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My wife and I had a great conversation about this story last night over a dinner date. I would have honored the sale and dropped the buyer a line congratulating him. No Question, I know I would have. Going with my gut, I think $5k would have been my minimum price to considering cancelling. $1k doesn’t move my business ethics meter.
My rationale is that I don’t want to cross that line and put a price on my integrity. Karma has treated me well in the many deals that have come my way, and many more are still to come. A thousand bucks is a minimal thing in the grand scheme of things.My wife would have made me cancel the sale and relist.
My wife’s rationale is… THAT’S a THOUSAND DOLLARS! We need that money! We have 4 kids! You want to quit your job! That would help!
So yeah, my wife wins that argument over my sentimental reasoning. The buyer will get over it.
In regards to the negative feedback here, I think the thing that is irking people here are two things:
-You lied to the buyer and said it was a mistake – it wasn’t.
-You feedback extorted the buyer so he would have a fair chance at winning the item he already bought. (Pretty clever really)I’m not judging you – those two lines are facts.
Knowing this story was coming I expected the story to be that for some reason the buyer didn’t pay and you caught a break. I too was surprised you cancelled it.
So having said all that, take your lumps, let it roll off and move on. You are satisfied with the outcome and that’s all that matters. It was a great story and I’m thankful you shared.
For some of y’all that are taking this way too seriously, you need to get off your high horses and realize that J&R aren’t some all-powerful faultless ebay “God’s” who dictate your direction in business. They’re just people and are subject to the same ethical dilemas we all face. Cast those stones folks, I’m sure if you were laying bare your business in transparent honesty on the internet like J&R do then there’d be plenty o’ stones flying your way.
My main problem is with all the douche bags who wrote J&R to rub it in their faces they undersold the item. Why do people do that? Does their life have so little substantial value to them that they just have to go around peeing in other folks cheerios to feel some form of self worth?
Quick update on this. My experiment Johnny Carson blazer was listed and sold within hours for full price. https://www.ebay.com/itm/263324333342
Feel free to critique the listing.
Since that worked so well, I bought a nice suit and two wool plaid Tommy Hilfiger blazers to list.
11/20/2017 at 2:02 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 335: Strategizing Out of Our Own Sweatshop #26080I’m gonna start out with an electric space heater just to take the edge off since I’m not close to done yet. Long term I’d like to put one of those hotel room style wall units in so it stays climate controlled year round. I’m going to have plenty of inventory storage in there as well for my more shoes/clothing. I’m starting to get concerned about having my clothes/shoes in uncontrolled storage.
11/20/2017 at 11:56 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 335: Strategizing Out of Our Own Sweatshop #26054The walls are fully sheetrocked, so any insulation I do will require drilled holes and blowing in insulation. There is a 1″ foam board on the outside under the siding so they are at least partially insulated. I can caulk around the base of the walls and seal the outlets. It may not be so bad.
11/20/2017 at 11:15 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 335: Strategizing Out of Our Own Sweatshop #26050Many car flippers get the title and just have the person they are buying it off of sign it over. Your name will never be associated with ownership of the vehicle this way. That’s how I got the trailer I have. For me, I want to use the truck so I register and pay taxes. This is my third truck so I’m done after this one unless I start doing the blank title trick. I’m not incredibly keen on doing that.
11/20/2017 at 7:50 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 335: Strategizing Out of Our Own Sweatshop #26004Total Items in Store: 909
Items Sold: 15
Cost of Items Sold: $80
Total Sales: $599
Profit: $519
Highest Price Sold: 165 Star Wars AT AT walker toy
Average Price Sold: $39.93
Average Profit: $34.60What a sneaky week! It felt horrible, but in the end wasn’t terribly bad. I have two items that I don’t think will be paid for, so knock $75 off my numbers for them.
This week my wife challenged me to tackle my toys death pile. I have had unlisted toys taking up valuable space for over a year now. Well, challenge accepted! As I painfully make my way through cleaning, testing, and listing toys I realize why I quit: 90% of them aren’t worth the effort involved. When I first started this ebay business, retro toys and electronics were the backbone of it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still sell toys & electronics but my profit barrier is much higher. I’m basically to the point the sales price has to be $100+ to mess with an electronic toy. I’ve trashed or donated back multiple items out of this toy stash.
In other news, I bought a truck load of insulation to insulate my garage ceiling this week for the ebay room conversion. I’ve gone back & forth over whether to do blown in insulation in the walls. Some folks online say to do it, others say it’s a waste and can cause problems and insulating ceiling is good enough. Currently the garage walls have vinyl siding attached to foam insulation board, then empty joist spaces.
Oh did I mention truck? On that front I bought another truck on Thursday. This is my third one. I’ve made about $1200 selling the two trucks before it. I’ll definitely buy/sell 2-3 vehicles a year as part of my scavenger sales plan going forward.
11/15/2017 at 2:14 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 334: The Holidays Are Just Another Day #25668Separating the cult following crap from an honest recipe is not too easy with the instant pot crowd. Figured a fellow like minded scavenger would have a good one. My bad.
11/15/2017 at 11:07 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 334: The Holidays Are Just Another Day #25653We can cook for 6. It’s cooking for 18+ that takes the learning so we have extra meals out of it. We have a couple soups & chilis as well as a lasagna that lasts for a couple meals.
If anyone has a great “first recipe” for an 8qt instant pot, I’d be very appreciative. I’m talking maxing it out and knowing that the cook times are right and that it will be awesome.
11/14/2017 at 10:38 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 334: The Holidays Are Just Another Day #25588If I went full time my car would be gone in a flash. I wouldn’t need it anymore.
I will have a beater work truck though to haul things. I suppose I could just rent a truck when I needed one, but if I needed it more than a few times a year it would end up costing more than keeping a work truck around.
We’re working on figuring out how to cook in bulk. It’s one of those things that you just have to get over the hump on. Cooking in bulk for one person is easy. Cooking in bulk for 6 people is the difference between a 200 item ebay store and a 2000 item ebay store. Lol! You gotta have a plan and dedicated space/tools for that.
If we truly had to, we could move to Southern WV near my father in law and he would hook us up with one of his houses. That is the emergency plan but is an option. We’re keeping an eye out for foreclosures that are cheaper and would need some work. We’d move if the right property presented itself.
11/13/2017 at 9:29 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 334: The Holidays Are Just Another Day #25510Total Items in Store: 875
Items Sold: 13
Cost of Items Sold: $29
Total Sales: $252.50
Profit: $223.40
Highest Price Sold: $30 90’s womens track suit
Average Price Sold: $19.42
Average Profit: $17.18Last week was one of my best ever, and then this week was crap. I was hoping to take next week off from work to finish the garage ebay transition, but since my boss and his boss are taking off I’ll be the sole engineering resource available. Yay… I love working at a bureaucratic day job.
Crunching some numbers last week really showed how poorly we are prepared to go full time. Bottom line, it’s expensive to feed/cloth/shelter/transport 6 human beings. It’s amazing how seemingly small purchases add up so fast! So my wife and I had the uncomfortable money talks and we’re working on trying to find reasonable solutions to help us get to where we need to be. Food is the low hanging fruit. We eat out way too much and when we do it is expensive because we avoid the low quality processed fast food crap. We’re always so busy and it is just sooooo much work to prep and cleanup for that many meals. Since I’m an engineer I’m process and system oriented. My family…….not so much. I know it will be better once I would be home full time, but we need it to be better now.
I quit going to a newer Salvation Army thrift near a Goodwill I go to a couple times a month. They were to the point they were placing ebay listing printouts next to some drastically overpriced items. They were also routinely putting $10+ on shoes as well. They put a dedicated price on EVERYTHING, including clothes. So I spoke with my wallet and quit going.
Yesterday I was in the area to look at a truck, so I decided to stop by. Much to my surprise, their prices were much much lower. Shirts were $2-$3, pants $4, and shoes were all either $1 or $2. Apparently I wasn’t the only person who spoke with his/her wallet. Glad to see they saw the error of their ways.
11/10/2017 at 2:54 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 333: The Illusion of Keeping Up With Everything #25397My earliest scavenger adventures was hanging out in arcades and checking coin slot returns for quarters. If I found a machine that was jammed I’d use a pocket knife or key to try and clear it to get the cash. I also checked newspaper machines because they got clogged pretty often. Once I pulled a couple dollars in change out of a newspaper coin slot.
A typical day when I was a kid would entail catching the bus to the mall for 50 cents, hang out checking for quarters and credits in the arcade, then going to Long John Silvers to get a free tray of “crumbs” (small fried chunks of batter for those that aren’t in the know) and a water for lunch.
I was living the scavengerlife early baby!How long do you consider “a while”?
Cheap, easy, good. Choose 2.
The mantra to live by.My price nemesis at the Goodwill near my workplace moved to another goodwill. Good riddance! Everyone else there realizes we’re more like partners than enemies. I buy their stuff at the prices they set if it makes sense to me profit wise.
They do tag sales every week – one color is half off and another is 99 cents. I used to love rubbing it in her face when I’d come up to the register with 5 or so pair of shoes with $15-20 price tags but they made it to 99 cent tag week. I always made sure to say that if they were priced reasonably I would have bought them a month ago at full price.
Today I notice they’ve dedicated a rack to individually pricing neam brand clothes. They’ll lose even more customers over this new price grab. My comment to the clerk – “Cool – more nice pre-sorted clothes I’ll be able to buy for 99 cents in a few weeks.”. Lol!
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