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And don’t forget there might be another round of stimulus money in late July as well. August might be an amazing month.
I have a new podcast to recommend here.
This is a horror audio drama podcast. They’re all very well done and about 30 minutes each.If you’ve never done audio dramas before, you’re in for a treat!
https://campfireradiotheater.podbean.com/Items in Store 1436
Items Sold 33
Total Sales $947.00
COGS $94.00
Total Profit $853.00
Average profit $25.85
Average sales price $28.70
New Listings 8I hit two big jackpots sourcing this weekend.
The first was at the end of a fairly disappointing yard sale day. The last stop was a bit out of the way, and very disorganized. Apparently the guy bought the house, contents and all, and was trying to recoup some cash and get rid of everything. Nothing was priced, so I spot checked a few items and then asked if I could just make a pile. I picked pretty much everything of value and got to negotiation. I dug into the awkward silence to force the guy to throw out the first number. He jokingly said $300, and I jokingly said “ok have a nice day”. Then he said $200. I looked through my wallet and only had $85 left (I keep more in truck for emergencies as a negotiating tactic). I offered what I had, and he didn’t like that. He started pointing out things that were valuable, so I told him to take out the things he found precious until he was comfortable at $85. After a minute of him struggling I asked if they did Paypal. They said yes, so I said “I can pay paypal if you’ll make it an even hundred.” They took that.
I filled half my truck bed with this haul! Multiple items that will sell for $50-100. I estimate total value of the haul at $1500.The next stop was at the local Goodwill that is next door to the Home Depot I needed to go to. They closed in 15 minutes so it was a quick stop. Nothing significant for the most part, then as I passed the toys I saw a neat board game that caught my eye – Electronic Mystery Mansion. Then I saw another awesome old board game…and another…and so on! I started spot checking to see value, and every one I pulled down had a great sell through rate and minimum sales price was $30 with some over $100. There was less than 5 minutes till they closed so I grabbed all the good ones – 11 in total – and high tailed it to checkout. I just hoped they were complete but expected them not to be.
Yesterday I went through all the games and 9 out of 11 were COMPLETE! The two incomplete ones were lower value games missing just a few minor pieces so still 98% complete and fully playable. I couldn’t believe the Mystery mansion was complete – that game has a ton of detailed parts.
My answer depends on the item, my state of mind, and how they phrase the request.
If I want to sell the item quickly, I’ll give them my bottom dollar. That bottom dollar will likely be higher than if they negotiated in good faith with an opening offer, I can tell you that much.
If I want to maximize profit I will respond reminding them that they are welcome to make an offer.Back to how the buyer phrases it. If I get a message that says something with minimum effort like a two word message of “Bottom Dollar”. I will flat out ignore. If a buyer can’t take the time to talk to me like a human being then they aren’t worth the time.
There was this one time on facebook yardsale a woman messaged me “What’s the least you’ll take?”. I responded by saying “What’s the most you will give?” She thought my response was insulting . Lol!
“What’s the least you’ll take” is the worst! It triggers me something fierce.These threads always veer this way. I once posted a link to a seller who documented shipping a HUGE Harley Davidson store sign. It was very impressive and shows just how far you can take “sell anything/ship anything”.
Instead of getting comments on the specific context of my link, I got a bunch of people bashing the seller because he sells E-books and leads a paid selling group.
I didn’t give one crap about any of that – it was just a cool sale!!!
Me personally, I don’t give one hoot if a seller takes off on social media and starts to make money off of it. I bet Jay and Ryanne have been told 1000’s of times they should do all of the things other sellers are doing. They have chosen not to, but I have no doubt they’d be GREAT at it. I wouldn’t fault them a bit for doing it, but no matter what there will always be the naysayers that would tear them down for “selling out” and “ripping people off”.
Thanks for the codes. This motivated me to finally use my quarterly coupon too. I didn’t realize they had record mailers. Most excellent as I needed some.
Mystery boxes…I’m no gambler so the little voice in my head telling me I should get one is pretty darn weak and easy to ignore.
The local $5 bins place has been doing $50 mystery boxes during the shutdown. They play a great game having people pose with their amazing finds for a photo – some even getting boxes with $100 bills in them. Strange…you don’t see any posts from the 49 other people out of 50 that got total junk.
The BOSS reseller group on facebook has also been doing vintage clothing mystery boxes. They make it look sooooo good. These are veteran sellers – why would they sell off prime inventory for cheap in bulk like that? Simple – because the math makes sense. A few people make out very well, while a higher percentage get junk and barely make their money back. Meanwhile the BOSS people offload a ton of slow dime inventory all at once and are flush with cash.
I had three well past 30 days that were still open – the oldest was opened in APRIL!
I started a chat with ebay and requested all three be closed. They closed them all no problem.I LOVE the ebay chat customer service. It is most excellent.
This is about the only subject I feel I could write a legit book about, but it isn’t on my list of things I really want to do.
My wife thought is finding herself as a writer. She is almost finished writing a novel, and my scavenger exploits are part of the plot so that’s something! I admire anyone who is capable of writing a full length book. That is an amazing accomplishment!
Man I hear ya!
Between my home project commitments and my exercise goals, I’m finding it VERY hard to do anything other than shipping on ebay.
I really miss working from home during the lockdown. I had all the time in the world!Thanks Jay!
This week I was looking for something to buy in the app and frequently scrolled through a banner of my own sponsored listings. I do 2%. Hopefully, it will pay off as some sellers forget about it or refuse to pay more fees.
Oh yes, I’ve noticed the scrolling banner on the screen that features only MY listings. Lame…
I just gotta remind myself that buyers don’t have listings, so that banner is full of things they might actually buy.Items in Store 1461
Items Sold 33
Total Sales $955.00
COGS $89.00
Total Profit $866.00
Average profit $26.24
Average sales price $28.94
New Listings 8Well I fell under $1k finally. It was a good run! I’m still WAY up (more than double) compared to this time last year. I also haven’t been listing for 3 weeks which cost me the $1k number this week for sure.
We did go out to yard sale this Saturday. Social distancing was definitely NOT a thing. I suppose there is an unwritten agreement that if you are hosting/attending a yard sale that you aren’t worried about the virus. Several of the people having the yard sales said the traffic was as heavy as trick or treat! I got some awesome stuff, but the highlight was this one yard sale that had records. Normally I avoid records like the plague due to the high junk to treasure ratio, but this one started off with the guy saying “records are a dollar except for Bob Dylan and the Greatful Dead.” Then another person asked him how much for a nice copy of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper Album. Oh crap! I better dig in!
I put together a pile of 10 and brought them up to him expecting him to change have sellers remorse and charge me $5+ for each of them. He flipped right past a very nice MJ Thriller album, Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, some AC/DC like they were nothing. When he got to the Beatles White Album I found he hesitated and asked for $10. I had NO PROBLEM with that! It was original, complete with headshot photos.
After seeing he was legit with the $1/record thing I went back to his rack and bought a bunch more.
Most of the ones I got will sell for between $10-20 so I won’t get rich, but it was sure fun! Preliminary research on the White Album I think it will sell for between $50-80 (high serial number…boo!)Items in Store 1486
Items Sold 39
Total Sales $1,168.00
COGS $105.00
Total Profit $1,063.00
Average profit $27.26
Average sales price $29.95
New Listings 0Bizarro world continues – 10 day handling time most of the week and THIS is a slow week now at almost $1200 gross? I’ll TAKE IT!!
So my day job has set some deadlines for us to use up vacation time. I was forced to burn a week of vacation by the end of May. It just so happened that South Carolina was far enough along in opening that beach resorts had their pools in service. It also happens that due to the CRAZY good sales on ebay that I am flush with cash right now. So instead of sitting at home for a week, we went and “social distanced” on the beach. We scored a great deal on a 2BR condo and we had an awesome time. It is always so fun to go down to the beach/pools for a few hours, then come back to the room to see I sold multiple things. It feels like I got paid to play! Everyone there at the resort handled social distancing quite well – it was never a problem.Due to the way handling time issues, I had a couple sales that still had 2 day handling that sold. Thanks to my inventory system and revamped and organized workstations in my office, I was able to recruit my 74 year old mother-in-law to pull 2 items, pack them, and ship them. I guided her through it via facetime. She handled it like a champ!
Now that I’m home I have to face the music: I have 50 things I need to pack/ship tonight. Ugh…
Last night I pulled all of them but didn’t have the energy to do any actual shipping.06/01/2020 at 10:53 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 464: In the wake of the pandemic- Facebook Shops #77988Items in Store 1525
Items Sold 48
Total Sales $1,832.00
COGS $203.00
Total Profit $1,629.00
Average profit $33.94
Average sales price $38.17
New Listings 59I was out of town so getting caught up. I set my handling time to 10 days starting Thursday and still had decent sales throughout the weekend. Ebay has been doing good fixing things lately, so hopefully the handling time thing will get fixed at some point this year.
I did do well selling on facebook yardsale this week. Last weekend I picked up two power wheels kids toys at a yard sale in my neighborhood for $5 each. I replaced the batteries with decent ones I had on the shelf already (I have ALOT of kids). Then flipped them quickly on FB for $75 each. I also sold off many of my extra mannequins.
I have never heard of a single one of those brands. I suppose I’ll have to look into it.
True designer stuff doesn’t pop up very often in my neck of the woods. -
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