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Got back from vacation yesterday and just got the news. I will be sorry not to hear your podcast every week any more – it was always friendly and informative and a nice occasion for me to reflect on my own business & life. I think it’s really cool that you documented so much of your business for so long a time.
It’s really an interesting case study that could teach much about business generally. I think I have listened to every episode in sequence. It started very nuts and bolts – “here are things to look for” and “here’s what we sold” and becomes more and more process-related as time goes on. Very scrappy at the start, and by the end we have local real estate barons, employers, and small business owners. 🙂 Always an emphasis on lifestyle too which I appreciate, that is after all the end goal.
I may pop back into the forum from time to time but in truth my ebay business feels on autopilot now as well – not in a bad way, I just don’t have much to discuss. I feel like I just need to execute, more & harder.
Many thanks to you both for sharing of your life so much and so candidly. You gave a lot of people a workable roadmap to increased financial independence, by way of serving other people’s needs and, in essence, recycling. Pretty damn cool.
08/22/2021 at 11:30 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 526: Are You Happy? Do You Feel Trapped? #90433Glad to hear J&R are happy about where they’re at right now. I’m getting there as well although I still feel a little overwhelmed with all the work, ebay, and parenting tasks.
It was a good week on ebay.
Sales: CAD$3654, 8 sales, COGS: $226, Fees: ~$475, Postage: $246 –> Gross profit: $2708
Expenses: $351, New inventory: $2977 –> Cashflow: -$394
Trying to make some investments in inventory. Auctions have been a little scarce lately so I’m mostly looking on ebay, with decent success.
Hello all!
Doing a little late night listing tonight and remembered I never checked in.
Good week. FIL just brought me a carload of stuff to list, that’s working out really well, he’s a huge help and allowing me to expand quite a bit.
Sales: CAD$4660, 12 sales, COGS: $286, Fees: ~$606, Postage: $850 –> Gross profit: $2919
Expenses: $123, New inventory: $1039 –> Cashflow: $2042
Damn, those are some crazy numbers to pull when your whole inventory fits into a few shoeboxes (I’m guessing).
Welcome back from vacation! Glad you guys were able to relax a bit.
Numbers for last 2 weeks:
Sales: CAD$6641, 17 sales, COGS: $351, Fees: ~$863, Postage: $555 –> Gross profit: $4872
Expenses: $1227, New inventory: $1804 –> Cashflow: $2192
I did have an $1800 refund, not reflected in the above numbers. It happens.
I don’t think I agree about immediate payment with best offer. At least, the best offer function would have to be made much more sophisticated before that would work. I fear this would lead to a lot of deals falling through.
I get a lot of offers conditional on a certain shipping price, or on combined shipping, or whatever. A buyer is not going to make offers on multiple items in your store if ebay forces them to pay $150 up front in shipping on 10 separate light items. OK you can refund them after, but good luck convincing them to trust you on that.
It is also currently pretty easy for buyers to cancel even if they already paid, and I doubt that’s going to change. So what would we have gained? Money *temporarily* in our bank account, and less flexibility for making a custom deal.
That’s exciting! Hoping all goes as smoothly as possible.
07/26/2021 at 7:19 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 523: Will You Ever Stop Selling On eBay? #89901I think I had to refund a $1000 breaker about 1 month ago. Rolled the dice and lost on that one. It happens… but it still seems to be very +EV to take the risks on potentially high dollar inventory. The insurance is making sure one doesn’t overpay on iffy items, so you make 5x-10x on the successes and lose 1x on the odd return (really just refund, I never ask them to send anything back).
07/26/2021 at 9:07 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 523: Will You Ever Stop Selling On eBay? #89872Morning, hope everyone had a good weekend! We got some beach time in and a hike with the kids as well, which was nice. Ebay was good this week.
Sales: CAD$3982, 12 sales, COGS: $542, Fees: ~$518, Postage: $360 –> Gross profit: $2563
Expenses: $105, New inventory: $0 –> Cashflow: $3000
Biggest sale was an inverter drive for $1800, however there is a higher than average risk of return on this one.
Glad you guys are enjoying your vacation. We had a mini vacation / family reunion this weekend, which was great. Kids played with their cousins and watched trains.
Had a very good week on ebay again.
Sales: CAD$9323, 15 sales, COGS: $872, Fees: ~$1212, Postage: $209 –> Gross profit: $7030
Expenses: $151, New inventory: $380 –> Cashflow: $7371
Big sale was a pipe fusing machine for $5500… mind you, now I have to ship it which is going to be a real pain.
My father in law is picking up another small auction haul today for me. This has been great and allows me to buy a lot more without worrying about the logistics with work.
Hello!
Numbers for the last TWO weeks. I have made large investments in several really good online auctions that happened to be all in the last two weeks.
I am paying my FIL, who is looking for some extra cash, to pick these up out of town, which is working out really well and allowing me to expand my reach greatly and bid on stuff I otherwise wouldn’t. It’s beautiful.
Luckily I made a single really good sale that has more than covered these investments. (The last of my HVAC controllers, the best pick I ever made, have now sold to the same buyer.)
Sales (2 weeks): CAD$23,569, 13 sales, COGS: $1171, Fees: ~$3064, Postage: $134 –> Gross profit: $19,200
Expenses: $2211, New inventory: $11883 –> Cashflow: $6277
I first parsed this as that you’d sold:
>LEXINGTON training aircraft carrier
Now that’s something to aspire to.
06/28/2021 at 2:51 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 520: When Scavenging Goes Bad (and then Good) #89502Yes, I hate it when auctions go against me and I end up with not enough inventory to be worth it. It does make for a difficult equation. Much also depends on the order of the lots. Best that the more significant items be at the start of the auction; then, one could bid on them, and if won, try to pick up additional lots. The opposite is very tedious and almost requires you to commit to overpaying for some things so as to make the trip worth it.
I had a very slow week on ebay. So be it – last week was good enough for two.
Sales: CAD$1699, 11 sales, COGS: $198, Fees: ~$221, Postage: $265 –> Gross profit: $1015
Expenses: $0, New inventory: $515 –> Cashflow: $698
Got some decent stuff at auction, although I missed out on the big ticket items this time. (There were a couple of fancy brand new projectors worth $22k – I went up to $6500.)
Still more good auctions this week… hoping to get an influx of new inventory to make up for my slow scavenging lately.
No, but I am in an LLC which shields personal assets from such a case. Generally if I’m not sure I cover my butt with a disclaimer like “untested, refund if found not working” which should clue buyers in that they need to confirm these things work before putting them into service.
I find I am a cheap goat when it comes to myself, but pretty easily get sucked into spending a lot on the kids, even when they’re not really asking for it. Perennial challenge.
This week was the best single sales week on ebay I ever had. Big sale was a bunch of flame detectors for $8850, I spent about $2k on them on ebay originally.
Sales: CAD$12,805, 17 sales, COGS: $2118, Fees: ~$1665, Postage: $490 –> Gross profit: $8532
Expenses: $0, New inventory: $0 –> Cashflow: $10,650
However there are several good auctions this week and I expect I’ll blow a lot of this cash in them.
I have been having good experiences with DHL lately. UPS cost me $4000 this year and appear unlikely to cough up, so they are definitely in the doghouse, although sometimes they’re so much cheaper that I do use them for large items because they’ll pick up. Fedex won’t pick up so forget it, might as well use the post office.
If you set up an account with DHL, even if you ship only one item, they seem motivated to improve their rates in the hopes of getting you to use them more. This has happened to me a couple times this year. It’s still not the cheapest option but it is reliable and quick and it’s not insanely expensive so it’s my new go-to for high dollar sales or if a buyer requests fast shipping.
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