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Week of Apr 10 – 16
Total Items in Store: 1569 eBay, 36 Etsy
Items Sold: 13 eBay, 0 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $18 + $78 Commission
Total Sales: $385.43 eBay; Includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $139 for Royal Secret Spray Concentre Eau de Cologne (commission sale)
Average price: $29.65
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 41This week was definitely better. My part time job keeps taking up my attention, but it pays well. I have managed to list a good deal over the past few weeks because I have stuff lying around my house in boxes. Now it’s lying around in my basement waiting to be organized.
Steve – Why was that boombox price so high when the cassette player wasn’t working? Was it of particularly high quality or rarity?
Last week was pretty slow. I had one big sale to talk about.
I bought a bookshelf of mostly older books in an online auction; I believe later in 2020 but still with the pandemic restrictions. I only paid a few dollars for the whole thing (don’t remember off the top of my head), and I was into profit range probably with the first sale. This set of two books is a re-print of two volumes written in the late 1800s / early 1900s about the history of Westchester County in NY. They sold for $130. The address is NY, so I googled the town. Yes, the buyer lives in Westchester County, NY.
At one time, eBay updated the software saying that they would show the cheapest shipping rate depending on buyer location, but it didn’t really work. It is bad enough for me on the east coast, but Washington state is really up in a corner there.
I have Business policies, and I select the correct one for the listing and hope for the best. If I have a heavy or large item, I have a policy that is FedEx first and Parcel second. For most items, the choice is Priority, FedEx, Parcel. Then, I have policies for first class, media mail, and a few flat rate such as medium box or padded bag.
Do all your items fit in a Medium flat rate box? What happens if it doesn’t fit?
I would try setting up business policies and then using eBay’s shipping calculator to figure out which is best for each listing.
https://www.ebay.com/shp/Calculator
Some sellers add in something like “please look through all the shipping options to pick the one that is cheapest for you”.
That’s about all you can do.
Last year, my BIL was looking for a home. I suggested that he consider foreclosures, but he was looking for something very specific and went the normal route through an agent.
I have all these links that I researched for him. Perhaps you are already familiar with them, but I figured I’ll paste the links here. I can’t help from personal experience, but I do know that Ryanne and Jay purchased their home as a foreclosure.
Here are a few articles on how to buy foreclosed home.
https://www.zillow.com/foreclosures/buyer/finding-foreclosures/
Here is a site I found by search. I don’t know anything about it:
This site is associated with an HGTV program that covers cheap houses. You have to subscribe (and pay money) to get the full list. They pick out homes that are cheap but they feel have good value. I’ve never seen the program; just heard about it.
Here’s a couple of sites that I found just searching. I can’t vouch for them:
https://www.landville.com/The government sells homes that were financed in special programs, but the owners couldn’t pay the mortgage. At least, I think that is the premise. You would need to research and check through each of the sites on a regular basis:
@antique-frog – Could be, makes sense. Thanks for your help!
Do boxes full of recently washed kitchen and dining ware blocking my passage from one room to another inspire me to list, list, list? Oh, yes it does! I listed 72 items last week. I don’t keep track, but that is a record for sure.
No room to work on the challenge, but I have some thoughts to get some work done on it this week. I still have boxes of stuff lying around and more in the garage, so we’ll see.
I came here to say the same thing as @cherylvintageserenity. This week was dismal for sales, and I only sold 6 items. If it weren’t for one larger sale, my total for the week would be sub-$100.
@craig-rex – Having grown up in Pittsburgh and still having a sister and other relatives who live there, I was following the news story about Haskins. I recall hearing about how the Steelers had just hired another quarterback to replace Roethlisberger. So sad, but seeing an increase in sales after a death is nothing new. I recall (as a kid) how Elvis had faded in popularity, but then suddenly sales hit the roof when he passed. My mom had purchased a black fuzzy poster of him for a dime somewhere, and she was thinking she could sell it real high. I forget what happened, but I think she ended up giving it away.Anyway, my dismal sales are shown below. I did replace all my packing time with listing and ended up hitting an all-time high for me.
Week of Apr 3 – 9
Total Items in Store: 1546 eBay, 36 Etsy
Items Sold: 6 eBay, 0 Etsy
Cost of Items Sold: $9 + $0 Commission
Total Sales: $224.43 eBay; Includes fees but no shipping
Highest Price Sold: eBay $130 for 2 volume book set reprint on the history of Westchester county
Average price: $37.40
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 72Huh, so you have a color meter that can work off the computer monitor?
They looked like a green to me, but came out more gray in the photos.
The plate definitely has a flower in the center with leaves all around, but I did check for a Loganberry glass patter, and I see the similarity. Not it though.
Thanks!
Wow, that is quite a sale on the fireplace. I recall seeing it in the background of some of your photos.
I bought a battery operated vacuum cleaner in an online auction a few weeks ago. They advertised it as a steam mop, which I wanted for myself, but they had wrong information. It was working, but the battery ran out of juice quickly, and it didn’t come with the charger. I mulled over selling it as a working vacuum cleaner without the charger and looked up rules on shipping lithium ion batteries through the mail. In the end, I disconnected it into three parts and will recycle the battery. The first to sell is the head unit for $50. I paid $7 for the auction lot that included other cleaning products and a roll of kitchen garbage bags that I will keep for myself.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185357690265
This simple sugar dispenser was recently purchased in an online auction. It was thick and substantial, and I don’t believe it was ever used. It sold in just a week or two for $16. I paid less than $1.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185327164217
I recently purchased a number of items at thrift stores. I haven’t been to one in a year or two. I knew prices had increased substantially, but I wanted to check some out. I paid $10 for this set of Lenox Judaica plates, which is high, but I am happy with the $54 sale price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185340531894
This is a commission, but a very nice sale. It is a sterling meat serving fork that sold for $65.
Awesome!
Not everyone reads descriptions. You might get a return for the dog not coming with fire from hell. LOL
I’m thinking there is a keyword in the title that Webpress or other forum program flags as spam. Perhaps repost it with a different post title.
I forgot to mention my sales through Swap.com. The concept with this site is pretty awesome. You send in clean clothes meeting their requirements, and they sell them for you and give you a percentage. Not a great percentage, but they are doing all the heavy loading for you.
In practice, they are very slow, they reject clothes that meet their requirements, and they lose your items. I had sent in a few boxes last year, and they had listed maybe half of it. I kept waiting for the rest to be listed, but it never happened. I finally contacted them, and the service rep told me that they “lost” my listings. I think that means they listed them, but forgot to tie them to my account.
They offered me $180 to cover the value of what would have sold. So that is what is shown above.
I’ve now sent them in two boxes from my neighbor. The boxes have been sitting in storage, and the service rep told me it could take up to 120 days for them to list it. These boxes contain over 100 NWT clothing items that I just don’t have the time to list. I’ll see how Swap does this time. Great in concept; not so great in practice.
eBay should already be incorporating the fee increase for USPS labels. There is no reason to add a handling fee.
I already have FedEx set as the first choice for large items with Parcel as second, so I should be good.
@amatino – Also, isn’t this the start of second quarter? Not sure if you want to start another thread, but I thought I’d remind you.
