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The last time I did a big lot of records I played every single record that I listed. This time I only had to play a couple, and then the ones that were in more questionable condition or had a flaw I would play those sections.
Once you’ve seen enough of these records from the same person that are all in pretty much the same very good to excellent condition, you know what they’re gonna sound like.
And regarding Godaddy bookkeeping, I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to do. I have no clue why ebay didn’t swoop in and buy the service. It was a no-brainer! Instant $10-15 per month fee for sellers they could collect. With the new laws tightening down on tax evasion, ebay should ABSOLUTELY have a fully integrated book keeping service.
I signed up for Waze, but it kinda sucks. None of the other softwares really fit what I want. My amex card did have an app called Amex business, but they removed that product/service. Lame! in 2020 and a large part of 2021 I used that app to store my receipts and now all that is gone!
I’m thinking I’ll just use ebay’s reporting for all my sales and fees. Then I’ll just manually fill out a spreadsheet from my credit card transaction history. The only pain is developing the discipline to do my book keeping either weekly or monthly to keep things straight. I really should just go ahead and do it weekly. The other thing I’m going to have to do is stop using my business card for non-business purposes. I really like getting all the hotel points, but I’m gonna have to settle for getting amazon points on my non-business card.
Items in Store 1941
Items Sold 20
Total Sales $579.00
COGS $51.00
Total Profit $528.00
Average profit $26.40
Average sales price $28.95
New Listings 63
Items scavenged 104
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 48I don’t know why I’ve never really noticed the summer slowdown before, but it is really jumping out at me this year. Maybe it’s because I’m listing so much more this year? I built up this flawed belief that I would have $1k+ weeks every week of the year. WRONG!
Still, looking at the past months data I’m up 40% year over year on items sold and total sales.
This week I stumbled on a rare find – GOOD records at a goodwill! I ended up with 65 records. I didn’t bother researching anything at the store because they were just $1 each (I paid 85 cents because I used a frequent shopper card for 15% off). At that price it is easier to just get em all then research/price/list at the same time. Sure some will just sell for $3, but if I have to put some effort into finding out which are worth money I might as well get paid that $3 each time I look one up. I got all the 70’s & 80’s rock albums. I put them to the front of the listing line and listed them all this week. The total list price was $980. Yesterday I sold 3 of the records for $79 so I’m already into the profit with a ton more to sell.
The main reason I didn’t really research at the store is because unless you REALLY know your stuff, it can be hard to tell what is valuable when it comes to media. Take this album for instance:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265743364464
I’ve never heard of them. This could have easily been an undesirable $4 record – I had no clue. It sold within hours for $40.
Now on the flip side:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265743936679
Whoah, classic Billy Joel vinyl! Must be some big money there! Nope. I lotted them up to encourage them to sell faster.
I don’t know why, but I’ve really become interested in scavenging media lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve come across some nice scores, or maybe it’s because clothing/shoe/toy/electronics scavenging has died down for me due to rising costs and lower quality stock at thrifts. I’m super into sealed new stuff, even if it is pretty much worthless….for now. It seems like grading media is the next wave of collecting idiocy and hopefully I can make some money. Still waiting for this one to sell:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265493082815
I missed the high price wave from August/sept 21 since I was in the hospital. Here’s to hoping the price wave comes again – I’ll be ready!
I also picked up something on my scavenger “Not really a grail but I want to find one” list – a betamax player. Unfortunately I sold my only Betamax tape a while back (a good thing at that price!):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265493055410
So now I need a betamax tape to test it out. Anyone have a dirt cheap betamax tape listed that I can buy?
It’s still coming and I bet it is coming soon. On the mobile app they’ve made alot of changes to the offer screen. It is now VERY busy and wordy! Specifically it details how payment will be received and when I can expect it. All the offers so far with this new screen have detailed that I will get paid within 4 days. I’m so excited to finally see an offer where it says I’ll get paid immediately.
I sold a pair of shoes for less than half price last week. I had them priced at 90. Buyer sent me an offer of $40 and included a message that explained that Danner had put the brand new version of the same shoe on blow out clearance at $50.
I checked their website and it was true. I happily accepted their offer.
on the flipside, this evening I got an offer on a rare cassette well below half price that I declined. Then a message from the bidder saying “what‘s the least you’ll take.”
I replied by saying “an offer less than half price does not get you in the ballpark to engage in negotiation. Asking “what’s the least you’ll take”will never result in the “least” offer. Keep these facts in mind for your next negotiation.I only add new items to promoted listings after they’ve been listed a while. Gotta give google search a chance to catch up. About once a quarter I add all my remaining new listings to promoted listings.
Since you have the message from the buyer that they were confused and they also closed the case on their own, you could try facebook ebay for business.
It seems Ebay for business kind of sucks now though, so may not work.
Does that ever result in a sale? In my experience the people that say that lame line rarely turn into a buyer no matter what offer I give. Now I usually respond either with my asking price or an offer 10% or less off of my asking price.
I asume it is a low effort blanket coverage style buying method which is why the response rate is low even if you send a reasonable offer.
One of my favorite all time selling experiences was the time I was called incredibly rude for responding” What’s the most you’ll pay” when someone asked “What’s the least you’ll take”.
Items in Store 1898
Items Sold 28
Total Sales $840.00
COGS $87.00
Total Profit $753.00
Average profit $26.89
Average sales price $30.00
New Listings 5
Items scavenged 35
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 47Nearly identical numbers to last week. Looking at year over year for May and June, I’ve made $1000 more this year. That is phenomenal for the dead part of the year!
Last week was absurdly busy for me outside ebay. I had consultants in from the UK all week at my day job. I learned alot regarding the processes I wanted to improve, and I learned alot of great new UK slang – most not repeatable among pleasant company. Lol!
The only repeatable one is when I told them my email address, which has a period in it. They have no idea what a period is. I thought they were messing with me, but in England a period is called a “full stop” or “dot”.
Lots of long days and I was mentally wiped once it got to the weekend, so very little listing.
I did (finally) finish proof reading my wife’s novel this weekend, which I’m sure she appreciates much more than doing some listing. It only took me about a year. We also watched alot of Stranger Things 4 this past week. Good lord the episodes are TOO LONG this season!!! We keep sitting down expecting a riveting 40 minute experience, then the last half of every episode has been spent thinking “how much longer is this gonna go on?!?” We finished ep 6 last night and I checked the episode lengths of 7-9. Holy moly – Episode 9 is 2.5 HOURS!!! I think they forgot how TV shows are supposed to work.
Nothing much of note from yard sales. I did come across one that had a bunch of nice clothes my size for $1 per bag.
I did have one frustrating experience. I went to a yard sale at the end of the day – after 1pm. The tables were still mostly still full of stuff. They had a car radio that said Sony Marine. I hadn’t seen one of these before. I enquired about it and started to get a long winded story and the lady did a google search and said the dreaded words “These go for like $175.” Oh boy…
So I asked “what do you want for it”. “Uhh, you’ll have to ask my husband”…who wasn’t there. He had just pulled up across the street so I finished looking around as he slowly made his way to the house. I asked him, “What do you want for the radio?” Again got a long winded story that alluded to the fact it might be broken but “not to worry, because there was a wiring issue in the motorcycle they pulled it from so it wasn’t a radio issue”.
“Yeah ok…so what do you want for it?”
“Ohh… I don’t know. Make me an offer?”
“$10.”
“Ehhhh….oooohhhh… (In the background the wife saying again that they could do FBMP and that they go for $175) How about $50?”
I think I broke the sound barrier as I exited the yard sale.
Why put stuff out on tables for a yard sale, sit there all freaking day, then have absolutely no idea what you want for things? I don’t want a long winded story. I just want sellers to be prepared with a price. If it is fair I pay. If there is negotiating room, I make an offer. Why is this so hard for some people?
Now as for that radio – I researched it after the fact. No it does NOT go for $175. A Modern Sony Marine radio with bluetooth and XM absolutely goes for $200-300. This one was old without those features and doesn’t even sell for $50 with free shipping. I did not research it at the sale but my gut said $10 was being generous on my part for an untested unit that was pulled due to issues. I was correct.
I was hoping that there was some actual photography equipment – bodies and lenses. The lady said that they hadn’t found anything.
Oh I wanted to share two items that sold that were great scavenger reaffirming sales.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265202635124
POGS – the gift that keeps giving. I was already WAY into the profit on a big purchase of pogs, but this is the first of these star trek pogs sets to sell. I priced high and finally sold a set on offer for $25. I have 19 more of them and they’ll sell eventually.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265693717432
Vintage ugly sheets new in package – Who knew they would be gold? Trick question – THIS GUY knew! I’ve sold 6 of these vintage sheets for $170 so far. I tell ya, vintage Laura Ashley has been good to me. Prior to this I bought vintage wallpaper and made $175 on that.
And scavenging this week I went big and spent $150 on a photography equipment lot. Initially I was looking at one box that had some flash equipment right by the cash register. I saw the $150 price tag and audibly laughed and started to walk away. Then the cashier lady said the box behind it was included too. It was a Novatron studio flash set. I’ve sold that before and knew it was money…but still not at $150. So looked closer at the flash equipment, added ballpark values up for everything and came to about $300-350. I even tested the novatron set – mint and fully working. Still, I was on the fence. As I started to step away the lady said “Oh yeah, the laundry basket is included too.” Inside the laundry basket was a new in package $100 light filter and a Vintage Linhof West Germany Tripod, as well as a bunch of filter odds/ends. The Linhof tripod is big bucks too. So yeah, at that point I handed over my credit card for the $150. LoL!
Well to be honest, This really was a poor use of my time. Poor sell thru rates and low sales prices. It will take years to sell everything.
I wanted to challenge myself and I was hoping there were some gems in there. Also, it was kinda fun. Will I take another huge lot of cd’s? Nope.for removing price stickers, on hard goods ad most boxed items a heat gun is awesome. Heat up the sticker until the thermal surface changes color and then peel right off with no residue.
Vhs cardboard sleeves will deform a bit and dvd/game cases the plastic insert cover will distort and/or melt.
Items in Store 1921
Items Sold 28
Total Sales $835.00
COGS $88.00
Total Profit $747.00
Average profit $26.68
Average sales price $29.82
New Listings 57
Items scavenged 38
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 49A much better week and an excellent week compared to previous Junes. I spent alot of time this week peeling non-removable price stickers off of anime DVD’s. Due to the thin plastic cover, I can’t use my heat gun. Ugh…is that really necessary to put a HUGE sticker like that on a dvd that is gonna be generically priced??? Special note – packing tape works amazingly at removing residual adhesive from DVD cases. Quicker and easier than goo-gone or alcohol.
At yard sales this weekend I bought a huge Box of CD’s. Normally I don’t buy this kind of stuff but…
1: This was my era – 90’s pop/rock/rap. The good stuff.
2: They were CHEAP.
about 120 CD’s and I paid $7. Now the problem with CD’s is that most are not worth much. So how do I tackle this pile to maximize value and minimize my time? I started by creating a generic template that had all of my basic info and my generic $3.99 price. I am charging for shipping, which will greatly slow my STR BUT people do still buy games/cd’s and pay for shipping.
I started by doing a high level scan for valuable or rare cd’s. I scanned all the bar codes – if it is a common cd with alot of listings it went in my generic $3.99 pile. If it could be priced higher than that for any reason I put it in my research pile. Then I had about 25 BMG subscription CD’s that irritatingly did not have barcodes. I set those aside to research and list individually. It took about 30 minutes to sort out all the generic junk.
Next I researched and listed all the BMG cd’s. I timed myself and I average 1 minute per cd. Most were generic but there were a few I priced at $10- 20. Same for the higher priced CD’s – about a minute a listing. I still need to do the generic barcode cd’s, but with the template it is crazy fast – less than 20 seconds per cd. I just have to scan the barcode and the listing auto fills the title & item specifics and all my other stuff is already filled out.
Photography is very fast – about 10 seconds per cd. The uploading again is the bottleneck. I wish there was a bulk upload photography tool. The only benefit is that I plan for my uploading to be done in my idle time (watching TV, in line at restaurant, bedtime wind down instead of games, etc)
So far I’ve listed 53 CD’s for a total of $334 and an average list price of $6.30. I charge for shipping and my discount will pretty much cover all my fees. I’m using the buy more save more percentage discount at 5%,10%,15%.
So once I am finished I’ll have 4 hours invested and I’ll make around $530. Not a bad investment of my time at all – will just take time to sell the pipeline. I’m hoping the added bonus of extra sales movement on my store will positively affect my search rank.
