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Oh boy, I had a real good interaction with a nutso eBay buyer today. I got a message from a buyer for an item I haven’t shipped yet saying that they suspected my item was fake and wanted me to justify it. But they messaged me directly without any item title or number so I asked him what item it was. I was promptly told I was being rude and mouthy by asking which item they were talking about. I guess I’m expected to be psychic.
The threats of me selling counterfeit items and demands for refunds increased in frequency, while the buyers still never told me which item it was no matter how I explained why I didn’t know what the item was and that I couldn’t help them unless I did know what it was.finally, I got to a computer and I looked through my sold unshipped items and found this buyers item. It was a pair of Cabelas duck boots… Yep, there’s definitely a hot market for counterfeit Cabelas merchandise. LOL!
I checked This person’s feedback left and they’ve left a bunch of weird nonsensical negative feedback to other sellers. I couldn’t refund and block this person fast enough and thankfully, I haven’t heard from them since.
Highlighted sales in no particular order (well, technically in the order they sold during the week)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266945984968
BMW 3 Series 328i 340i Right Passenger Side Halogen Headlight 2016-2018 OEM 16
Paid $5 at a yard sale. Sold for full price. Cha-CHING!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266958495749
Blaze And The Monster Machines Diecast Ferris Yellow Truck 2014 Mattel
Another one of the nicer Blazer cars sold for full price $20. Paid $5 for a whole box of these. BOLO!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266982953551
GILMORE GIRLS: THE COMPLETE SERIES SEASONS 1-7 DVD BOX SET + Year In The Life
The dialogue on this show irritated my Southern WV brain. SLOW DOWN ladies! Anyways, Paid $7 at a yard sale and sold very quick for full price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266696027566
Fisher Price 2009 Elmo Live Encore Robotic Talking Plush Mattel N4673 Works
Paid $3, sold for full price $50. electronic Elmos are always worth checking out. The name is on the tag so easy to research. Some of them are worth good coin.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266982955649
PlayStation 2 Multitap Adapter OEM Sony Videogame Accessory Multiplayer
Paid $2 at a yard sale last week. Sold quickly for full price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266888718946
Levi’s Neon Slime Green Rare Denim Trucker Jacket 100% Cotton Size XXL NWT
I sold the Pink one of these a few weeks ago, and now sold this one for $275 as well. I suppose I need to dig through my messages and tell that one person who said my price was too high to SUCK IT!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266832891892
Mr. Christmas Mickeys Holiday Skaters Skating Rink Village Tested 1996
Sold on offer for $70. I think I paid $10? Maybe just $5? I bought multiple of these Mickey Christmas items at the same sale. Hopefully more of them start selling now. I got lucky to have the right box on hand as this thing is alot bigger than it appears. Took a 24×20 box.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266885032664
Adidas ADI Firebird Tracksuit Vintage Red White Size XL Men’s
Paid $2 at a yard sale. Sold on offer for $150. NOICE!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266438110381
Starbucks Silver Troy Hammered Skinny Stainless Steel Coffee Tumbler 16 OZ
This is a hoarder item I grabbed out of a box while I was waiting on my items to be added up. Paid $2. Sold on offer for $50.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266991713511
Polo Sport Black Lanyard Key Ring with Wallet ID Case Vintage Ralph Lauren
Antoher hoarder item that was just a throw-in item. Sold for $75 to a buyer in Japan.
I put most of my finds this week in the main thread. aside from that though, I got a few classic “retro treasures”
I got my original start with vintage toys. I picked up a 1990 GI Joe Retaliator for $1.
its incomplete so I drafted the listing to sell for $30
I didn’t have many GI Joes as a kid. I sure did enjoy making them so the splits though.
I also picked up a vintage Sesame Street playset with figures for $4. It’s worth $35-40.
at the same church sale where I got the full bin of book & tapes, I got a Sony camcorder that will more than cover the entire purchase.
and another purchase I didn’t really want but the STR AND ASP got me to buy was a set of three crock pot “hookup” units. These sell for $50-60 each used. Pretty neat little setup for a party but not much else. I paid $20 for all 3.
A really fun Pokémon trading card themed YouTube series I’ve been watching this week. It’s called “Should I open it or should I keep it sealed?”
Spoiler alert: should’ve kept it sealed
Seal packs of these cards are crazy stupid in price
Items in Store: 3203
Items Sold: 50
Total Sales: $2,122.00
COGS: $249.00
Total Profit: $1,873.00
Average profit: $37.46
Average sales price: $42.44
New Listings: 85
Items scavenged: 200
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 41
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,607.73
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $46.22
2024 projected total sales $83,601.95It was a strange week. Wednesday was BONKERS! I sold 14 items for almost $1000. Then Thursday I had zero sales. Then the rest of the week I had spotty low dollar sales and low ball offers. It still evened out to be a great week and kept my 50+ item trend going so I’ll take it.
To make Thursday even worse, the $1000 Ralph Lauren Jacket buyer returned the jacket. Ouch! I got it back Saturday and all was good – no scams.
Yard sales were good this week. I bought….WAY too much!
At a church yard sale I broke my “don’t buy low dollar low STR items rule” by going all-in on a big lot of Scholastic Book & tapes. I asked if they would take 25 cents each if I took all of them. There ended up being 98. I plan to do lots for these as I have no interest in maximizing and selling individually – too low STR. They are all nicely stored in gallon zip lock baggies to keep them together – I’ll fill some 15x10x6 boxes with about 20 of them each to make 4 $100 lots.
At another sale I broke my “don’t buy big items right now” rule and bought a golf club set and a Casio Keyboard complete in box. When you see a set of Taylormade clubs in a Taylormade bag for $50, you buy them! I’ve had great luck selling keyboards in the past – this is one of the desirable light up keys models that will sell for good money.
And the piece de resistance of my rule breaking weekend – I broke my “don’t buy commodity clothing right now you have enough!” rule by buying…233 items from a giant yard sale. It started when they had a table full of very nice vintage Men’s Ralph Lauren T shirts in 2XL. I’m talking one of every color in the same style. This is the same kind of stuff I was getting at the hoarder sale. I made a pile of the shirts I wanted ($1 each) and then went to the table full of mens pants/shorts. Same thing here – Ralph Lauren and one of every color in the same style – again $1 each. My intent was to lot this stuff up and sell stuff fast and keep ASP high. These items sell great in lots!
Then I went inside the garage – as the lady said – she hadn’t cleared her closets in 20 years! Sooo much stuff – all higher end mall or shopping center brands like Ralph Lauren, WhiteHouse BlackMarket, Talbots, lilly Pulitzer, etc. My wife also wanted to look as this was all in her size. Their prices were reasonable so I just started grabbing and chucking clothes on my pile. There were entire racks full of brand new clothes (they wanted $5 for the new stuff). Once I got it all home I let my wife pick out everything she wanted to try on. She ended up keeping 48 items and upgraded her whole wardrobe.
There was A LOT more than I bought, and there was even more that they hadn’t brought out yet. I have their contact info and they’ve said I can come do another private pick if I want to. I’m conflicted. The ASP on this stuff will end up in my normal wheelhouse of $25-35 as the resale of women’s fashion is just so bloated. This stuff would do REALLY good in high end lots though, so I honestly could just buy it all and sell in lots even to other resellers. BUT…I’m not going back. I’m going to deal with what I have and move on. This stuff just isn’t good enough like the premium hoarder stuff was even if my COGS is much lower.
My average purchase cost came out to $2.12 so I could afford to sell everything in lots of 10 items for $100 and be very profitable if I just want to get rid of it all quickly.
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 8 items for $648.
I hit it hard this week getting the last clothing haul listed. I’m hoping to wrap up all the clothes this week and get them out of my van. Once they are listed….um….yeah… I’ll put them somewhere… eventually. So many high dollar sweaters! Hopefully they start selling.
$59k. Never in my life did I imagine I would have ever bought a vehicle that costs this much, much less afford it as a third vehicle.
Some people buy boats, sports cars, and ATV’s. I buy a fancy bus. LOL!
Items in Store: 3168
Items Sold: 54
Total Sales: $2,165.00
COGS: $292.00
Total Profit: $1,873.00
Average profit: $34.69
Average sales price: $40.09
New Listings: 41
Items scavenged: 14
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 40
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,620.67
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 34
2024 ASP $47.13
2024 projected total sales $84,274.67Another week with a bunch of sales! I’ve had to start shipping in the mornings to get myself caught up which takes away time from photographing. On Monday morning I had almost 40 items in my shipping queue! I wanted to get some done on the weekend, but I got busy….I also took an extended nap both days.
My daughter is getting very good at creating draft listings, but her speed is still low. Things are falling apart when it comes to them getting the photos taken and uploaded. I’ve given them some tips/tools to speed things up and stay more organized, but I think I’m losing them. I even created some measurement papers they can tape to items so they can bulk measure items before creating the listings.
This all is quite easy and fun for me, and it is even MORE fun to get better/faster with increased efficiency. I don’t even consider most I do with ebay to be work. It is becoming quite obvious now that I’m teaching someone else that what I do is really NOT that easy. I timed myself on some shoe photography last week to show my kids what is possible. I can do shoes in about 90 seconds a pair, which included tying laces and putting in inserts if needed. They’re at 5 minutes+ just for photos. I bet this is what a gymnast would feel like if they tried to teach me to do a basic cartwheel. LOL!
We’ll see how this week goes. If they can’t get to the finish line on the first bin then I’ll just have my daughter create listings and I’ll do the photos and uploading. Clothing is much less photos than shoes (3-4 vs 9), so knocking out 10 clothing items a day for photos is nothing. It’s the listing that is a pain. I’ve been timing myself at lunch time listing this week and I average 3 minutes to research, list, and measure clothing items. So photos and all I can do about 12-15 clothing items an hour all in.
The coat wardrobe they listed is doing great. 9 items have sold so far for $280. I keep a running log of these sales as I’m paying them an extra 10% of sales since they got it all listed in the time frame I wanted. So already another $28 on top of the $2 per item I paid up front – they are being well compensated for that work!
This weekend our new Ford Transit passenger van was delivered. I really need ebay to keep accelerating with sales as ebay will be footing the bill for this giant beast! It is surprisingly EASY to drive though, so I’m hoping with some experience my wife will embrace it so I can get rid of one of our minivans. That will be a HUGE chunk of cash I get back if it works out. No pressure on her – I’m prepared to keep paying to maintain 3 vehicles. My van is paid off. I can sell it for $38k currently, which is more than I paid for it brand new! The retained value on used cars right now is BONKERS! That’s actually why I ended up buying a new Transit, as many dealers are charging ABOVE original MSRP for USED vans several years old. We got really lucky with the one we got – brand new with almost all the bells/whistles I wanted. I didn’t get adaptive cruise, but it does have the eagle eye camera setup which makes parking/maneuvering a breeze.
So where am I at on expected sales goals this year? There are 16 weeks left in the year. I need to average $2000 in sales a week to hit $90k in gross sales, or $2600 per week to hit $100k sales. I REALLY want that $100k goal. To get there I have to get sell 60+ items a week and I’d need a couple BIG home run sales to push up my ASP. We’ll see where I stand at the end of this month. I’m getting some lookers on that crazy $6k Versace leather vest. If that one sold I’d cut the $100k goal in half!
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 5 items for $805.
One big pair of shoes for $480 I talked about last week. Sold a pair of camo ralph lauren pants for $140. Then some other sub $100 items. I have a bunch of hoarder clothing items drafted and will get photos done this week.
This week I just sold a BUNCH of bread n butter items. Here are some highlights in no particular order.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266969413941
Disney Pixar Planes Piston Peak Fire Rescue Windlifter Helicopter N312CH
Pixar Planes can be worth great money. I got a box of them at a yard sale a few weeks ago for $2. Sold for full price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266462391064
Louis Vuitton Silverstone Moccasin Driving Loafers Men’s Size 9.5 UK Shoes
Sold on offer for $480. This is a pair of the hoarder shoes that had the original receipt. This pair was very helpful to verify the authenticity of other pairs of LV shoes.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266932876414
Mcdonalds happy Meal Toys HUGE LOT of 142 most sealed 80’s 90’s
So I had 5 boxes of happy meal toys from the vintage toy yard sale haul earlier this summer. I sorted it all out and then did my research. Some stuff was listed individually, some was lotted up, and everything in this listing is the stuff that just wasn’t even worth listing. So into one GIANT lot it went. Sold on offer for $30. This is my favorite sale of this week.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266891006686
Tusa Imprex Regulator SCUBA Untested
I actually sold 2 of these this week. One for full price, the other on offer for $50. They came from a big box of scuba stuff I got a yard sale for $10. I’ve already made over $200 from that buy. I think I have 2 items left.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266925628655
Tecmo Super Bowl SNES Cart Only Cleaned New Battery Tested
One of the SNES games I got on an ask at a yard sale this summer. AN NES and a stack of games for $20. I thoroughly cleaned all the games and replaced the batteries if needed. That extra work was worth it as I got full price $30 for this game. The loose cart ebay average is only $15, so I definitely got the premium price!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266975406279
DeMarini CF Zen Drop -8 2 3/4″ Barrel USSSA Baseball Bat 31″ – 23 Oz C8ZL-21
I picked up 2 bats at a yard sale this summer and finally got around to cleaning/photographing them last week. This one sold on offer for $60. Paid $5.
I always like to imagine what kind of autograph policy I would have if I was a celebrity. First off, the resellers who show up at airports with giant boards of stuff for autos – they can pound sand. That’s disgusting and very intrusive.
If I was a big enough star, I’d want to have an aid pull in 2-3 kids and their families every game/event to come back stage to have an interaction and give some personalized signed merch.
Autographs, I’d want to stick to kids and at least get their name so the auto is personalized. No generic autos unless I’m doing a bulk signing…which I wouldn’t do!
If I’m out n about with family no autographs or selfies, but a quick hello and handshake would be fine as long as I’m not busy with family.I only had 90 minutes for yard sales Saturday, but it was quite an eventful 90 minutes. I wish I could have finished up my route as the weather was amazing and there were lots of great sales!
The highlights:
A Croscill King comforter set. Normally I don’t buy this kind of thing, but it was a beautiful tapestry style comforter. I did a search on the brand name and was pleased with the results. I have the listing created for $300!. I paid $20. I want to get this listed IMMEDIATELY and then sealed in a vacuum bag ready for shipping. It is really bulky/heavy.
A real nice new in box drone for $100. I’m half tempted to keep it just for fun. It’ll sell quick for $250-300.
Here’s a comp: https://www.ebay.com/itm/314905171602
A set of 4 speakers I picked up for $20 that are worth $80 each and a great STR.
Cobra Sound Tracker Model 75 WX ST MIC W/ AC-701
I picked this really cool looking CB mic for $5 as I just had a good feeling about it. I also got a CB radio that I haven’t looked into yet. The CObra mic also has this remote box with it that increases the value. I paid $5 and have it ready for photos for $90.
I got a Nikon point/shoot digital camera for my kids to take ebay photos for $10. After testing it, the results are kinda ‘meh. I figured it was a $30-50 camera but I looked it up to find it’s a $150 high STR camera! I guess I’ll need to just sell it then. You really can’t beat taking photos with a cell phone. Maybe I’ll use this sale to fund getting an iphone 11 to use for the camera.
In the past I’ve just added them wherever they fit in an existing campaign. When a campaign was full I would start another one. This last time I purposefully split off the new stuff to do some rate comparisons.
Next time I will probably create another new campaign to do some more testing.
oh there is definite merit to what you are saying. That’s why I don’t promote items for at least 90 days, preferably 120 days.
I think immediately doing PL is a bad idea for one- off items.I want to make the sale at a couple target points – the initial new item bump, the bump when google picks up my items, and then finally, the PL bump. Eventually I’ll have the next bump of ending/sell similar at 6 months.
I currently have 210 items not on PL since I last added items. I’m typically at 400-600 items once I will do another addition to PL.
I’ve also done experiments with old items. I’ve done 50% off sales on old items with ZERO sales.
In PL, I bumped my oldest items from 3% to 5% and have TRIPLED the sales that come from those old items. I’ve sold almost 50 items from my oldest items PL campaign in the last 3 weeks. That’s an incredible improvement consider I sold less than 20 from the same group in the previous monthI agree that the algorithm has DESTROYED FBMP even from a buyers perspective. keywords, sorting, location based – all of those tools are WORTHLESS! I dial a search in and get…whatever and wherever.
