Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Yeah, I went through the exact same thing last time I tried to do a UPS claim. The fact that they had fake claim numbers and fake claims phone numbers just blows my mind.
for my own sanity, I don’t even bother with claims now. I have maybe had 10-15 total in the history of my eBay business. They are very rare thankfully. I just refund and move on with life. I had one a couple months ago, where I shipped a TV.
my net loss was like $50.I also believe that all of the major carriers are blatantly committing fraud and eventually there will be a lawsuit and we’ll all get five dollar payouts. Yay…
Two new scavenges of the week Christmas style.
USPS dropped the ball HARD in my neck of the woods. The regional hub in Charleston has multiple trucks they’ve never unloaded. I have two packages with presents stuck there since the 18th and 20th, respectively. Didn’t know the grinch worked for the government….
anyways, eBay inventory to the rescue. I was able to sub out toys from my death pile and listed inventory new in box for the missing items.
merry Christmas everyone. I’m going to bed now – been a looong day. It ain’t easy keeping track of and wrapping presents for 7 kids. Excel spreadsheet matrix to the rescue.
I went to goodwill to see if they had any good stuff from last minute donations to make room for all the new toys. Once upon a time, the week before Christmas was an AWESOME time to go to goodwill. They just chucked everything out on the floor as it came in for cheap.
yeah, those days are over it seems.
I did get a few things though – the highlight being these:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/176419659063
Mark McGwire Vortex bat
i paid $4 and knew what it was as soon as I saw it.
i also got a vintage Easton Redline baseball bat. Unfortunately this is the little league version but I’ll still list it for $100. I had a Redline when I played baseball in high school. Dang that bat was HOT!!! You didn’t even have to be good to hit home runs – just put the bat on the ball.
eBay felt the pirsteship pinch and FINALLY started passing on the cubic rate discounts to sellers so the difference isn’t as big as it was before. Pirateship is still a bit cheaper than eBay on a lot of labels and that adds up for me since I’m closing in on 2000 labels a year now.
Week of 12/9-12/15
Items in Store: 3014
Items Sold: 32
Total Sales: $1,284.00
COGS: $119.00
Total Profit: $1,165.00
Average profit: $36.41
Average sales price: $40.13
New Listings: 51
Items scavenged: 0
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 36
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,599.28
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $46.28
2024 projected total sales $83,162.56Last week was a good restart to set the tone for this week. Now I’m fully back in the saddle. I was cooking on the cleaning/organizing and listing fronts. I got 51 listings live, but I had about 50 more drafts made that are waiting on photos. Every day in the morning I tried to ship a few things and photograph a few things. My oldest son did some photography without having to be asked, which is nice! Each day at work I tried to get at least 5 clothing items and 5 shoes/small items drafted and ready for photos. Then each night I tried to find a couple big ticket items laying around my office space to get listed as well. That paid off with two $100+ sales this week.
On the weekend I committed an hour to getting my listing desk cleaned off. My listing/shipping area consists of a 5’x3′ table top, a rolling shelf cart on one side, and a 2’x4′ folding table on the other side. All three were TERRIBLE and piled with junk and unlisted items. I finished the desk, processed the majority of death pile items on the folding table, and got most of the unlisted items off the rolling shelf cart and into draft status. This week I’ll finish up cleaning organizing the cart and the table.
The shelf cart is supposed to have 2 shelves for shipping supplies, and 2 shelves for to be listed items. It ended up a jumbled pile of some packing supplies, some to be listed death pile, and some listed items I was too lazy to move elsewhere. The folding table is supposed to just be an intermediate station that has bins for “to be listed” and bins for “to be photographed” that is contantly cycled through. It ended up a death pile repository that just got piled higher and higher…
I’ve also had 2 wide screen monitors sitting in my van that I picked up at a yard sale this summer to redo my listing/shipping computer setup. I finally brought them in and got them tested out. My intention is to put one or both in a vertical orientation so I don’t have to scroll so much while listing. I ordered the table mounted articulating arm last night so I can put them into service. So long to my ancient and dim 19″ square format monitor that sits on a carboard box for added height!
In regards to sales, I officially crossed $80k gross sales this year! Last year I improved on my all time high in 2020 by more than $10k and this year I’m beating 2023 by at least another 10k once the year is over. I’ve also matched my all time total sales (2020) this year. I’m currently at 1728 so I’ll finish out right around 1800 total individual sales.
At the beginning of the year I set a goal to get my store to a 40/40/40 store eventually – 40 items listed, 40 items sold, and a $40 ASP each week to get me an $80k annual business. I ended up at a 35/35/45 store, so I’ll be focused on the 40 listings a week in 2025 to keep pushing my store forward.
Sold 4 items for $335.
I am back to listing some more of the premium hoarder items this week. The highlight being a vintage Hartmann luggage bag. Shame on me for letting this one sit! I sold a pair of shoes this week for $170. Yay! I haven’t sold any premium shoes in a few weeks it seems.
Week of 12/2-12/8
Items in Store: 2995
Items Sold: 36
Total Sales: $1,955.00
COGS: $208.00
Total Profit: $1,747.00
Average profit: $48.53
Average sales price: $54.31
New Listings: 44
Items scavenged: 0
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 35
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,605.71
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $46.39
2024 projected total sales $83,497.14I definitely felt rejuvenated this week after “firing” my oldest kid from ebay work. My second oldest is doing great – he photographs whatever I give him without complaint and without delay. I’m trying to get him 5-10 clothing items ready for photos each day during my lunch at work. He just gets it that this is easy money that doesn’t take much time. He’s already lowered his time per item and I bet by the end of this month he’ll be down to around 2 minutes per item.
I’ve seen an overall improvement in attitude from my oldest since then. Maybe that was the sobering thing she needed to take the next step in her maturation. Everyone should get fired at some point. It can be a blessing in disguise and lead to greater success if you handle it properly. I got fired from my first job out of college after 5 years in 2010 and ended up in a job that paid more than double what I made in my best year at the previous place. Shoot, getting fired from that double pay job way back in 2015 is what started me on the path to this highly successful ebay business! I got a 4 month severance package, maintained my insurance for a year. I had the best summer of my adult life vacationing and scavenging. Hopefully this spurs a fire in her so she can be successful too. She told my wife about it and said that she was gonna start her own ebay store. Good for her! I’ll believe it when I see it (and I do very much hope to see it.)
I even took some time this weekend to do some cleaning up of my workspace. Man it was a MESS! This was just a triage session to get rid of trash, boxes, junk, and a handful of larger items I had no interest in dealing with. Now I have the space necessary to start organizing the areas around my listing and photographing stations. It’s so easy to get in a funk where you just throw stuff randomly in spots while doing the minimum to keep functioning.
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 10 items for $1179.
Sold a bunch of $150+ Ralph Lauren sweaters this week. One person bought three for more than $500 total!
Wow that is a cool rack! I’ll have to keep an eye out for things like that.
Today I got to go to my local surplus honey hole after running my wife to a dr appt. And boy what a trip!
first off, I got a Sony HVR S270u hd camcorder for $150. I had to order a power supply for $20 to test it and unfortunately it doesn’t have the recorder unit. Still will sell for $500+ even untested. I can also part it out and make at least $500. Fingers crossed it works well once the power supply arrives!
next I got a champion ct-475 aviation spark plug cleaner. Run that through terapeak. It’s worth the look-see. Paid $25 for this grand slam!
I also got a voice dictation machine for $10 that sells for $200+, two film cameras with high STR that sells for $75 each – paid up at $25 each since the STR was good.
The toner section still had the dregs and sadly hasn’t been replenished much. I did get a Lexmark toner set for $10 that will sell for $110-150.
There is sooo much more stuff there that just didn’t have a good enough STR or was just too big for me. If I had a liftgate truck and a warehouse I could have made some moooonnnaaaayyy!
Kind of a bummer the weekly posts are drying up. Thanks for doing your weekly posts. I’m not looking forward to moving on to another place to talk numbers, which seems inevitable. I just don’t think I can bring myself to pay a patreon fee to do a discord group so I’ll probably just stick to a private journal. Since we aren’t getting weekly posts anymore I’ve already switched to the weekly journal format in MS word. If the numbers posts show up I copy paste. If not, well at least I still scratched that itch of doing my weekly brain dump and business assessment.
Anyways, onto the solds!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267091203468
Grillbot Automatic Grill Cleaning Robot (Black Carry Case, Bundle) New
This was one of my “why haven’t I listed this yet!” listings last week. Sold in 1 day for full price. Paid $6 at Goodwill.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266904051763
Harley Davidson Riding Jacket XL Black Orange Shield Nylon Bomber Zip
Paid $5. Harley jackets are BOLO….as long as the price is right. It’s rare to find them cheap. Somewhere I have an amazing vintage one worth $200+ that I threw in a death pile instead of listing this summer. Shame on me!!!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267001441997
Cars Race-O-Rama (Sony PlayStation 3, 2009) PS3 Complete & Tested
Video games are weird. The games you think would be worth money sometimes aren’t and then a game like this I would expect to be a $4+free ship game is actually desirable and has a great price. Paid less than $1 at a yard sale with other games.
I use an app called price charting to quickly scan through stacks of games to see if any are worth individually listing. Gone are the days of me listing sub $10 games with low STR!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266463020333
Tonka Turbo Diesel XMB 975 Clam Bucket Crane Truck Vintage Metal & Plastic
Sold for full price. Paid $7 at a Goodwill in Columbus a little over a year ago.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266345903200
The North Face Men’s 11.5 Arctic Guide Waterproof Gray/Black Lace Up Boots
Sold on offer for $50. Paid $2 at a yard sale. Shoes – the easiest path to an easy to source $30+ ASP!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267096170090
Nintendo NES Action Set BOX & Styrofoam ONLY Authentic Video Game System
This was my wife’s childhood Nintendo box. Her step dad was a packrat who kept every box of everything ever bought. This sat in their storage building for over 35 years! I also have the SNES box listed as well.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266318222738
The Walking Dead Graphic Novels Volumes 1-8 Comics
Technically price was $5 at a yard sale but I built a pile so actual price was less. I’m so far into profit on that pile at this point that COGS isn’t even relevant.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267097309983
Royal and Awesome Golf Pants Men’s 34 x 32 Multicolor Paisley
Awesome yard sale from this summer where I got a whole garbage bag of men’s clothing for less than $2 an item once it was all said and done. There were multiple pair of this brand golf pants – all new except this pair.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266925627383
Zelda Link to the Past SNES Cleaned Tested New Battery
Sucks that the label was damaged. I still got premium money because I put in the effort to clean and replace the battery.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266681212365
JEREMY MCGRATH MX ALLSTARS WITH HAT THOR YAMAHA 16″ TOY DOLL VINTAGE
Sold on offer for $40. I bought a huge lot of MX toys a few years ago. Only a couple pieces left but what an awesome pipeline that has made me hundreds of dollars. I have a Travis Pastrana one that is still listed for sale.
I filled another bag of “reverse scavenging” items this weekend too! Just a couple incredibly low STR items that aren’t worth listing and clogging up my space. Took them to Goodwill at lunch and decided to check out the store since I haven’t shopped there in many months. I needed some gym shorts for my son for basketball season and this store has a 50% off color code. I was able to get a few decent pair for $2 each. Walmart is $15+ even for the cheap gym shorts now.
Still not a great store, but I did pick up a few items to resell that had excellent STR. I also picked up a Ninja blender to replace the one that is starting to fail in our kitchen.
Gotcha. Estate sales in my area are terrible. Few/far between, extremely overpriced, and mostly junk.
Welcome!
I also work full time and really just do this as a hobby. I’d rather clean shoes, list stuff, and play around in my metric spreadsheets to improve efficiency than play video games! The really cool aspect of this “hobby” is that instead of draining my bank account it pays all of my bills except my mortgage.
Sharing my numbers here kind of like a blog post really keeps me motivated and focused on improvement and growth.
Your store is pretty cool! How do you find so much vintage stuff at good prices?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266972568094
Nike Shox NZ Black Grey Running Athletic Shoes 312756-002 Women’s Size 6.5 2011
Nike Shox are a great BOLO as long as they are in good shape. I bought 2 pair when I got these at a yard sale for $2 each. This pair sold for full price. The other pair were BRAND NEW and I have them listed for an absurd $300.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266988152256
Reebok Mens Blue Tracksuit Vintage Size Large
This sale really cracked me up. The buyer messaged and asked me if I’d take $12 for just the jacket. I responded with a $12 offer and jokingly said I’d throw in the pants for free. They responded very seriously that they just wanted the jacket – that they had already bought the pants at a Goodwill. Ok….they did accept my offer and on my sales page there was a note again that said “Just the jacket”. I legitimately think that they would have left me a negative feedback if I included the pants so I made sure not to. It was very easy to relist the pants with the existing listing. Some people are just weird!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266987322440
RRL Ralph Lauren Drawstring Stretch Sweatpants Joggers Men’s 2XL Gray Heathered
Hoarder item, sold on offer for $100. For sweatpants!!!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266435218628
LW WARDY Black PinStripe Velvet Satin Collar Smoking Jacket Blazer XL Vintage
Not the first time I’ve sold a smoking jacket. They are sooooo cool. Also a hoarder item.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266447342503
Dr Doc Martens Industrial Ironbridge Steel Toe Work Boots Mens 13 Brown Leather
Sold for full price. I paid $8 at Goodwill. Gotta love selling shoes!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266992698399
Sold on offer for $245 to a person who bought 2 more sweaters for a total of $525! It’s a nice sweater, but dang!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266895204761
VINTAGE KODAK COLOR DENSITOMETER (1960’s) Model 1 Original Box
Another item from the big lot of vintage photography lenses and equipment I bought this summer. Sold on offer for $135. That haul has been quite lucrative!
I reverse scavenged today. I took two big printers and a few other odds n ends I could have listed on fbmp today. I cleared up some room and am quite happy with the decision.
I didn’t even go into the goodwill after I dropped off.
