Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Total Items in Store: 544
Items Sold: 9
Cost of Items Sold: $78
Total Sales: $418
Profit: $340
Highest Price Sold: $27 (copper ice bucket)
Average Price Sold: $46.44
Average Profit: $37.78
FBA items sold: 2
FBA Profit: About $10 (yay…)My new method of listing while my wife drives is working well. I was able to process three tubs of clothes and shoes while being a passenger this week. During that time I create the listings. Later I clean, take measurements, and take photos.
I also built my new enclosed wardrobes in the shed. I still need to cut the plywood for the shelf over top. I’ll investigate how to add photos of this over in the storage forum later.
I got a court reporter stenograph at goodwill for $12 this weekend. Preliminary research shows it will sell for approx. $200.
What a totally random item to find a goodwill!Once upon a time, Black Friday was totally worth it. They put normal inventory on ridiculous sales, and gave free gift certificates to the first 100 people through the door (and it was pretty easy to be in that first 100). It was a super fun day.
Nowadays, all the inventory is specifically made for that day. They get cheaper, crappier versions of products to sell that day as doorbusters. Honestly you can get the same price or better on the BF stuff for weeks at a time before BF. There is literally nothing offered on that day to get me to go out in the madness. We may go to walmart around 10:30 am to scavenge the leftovers of the cheap dvd’s for the kids for stocking stuffers. That’s about it.
Well to be honest Ecommerce, your system is so impressive that it likely puts the rest of us to shame. 🙂
I venture a guess that many folks here are just as weak as me on the COGS side of things and are simply afraid to publicly document it here. I want to improve my business, so the first step is admitting you have an issue. So here goes…
Originally I spent some time developing a very thorough tracking excel spreadsheet with charts, pivot tables, the works. Every line item was tied to a specific receipt line item. It became a massive chore to manage and was taking up my time I needed to devote to listing. I’m very part time with ebay, so every minute counts.
Here is what I currently do: I download my Godaddy sales data to excel, then add a column for COGS. What is my COGS? The majority of my items are bought at Goodwill for a set price. Shoes $4-6, Shirts $4, Coats $7, Toys $1-5, etc. Things I buy at yardsales I stick to a similar system but at less cost. Once in the ballpark, I add on whatever sales tax I paid and then a few cents to cover shipping supplies (they are part of COGS). Round off to the nearest dollar and call it a day.
I rely on my memory to do COGS. It’s a horrible system and I need to replace it. If my memory is in doubt, I err on the side of caution.
I can see why you are taking the time to renovate that house. The view is amazing!!!
I just started officially using the SKU field last night. Progress!! Currently I’m just doing box number.
I really wish ebay would add that field, taxes, and a few others to the mobile listing app. So do you guys make a code or just outright type the box #, COGS, date, etc.
Two of my kids (9 and 6) have items listed in my store. Just today my daughter came out to ask if I had anything she could list. I gave her some 90’s NWT Christmas plush bears. They help take the pictures of the items and help do research. When their items sell, they help pack them. I explain how the fees and shipping work and show them what their profit is. Half the profit is deposited in their savings account and the other half is theirs as cash to do with as they please.
It’s a great learning tool.
Padded flat rate priority envelopes! I don’t know how I lived without them for so long! I have not tried the legal envelopes. The padded ones are so much more forgiving that hard cardboard so I don’t have much use to the legal one.
Yes! That is it.
I got a return request from a person who said they “ordered by accident”. Sure enough, they bought the same item from another seller for less 20 minutes after buying mine. They must have made offers on a few items. I really feel like burning them on this on principle and decline their return.Hi everybody!
I’m located in WV. By day I’m a full time Mechanical Design Engineer, and by night I’m a full time child wrangler and ebay scavenger. I live with my lovely wife and 4 kids, whom we homeschool. We’ve also had two of our children at home with a mid-wife. You could say we take DIY to the extreme. Trust me, every day is an adventure in this household!This whole ebay adventure started after I was laid off from my job at a chemical plant at the beginnning of summer 2015. I had sold on ebay sparingly for years to fund hobbies and Christmas presents, but all the sudden with all this free time I started listing stuff. Then I started buying stuff at Goodwill to sell, and I was off to the races. I couldn’t believe people were willing to pay good money for this junk I was getting for pretty much nothing. I liked to refer to my thrift finds as “$20 bills lying all over the place just waiting for me to pick them up”. After about 2 months, I realized I had $3k sales in a single month! All the sudden it dawned on me that this could potentially be a full time job! Around that time I was offered an engineering job, so I took an extra month off so I could have the whole summer off. I decided to keep developing my ebay skills and started to research long term goals such as setting up a legal business, taxes, etc. It was about this time I stumbled across Scavengerlife. Finding this site has reshaped how I look at many things in life. Who knew there were so many like minded folks that were willing to share and help others like myself!
Since then I took the plunge and created my own business – Retro Treasures WV – and invested quite a bit of time/money honing my craft, building inventory, and increasing my storage capabilities. I openly share about my ebay business to my coworkers, as I want to make it quite clear I have “F-U” money and they can’t push me around. With today’s uncertain job market, I am working to ensure I can ramp up to full-time ebay status within days if my day job goes away. I am also working to become fully self-employed by 2020. One way or another, my days of working for the man and giving the bulk of my time to someone else are numbered.
My favorite items to find and list are shoes, vintage toys & electronics, and 80’s/90’s windbreakers (the tackier the better). My least favorite items to list are dishes and knickknacks.
Well you can always send her a picture of your measurement and ask how she measured it. If you can get her to admit in casual conversation that she lied or screwed up, you would have a case. Don’t be accusatory – let her think she won and she may give you what you want. If not, just move on.
I seem to sell 2-3 random items a week. I haven’t sent anything in since before their announcement. I have plenty to send in but the motivation is killed due to the announcement of the LTSF and the higher 4q storage fees. I think I’ll wait until December to send anything in.
