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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.
Items in Store: 2810
Items Sold: 31
Total Sales: $2,511.00
COGS: $239.00
Total Profit: $2,272.00
Average profit: $73.29
Average sales price: $81.00
New Listings: 52
Items scavenged: 19
2023 weekly new listings Avg: 44My day job consumed alot of my energy and brain power this week. It was a rough week catching up from being gone for a week. Then this weekend I had alot of housekeeping to do with ebay inventory. I still managed to get 52 listings up, and it is kinda funny that I consider 50+ listings a disappointment now. That’s ALOT of listings for a very part time business! Normally I (frustratingly) wake up early on the weekends, but this weekend I slept in until 8:30 both days. That means I didn’t get any ebay work done in those 2-3 hours before everyone else wakes up.
I’m falling behind on my listings goal, but it was a stretch goal anyways. We’ll see if I can catch up a bit this week since I have some time off. I’m already at 26 listings as of this morning for the week. I’m off work the rest of the week after today. It’s not out of reach by any means. And even if I don’t hit the goal (which will be 2500 new listings on the year!) I have already listed more than any other year already by several hundred. Here are my fall/winter listing stats:
FALL/WINTER
Goal: 1113
Current 698
Remaining 415
Remaining Avg Needed 69
Current weekly avg 58Now aside from listings, another goal I had this year was beating my numbers for 2020 – the anomaly covid year. At this point in 2020 I had $52563 gross sales. So far this year I’m already at $57011 gross sales! I’m gonna beat the brakes off my 2020 sales! Woot! I don’t think I’ll hit $70k, but it will be close. I’d have to average $2165 a week the rest of the year. I mean weeks like this helps, but I had some heavy hitters that got me there this week. That isn’t gonna happen every week.
Premium Hoarder update:
Paid: $12441.00
Sales Minus fees: $18825.62
Total Sales: $21701.00
Items Sold: 192
ASP: $113.03
PROFIT!: $6384.62
12 Items for $1812 this week. So I’m back to getting some of the clothing listed after heavily concentrating on the shoes for a few weeks. It has been nice to be paying all my bills including credit cards with my ebay checking account lately. My hope is to have a nice healthy business bank account come January and make an offer on everything that is left. We’ll see!
My Average sales price this week was $81, so I definitely had some heavy hitters!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266422788354
Magic Silk Vintage Silk Pajama Set Men’s XL Olive Green
From the premium hoarder haul. $80 on offer.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266282914754
Vintage Wilson Pro Model A2601 Matty Alou Baseball Glove Straplock 11″ RHT
This glove is so minty fresh! Took an offer of $60. I paid $5 at a yard sale. I’m always looking for baseball gear. It can be quite lucrative.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266388875556
RLX Polo Sport Men’s Tank Top Ralph Lauren Size XXL NWT Vintage Black Blue
Yes, a tank top sold for $50 on offer. From the premium hoarder collection. Sales like this were why I went all in.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266461506017
Power Legs Vibration Plate Foot Massager Platform with Rotating Acupressure Head
Sold for full price – $60. Paid $10. When I bought this I was hoping to get $150. It just never happened and I lowered the price a couple weeks ago when doing sell similar to all my hard goods. $60 and reclaimed some valuable shelf space. WIN!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265571979540
Sizzix Tim Holtz Winston Colorize Thinlits Die Set Christmas Snowman 665569
I bought a TON of these at Hobby Lobby a few years ago when I bought all the art markers. They haven’t sold as quickly as the markers, but when they do sell I make good money. They take up pretty much zero space too. I paid about $4 for this one.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266460855527
Louis Vuitton LV Monte Carlo FA0175 Driving Loafers Men’s Moccasin Shoes Size 10
The new champ for biggest hoarder shoe sale – full price $700. I was soooo bummed when I realized they were used and the bags were mis-matched. The matching bag is long gone with some used ones I sold from the first batch of shoes. With the original receipt I was hoping for my first $1k pair.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266146125847
Starter Pro Line Cleveland Browns Jacket Size L Windbreaker NFL Vintage
Poor Cleveland fans. They just can’t catch a break. At least this guy will look fly in this sweet vintage starter jacket while rooting on his team! Sold for full price. I paid $8.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266371701272
Marshall University Crash Memorial 2000 Sweatshirt 30 years MAC Size L Vintage
I am able to find alot of Marshall gear in my area. I’d rather this shirt not exist for obvious reasons. I took an offer of $80 – paid $4 at Goodwill. WE ARE…MARSHALL!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266447333296
Polo Ralph Lauren Men’s Bedford Chino Pants All Over Embroidered Pheasant 42×32
I have another pair of these hidden away in one of the bags of hoarder clothes remaining. Took an offer of $150.
No awesome finds for me this week. I didn’t really do much scavening either. Just some bread n butter shoes. The goodwill close to my House started pricing most shoes in the $3-4 range again. That is a nice return to reality!
I was listing from the hoarder collection yesterday – kinda like scavenging because I have no idea what is in the bags. I pulled out a $300 Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater (YAY!!!)…..that had moth holes ok both sleeves (BOOO!!!)
I still listed it for $150.
I’ve pulled several cashmere sweaters from the hoarder haul that moths have gotten to. They leave the wool alone though – snobby moths!Oh, I didn’t realize I copied that in. It’s a formula I set up two or three years ago in my spreadsheet to limit how much inventory I could purchase each week based on my sales and listing activity of the previous week. I haven’t been copying it into my weekly numbers and I’ve never deleted it from my spreadsheet.
it was kind of a dumb metric which, if I would’ve applied to the premium order score, I would not have been able to buy any of it!
I kept having to make exceptions to the rule, so this year I changed my scavenging rules to take STR and sales price into account to limit my scavenging.
I loosen the rules a bit during yard sale season but when it comes to thrift stores I’m pretty strict.basically anything under $50 has to have 100% or better 90 day STR. Items $50-100 to be greater than 50% STR. items that sell for over $100 are no brainerd unless it is huge or awkward.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266288851618
DENIM & SUPPLY Ralph Lauren Jeans Men’s 32×34 Slim Fit Tan
A bread ‘n butter Premium hoarder pants item. Took an offer of $85. Paid $7.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266371172915
SkylinkHome GB-318 Smart Button Universal Garage Door Opener Remote
This is an example of a lower dollar item I still buy. It was cheap ($3). Super easy to list/store/ship, and had a great STR – sold in less than 90 days for $25.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266471244335
Rollerblade Fusion Inline Skates Men’s Size 9 27 Vintage Original Box Light Use
I was hoping to get more for these originally. I paid up at $20 at goodwill. When I listed them it became apparent they were used – I thought they were new. Still, $60 is nothing to sneeze at! I lowered the price and took an offer as I’ve really wanted to move larger hard goods recently.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265817610988
Sonic the hedgehog 1993 SEGA candy figure RARE Complete
This came from a huge lot of old happy meal style toys I bought at a yard sale summer of 22. It’s always neat to find an item in a lot that turns out to have value that appears to be junk. Took an offer of $30 – cost was practically nothing.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266371664790
C.E. Schmidt Fit For Her Workwear Insulated Bib Overalls Women’s Size XL Short
Paid $5 at a yard sale this summer. Sold for $50 on offer. It pays to be willing to shop/list/ship practically anything.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266445915574
Winnie the Pooh Disney Flips Plush NEW Pooh To Honey Pot Disney Parks Large
Same story here – always give plush a look. I always scan plush looking for something that catches my eye for a further look into comps. This was a death pile item that I finally listed. Sold quickly for full price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266480534569
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266477179190
Sold two pair of Prada shoes from the hoarder collection. Both sold for over $400 each and within days. I wish all the shoes sold within days!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266453550821
Versace Classic V2 Shirt XXL Classic Button Up Long Sleeve Mens Blue
Sold for $50 on offer from the premium hoarder collection. Versace is overrated. I’m glad someone wanted this shirt. I’m not a fan!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266438112302
Sansone EUROPA 5 Liter INOX 18/10 Stainless Steel Oil Wine Water Fusti Tank
Also from the premium hoarder collection. Sold for $90. I think the sticker price was $5 or $10. While waiting on them to add up and bag my items I grabbed this and a few other hard goods in a box that hadn’t been put out yet. I made a couple hundred off of these hard goods items already – basically free money!
I found some success on Amazon FBA around 2017/18 I think? It was a pain to learn, but once I developed a good methodology I was able to make some money at it. The sales prices in some cases were WAY over ebay values, especially in books. I even took my little printer on vacation or business trips and did retail arbitrage at Walmarts while traveling. I’d buy the boxes at the same time, create the labels & shipments right in my van or at the hotel. Then drop off the packages. Then just watch the money roll in. The idea of ship it all and forget it was NICE!! Being able to buy (for example) 20 Bratz dolls, print out 20 barcode labels, slap them on and box them all up and be DONE was nice. In that scenario, all 20 dolls sold within a couple days and I made a couple hundred bucks!
I couldn’t have done that on vacation with ebay as I couldn’t have brought all those home with me. They also wouldn’t have sold quickly or for near the same amount.
A couple things happened though – Amazon went crazy with gating. Amazon drastically changed their storage fee structure with NO warning right in 4Q – basically elminating long tail inventory. Also, stores like Target & Walmart got wise to the retail Arbitrage game and stopped putting out good deals. The local Goodwills started their own book scanning program to weed out the valuable books before they hit the shelves, so the book game dried up too.
I watch a video game seller who is wildly successful on amazon selling video games. The prices he gets are way higher than ebay prices. So much higher that he can actually pay people the going ‘ebay after fees’ prices for games and then list them on amazon FBA!!!
Anyways, I’m sure Amazon FBA can still be profitable but the golden age of small time sellers on FBA is long past.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266319474059
Coogi Classic Sweater Linen Blend Collared Brown Size L
This was the item that started the whole premium hoarder deal in motion. Almost didn’t go to this sale and when I saw where it was, almost didn’t go once arrived. It was at the end of our yard sales trek for the day. I wasn’t really interested just glancing around, and then my wife handed me this shirt. I about crapped myself! New with tag Coogi sweater?!? Then there were more and more high end clothes??? Most new with tags???? Prices $10 or less!!!??????
I was there for about 2 hours. My wife walked home as she was done. LOL! Good times! I just crossed $20k in gross sales from this haul.
Always be scavenging, even if you aren’t buying much due to higher thresholds for what to buy to minimize death piles. You never know when a deal like this will come up.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266438115575
HASBRO TONKA RC REMOTE CONTROL MIGHTY DUMP TRUCK Rare Vintage Wireless 2003
Paid $2 YEARS ago at goodwill. So long ago that it was pre-barcode at goodwill. I’ve tried to mix in a death pile tub here and there in the last couple months to clear up storage space. This was one of those items. Sold for $50.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266471222134
Guitar Hero Live XBOX ONE Bundle Complete w/ Controller Dongle Game Strap
I bought this at a really cool estate sale of the entire inventory of a 50+ year antique shop in my home town. Paid $35. Took an offer of $110 just to get stuff moving. I was hoping for $180 when I listed it. I just pulled down my stash of guitar hero/rock band stuff from a storage loft this weekend to list. It paid off to procrastinate/death pile this stuff as rock band gear has just kept going up in price. Some of the guitars I have sell for $100+ each!! I have like 20 guitars and 5 drum sets! Here’s to having many more $100+ guitar hero sales in 4Q.
Items in Store: 2789
Items Sold: 29
Total Sales: $1,411.00
COGS: $239.00
Total Profit: $1,172.00
Average profit: $40.41
Average sales price: $48.66
New Listings: 33
Items scavenged: 17
2023 weekly new listings Avg: 44
Sourcing Allotment: 13Forum ate my numbers post after editing. I had written some cool stuff too! Oh well…not gonna type all that again.
Was out of town all week for a ‘day job’ business trip with time away on. No listing and time away reflected lower numbers…but if this is my ‘off’ week I’m SUPER happy with it!
Items in Store: 2785
Items Sold: 32
Total Sales: $2,016.00
COGS: $239.00
Total Profit: $1,777.00
Average profit: $55.53
Average sales price: $63.00
New Listings: 35
Items scavenged: 0
2023 weekly new listings Avg: 44Busy week – we did a haunted house in our front yard this year for trick or treat. I planned a last minute ‘day job business’ trip which had me putting my store on time away starting Thursday night. Sales definitely slowed down after that with NO sales on Sunday.
No scavenging as we had things to do and also packing/leaving to go on trip. Listing was also light as I just didn’t have time to finish taking photos. I also went down on Thursday due to a massive migraine. I wasn’t able to get my shipping done and got hit with a pile of late shipping defects. Still have top rated seller though, for what that is worth (Not much!)
Premium cumulative numbers
Total COGS: $12441.00
Total Sales (minus fees): $16527.61
Items Sold: 171
ASP: $111.42
PROFIT!: $4086.61
Sold 8 items for $1243 this week. I listed a couple pair of shoes this week. I need to get back to listing the clothes too soon.
Sold a pair for $450 yesterday. All is right in the world again!*
*until I start selling $1000 items regularly. Then the $450 items will suck. LOL!
might take a break and reorganize a bit by weekend. It’s getting a little chaotic in the garage and I have some empty bankers boxes.
If you saw my garage/office I bet you’d feel alot better about yours! The only thing I haven’t had to do to navigate my mess is crawl under things to get around. Give me time – I’ll get there.
The ones selling for $250 this week were about right on sale price. It’s just funny that I sell a few in the $500-600 range and now the $250 items feel like small potatoes.
I don’t trust “recommended item specifics” from any program that automatically assigns “Boots” or “Blue” as a character item specific on a ton of my items. Yesterday I listed a pair of shoes with pebbled leather and the algorithm nailed it by assigning pebbles as the character theme.
I fill out the ones that make logical sense of something a person would actually filter on.
Items in Store: 2782
Items Sold: 34
Total Sales: $2,107.00
COGS: $233.00
Total Profit: $1,874.00
Average profit: $55.12
Average sales price: $61.97
New Listings: 30
Items scavenged: 16
2023 weekly new listings Avg: 45Wow this week was a total blur! It was incredibly busy non-ebay wise. I was kinda surprised I got 30 listings up – a credit to my workday break listing dedication. Right now I’m just staying in a constant state of exhaustion. Maybe November will bring some relief.
I’ve crossed the halfway mark on my fall/winter listing goal of 1113+ listings and I’m on track to meet the goal. I need to average 59 listings/week through the end of the year to get there.
I’ve been heavily focused on listing the new in box shoes which is fine but I really need to get back on the clothing this week to get my listing numbers up.
The more you list the more you sell. The more you sell the more you ship. The more you ship the less time you have to list, so the less you sell. Curse you cycle of exhaustion!
We had some AMAZING weather this week and ended up with multiple good yard sales as well which is really odd for late October. I was pretty picky so I didn’t buy too much. Our normal crappy weather will be arriving this week so I’d say we can about put a bow on yard sale season. What a season it was!!!
Premium cumulative numbers
Total COGS: $12441
Total Sales (minus fees): $15449.31
Items Sold: 163
ASP: $109.26
PROFIT!: $3008.31
9 items for $1200 this week. I kept listing NIB shoes and they kept selling. I turned down a $250 offer on a new Burberry scarf this week. That was hard to do but I know it will sell for over $300. Sold a Louis Vuitton Blazer this week for $150. I took an offer as I wasn’t supremely confident in the authenticity once I studied it. Odds are it is real but I’ll tell you a secret – alot of these high end brands really aren’t as high of quality as you would think they should be for the price. Take Prada for instance – many of them are made in Vietman or china now. I guess I’m just becoming jaded now that the shock of this haul has worn off. “Whoop de doo!!! Another pair of Prada/Gucci/Louis Vuitton shoes ONLY worth $250??? What a piece of junk!” I joke…but also serious. I looked at my numbers this week, see multiple $250 shoe sales and felt disappointed. A $250 sale is not ‘enough’ of a homerun? What is WRONG with me!!!
