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After many pages of searching, I did find this pattern on replacements.com
https://www.replacements.com/webquote/knokno817.htm
It appears they don’t have an exact name either but call it Dishes on Shelf in the description, so maybe “Dishes” is the pattern name. They also don’t have any price history and appear to only have sold a couple items.
Exactly Jay. Normally I’d never post about one of these, I’d just use ebay for pricing guidance and list accordingly. But that one high price teapot, with my same pattern, got me wondering though. I’ll do some more research and maybe try an auction this time just in case.
Hi, thanks for helping out! I’m pretty sure it is a covered serving dish (I call them vegetable dishes) based on size which is 8″ in diameter. The main thing I’m trying to figure out is the pattern (the picture) on the side. It seems rare after doing a deep google/ebay search; I’ve only found a few items and some are behind a paywall.
Here is an example: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/edwin-knowles-china-plate-yorktown-shape
This listing also does not have a pattern name in this description, and I can’t see what it sold for.
Another one: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/yorktown-shape-pantry-shelf-teapot-457717841
This one calls it “pantry shelf”, but ebay searching for that and Edwin Knowles only brings up the teapot that sold in my original post. I don’t think that is the name of the pattern.
I’m hoping someone knows the pattern and can help, or if someone with worthpoint can dig into those two above for me I’d be appreciative.
Here is the link of my item specifically:
The auction I linked to has the pattern in question, but I’ll try to take and add one in from my item in a minute.
Getting my monthly numbers in
April 2018
43 sales
$ sold (minus shipping): $1397 (goal $1k, way over this month!)
Per sale average: $32.49 (goal over $25, highest ever!)
cost per item average: $3.50Items in store peak for month: ~530
Returns: 0
Biggest sale: Goorin Bros 1333 Minna Fedora hat for $120
This month was big for two reasons, my store had its one year anniversary (started with 50 items and now have 10x that) and I had the 2nd best month ever (other than Dec 2017). I had a couple $200+ days and days where I sold 5 items! Those are fun days. May is starting out slow so we will see if I revert back to the mean. I hope not.
I too have been thinking about turning on the free returns, I’ve gotten so few that it hopefully won’t hurt in the future or have my rate go up a lot. I like the small handling fee idea also as an offset.
We have Amazon prime. My wife just tried it this week. She liked 2 items and is keeping them and is returning the rest tomorrow. She seemed satisfied with the process and will probably try it again. Since they are raising the prime rate again it seems like they better add in more value like this to keep us prime customers feeling like it is worth it.
As a side note, since you were talking about it on the podcast last week, I just checked and in 2017 I ordered 41 items using prime (my wife ordered a bunch also) so we are probably over 60 things easy. I live in an urban area and use prime now also. I buy recurring things like cat food/cat litter, vitamins, and electronic accessories which end up being much cheaper than I can get locally here, so it seems like the prime membership is worth it for us, not counting other things like the free movies/tv/etc.
Was supposed to post my monthly numbers last week but better later than never:
March 2018
38 sales (including my 2nd Bonanza sale!)
$ sold (minus shipping): $970.72 (goal $1k, close!)
Per sale average: $25.55 (goal over $25, yay)
cost per item average: $3.69Items in store peak for month: ~525
Returns: 0
Biggest sale: Tilley Winter Wool Hat for $53
One more sale than February and less cheap items selling made for an okay month.
I bought more than I listed this month and was on vacation for 6 days (found a couple nice items including some military boots that hopefully sell for over $125!) but I did manage to creep up my listings numbers a bit by doing some listing over Easter weekend. Hopefully this weekend I can get another 20-30 items up as well by going through a death pile or two!
Have to finish taxes this week as well. Pretty much done but just need to relook at everything and send them out.
Yeah, so far it hasn’t been fixed on its own and I can’t seem to fix them. I think I will have to take them down and reshoot the photos tomorrow.
Again late to the thread this week (very busy in my full-time job) but here are my February monthly numbers:
37 sales (including my first Bonanza sale!)
$ sold (minus shipping): $743.66 (goal $1k)
Per sale average: $20.10 (goal over $25)
cost per item average: $4.36Items in store peak for month: ~510 (but only 385 listings)
Returns: 0
Biggest sale: Pair of unmarked Copper Wall Sconces $55
Even lower sales than January, but there were four less days of selling also. My sourcing score of the month were four 1970s strategy military games, bought them all for $16 at a Goodwill and expect them to sell in total for around $300! Two of them are in unused condition! Hopefully will list them this week.
I listed a bit this month, and got up to over 500 items (!) for the first time but that was mainly due to 3 listings with multiples, including hardware (thanks to advice from scavengers!) and postcards. Need to get some solid listing in over the next two weeks as I’ll be out of town for five days at the end of the month.
They mostly are the same (50+ are with a few that are unique and will be sold separately). I wasn’t really in the mood to sell them one at a time for $5.99, but maybe I should get over that and list them as you and Amatino describe. Most of the time people will probably buy multiples any way.
Thanks Sharyn, you bring up another point which is are odd numbers of hardware okay for listing? I usually think in listing in pairs (thinking of two drawer pulls per big drawer) but obviously they could be used in odd numbers also.
Amatino, I may try this just to practice doing this process. I’m not sure I exactly now how but I’m willing to figure it out!
I’m late to the thread this week, but I promised myself I’d start posting monthly numbers on my part-time store.
January:
43 sales (plus one cancelled sale)
$ sold (minus shipping): $964.47
Per sale average: $22.43
cost per item average: $4.49Items in store peak for month: ~370
Returns: 0 (Two people inquired about, but did not return items based on color)
Biggest sale: 747 Airplane model that I took a best offer of $80.00 (paid $19)
Just an okay month. My per sale average was way down as most items were small things under $20. Very consistent sales all month, 1-2 items almost every day. Had a few big sales like the airplane model above and a super heavy drop receiver that sold and shipped only 70 miles away. Price per item was high as I sold a few items that I bought for more than $10. Sourced some inventory at an auction and thrifts (and even bought a few lots on eBay as an experiment!), but I’ve not listed as much as I should.
But… to remedy that I took the plunge and upgraded my store to the mid-level, eBay was offering a first month discount so I figured if I can get the inventory up to 450 by the end of February (my break even point on store cost) I will be happy. So there will be much listing for the next few weekends in my free time!
Time for my quarterly numbers, as a small part-time business I usually don’t feel I have the number consistency to post weekly. However as one of my 2018 resolutions, I think I’ll start posting the numbers monthly since I do accounting at the end of each month any way.
So here is Q4 (Oct-Dec)!
# of items sold each month: 40, 35, 56 – November was weirdly slow, no black friday for me! However December rebounded to be the best month of the year! I averaged 38 items a month for 2017 which I thought was good for a store with 250-350 items at any given time.
Monthly sales $: $1087, $847, $1488 (average for the year $986)
I tried to find some higher dollar items via scavenging and going to local auctions. I had some success, two examples were a Brooks Brothers leather duffle Bag I found while on vacation over Thanksgiving at a resale shop on sale for $35.00 – took one month to sell for $125.00; and at an auction I got two model airplanes for $30 and one sold quickly for $130 (I have the other listed still for over $100).
Average sale price $: $27.18 $24.21 $26.58 (average for the year $25.72 – I’d like to get that over $30 in 2018). I live in an urban area so my cost per item is higher that Jay and Ryannes (around $3.25).
Sadly I got my first negative, for an item not as described (which it may have been, I may have missed some damage). Guy left the negative even after I said I would refund in full or do a partial refund (which is what he wanted and I did immediately while on vacation). The seller said he was teaching me a lesson by leaving the negative. Called ebay and tried to get it removed but to no avail. Did report the seller as he had left 4 negatives in the past month and seemed to be abusing the system. Listening to the podcast for the last year had me much more calm about the whole thing that probably would have happened before, so thanks Jay and Ryanne!
Also had a new old stock electronic item be bought and opened by the buyer and it didn’t work. I refunded him in full and told him to keep it as it was big and shipping would eat up most of the profit even if I could fix it. Again, not a big deal.
I listed a lot in December and have been hovering around 330-350 listings. This leads me to my 2018 ebay business resolutions:
1) Post more/ read more on Scavenger Life!
2) Get my Average Sale Price above $30 by by taking a few more risks with purchases (especially at auctions). I need to find more things that I buy for $25-50 and sell for $125-$250 this coming year!
3) List enough to get up to that magic 500 items, this would mean I’d move up to the next level store as well, as my break even for that is around 450 items. This may not happen until the Summer but I’ll try my best.
4) I’d like to increase my yearly sales to around $15000 in 2018. I think that is doable, and, if I get my store close to 500 items, should happen.
5) Use my ebay profit to pay off personal debt and reinvest some into buying more inventory.That is it from me, I hope everyone has a prosperous 2018 in both your personal and business lives!
