Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Week of June 8 – 14
Total Items in Store: 1352
Items Sold: 56
Cost of Items Sold:
Gross Sales: $1433.003
Net Sales: $945.83
Average price: $25.59
Returns: 4 !!!!!!!
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $12I ran a sale and sent out a coupon to blow out a lot of inventory. It worked pretty well; I was super busy yesterday, which won’t show up until next week’s figures.
Returns happen in spurts. It’s like the whole country gets cranky at the same time and decides to return items because they are feeling sour. I’ll go months without a return, then a whole bunch of them at once. I had 2 more returns today, plus a passive aggressive positive feedback complaining that the item had been modified, (which was disclosed in the listing and the buyer acknowledged prior to purchase).
That, plus an item that USPS misrouted to Hawaii instead of Chicago has left me feeling really negative about eBay lately. The package was a $75 sale and it’s been MIA for a month. The buyer has been very nice, though, so that’s something. Hopefully USPS pays out the claim.
I applied for eBay’s Up and Running Grant for 2025 and turned in my June 6. It would be really nice to get a $10K grant, but I’m not holding my breath.
Thanks for the heads up about Bonanza. I only sold 2 or 3 items a month there, but it’s not enough to make their $20 a month fee worth it for me, (I have enough listings to hit their max fee cap).
Can you explain how to calculate my store STR? Would it be (# of items sold) / (# of items in store)?
The past 30 days, I’ve sold 210 items. I had an average of 1450 items in my store. If my formula above is correct, that would be a STR of 14.8% for the month.
Using the same formula for the last 7 days, my STR is about 3.3%.
Am I doing this right, or am I missing something?
People aren’t buying new stuff, so they aren’t getting rid of their old stuff.
I don’t hit a lot of garage sales because I live out in the sticks, so I can’t say whether there are more or less of them than previous years. But I wouldn’t be surprised if people are choosing to hold on to what they have rather than buy new.
tems in Store: 1332
Items Sold: 47 ebay, 1 Bonanza
Gross Sales: $1352.55
COGS: About $90
Net Profit: $826.79
New Listings: 75-ish
Items scavenged: A whole lot of nonsense, I mean quality merchandise.Nothing super exciting this week, just a lot of everyday things. I found 29 vintage Cabbage Patch doll sewing patterns for 25 cents each. Those sold for $45. I’ve also sold a lot of Christmas ornaments lately. Maybe people are heeding the warnings that Christmas decor may be in short supply this year due to the trade war.
Week of May 4 – 10
Total Items in Store: 1300 Ebay/1300 Bonanza
Items Sold: 67 eBay, 0 Bonanza
Cost of Items Sold: About $65
Gross Sales: $1420.69Net Sales: $887.99
Highest Price Sold: $137.56 (13 Emtek Cabinet Knobs)
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 150-ish (I lost count)It looks like I sold so many things, but the high sold count comes from 19 cabinet knobs and pulls that went to the same buyer.
I’m feeling a little fried from listing so much. I think I’m going to do a marathon listing session this weekend and schedule several days’ worth of listings, so I can have a little down time. Or at least, a little time to spend doing inventory. I found an unlisted Dyson motor in a parts bin, and now I’m concerned some listings might have dropped off ebay.
I had a nice sale of some high-end cabinet hardware. The buyer bought these cabinet knobs: https://www.ebay.com/itm/236089336597
And they also bought these drawer pulls: https://www.ebay.com/itm/236086413110
It ended up being about $175 in sales in cabinet hardware. That is all from a $5 box I bought from a yard sale I happened upon 2 weeks ago. I still have some hardware left, maybe another $75-100 worth.
Other than those sales, it was a lot of vacuum cleaner parts, like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/236084611948
And some needlepoint stretcher bars: Stretcher Bar Frame Lot 70 pieces 9″ to 24″ Needlepoint Embroidery Needlework | eBay
Items in Store: 1200
Items Sold: 46 Ebay, 1 FBM, 1 Bonanza
Gross Sales: $1350.67
COGS: $65-ish
Net Sales: $905.13
New Listings: 120-ish (I lost count)
Money spent on new inventory: $278Highest price sold: $200 (Levi Strauss cocktail glasses)
This week felt quiet, even though the number say otherwise. I didn’t list at all on Wednesday and barely any on Thursday because I had to go out of town.
I bought a lot of new stuff from online auctions. Two good finds: the Levi Strauss glasses went for full asking price. I got those for $20 from an auction. At another auction pickup, they were having a last-minute “picker sale”, for all the stuff deemed not worthy for the online sale. I spent $25 on two banker boxes of vintage Christmas ornaments and a small box of high-end cabinet hardware. The hardware should bring $200-250, and the Christmas ornaments should bring about $150.
My average sales price is low, but most of what I’m selling these days is small (tiny Christmas ornaments, vacuum cleaner parts, yarn) that I have maybe 25-50 cents into. They’re also easy to ship, so it’s feels like zero stress when these things sell.
I think you are correct. I’ve been buying a lot of Christmas items and vacuum cleaners to part out. I think a lot of people are going to get a shock when they see how much a new vacuum will cost. Repairing the old one will seem more appealing.
Thanks for the tip. I don’t think I’ve seen that research tool before. I’ll spend some time playing around with it tonight.
Good to know about skirts. I will probably stick with men’s jeans/pants because like you say, the sizing is straight forward. I lack the patience to fiddle with women’s clothing unless it’s something truly remarkable.
Week of Apr 20 – 26
Total Items in Store: 1136 Ebay/Same on Bonanza
Items Sold: 31 eBay, 1 Bonanza
Cost of Items Sold: $40
Gross Sales: $1115Net Sales: $759.07
Number of items listed this week: 79
Highest Price Sold: $139 for a vintage ERTL beef cattle farm toy that I almost threw away by mistake!
I had to buy new clothes at Kohls for a funeral, (the thrifts had nothing appropriate in my size), and almost choked at the prices. My husband said he spent almost $100 on a new shirt and pants. Hello, inflation! Hello, tariffs!
I may start dabbling in flipping clothes if this is how things are going to be. There’s a thrift near me that still sells clothes for 50 cents to $1.00, depending on the color of the week. I hate selling clothes, so maybe I’ll stick with something tolerable, like men’s jeans or women’s skirts.
Is there a specific reason you pulled the plug on it? I saw they put out some sort of business update, but haven’t had time to read what changes were made.
I do a small amount of business there, selling vacuum cleaner parts. All of the customers come from google searches.
Week of Mar 9 – 15
Total Items in Store: 999
Items Sold: 30
Cost of Items Sold: $80
Total Sales: $865.21Net Sales: $565.06
Highest Price Sold: $199.99 Harley-Davidson throttle control handle
Returns: 0Number of items listed: 40
This week felt slow, but I took my foot off the gas on listing. I conquered a small death pile and got a vacuum disassembled for parts resale.
Week of Mar 2 – Mar 9
Total Items in Store: 997
Items Sold: 28
Cost of Items Sold: $28
Total Sales: $966.35 = $811.59 (Ebay)+ 38.58 (Bonanza) + $75 (FB Marketplace) + 41.18 (Metal scrapper)
Net: $715.91
Highest Price Sold: eBay $255 (Law School books) and FB Marketplace $75 (Longhorn skull)
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0New Listings: 80
This week felt so dang slow until the law school books sold. Then everyone woke up and started spending money. Unfortunately, my kid’s tuition bill also hit this week, so all that money is already spent. Ah well.
We bought 2 storage units the day before Thanksgiving and have been selling inventory mostly from then. One of the units was the size of a 2 car garage and had not been touched in at least 10 years. I’ve hauled about 1200 lbs of scrap metal out of that unit. I *think* we’ve finally rounded up the last of it.
I’m really glad the longhorn skull sold. It had been in my dining room since Thanksgiving and I was very much over it.
Vanilla bundt cake with chocolate chips!
Alas, it did not motivate me to list anything else. I cheated and did end/sell similar on a bunch of listings since it was the last day of the month, and I had unused listings available for my store. It worked though! I had 4 sales today from that action.
