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We had one big sale this week. Biro meat band saw. Just when we hit bottom, we seem to luck out and make a good sale. We have sold everything from a small 1 oz 1st Class thing, to a 3500 lb sailboat! — Tom
Jay,
Yes, it is a dangerous niche, but there was a time it was pretty good. Like everything, things change, the market floods, and other factors. It is a huge risk buying items from auction for resale since many of these businesses never take good photos, bad descriptions, and no standards for palletizing fees. Many of these places are quite sleazy too. We have seen it all, and have a list of places that we need to be very careful with. For the most part, it’s been good but the last months have really been a downturn. We have done a lot of “smalls” too in the past as “mortar” but even that is starting to flake a bit.The commercial gear certainly is starting to flood the market. We have held off on listing a few things we have until the current sellers have sold and the market is smaller. But, it seems other sellers are just lowering their prices until things sell. Eventually we do the same, until we realize that we are lucky just to break even on our cost. We have researched sellers and items, and we know they are competition buying from the same sources we do. I won’t go into details about our process, I don’t want to give out ideas! 😉
I’m not worried about the government workers having their “garage sales” since they are most likely selling off collectibles and “smalls”. Totally not our market anymore. I just think that a lot of the places that buy this stuff are cutting back since they depend on the government workers to support their business, no support, no new equipment, no sales for us – just the occasional insulting low offer.We have done $15k average gross on our good months. Mostly high value/margin stuff, but competition has become very tough with that area now. We used to get something for about $300 and turn it into $1200, that same item is now found for about $500 and lucky if we can get $750 now. The market has also become flooded, so we are seeking other options of things to sell and buy. At one time we had 500 items (last year before purging and moving to a new state) but a lot of that was lower value “smalls” which 10 of those is still less than 1 big piece of equipment.
The last month has been really bad.That’s our plan. Our house value has gone way up and we hope to cash in and run sometime this summer. A little nervous about the state of country these days, hoping to execute our plan before something happens. Scary times.
T.Try doing claims through Ebay directly. I’ve found that sometimes USPS (and definitely FedEx!) will often decline a claim. FedEx is the worst to get any $ back from. Ebay doesn’t ask a lot of questions and they will work the claim in just a few days. The ONE thing that I’ve found that Ebay does benefit sellers with!
