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[Simon]

My numbers for this week….

Total Items in Store: 2242
Items Sold: 36
Total Sales: $686
Cost of Items Sold: $66
Average Price Sold: $19.05
Average Cost of Item: $1.86
Highest Price Item Sold: $25.46 Belt Buckle
Number of items listed this week: 66
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 310
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 184
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 115
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.61%
# of Hats Sold: 26 (72% of sales)

It was a very quiet week for me. My sales were about 60% of the average of the last 6 weeks. I’m not concerned though because I’ve been doing this long enough now to know that there are unexplainable ups and downs. I guess this down week is at least partially related to my lack of new high-price listings recently. My biggest sale was an embarrassing $25.

I recently completed my taxes. I’m happy to have that behind me. I’ve been doing my own taxes now for 30 years but it still bugs me and with my reselling biz there are lots of details that need to come together to finalize it.

I got a dreaded IRS letter last year about my 2015 taxes but it turned out that it was painless to resolve. I wrote a letter, provided some more info, my a correction and sent a small check and was all done. If you do your taxes honestly to the best of your ability I don’t think there’s much to worry about. It’s more of a fear of the unknown.

Hope everyone has a good week.

[Simon]

Thanks very much for your podcast guys.

Here are my numbers for the week:

Total Items in Store: 2223
Items Sold: 59
Total Sales: $1132
Cost of Items Sold: $119
Average Price Sold: $19.18
Average Cost of Item: $2.03
Highest Price Item Sold: $49.95 Broken PS3 (inc. shipping)
Number of items listed this week: 67
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 320
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 145
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 80
Sell-through rate (for the week): 2.65%
# of Hats Sold: 43 (72% of sales)

I had a great week. I added best-offer to about 1000 hats about a week ago and that caused a lot of activity in my store. I put auto-reject to eliminate very low bids but I accepted lots of reasonable offers. Last night (Sunday) was so busy it was starting to get annoying – it’s a good problem to have!

I know that the scavenger life model is to source and list high-value items but I’m actually fine with selling a higher volume of low-value items. Each sale has almost zero risk. If a hat goes missing or gets damaged or returned it doesn’t matter to me. I generally only have a dollar or two invested in each item.

In terms of a long term plan, I wonder if you guys have a contingency in case one of get too sick to work. For example, could Jay handle your store alone if Ryanne was incapacitated? Does Jay know how to ship items for example?

I’d be interested in hearing a quick update on your rentals from time to time. (It looks like you’re not doing your Shampoo & Booze podcast often these days).

Hope everyone has a good week.

[Simon]

Wow. That’s a great story.

[Simon]

I’m still listening to the show as I post my numbers. Here they are:

Total Items in Store: 2215
Items Sold: 44
Total Sales: $867
Cost of Items Sold: $91
Average Price Sold: $19.7
Average Cost of Item: $2.09
Highest Price Item Sold: $29.95 Herzog Zwei : Sega Genesis game
Number of items listed this week: 69
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 309
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 198
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 68
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.99%
# of Hats Sold: 30 (68% of sales)

I dont have a lot of high $ items listed at the moment and everything I sold this week was fairly cheap but the volume made up for it. I’m happy with these numbers.

I have a plan to retire (from full-time work) in just over 2 years. I have a count down on my computer. When I start my browser at work it tells me how many days I have left till my target retirement date (mid 2020). I’ll be retiring at 55 if actually retire on that date. I’ve logged into the SSA website to check my retirement benefits. I’m not really clear if I would get those same benefits if I stop working early or whether they are assuming that I will continue working at my current salary up to my retirement date. (I dont actually plan to draw social security benefits till I’m in my 60s).

[Simon]

Here are my numbers for this week:

Total Items in Store: 2190
Items Sold: 37
Total Sales: $822
Cost of Items Sold: $76
Average Price Sold: $22.22
Average Cost of Item: $2.07
Highest Price Item Sold: $78.95 Truxton Sega Genesis game (found in a big box of games that I paid $10 for).
Number of items listed this week: 46
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 310
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 154
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 57
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.69%
# of Hats Sold: 26 (70% of sales)

I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks but things have been surprisingly busy on the eBay front. The prior 2 weeks to this one I had over $1,000 in sales each week which was pretty great. This week I was on a business trip and I had long handling times which probably has a slight impact on sales.

In regard to the lifestyle discussion, I know what it would take for me to quit my full time gig. I’d need to move to a different state to get my cost of living down. It’s not going to happen right now because I have my family to think about. For most people considering the Frugalwoods lifestyle, there are going to be some significant concessions required and the vast majority of people aren’t going to consider those concessions worthwhile. Understandably. I think the most important thing is that people need ton know that there are other lifestyle choices that most of us can make to considerable change our lives (especially our later lives). That way at least people are making a conscious decision about which path they are going to follow rather than just blindly copying what everyone else does.

[Simon]

When I saw the headline about new store levels I was really hoping they would fill the hole between premium and anchor. I’m sad they didn’t do that

[Simon]

Thanks for the podcast R&J. I generally listen on Monday morning on the way to work. It makes my work week just a little bit brighter so I’m grateful for that.

Here are my numbers for the week:

Total Items in Store: 2189
Items Sold: 43
Total Sales: $1148
Cost of Items Sold: $122
Average Price Sold: $26.69
Average Cost of Item: $2.85
Highest Price Item Sold: $298.95 Rollei 35 S Compact Camera (bought for $30 at an estate sale)
Number of items listed this week: 81
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 314
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 137
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 93
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.96%
# of Hats Sold: 30 (69% of sales)

I had a great week. It started off well with that camera sale mentioned above. I’m not really a camera guy but I found that one up at an estate sale. I didn’t recognize the brand but when I held it in my hand it was much heavier than I expected which sometimes indicates quality so I looked it up quickly on eBay and thought it might be a $100 camera. The final listing price was a nice surprise. I’ve also been doing well with paper items this week in addition to a good number of hat sales.

I remember about 3 years ago when I first found the Scavenger Life podcast and I heard the suggestion to list 500 items. It really helped me realize how much I’d have to scale my business to make some reasonable money. If I hadn’t heard that I might have thought that 50 or 100 listings was a huge number. By the time you hit 500 listings you’re definitely figuring things like sourcing and shipping out. I think I’d argue that 1000 listings is probably a better goal for anyone wanting to consider doing this full time.

[Simon]

I know the $500 challenge is really just hypothetical situation but JasonK is correct. It’s more accurate to compare $500 gross paycheck pay against $500 net profit (before taxes) on eBay. Federal, State, Medicare and Social Security comes out of your paycheck immediately when you have a job but you actually do pay the same taxes (including Medicare / SS taxes) on your eBay money in the form of self-employment tax. It just happens at a different time when you have an eBay biz.

[Simon]

I’ve very proud of the money I make for my self on eBay. It’s much more important to me that the money I make through my day job even though my salary pays for the vast majority of our expenses. My wife is loving the list-on-ebay lifestyle. She’s so much happier doing that than working a part-time retail job so at least one of us reaps that benefit.

Eliminating my 3.5hr daily commute would make my life a whole lot better.

[Simon]

Thanks for the show R&J!

Here are my numbers for the week:
Total Items in Store: 2136
Items Sold: 42
Total Sales: $888
Cost of Items Sold: $68
Average Price Sold: $21.15
Average Cost of Item: $1.63
Highest Price Item Sold: $64.95 Helly Hansen jacket (paid $10)
Number of items listed this week: 65
Average age of items in store (in days since listing): 305
Average number of days between listing and selling this week: 203
Median age of sales (in days, between listing and selling): 169
Sell-through rate (for the week): 1.97%
# of Hats Sold: 29 (69% of sales)

I had a good week overall. The weekend was busy but the weekdays were all over the place sales-wise.

I’m one of your listeners with golden handcuffs / golden cage. Replacing my salary with used hat sales isn’t practical and living in my current hcol area (SF Bay Area) on my ebay sales isn’t practical. I’d have to uproot my family and move somewhere cheaper which isn’t desirable right now. (Eldery MIL nearby and a kid in the local college). I’m still thinking I’ll try partial retirement in a couple of years. I can dream.

[Simon]

I read elsewhere that the recent USPS changes might mean that SmartPost isn’t as cost-effective as it use to be. Maybe FedEx or the post office is trying to push people to other services.

[Simon]

@ChristineK – yes. The subject line was “Trademark Violation – Unauthorized Item” and the body of the message included “Your listing was removed after the rights owner reported it as counterfeit. ”

There are still 1200+ listings on eBay for “Subaru hat”. 75 of those are for used hats. I wonder if we’ll see that number change much over the next few days.

[Simon]

I got a VERO notice overnight for 2 separate Subaru hats so it seems they haven’t started a crackdown. 1 of those hats has been listed since July last year.

VEROs are very random. There’s really no way to protect yourself with these if you intend to sell lots of used items from different brands. It would be nice to know what a legitimate Subaru hat looks like for future reference.

Funny story about Subaru hats. I sold one last week. The buyer was a little odd. I got a couple of unusual messages from him. This week I got a photo from him wearing the hat. Apparently he likes it.

My last VERO was for a hat from a gun company. When I googled the maker of the hat I found it was made by a company that produces promotional products for the gun company so the hat seemed perfectly legitimate.

[Simon]

I also wash hats by hand with a bit of stain remover and a soak in a bucket of water. I air dry outside when the weather cooperates or inside of it doesn’t.

Machine washing will sometimes destroy older hats and velcro can destroy running hats. I don’t recommend dryers for similar reasons.

If anyone really wants to wash a hat in the dishwasher toy can buy a frame on eBay which you put the hat in to keep the hat’s shape.i haven’t done it myself.

[Simon]

Regarding piling, I recently bought myself a cheap electric fuzz remover. It seems to work quite well and can solve that problem for some items. Search eBay for “fuzz remover”. I didn’t realize that such a device existed till recently.

[Author]

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