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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
I don’t have a specific recommendation. For Nike’s if you find a specific Jordan in the wild you can look up many specific guides for that style. Research into Nikes online is quite plentiful.
Whether it is shoes or clothes, it really comes down to a couple things – differences in the tag, the stitching, and general workmanship.
The best way to learn is hands-on. You have to handle some real items and some fake items to get the feel for it. You can’t exactly go to a store and buy fake clothes/shoes, so those you have to unfortunately buy your education occassionally. I unknowlingly bought a couple pair of fake Jordans from Goodwill a year or two ago. I got a great education out of it, and the single pair that were real paid for the education.
One of the pair of jordans was identified as fake by shining a light on the perforated areas. A real pair has highly reflective material underneath the perforated leather. The fakes had reflective material, but it was nowhere near as reflective as the real ones. Otherwise, they looked almost indistinguishable.
Another pair after going through one of the online guides was glaringly fake…once you compared them side by side. A casual view walking down the street noone would ever know.
Honestly this was the hardest part of some of the hoarder shoes, as brands like Prada and Versace are SURPRISINGLY low quality for a “premium” brand. Some shoes I flagged as being fake turned out to be very real.
So this isn’t a scavenge of this week, but it’s a scavenge…from a week. Who cares really? There are no rules!
During lunch I was doing some listing of some vintage clothing I bought at an estate sale a couple weeks ago. The first item was a vintage 90’s Tommy Girl sweatshirt. I noticed right off the bat that something was off. The stitching wasn’t quite right. The material was lower quality than it should be. The embroidery backing material was intact (nicer clothes use a water soluble backing).
The shirt was clearly fake and not even a great one at that. When I was shopping this estate sale it was a quick stop on my way back from my lunch break. clothes were $1 each so I didn’t do much inspection, just grab & go.
Back in the 90’s/early 2000’s flea markets were PACKED with knock off name brand stuff. I remember it well. It’s the most West Virginian thing in the world to go to the flea market every weekend. I would bet there is a collector market for crappy knock off stuff, but not on ebay! In the trash it went.
There is one fake item I’m holding onto though for educational purposes. I was super excited to pick up what I thought was a NWT Polo Ralph Lauren shirt. If you’ve followed my store you’d know I’ve become somewhat of an expert in Ralph Lauren vintage NWT stuff. Yeah…pretty darn fake. The tag is wrong. The material is wrong. The embroidered Pony is lacking detail, too small, and puckers the fabric oddly. The craftsmanship is just…off. They even have one of the tags that explains the method they used to dye and age the shirt. I can even tell THAT tag is fake.
There were multiple fake tommy and nike shirts mixed in, but not everything was fake. The best was a 90’s nike baseball t-shirt that says “Chick’s dig the long ball” and has a kissed ball on the back. I’m gonna list it for $60. There is tons of information on Nike tags that helps authenticate clothing.
Anyone remember “Big Johnson” T shirts? They were super popular in the early 90’s. I remember kids wearing them to school…and no one batted an eye! It was a different time then!
Unfortunately I didn’t find a Big Johnson tee, but I did find another similar double entrendre innuendo brand called Bump n Grind. It’s a pretty funny shirt but sans scantily clad women. That one I’m listing for $50.
I don’t know why you would ever want to talk to someone at ebay. The Chat function is far superior and you even get a chat transcript. I don’t miss the phone option one bit. I still have a bit of trauma from some of my horrific CSR calls with ebay from the past.
Items in Store: 2947
Items Sold: 29
Total Sales: $1,045.00
COGS: $156.00
Total Profit: $889.00
Average profit: $30.66
Average sales price: $36.03
New Listings: 7
Items scavenged: 7
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 342024 avg gross weekly sales $1,584.21
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 36
2024 ASP $44.45
2024 projected total sales $82,379.14Wow you had basically the same opening line as me. I’ve been insanely busy at home and at my day job. I’ve also not been feeling great lately. My diet and exercise have been at the bottom of the barrel. This week I’ve dialed in my diet which has given me a great energy boost. I haven’t listed much since I got back from vacation several weeks ago. As I start to feel better I hope I can get to doing more listings. I need to as it fits into other plans I have in the non-ebay world.
Even without much work other than shipping, the store is still doing pretty good! A week like this still being a $1k week when I did the bare minimum is like getting free money.
I only sold one item higher than $100 this week – a pair of the lower end hoarder shoes for $127.
One year ago my numbers were 10 sales for $497. The year before – 20 sales for $468. YEESH! The first 2 weeks of April have always been the weakest period of my ebay store since I started tracking my numbers (with the exception of Covid lockdowns anomaly)
So to put it in perspective, not listing going into the worst sales month of the year and I still had a $1k week. Yeah that’s not just great – it’s PHENOMENAL!!!
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 5 items for $287.
Eh, a slow week. The fact my big ticket hoarder items didn’t contribute this week makes the sales numbers even more impressive.
Oh yeah, all the art is about 12 feet in the air at Goodwill now. It’s so high up I forget it’s there most days.
he used to be just stacked against the wall to where you could flip through everything and once upon a time I would sell a piece of art here and there.
I haven’t really sold art in years nowNot alot of huge home runs this week, but some fun items to share.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266687590244
Adidas Originals Jardim Agharta Farm Firebird Track Jacket Brazil Rio SZ Medium
Picked this up at Goodwill for $10. It caught my eye while I was at the checkout on a rack that hadn’t been put on the normal racks just yet. I didn’t research it – just knew it was a sweet item that would do $30-40 easily. Well it was MUCH sweeter than that! Took an offer of $85, but I could have held out an eventually got full price. Holding out for full price just isn’t my game right now.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266219176990
Donald J. Pliner Vergil Mama Loafers Mens Size 9 M Black Brown Shoes
I’ve had good luck with Donald Pliner used shoes over the years in mens and womens. Driving shoes always sell well in many brands. Sold for full price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266673207425
Sip-A-Roos 1990 The Simpsons Bart Simpson Toymax Box Drink Holder New on Card
This one took a while to sell. I ended/relisted with a lower price a month ago. Looks like that led to the sale. Such a FUN item! I will always pick up things like this even if they aren’t super valuable, because I enjoy selling it.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266530655210
Nickelodeon The Rugrats Movie! Talking Reptar 8″ Wagon Toy Mattel 1998 With Dill
Yes, I realize now that it is Tommy and not Dill in the car. I copied from another listing and didn’t think about it much. The buyer is super excited – it was his favorite toy as a child and his kid wants to play with it too but he’s a bit rough. So buyer bought this one to give to his kid so that he can keep his own intact and on display. I love selling retro toys! This is the niche that makes ebay truly magical. Where else could this person have ever found this totally random toy from his childhood?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266687586719
Schaefer Outfitter Vest Style 707 Mens 2XL Brown Herringbone Wool USA Ranchwear
Paid $5 at Goodwill. The goodwills around me redesigned their stores so the whole store is clothing racks and everything else is in metal racks on top of the clothing racks. Thankfully I’m tall – this layout SUCKS for short people. Anyways, my usual method is to go around the whole store and just let my eyes quickly scan the clothing racks and top racks to see if anything catches my eye. I also tend to run my hands along the clothing as high quality fabrics just have a different feel. This vest stood out as unusually high quality and wool. Gut feeling was correct. Sold in about a month on offer for $85.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266414778684
Lara Croft Tomb Raider Encounters the Ferocious Doberman Action Figure In Box
The last of the Lara Croft playsets. Sold on offer for $50. Paid $2.
Resale value of Vineyard Vines has dropped over the last couple years. Much like common Ralph Lauren shirts – it used to be an easy $30-40 item. I still pick it up when cheap, but not a home run sadly.
Scavenge of the week was a Harley Davidson removable sissy bar. Paid $25 at Goodwill. Will sell pretty much instantly for $100-125.
I’m so excited for yard sale season to start!
I started selling arcade/pinball parts on eBay and FBMP in 2006. I funded an impressive collection of games and paid for vacations/extra stuff just like I do now.
I loved buying arcade parts lots on eBay and then parting them out.
my favorite item to buy cheap and part out was NFL blitz arcade control sets. I’d buy the guts of a machine for cheap. The controllers were special “49 way” optical controllers. I could sell each of the 4 joysticks to MAME cabinet builders for $50 a pop.I’m really digging your current sales strategy. Work smarter – not harder! Increase ASP, lot up low dollar items. Improve str. Don’t run a 3000 item store if you don’t have to.
you can “hustle” yourself into worse profits. I listened to a technsports interview with a shoe seller a couple weeks ago. The shoe seller increased his items sold 30% year over year…and made LESS money! That’s a terrible strategy and a good reason why you have to track the metrics that make sense – not just churn out total sales and gross sales numbers at the cost profit per item.
I get first dibs. They didn’t want to mess with it again till spring. I didn’t want to pay for a storage unit. It all worked out. I would have spent well over $1k on a storage unit by now and tied up a bunch of capital.
There is a garage packed full of the rest of the stuff at the house in my neighborhood. About 50 bins worth.
