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simplicio wrote:
I had a decent week on eBay even without counting my biggest sale ever. I am pretty elated.
Sales: CAD$4,180, 11 items, avg $380/item
COGS: $665
Expenses: $332
Net profit: $2,557
Hours: 11, hourly rate $232/hr
Listed: 13 itemsSo on Tuesday I finally met up with a guy on kijiji selling 25 beat up old barcode scanners (for warehouses etc.), after trying to arrange a meetup for a few weeks. Eventually I had to just duck out of work for an extra hour on my lunch break.
Guy’s basically an older picker who used to sell locally, now he has storage lockers full of stuff that he’s trying to unload. We settled on $560 for what turned out to be 39 scanners (plus some other odds and sods like chargers) after a bit of testing and tire kicking. I put up a listing for 2 of them to test the waters and got a message from a buyer who refurbishes these scanners. After a bit of back and forth we settled on $3,000 for all 39 scanners. So my profit comes to $2,000 after fees. Could have got more by selling them in smaller lots, but honestly I wanted to get some cashflow this week. Still have 44 batteries and some chargers to sell, should bring a few hundred more.
I am still in contact with the guy I bought from, so I may buy up more stuff from him if it looks good. He has more big lockers full of stuff and seems motivated. Also moved a couple toner cartridges for $460, they cost me $40. And some old odds and ends that I am pleased to have off my shelf.
It has not escaped my notice though, that that single sale accounts for 1/7 of this year’s profits and it only ate about 6 hours of my time (total hours clocked year to date: 363!). If that isn’t motivation to try to move up a weight class, dunno what would be. If only I could find these things every day.
I have decided to try a new SOP. Because storage is getting to be a critical problem (I’m now taking over a guest bedroom in addition to my basement storage room), I am going to set a goal of purging one item per month. At the end of each month I will choose a bulky item that needs to go, and give myself the next month to dispose of it by any means necessary – slashing the price & selling, or failing that donating/throwing away. Obviously I wouldn’t do this for items I know have great resale value, more the “for parts” listings etc. This month I am getting rid of a broken IBM Selectric.
Oh, and I learned one thing recently that doubtless all of you guys know, but maybe there’s somebody else out there mixed up like me. I do calculated shipping on everything, but I was always confused about what to do when a buyer asks for local pickup, as that’s not an option in the listing unless you do flat shipping. I now know that it’s as simple as invoicing the buyer and changing the shipping method to “local pickup”.
not sure how they are able to Name their store something other than their URL, that might be a new thing. their URL is
http://stores.ebay.com/Sitogeur
while yours is the name of your store–
http://stores.ebay.com/Toni-s-Treasure-Trovenot sure how that works these days, we’ve had our store for so long, i don’t know if they’ve changed how people can name them.
they buyer has not said how they found it, how would i know if they were from Pinterest? i wish we had ebay stats like that.
we want to try and get our county to have a salvage “free” section to the dump. we see so many usable things in the trash bins. if only we were able to put them aside for people to get first. right now it’s against the rules.
as you know, i won’t believe it’s sold until they pay, i pack it, it gets delivered, we get positive feedback. but hopefully that all goes smoothly!
d’oh, not sure why that happens!!—
Steve List wrote:
Here are a some of the things that I sold since last time I posted here. For the below items, click on the image to see the eBay listing.
Lot of 39 Copper Plated Steel Hex Head Bolts paid $1, sold for $16.95 (free shipping). I purchased these because of the copper coating. Regular bolts and such would probably not be worth buying for resale.
Not a large profit margin but this is one of my bread and butter items. I’ve sold about 150 of these so far and still have about 500 left. Post Office Department Old Style Letter Carrier Patches.
Laurel Burch Elegant 3 Swans Hair Clip Made in France, cost 2.00 sold for $38.95
I didn’t recognize this as a hard to find Janet Jackson hat when I bought this for 1.00 at an estate sale. I took a best offer of $60 for it.
I found this old fuel filter on a self in the garage at an estate sale for 2.00. Sold for 35.00.
Red and white stripped fabric, 12.5 yards. There is a lot of this type listed on eBay so I sold it for $48 (free shipping). Cost 2.00
I bought 3 of these for 2.00 each at an estate sale. They sold for $37 each with free shipping.
Another old computer core memory card from the days when I use to scrap out old computers. Sold for 80.00
Mervyns 1994 Village Square 5 Piece Set. Free at an estate sale, everything was free that day. Sold for $59.95 plus shipping.
St. Basil’s Hymnal. Thanks J&R for letting us know about hymnals. Paid 1.00, sold for 22.00 (free shipping)
yeah, i would call again, they are supposed to deal with a refund right there on the phone, that’s my understanding, they should just close the case and refund your buyer immediately.
yes, on our second store email sold notifications are taking about 12 hours to show up. i also get the paypal emails instantly, so i know something sold over there. kind of annoying!
very nice, at first glance it looks old and solid. what do you think it was for?
that image is from Junque Redux’s google search suggestion. might just be an imitation mark from a fancier maker?
just curious what service you used and if you’re willing to share the tracking number. what is the last status update?
i have done it a couple times, yes. that’s why now i literally print and attach labels one by one.
i just listed something on Etsy to try it again. and i had to download my photos from ebay and reupload to Etsy, it was quite time consuming. but i’m not against trying it for cool unique vintage items. we’ve just not had very many sales over there because we don’t list in volume. maybe i’ll put my higher priced furniture over there? not sure.
