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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.
Here is the expensive NASCAR:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266402927518
Davey Allison 1986 #95 Miller Action Historic Series 1:24 scale Stock Race Car
Also, this was a surprise homerun at the same sale. I thought these were interesting and the set was only $1. These old books can sometimes be lucrative and I had a good feeling. My good feeling was more like maybe $50-80 though.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266402912596
UNCLE ARTHUR’S BEDTIME STORIES Volumes 1-5 Maxwell Complete Series Set 1950
I did get a few big ticket items this weekend.
-Picked up 2 OEM car radio head units. These are higher end ones. One for a Suburban/Tahoe and the other for a BMW X5. Both will sell for $300+ if they pass my tests. Usually car dealers buy these OEM head units from me. I will look up the wiring diagrams and power them up on my test bench to test all the features.
– At a yard sale some Nascar boxed collectible cars caught my eye. Normally I avoid these like the plague. A couple of them were heavy, which was unusual. My scavenger gut said I should get these. I got 4 large cars and 1 smaller ( heavy) die cast semi truck and paid $30. Now it should also be noted that in scenarios like this were I am speculating I always hedge my purchase. My hedge at this sale was a stack of older Hayne’s manuals. These sell great for $10-20.
So long story short – did my unresearched gut feeling on items I KNOW are typically worthless? YES! One of the cars is of driver Davey Alison. He died in a helicopter crash. That car is worth $150. One of the other cars is worth $75. The other two were duds at about $15 each and will take forever to sell. I haven’t research the semi yet but it doesn’t matter – my scavenger radar was proven to be reliable again.
– last item is one of these:
https://www.ebay.com/p/8034416276?iid=276002790665
Paid 100 at a yard sale. It is new open box. It will sell easily at $400.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266289254795
Delta Shopmaster 18V 18 Volt Diagnostic Battery Charger Model CL180C
Sold for full price $40. Paid $1 at a yard sale. You can’t go wrong with tool battery chargers. I always test them with my multimeter to make sure they are outputting the correct voltage.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266371665669
Reebok Marshall University Basketball Track Suit Vintage Size XL Lined
Sold for $75 on offer pretty quickly. I’ve sold so many pieces of athlete issued clothing over the years from the local university. If you live near a university that plays division I sports you should keep an eye out. Marshall has a pretty devout fan base so the market on my items may be a bit skewed. Go Herd!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266282739231
Bette Davis Collection – Volume 1 (DVD, 2008, 5-Disc Set) – New Sealed
This one caught my eye at a local pawn shop. Occasionally I stop in on my lunch to see if they have games or DVD’s that they missed the value on. It takes all of 5 minutes to check. This particular day they had 3 dvd sets – all valued at $40-50. This was one of them. Paid $7.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266361651248
Vintage Satin Jacket Black Bluegrass Cardinals Graphic Men’s Size M
I got a message from a buyer regarding this jacket. Said they were a fan of the band and was curious about the history. So I told them the truth – I bought it off an old man at a yard sale in my neighborhood in WV and I had no idea if it was his or not. They paid full price. I paid $1 at the sale.
I’m not posting my hoarder sales here as there really isn’t a story with them other than what I’ve already shared. Feel free to look at my solds on ebay if you want to see the big ticket hoarder sales!
