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I sell a lot of hats, and wouldn’t bother repairing, even if it was a rare/valuable hat. Not worth the time/effort for a $20-25 sale.
If it’s just the strap/buckle, and there’s no other damage, disclose that in your listing, and sell it as is. The buyer can fix it if they intend to wear it.
In a lot of cases, when vintage hats are falling apart badly, I do as Jay says, and will pull the patch off and sell it alone.
Well, twice today, I had buyers pay full price, and then I refunded them the difference between full price and their messaged offer (both were in response to offers to watchers).
MyCottage, you may be right about adding BO to items I’m sending offers to watchers on. Might avoid this in the future.
Most of the items that I sell move at least one or two units per month (some I sell 15-20 per month). To make sure I avoid LTSF, I don’t sell anything that takes more than three months on average to sell a unit. I just stop buying/sending those items.
I don’t go very deep on new items, and usually only send one or two units in until I see how they’ll sell. That way, if an items is a dud, I don’t have much cash tied up in a “loser”. If I send in two units, and they sell in a month, I’ll send five next time, etc.
My average buy cost is currently at $10.47/unit (Cdn) across all skus (that’s landed cost, including COGS, prep, and shipping), my average selling price is $23.46/unit (Usd).
$10.47 CDN ~ $7.98 USD
My average amazon fees are hovering around 34% on average, all in.
23.46 (avg sell price) – 34% (amazon fees) = 15.48 (net payout)
15.48 (net payout) – 7.98 (avg COGS) = 7.50 (avg net profit per unit)Net profit on average, across all skus is currently averaging $7.50/unit Based on these numbers, plus my July sales of 356 units, the net profit for the month was $2,670.00 USD (roughly $3400+ CDN).
These numbers don’t factor in overhead, mileage, income taxes, etc, but I’m definitely profiting enough to make it worth doing at this point.
Mostly aiming to ramp up on eBay. Amazon is more just a restocking game at this point.
Re: Amazon
It’s working, so I’m not complaining. I’m slowly adding a few more skus every month. I keep looking for easily replenishable items with decent roi, even if they’re slow sellers. Even if I only sell one unit of each a month, but double my money on it, multiply that by 80-90 skus, and it ends up building a relatively consistent income stream.
I’m to the point now where I’m sending in 30-50 units, twice a week (just checked, sold 356 units in the US and 116 in Canada in July). In total, it probably take me 4-5hrs each time to to source it all, prep and pack it. Takes away from eBay time, but it’s such a consistent stream, I can’t ignore it.
Yep! I’ll throw up a few pics if/when it goes through. It’s a small house, but well kept, and a nice little piece of property.
Yeah, we’ve got a rental property that’s in the $450k range. Hoping rates stay low for a bit longer while our tenants are paying it down!
I’ll update once we know it’s going ahead. We’re scheduling some tests/inspections for next week and are crossing fingers.
– The extra building was originally an oversized garage. I’ll paint walls/ceiling, epoxy the floor, and upgrade some lighting, but otherwise, it should be ready to go.
– The house has one bedroom on the main level, and two additional bedrooms below grade, so technically it’s a one bedroom with two extras.
– The house was listed for $160k, and our accepted offer was slightly below that.
Rate cut seems terribly unnecessary, but who needs logic.
Hoping to get a bit more time before the next recession hits. We’re in relatively good shape financially, but not completely debt free. A reasonable truck payment with a few years left on it, and we should have the house we’re about to buy paid for in three years (or less). We’ve got a rental property with a hefty mortgage, but have tenants that just signed an additional two year lease that covers all costs there.
Time to push harder and start paying off/squirreling away faster methinks.
Bit of an update:
We’ve made an offer on a house, and after some back and forth, have an accepted offer! It’s an older house, so the offer is pending some pretty thorough inspections over the next week or two (general, well, septic).
Small house 1+2 bed, 1 bath, on 1.5 acres. Nice private setting, 45 minutes from the city, 15 minutes from the Maine border. The kicker? Has a heated and insulated 30×40 detached building for the ebay/amazon business to operate out of. No more reselling stuff in the house!
Crossing fingers the inspections all check out. If so, close date will be August 30th.
Financially, we opted to borrow a small amount to make the purchase instead of pulling a chunk of money out of our retirement accounts (and being hit with a subsequent tax bill). We anticipate being mortgage free in three years (or less).
Will listen in the truck this afternoon while doing some running around!
July 14-20, 2019
Store 1
Total Items in Store: 1,617
Items Sold: 11
Gross Sales: $267.94
Cost of Items Sold: $19.20
Highest Price Sold: $49.99
Average Price Sold: $24.36
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 23Store 2 (CAD)
Total Items in Store: 949
Items Sold: 5
Gross Sales: $60.95
Cost of Items Sold: $5.00
Highest Price Sold: $16.99 (vintage patch)
Average Price Sold: $12.19
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $31.51
Number of items listed this week: 14Amazon.ca sales: $534.19 (Approx $160.26 net profit)
Amazon.com sales (USD): $1,711.05 (Approx $684.42 net profit)Really, REALLY dismal week on ebay. Few sales, and the ones that did come were lower dollar. Add on a return, and I was happy to see the week end.
Amazon stayed steady, so my total income stream was at least sufficient enough to carry the week.
Pushing to get more listings up, and have set some semi-lofty goals for the month of August to pull my numbers up, and start ramping up for Q4.
I’m of no help here, sorry, but did want to say that’s a great looking stick.
I’d be interested to know what the marks mean too.
Been away for a few days. Listening now!
July 14-20, 2019
Store 1
Total Items in Store: 1,604
Items Sold: 21
Gross Sales: $465.14
Cost of Items Sold: $46.40
Highest Price Sold: $56.99 (camera)
Average Price Sold: $21.59
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $21.59
Number of items listed this week: 19Store 2 (CAD)
Total Items in Store: 940
Items Sold: 12
Gross Sales: $163.37
Cost of Items Sold: $12.50
Highest Price Sold: $22.99 (vintage patch)
Average Price Sold: $13.61
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $50.80
Number of items listed this week: 21Amazon.ca sales: $801.00 (Approx $240.30 net profit)
Amazon.com sales (USD): $1,578.10 (Approx $631.24 net profit)All-around a slightly below average week. Ebay felt busy, but it was a lot of $15 dollar type items. Amazon staying steady, with Canada up a bit over the average week (thanks, prime day).
This eek will be relatively light on listing. Got home this morning, and leaving town for a few days again on Thursday morning. Thankfully, a medium sized long-tail store will help keep the money coming in while I’m away.
We actually did that back when we moved from Edmonton to Calgary. Can’t recall how many items we had at that point, but it was likely at least 1000-1500. It was pretty quick, surprisingly. Two of us working on different shelves, and we got through all of them in two or three sessions of 1-2hr or so (if memory serves correctly).
It forced us to double check shelved items to confirm that they were listed too. I recall finding two or three that weren’t.
