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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!!!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266415261674
HALO Mega Construx Covenant Brute Lance DPJ89 130 Pieces Sealed New
Paid $5 at a yard sale. Took an offer of $100.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266463018845
Electrolux Automatic Control Canister Vacuum w/ Power Brush Hose Standard Wand
This was one of my sell similar items I relisted last week. I took an offer of $100 since I wanted big stuff to move. This had the potential to be a nightmare to ship but I was prepared with a perfect box and a giant bag of free packing peanuts from work. Nothing beats the feeling of a ‘perfect’ shipping job where everything goes smoothly and everything fits perfectly. Packing peanuts can really save a ton of time on something like this. I save them for the ‘expert level’ packing jobs.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266388390900
Star Wars Episode One Bathroom Set Four Piece Phantom Menace Vintage
Paid $1 at a yard sale. So this was returned to me 2 months ago. The buyer was ENRAGED because the soap dish still had some soap residue on it. Some people need to NOT shop used items on ebay. I took his return, happily gave him his full refund to get him out of my hair for good.
This time sold for full price. Oh don’t worry folks – I detail scrubbed every piece with a power brush prior to shipment this time. The whole set is clean enough to lick!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266344390889
Spotlight On Music Grade 3 Cd Set Macmillan/McGraw-Hill CDs Curriculum
Now this is turning out to be a VERY lucrative score! I bought 4 of these sets for $5 each at Goodwill. This is the second set to sell – this time a $200 offer.
I hit a few yard sales this weekend. I got a minty complete in box Wii (with Wii Sports $$)at one sale for $10 and a box only with all the guts for free at another. Always fun to get video game stuff!
The scavenge of the week was this item:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266479877177
Antique Ruby Red Victorian England Hanging Oil Library Parlor Prism Lamp
Paid $50 at a yard sale. Oh man I was REALLY on the fence on this one. What a shipping nightmare! It was difficult to photograph too. I had one of my kids stand on my photo table and hold it up.
Special note – the ebay photo auto background eliminator works VERY well now! I haven’t used it in a while because it was so crappy. Sold comps were in the $300-350 range.
Sweet! Do you ship on Pirateship or ebay? I went full time pirateship earlier this year and haven’t looked back. It is nice to get the full 6x points on the card. I pull up my listings and look at the “print label” screen in ebay to see what the buyer paid and what shipping method I had on the listing. Then I do the label on pirateship. I have alot of custom templates set up for various weights/sizes. Also a template for padded flat rate envelopes. It is actually quite quick once you have the system down. I also beat ebay shipping’s price on a good percentage of labels due to cubic rate shipping.
I also like that I don’t get shafted on UPS overcharges. They try occasionally but pirateship alerts me immediately and makes it really easy to dispute. I win every dispute.
I saved up so many points and free rewards nights during COVID that last year we stayed at this place for 8 nights on points. 70k points per night, 5th night free when using points, and 3 free rewards nights. No resort fees when using points either.I also did a hilton timeshare tour for 100k points so the whole trip only cost 180k points. That trip would have cost about $5k if booked regular.
https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/myreses-embassy-suites-myrtle-beach-oceanfront-resort/
A couple tips:
Stay at Drury inn, Residence Inn, or Embassy suites for more free food (and drinks!)
Drury Inn and Residence Inn do full breakfasts and full dinners on weeknights.
If you don’t already use a rewards card that gives you hotel rewards. I use a Hilton Rewards AMEX and use pirateship for all my shipping to get 6 points/dollar on shipping (shipping on ebay via paypal with CC will only get 3x rewards). I’m on pace to sell 1500 items this year which will earn me 4 free nights (3 nights on average -30k/night with points plus a free night for spending $15k+) at hilton properties just for my shipping costs – basically free since that isn’t my money! I put all my inventory purchases, expenses, and all my home utilities on this card so I can get multiple free nights which I use to go on weekend getaways to Columbus for scavenging and family fun.
If it is just you traveling, you could also book on Hotwire. It’s not as good as it used to be, but you can still save 20-40% on nicer hotels. I’ve had great results using the info they provide to determine what the actual hotel is. The newest trick to determine the actual hotel is to do a google lens search on the hotel room image if they provide the actual photo of the hotel room. Combine that with the map zone of the hotel and you’ll know the exact hotel. They used to occasionally straight up tell you what the hotel would be but I haven’t seen that in a while.
