Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Monthly numbers: 02/1 – 02/28
Total listings: 1258
Items sold: 69
Sales: $1,350.80
Highest price sold: $70 – 1995 Reprint of a Tarot Deck of Lombardy
Average price sold: $19.57
Cost of items sold: $210.47 / average cost: 3.05 each
Spent on new inventory: $142.00
Number of items listed: 66Just checking in with my numbers. Between the many estate sales in my local area and finding free good stuff on my evening walks around the neighborhood, my death piles are overflowing now. I’m starting the process of finding a person to take photos for my listings. I’ll share with this forum how it goes.
twizzle, you might try a word processor and print just the address and the return address on it. You should be able to edit and print the label in landscape mode on a 6×4 label which should fit nicely on a standard #10 envelope.
NC
You can opt out of the requirement for the buyer to pay imeditally. I did because the option requires the buyer to enter payment information before they send you a best offer, which I think may turn some buyers off from sending the offer. The location to turn it off is in a weird location, at the bottom of the blocked buyer/buyer requirements page: https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements
Monthly numbers: 01/1 – 01/31
Total listings: 1244
Items sold: 70
Sales: $1,431.34
Highest price sold: $65 – Sketchbook of cars
Average price sold: $20.44
Cost of items sold: $215.77 / average cost: 3.08 each
Spent on new inventory: $175.00
Number of items listed: 61Although I had several days with no sales, January was a very good month for me. The best scavenger finds for me in the past month or so was a French Regent chess set for $1, missing the queen but I’ve already sold 2 pawns for $30 and an unused Wingspan game for $1 which I have had 2 sales of parts for $39. At an estate sale I had to wait for another buyer to finish going through a box, he didn’t take anything and when he was finished I asked him if he was done with the box, when he said yes I grabbed the whole box. I got about 20-30 Disney 23 magazines for about $10 which I will be able to sell for $5-$20 each depending on the issue. As Jay says, go all in when you can.
“eBay wouldn’t allow me to sell post office stuff”. I just realized I haven’t sold any of my 2 piece sets of “Post Office Dept. – USA” (pony express rider in center) round patch with a banner patch that goes above it and reads “Letter Carrier”. I just checked and my listing for them is gone. I just checked the eBay policy https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/prohibited-restricted-items/government-items-policy?id=4318 and it doesn’t mention patches but does list a few other things that I sold in the past and I guess could of casued an eBay warning or worse. Like you NC, I bought a large lot of these (500-700 sets or so). They were at a warehouse estate sale in San Rafael, CA about 3-4 years ago.
Monthly numbers: 12/1 – 12/31
Total listings: 1262
Items sold: 59
Sales: $1,145.64
Highest price sold: $100 – Dictionary
Average price sold: $19.41
Cost of items sold: $125.33 / average cost: 2.12 each
Spent on new inventory: $214.00
Number of items listed: 79Another good month for me, any month that I do over $1000 in sales I consider good.
Happy New Year to everybody and I wish you all very good scavenging. Now on to working on my taxes…
Sharyn, instead of Microsoft Office you may want to try Open Office, which is a free public domain set of office software. I have been using both the word editor and calc spreadsheet for at least 15 years or so with no problems. I use it with Ubuntu, but versions are out there for PCs, Macs, and a host of other systems. It will also let you import or export Microsoft and other format files. It’s available from The Apache Software Foundation at: https://www.openoffice.org
I do not have any relationship with OpenOffice other than that I use their software.
Haven’t done my numbers yet for November, but after the 30th I’ll post them here.
Great sale on the markers – very astute to purchase them all in the first place and to make sure that you got them all. I like to do the all in buys also, if you can make money on one then the same should be true for buying a large lot. My only concern would be if they dried up. I’ve had problems in the past when buying ink pen refills, many times the older ones have dried up, so I always try and test a few when buying them nowadays.
Thanks Steven for posting the what sold videos. I look forward to viewing them each time I get the email notice from Ryanne announcing a new one.
Monthly sales 10/1 – 10/31
Total listings: 1259
Items sold: 54
Sales: $978.31
Highest price sold: $80 – Marvel Super Heros Game for PS1
Average price sold: $18.11
Cost of items sold: $172.80 / average cost: 3.20 each
Spent on new inventory: $87.00
Number of items listed: 74My sales are down some compared to the past 3 months. I think a lot of it might be due to the big change that eBay did in early October. I have seen it mentioned here in the past, and a few other places just recently that ending your listings and then selling similar might help. I am going to try that experiment and see if it makes a difference.
The change in the postcard categories is a planned change by eBay. I think it might of been mentioned on one of the scavenger life forums, but here is a link to an eBay page (rather long) that shows it.
https://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/categorychanges/preview2021.html
If you do a page search for postcards (control-f), it will bring up 133 changes. Most of it is indicating which listings will move to Topographical or Non-Topographical. This is suppose to happen automatically – but as we all know when dealing with eBay things seldom work out as planned.
Monthly sales 9/1 – 9/30
Total listings: 1237
Items sold: 69
Sales: $1,669.64
Highest price sold: $110 x 2 (36 Type II Tapes – 2 different sales/buyers)
Average price sold: $24.20
Cost of items sold: $204.13 / average cost: 2.96 each
Spent on new inventory: $582.00
Number of items listed: 67Customer issues, a buyer in Canada after receiving the books she purchased and leaving me positive feedback made a claim that she did not purchase them. I provided the tracking number that eBay already had. They decided in the buyer’s favor but said due to seller protection I would not have to pay the refund or get a defect. Another buyer in Brazil claims he did not receive a PS2 game I sent him, but tracking shows that it was delivered. Still waiting to see what eBay does on that one.
My best scavenge recently was a box of cassette tapes. Somebody else at the sale had looked at them for a short time but was then busy negotiating the price on a bunch of stereo gear. When they were done, I asked the seller the price for the whole box of tapes, when he said $20, I couldn’t get the money out fast enough. The guy buying the stereo gear complained that if he would have known they were so cheap he would have bought them, but I beat him to it. The box held about 40 factory recorded tapes but what I wanted was the used ones as they were all Type II. So far I’ve sold over $380 worth of them (shipping included) and still have over $300 in value of them still listed. I think this was the first time I ever found Type II tapes. Strange thing is, in the past week I found another lot of about 30 tapes, but about half of these are Type IV, the rest being Type II.
Numbers for the whole month of August 2021
Total listings: 1234
Items sold: 95
Sales: $2,177.75
Highest price sold: $210 – 1994 Tailsman Magic Game (never played)
Average price sold: $22.92
Cost of items sold: $329.53 / Average cost: 3.47 each
Spent on new inventory: $114.50
Number of items listed: 70I think this was the best sales month I ever had. A lot of it was due to a few large lots of old PC, Apple II, and PlayStation II games. I lucked out on the 1994 Tailsman game, as it had a damaged box, they only wanted $1.00 for it.
Thanks, R&J for all these years of great entertainment, information, instructions, and sharing our life with all of us trash elves.
I would also like to Thank You both for all these years of great information, inspiration, and entertainment. I wish the best for you, and although I’m way out west in California, If I ever travel to the East Coast, I’ll make an effort to stop in your neck of the woods in VA and check out your empire. Thank You both for all you have done for all of the scavengers and trash elves out here.
-Steve Koepke
Richmond, CA
Also, on your “Manage active listings” page, if you click on the down arrow to the left of any listing and select “add/edit note” you can leave a short note that will always be visible with your listing but not viewable by buyers or anybody else. I use it to put the location / date listed / and cost of each item. For example “Corner bookshelf 5th shelf (11jun2021) cost 10.00” is the format I use. You many also use a custom SKU in your listing, but I have never used that option, but I think J&R use that Method.
