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04/29/18 – 05/05/18
Total Items In Store: 2,398
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $60 (around)
Total Sales: $656
Highest Price Sold: $85 (Vintage Star Trek Hat)
Average Price Sold: $38.59
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 288
Number of Items listed this week: 43I was most excited by two things that happened this past week:
1. Smart Post rates are back to close to what they were before the Jan. increase – see the posts from episode 358 at the bottom.
2. I went to an awesome estate sale. I was on the far side of town, about 45 min away, for a gymnastics meet and had to drive all the way back on a Saturday afternoon. So, with all the down time at the meet, I looked at the approximately 100 estate sales to pick which ones to stop at on the way home. I narrowed the list to about a dozen because of their proximity to the expressway. After studying all of the estate sales, I only found 1 that I was really interested in.
So, we stopped at the sale. I loved the sale. It had things I had never seen before. Most of the good stuff was from the 1940’s – 1960’s. My favorite item was about 50 1940’s Cracker Jack Battle Plane cards. When was the last time you saw those at a sale? I also found some Wings Cigarettes plane cards. I was instantly drawn to a Box of 1960’s US Maps. My first instinct was to buy the whole box of about 40. I had never seen anything like this before, but I didn’t even bother to look them up. I ended up getting the whole box for $7.50 – score. Then I picked up a 1969 Sports Coat. I knew it was from 1969 because it had the exact date on it and because it was pretty wild looking! Picked up a Football Game from 1940.
Those are the kinds of sales I am looking for and love to go to. I only come across them every so often, but they are so fun to go to and explore – almost like a time capsule.
Mark
05/05/2018 at 6:11 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 358: Knowing What You Know Right Now, Would You Start Your Business Today? #39095The reason this is such good news is because I use USPS parsel select for most everything. Usually I can get a $1 – $2 (sometimes $5 or more) savings with Smart Post. So, assuming an average of about $1.50, if I sell 1200 items (my projection for the year), then that is $1800 for the year or $150 a month. $150 a month is enough for a lot of things such as a good used car payment or whatever you want to spend it on.
My point is that the savings is significant and it can really add up, especially if you are a high volume seller. There is a “profit maker” for me and I put it on my forecasting spreadsheet.
Mark
05/05/2018 at 6:05 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 358: Knowing What You Know Right Now, Would You Start Your Business Today? #39094Another good rate from Smart Post.
I think Smart Post is back to close to its rates from before!
Mark
Sharyn,
I would charge for the listing time. I pay my lister $4 per item. I would include that cost.
Mark
05/04/2018 at 10:07 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 358: Knowing What You Know Right Now, Would You Start Your Business Today? #39084T-Satt,
Yes, seems like it. I am back to being able to make some good money using Smartpost. I just noticed it working yesterday. I think I had given up on Smartpost, but I was checking every so often.
Mark
05/04/2018 at 12:42 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 358: Knowing What You Know Right Now, Would You Start Your Business Today? #39050Hey, has anyone checked using Smartpost lately? I was able to get 2 packages cheaper yesterday and 1 today. This has not been possible since the rate changes except for really small packages.
Give Smartpost another try, you might be surprized now.
Mark
05/04/2018 at 9:48 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 358: Knowing What You Know Right Now, Would You Start Your Business Today? #39043JFH,
Well, there is good news for 2018. “If your business is a pass-through entity (sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC or S-corporation), then you can now deduct 20% of your Qualified Business Income. Qualified Business Income represents the bottom line profits from your business; i.e. all of your business revenues less all business expenses.”
See this article: https://www.score.org/blog/2-important-tax-changes-small-businesses-2018
That should make a big difference for 2018.
Also, don’t give up on used clothes and shoes. There are other places to buy them than at the thrift store. Estates sales are a great place to get these items. They know the probability of getting just the right buying is close to nil. I have picked up a lot of great shoes at estate sales for very cheap.
Mark
05/02/2018 at 12:55 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 358: Knowing What You Know Right Now, Would You Start Your Business Today? #3892504/22/18 – 04/28/18
Total Items In Store: 2,386
Items Sold: 16
Cost of Items Sold: $50 (around)
Total Sales: $569
Highest Price Sold: $150 (1960’s \ 70’s Mens Suit)
Average Price Sold: $35.56
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $ 132
Number of Items listed this week: 38Decent week this week.
Kicked off the Michigan Rummage Sale season in great style. Got a lot of great items on the cheap. Also went to a “mini Outdoor Flea market” and scored some great golf clubs.
This week I went to a Car Parts shop that wanted to down size on some old stuff that was laying around – got some good deals there. I have done some work with automotive related items, but not a whole lot. This was a good opportunity for me to learn some new tricks. I was able to get some 1971-73 Mercury Cougar set of hub caps for $15. Got a Good Humor very large lighted sign for $5 (Wow, worth $125)
The great thing is that this guy told me he is going to continue the sale for several weeks. He is adding stuff all the time and he tells me he just wants it gone. Bam, I’m in. He offered me the cooler to the Good Humor sign for free, but it was way too big and not sure it worked. He also proved my theory, I never mentioned ebay, but he told me he knew he could get more for some on the stuff on ebay, but he didn’t want to bother.Mark
T-Satt,
That is what I was trying to say, but you have said it much better!
Mark
I think it also depends on what you are selling. J & R did this experiment and it didn’t make much of a difference for them. Maybe they didn’t do it long enough. I think that if you sell a lot of 1-of-a-kind type of items that a 30 day listing would not help that much.
However, T-Satt has shown hard data for his store. The 30 day listing does appear to help. Also, I remember a person who used to be on the blog, Byran, did this also and had some crazy great sales volume. The thing I see in common here is that both of them were focused mostly on clothes.
So, my theory is that yes, if you sell mostly clothes, then the 30 day relist method appears to help.
Sounds like a lot of work to me. If someone could explain how to do it in WonderLister I may try it.
Mark
Sharyn,
That makes sense. I guess I will have to play their little silly game.
Mark
Sharyn,
So am I allowed to put the actual Brand in ebay’s item specifics “Brand Name”?
Mark
Mike,
I understand what you are saying. I just think the whole thing is very unclear. This is what ebay has:
https://www.auctionnudge.com/guides/understanding-ebays-vero-program/
These are the types of things that I would consider a Vero. But I can’t find anything in there that speaks to my issue: a company just doesn’t want you to sell their authenticate items.
How am I suppose to know that? Is there a list of companies that ebay has compiled that states do not sell these brands? I feel that if I own the item, and I follow those basic rules from the link above, I should be able to sell whatever brand I want. They lost their rights to that particular item when they sold it – my opinion. Just like art work that we have discussed here on the blog.
Mike, I am not disagreeing with you at all, I just think that what these companies are doing by trying to prevent me from selling a legitimate item is violating my rights.
Mark
That may be true, but I think it is ridiculous.
Now I have to take down all of my Columbia listings? Why didn’t they tell me this when I put these listings up? And, how many other companies are there like this (I have heard John Deere mentioned here) that don’t want you to sell their product? If this keeps up, we may have very little to sell on ebay.
Mark
I was just looking at my Bonanza mail. I got this nasty note saying that I was infringing on Columbia’s trademark right because I was selling a Columbia Jacket, what?
They listed 1 jacket that they took down. I have a lot of Columbia jackets listed and have had them for quite some time without any issues.
Why is this an issue all of a sudden? Does anyone know anything about this?
Mark S
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