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Items in Store 1639
Items Sold 25
Total Sales $780.00
COGS $93.00
Total Profit $687.00
Average profit $27.48
Average sales price $31.20
New Listings 57
Items scavenged 8
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 45
Sourcing Allotment 21Fairly unremarkable week. I’ve been a listing machine. I just wish it was warmer so I could spend more time out in my inventory shed organizing and putting things into inventory system. I found a sirius XM radio at the goodwill this week. I always pick these up in the hopes I score another lifetime subscription unit. This specific unit when I checked it had a very high probability of being a lifetime subscription as almost every active and sold listing of the same model was a lifetime subscription. Sure enough when I tested it – lifetime subscription. SCORE! I have it listed for $250 so hopefully I get a good offer.
I listed some awesome vintage clothing this weekend too. This one in particular I listed I got a counter offer of $150 on a sent $250 offer.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/265546351237
I originally planned on listing it for $150 but after researching another matching set I listed I went for the moon at $300. I begrudgingly sent a $200 counter offer. Later on the person came back at $165. I thought about it a while and again countered at $175. Now I get crickets. Doh!!! Oh well. It will sell eventually. I wish that offer wouldn’t have come so quickly after listing. I don’t like accepting a 50% offer on the first day of the listing even if my list price was completely pulled out of thin air.
My 40 listings a week plan is going well. I’ve listed over 300 items since Jan 1. That’s crazy!
Year over year, my items sold per week and total sales are both up 10%. The hope is that if my listing stays consistent at 40 items a week that year over year percentage will keep increasing. My average sales price is pretty consistent at being around $40. So if I maintain my current pace of 45 listings a week compared to my historic average of 30 per week that will result in 780 extra listings over what I normally would have done. Assuming around 30% of those extra listings sell within the year (we’ll go with a nice round 250), that is an extra $10,000 in sales, or an extra $192 a week.
It is attainable to average $1250 in sales a week this year, which is a huge increase year over year and a 25% increase over my previous goal of averaging $1000 a week in sales. Even if I don’t get there, it is pretty much a lock I’ll average over $1k in sales a week.
I think I’m ready to use it because the traditional listing method is broken if you list on computer, then photograph and start listing on iphone. I’ve brought it up to ebay for business and regular support and it’s never been fixed.
All line breaks are deleted in the item description when I go from PC to iphone. I have to go in an manually place them back on listings.
The really valuable pair was the easiest. The tag was in the wrong place, had a wrong color code, and was missing a patent mark on the sole.
the Jordan 6’s had subtle issues – perforation misalignment, poor quality reflective material, different rubber texture and minor font issues. This pair was the most subtle.
the Jordan 11’s have a “u” dip on the back. It is never deep enough on fakes, and particularly on mine the two shoes were not even in the ballpark of being even or consistent in the material thickness. One was like a 1/4” shallower than the other.Items in Store 1607
Items Sold 23
Total Sales $1,082.00
COGS $210.00
Total Profit $872.00
Average profit $37.91
Average sales price $47.04
New Listings 27
Items scavenged 10
Listing 2022 weekly Avg 43
Sourcing Allotment 12I had a rough week with my breathing and general exhaustion last week. Then this weekend I had a massive migraine that took me out Saturday evening and most of Sunday. I wasn’t able to hit my 40 item listings due to the migraine, but that is ok because I wanted to space them out of this week anyways. I still have 44 items ready for photographs that I’ll piece out all week a couple a day.
My oldest daughter has pretty much given up on doing ebay work. My 11 year old son got the cash fever so I put him to work cleaning shoes this weekend. He did a great job. The best part is he finished everything I gave him – 25 total pair of shoes.
One 0f my big sales was the control panel from my old dryer. I rebuilt the dryer that came with my house a few times – new rollers, new element, thermal fuse, etc. The last time it broke I decided enough was enough and bought a new one. We were backed up on laundry and I couldn’t wait several days to get the replacement parts again. I had two loads of clothes that needed dry NOW.
Since the only issue was in the heating element section, I trashed that part and kept every other part of value. I finally got it all listed last week and immediately sold the control panel for $125. Once it’s all said and done I’ll make close to enough to pay for the new dryer.
In a followup to the post I made about my local goodwill individually pricing shoes, I went to list the 4 pair of nike’s I paid $15 each for this weekend. One of the pair threw a red flag with the tag, so I did some checking on if they were fake. Sadly, 3 pair of them were clearly fake. I still listed the one real pair (the lowest value pair) for $100 so I’ll still make money. The 3 fake pair are my size so I’ll wear them.
I should have known better but I was blinded by greed at the store. I’ve handled alot of real Nikes and not many fake ones. The differences are pretty subtle and hard to spot on casual inspection. Once you really study the differences it becomes quite apparent they are fake. Even if I didn’t make money on that transaction it would have still been worth it for the hands on education aspect
Seeing how hard people work in restaurants for low wages, I think taking photos of clothes would be just fine considering they don’t have to deal with customers.
General quality of stock at thrift stores does tend to lower after prices go up. I genuinely think they “piss off” a lot of donators with their high prices.
I’ve heard him talk about what he pays his employees (it’s over $20 an hour but don’t remember exact amount), how many things they have to photograph a day (its over 100), and how long they’ve worked for him etc but I can’t remember the specific video I saw it in. He’s likely talked about it in many videos.
That last spike yesterday – I photographed and listed 2 listings last night. Not as dramatic a spike but still a spike on my old listings.
Him and the old “10konthebay” guy are partners running an ebay selling help group. The youtube channel is called Daily refinement. His videos have the usual clickbait titles but the content is wonderful. They are legit and pretty upfront and honest about how it all works.
1. No shortcuts – do the work
2. Create a schedule – manage your time
3. Improve your processes a little bit every day
Their business plan is 100% a sweatshop, but if you have really good work instructions and hire people to run it for you, you can focus on the areas that are enjoyable. In alot of their videos you can see his workers in the background taking photos. They don’t mess around!
Ah yes, perfecting the “Costanza” is a requirement for desk jockeying when you routinely finish your daily work in 2-3 hours.
It is fortunate for me that I am now extremely picky with shoes I purchase. I used to buy every pair that would sell for $20 and was in decent condition.
now I only buy good condition and $50+ sellers. I can’t remember the last time I bought clarks or Johnston Murphy.I don’t really look at a money as a tool to make me feel better, or something to spend impulsively, but I think that’s the case for a lot of people.
And they’ll spend it even if they don’t have it too! Man, if I had a nickel for every time someone bought some random trinket and then messaged me to ask if I can wait a week or two for them to have the money to pay…
It boggles my mind how someone could live like this, but it is true for a large percentage of Americans I fear.
Ah I forgot the other part of my strategy that may help you.
On anything that is over 3lb or is big enough to go into dimensional shipping, I only put Fed ex as the shipping option. That way everyone gets the best price regardless of location. 4lbs and up, USPS, Fed Ex, and UPS are pretty much the same price locally, but Fed Ex and UPS beat the pants off of USPS cross country.
Everything 3lbs and under gets USPS priority.
I pass on the shipper discount on my fed ex labels. So that bigger items and/or cross country buyers get a reasonable rate. When I actually ship, I may use Usps priority or ups to get the best rate.
ups usually beats FedEx on rates now.
If you just straight up pass all the savings on every service, the big con is that you will lose money on shipping after eBay fees. I prefer to offset my eBay fees on shipping with the discount cost savings with Usps discounts and by using ups when it is cheaper than FedEx. $1-3 in savings on shipping per item adds up to quite a bit.
