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Last week we went on vacation to the beach, so not much scavenging. I wouldn’t have done much anyways. I did stop by Goodwill yesterday to give it the once every 1-2 weeks run through.
I bought a couple pair of shoes – the best being a pair of Asolo hiking boots with Gore-tex lining. Pretty much any shoe/boot with gore-tex lining is a good pickup and a sign of high quality.
I picked up a couple clothing items – the best being an Orvis high pile fleece jacket. Comps put it at $70-80.
One other item of note is one I did NOT buy. It was a farberware 455 Rotisserie. I gave it a good once-over and it appeared be functionally complete buy missing a minor accessory or two. The sales prices can get up to $150. They were asking $15 so the profit was there. The box is really big though and the STR was not great. I passed based on the size of the item and the STR. I am more focused on clearing space right now and don’t want something like this taking up space for a while.
I’ve used the tool a few times. I actually just used it yesterday as a buyer left negative feedback because usps fumbled the shipment and took too long.
eBay removed the feedback within a few hours.Ah that stinks. Pay a premium…to pay a premium. At the end of the day the numbers either work or they don’t. Eventually they’ll price themselves out of a huge crowd and regret the greed….or they won’t and they’ll make more and more.
I also don’t get the strategy of trying to get global prices over a single weekend with a very local crowd of 50-100 people. I bought some mobility scooter tires at an estate sale last week. I paid $5 a tire. The lady asked me what they were – I told her. Then she asked if I would tell her what they are worth. I said “every part for those things is worth a lot. It’s finding the buyer that will pay that price is the problem. I’m probably the only person who would come through here this weekend and buy them – much less know what they are”.
Amazon links appear to be broken on the forum. I tried a couple ways. You’ll need to remove the spaces before and after the “:”.
Yeah I’m not sure what happened there.
Try these:
https : //www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFBFMVBL
https : //www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKVCDHFX
If you know that you will make bank being able to get in there early on this stuff then it really is a no-brainer. I would have a really hard time on principle paying it. I also don’t fault the organizers one bit for doing it if the demand is that high.
What a different world than what I’m used to!
Items in Store: 3023
Items Sold: 48
Total Sales: $2,135.00
COGS: $242.00
Total Profit: $1,893.00
Average profit: $39.44
Average sales price: $44.48
New Listings: 30
Items scavenged: 31
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 43
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,658.22
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 38
2024 ASP $43.64
2024 projected total sales $86,227.56My 2024 metrics are still trending upwards. Let’s keep that trend going! One perk with this pregnancy that I’ve never had before is that my day job now offers 4 weeks paid paternity leave. So when the baby is born I get to stay home for a month. Yay! It’s safe to say I’ll make TREMENDOUS strides with ebay in that month. The baby is due in July so it’s a great time to be off for a month. No school is happening, the weather is phenomenal, etc. That’s the push I’ll need to really set up for a bonkers Q4.
I decided to treat myself and upgrade my photography setup this past week. I bought some new marine vinyl as my current piece is looking pretty ragged. I also bought some LED lights to replace my CFL light setup.
I got these for the front/side lights first. I place these at the front corners of the 3’x5′ table aimed downward at 45 degrees. I mount them to the ceiling on dowel rod. I just had to take down my old CFL ligthts with umbrellas and put these up.
I was very happy with these lights, but they made the CFL’s I had overhead look like absolute crap. So I ordered this one to put overhead:
I’d like to rig up a method to raise/lower the overhead light with a telescoping pole so I could get it closer to smaller stuff.
Items sold is staying strong. MY ASP is getting bailed out by some high dollar hoarder items. This week I had 13 items sell for $13 or less. Like I said before – I’d rather get money for some of these old listings than just throw them out! I didn’t hit my listing goal as this weekend I did zero work on Saturday and spent my work time on Sunday doing some VERY necessary inventory management. During the weekdays I made sure to list 6 new items each day before I left for work in the morning. It takes me 10-15 minutes to photograph 6 items which is no big deal to do before heading out. Then I upload the photos and list the items during break at work.
One thing I’m getting concerned about is that I’m listing more shoes than I’m selling. Shoes are the easiest thing for me to source and list. I keep a bin of shoes in my van so I can list a couple pair every day just in downtime. My son cleans them. My daughter is good at photogrpahing them.
I currently have 892 shoe listings. I’ve sold 102 in the last 90 days for an 11.5% STR. I’m basically selling 8-10 pair a week and listing 15-20 a week. Eeesh… I gotta sell more of these bad boys (lower price) and increase my standards for STR even higher! a 25% 90 day STR on shoes should balance me out so that my shoe inventory doesn’t grow much more. I’ll check again in 3 months to see where I’m at.
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 12 items for $1330. I crossed a couple milestones. I crossed 300 items sold (305), $30k in sales minus fees ($30352). I’m just shy of $18k in net profit, which counts ALL of my COGS including unsold or unlisted inventory. It’s about time to start getting the rest and I am NOT ready. I’ll figure it out.
You find so many amazing hard goods like the quimper bowl. Is the trash to treasure just better there in SoCal? Do you have to pay up to get the cooler things? How much do you go scavenging to find all these unique and cool things?
The hard goods sections in my redneck area are all dollar tree or target junk. The big special glassware around here is Blenko Glass and that stuff never hits the Goodwill. Collectors around here are RABID for it so it’s not a market I’ve ever considered getting into.
They’re still open too. https://blenko.com/
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266479930068
Prada Americas Cup Shoes Sneakers Size 10.5 New In Box Red Gray
TL;DR – sold for $425 on offer. Now it gets long winded. Buckle up.
So I had a buyer low ball me. I countered and it went nowhere. Then a day or two later they gave a mild sob story and asked if I could meet them halfway at $350. I agreed…and then they never sent the offer.
Then like 5 days later they message me another story apologizing for the delay and about purchase priorities, budget, etc and tell me these are on the MUST HAVE list so they will buy them. They proceed to send me an offer of…$290. First things first, I check their feedback left for others. Everything looks great. I think “surely they are confused and mixed up items/offers”. So I countered at $350 with a note that says “the agreed upon price was $350”. They counter back at $310. Now I’m pissed! I add them to my blocked bidders list and then decline the offer. A couple hours later I get a $320 offer from another user conveniently in the same town. What a coincidence!! I decline. Then I get the $350 offer – another coincidence! I decline that as well. All the while I am hoping they admit in messages that it is the same person so I can report them to ebay. No dice. They’ve never admitted it and I haven’t asked.
Anyways, they go up to $370 and send me a message: “Please accept. This is all the money I have”. DECLINE. They messaged another offer I declined then asked what the lowest I would take. Still I didn’t bring up I know this is the same person and just say “I’m not much interested in offers at this time on this item.”
A little while later they send me an offer of $425. Ebay had the little message on there that says they will charge the buyer immediately. Now I’m starting to doubt myself thinking this may not be the same person. The feedback left is also great but the wording structure is completely different. I think “It’s getting late in the week, I really could use this sale. They’ve screwed themselves out of $75 so they’ve learned their lesson”. I accept the offer and wait. Usually it takes up to 5 minutes for an auto pay offer payment to go through. 30 minutes goes by. Then an hour. Now I’m PISSED all over again! I chat with ebay to figure out what is going on. They’re about as helpful as much as you’d expect, but the basic ghist is that if there isn’t money in the account the auto pay won’t go through. The only act on ebay’s part is to send the buyer a message and tell them they have 4 days. It’s a clever way for buyers to get around the auto pay and default back to the 4 day window. I expect this to increase once people figure it out. GRRRRR EBAY!!!!
So I message the buyer and let them know I’m pretty pissed off that the payment didn’t go through. Basically said if I don’t either have a payment or some communication of exactly when the payment would be made that I would cancel the sale after 24 hours. I wasn’t gonna do the 4 day thing where I get no communication. I did get the payment finally yesterday. Hopefully the story ends here and I live happily ever after with my money.
It appears that bartman cell was likely still a good buy but that COGS is a tough pill to swallow.
To this day I can still knock out that entire song. I wore my Simpsons Sing the Blues Cassette tape plum out!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266340081015
Mont Blanc Vintage Fountain Pen With Case Paperwork extras
This is a pen I got at the premium hoarder sale. Just a random throw in item for $1. I tried unsuccessfully to get the BIG BUCKS Mont Blanc sale at auction and then a slightly less big bucks sale BIN but alas, no takers. Took an offer of $75. Still an amazing sale.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266388629238
Nike Air Max 270 Extreme Girls Shoes Size 3.5 Youth Purple Lava Glow CI1108-010
What a great shoe sale. Took an offer of $50 – listed for 6 months. Don’t sleep on kids shoes. There are some great ones in there.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266608176336
Puma Ring women’s 7.5 boxing weightlifting shoes black green
There were no comps for these, but they are AWESOME and I knew someone would agree. Took an offer of $65 and listed for just under 2 months. Paid $7 at Goodwill.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266414774829
Tomb Raider Lara Croft Legendary Yeti Figure Playmates Vintage 1999
I paid $1 each at a yard sale for this and several other sets. It was a memorable interaction. The whole family was out there – kids, parents, grandparents. Right before I checked the price the dad had told his daughter that she could price anything any way she wanted. She said $1 each and the dad was frantically trying to intervene but also trying not to go back on his word. His wife quickly reminded him to let her do what she wanted while the grandparents laughed hysterically. I’m thinking his wife was VERY happy his Lara Croft collection was hitting the road. LOL! Note: I bought alot of stuff at this sale – not just the girl’s stuff. After it was all done I gave the girl an extra $10.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266694528500
Apple Pencil (2nd Generation) for iPad Pro (3rd Generation) – White
Sold for full price same day I listed it. I got this at a yard sale in October. I don’t really know why I’ve sat on it so long. It was so easy to list and ship. I paid $20 at a yard sale.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266547700388
Nike Speedsweep VII Wrestling Shoes Black 366683-004 Mens Sz 9.5
If there was one shoe type I would recommend to buy every time you see it, it would be wrestling shoes. I’ve sold every pair I’ve ever listed and they sell quick. I wish they showed up more often! Adult or kids, any brand – it doesn’t matter. By default every wrestling shoe is high quality and they rarely if ever show signs of wear.
LOL! In what reality are they living in? That’s nowhere near a realistic price – not even for ebay. Shoot, they aren’t even that expensive in the store with the perma-coupons!
I’ve seen similar in some of the other chains in Columbus. Goodwill tried it here and it seems to have burned out (YAY!)
I can’t wait for spring so I can start picking up nice shoes for $1 at yard sales again.
Ah, so being able to read all of it makes sense. They want to cut out the community aspect, keep out the riff raff commoners, but ALSO still want the large supply of donations to send directly to thrift books to be sold so it is a pure profit stream with little to no effort.
That bit at the end where they were hoping to still get the volunteers to keep weeding out the valuable stuff for their gift shop before it goes to thrift books – nice.
I venture a guess that they have already polled their big donors regarding the book fair. If they don’t fear losing the big bucks then the decision is pretty easy. I for one hope they haven’t and they have to eat crow next year to appease one of their donors.
This pair has some model key words that I cannot find anywhere. I think I’ve done about all the research I want to do. They’ll get listed this week with all the keywords and let it ride.
If you do clothes it is possible to source on whatnot with the right sellers. Some of them are quite reseller friendly and just churn through high quality stuff.
So with T-shirts – I typically don’t waste my time shopping for them at thrifts. Their prices are hight ($5 with tax). The trash to treasure ratio is very high. It just is not a good investment of my limited time to spend an hour in t-shirts to find a handful of $20 items when I can do the entire store in less than an hour at a high level and get a cart of $30+ items.
But on Whatnot, I get an item every 30 seconds that is a great shirt and I might be able to get it for cheap if the other people in the feed are focused on waiting for specific things.
I did some buying on there back in late 2022 when I still didn’t have much energy (MUCH easier to shop online while chilling in the hot tub!). My average COGS was about $12, but my ASP was going to be $35+. Sadly I’ve still never listed those shirts. Maybe I should get that box out and list them. I know where they are. There was some pretty cool stuff in there.
So if you are comfortable with higher COGS, Whatnot could be a good source.
