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[Mark S]

Hi Mike,

Actually it is neither. I don’t think Wonder Lister would ever give anyone access to their code.

But what I do have is their database that they give to you with all the tables, data, etc.

This would make no sense to most people, but I do Microsoft SQL Server coding for a living and this is the database they use.

So, I looked at their tables with the data in it to see how it was set up. That alone was a chore. I’m still trying to figure out where everything is and what they call it.

Then, I wrote SQL Server Queries to slice and dice the data the way I wanted it. Then, to make it easier to send to other people, I created what they call “Stored Procedures”. The stored procedure accepts parameters and then my queries act on those parameters.

For example, here is an example call to my stored procedure:

exec WonderLister.mjs.Stats_For_DateRange ‘2017-03-01’, ‘2017-12-31’, ‘shoes’, 1, 1

This will provide stats on all listings that have ‘shoes’ in the title for the date range 3/1/17 – 12/31/17. It gives the following information back to you:

Start Date
End Date
Expression
# Listed for Period
# Solds
STR %
ASP
Oldest UnSold
Latest UnSold
AvgDaysToSell
AvgDaysInInvForUnsold

In addition, those last two parameters tell the procedure if you want to see the detail behind the summary. The first ‘1’ will give you the Active listing detail, the second is the sold detail. So, to test this, you could take the detail data and copy it to a spreadsheet and slice it like I did and you should come up with the same numbers I did in the summary. That is how I tested it.

I do this coding in SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio). This is what the developers at Wonder Lister probably use. This is a developer tool.

If I had access to their windows program code, I could ask for the input parameters and then make a call to my stored procedure and display the results in their GUI (graphical user interface).

But, that is where you could help. If you think this is useful, you could ask Wonder Lister if they would consider doing what I described in my last paragraph – I would provide the stored procedure. Then this functionality would be available to everyone who uses Wonder Lister.

Mark

[Mark S]

T-Satt,

That makes more sense with the shipping in there.

Looks like you have a much lower ASP than I do, but you have a way higher STR.

Do you think there is a direct correlation there?

Also, I was thinking of adding other procedures for WonderLister. More of a “Store Health Dashboard” that would give you an indicator where something may be wrong. For example, I ran a query to show which items have had less than 100 hits in the last 7 months. I was surprised at that.

Any other ideas for the dashboard? The idea here is to show what is good and bad. Then you can drill down into it if you see an issue at a high level.

Mark

[Mark S]

T-Satt,

I ran those numbers through my forecast spreadsheet and it says you should net $135,000 based on what you said. That is about 55% of gross.

Why would you only net 30% of gross?

Mark

[Mark S]

Rydell Relics,

Also we have the records in common. I can relate to that. I have several thousand that I need to get around to listing. The problem is that like you said, most don’t sell for much.

However, I picked up a mid-century Blues LP a while ago and saw that it is worth over $200. I believe it was in good to Very Good condition so I should be able to get close to the $200, just have to get around to listing it.

I used to sell at the Record shows, so I remembered that the Blues Records sell really well and I always have a BOLO out for them.

Mark

[Mark S]

Rydell Relics,

We have something in common, my dad sold barber supplies for a long time.

I have a lot of the supplies and haven’t got around to listing most of them. But some are way cool and a lot from the 1960’s and 1970’s. I have a vintage barber pole glass from the 1970’s. I have some Shaving Mugs listed. I have some New in the package 1960’s combs that I have been selling. I have a lot more.

We should exchange stories on this in the future.

Mark

[Mark S]

T-Satt,

Did you see the email I sent to you? It has a lot more detail.

Nark

[Mark S]

I should have mentioned that was for the period 03/01/17-12/31/17. 03/01/17 is about when my WonderLister data began.

Mark

[Mark S]

So I coded that. Here is an actual example of shoes that I found in my store from WonderLister:

Maybe I should lower the price so they sell faster.

Expression Shoes
Listed for Period 252
Solds 60
STR 23.81%
ASP $31.69
Oldest UnSold 03/03/14
Latest UnSold 12/14/17
AvgDaysToSell 274
AvgDaysInInvForUnsold 494

Mark

[Mark S]

T-Satt,

It dawned on me on the way into work this morning that I have access to all the data in WonderLister. I can slice and dice this data anyway I want and set up date parameters because I code this type of thing for a living. I just have to set it up once and then I can use those queries over and over. I can share them with you and you can run them against your WonderLister database. The categories are a bit wierd in WonderLister, so that may be a challenge.

What I am thinking is something like this:

Date Range: 12/24/17 – 12/3017 (or whatever range you want)

Category #Listed #Sold STR ASP Oldest Listed Newest Listed Avg Days to Sell
——-
Shoes
Clothing
etc

I can even drill down more into shoes, like Mens, Womens, Golf Shoes, Vintage shoes, Casual, Flats & Oxfords, etc. This could get a little complicated, so I think I will just start out simple.

Mark

[Mark S]

T-Satt and Jay,

This is an interesting conversation. I’m glad we took the time to discuss it.

I do the run the numbers weekly and monthly for STR, ASP, and AP. I just don’t break down from the higher level down into individual categories. But I could see where this may be helpful in the future. My store tends to do a lot better in the cold months. I presume because I stock a lot of winter items such as boots, ski pants, coats, sweaters, etc. I may want to drill down and see how seasonal my store is becoming. I noticed last year that I cut back on the garage sales and that is where I found a lot of my summer items. So, no more skipping the garage sales for weeks on end.

I don’t get bored with items. It doesn’t really matter to me if I do it via retail arbitrage or finding a great vintage item. But retail arbitrage isn’t as consistent and it has to be just the right buy. For me, finding the value is what gets me excited about an item. I always seem to have fun no matter what, so I am good there.

I think T-Satt hit the point when he said “What do you want to know?” I think drill downs should be done on a need to know basis. If you want to find something out, then drill down.

I think I would want to also know if I am buying a lot of items that have a low STR. Worse yet a low STR and low ASP. So that may be a to do for me. Also the seasonal question.

Mark

[Mark S]

T-Satt,

“What do you want to know?”

I guess that was my point. I think I already know what I need to know. I know I need to buy higher margin items. I know I have to list more and better items. I know what is not selling so I am avoiding buying those items and items that are under $30.

But, if you were to ask me: “Show me the numbers” then I don’t have the stats to back it up like you do. I am thinking that may be helpful if I had the time, but I only have less than 15 hours per week to put into this and spending even a couple hours getting these exact numbers doesn’t seem worth it to me.

If my business were failing or not growing or going backwards, then I think I would need to figure out what was wrong. But my business is growing and getting better.

So, in my case, do you think there are any exact numbers that I really need know that would be worth the time to get them?

Mark

[Mark S]

T-Satt,

Cindy from Amazing Taste mentioned paying attention to your Key Performance Indicators. You have listed some of these in your numbers above: STR and ASP for the different types of items. Did you get this information from Wonderlister or 6 bit? How did you get it?

Also, I keep track of Revenue by month, number of items sold, STR, etc. I know what I did last year, the year before, etc. A lot of this seems intuitive to me. I mean I know if shoes are selling and polka LP’s are not, I usually know that. But just because shoes are selling, doesn’t mean I can just order more of them.

So, what I am getting at, is what is really important for me to know from my Key Performance Indicators that I don’t already know? Do I need to dive down and see which type of item is not selling? But, it may not be selling because it is a long tail type of item. Based on your numbers above, I would say you should get out of the eBay Hard Goods and start selling more shoes. But that is easier said than done. What if most of the items you come across are that type of eBay Hard Goods?

Just curious as to what your accountant\scavenger brain thinks about all of this.

Mark

[Mark S]

Oh, almost forgot to mention the item I found with the most potential from that unique pick this past week. I found 33 New Vintage Typewriter Brushes. I could only find used ones on ebay for about $10. If I sell these for $14.99 each, that will come close to $500. Of course these will not be in high demand and may take several years to sell, but another great item to add to my pipeline!

Mark

[Mark S]

Strike the “most I have sold in 1 week” – that was last week.

[Mark S]

I had another unique pick this past week. I went to a common estate sale at a lower end house. It turned out to be a gold mine, literally. I found 24k California gold flakes in a small bottle. Now I know it probably won’t amount to a whole lot, but even if I can get just 1 gram out of it, that will be close to $50.

But the gold wasn’t the real treasure there. There were just ordinary everyday items there, nothing extrodidinary. But as I looked closer, I realized that these ordinary items were mostly from the 1920’s – 1970’s! Wow, I have never seen anything like this before.

I was a bit overwhelmed because I had never seen most of these types of items before. Were they worth anything? I didn’t know for sure, but I knew this estate company gave great prices so I just picked up anything I thought may have some value. The sale was at 11AM and I wasn’t working that day, so I had some time. The place was crawling till about noon then most of the people disappeared.

So, I went through the whole house again and looked very closely at everything. I have learned that when you go into a time capsule like this, just about any item could be worth alot.

In the end, I spent about $110. I have two 30 gallon containers full of items to sell and another 18 gallon of items I am still not sure about. I had to do research on just about every item, but it was fun. So far I have about 70 items of value worth about $2800.

From what I could tell, the man who owned the house was born around 1938. He must have inherited items from his parents and kept them in the house.

The most valuable items I found were some new in the box Vintage Roblee shoes. Never heard of them before. Also, there were some very old leather bound hymn books and Bibles. One really nice item was a 1941 Leather Bound Lutheran Hymnal that was basically still new in the box.

Mark

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