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10/11/2018 at 9:29 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #50008
Amen! 🙂
I also didn’t mention the flexibility! I have to be at the office from 7-4 every day. Even if you also worked 40 hrs/week, which I don’t think you do, you can put in those 40 for the most part whenever you want. No rearranging stuff to go to the doctor’s etc.
Re the hours, I mean, you can try to guesstimate. I think you said 16,000 items of lifetime sales. You guys scavenge lots of stuff at a time, so let’s say 5 minutes/item to scavenge. 5 minutes to process. 10 minutes to list. 10 minutes to pick & pack. 5 minutes buying label/dealing with post office. 1 minute customer issues (on average). That’s 36 minutes/item roughly = 0.6 hrs. 0.6hrs/item * 16000 items = 9600 hours.
Now the punchline: $700k/9600hrs = $72/hr gross, perhaps $58 net. I know these are rough numbers, but DAMN. Plus, as T-Satt says below, your profits are lagged and if you only shipped starting tomorrow you’d still be making a decent chunk of change for 1-2 years.
10/11/2018 at 9:10 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #50006J&R, in older podcasts you guys often talked about wanting to do more higher-dollar items even if you have to pay (buy for $50-100, sell for $400-1000).
Do you think having helpers is driving you to buy lower-dollar stuff instead, in order to keep them busy?
10/11/2018 at 9:06 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #50003TSatt, exactly. Jay & Ryanne have basically created an annuity for themselves with their gigantic long-tail inventory. It’s worth the present value of all the future payments, less the work of shipping – maybe something like $200k as you say.
10/09/2018 at 10:35 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #49905Re lifetime earnings. In my view the picture is incomplete without hours. Do you have a record or estimated idea of how many hours went into that $700k?
There is an even further consideration of how much fun an hour of ebaying is vs an hour on ye old cube farme but we can table that.
I really recommend folks track their hours at least approximately. It gives you a different perspective. Helps you think about whether this business is worth your time, and also whether certain items are worth your time.
10/08/2018 at 9:42 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 380: What Do Lifetime Sales Really Mean? #49743I like the video! I’ll listen to the pod anon to get some context. Happy thanksgiving all!
I had my first really solid week in a long time. September doldrums hopefully over.
Sales: CAD$1287, 6 items, COGS: $265 –> Item profit: $778
Notable sales: my last miter saw laser $15–>$215, first lot of 10 of those VOIP phones I scored a couple months ago sold for $210 (paid less than that for the entire lot of 140 phones), sold a piece of lab equipment to Taiwan $5–>$350, and LED strip light for $225, part of my big auction haul, which is now about 1/3 paid off.
Expenditures: $0 –> After-tax cashflow: $841
Listed: $2900, 72 items
I’ve been listing almost everything from my auction haul, even the low-dollar stuff. Hope I don’t regret the huge amount of space they take up/logistical nightmare of keeping track of them. I’ve made about 110 listings from that haul so far, almost done. Probably 20 more.
Hours: 13, $65/hr after taxThanks, good reminder!
I had 2 packages to ship tonight. One was 12 kg, so it didn’t qualify. Then I tried to buy the label for the other and Canada Post’s website is down. I could still buy through Shippo so I just bought the label. :S gotta get some sleep.
I might tweak my handling time to take advantage next week though.
Sales still not very good, but anything’s better than last week.
Sales: CAD$352, 5 items, COGS: $26 –> Item profit: $262
Expenditures: $160 –> After-tax cashflow: $59 (bought myself a work laptop)
Listed: $5785, 33 items (listing binge from that auction haul continues apace)
Hours: 6.5, $10/hr
Notable sales: some plastic bushings from my auction haul for $110, almost threw those out. Good week for cases – 2 empty Ultrium cases for $120. But yeah… slow week.Looking back at the month, I see my September STR was 0.7%, which is the lowest it’s ever been, and half as much as the previous 2 months (1.2%). Not sure why September was so much worse than August & July. But it was my craziest listing month ever, with estimated inventory value of $16.6K listed. So hopefully all this stuff sells this winter and I make a killing.
Had a painful refund this week. $1890 for an ice-cream maker that didn’t work. Rolled the dice on this one and lost… in general these things work out more often than not though. But it’s painful when I thought that was money in the bank.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by
simplicio.
Some of them are bigger, like breaker enclosures. But yeah, the actuators & other small parts are nice and easy to store and ship. On reflection, probably like 100 listings worth of stuff but many multiples.
Regarding the “also bought” item suggestions. I believe done well, this is very positive, particularly for vintage/one-of sellers. When a buyer searches eBay, the main thing we as sellers should be worried about is that they leave without finding anything that they want. Not that they buy somebody else’s nut bowl instead of ours. If eBay can guide them successfully to stuff they may like, that’s great! Maybe not so great for the commodity sellers although presumably it’s a wash there too.
Sales: CAD$557, 5 items. COGS: $41 –> Item profit: $418
Expenses: $1809 –> Cashflow after tax: -$1459
Listings: $980, 12 items
Hours: 14, -$105/hrI bought a huge auction haul for $1800 that will keep me busy for a month. Hundreds and hundreds of items from an electrical supply store bankruptcy.
Notable sales: miter saw laser $17–>$215 on amazon, the Official Catholic Directory 1991 $1–>$175 on eBay. Slow week.
09/17/2018 at 9:53 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 377: Talking Numbers with TSatt (Troy) #48860Regarding sourcing and what you choose to sell. Just curious if the price point of $20-30 per item is a conscious choice? Personally I tend to chase high dollar items somewhat obsessively. I think it makes at least some sense as I’m trying to optimize primarily time & secondarily space. Is there a strategy behind what you buy (heavy on clothes) or is it more buying what you know?
09/17/2018 at 8:35 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 377: Talking Numbers with TSatt (Troy) #48857Noted that at least by these numbers, you guys are actually 20x sellers.
(I am 10x on average).
09/17/2018 at 1:52 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 377: Talking Numbers with TSatt (Troy) #48820Great interview! I like to think about these things a lot too. Personally being in growth mode, prediction is a lost cause right now, but cashflow is critical.
Now if only I actually acted on my own advice…
Sales: CAD$358, 3 items.
COGS: $123 –> Item profit: $176
Expenses: $381 –> Cashflow after tax: -$128
Listed: $3650, 15 items
Notable sales: first 30 of 430 smoke detectors sold for $190, which gives me a $75 profit on the whole lot, with 400 of them left to sell. The funny thing is, these were what I considered the cheap crappy ones. Almost didn’t list them.
Scavenging: nice auction haul for about $300, cornered the market in brake pads and emergency respirators. Best were a couple of gas valve controllers, should be $2000 each.Oh, and I finally hit 500 listings! Running with the big dogs! 😉
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This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by
simplicio.
Retirement is a weird goal, yeah. Romans talked about “otium”, which is leisure in the sense of being at leisure to do as you please and not being beholden. So, Otium seems like a good target for all of us (though the optimates didn’t care much for us merchants). Actually otium is the root of “negotiate” (via “business” = neg-otium, i.e., non-leisure).
ANYWAY
Good week.
Sales: CAD$2493, 3 items, COGS: $737 –> Item profit: $1391
Expenditures: $50 –> Cashflow after tax: $1716
Notable sales: ice cream whipper machine $450–>$1800. Bought this at auction a couple weeks ago.
Haven’t scavenged too much of note, trying to curb my spend. Best were some medical supplies (bed exit sensors) a long tail maybe $400 item for $2 each.
Listed: $655, 13 items
Hours: 12, $144/hrOh, about the app. It’s just the drafts functionality that’s messed up. Drafts can be created on mobile but they’re invisible (half the time anyway), you have to go to the browser to see them. This is version 5.24.1.
Update: it’s not fixed. Now, the mobile app randomly brings up either the old or the new listing UI *in the same session*. Anything saved from the new listing page is invisible, anything from the old is OK. This is almost more ridiculous than what I thought the error was originally.
They fixed it yesterday! Thank goodness for that.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by
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