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Not in the slightest. I grew up on the Eastern Shore of MD which is all farm land, and had never even heard of basic brands like Brooks Brothers until maybe 9 years ago.
The first item I sold on ebay (2005) was a broken camera I found in the parking lot at work. I was immediately hooked…of course. I started selling everything in the house that was not nailed down, and when that ran out, I hit the streets looking for more stuff. I grew up thrift shopping and yardsaling with my grandmother since I was 6 years old, so finding other cool stuff came as second nature to me. I focused on toys from the 80s and earlier that I knew from my childhood, typewriters, antiques, collectibles, a ton of vintage cameras and lenses….and really just anything I could to make a few extra bucks….except I avoided clothing.
Then in the summer of 2010, I noticed 3 pairs of vintage Florsheim wingtips on the shelf at the local thrift store. I recognized the name, and figured they looked nice and someone would like them. Well, I don’t know if anyone else here remembers, but shoe sales were really hot back then. I sold them all to the same buyer in under 12 hours for $115 a pair.
From that point I started researching, thrifting, and selling as many pairs of dress shoes as I could. I liked that pretty much all the shoes could ship in the same size box, and I never had to worry about not having a large enough box to double pack a typewriter or electrolux. I begin phasing out the other inventory, and focusing mainly on shoes.
In 2011 a fellow shoe seller on ebay reached out to me and and asked if I ever considered selling other menswear since I was already building a pretty good regular shoe following. I expanded my research and thrifting to all things menswear. I joined a few menswear forums to help with my research, and met some great gents along the way who have become friends, mentors, customers and consignment clients.
By 2013 I was selling probably 98% menswear, and it was going pretty well pulling late nights and weekends, while working my office job in the daytime.
In January 2014 I left my job to do this full(er) time.
In January 2015, I outgrew our 3 spare bedrooms and had overflow piles in the living room. My wife hated it. Either the stuff had to go or I did….so I got a business loan and added an 1100 square foot office above our garage. Happy wife, yada yada. I designed the office like a 2 bedroom apartment/in-law suite, pre-wired for appliances in case I ever gave up on ebay and wanted to rent it out.
May 2018, my wife left her job to do what she loves, Yoga. It was an enormous pay cut, but her happiness is more important and eBay has filled the gap.
Today. I have 5 more months until the office loan is paid off, but am beginning to outgrow the space. I think I could reasonably operate a 10,000 item business out of the space, but it would be quite cramped.
What’s next? I would love to run a brick and mortar vintage shop in town, and just might do that in a few years when my wife finishes her masters program. At that time she will probably be in the market for a business space of her own, so maybe we can buy a building to split.
Thanks, I’d been selling for 4-5 years before that, but only casually. Believe it or not in 2014 when I left my “real” job, I only had 80 listings. However, at that time I was only running auctions and had a much higher sell thru rate.
In 2010 I got laid off when the company I worked for sold to another company. After a couple weeks of discouraging job hunting. My wife gave me $500 from our savings, and said see what you can do with this on ebay.
Still going…..next I’m gonna try to pay for her masters degree without carrying student loan debt or paying interest. I may be crazy, but I know I can do it. I may have to hire a helper.
There are 3 things in this business that really stressed me out at one time.
#1, arguing with buyers and ebay reps about returns which, amplified by my dangerous mix of wit and sarcasm, which would sooner or later get me in trouble. So I now offer free returns and rarely have to worry about a debate.
#2, Spending 30 minutes looking for one item when there are 25 left to ship. In 2015 I began utilizing a simple inventory system on every item listed. It’s a simple date code style that basically works chronologically and sorts easily.
Code format – YYMMDD-###,
Example :If I listed 30 items today the last item would have the SKU 190902-030, with an additional unique code at the end if it was a consignment item.I didn’t worry about back-sku-ing the previously listed items, just focused on moving forward, and now I think there are only about 5 items remaining with no SKU from before I started using the system, and I can put my hands on anything in my store in about 15 seconds or less.
Storing items chronologically is not for everyone as it requires frequent condensing as items sell. It also could prove to be quite difficult for those selling a broader variety of items in many sizes, unless you are pre-boxing everything or have an unlimited storage space.
On the plus side, it allows me to see quickly how long I have had an item in stock when I get a best offer that may seem low at first. Also it allows me to easily run tiered % off sales based on how long an item has been listed. Additionally, the SKU is physically applied to the item, and ends up on the outside of the box when packaged. Then when using bulk label printing with the Custom Label/SKU option, the SKUs are printed right on the label for easy package matching. Which helps to eliminate the #3 thing that used to stress me out about ebay….shipping the wrong item to the wrong buyer.
Not particularly difficult, about 2 hours a month maybe.
First..all consigned items have a consignor code at the end of its sku number. Then I set an automatic monthly CSV download for paid and shipped items. Then it’s just simple filtering and sorting on Numbers/Excel. It takes me about an hour to figure out the payout from previous month on the 1st, and then another few minutes to back out any returns that may occur before payout on the 15th. Another few minutes to generate PDF invoices for each of my 7 clients, send out and thank them again for their business. 5 take paypal which is super simple, and I write checks for the other 2.
The consignors reached out to me, most I know from online forums, 2 were sent to me from a fellow consignor who couldn’t take any more clients, one is a regular buyer on ebay for many years.
Don’t get it twisted. I do have my actual consignors, who are paid out monthly for sold items, that accounted for the $8752 chunk. Their stuff remains theirs until it is sold and I take my cut off the top before all fees. I don’t own this stuff, I’m just the pipeline to the buyer.
On the other hand, I sometimes have potential consignors that don’t want to wait for the stuff to sell, so they get a lump sum at a much lower rate. I evaluate everything, and only pay for the stuff I plan to sell. If they accept my offer, I pay them immediately and the stuff becomes mine.
I’ve met a lot of people through many years networking on forums, through random people reaching out though ebay, friends of friends. etc.
I get stuff to sell any way I can, as cheap as I can…aside from stealing it.
It’s still a bit less than that for actual thrifted items. I include my bulk closet buyouts in with my thrifted inventory, since I pay thrift prices only for the stuff I plan to sell, and it’s simply just too time consuming to try to track every category or buy out separately. I typically get in 5-10 med/large boxes a month from various sources who just want to sell their stuff off fast. Some are consignors who don’t want to wait for stuff to get listed, sell, payout, some are other thrifters who need to lighten their death piles. A few are trades for stuff I have listed or plan to list….as a policy I always trade up, and most trading partners have been generous.
So basically it’s all the items I have purchased upfront, that are not wholesale or consigned.
The key is to get the stuff before the other thrifters even have a chance to leave it behind. I typically will not wait for half-price day, and usually avoid stores on half-price day, but I will often pass on overpriced items unless its something special that may act as a loss leader to another sale.
Things may pick up a bit on the thrifting end in 2020. My wife got her acceptance letter into her masters program this week. The administration is concerned that we may be a bit too far away for a commute, which will be every Mon and Tues for the next 3 years. Their suggestion is for a Sun/Wed hotel stay every week at a “special rate” which I easily found out was only $5 off. Um, no..
She may try the commute out at first, but it is likely that we will rent or maybe even buy something down there and we would just split time between homes. The thrifting there is much better, so hopefully it would help offset the cost of our home away from home.
No, We live in a rural area. I have to drive a couple hours to get to anywhere decent, but when I’m there I buy as much as I can. That’s another reason consignment is a nice addition to the process. The stuff comes to me, which was especially nice through the summer when menswear thrifting is not quite as fruitful.
Oops..I forgot to mention 93 items sold for $3267 were wholesale items. So that’s another 14% of the total sales. So my thrifted item sales were only $11,219 – roughly 48% of my sales.
Week August 25 – 31, 2019
Items in store: 4420 Listings for 6325 Items
Items Sold: 101 transactions for 114 Items
Gross Sales: $5767.17
Highest Price Sold: $187 …. Cashmere Jacket
Lowest Price Sold: $5….Tie
Average Sale Price: $50.59
Cost of Goods Sold $378, Plus consignment @ roughly $600
Number of new items listed this week: 152 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $230
Repeat Customers: 10
International: 24%And here’s a more complete look at the month of August. Not too shabby, can’t wait to see how Q4 goes.
Total Sales: $23,238.78
# Items Sold: 415
Avg Sale Price: $56
# Transactions 380
# Customers 335
# New Customers 299 (89%)
# Repeat Customers 36 (11%)International Sales $5,655
% Int. Sales: 24.3%Consignment Sales: $8752.42
# Consign Sold: 131
% Consign Sales: 37.7%
Consignment Payout: $3741
Consignment Net Profit: $2704.07
My Profit per consigned item: $20.64Wholesale Sales: $3267
# wholesale items sold: 83
% of total sales: 14%Shipping Costs: $2991.33
Ebay Fees: $2488.62
Paypal Fees: $659.14Cost of goods sold: $1561
$ Spent on new inventory: $1465.31
New listings created: 562Week August 18 – 24, 2019
Items in store: 4420 Listings for 6326 Items
Items Sold: 72 transactions for 77 Items
Gross Sales: $4078.64
Highest Price Sold: $160 …. Corneliani Suit
Lowest Price Sold: $2.49….Shoelaces
Average Sale Price: $52.96
Cost of Goods Sold $285, Plus consignment @ roughly $600
Number of new items listed this week: 135 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $95
Repeat Customers: 7Yes, and trust me….there are many many 5 irons in the water hazard, but very few golfers throw their whole set in the water.
I’m assuming they are gifts. He bought 4 styles in multiple. Hoping he likes them so much he comes back for the other 200+
Week August 11 – 17, 2019
Items in store: 4307 Listings for 6229 Items
Items Sold: 93 transactions for 111 Items
Gross Sales: $7170.80
Highest Price Sold: $580 …. LVC Sheepskin Jacket
Highest Single Transaction $1139.81….19 Wallets
Lowest Price Sold: $4.99….Shoelaces
Average Sale Price: $64.60
Cost of Goods Sold $576, Plus consignment @ roughly $600
Number of new items listed this week: 109 items
$$ spent on new inventory this week $348
Repeat Customers: 6The wallet sale was a big relief after 5 months with only 1 low offer on a large batch of wallets I picked up. Out of no-where some guy comes in and buys 2 of them, then about 8 hours later comes back and buys 17 more, all without even making an offer. Gotta love that. So many more to go, they should pick up for the holiday season, as they are all new in gift boxes. Glad to get a nice chunk of that investment back, after thinking they may have been a bad buy.
