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All of my listings auto updated to the new system. I have shipped a couple things and it works pretty much the same. I guess I was one of the lucky ones.
It’s kinda weird how estate sales are basically a shrine to the person who lived there. All of their career, hobbies, interests, how they dressed, etc are on display. Then it is broken up among a bunch of people to be dispersed, sold, collected, etc to other people and again become items in future estate shrines.
So did you know what those were when you saw them, or research the front and back info?
I had alot of great sales this week!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265844448905
So this past summer while out at yard sales, I went into detail to my wife how I was no longer going to buy coats/jackets and was going to liquidate my coats inventory at the end of the year. We finished up this convo as we pulled up to a yard sale where I….bought 5 jackets/coats! This was one of them. They were all high end womens harley jackets for $5 each. How could I NOT buy them!!!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266121102479
Since we’re on Harley, I bought these a couple weeks ago at a local antique mall. This was the first week of applying my new sourcing rules. I could have bought a bunch of items that day, but just walked out with these for $10. They sold within a day of listing.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265088042184
Sold this for a best offer of $150. One of those purchases where there is no established sales history but you just know it is special and has to wait for the right buyer. It’s been listed for close to 2 years.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266103252797
More copier supplies sold. Both of these sold this week. One of them was cheap to ship, but the second went to Los Angeles CA. It never fails that large free shipping items will go to FAR west coast. Forunately, I priced/planned for this. The semi-local sale was icing on the cake. Hopefully this surplus place keeps restocking their $10 toner section. I’ll go back in about a month and see what they have.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266122525796
This toner was actually from my local goodwill and not from the surplus. It is also my scavenge of the week. Goodwill had a whole shelf of CLEARLY used empty return toner cartridges. I don’t know what they were thinking putting all those out. Then on another shelf I found this one for $7. STR showed it would be an instant sale. Bought it on Monday, listed on Tuesday, sold over night for full price. An EASY $100 sale.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266100941146
A few years ago Dick’s Sporting goods expanded to include Field n Stream. It was basically a budget Cabela’s or Bass Pro. Then they got out of the business of selling pistols and AR’s. In this area, it was only a matter of time the Field n stream side went out of business.
I went up there when they started putting the good clearance prices out. I picked up 10 of these crossbow cranks. I sold 5 of them this week. Multi quantity, $100 sales price, EASY to ship. These are a scavengers dream pickup. I paid $30 each.
Items in Store 2053
Items Sold 24
Total Sales $1,300.00
COGS $237.00
Total Profit $1,063.00
Average profit $44.29
Average sales price $54.17
New Listings 49
Items scavenged 16
Listing 2023 weekly Avg 26This week was a great example of how the daily listing activity helps me balance out my week. Our oldest turned 16 this week. We had her actual birthday in the middle of the week and the party on the weekend. I was able to prep ahead of time to have a listing and photo bank for both of those days. It also helps me stay balanced knowing that I’ve met the work “quota” and can relax.
I want to get to the point where I always have a minimum of 20 completed listings ready to post. I have been doing good keeping a draft bank of listings without photos, and I always make sure some of the drafts are super easy to photograph so I can quickly cherry pick 5-10 if I need to.
The problem is that it is so hard to NOT post completed listings! I mean, it is done – it should be available to purchase asap! Much like how I had to establish a $2000 minimum balance in my business checking account to avoid fees, I can get there with 20 complete bank listings as well.
Now about daily activity vs front loading on the weekend – I’m not entirely sold it is better for business. I have 2 solid weeks of sales once I established the daily activity pattern. I’ve had similar sales stretches only listing on the weekend. If I list good items, they sell. Period. Doesn’t matter if I list them all on Sunday or throughout the week.
I only sold 1 sell similar item this week, but I did sell plenty of older items such as women’s jeans.
Either way, I feel it is better for me to stay consistent and work ahead a bit with a draft bank and a (semi)reliable photo helper. We’ll see what the data says in a month or two.
You need to talk to eBay for business on FB. You can sell disc only games on eBay.
I have an engineer coworker who graduated college a year and a half ago. He is paid very well for this area, but can’t find a reasonably priced house.
Even junkers are $250k now around here!About 2 weeks ago the youtube algorithm decided that I might be interested in arm wrestling videos….
…and it was 1000% CORRECT as always! Lol!
This all culminated in a wonderful connection with my childhood. I loved watching Stallone’s Over the Top when I was a kid. Every time it cracked me up in the final act seeing the mild mannered preppy dork in the polo shirt in the competition. He looked so incredibly out of place with all the pro wrestling style contenders.
I saw a video of John Brzenk wrestling Devon Larrat for the first time and I thought “hey, that dorky polo wearing dude looks familiar!”
Sure enough I learned that the polo wearing dude in Over the Top was John Brzenk and he could legit beat everyone there in the movie. He was Stallone’s inspiration for his character and was invited to cameo in the film.One more interesting sale:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266091625250
This was my oldest listed item. It sold by using sell similar and repricing. Oh boy, photographing on the fireplace mantle with no photography lighting. That listing is OLD! Definitely a 2015 listing.
I’m selling several of my sell similar listings each week now, so yay!
Items in Store 2028
Items Sold 29
Total Sales $1,024.00
COGS $169.00
Total Profit $855.00
Average profit $29.48
Average sales price $35.31
New Listings 52
Items scavenged 3
Listing 2023 weekly Avg 22Now that was a satisfying week all around! It is nice to start to see the payoff for the work I’m putting in by getting over $1k in sales and hitting my average $35 per item sales price.
My daughter is still on board with photography. The last couple days I haven’t even had to remind her to go out and photograph.
I was worried about being able to keep up with her, but since I started listing during my lunch break again I’m WAY outpacing her. That’s a good thing though because I will always have enough drafts that I can take time off if I am busy with something else.
One little trick I have been using to encourage her to get out there early is that I told her I will cherry pick the easy to photo items if she starts slipping. I did that a few times this week and low and behold, she started getting out there so SHE could cherry pick her 5 daily items. Those cherry pick items take 20 seconds or less to photograph, like this item:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266115875623
Since I pay per item, those cherry pick items are basically made of gold!
So with all of this listing, I should be clearing out alot of space. WELL….I am in a way.
My daily driver is a minivan and I’ve sort of…been using it for storage since the summer. I buy things and they just stay in the van. I’m happy to say the van will be 100% cleaned out of unlisted inventory this week. Anything new I buy has been going to my “to be listed” shelf and getting listed within a week. I’ve also been filling this shelf with stuff from the van. Once the van is clear I will start on the main office death piles by NEATLY organizing some bins in my van for listing so I can keep working during my lunch break at my day job.
Another thing I want to do with the nice weather this week is spend some time in inventory storage identifying large listed items that have been sitting for a while unsold. I’m going to reprice them to get them moving.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265525859599
This was an end a sell similar listing. I took a best offer without a counter since it had sat for 3 years without a sale. This came from buying a huge tub of lego at a yard sale for $10. Rule #127 for yard sales – even if the sale looks like a bad one during the drive by, take the 60 seconds to go take a look anyway. I was gonna drive on by this sale, but decided to give it the quick look. The tub was hidden behind a table. I spent a couple hours sorting the tub with my kids. I really enjoy sorting bulk lego. It really pays off too as I made several hundred dollars on this tub of lego.
You have to have a process though. Mine is:
- Set aside partial assemblies and unique pieces for research.
- Sort by types (Technic, bionicle, standard blocks, minifigs, star wars, specialty piece groups)
- <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>Throw away all megablocks!</span>
- Complete sets from partial assemblies if possible
- List unique pieces separately individually or by lot. (unique pieces can bring $20 each!)
- List partial assemblies if worth it.
- List rest in sorted lots by bulk weight.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266109817047
Catcher’s equipment is one of my favorite items to source. I’m a bit partial though since I spent my childhood wearing the stuff! Full sets always sell for $100+ and I typically pick up full sets for $20 or less. Some nicer individual pieces such as helmets can sell for $40+.
No super good scavenges for me this week, but I only bought 3 items.
I did pick up a Mr. Christmas flying tree topper and a Wear Ever super shooter.
I would have loved to buy more from Goodwill yesterday, but their prices were insane. Their pallet merch is supposed to be 50% of retail but it was above retail. Their shoes they were putting out that day were $20+ (and not for great ones either).
They had a giant used chewbacca Squishmallow that I would have bought but they had a $30 tag on it!!!
They go through this phase of overpricing occasionally, I assume with a new person or with extra management attention. It will go back down in a couple weeks.
Lol! Never post negotiate with a scavenger!
I had the same experience several times when I fixed/sold pinball machines in the past. People think they have leverage to renegotiate over BS stuff when they drive 8+hours to buy a very used item? I don’t think so!
That’s a end and sell similar. I got 3 sealed apple ii accessories for $1 at a yard sale years ago. The other two items sold a long time ago for a ton. I remember one was a sealed modem.
