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I created the listing for one of the Woolrich coats today. It is a late 60’s/early 70’s Mackinaw Buffalo Plaid hunting coat. It is in IMMACULATE condition – I’m talking borderline NWOT.
Maybe worn once and definitely not hunting. Identical coats sell for $150-200 in used condition. I’m pricing mine at $250 due to the excellent condition.
Items in Store: 2898
Items Sold: 28
Total Sales: $1,587.00
COGS: $201.00
Total Profit: $1,386.00
Average profit: $49.50
Average sales price: $56.68
New Listings: 0
Items scavenged: 14
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 29
Sourcing Allotment: 2
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,543.44
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $44.58
2024 projected total sales $80,258.75Brief note: I write this on Monday morning in a Word file and shelve it until the numbers post drops.
Whew man that was a rough week. Not much sleep, alot of stress at day job. I’m surrounded by people who can’t or won’t do their job. I’m very tired and frustrated. No listing this week. One night I needed to get some shipping done and I fell asleep in the living room on the floor while playing with my kids. I woke up 10 minutes before midnight and had to try and mad rush as many labels as I could to avoid the overdue shipping marks on my account.
I wanted to wake up early Saturday to yard sale. That didn’t happen as I overslept until 8:30. That’s a rarity for me! I just had time to hit a big sale in my neighborhood before baseball games. I look forward to this sale every year as the guy puts out a ton of stuff – rich dude who replaces his whole family’s wardrobe and stuff every year. Must be nice! Every year I’ve bought bins full of clothes, shoes, and toys for resale and for my family. I think I spent $300 there last year. Anyways, this year I just bought a cooking set as their prices were INSANE!!! I was even on the fence on the cooking set as I paid $85. I only did that as while I was pondering I found one more pot with lid I missed before to make it the full set. I’ll make about $300 after it all sells. I may just sell it as a lot to get a quicker ROI.
I may not have listed anything but I have my draft bank up to 60 items. I’ll keep adding drafts at the least this week since that is done at work. I had planned on ending/sell similar 10-20 items a day during the work week…but that went to the wayside. I no longer have much downtime at work! When I do have downtime I have to leave so people don’t come bother me on my breaks/lunch. I’m “the guy” when it comes to all technical questions in all departments for the site. At least I’m paid like “the guy” now. I finally crossed the 6 figures mark on my base salary. Too bad that doesn’t mean much in this hyper inflation era. If you thought engineers made a ton of money, well they don’t. 6 figures as an engineer in my neck of the woods is ALOT. It seems inevitable that I will be the manager of either the engineering department or foundry within the next couple years. Depends on how things shake out. I was adamant when the subject of being in management was broached a couple years ago that I didn’t want it. Now I’m starting to realize that I have the skills, confidence and experience that I could do it (still don’t want to though). I’ve seen too many engineers pushed into management too soon over the years.
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 7 items for $1151. Big shoe sales FTW. The highlight was a pair of Gucci loafers for $540.
The things to look for in vintage levis, Lee, or Wrangler.
- paper tag with the older ink printing.
- Made in USA
- Selvedge denim(white/red seam on inside of leg seam.)
- Talon 42 zipper
- And the big bucks – if the e on the red tab is a capital E you just won the lottery.
Even newer premium jeans are made with selvedge denim – it’s still made in Japan. If you see Polo Ralph Lauren jeans (A- you should buy them anyways) you should always check inside the leg opening for a selvedge seam.
One last thing – if you find a true vintage NWT cotton clothing item that is black, you might want to consider not buying it. In the 80s- 2000’s manufacturers used sulfur based dyes. If the clothing item was never washed it will literally fall apart the first time it is washed or worn. I’ve had it happen to two pair of Vintage NWT Levi’s black jeans.
That’s never a good message to get from a customer that their pants suddenly looked like they went through a nuclear bomb.
Not my highest dollar sales, but interesting nonetheless.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265840839706
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror Disney T Shirt Mickey Size L
Sold on offer for $40. Paid $4 at Goodwill. It bugs me that Goodwill charges the same for a T-shirt as they do a nice polo or sweater, but whatever. The numbers make sense or they don’t. In this case, the numbers most certainly made sense!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266663369920
Disney Pixar Cars Night Vision Goggles Lightning McQueen Spy White Wall Diecast
This is an item from a LOOOONG tail pipeline. I bought several large tubs of Pixar Cars die cast figures from a yard sale a few years ago. I have made so much money from that haul – several thousand. There were some cars I sold for $100+! I still have an entire bin I never listed of lower dollar cars. Maybe I should just create a big lot and get rid of it. Anways, I sell a couple of these individual cars every month for $7-15 each. It adds up.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266404137277
Crocs Womens Sandals Size 6 Cyprus IV Black Heels Strap Open Toe Summer Slip On
Don’t sleep on the stylish crocs. They sell well. Sold these on offer for $30. Paid $5 at Goodwill.
That’s pretty cool you are giving whatnot a try.
I think unlike ebay, the expectation is that you will break even at best for a couple months before building your whatnot into a profitable portion of your business.
The youtube influencers definitely have an advantage over there. I would recommend you connect up with some of them, get your name out there. I venture a guess that is how they do so well – other whatnot sellers gaining favor basically purchasing advertising on the influencers whatnot channel by purchasing items. I’ve seen some people win auctions and then “reroll” the item – basically making a donation to the whatnot seller and having the item auctioned off again immediately.
I only went to two yard sales last week and only bought 2 items but both are pretty good.
At the first sale I normally buy alot of stuff but the couple decided to price their stuff to the moon! The only item I bought was a complete set of Classique Belgique cookware for $85. Should sell for $250-$400 depending on if I part it out or sell individual pieces.
The next yard sale I bought a Carhartt jacket for 50 cents. Well first thing is that Carhartt canvas jackets are always BOLO if cheap enough. The thing you want to look for is an unusual interior lining. If it is plaid flannel or an unusual color you just found gold. In this case the lining was a red quilted lining and the tag is an older tag. I’ll be selling this jacket for $100-200.
Here’s a sold listing in similar condition
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266635908397
Last week I was only able to make one trip to Goodwill. I got a few bread n butter items but the real standout was I FINALLY found a Liquid Blue T shirt in the wild! It’s a newer one with the printed tag (Boo!) but still an amazing shirt. If you’ve never heard of Liquid Blue, you should do a quick ebay solds search. They are THE grail of t-shirt selling.
The one I got is a modern reprint of this design:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/375287119309
And since I’ll have forgotten by the time next week’s thread comes up I’ll share yesterday’s goodwill run. The shoe department was a strike-out but the mens clothing section was a BOON! I got multiple pair of jeans/pants in the $50 range for $4.50 each. Then in the coat section I found not one, but three vintage Woolrich jackets. I haven’t researched them yet, but I’m in for at least $100 each. This goodwill doesn’t mark up jackets/coats, so I just paid $6.99 each.
As I was in the checkout I saw a V-tech cordless phone system abandoned in the snack bin. I’ve had luck with these and was stuck in line so I checked it out. The seal looked like someone had picked at it so I went ahead and opened it – yep, new in box. This is a nicer one and has a near 100% 90 day STR at $75. I paid $7. That’s a nice unexpected score!
Now that is an item I know would catch my eye. Beautiful item! It’s rare to see special or unique glass here.
2nd this times 1000!
I would go a step further and tell ebay about the message so it can be added to the case as evidence. Seems pretty skeevy to me.
Items in Store: 2920
Items Sold: 27
Total Sales: $929.00
COGS: $139.00
Total Profit: $790.00
Average profit: $29.26
Average sales price: $34.41
New Listings: 0
Items scavenged: 28
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 31
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,540.53
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $43.93
2024 projected total sales $80,107.73Yay! Yard sales! Not a ton of yard sales, but I was able to hit about 8 sales Saturday. I just didn’t have time to list this week. The weekend was full of baseball Saturday and yard work on Sunday. I was able to make a draft bank of about 40 items during breaks/lunch at work that need photos. I’m continuing to add to the bank this week but I don’t know if I’ll get them photographed.
I waited till this weekend to do taxes. Fortunately I have a pretty good methodology down now for taxes. I always have all the data. It just takes some time to go through it all and pull the actual numbers. This year I made Uncle same happy. I reported a business profit of $26000! 2020 was my highest reported income and it was only like $12k. Clearly I’m gonna have to find some more deductions to write off. LOL!
I still get a refund from the fed thanks to all the credits for having 6 kids, but I owed the state an additional $900. BOO! WV has pretty much zero deductions or credits. I expected I’d owe so late last year I made an adjustment to my state withholdings for my day job pay. I’m going to make another adjustment of an extra $25 so I can keep what I owe as close to zero as possible.
A couple weeks ago I went ahead and fully paid off the van I drive daily. I bought the van in 2021 (Toyota Sienna) and I’ve been able to pay for it completely with ebay profits. I’ve paid extra every month and went ahead & did a payoff of the last few Thousand just so I don’t have to have the monthly payment on the books anymore.
This week is probably the roughest week of the year for me. A full slate of baseball games, two kids have birthdays 3 days apart, and I started out the week in the negative on the sleep bank thanks to staying up and finishing taxes Sunday night. I’m exhausted.
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 2 items for $172.
Eh, at least it’s something!
She was checking for uranium glass with a blacklight. It’s collectible but not worth a ton of money. Pretty cool stuff because it glows under a UV light.
Power tool chargers are a BOLO for me. I find them regularly for $1 at yard sales and they sell quick for $20-50+.
I also buy battery powered tools when the price is right and piece them out. I sold two craftsman reciprocating saws on ebay this week for $25 each. I bought an entire bin of Craftsman 18v tools last summer for $20. They were dirty but there were a ton of tools, a charger, and two batteries.
Yard sales are where the magic happens. Goodwills are great for bread n butter items but the unique stuff just never makes it to the floor anymore. Oh man, when I first started actively selling scavenge finds I found SOOOO much amazing stuff at Goodwill for next to nothing. It’s a different beast now – thrifts know what they have.
For every yard sale where I find shoes like that for $1, there will be another that has someone asking top dollar for everything. You just have to hit as many sales as efficiently as you can. I stick to the same local path every week and hit everything in that loop in about 2 hours. I never go to any other towns or areas here. I would if I was full time. If you’re willing to branch out to other areas and go HARD from 7am to 3pm you could find so much amazing stuff anywhere in the US.
If I remember right, you don’t have a car. It would be worth your while to rent a cheap car for the weekend for $100-150 and go to some suburbs around your area. Find some neighborhood wide sales and load up.
That would be a great adventure. It would be no sweat to score at least $1k of inventory for less than $100 COGS with a full days scavenging if you hit enough sales.
This Goodwill did me a favor and jacked their jacket/coat prices through the roof. So I only buy the heavy hitters now and ignore all the bread n butter items. I paid $15 for this jacket.
Their jackets range from $10-20 now, even for junky Walmart ones.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266435309834
Sony CFD-E75 Yellow CD Cassette Player AM FM Radio Portable Boombox w/ Remote
Bought last summer at a yard sale for $10. I’m surprised it took so long to sell.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266604152887
Harley Davidson Women’s Riding Motorcycle Jacket Shoulder Pads Medium Embroidery
Sold on offer for $45. I still have a couple of these women’s Harley jackets left.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266345892028
Tote 45 Record Green Carrying Case Hartzell Loaded With 54 45 Records 70’s 80’s
I LOVE picking up these awesome 45 record totes. I’ve sold several over the years with or without records. For the life of me I can’t remember where I picked this one up. Did I pick it up at a yard sale last summer or did I pull it out of the death pile? I think it was the death pile. Either way I only paid a couple bucks.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266371634359
Nike Apres Ski Knee High Snow Boots White Silver 414950-100 Women’s Size 7.5
Sold for full price. Paid $1 at a yard sale. SCORE!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266589024616
Greenworks 40v 2.5 Ah Battery WITH Charger 2938402 Tested Good
I bought what I thought was one battery and one charger at Goodwill. It turned out to be two chargers once I busted open the taped up box that was with it. FREEBIE! Sold on offer for $54. I have the other charger still listed so I’ll make more than originally planned.
Yay there were yard sales this week! I scored a handful of cool things, but I promptly buried them as I had to condense my van to make room to buy a new lawn mower.
Off hand I can remember a Nu Wave induction cooktop, a Mountain Hardwear Fleece jacket, a handful of Xbox One games, some Dyson vacuum accessories. Ah man there was something else really good ($100+ item) but this was a whirlwind weekend and I forgot!
Yesterday we did our weekly Goodwill trip. The highlight was a vintage Harley Davidson leather jacket. It is nearly identical to this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/284646392842
