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RR Store Week April 15-21, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1576
Items Sold: 42
Cost of Items Sold: $57.84
Total Sales: $1143.74 ($1018.74 eBay / $125 private sale)
Highest Price Sold: $125 (pair of vintage vanity license plates)
Average Price Sold: $27.23
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $89.04
Number of items listed this week: 51Yikes. I’d be so pissed if I lost all those draft photos. Since I’m a solo operation, drafts don’t last long. I’ve slightly tweaked my listing process: do the listing on the laptop, take the photos with my phone, then upload the photos to the eBay app and publish the listing. I usually do them in batches of 5-10, depending on the items. In the past I did the photos first, but I’ve found it’s easier to research items, them immediately do the listing. It also stops me from wasting time taking photos of stuff that doesn’t sell or sells for a very low price. That’s my process, anyway.
So thrilled with my week. I sold 8 records, the highest being $71.99. It was the soundtrack to “The Wraith”, which I’ve never seen, but know it’s got a cult following. Sold overnight. I paid .99 cents for it earlier that day. I’ve been saying lately that I love listing records because they’re so easy, unlike clothing. But half of my weekend sales were clothing, so I guess I’m still in the vintage clothing game. I’m cool with that.
Here’s to a great week for all of us.
Paul
Ooooh, nice! And KISS fans will pay up for their stuff, especially sealed. Congrats! I saw them a couple of times during their reunion tour with all four original members in the make up again. I’m a casual fan, but the die-hards are fanatical!
Exactly. I try to grade my stuff very conservatively, in case I get one of the aforementioned audiophiles, but it’s really the amateur collectors who complain about condition. But as you said, the margins are usually amazing. And yes, I did say that I was afraid this would happen, but this is literally my first record return, and I’ve sold dozens. I’ll continue taking these odds. I’m still kicking myself for not doing it sooner!
Paul
RR Store Week April 8-14, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1565
Items Sold: 31
Cost of Items Sold: $47.47
Total Sales: $922.77
Highest Price Sold: $89.99 (1970’s tennis shoe roller skates)
Average Price Sold: $29.77
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 50Can’t wait to hear the interview tomorrow! I remember the first one well. I’m amazed that Esty could provide a living. I’m still hesitant to get back on the platform, but I have considered listing some of the stuff I’ve had on eBay for a few years, using it almost like a clearance rack.
Much better week this time around. It started out slow, and I was stressing out because my rent AND my eBay fees are due on the same day. But the last three days have been great.
Had my first return in a long time this week. A buyer bought a record, then complained about the condition. The record has some scratches and scuffs, so I graded it as Very Good, which is actually on the lower end of the grading spectrum. He opened an Item Not As Described case; his message made it clear that he did not know the grading system and took Very Good at face value. But rather than escalate, I just approved it. I didn’t want to go to war with a guy over $6.34 worth of postage. Immediately relisted it. It’s the only copy on eBay, and it already has a bunch of watchers and views. It’ll sell again.
Have a great week, everyone!
Paul
RR Store Week April 1-7, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1540
Items Sold: 34
Cost of Items Sold: $26.24
Total Sales: $584.74
Highest Price Sold: $79.99 (1960 missile structural analysis report)
Average Price Sold: $17.20
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $80.65
Number of items listed this week: 44Paul’s Bargain Basement last week! A good amount of sales, but mostly low dollar stuff. I also took some time off from listing to celebrate my girlfriend and my birthdays, and unfortunately it shows. Gotta make up for it this week.
Paul
RR Store Week March 25-31, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1538
Items Sold: 34
Cost of Items Sold: $53.23
Total Sales: $779.47
Highest Price Sold: $125.99 (Waverly toile fabric)
Average Price Sold: $22.93
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $57.33
Number of items listed this week: 44Ten whole years! That’s so awesome! I was just telling my girlfriend how you two started in Jay’s dad’s basement, then built it up to the businesses you have now. I’m inspired by your work every week, and I’m so grateful you two choose to share your insight with us. Also, thank you Ryanne for the assist on that Waverly toile fabric. I would have walked right by it had I not heard you talk about it in a past podcast.
Some lame estate sales this week left me with little to list, so I started to reorganize my office/storage space. It’s been in dire need for months. Now that I can actually see the floor and like items are being stored together again, it has made listing so much easier. Cluttered space = cluttered mind. Feels good to reclaim the space.
Here’s to a productive week.
Paul
RR Store Week March 18-24, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1529
Items Sold: 37
Cost of Items Sold: $28.35
Total Sales: $701.60
Highest Price Sold: $80.99 (Ice Cube record)
Average Price Sold: $18.96
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $74
Number of items listed this week: 60My personal philosophy has two parts, and they’re very simple: I want to work for myself, and I’m passionate about vintage things. Combining those two desires into an eBay business was almost a no-brainer. For many years, I wanted to open a vintage clothing store. I bought and stored clothes, hoping to one day have a have my own retail space. Those clothes were like my nest egg. But as the realities of brick and mortar vs. online shopping became more clear, having a store didn’t seem feasible anymore. That’s when I turned to eBay. Technically, I still made that dream come true, just in a different format.
Yesterday I sold a Boy Scouts Campmaster jacket to a customer who requested Local Pickup. They were close by, so we arranged a meet up. Turns out they are both Co-Campmasters at the camp the jacket was from, Camp Trask, located in the foothills above Los Angeles. They were over the moon! They’re trying to piece together a definitive history of the camp, and they said the jacket was a big piece of the puzzle. Moments like this fuel my passion for vintage and selling on eBay; pulling stuff out of the waste stream and connecting it to people who want/need it. It’s creative recycling, and I love that I can make a living doing it.
Have a great week, everyone.
Paul
RR Store Week March 11-17, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1507
Items Sold: 32
Cost of Items Sold: $28.33
Total Sales: $456.02
Highest Price Sold: $40 (vintage Hang Ten shirt)
Average Price Sold: $14.25
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $30
Number of items listed this week: 52Rough week. In addition to very soft, downright fluffy sales, I made a total rookie move at an estate sale. Among other things, I bought a stack of about twenty 45 records. While loading my haul into my car, I put the records on the roof. I finished loading and drove off…with the records still on the roof. I didn’t realize what I’d done until I was about a mile away. I went back for them, but someone must have scooped them up in the THREE minutes I was gone. I was furious with myself. There were some great records in there, some potentially worth quite a few bucks. Sucks big time, but there’s one thing I can take away from the experience: I will NEVER make that mistake again. First and last time.
Paul
Huh. I posted this yesterday, but I guess it didn’t take. Weird.
RR Store Week March 4-10, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1477
Items Sold: 38
Cost of Items Sold: $36.71
Total Sales: $558.90
Highest Price Sold: $45 (vintage Brownie uniform)
Average Price Sold: $14.71
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $60
Number of items listed this week: 29Quite the rollercoaster, this business. Lots of items sold this week, but all small potatoes. But a sale is a sale, and I’m grateful for all of them. Glad I had a great week last time around to pad this so-so one.
Estate sales were few and far between, and the ones that I did find were slim pickings. I left all but one empty handed. That almost never happens. But you don’t really know what’s going to be there until you walk in the door, so I go to all the local ones. Thrifts were pretty bleak too. So, I dove into my death pile of hard to list, low dollar items. Not fun, but at least it’s something.
Being frugal is difficult for me, but I’m getting better at it. Eating out was a huge expense for me, so I cut way back on it. I let my Disneyland annual pass expire a couple of years ago, and even though I miss it like crazy, I can’t justify the expense. One thing I’m super frugal (some might say weird) about is tape. I pull tape off of used packing materials and reuse it. I buy it on the cheap at estate sales whenever I can. I even reuse the round clear sticker used to seal shipping label packages! Also, I only use my weekly DJ money to buy inventory, nothing else. Now if I could only stop buying myself records…
Paul
RR Store Week Feb 25-March 3, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1496
Items Sold: 48
Cost of Items Sold: $94.94
Total Sales: $1,382.11
Highest Price Sold: $306 (lot 49 reel to reel tapes)
Average Price Sold: $28.79
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $60.43
Number of items listed this week: 18Ah, life. Last week was …interesting. I had my mom’s birthday dinner, an exploding coolant hose, a funeral, my girlfriend’s dad in the hospital, a visit to the emergency pet hospital, an unexpected family friend visit, and two very sad estate sales. All these things occurred when I’m usually listing. As a result, I was only able to list 18 items. All that said, I had one of my best weeks ever. So crazy. And if I had a regular job, I would never have been able to take the time off to deal with all of these mini crises and events.
Lately I’ve been channeling my inner Steven Schultz and selling reel to reel related items. I pick them up whenever I can. This week I sold 6 different lots of reels, including the lot of 49 Ampex tapes; they went for $306 at auction, starting at $149.99. I’m usually not into auctions, but with a lot this size, I kinda just wanted to see what would happen. I would have been fine with my opening bid price. I paid $10 bucks for them. I’ve also enjoyed parting out two reel to reel players, a Sony and a Roberts. All those little parts add up.
Off to try to replicate this week’s success. If I can hit close to this each week, I’ll be just fine.
Paul
T-Satt, I do envy how you and other can “see” the numbers. My brain just isn’t wired like that. I had a roommate who was a whiz at car repair. He could “see” in his head where parts came together and how they moved, then diagnose the problem. Conversely, he said he was jealous of my creative abilities. It’s fascinating how these abilities inform our eBay businesses, from how and what we buy to how we store and ship. And for the most part, there is no wrong answer.
Paul
RR Store Week Feb 18-24, 2018
Total Items in Store: 1505
Items Sold: 46
Cost of Items Sold: $41.21
Total Sales: $534.38
Highest Price Sold: $71.99 (1950s trophy)
Average Price Sold: $11.62
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $50
Number of items listed this week: 53As an experiment, I ran some auctions last week to blow out super old stuff that was getting on my nerves, stuff that was generating very little interest. Dirt cheap, mostly priced to cover my initial cost, which is always very low. A good chunk of them sold, and while it felt like a sweatshop packing up $2 and $3 dollar items, I was happy to be rid of them. My storage area is pretty small, so I’m happy to free up space. Plus, I saw an uptick in traffic; I’m already close to $500 just since Sunday.
I’m definitely not a spreadsheet person. If I thought it would really help my business (and lately it’s needed some help), I would be all over it. But I’m very much like Jay & Ryanne; I sell mostly weird vintage stuff, and I’ve found that the best way to increase sales is simply to list more stuff. That has resulted in a larger inventory, but I’m totally ok with that. I knew when I listed a Chesterfields Cigarettes vending machine display button that it would take a while to sell, but it did sell…today, for $99 bucks. But the pool timer replacement motor I listed on Saturday sold the next day, which surprised me. Since I have no way of knowing what will sell and when, I don’t bother trying to codify the process. I’d rather be out sourcing or home listing. And this is not a knock on the spreadsheet geeks; if it works for you, awesome.
Paul
RR Store Week Feb 11-17, 2017
Total Items in Store: 1515
Items Sold: 27
Cost of Items Sold: $35.64
Total Sales: $852.47
Highest Price Sold: $161.99 (East Side Story Vol. 1 LP)
Average Price Sold: $31.57
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $52.16
Number of items listed this week: 36Records for the win this week! That East Side Story is a compilation of lowrider oldies, very particular to Southern California. A dealer at a record expo gave me the tip, and I promptly went home and pulled all three of the volumes I own. I hate to let them go, but I’d rather have the original 45 singles than a compilation…and the money. And after last week’s terrible numbers, I needed some higher ticket pieces to move. Out of the 27 items I sold last week, 8 were records.
Speaking of my awful numbers last week, thank you to everyone who gave me suggestions. I plan to follow through with them and continue to grow. I hate the idea of selling off hours of my time, and I’ll do whatever it takes to remain independent.
I’d like to get on the kimchee bandwagon, but I was traumatized as a kid! My biological father used to work for a gourmet food company, and they had kimchee in their line of products. He used to eat it straight out of the jar, then breathe that vinegary funk right in my face. He thought it was the funniest thing, but I was so grossed out. I’m sure my palette has matured and I’d probably enjoy it, but I still make a face when I see it at the grocery store.
Paul
Thank you so much, Christine. Seems pretty straightforward. I will definitely check it out!
Paul
