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I work a full-time job, 4pm-2am and I don’t get home until 2:45am most nights. My wife gets most of the sold items together so they are waiting for me when I get home. I then proceed to package and ship everything. Clothes of course go quickly, but large items and fragile items do take time. Most nights I have somewhere between 5 and 80 items to ship. Shipping can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 4 hours on busy days. It’s tough but this is one of the sacrifices I make to keep this business going and one day make it my only occupation.
Off the top of my head…
Sold an Indiana Jones press kit to Lucas Film in CA.
Sold a vintage PC to a computer museum in NYC.
Sold a large collectible that had ties to Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard and WWII to the Church of Scientology.
Total Items in Store: 1350
Items Sold: 51
Cost of Items Sold: $1100
Total Sales: $7,919.17
Highest Price Sold: $4995.95 (Ship’s helm)
Average Price Sold: $155.28
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $1831
Number of items listed this week: 201This past week was great. We sold two high dollar items plus lots of bread and butter stuff. Still not getting a large holiday rush, so hopefully sales will pick up drastically this week. We are hiring some part time help around the house starting this week. This should allow us to get through our backlog of inventory a little quicker. We have over 2000 items we need to get photographed and listed, and of course we never stop buying new inventory.
Great episode. I was irresponsible with money when I was younger, but these days I’m constantly working towards financial independence. I hope to quit my FT job within the next 2 years. The 16 hour days get hard but I know it will all be worth it in the future.
Approximate # of Items in Store: 1200
# of Items Sold: 58
Average Cost of Items Sold: $2.00
Total Sales: $2891.47
Highest Price Sold: $300 – Lot of Microwave radios
Average Price Sold: $49.85
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory: $631.08
Number of new listings: 120I used to use it exclusively, but since the eBay update I find I can list just as fast there.
I have searches set up, but also in my free time I’ll browse recently listed Craigslist items. I have never found anything for free on Craigslist worth re-selling. I do sometimes throw up a post if I’m caught up on listing offering garage clean outs and junk removal. I get paid to clean outs peoples messes and almost always find decent items worth re-selling.
I’ve found unique collectibles that I’ve made good money on. I found a pair of art deco cat statues from the 60’s, signed by the artist. Also found a zeppelin that appeared to be made from a gourd, really big, painted really nice. It was in some guys man cave and he just wanted it gone. I think you have to look for unique items. Everyone overvalues their comics, old toys and obvious antiques because there are so many tv shows and stories about them. You have to look for the weird items that the person doesn’t realize what they have. Also cell phones and Apple computers. People get desperate for money and will sell those things cheap if there aren’t any other buyers.
I’ve only got maybe 120 items in my Shopify store currently and haven’t started advertising it yet. I’ve only sold one item, but I eventually hope to duplicate everything on there for a few reasons.
1. I hope to put coupons in my eBay & etsy packages to be used for purchases on my website. This will drive traffic and save sellers fees. It will also allow me to diversify my income streams in case anything happens with eBay.
2. I can duplicate my Shopify inventory in my Facebook shop, which I can then promote to local buyers or Facebook interest groups. For instance I have about 300 leather jackets, with cold weather on the way I plan to promote my “Leather Jacket” category in local Facebook groups. I’ll offer local buyers a discount, as I wont have to pay fees or ship the items. Meanwhile I may target my “Vintage Wedding Dress” category to certain reddit groups or Facebook groups.
3. I have 26,000 of a brand new in package item that has been selling maybe 30 units a week between eBay, Amazon and locally. I plan to set up a product page with varying quantity bundles available for it on my Shopify store and promote it heavily via Google Shopping and Adwords.
4. Lastly I plan to hand out business cards with my domain to locals. It may not result in many sales, but every little bit helps.
ps: Love the podcast you guys. One episode a week isn’t enough.
I have the exact same setup as John and agree it works great. Screenshotting and printing is much faster than taping a label on.
These totes are my favorite. I’ve gone through a lot of totes and these hold up the best. I don’t just use mine for storage though. I use them for transporting lots of stuff I buy locally at auctions or from private sellers, so they get a lot of use. I also have some large ones with wheels built in the bottom that have held up ok, I’ll have to check what brand they are.
