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Items in Store: 2688
Items Sold: 43
Total Sales: $2,340.00
COGS: $234.00
Total Profit: $2,106.00
Average profit: $48.98
Average sales price: $54.42
New Listings: 81
Items scavenged: So, so many. Does anyone even read this?
Listing 2023 weekly Avg: 43Wow what a weekend. On Friday I did Premium Hoarder round 3 for clothing. I bought about 150 items for $1780. On Saturday we did our yard sales. We didn’t leave until 9 as I (THANKFULLY) slept in. As we got in the van I told my wife I had a really good feeling about yard sales, which is contrary to middle of September experience. Usually yard sales are crap this late in the season. My scavenger spidey sense is never wrong though. Twas a GREAT yard sale day that lasted until 1 pm. I filled the van with amazing items.
The good news: I filled BOTH vans this weekend with high dollar inventory.
The bad news: I have to deal with two vans full of high dollar inventory.
I can leave my van full as I just commute to work in it. I don’t need room for passengers except as a backup for my wife’s van.
I did need to deal with my wife’s van so I tried to get most everything listed. The clothes went in my van and all the hard goods were listed except the medical stuff.
Medical stuff? Yep. I bought two bins full of vintage medical/surgical equipment from a retired doctor. He was a fun dude to scavenge with and I was able to be honest with him regarding what I do with the stuff I buy. I paid $40 for two large bins packed full of awesome stuff. It will take some time to strategize how I will sell it all and what everything is really worth. Potential profit is anywhere from $500 to several thousand depending on individual item value and how far I want to break it down.
Which brings me to a fun topic: To share or not to share if I’m a reseller with people. I ran the full spectrum of interactions around this subject.
Interaction 1: The premium hoarder folks. I made a strategic decision to tell them straight up what I do early on in order to work on a deal to negotiate bigger purchases. This Friday I was able to talk with them as I went through the items they had ready for sale. I can talk openly about my business and negotiate with the knowledge that they know I’m going to sell and make good profit. We’re slowly working towards a complete buyout sometime this winter I believe. Honesty is my strategy. They know what I’m doing is a lot of work.
Interaction 2: A yard sale with tons of cool stuff. I openly discuss my children at sales. If someone wonders why I’m buying a lot of shoes or toys or clothes – I tell them I have 6 kids. I do buy stuff for my family regularly. As we walked back to the van, the man offered to help carry stuff out. On the walk he started talking about sleazy resellers and how he doesn’t want to cut them deals, etc. Awkward!!! He detailed some poor experiences with some buyers who lowballed everything and insulted his items to get the price lower. I generally paid his asking price and just negotiated on a few things. I made sure to put this stuff in the trunk where I knew I only had a bit of clothes. I didn’t want him to see all the other junk in the middle row. If I would have told this guy what I really do with the stuff I buy, he may have not wanted to sell to me at all even if I paid his asking prices and his prices may have been higher. I am respectful at all times as a general life policy. It sucks that this guy has a bad opinion based on some bad actors.
Interaction 3: The doctor. When I asked about the medical stuff I saw the twinkle in his eye. I don’t think he expected anyone to even recognize the stuff. He had sooo much amazing stuff! Eventually he asked me what I did for a living. Based on my interactions so far I could tell it would be best to be honest. I told him I was an engineer by trade and in my spare time I scavenge at yard sales and thrifts to sell interesting things online. He thought it was neat and started pointing out things that would be good for resale. I waited until the end to ask him about the massive collection of vintage fly fishing poles. It was nice to be able to be straight up with why I wanted them. He named his prices and it was thankfully more than I wanted to spend. I REALLY didn’t want to deal with those things! Even at his prices there was a lot of money to be made but man those things are big and hard to ship.
Quick Premium hoarder update:
Sold 12 items for $936. The new buy brought my investment up to $8180. My total sales minus fees is up to $7500 on 101 sold items. Thanks to my great sales this week I’ll be back into the profit MUCH quicker this time. The highlight of the week was a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes I sold very quickly for $475.
The first 10 drafts of items from the new batch of clothes I just bought have a list price of $800 – 2 of the 10 being $200 items.
Sooo much stuff scavenged this week, but ALSO sooo much stuff sold this week!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266406505887
The Legend of Drizzt R A Salvatore 2008 Collector’s Edition Hardcover Book 1
This book was on the death pile shelf I cleared off last week in my inventory storage. It’s been sitting there for YEARS! Sold for full price within 24 hours.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266407189964
Spider-Man Pogs 1995 Marvel Near Complete Set 1-120
This WAS a complete set at one point. Somehow two of them fell out and I couldn’t find them. Out of frustration I set them aside and didn’t list them for over a year. Sold within 24 hours for full price. This was from a MASSIVE amount of POGS I bought at Goodwill. I’ve made quite a bit of money off of that pipeline and the items sold much faster than I thought they would.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266277535403
The Next Evolution in MCAT Prep Blueprint MCAT Review Books – All 6 Books
Paid $1 each at a Goodwill where they were just sitting randomly on top of a high pallet bin of books. Sold for full price
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266408044953
Louis Vuitton Bidart Espadrille Monogram Denim Shoes 12 US 11 LV
From the premium hoarder collection. Sold within 24 hours on offer. I really wanted to cross that $500 threshold, but it wasn’t worth risking the sale. Note: The buyer did not request the chewed on box. LOL! Why someone would spend this kind of money I personally don’t understand but I do realize money is subjective. How I view $500 now is completely different than someone else views it.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266321194341
Carhartt Detroit 6BLJ Jacket Mens Size 44 Blanket Lined Union Made USA Vintage
If you ever see a carhartt jacket with a wool lining it is a BOLO for sure. This is the second one of these Detroit jackets I’ve sold this year. Paid about 25 cents for this one as it was part of a $5 fill a bin sale at a yard sale back in July.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266344391427
Spotlight On Music Grade 2 Cd Set Macmillan/McGraw-Hill CDs Curriculum
Sold the first of 4 of these music sets for full price. Paid $5 each at goodwill a couple weeks ago.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266391333680
Radio Shack RC Car Lightning High Speed Digital Proportional Car Works
Sold on offer for $60. The buyer message me that he would leave positive feedback even if it didn’t work. It does work, but that peace of mind knowing I’m not gonna have a picky buyer is worth it on a vintage electronic item.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266413826004
Vintage Pinball Arcade Coin Box 8”x5.25”x2.25”
This one is a fun one. This was on the death pile cart. It came in an old arcade cabinet I bought for a project I never completed (Note: That cabinet is also on ebay here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/265915378621)
It did not go to that cabinet and I had no idea what pinball it would go to. As I was cleaning I went to chuck it in the trash pile, hesitated, and decided to list it. I didn’t even clean it! Slapped $30 on it and added the dimensions. Sold within 12 hours.
It seems like every time I hesitate to list an item, then list it anyways even damaged it sells quickly. Such a strange quirk of this business!
I wonder what that old 97’s cd would have went for if you had it listed last year after the guardians of the galaxy christmas special. They had a moment for sure. I spent some time on their apple music channel.
Soooo much stuff acquired this weekend. 150 items from the premium hoarder collection. I’ll start going through that this week.
Yard sales were very nice this weekend as well. Here are the highlights:
Some super unique stuff – the first of which was a collection of vintage mid century medical equipment I bought from a retired doctor. There’s probably over 100 individual surgical instruments of various size/complexity. Plenty of other cool stuff as well. It may be a while before I can start listing this stuff.
The other unique item was a collection of 35mm film trailers from a movie theater. I paid $10 for the bag. Here’s two of them:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266416056539
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266416051785
They are likely long tail items. I turned down a $30 on the Ratatouille one already.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266416475017
Panasonic Toughbook LIND 12V Cig Charger CF-LNDDC120 CF-33 CF-31 CF-54 FZ-55
Paid $1. Prices are kind of all over the place on this item. I went ahead and shot for the higher end.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266416170064
Sony Handycam HDR-CX330 High Definition Camcorder TESTED WORKS Lots Of Extras
Paid $20 at a sale where I bought a bunch of stuff. They didn’t have a price and asked for an offer. I offered $10. The guy struggled with price as that $400 original price they paid was giving him heartburn. He came back with $20 and that sounded fine to me. Especially I was buying so many other amazing items from him for cheap. This was the same sale as the film trailers.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266415261674
HALO Mega Construx Covenant Brute Lance DPJ89 130 Pieces Sealed New
Marked at $5 at the sale. Eh, that seemed like a bit too much to buy blind so I made sure to look it up. No active listings – strange. 2 90 day solds for $80-$100. Whoah!!! I paid full asking price. I’m already getting offers in the $80 range that I’ve countered.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266415258104
Bose Solo 5 TV Sound System Sound bar 418775 with Remote & Power Adapter
Paid $10 at a yard sale.
I’d like to think it is because I’m a nice guy…but I think it’s because they also see me as their CASH honey hole.
“don’t piss off the guy who spends thousands in one go!”
lol!
…aaaaaaannnd I’m in the hole again! Lol!
this evening got my private pick and got roughly 150 clothing items for $1780.
Prices were marked higher this time so my average price was $12 instead of $7.
some of them were much higher so what I did was start setting aside the higher prices items that likely had value but weren’t “no brainer” prices.
Once I picked out all the items I was happy to pay sticker price on I went back to the rack of higher items and said “I could either go through these one by one and do a bit of research or just take them all at 60% of sticker price. “ that did the trick.
I’d said it was a fairly even split of 1/3 each items sub $50, $50-100, and 100+.
the two most notable items were a Hartmann leather messenger bag style duffle and a Louis Vuitton blazer. Those two items combined are $800-$1000.
in total about $10-13k listed value rough estimate
What a fun story! Very resourceful and a great experience to improve your business. If you ever had to do this again you now have the confidence to make it happen.
The closest I’ve ever come to something like this was when I was doing Amazon FBA. On vacation I found a walmart with a really good clearance section. I bought like 20 Bratz dolls and the shipping materials needed to pack them. I did the amazon FBA shipments right in my hotel room and made the labels in the business center.
J&R did an interview many years ago with a guy who went by resale rabbit. In the heyday of Amazon FBA he drove his minivan all over the country buying stuff for FBA. He ran his whole business out of his van and hotel rooms just doing big FBA shipments in every town before moving on. It was a great interview!
Items in Store: 1650
Items Sold: 35
Total Sales: $1,554.00
COGS: $153.00
Total Profit: $1,401.00
Average profit: $40.03
Average sales price: $44.40
New Listings: 90
Items scavenged: 15
Listing 2023 weekly Avg: 42As I sit here to write this I can’t help but think “Where did this week go?” It was over in the blink of an eye. I guess I’m kinda stressed and preoccupied as another company sought me out and wants to interview me. I’m not entirely interested but I’d be dumb not to at least entertain the idea of changing jobs. I generally like where I work and the flexibility I have I don’t think this other company could match. I have an interview this Wednesday. At least there is no pressure on me to land this job so my mentality going in will be preloaded with plenty of “FU” money confidence. The offer (and job) would have to be insanely good for me to consider changing jobs. Even then I’d bring the offer to my current boss and see if he would match it if I really was tempted. The new job has a lot more to do with PLC troubleshooting. This is out of my current comfort zone, but every job I’ve had I’ve had to adapt to an entirely different branch of manufacturing/production. Having PLC experience would open up a lot more opportunities for me if I ever wanted to move.
I guess while even though I am “content” at this job, it seems it would be nice to go somewhere else for a year or two then come back at a higher pay rate.
In other news, yard sales are pretty much dead in my neck of the woods. It only took us 90 minutes to complete the circuit and I only bought a couple items. I still was able to get a couple $100+ items between the yard sales and thrift store.
I did a major thing in inventory management this weekend. I was frustrated because I don’t have a great place to stage listed but un-inventoried items throughout the week. I just kinda pile up bins around my work area and then try to get them moved into inventory on the weekend if I have time (why can’t it all just magically sell before I have to do that! LOL!). I walked into my inventory building and took one look at a rolling storage cart at the front that I’ve had loaded with unlisted junk for several years now. Enough is enough and it was time to deal with it. Everything either had to be listed, trashed, or donated on the shelf and I did just that. Now I have all my listed new in box shoes on the top 2 shelves and I can stage my listed but uninventoried items on the bottom two shelves in bins until I have time to properly assign SKU’s and store them. Yay to having more room in my office so I can keep on listing!
When you’re listing an average of over 80 items a week, you can never have enough systems in place to keep things moving smoothly and efficiently.
Premium Hoarder update:
I am officially in the profit! This week I sold 11 items for $691. The highlight was a pair of $325 Yves Saint Laurent shoes. To date I’ve sold 89 items for $7700 gross. My COGS was $6400 and I’m at $6675 after fees.
I have 222 active premium hoarder listings for a value of $24396. I have less than 50 unlisted items left to get through. So that puts me right at around 350 total items from the haul which is about what I estimated. Total value will end up around $30k.
I’ll have about 60 hours invested in these items (10 minutes per item) once all is said & done. $323/hr after COGS & fees. A guy could get used to that!
It was described to me as being about 10% of what is packed in there.
For now I can handle cherry picking what is available in my neighborhood and bringing in another 200-300 items. As long as their prices stay good I tend to not be too picky.
I definitely don’t have the storage capacity for an entire cleanout. I’d have to put together a plan and use a storage unit(s) and possibly add more storage at my house. I have space for another storage building or even a trailer. I could see buying a large dual axle trailer to store everything then when I cull things down over a 12-18 months I can just sell the trailer to recoup my investment. It may also come down to having a fire sale on some death pile inventory to clean up space. After all, I’d rather have death piles with an ASP of $100 rather than $25-30.
So the time for round 3 has come at last! Things got delayed as there were vacations and then health issues with the folks handling this estate. I get private access this Friday to the stuff that is currently stored in my neighborhood – a jam packed 2 car garage.
The delay actually worked out well for me since I was able to recoup my investment and start into profit. I have money to spend. I also have a $10k personal line of credit I can use at the local credit union. I have the cash to make things happen.
I hope to buy quite a bit and it is high time to broach the subject of doing a complete buyout. They originally told me they wanted the apartment cleared out by October. Due to the unexpected health issues they’ve now missed the entire yard sale season – this would seem to buy me some leverage. I’ll bring it up and see if I can get a tour of the actual hoarder apartment.
We had Covid in the week before our vacation. 3 days of really bad body aches, fever etc. Ooh the fever dreams on day 2 really brought me back to some dark times in the ICU back during Delta. I had to hit up my inhaler a few times in the week following and had some brain fog but I’m pretty much fine now.
On to the scavenges!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266407632699
Vintage Panasonic Omnivision 13” Color TV VCR VHS Player Combo TESTED PV-C1332W
$5 at a yard sale this weekend.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266406506710
Vintage Kalmar Designs Teak Wood 20 Slot CD Holder
Oh man this thing is sweet! You can feel the quality when you handle it. I actually missed this in Goodwill and my wife found it in a section I just casually glance over. She got a kick out of pressing the buttons so she brought it to me. Score points for Mrs. Retro! She’ll get a nice steak dinner once it sells.
I swear I’ve had one of these in the past as it felt so familiar. Maybe I have another squirrelled away in a death pile.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266407631003
Vintage Gold’s Gym Men’s Black Crew Neck Sweatshirt Size M Made USA
Shooting for the moon on this one but there are comps to justify the price. Paid $1 at a yard sale.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266407130952
Sony DCR-TRV350 Handycam Camcorder TESTED Complete in box with leather Bag
Paid $20 at a yard sale. Noice!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266299685381
Adidas Samba Classic Shoes Athletic Sneakers Black White Gum 034563 Mens Sz 10.5
A good example of GREAT bread n butter shoes. Samba classics in any size – adult or children – in good condition are pretty much instant sales.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266356607344
Yves Saint Laurent Calf Hair Cap Toe Loafers Men’s Size 44.5 Shoes YSL
A pair of the premium hoarder shoes. This was one of the used pair that I pretty much considered throw ins. The used pile has been incredibly lucrative!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266322366931
American DJ TRI BEAM RGY Laser Light Effect
Sold on offer for $275. I bought 2 of these at a yard sale for $5.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266043894491
IKC 24K Canadian Eskimo Dog Plush 1985 Special Effects 9099 Large 22″ x15″
Sold on offer for $80. Bought at an estate sale/auction for $2.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266326375739
Case Logic Cassette Tape Holder W/ Trays And 60 Cassettes 80s 90’s Awesomeness
Sold on offer for $60. Basically a throw in at a yard sale this summer. I went through it looking for any high dollar tapes. I think I pulled 2 tapes and listed separately.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266362001360
Dino Crisis PlayStation 1 1999 PS1 Property Of Blockbuster Decal
old playstation horror survival games can be good money.
It’s hot worthless garbage. You aren’t missing anything.
the only thing it could possibly do for you is open yourself to an INAD. just a big word salad that adds no value at all.
Items in Store: 2595
Items Sold: 40
Total Sales: $1,738.00
COGS: $197.00
Total Profit: $1,541.00
Average profit: $38.53
Average sales price: $43.45
New Listings: 61
Items scavenged: 24
Listing 2023 weekly Avg: 40I was in Columbus for the long weekend celebrating my wife’s Birthday. Got all my listing done by Friday evening. Saturday we did some yard sales and then hit the road. I learned last week from a youtube reseller that scheduling listings is now FREE. I don’t recall this ever being announced in any update. So since I was not going to be listing over the weekend I scheduled some listings for Saturday and Sunday.
Going forward I will continue to use the scheduled listings. My strategy is that quick sales or high dollar items will be listed immediately. Low dollar bread n butter listings will get scheduled out so I always have listings going live every day.
I scavenged a bit on Saturday and Monday in Columbus. I only bought 5 items across 2 stores – twas not a good scavenging trip but that wasn’t really the reason I was in town. Normally I spend alot more time scavenging. Two of the items are potential homeruns though – car radio head units. If they both work after testing will sell for $300+ each. I love selling OEM radio head units. If you have the capability to test them they can sell for big bucks. Even not working they’ll bring $50 each so I can’t really lose.
Premium Hoarder Update:
I sold 9 items for $832. Two pair of shoes sold for $250+. One shirt sold for $120. A couple items were low dollar items like a pair of Sperry Flip flops that sold for $10. I wasn’t gonna list them but what the hay…glad I did. $10 is still $10!
My total hoarder sales topped $7000. After fees that comes to $6075 so I’m still a bit shy of my break even point. BUT, a $325 sales of shoes I just had this morning officially put me in the profit after fees. Woot!!!
I did get some more of the new in box shoes listed. I’ve been picking/choosing ones that are lower end and more likely to be authentic. Only had one pair that were clearly fake that I’ve set aside in this batch.
