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Yeah, I like spreadsheets too. It’s a powerful way of keeping records and running what-if scenarios.
As long as you run the numbers somehow, that’s the main thing! It gives some objectivity to what can be an emotional rollercoaster.
Nassim Taleb has this whole thing about what folly it is to check a ticker symbol every day. Your emotional state will be chaotic because you take a dip in the price as a psychological hit.
Spreadsheet helps me look back at monthly, yearly numbers & get a little objectivity. Also, locate problems (such as high cost of inventory).
I get the impression this guy is reselling them again in a storefront. Nice to know my place in the Great Chain of Being.
Like Steve says, I think it’s just people running vintage computers, either for pleasure or in a business that doesn’t want to upgrade.
Good podcast… think you hit the right note on the different selling models.
I had a fantastic week, which makes this my best month ever. If every month could be like this I could quit my day job.
Sales: CAD$3261, 9 items, COGS $470 –> item profit $2236
Expenditures: $423 –> Cashflow after tax $1791
Hours: 11 –> $163/hr
Notable sales: on Friday I bought 5 large boxes of 3.5″ floppy diskettes (new in packages) at surplus for a total of $565. There are two brands, Maxell and Imation. On Saturday I got an offer for all of the Imation ones (323 packs of 12 diskettes) for $2000. Buyer and I are working out the shipping now… he wants to use his UPS account, which I think should be fine, but I have not done before. Considering I should be able to sell all the Maxell ones for another $2-3k, I am calling this as my most successful ever pick.
Also sold a Norwegian-made rosewood coffee table for $650. I sold this last year for $1300 but the buyer never paid… maybe I should’ve held out for more but I was happy to move it (to San Francisco). I removed the legs to ship. Originally paid $75.
New listings: 12, total 328 on eBayI am kind of surprised by the lack of any patina whatever (although I guess it’s not supposed to be too old). Did you clean the bronze?
My two cents… keeping track of your costs is good for record keeping and for gauging your skills as a reseller. However, getting focused on original costs at the time of either pricing an item or negotiating with customers is a bad idea. Those costs are sunk.
You shouldn’t sell a krugerrand for $100 even if you got it for free, and you shouldn’t hold out for $100 on a trinket that’s really worth $50, even if you paid $50.
If you need a quick and dirty aid to negotiation baked into the SKU, might I suggest coding in the low end of what your research suggests the item’s worth?
I regret that my phone is always on vibrate, but I am attuned in a pavlovian manner to the “double buzz” of an ebay popup + ebay email. Sometimes I will turn my sound back on before accepting an offer so that I might revel in the full glory of the ka-ching.
Well done on 20 items. What kind of stuff you selling?
Wow, that is an extraordinarily good week for only 5 weeks in! Have you been buying/selling in some other capacity before?
Auctions seem to be a good place, I find them mostly on bidspotter. If I were in the states I’d be on govliquidation all the time too, I see lots of good stuff there. Not sure how high it gets bid up in general.
I go to thrifts, auctions, garage sales, but most of my new inventory is auctions or government surplus. Dislike estate sales as a rule (they are very pricey here).
Hey Mark, I’m in Alberta. I’d say it’s a corner I’ve painted myself into, rather than a feature of the landscape here. I am just super jealous of my time (having a day job & 2 young kids) so more & more I try to stick to high-dollar items. That makes sourcing the bottleneck because those things are harder to find (for the right price anyway).
If I wanted to, I could do a more standard scavenging strategy in thrifts etc. and have tons to list.
Part of the reason I think it’s good to get pickier is that the money you make growing by listing scales arithmetically. Double the listings, double the income (after some lag). Whereas if you put your effort into finding higher-dollar items, there is basically no limit. I’ll never forget the first time I sold an item for over $1000. My other sales that week were basically rounding errors inside of that.
For many sellers, inventory is very cheap and plentiful, in some cases to the point of being nearly free (I think this describes J&R, especially a few years ago, maybe not so much now). Under these conditions, “shut up and list” is a sensible strategy because listing is the bottleneck in the process and it boils down to a numbers game. If your model is to sell that kind of stuff (low capital requirements, high time requirements), it makes sense.
Personally, finding good inventory is the bottleneck, and that’s where I’m laser focused. My death pile has one item in it.
Anyway, the point is “shut up and list” is good advice for a certain style of seller, even though without the necessary caveats it sounds nuts.
