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I like a lot of them on a superficial aesthetic level, but I haven’t had occasion to research or test many in great depth. Ultimately just a part number – it’s the money that’s exciting to me I’m afraid!
Morning all.
Not too much to report… I have been feeling quite burnt out and not done much scavenging, but sales this week were great. I am bidding on an auction at the end of this week and hopefully will get lots of good new inventory.
Sales: CAD$6306, 16 items, COGS: $3833, Fees: ~$851, Postage: $587 –> Gross profit: $1035
The COGS is very high because I am letting my sales this week “pay for” several large lots I got last year (from which lots there is much still left to sell).
Expenses: $0, New inventory: $40 –> Cashflow: $4827
Best sales were a flow cell for liquid chromatography for $1950 (paid about $400), and 3 valves for $1140 (probably paid like $70).
Star Trek does of course capture a certain optimistic progressive ethos, I believe this was quite deliberate. (The theme song for the new Enterprise series is really the apotheosis of that particular vibe.) Early series were very bullish of course; DS9 was a little more reflective and self-critical, which is part of why I liked it better (for example, they had to deal with the reality that the Klingons and Cardassians weren’t going to be singing kumbaya anytime soon, and act accordingly).
Anyway, the opposite of the Star Trek vision, which I might call the Burkean or “constrained vision” of human nature to use Sowell’s phrase, is not so much that Mad Max is a *good* outcome, as the idea that society is perpetually a couple of bad harvests, or a prolonged power outage, or a severe social upheaval, away from a Max Max scenario, and whatever institutions or social capital are holding that at bay might be fragile, perhaps easily broken in the process of trying to build utopia. It is the perspective that general peace and prosperity, even if imperfect, are historical exceptions to the millenia-old norm of scraping poverty, and not something to be gambled away for double-or-nothing. Well, I promise I will not get any less abstract than this, but felt I needed to stick up for Burke’s side a little here.
Just a normal week on ebay, overall.
Sales: CAD$2739, 15 sales, COGS: $516, Fees: ~$368, Postage: $241 –> Gross profit: $1614
Expenses: $581, New inventory: $363 –> Cashflow: $1186
Oh, I thought it was all one word. Now I do see you guys but you’re definitely not the first ebay search term for “Broad Porch Coffee”.
I think I will order some for Christmas presents!
So one note, if you search ebay’s search bar for “broadporch coffee” your listings do NOT come up. I had to find you through the SL post about it.
Maybe you already thought about this and wanted the space for other search terms, but might want to add “Broadporch” to your listing titles if not.
Hi guys, great to hear from you again!
As it happens, Shippo is ebay’s partner in Canada and you have to use it to print your labels. I have grown to like it… I have Canada Post, Fedex, and DHL accounts all hooked up to it so I can always see the best price for an international shipment.
Your discussion of coffee and shipping costs is interesting. If I understand right, you charge $6, but then pay $7.50, losing $1.50 on shipping.
…Ultimately though the idea that you “lose” money on shipping is kind of funny. A buyer has a certain maximum willingness-to-pay for a commodity item, and if you charge an extra $1 in shipping that’s presumably $1 less they’re willing to pay for the item. In money terms it all washes out. (The same is true for handling charges – a $20 handling charge is $20 less I’m willing to pay for the item itself.)
But as I understand it, Amazon did its homework and figured out that buyers irrationally hate paying shipping charges. So for an item of standardized weight like coffee, using free shipping seems like a good idea – just bake the real shipping cost into your prices.
I had a normal week on ebay.
Sales: CAD$2221, 12 sales, COGS: $664, Fees: ~$290, Postage: $265, Gross profit: $1003
Expenses: $84, New inventory: $1 –> Cashflow: $1581
We had our first snow of the year so the kids were tobogganing all weekend, good fun. I had time to set up some more ebay shelving too.
Had another great week on ebay.
Sales c/w shipping: CAD$4979, 17 sales, COGS: $691, Fees: ~$673, Postage: $$601 –> Gross profit: $3014
Expenses: $689, New inventory: $663 –> Cashflow: $2354
Couple pneumatic controllers (recently bought at auction) sold for $1400, and a water quality meter (bought on ebay) sold for $800.
Great to hear from you guys again.
I had a great week on ebay.
Sales: CAD$4981, 17 sales, COGS: $770, Fees: ~$673, Postage: $448 –> Gross profit: $3090
Expenses: $42, New inventory: $119 –> Cashflow: $3699
In addition to the above, I had my largest sale ever: $9000 for a set of 6 fire detectors. They were used and I feel there is a high risk of return so I am not including them in my numbers yet. I believe I paid $800 a year or so, now the die is cast and we’ll see if it pays off.
Great to hear from you guys.
I think I shall have to use the custom SKU henceforth. Till now I have put item locations into my spreadsheet only, but I think it’s not good for there to be no redundancy. I will never find things again if the spreadsheet ever gets messed up.
I had a slow to middling week on ebay, which is too bad because I went all in at an industrial auction and spent about $1600, as well as lots of ebay buying. Got some great stuff though and I’m sure it’ll work out very well.
Sales: CAD$1433, 12 sales, COGS: $82, Fees: ~$200, Postage: $179 –> Gross profit: $972
Expenses: $756, New inventory: $3047 –> Cashflow: -$2749
No huge sales, best was a lot of 40 usb adapter things for $240. I bought like 250 of these for a few bucks a while back.
Coffee business sounds fun, it’s interesting to hear about the differences. For me, not being much of a people person, that aspect would kind of be a dealbreaker.
Had a decent week but I’ve been buying a lot, so cash negative.
Sales: CAD$1782, 14 sales, COGS: $440, Fees: ~$218, Postage: $300 –> Gross profit: $823
Expenses: $830, New inventory: $2163 –> Cashflow: -$1730
Mostly I’ve been buying large amounts off of eBay.
Didn’t have any spectacular sales… $200 for a couple of transducers, $200 for a centrifuge.
I think it’s super variable all across North America and even in my own province. But yeah, those are the typical asking prices (CAD$) for 2-5 acres in the area I’m looking (within about 30 min drive of my town = 1 hour drive of a major city). I think there is a fair amount of demand for acreage lots.
I had a good week on ebay.
Sales c/w shipping: CAD$2881, 16 sales, COGS: $672, Fees: ~$409, Postage: $258 –> Gross profit: $1543
Expenses: $544, New inventory: $598 –> Cashflow: $1073
Best sale was a radar liquid level sensor for $700… paid $400 for two of them.
I found out my dream of buying some land and putting a quonset on it is a little harder than I thought… was not aware that you would typically need a 35% down payment for that, which equates to $50-70k for the price range I thought we were in. So this plan is on hold for the next couple years.
Also, my FIL may be starting an ebay business and wants some help! I am excited about that.
Had a good week on eBay, both buying and selling.
Sales: CAD$2340, 15 sales, COGS: $177, Fees: ~$327, Postage: $401 –> Gross profit: $1436
Expenses: $434, New inventory: $1722 –> Cashflow: -$544
Sold an actuator for $950 to Germany. Bought a lot of stuff to sell off of eBay… no individual thing to write home about yet but we’ll see when it gets to me. I must have 20 items coming in the mail soon.
Yeah, I suspect with the military types in particular, they are used to being highly competent as a part of a team where you are well equipped and someone else is taking care of many logistical challenges, or at least at the squad level you have a buddy to rely on. Totally alone is a different ballgame. I have been relatively impressed by the “wilderness skills” types, although I suspect their secret is mainly just practice.
These crimpers are not super heavy – it’s a hand tool about 25 lbs or so. They come in a sturdy metal carry case a foot long so I just boxed that and sent it like any other package, thankfully!
I am not married to the idea of a quonset – once we get the land I may consider sea cans or some other solution too, assuming there’s nothing already there. I agree about the rounded roof for a small one but if we’re talking 3-4000 sq ft you don’t lose much to the curved walls, I would just try to use that space as an access aisle.
