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A couple notes. Starbucks mugs of various kinds do sell more slowly than they used to but depending on the type, size and design they still can be worth picking up. In the past 90 days, my smallish store sold 10 Starbucks mugs, average price $25, so if you can get them for a few bucks, it isn’t too bad of a return.
That said if this mug is normally $15 and has the error, I’d triple the price ($45) but probably take any reasonable offer. There might be a Chicago mug collector who wants a variation, you never know.
After a low October, November rebounded nicely. I did take a few more offers (or at least didn’t counter them as much) because I was hungry. But overall it seemed to work out.
November Monthly Numbers
68 sales (new record)
$ sold (minus shipping): $1653 (also a record; doesn’t count refunds, see below)
Per sale average: $24.31 (goal over $25, probably due to lower offers accepted)
cost per item average: $3.25 (typical for me)Items in store peak for month: 830
Returns/Refunds : 2. Someone bought some bowls and thought they were a different color. I only paid shipping one way for that one as they accepted fault. I relisted and really highlighted that these are beige, not white. Also a ceramic travel mug was delivered broken in Utah. Customer provided a photo, I refunded immediately and got positive feedback from them. Put a claim in with USPS, and got a letter stating that I needed to bring the package to a post office for inspection? Whaaa? I, uh, can’t do that, of course. I think the photo wasn’t enough because she didn’t take a picture of the box, just the broken item still in my bubble wrap. I’m guessing I’ll be denied, so lesson learned to ask for an additional picture. It was $18 so, I’m annoyed but not going to fight it. I’m 1 for 2 with Priority mail over the past two years.
Customer issues: One unpaid item on a $35 best offer for an Ugg Hat. After case was closed, I relisted and a few days later took a $30 best offer, so that was ok.
Sourcing: To busy to do much quality scavenging, but I hit a few thrift stores and tried to be very picky. Today, I put back a $5 item that would sell easily in a month for $20 because I’m trying to use my time wisely. Did find a bobblehead that is kinda rare for $4 that should sell for $70. I like those numbers better!
Did go to another auction I’ve been meaning to check out. Bought two lots (toys and military items), have listed some items but nothing has sold so far. This auction is kinda junky as a whole (but the people are sweet) so I’ll have to be careful here and not bring things home I can’t flip.
updated numbers from 6 people total. It appears Cyber Monday and Black Friday do give a bump to even trash elves. All the other days are tightly bunched with Tuesday being third.
Thanksgiving – 25
Black Friday – 36
Saturday – 24
Sunday – 26
Cyber Monday – 47
Tuesday – 28New updated numbers including T-Satt’s. Would love some more….
Thanksgiving – 22
Black Friday – 34
Saturday – 16
Sunday – 20
Cyber Monday – 33
Tuesday – 20Now black friday and cyber monday are in the lead…
Adding in my numbers for the whole weekend and putting in a running total (not including Jay/Ryanne numbers as they only included part of the weekend for now).
Thanksgiving – 3
Black Friday – 2
Saturday – 2
Sunday – 2
Cyber Monday – 1
Tuesday – 5totals so far with 3 people:
Thanksgiving – 10
Black Friday – 15
Saturday – 10
Sunday – 7
Cyber Monday – 12
Tuesday – 13So far, Black Friday was first, Tuesday after Cyber Monday was second and Cyber Monday was 3rd. Interesting, we need more data. Maybe I’ll start a separate, better named thread and ask for more input.
Sharyn, what was your Sunday number? I’m just curious now as to whether we really see more sales on Cyber Monday as opposed to a weekend day or the day after.
It looks like (from going out and checking your store’s solds) that you only sold 2 things on Tuesday, which also shoots my theory down. Looking Sunday it appears you sold 4 things? So your number Sun-Mon-Tue were 4-7-2, maybe a small bump? Mine were 2-1-5. Just combining are two stores gives numbers of 6 – 8 – 7, which shows no effect from Cyber Monday and no rebound on Tuesday. It would be interesting to aggregate enough trash elves data together to see if there really is a bump at all or if there is a bump on another day.
Super late to posting my October numbers but I’d figured I’d get it in before the next podcast drops. I think I was avoiding it a bit so I didn’t have to rehash the month.
Highlights (really lowlights). A complete average month in sales, but after 3 months with ~$400/month higher sales it was sad to crash down to normality. Also had customer issues continue. See below.
44 sales (15 less than September)
$ sold (minus shipping): $1159 (doesn’t count refunds, see below and $350 less than last month)
Per sale average: $25.19 (goal over $25)
cost per item average: $2.85 (new lowest for the year)Items in store peak for month: 790 (still trying to get to 800)
Returns/Refunds : 2. Ebay screwed a customer over (by giving me incorrect info on the phone) and I had such an irate customer I just refunded fully and took a small hit. I didn’t have to but since I was the messenger with the wrong info, I felt good doing it. The whole thing was stressful to deal with (not even going to bore you with the details). The other was a person who bought something and thought it was white not beige like I clearly stated in the title and description. They have until Tuesday to return it or I’ll call and get it closed. Fingers crossed.
Customer issue: Got my 2nd negative in 1 1/2 years, on an item that the person thought I misdescribed and for which I promptly honored the return. Instead of freaking out, I did all the steps I’ve come to learn on this forum. Long story short, I got the customer to reverse their feedback! I was very pleased and will write a separate post on how I did it.
Sourcing: Found a few high value things which I listed immediately including one in the $300+ range. I was sad to hear a go-to local auction was switching to online only and had their first auction on Nov 1. I probably won’t get the bargains and finds I once did, I won nothing in the new format and prices were generally higher. Also no real box lots which are my bread and butter.
On a good note, I did find a new weekly auction that is pretty trashy (went last night) but I spent hardly anything ($30) and probably got $400 worth of stuff, including a 1930 Moby Dick book for $2 that should sell in the $80-120 range!
So far, November is going well, maybe the holidays have started finally for me. This weekend has been especially nice, with a sale every few hours which is fun! Mostly small stuff, but happy to ship it out. Lots of Thanksgiving cookery/kitchenware/parts for blenders and processors.
Agreed Jay. Unfortunately like eBay Mom I had a few countries checked from years and years ago before I was a bigger seller (Ive had an account as long as ryanne). I think I had some African countries checked due to fraud concerns. When GSP came into effect I knew that it would override the exclusion list so I didn’t bother messing with it, and everything worked fine. Unfortunately, somewhere, somehow recently on a current update it seems like eBay accidentally toggled all of my exclusions to include every country outside of the US and they are acting as exclusions to GSP not just exclusions to regular international mailing outside of the program. Grr. By checking and untoggling everything, now all is well. In fact my first sale this morning? GSP.
Yep, check and see if somehow every part of the world is now excluded on your auctions. They were on mine. I just unchecked everything and GSP is back. Maybe I’ll just try not to have those exclusions on as I’m somewhat protected by GSP anyway. So annoying!
Okay I may just have. But I’m pretty sure this was an ebay error, not mine. I went in and looked at my international shipping. GSP was checked on every auction but when I looked at my exclusion list it was:
Excluded Locations: APO/FPO, US Protectorates, Middle East, South America, Southeast Asia, Asia, Europe, Africa, Central America and Caribbean, North America, Oceania
Every part of the World! I just unchecked the whole shebang and they are slowly fixing themselves. I’ve not even looked at this setting forever, and it was on every single regular business policy I have, and every auction but one (a multi item listing with a unique business policy), so I have to believe it was an ebay “update” that flipped the switch. For that reason I encourage anyone with low GSP sales of late to follow the directions earlier in the thread and look at their GSP and exclusion settings.
Who knows how many hundreds (or thousands) of dollars I’ve not sold these past few months! Sigh…. Upward and onward.
This explains why I’ve not sold anything internationally for months! I have GSP checked everything an auction starts, but I just looked and I only have one auction on GSP out of 592!
I did have some country exclusions, I’m going to see if I can remove those and fix this.
sheesh.
Month of September Numbers:
59 sales (one shy of last month)
$ sold (minus shipping): $1421 (doesn’t count refunds, see below)
Per sale average: $24.09 (goal over $25)
cost per item average: $2.99 (new lowest for the year)Items in store peak for month: 765 (trying to get to 800)
Returns/Refunds: 3 The most I’ve had in a while and they were all toward the end of the month. Each was different. A pair of used shoes had the soles fall apart (refunded after seeing photos). A student bought the wrong textbook for class (refunded, I relisted it). And a person returned a blanket saying I misdescribed it (I kinda did). They returned it, I relisted it with the correct verbage and it already resold. So all in all, not bad considering there were a lot of issues.
Biggest sale: Pair of my wife’s lightly worn Dansko’s for $80.
Sold a little bit of everything, textbooks, shoes, patches, mugs, kitchen wares, vintage items – you name it. Also sold a few things I’d had for over 18 months, so that felt good.
Still want to hit 800 listings before Thanksgiving if possible, but my free time is limited. Hope I make it!
Finished the podcast while scavenging at thrift stores yesterday afternoon. I need to post my monthly numbers but first two quick notes from the podcast.
1) While I was listening to you talk about the scavenging of high end coffee makers, what do I find but a lightly used $200 (when new) Nespresso Machine that looked like it was in perfect condition for $10. Took it home, cleaned it, plugged it in and it appears to work great! I’ll probably use it for a month before listing it, hopefully I (or my wife) won’t fall in love and want to keep it because I should be able to make $100-$120 easy.
2) I also had more returns than ever last month. I did the old Jay/Ryanne trick though, and once the items come back and are verified in okay condition, I actually listed them for more money (to offset my free return cost). One just sold this morning again at that higher price! Weirdly that person also left me immediate positive feedback (before I’ve even shipped) and mentioned that it was a great product at a fair price. A return with a happy ending!
