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I think that you will see a lot more inventory out there in a few months time. With everyone stuck at home many people are probably looking around their homes and thinking “why do we have this or that”, lets clean house when this is over. Everyone might be buying puzzles and such right now to keep busy but they will probably be donating those to thrift stores when they can come out of their homes. Once you’ve completed a puzzle the thrill is gone…
I can’t imagine they will not get bailed out, they are such a huge institution that it’s almost unthinkable for them to “go under”.
IF something were to happen to USPS I would hope Ebay would partner with some of the other carriers like Mercadolibre has done here. I can ship basically anything the size of a shoebox anywhere in the country, next day with DHL for under $5…
Almasty, I totally understand your point, media rate is a necessity for selling lower end books, might be time to raise your threshold on the books you go after. Not sure what your minimum price point is, but when I was selling books I started with a “nothing less than $8” mindset, then over time gradually raised it to “nothing less than $12” and so on as time went by until I wasn’t really dealing with anything worth less than $20 when I went out sourcing. It took a little while to get used to buying far fewer books but it was worth the change.Jay, yes, the prez here is not setting a great example, but the people are wise enough to listen to the news and act accordingly. Seems like presidents everywhere are not the best source for news…
Down here we are about 2 to 3 weeks behind the US but people have already been staying home and wearing masks when they go out for weeks now. People are not going out to exercise, parks are closed, beaches are closed, many towns have closed themselves off and do not allow anyone who does not live there full time in.
The bad news, xenophobia is at an all time high, Mexico is not a country of great diversity and people are always quick to point out that you are not from here and are very wary of even people from the rest of the country visiting their town, much less a foreigner. I have been a resident here for 14 years and carry my residency card just in case I am ever confused with a tourist.
The good news, because the government, store owners and people have been taking it SO seriously for the past few weeks it should make a major difference in the overall number of cases.
Stay home and stay safe everyone!Good podcast, sorry to hear about your rentals, but it surprises me it was actually still allowed. I feel bad for folks who leveraged themselves to buy rental properties, that market is going to be at zero basically for many months to come and if they have loans on those places it’s going to get tough.
Sales here continue but are down a bit.
One big score though, I won another big auction for government stuff decommissioned at the border or airport or stuff that came in and was abandoned at customs. One line item from that lot will more than pay for what I paid for the whole lot, 60 Hydro Flask 21 oz bottles. The rest of the lots is alot of toys, some clothing, rifle scopes, some tools, and can’t remember off hand what else. It will be like 4 pallets of stuff, great score for us that will keep us busy listing and selling for like 4 months.
Many towns here have closed themselves off from the outside world with roadblocks, and some have gone to the extreme measure of actually piling rocks on the road to block of the town.
Along the coast here beach towns are not even allowing people from the city to go to their beach houses. Beaches are all closed and the police will chase you off if you even try to go out. Here’s a little video clip of a police helicopter actually chasing a guy who is on a jetski until he went back home!En los videos tomados desde una casa en la costa yucateca, quien graba expresa: "Persiguiendo a las motos. No hay juegos, nada para nadie", al presenciar la vigilancia de la SSP.
(Video de redes) 📽 pic.twitter.com/ZX3TQYXAzy— Diario de Yucatán (@DiariodeYucatan) April 4, 2020
Stay safe everyone, sales will pick up eventually and this will hopefully pass sooner rather than later!
Noting but time down here on semi lockdown.
Wow, this could be a long list, we are watching a TON of stuff being stuck inside…
Ozark, The Sinner, Killing Eve was good, always enjoy Grand Designs, Hannibal was a good freaky one from a few years ago, of course Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, I have even been watching episodes of This Old House (that show has been on FOREVER) just found Archer which has 10 seasons out to keep me busy for a few days (light and stupid comedy), Bojack Horseman was good, The Wire was an excellent cop show. The Handmaids Tale will make you a bit uneasy but is well done.Jay, our plan? Keep doing the same thing we do, bid on big merchandise lots at auction and sell it online on mercadolibre. We are fine financially, own our house outright, same for the car. Solar panels keep our elec bill very low. I would say we are pretty well suited to actually do well this year, we will just stick to our plan and keep our heads down…
I do not post on here very often but wanted to let you know how this is going in my part of Mexico. At the moment there are only 316 cases reported in the whole of Mexico. Many towns have closed themselves off to ALL traffic if you do not live there, literally set up checkpoints on the roads and you will not be allowed in if you are not a resident. This goes for locals and foreigners alike. All those beach towns are taking a terrible pounding tourism wise, basically at zero percent occupancy for them now. A large hotel chain in Playa del Carmen just laid off 250 workers with no pay but was “nice enough” to give them 75 dollars in food stamps per month, which believe me is not enough for the basics. There is no unemployment payments here like the US, it’s fend for yourself.
All bars, cantinas, health clubs and movie theaters are closed by gov order until who knows when. Schools are all closed for the foreseeable future. The hotels and restaurants that are open are reporting that sales are down 90%.
Even though the federal government has not imposed a “stay at home” order yet, people are staying at home and taking precautions. It’s not expected to peak here until like late june or july so it’s going to be a loooooong boring wait until then. I really feel for the folks at home with the kids and they can not take them to either the beach or the movies, people are going to get real antsy before this is over.
On the bright side online sales have picked up a little, kids toys and hobby stuff mostly.
Stay safe everyone, this is going to have HUGE effects to many many people, not just those that get sick.Winchester38, sounds like you settled in nicely to the new place and are REALLY hitting it hard with all the shipping trips across borders, etc… Your numbers are amazing to me, seems like amazon is very consistent for you and you are adding slowly to your base product line after something has proven itself as a seller.
Getting out of debt is such a great feeling, life becomes so much simpler when you don’t owe anyone anything anymore you can live on so much less.Great podcast, really enjoyed hearing from Dan!
The whole move out day from colleges can be a goldmine. I lived at Yale for a few years and the stuff those kids threw away was amazing, christmas break and end of year was insane in the recycle rooms. I would put out bins in the recycling rooms of several different buildings with a note “text books only please” and the kids would fill them for me. I had days I was listing well over a $1k on amazon. And on actual move out day the streets would be lined with dumpsters and big cut off boxes and the kids would just FILL them, I spotted a few other pickers out there enjoying the spoils as well…In my mind products are either used or new. Then you can get in to further descriptions based on minor details like new but damaged packaging, new unopened, etc. And used can be broken down as well describing all the wear and imperfections.
Think of the places that sell the scratch and dent canned food, they are selling NEW food, definitely not USED food, and those places are not the original manufacturer or original seller.That would be an amazing score, the type of inventory that is super easy to list, all new in box barcoded items. Granted it is YEARS worth of inventory but much of the cheaper stuff could go to amazon fba and let them handle the shipping, keep the higher dollar stuff for his own acct.
One thing you might think about is what types of things do you personally like? It’s generally a good place to start. Lets say you like baseball, you can search baseball gear on ebay, click on completed listings, set the results from high to low and keep an eye on which items and brands are towards the top of the list. That way you either make a cheat sheet or memorize those particular items. Keep doing this on different categories and expand your knowledge base.
Generally if I am trying to learn a new category that’s how I learn about things, research…Jay, people were doing the same thing with VW diesels a few years back after VW got in to a bit of trouble over their emissions cheating. They were buying any of the qualifying year cars in any condition and reselling them back to VW for a nice sum. Some guys were doing like 20 cars a month while it lasted…
Arizona mike, I used to sell books also on amazon, it was a good and fairly easy way to make a buck. Back then it was all about volume, scanning and bulk searching. Listing was very quick and media rate shipping was very cheap. If I moved back to the US again I would jump back in to that as a base income and continue to learn more about different categories and try to keep branching out. The big thing with books that helped me was living near alot of expensive areas, folks would read a book and then donate it to the friends of the library stores.
