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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.
I’m still reading your posts, but I’m just not really scavenging right now. Gotta keep listing what I already have.
So I listened to a few more Pure Hustle and they are our people.
I started with the newest and was going backwards. I made it 3-4 in and one of them reminisced about scavengerlife and how much they loved it. Then they acknowledged how when they started they were almost 100% Amazon FBA.
One of the guys homeschools his kids as well.
So I subscribed and went back to start in 2021 at episode 236 and will listen on from there.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266925936311
Mystery Science Theater 3000 MST3K Single-Stitch Shirt Size XL Crow
I picked this shirt up along with the Metallica shirts this summer for $1. I’ve now sold the 3 shirts that weren’t Metallica for $70-100 each. No bites at all on Metallica shirts, but I am priced to the moon. I’m gonna stand pat on price for those. These shirts can only go up in value over time.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266892006372
Playskool Duracell Flashlight Red Green Color Change Lenses Vintage 1986
Vintage toys will always have a place in my store, but they definitely aren’t the focal point anymore. Paid $1.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266824895899
Trapper Keeper Mead Original Binder Retro Portfolio Vintage Style SUNSET Pink
I make this my sale of the week beause I sold ALL of them finally. A buyer bought 6 of them about 6 weeks ago. They messaged me and asked if I could do the same deal on more. I said yes so they bought the last 17 of them. I crunched them numbers and after selling 51 of these, my total net profit was an amazing…….$90. LOL! When I went all in on these I was expecting to sell them for $20+ a pop. Then they just….sat. I’m so incredibly happy that they are gone off my shelf.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266288051865
Scentlok Cold Blooded Late Season Pants Mens Size 2XL Realtree Xtra 86221
Speaking of bad buys… WAAAAYYYY back pre-covid Dick’s sporting goods would have a huge tent sale every summer. One of these sales is where I got my very lucrative Smartwool socks from. Anyways, they had all this hunting gear on super clearance – 90% off. These were like $250 pants originally. Now I have sold the majority of the hunting gear I bought then and I’m well into profit, but these specific pants I can’t sell! This specific pair I sold for $70 free shipping. I have 3 pair left so I just went ahead and dropped the price to $79.99 to see if I can blow them out this month.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/267001452351
Definitive Technology ProMonitor 800 Bookshelf Speaker (Single, Black)
I picked up 4 of these speakers at a yard sale for $20 total. This sale is kind of a bummer because of the flawed “send offer” system on ebay. I sent an offer and the buyer accepted. I messaged them to say I’d honor the same price on the others, but it was too late – they had already bought the other 3 elsewhere. They thought they could only get one from me.Ebay needs to fix the send offers function so that the buyer could increase the quantity on multi quantity items.
Items in Store: 2987
Items Sold: 25
Total Sales: $1,091.00
COGS: $242.00
Total Profit: $849.00
Average profit: $33.96
Average sales price: $43.64
New Listings: 0
Items scavenged: 0
2024 weekly new listings Avg: 35
2024 avg gross weekly sales $1,598.44
2024 Avg weekly Items Sold 35
2024 ASP $46.22
2024 projected total sales $83,118.75I was off work from my day job last week so I was primed and ready to accomplish…nothing. That’s right folks, I did my bare minimum on shipping and just sat on my butt the rest of the week. Well not really – I did alot of non-ebay work. I did laundry…sooo….much….laundry. Lots of cooking, playing with kids, napping, and holiday crafts.
I tried again to get my oldest two to do some listing. I had created a workflow for them so that one of them could take measurements while the other made listings. I’ve always done measurements while creating the listing but it is more efficient to break it out if more than one person is involved in the process. I made a measurement template in Excel that would capture every measurement for a shirt, jacket, or pants on a roughly 2×3″ piece of paper. I set it up so a bunch could be on one sheet of paper and then cut up using a paper cutter. You fill out a measurement sheet and then tape it to the item. Then to show them it works I timed myself measuring and did 28 clothing items in just under 25 minutes.
My daughter then created 3 listings using the pre-measured items (over about an hour) and the bin was not touched again all week. Those 3 items weren’t even photographed. This just ain’t working for me. It’s bumming me out and affecting my own ability to be motivated.
I tried one last time yesterday. (I write my numbers on Monday morning in word and post whenever the blog post goes, so this paragraph is new). I explained why her help was important, and I gave her a specific deadline. The deadline passed, and only 3 new listings were made. I got a plethora of excuses. Today, a whole 3 more listings were done. So I’ve decided to no longer use my oldest child for ebay – guess I’ll be “firing” her when I get home. I’m going to keep using my second oldest for photos. He isn’t as capable, but he shows up and completes anything I ask him to do and is coachable. For a helper that is a far greater value to me than someone who has alot of potential but zero drive to actually perform at any reliable capacity (Oh my gosh she is a carbon copy of ME at that age!!!! I must have been insufferable).
At the end of the day, this is not really a job for me. I have a passion for reselling/scavenging. It is my hobby, my fun time, my relaxation time, etc. I was putting too much effort into coaching up my kid and it was slowly killing my passion. I can’t let someone leach out my passion (even my own kid), because then I just won’t want to do this anymore. It sucks because this is such a great and useful skill to be able to make money and weather the seas of change as she becomes an adult. A scavenger reseller is resourceful and never without a way to make money. I want her to have this skill sooooo bad, but I have no control over where she puts her time/passion. Having teenagers is hard when you see the class 5 rapids of life they are heading for and they just won’t listen.
I think I’m calling it a year in regards to listing or organizing. I can’t get my older kids motivated to do ebay. It’s too cold out, and we still have plenty of holiday events coming up. It looks like I’ll end up around $82k in sales this year even if I don’t list anymore, which is amazing! This also will likely be the first year I’ve ever sold more items than I’ve listed (barring an unexpected listing blitz this month). I kinda like the thought of that as I do want to contract my inventory size eventually. A 3000-3500 item store is about where I want to stay as a part time seller.
(More new thoughts since I originally wrote this)
Since I made peace with firing my oldest kid, I’ve already started to get that spark to list back. I did some organizing in my van and got some draft listings done on my lunch. My brain is cooking up some new ways to be efficient as I adapt to our new normal of having 7 kids. So maybe I’m not so ready to write off this year. We’ll see!
Premium Hoarder update:
Sold 8 items for $446.
I crossed 600 total items sold and $65k in gross sales. Still plenty of stuff to list and sell. Sometime in 2025 I’ll cross $100k gross sales on this haul most likely.
The wheelchair was a combination of ebay research and online research for each part. There is quite a bit of sales data for most of the parts.
I’ve had a pair of $35 common (non-jordan) women’s nikes go through authentication. They are all over the place when it comes to Nike, but Nike is probably one of the most faked brands in the world.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266628886459
Red Man Select Tobacco Corduroy Snapback Hat Cap Redman Vintage
I bought 5 of these at an estate sale a few years ago. I’ve sold two of them so far. SLOOW mover.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266461515430
TEAC LP-R450 turntable recorder USB CD cassette tape Player FOR REPAIR SEE DESC
Oh what could have been on this one… I paid $50 for this, got it home, and the record player didn’t work. I replaced the cartridge and still no-go. Turns out the amp chip was no good. It wasn’t readily serviceable and the company would have charged me about $150 (plus shipping both ways) to repair it. So I sold it as-is and it FINALLY sold for $110 on offer.
If the record player would have worked this would have been a $400-500 player!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266362020270
Nike Air Jordan XI 11 Retro GS 378038-003 BG Space Jam 2016 Sz 5Y
My favorite Jordan. I’ve sold multiple pair of the space jam jordans over the years. These went through the authentication process. I paid $7 at Goodwill. They somehow missed these in their markups – I assume because they were kids size.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266462415292
PRIDE QUANTUM Power Wheelchair Actuator Control Module
Years ago I went bonkers and bought a used junky looking mobility scooter from Goodwill. It still blows my mind I somehow got this loaded into the back of my van by myself. I paid $100 for it with the intent to part it out. There were ALOT of parts. I haven’t kept track of how much I’ve made but I would venture a guess it’s close to $1k and I still have a couple parts left.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266945984445
MR POTATO HEAD NEW YORK JETS NFL SPORTS SPUDS Sealed New
Jets fans…bless their hearts! So committed, even buying toys during such an…eventful season!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266966410550
USA Leather USMC Marine Corps Black Leather Bomber Jacket Mens Sz XL
Paid $10 at Goodwill a few years ago. Such a cool jacket.
