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“I bet real estate prices are crazy in FL right now.”
Around here the asking prices are up a bit, but not that much except for a few outliers and those aren’t selling. We bought this house in 2018 and renovated it from afar (NOT recommended… but it wasn’t too bad) before moving down last year. We could make money on it if we sold it now, but we’d have nowhere to go. Trying to buy in this market is painful with bidding wars on anything nice or well located.
Other parts of Florida are much worse, though. Jacksonville has had a bad reputation nationally that it has not fully outgrown. The area gets lots of military retirees like us who were stationed here and know what a great place it is and the job market is always growing as a major transportation hub but other than that, it does not attract new residents. Everyone wants to go to smaller towns further south especially in and around the Orlando – Tampa – Ft Myers triangle on the Gulf side. It’s REAL crazy right now down there. Over 100 people a day are moving into Orlando alone.
Yup, we’re here in Jacksonville since early last summer and it’s great. We were stationed here 2014 – 2017 and fell in love with it.
5/16/21 – 5/22/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 328
Items Sold: 4
Gross Sales: $91.67
Highest Price Sold: $25 – another consignment challenge coin from the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (Navy).
Returns: 0
COGS: $17 (including consignment commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 0
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0Last week was another slow week with lots of real life interfering with listing and sending out offers. This week was busier and more productive on eBay with a couple surprisingly positive interactions with eBay customer service but I’ll report on those Monday.
I got a return request with an INAD on a piece of costume jewelry. I have free returns so the return request was accepted and the status is “waiting for buyer to ship item”.
Just wait for the return to arrive, no need to message them. With free returns, if you get it back and there’s a problem, you can discount their refund. For low dollar items though some sellers would simply refund the item immediately and not want to pay for the shipping to return it but that’s up to you. Some sellers prefer not to train buyers to expect a refund without sending the item back.
Jay, I believe you’re thinking of EAT, aka EasyAuctionsTracker that some of us use. It really is great, automatically downloading much of the data from the eBay file exchange for orders (on multiple stores, if needed) plus purchases on eBay (optional), all account fees and a separate tax collected report, etc. and generating global P&Ls. The few times I’ve needed support they’ve been very responsive. It’s not a comprehensive accounting software, though, and anything outside of eBay like mileage or thrifted inventory has to be entered manually of course but there are pages for them. It’s not cloud based so the spreadsheet lives on your computer and it’s still only for PC.
5/9/21 – 5/15/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 332
Items Sold: 6
Gross Sales: $122.90
Highest Price Sold: $28 – consignment challenge coin from the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (Navy).
Returns: 0
COGS: $40.85 (including consignment commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 0
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0Things were again slooowwww this week with embarrassing numbers. I spent much of the week doing our taxes. Thankfully I find TaxAct to be very user friendly and EAT makes my eBay entry very quick and easy but we have a lot of other dogs and cats that go on the return and it takes a while plus I have to file returns for my kids. We owed money so left it to the last minute.
Elvira Mistress of the Dark! Cassandra Peterson, the actor who played her, is hilarious and still going strong. Apparently since she created the character she gets the royalties for all the Elvira spinoffs , unlike many iconic TV characters who don’t own the rights to their TV personas.
This reproduction “Victoria Ware Ironstone” pitcher and bowl wash basin set is not strictly a reproduction but more of a fantasy antique in that it’s not an accurate copy of any real antique English pottery. It’s a completely made up brand and pattern. The incongruous “flow blue” logo is a giveaway. These have been coming out of China since at least the 1970s and possibly earlier. A family estate item that was probably bought at a flea market 20 or 30 years ago it sold for $36 plus $24 shipping with full disclosure.
https://imgur.com/r4p4dy0
https://imgur.com/jbMVKsVThere is quite an active market in used video games. As a family we unfortunately were fans of the Wii platform when it originally came out, for which I have found there is comparatively less demand now, with some exceptions. This Jurassic Park: The Hunted Wii game out of our donation box sold for $24 with free shipping.
https://imgur.com/55PBJjfAmong many consignment challenge coins I sell this was a good one – it’s from the USS Thunderbolt PC-12, a special operations coastal patrol boat. They are small with a crew of only 28 so there are not many original PC coins around and one of their primary missions is carrying SEALs which garners particular interest. Coins with no color enameling can be usually identified as originating pre-1990 but this one is at least circa 1994 or perhaps a bit earlier, pre-commissioning. It sold for $174 plus shipping.
https://imgur.com/fA9sV89Back in the day when soda came in returnable bottles there were these heavy duty bottle crates marked with various brands and local bottling companies stacked in every local store. You’d drink your soda and drop the empty in one of these crates for a trip back to the bottler and then the filled bottles would come back to the store in a crate. This one for Suburban Club from a bottler in Annapolis, Maryland is missing it’s dividers but still went for $60 plus shipping.
https://imgur.com/u3eU2gnA family member attended the 1991 ship commissioning of the USS Arleigh Burke, a US Navy guided missile destroyer, and received this invitation that was signed by Admiral Burke and his wife. It sold for $69 plus shipping.
https://imgur.com/KMR04sr5/1/21 – 5/8/21
Total Active Items (2 different IDs): 338
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $251.46
Highest Price Sold: $108 – WWII soldier folk art painting on board, a $2 flea market find
Returns: 0
COGS: $59.83 (including commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 14
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0I was out of town for half the week so slow was ok. I had to laugh when I heard about the resignation of your employee as my 17 year old son did the same thing to resign this week, though we made him add a signed letter. He was in charge of the bakery several nights a week at a nearby grocery. He did it long enough to appreciate the value of the college education he’s headed off to. They did not want to see him go – “you’ll come back and work when you’re on break, right?” they said. They seem desperate for employees.
“… the Florida governor has decided to run a huge health experiment…”
Ever since he started incrementally lifting requirements with a series of Executive Orders starting in April, 2020, they said he was going to kill everyone in the state and that didn’t happen. Commentators like to say everyone didn’t die because the humidity compromises the COVID droplets and it has nothing to do with what he has done (well, maybe, but the humidity here today is 56% and that’s not unusual…), but for whatever reason, as a state we’ve been middle of the road or better on just about every metric.
Pretty much everything has been voluntary here since at least September (except localities could enforce 50% occupancy limit for indoor dining and amusement parks had to have protection plans) so this latest order only drops a very few remaining governmental restrictions. There is also now liability protection from COVID-related claims which changes the dynamic for businesses.
Around here some people wear masks and some don’t. Some businesses require mask for entry (but usually don’t enforce it strictly) and some don’t. My son’s school has been strict on masks but he got to go to school every day. If I walk in a store and the employees are wearing masks I’ll put one on to be polite but many people don’t. It’s been that way for a while.
I had a seller ID that was for selling coins only that was finally transitioned to Managed Payments. Once it was clear that the coins would not be taken down, I stopped using that seller ID and listed coins in one of my other stores (transitioned to MP earlier) without any problems.
Although my experience is that coins can be mixed in with other inventory, I don’t have any adult items so can’t comment on that. There may be some kind of special arrangement that requires the specific adult item dedicated account.
Thanks. Yeah, generally the military stuff is very hard to buy. There is so much interest – I bring it up at a sale and they’ll say I’m the fifth person that day to ask about it. My best luck is in occasionally finding the unicorns among common items that are overpriced. For example the majority of WWII-dated metal canteens I can get only $10 – $15 for and I’ll see them at estate sales for $25. Millions of them were surplused out after the war. But I’ll pay $25 for one of the rarer types that I can sell for $200-$300 and I have run across a few of those over the years. I have not run across any of the ones that will bring $500 – $600 or more, but I keep looking.
The Saudi books are very interesting and can sell for good prices but they are loooonnnng tail.
4/25/21 – 5/1/21
Total Active Items (2 different IDs): 331
Items Sold: 14
Gross Sales: $3,936.40
Highest Price Sold: $3499.00 – golf ball flight monitor on consignment; runner up: $175 book from a yard sale free box.
Returns: 0
COGS: $2620.21 (including commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 19
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0I took the golf monitor on consignment from a friend for 18% of net, based on the usual live auction commission in that price range, so I netted $568 on it after shipping and fees were taken off the top. I don’t play golf but it’s a pretty amazing device. It’s a doppler radar originally developed for the military and adapted to provide multiple data points on your golf shot. This was a less fancy model – you can spend 5 figures on one, if you want all the bells and whistles.
Pro wrestling was awesome. The Arena in West Philly was the place to see it for me in the ’70’s, plus they had roller derby there, the real thing on a banked track. Andre the Giant – everyone’s favorite, and mine too – debuted there in 1973 for the WWWF. Good times.
To Retro’s point, we’ve also been watching Babylon Berlin, a German series, and New Tricks from the UK. It is very entertaining to see things through the lens of foreign cultures, and refreshingly different.
“Mmmm… the JC Whitney catalog…” (I say in Homer Simpson’s donut voice). I devoured every page and liberally circled many desired items in my younger days. Wolf Whistle, anyone? They are awesome and the content is certainly worth more than $11 to any self-respecting car nut out there but thousands and thousands survive, seeing as how they arrived in the mail about once a month IIRC.
Those cats are a hoot. Somebody wants to play and somebody does not want to play! My two middle-aged boys start that every morning as I get them breakfast, only they are both willing participants. The 11 pounder starts it and the 26 pounder ends it, after a quick friendly wrestle. I want to get a video but they only do it as I’m prepping and they stop immediately if I pause for even a moment.
I’ll bet in your video the attacker is attackee’s son. If attackee was a male cat, he’d play. If it were a sister or unrelated female, she’d quickly and decisively put an end to it, with much screeching and fur flying. But mom will put up with it. At least for a while.
Some sales from the beginning of the year:
The traffic in coffee mugs on eBay ebbs and flows. I think it’s pretty much ebb, now, isn’t it? I thought this cobalt blue Boeing International Space Station mug was pretty fancy with its gold leaf design so I paid $4 for it. After a couple years of crickets I let it go for $21 plus shipping. https://imgur.com/cLtmIhH
This great music box turns the windmill as it plays and is a souvenir of Weert, Netherlands. I got it in a free lot and it sold for $20 plus shipping. https://imgur.com/sRnDiiY
Here’s another toy soldier vehicle from my childhood that turned up in my dad’s estate. It’s a 1966 Airfix 155 mm Self Propelled Gun and sold for $40 plus shipping.
This is a US military reserve parachute ripcord handle/pull ring that I’ve had since my Army days. I never had to use my reserve (though I got very close to needing it, once) but a friend did and I picked this up off the drop zone that time. It sold for $18 with free shipping. https://imgur.com/tm9kCak
This is an interesting 1974 book about Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from the estate of a family member who lived there at the time. It sold for $59 plus shipping.
Here’s a well-used, repaired and reissued example of a 1968 contract date Model 1956 US Army canvas rifle magazine pouch, made after the Army had already started issuing the Model 1967 nylon and plastic load carrying equipment for Vietnam. I had $1 or so in it as part of a flea market lot and it sold for $25 plus shipping.
The red one is a post hole rammer aka post driver aka post pounder. Fit it over the post and use the handles to manually lift and bang down with it to drive the post into the ground. Not sure about the other thing, though it might be some kind of extender for longer posts.
