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The Goodwill near my house continues to have great shoes at even greater prices. I thought the days of plentiful bread n butter shoes for $3-4 were gone but here they are again!! Their shelves and racks are bursting at the seams and prices keep getting lower. I’m quite happy about this as they were on the wrong path for a while.
The Goodwill we go to on Sunday near where I work continues to get worse and worse. Here it is Christmas time and their shelves are half empty. They are down to like 5 carts so the store was full of people shopping in their arms. Their prices continue to get crazier and crazier – they charge $3-5 for used crappy VHS tapes!
They’ve also heavily expanded their “purchased goods” section and the prices on those are crazy as well – I scan them occasionally and they are almost always at or above the online value. They used to do 50% of value but I guess they feel that is no longer needed. Whatever. I just go there on Sunday so I can count my mileage of going to town for shopping and dinner. Any good items I scavenge are just bonus.
Anyhoo, my favorite item of my light scavenging was a Speed Racer Cosplay helmet with sounds. I paid $1 for it – I’ve sold one before for $50 so it was a no-brainer.
I also found a pair of Hoka shoes, but the soles had a good amount of general wear. I went ahead and got them as they are still a $30-40 pair.
At the “good” Goodwill the best pair of shoes I got was a pair of Ferragamo monk strap men’s shoes.
I just saw an advertisement for McDonald’s Crocs. The Grimace ones are pretty sweet.
I’ve shipped plenty of individual clubs. I haven’t ever shipped a full set but it wouldn’t be a big deal to. I’ve shipped items similar in size/weight to a golf club set. It requires joining two boxes one way or another along with some resizing. I just prefer selling the full sets local on FMBP. I take a couple pictures and throw them in my smaller shed and forget about them until they sell.
Loving Family was one of my first ever “BOLO’s”. When my oldest daughter was little, a neighbor gave her a TON of Loving Family stuff – multiple houses & tons of dolls/furniture. Then I found a bunch more at a yard sale for $20 – 2 houses, tons of dolls & furniture again!
I’ve been selling on ebay casually for years before I started a real business in 2015. My wife and I went through all this Loving Family stuff, kept what we wanted, and I sold the rest. I can vividly remember photographing those items resting on the deck rail of my back porch using the beautiful evening light and treeline as my backdrop. I made a TON of money. Since then I always buy it every time I see it.
I’ve sold well over 100 dolls at this point. Countless furniture individually or in lots.
The dollhouses are a pain to ship but I’ve shipped 5 or 6 of them. Always sell for $100+.
One time I bought a bunch of New In Box Loving Family stuff when K-mart was going out of business. Dozens of furniture sets that I bought for $5-8 and sold for $40+ each.
Ahh, Kmart Bankruptcy was VERY good to my business for inventory and business equipment. I even used my scavenger skills and bought a Carboard baler for my day job at Kmart.
Anyways, it’s all good stuff but the best stuff are the dolls with a pink heart on their back or an accessory with a pink ribbon. These are from the “sweet sounds” series and are interactive with the sweet sounds house. It’s a pretty cool house!
I’ve parted out a dishwasher, a dryer, and a washing machine. Each time I’ve made a TON.
I parted out a refrigerator too, but it is all still in a death pile. Shame on me!
I’m not willing to try it, but I’m pretty sure you could buy a brand new appliance from the store, part it out as new parts and make money.
I had a ton of low dollar sales this week. That’s fine by me! It all adds up and I need it all to sell.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266453569195
NEW BURBERRY LUXURY CASHMERE GIANT CHECK SCARF WRAP 168X30 CM IVORY
This was a random throw in item when I was buying the rest of the hoarder shoe collection. Not bad for a throw in item! Took an offer of $300 and already have glowing feedback.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266464034454
Gucci Black Rubber Marmont And Tiger Embellished Buckle Strap Sandals Mens Sz 10
This was my high dollar item of the week. A $400+ pair of shoes sold so all is right in the world. I haven’t sold a $400 pair yet this week so…..waaaaaaahhhhhhh!!! 😀
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266514541010
Wilsons Leather Maxima Penny Lane Long Boho Faux Fur Coat Size Small Vintage
I picked this up at the last yard sale of the season for $5. I was super bummed when I saw the spots on the back when I was photographing. Still sold quickly for $100. I don’t really buy coats anymore but the STR on this one fit the bill.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266446765777
Playskool Loving Family Dollhouse Figures Mom Dad Baby Set Vintage
Loving family is ALWAYS a BOLO. I paid $2 for this set at goodwill.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266461527698
Curt Custom Fit Class II Receiver Hitch – Fits 2008-2012 Scion XB, Model# 12490
I did end/sell similar on this one in October. I took an offer of $100. This was actually FREE at a yard sale a couple years ago. A major Pain to pack, but I was able to resize a box and make it work.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266524941337
Polo Ralph Lauren Cashmere Wool Vest Full Zip Black Men’s Size XXL NWT
Another pleasant surprise from the hoarder collection. I’ve said this before, but when I’m buying this stuff I’m just giving each item a quick glance, checking their price, and throwing them on a table as fast as I can go. So this one I saw NWT vest and thought “Yeah that’s at least $50” and moved on. I didn’t realize it was Cashmere and I didn’t see the original price tag either. Sold for $340 in a couple days.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266459911709
Motorola MDA920A-6 Single-Phase Full-Wave Bridge Rectifier Lot of 11
Years ago I bought a couple vintage electronics repair parts bins. I cherry picked the good stuff and listed separately and then listed the parts bins with the leftover stuff. So technically my cost on these is zero.
Ah man, I’m starting to miss the summer yard sales. Sooo much AWESOME stuff was found this year! Thrift stores are mainly just bread n butter boring stuff now to the point that when I go to post about my finds I draw a blank for a while. Once upon a time amazing stuff was always there, but not anymore. Ah they days of finding a near complete Voltron Castle of Lions for $3, or 5 pair of Buckle Jeans for $5 each back when they were HOT TICKET items are long gone. It would be so cool to live somewhere that yard sales happen all year long.
My highest value purchase was a set of brand new left handed Men’s Golf Clubs for $35. They’re a cheaper brand but for a throw away 12 club set $150 is a great price. I have them listed on FBMP for $150. Ironically I sold a pair of Left hand kids clubs the same day I picked these up.
My favorite item was a pair of these shoes:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/404427526958
I wish they were my size but alas, they are big kids size 6.
How do you keep track of cogs on so many single transactions? I assume you’re operating on purely a cash system -money and money out?
Are you able to keep track of the break even point on every card?
Items in Store: 2877
Items Sold: 45
Total Sales: $2,416.00
COGS: $223.00
Total Profit: $2,193.00
Average profit: $48.73
Average sales price: $53.69
New Listings: 112
Items scavenged: 22
2023 weekly new listings Avg: 46Surprising numbers as the week seemed kinda dead after Wednesday. Clearly I was able to get plenty of listing done with the extra time off work. I’m back on track to hit my listing goals. I’m also keeping the $70k dream alive.
This is only the 7th time ever that I’ve listed more than 100 items in a week. 5 of those occurrences have taken place since June of this year. The downside of listing 100+ items in a week is dealing with the inventory side of 100+ items. My current system is I keep a folding table in my garage for “outbound” listed items. Normally I move all the listed inventory from the week into storage on Sunday. Yesterday I opted to spend my time listing more instead. Gotta pay that piper at some point!
So I have my sales and listing goals mapped out for the last 5 weeks of the year. I’m gonna hit it harder than ever. At the beginning of the year I planned on shutting things down at Thanksgiving, but plans change!!! I also had zero energy at the beginning of the year with a bit of lingering long covid symptoms. I’ve dropped some weight, greatly improved my diet, and I have energy levels close to what I had prior to covid and no more breathing issues. I’m practically BUZZING with energy! I can do all the fun things with the family I want to do and still have energy for getting some work done. Lets GOOOO!!!
Premium Hoarder update:
Paid: $12441.00
Sales Minus fees: $ 20071.35
Total Sales: $23137
Items Sold: 200
ASP: $115.69
PROFIT!: $7630.35
I crossed several cool barriers this week – $20k in sales after fees, 200 sold items, and $7500 in profit. This is a pipeline that will make 2024 even more successful than this year. How cool would it be to hit $100k in sales in a year? Another marker of growth is that I redid my W4 to withhold extra taxes from each paycheck for state. I’ve always been able to cover my Schedule C state tax burden with the withholdings from my day job. I’m definitely gonna cross that threshold on state though next year. Definitely not Federal as I get 6 child tax credits! My state has very few deductions so I always owe money.
They were 60 cents a pound at Kroger. I’m cooking another one tomorrow just to have plenty of lunch meats. Going forward. That’s some CHEAP protein!
Just doing a little listing here and there and hanging with the family. Nothing special with eBay this weekend. No scavenging or anything.
The magic of Black Friday wore off about 10 years ago for me. I slept in until 8:30 today.
Good job on the higher dollar items. It is easy to get scared off by the higher COGS. This is one of the things that separates the pros from the casual sellers.
it’s all just a formula. If the STR and sales price makes sense, the COGS are irrelevant as long as you have the cash flow to pay the upfront cogs.
take shoes for instance – a local goodwill prices their shoes up – sometimes as high as $29.99!
I’ve happily paid $15-30 for pairs there if the STR is good and the sales price is good. If they want $19.99, the ebay sales price is $60+ and I feel confident that I can sell it within 90 days, I’ll buy that pair of shoes every time.
one pair of older Nikes I bought there for $30 without direct comps, but from experience I knew I could get $100+. I bought them and they sold for $120 a couple months later.
Do I miss the days of flat $4 cost for shoes at goodwill? YES! Those days are gone though and I had to adapt. I still buy just as many shoes and make even more money than I did before.
Justinresells has some great info! He is all about efficiency similar to me. You want to know most of my secrets – just watch this guy. He gets it!
there’s always plenty of stuff available for scavenging. I don’t sweat it when I see other resellers in my normal spots. Yeah they may get some good stuff, but I know they’ll miss stuff and/or are looking for stuff I wouldn’t be interested in anyways. They can have all the low STR/low dollar stuff! Then once they are gone more stuff will come
also, most of them avoid the shoes. 😀
I use every spare minute – that’s the secret. I get 2 breaks and an hour lunch at work. I do ebay in that time. I keep bins of unlisted inventory in my van. I always have a bin of drafted listings that just need photos. I take photos in the morning before I leave for work. I just take them and upload later. Photo uploading happens in the wasted minutes of the day- waiting in line, down time at work…bathroom breaks.
I also pay my kids to do some work, but they are very inconsistent. My son is decent at cleaning shoes. My daughter is quite good at photos but she is slow, easily distracted, and runs out of steam about 5 items in.where some people play video games, golf, work on cars – I do ebay. It is my hobby, my fun time.
