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Great podcast. You guys were cracking me up with Jay’s interrogation of Ryanne’s high prices.
I also notice that I am starting to acquire Jay’s habit of saying “it’s” as a hesitation word, where people usually say “uh” or “um”… is that a regional thing or just a personal quirk?
Sorry to hear you had a slow week. For myself it was quite a good week, but last week was awful.
Sales: CAD$1977, 6 items, COGS $221 –> item profit $1447
Expenses: $7
Net cashflow after tax: $1343
Notable sales:
-9 fluorescent lightbulbs $18 –> $543
-Lot of microscope objectives etc. $59 –> $659 (this is from a table lot I got for $100, it’s now paid off and I’ve still got $1500 or so left to sell from it)
-8 beaten up old radio headsets $40 –> $410
Listed: 14 items
Hours: 8, wage $168/hrI am also happy because I have only one item in my death pile (it’ll have to wait till spring because it needs to be tested outside). Same time, feeling grumpy that I have nothing to list at the moment.
I really blew my whole sourcing budget at the auctions in January. Can’t wait to get new inventory but it’s going to have to be cheap for now.
I use the Smart Weigh ACE110 scale, I love it. It doesn’t turn itself off, but I don’t know how great it is for very light items.
Akai is a good brand. Even if it’s broken I bet you’ll get 50 outta that reel to reel. If it works, a couple hundred.
That tape recorder doesn’t look that amazing and I’ve never heard of the brand. But who knows?
Yep. There are some differences with risk tolerance too. The dumpster diver is really risking nothing but time, the wholesale flipper is going all in on some widget and if it doesn’t pan out they’ll be out quite a bit of money.
I am splitting the difference myself as although I’m willing to shell out quite a bit, I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than $1000 on a single SKU, and my inventory is quite diversified.
Cool find! Seems a fairly safe bet they were made by Dolland… If it has an arrow marking anywhere, it’d seem that that clinches it.
Really, if you want a key concept that kind of unites all these factors, it’s opportunity cost. Could I put the expected time needed for this item (cradle to grave) to better use? What about the space it’ll take up? Is it worth tying up the money?
One split I notice a lot is the capital-limited reseller versus the time-limited reseller. The capital-limited reseller’s extreme version is a dumpster diver. They’re basically trading a lot of their time for a little bit of money, but they don’t have to shell out. The time-limited reseller is trying to basically maximize their hourly “wage” and they don’t mind making large outlays of money to do it.
Point being, these two types will have very different cutoffs for buy/no buy in percent terms and in dollar terms.
The buy/no buy equation is actually pretty complex, I think. Retro Treasures WV did a good job bringing out some of the factors involved.
It’s hard to say exactly how to balance them, but I find while I’m packing is when I do a little post mortem. “Was this item worth the time, space, and hassle?” And that guides future choices.
It’s really very seller dependent too. How much space you have, how much your time is worth, etc.
This is a dilemma I run into pretty frequently. Last week I sourced about 30 NOB fluorescent light fixtures for $15. There is not much sold history but amazon has them priced high and a couple solds on ebay for $100+ each.
Trouble is they are bulky, super slow sellers. I call them century plants: good return but they take forever.
I am kind of irrationally scared of being stuck with junk. This is something I’m trying to get over because a trip to the dump only costs me $10 and an hour.
I took a 5 minute look through your solds. I may not be the best person to ask because I know nothing about clothes, but everything just seems pretty low dollar. And since all the items are one-of, it seems like it would be kind of a sweatshop.
If you need to boost your numbers I’d branch out from clothing, source in new places, and raise the bar on profit (e.g., don’t buy any one-of item with less than $25 expected net profit, or with cost more than 1/3 expected sale price).
Glad to hear your inventory situation is improving! Mine is too – just yesterday I moved some shelving into my new rental storage at the local airport (about 300 sq ft for $100/mo). Over the next week, plan on moving my bigger, slow moving, and multiple items there. Priority is clearing out the guest bedroom, which became my lebensraum in the last couple months despite the protests of my beleaguered wife.
I had a good week on eBay. Finally stopped spending like a drunken sailor and got some good sales.
Sales: CAD$1280, 6 items, COGS $323 –> item profit $731
Expenditures: $115 (mostly packing supplies)
Cashflow after tax: $778
Hours: 12, hourly rate $65/hr
Notable sales: Optelec magnifying viewer $161 –> $750. I still need to pack this thing and I *really* hope it gets to where it’s going in one piece. Also tile laying laser level $7 –> $275.
Scavenge of the week: 9 vintage fluorescent bulbs for $2. Each bulb is worth about $100.
New listings: 11Back to work tomorrow. It’s been great being home with the kids. But I do like having more structure to my day. If I ever do this full time I will have to impose some structure on myself, e.g., waking up before the kids.
Slow week for sales! But I picked up more auction stuff and started listing it. For a grand total of about $300, got a metallurgical saw (hoping for $3k), a big lot of circuit breaker lockout parts (hoping for $3k total although it’ll sell slowly), and a pump probe (should be $300).
Sales: CAD$615, 5 items, COGS $112 –> item profit $398
Expenditures: $311
Cashflow after tax: $111
Notable sales: multimeter $15–>$140, plates (ciroa brand) $20–>$125I have listed a LOT of high-dollar items lately at the expense of lower-dollar ones, so I feel like I’ve got to just get used to sparser sales. Fingers crossed!
I too have caught auction fever… I blew almost 2 grand this week on auctions and there’s still one more… trying to buy more industrial type stuff. The main things I got were a commercial espresso machine, commercial food processor (robot coupe), and a metallurgical cutoff saw. Hopefully these were not mistakes because I sure shelled out for them!
Had a decent week on eBay but hard to get cashflow positive when I’m spending so much.
Sales: CAD$662, 4 items, COGS=$31
Expenditures: $2238 (aieeeee)
Cashflow after tax: -$1794
Notable sales: $340 for 12 pieces of sterling flatware. I bought this whole lot for $100 last year and it’s already made me $800, with still about 1/3 left to sell.In other highly irritating news, amazon shut down my store TWICE because they wanted me to verify my identity with national ID and a bank statement. No problem, except the way they tell you is a little flag in seller central, no e-mail or anything. All your items look active, but if you look them up as a buyer they’re gone. The only other way to check is to go to settings/account info and look at “listings status” on the top left.
I think it was down 1 month before I noticed this. Hard to say what it cost me but at least a couple hundred.
Happy Monday all!
My month at home continues to be fun, great to be with the kids all day. I have managed to do a little sourcing, though not at my preferred locations so much. There are some big online auctions coming up shortly though that I am pretty excited about.
Anyway,
Sales: CAD$710, 7 items (COGS $93, item profit $508)
Expenditures: $304
Cashflow: $297
Listed: 13 items
Notable sales: fancy ceiling fan (Monte Carlo brand) $5–>$250, sattellite dish $1–>$80 locally
Notable buys: lot of 8 beat-up headsets by a fancy brand, hoping for $500 or so
