on all the good items. This was my best scavenging on Memorial Day weekend up North. We go every year, but this was the best by far. I attribute it to getting out there early, especially at the church rummage sale – got a lot of great items at the rummage sale. I will get out there early next year also.
Mark S
2019-05-12 – 2019-05-18
Total Items In Store: 3001
Items Sold: 15
Cost of Items Sold: $50
Total Sales: $504.59
Highest Price Sold: $ 94 (Men’s Suit)
Average Price Sold: $33.64
# Items Listed: 44
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 65Gut Sales Report for the week: Sales were slow. I did the only thing I could by listing and that did help.
Challenge of the week: The story of the week\month is still buying awesome inventory on the cheap. I am being more selective in buying higher priced items. Some of these are larger items, but that is ok with me.
Strategy of the week\month: Still trying to beef up my $75 and up items right now.
Personal Scavenge of the week\month: No one item in particular. I went to a neighborhood (about 1 mile square) that had about 50 garage sales. The cool thing is that they made a map of the neighborhood and the addresses of all the houses involved with the garage sale. What fun. I just had the best time going house to house and picking out the best items and then going on to the next. I think this is an annual thing, so I will have to be sure to go next year. That was therapy for me this week.
Mark S
2019-05-05 – 2019-05-11
Total Items In Store: 2972
Items Sold: 13 (12 ebay, 1 Bonanza)
Cost of Items Sold: $40
Total Sales: $458.36
Highest Price Sold: $100.00 (CD Changer)
Average Price Sold: $35.26
# Items Listed: 36
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 182Gut Sales Report for the week: Yes, sales were really slow. 1 sale a day or so for a lot of the days.
Challenge of the week: The story of the week\month is buying awesome inventory on the cheap. Also, I am getting into items I have not dealt with before and am having success. One example of this is some Lacrosse sticks that I bought this week – that is a first for me.
Strategy of the week\month: I am trying to beef up my $75 and up items right now. I have 208 of them right now, which is 7% of my inventory. I really want to make an effort to get this near 20%. One of the ways I am doing this is by buying a lot of stereo\TV equipment. I am getting these for dirt cheap and some fetch some hefty profits. I am getting really good at testing this stuff out and having fun doing it which is always good. For example, I bought 8 items this week that fit this criteria. The average selling price of the 8 items is $108.74 (may not realize all that). I paid $43.74 for all 8 of them, or and average of $5.47 each. I went to about 9 sales this week, 3 of which
were rummage sales. The key to this is to go to a lot of sales and get creative while there.Personal Scavenge of the week\month: My daughter has been asking for an acoustic guitar. I found a nice Fender electric guitar with an amp for $50 at a rummage sale. The combo worked great, so I gave it to her. I told her she can keep it or sell it on ebay (probably can get at least $150 for the combo) so she can buy an acoustic guitar. For now, she is going to keep the electric guitar. This is also a new area for me. I had bought a Fender Amp before, but never an electric guitar. So now I will add that to my list of bolo items.
Mark S
Vintage Treasures,
Yes, those discontinued make up items can fetch some good money. What are you going to do if your favorite make up has been discontinued by the manufacturer? You go on ebay and find it of course. I have had some big make up sales because of this. One lady told me 1 item I had was the only make up she used and bought a couple hundred dollars worth of it from me. I think something similar has happened a couple times with the make up.
Mark
Sorry, that should have been gross sales (sale price and my profit of the shipping) of about $5000.
Mark
I bought my best small item pipeline 2 years ago this month. It was at an estate sale. The lady had about 600 pieces of make up (new, still in the package) for $150. I looked up one and saw it sold for about $5. I did the math and figured there was a $3,000 potential so I bought it.
However, they told me they were all pretty much the same item, but they weren’t. Actually, there were 54 distinct items. In the past 2 years, I have made a gross profit of about $5000. I still have $3000 – $4,000 more that can be made. The range is because I make a good profit on the shipping because of the way ebay does the shipping for multiple items.
Make up has been the perfect item for me. It is small, easy to store, super easy to ship, and sells consistently. Some of the pieces have sold for $50 each. The only draw back was the sorting at the beginning and getting them all listed. I had my kids sort them (they had fun) and someone else listed them.
Don’t ask how to repeat this because I don’t know. I was just in the right place at the right time. But if I ever get this chance again, I will certainly take it again.
Mark
2019-04-28 – 2019-05-04
Total Items In Store: 2949
Items Sold: 15
Cost of Items Sold: $62
Total Sales: $506.37
Highest Price Sold: $60.00 (Youth Clothes Set for Dirt Bike Racing)
Average Price Sold: $33.76
# Items Listed: 24
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 139.37Gut Sales Report for the week: Felt like I had a lot of sales, but it was mostly
starting in May.Challenge of the week: Buying awesome inventory. See below what happened.
Strategy of the week\month: Scavenging was the story of the week. For $20.50, I
bought 5 items that will sell for an average of $150. The first item was at a rummage sale. They wanted $20 for a Sony 300 CD Changer with a remote control, but they didn’t know if it worked. I got it marked down to $10 and it did work great ($150 worth). The scavenging jackpot came on Friday at at a garage sale and stumbled upon a cache of 4 vintage 1970’s – 1980’s Children’s Complete Play sets still in the original box’s! These are in excellent condition. I don’t think you could get much better condition unless they were unopened. And the good news is that all of these items will sell relatively quickly.Mark S
bcfol440,
I had a similar issue when I sent a customer an offer. They accidently declined it.
I went around and around like you. Finally, I said to myself, “What if I just end the listing?”
I ended the listing and reslisted with all the changes I wanted and I was good to go.
Buyer bought the item, but unfortunetly returned it.
Mark
T-Satt,
This is great post. You were in the trap and came out on the other side to control your own time and destiny. You are doing it the way you want and not what THE MAN wants. Good for you!
Mark
2019-04-21 – 2019-04-27
Total Items In Store: 2939
Items Sold: 21
Cost of Items Sold: $ 60
Total Sales: $ 610.35
Highest Price Sold: $ 60.00 (set of baseball bases)
Average Price Sold: $ 29.06
# Items Listed: 14
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 47Gut Sales Report for the week: Felt like I had a lot of sales (and there were for my store), however I had a very low ASP. But, for this time of year and my lack of listing, this was a good week.
Challenge of the week: One of my vintage trophies that I listed last week sold for $50. That felt good because I was assuming very long tail on those.
Strategy of the week\month: Rummage sale season is here. I usually find good items at these sales.
One of those Guys: I am one of those guys with a full time job, kids, and ebay on the side. Plus, both my girls are in competitive gymnastics. It is off to Kentucky this weekend for the Regional Championship.
Mark S
2019-04-14 – 2019-04-20
Total Items In Store: 2946
Items Sold: 19
Cost of Items Sold: $ 70
Total Sales: $ 676.00
Highest Price Sold: $ 85.00 (Vintage set of luggage)
Average Price Sold: $ 70.60
# Items Listed: 49
Money Spent on New Inventory: $ 4Gut Sales Report for the week: Just an average week, which actually felt good after a few slow weeks in a row.
Challenge of the week: I got the vintage trophies listed this week. They are long tail, but will be good money when they sell.
Strategy of the week\month: Still looking to cut back on buying items and try to get the stereo equipment and some other items listed.
Mark S
