Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
You can see the breaks in a conversation over time. Thread resurrections and such.
$1500 to hang 10 sheets of drywall? Wow. I need to get into that line of work. Sometimes I think I’m the only person in the world who enjoys doing my own drywall work.
Is it possible to show the date/time stamp on posts?
Another nice feature would be an easy way to see the threads with new posts since the last time I visited. One forum I used to frequent would make any threads with new posts BOLD FONT and all threads that have been viewed were standard font. Made it real easy to know what was new and what was stale.
Wow, I never saw the lots of 100. That is insane! I thought everyone sold by the pound. I’ll have pull 100 bricks and see what that weighs. It definitely is not a pound though. It would be easy to create 100 brick lots. I could get the kids to do that.
Your sales are awesome. Would you mind sharing your ebay store? I’d like to follow you if you don’t mind.
Oh and I have tried to get rid of all the megablocks. Some have slipped through but eventually I could tell them apart just by feel. They have a much cheaper feel to them and the color isn’t as crisp. Definitely way under 5%.
Thanks for the response! Your podcast interview gave me the “shove” to do this kind of experiment. I’m about 90% done sorting. This was my sorting method:
– common bricks & slopes.
– Technics & mindstorms
– all smooth top pieces
-all plates larger than the common sizes (1×1, 1×2, 2×2, 2×6 etc I consider common bricks)
– anything special or angular, hinges, odd shapes, specialty pieces,doors wheels, etc)
-minifigures & associated parts and accessories.I have close to 3lb of minifigures & parts in this haul! I think I will take some time to pick through this and piece together some complete figures to sell individually. I have two hagrids, and a rare crash test dummy I’ve pieced together so far. I should be able to piece together plenty of Star Wars, Harry potter, & LOTR characters. They seem to be the most sought after. Then I’ll just create 2-3 bulk lots to sell.
Is there a good way to identify minifigs? I’m not seeing part #s on the main printed body parts.
I plan to sell the common bricks, technics/mindstorms, plates, and flat pieces as 1 lb lots. List them by the pound but with quantity. I’ll randomly fill up lb lots.
I may spend some time sorting the specialty pieces. For sure I’ll gather all the star wars style space ship gray wing plates to sell as a lot. I may do a few hinge lots. everything else will be bulk.
One last question: Am I doing the right thing separating common bricks from specialty bricks/parts when doing bulk lots?
Total Items in Store: 595
Items Sold: 11
COGS: $36
Total Sales: $355
Highest Sale: Vintage Arnold Palmer golf shoes $55Things are still slow on ebay. Last week I didn’t list anything and focused on other projects around the house. I also spent a lot of time over the holiday sorting a large lot of legos I purchased at goodwill. It looks to be right around 70 lbs and cost $20. I will fare quite nicely on the lot. I found close to 3lb of minifigures in the lot – some of them worth $10-20 each. Now to get it all listed to start making money! I found sorting legos to be quite enjoyable and therapeutic. I’d do it again in a heartbeat…but I don’t think my wife was a fan of the process.
Hope everyone starts to see a pickup in their stores.
Got the shoes back. The buyer was so kind as to write me a personal note. They used lots of exclamation marks and also called me a crook. I feel like I’ve truly made it in the ebay world now! Lol!
The price is starting to climb the last few days. I’m feeling pretty good it will get there. I’ll check on ebay to see if I can cross list.
I don’t do packing slips. No particular reason – just don’t feel like doing it. One less sheet of paper in the landfill.
Oh there absolutely needs to be billing reform in the healthcare industry. That alone is killing people financially since most businesses are switching to high deductible healthcare with HSA’s. The days of co-pays are long gone for me. The insurance companies have to be loving this swing to high deductible HSA plans that pretty much absolve them from paying anything.
It is a HUGE problem that medical providers are still billing their absurdly bloated rates even though a large portion of their patients are on high deductible insurances. At this point I’d prefer to simply have a catastrophic insurance plan with something like a 20k deductible and negotiate everything else as straight cash – it would be cheaper in the long run. I pay $170 out of pocket to go to my general practitioner for the sniffles. In what world is that considered affordable?
I have a 6k deductible with my work insurance plan. I do get a match to my HSA contribution, but one hospital stay for anyone in my house and I am wiped out.
In summary I am paying a huge fee called a premium every month for the privilege to pay for ALLof my healthcare costs 100% out of pocket at prices that are significantly higher than what I would pay without insurance. That is the definition of insanity.
I ship well over 90% of my items USPS priority with the free $50 insurance. If it is not breakable I never buy insurance unless sales price is very high – well over $100. This is just to ensure against theft or loss.
FedEx ground has up to $100 shipping insurance, so that covers most of what I send that is bigger or going west coast. UPS is my last resort, and they for sure treat packages the worst. I insure everything over their included insurance as well because I KNOW they will go all Ace Ventura on that box.
So I guess my point is, I only buy insurance when the risk is pretty high that something will go wrong. I’ve had to file 4 claims due to gross shipper damage – all of which were paid. I bet I’ve only insured at most 10 items past the included insurance in the last 2 years.
I have several friends who have one of these faith based health plans and they are VERY happy with their plan. Our mid-wife has it and she was finally able to get a knee replacement she has needed for many years but never had insurance to pay for it. Another family we know has it and it works great for them.
It’s funny you mention this, because I was wondering the same thing just yesterday. Why isn’t there any decent secular group insurance funds? There really is no reason why there is not. Religious plans have two fundamental benefits that contribute to their success: The fundamental similar belief structure and a the existing and well organized network of churches. I think alot of the work is done by volunteer ministry as well, so overhead costs are low. Any successful secular plan would need to build off the backbone of an existing organized structure. A volunteer workforce is nice too, which is the hard part.
Margins on RA are very, very low. I think I average $7 after all COGS and fees.
Here is a current example I am awaiting sales on:
I bought and shipped these while out of town on business. I found these on great clearance at walmart for $9 each plus tax. I sent in 15 of them. My shipping costs were $33 along with an additional $10 in boxes and packing supplies. So my total cost per item rounded up to the nearest dollar is $13.
Shipping was expensive because I could only fit 5 to an 18x18x24 box. They also made me ship one box to CA.
History shows that this item went through the roof in the last few days before Christmas last year. I don’t know if that translates, but Monster High is still a hot item this year.
Currently the price is $25.99 and it has hovered there since I shipped items in. The fees are $12.58 at that price. At that price point I will make a whopping 41 cents per item for a grand profit of $6.15. Woo hoo!!!! I really do think there are amazon sellers that sell at those margins, which is crazy.
My goal sale price is $44.99. That would bring in $16.56 per item and $248 profit. It took me about 30 minutes to pack the items and listing time was negligible since this was a single SKU. So if (and at this point it is a very big if) these all sell for that price it will have definitely been worth the effort.
One other note, I am not including the ridiculous storage fees amazon is charging this month. I’m not sure what those are at this moment, but I’ll assume $1 an item.
