Scavenger Life

Trash to Cash. A podcast about making a living on eBay.

Scavenger Life Episode 89: How to Find, Buy and Sell Art on eBay

This was our latest haul of art from an auction and the local thrift stores. Cool, weird stuff!

We love to sell art on eBay. First, it’s just fun to do. But more important is that most people overlook art at yard sales, flea markets, estate sales and thrift stores. As a regular buyer, who has room on their walls? And other scavengers probably are thinking, “I don’t want to store and pack that no matter what the price.” We love the overlooked piles. We enjoy the challenge.

In this episode, we share our very generous definition of what art is: needlepoints, prints, lithographs, etchings, charcoal drawings, sketches, drawings, wood burnings, as well as watercolors and real oil/acrylic paintings. It doesn’t have to be signed or dated (but it’s nice if it is). The art just has to look cool. If you think a piece of art looks cool, someone else will.

Just look at the prices that Ikea charges for reproduction artwork. This is why people decorating their apartments will gladly pay for one-of-kind needlepoint from the 1970’s. We often buy these for $1 and sell for $40+. We’ll also invest $50 in nicer framed art to sell for $200+.

Don’t worry about packing, just watch our video on how to pack art in a glass frame. Let us know in the comments your experience buying and selling art.

Direct .mp3 link. Direct ogg vorbis link.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scavenger Life Episode 88: What’s Happening In Your eBay Store This Week?

Having fun buying and selling vintage perfumes. This Lanvin has a beautiful bakelite top.

Hey, we made another video! This week it’s about packing and shipping delicate glass lamps and light fixtures for your ebay buyers. Check it out. We are very proud of ourselves for submitting our taxes to our accountant this week, all thanks to the organization of GoDaddy Bookkeeping. Don’t forget that you can subscribe to the blog through email, just fill in the form on the right sidebar. Check out my favorite USPS shipping labels for eBay. When I’ve printed both labels, I used my heavy duty Fellowes shredder to make the perfect packing material from the backing paper. We get some advice on buying newsprint paper in bulk to pack stuff. Jay mentioned the idea of Retail Arbitrage as mentioned in this YouTube video about Amazon FBA. Turns out you can print a USPS Scan Sheet through Paypal, but not through eBay. Hm, that’s weird. This is the tape gun I use and cannot live without. Also, we try out the eBay Valet “Sell for Me” program.

Direct .mp3 link. Direct ogg vorbis link.

We’ve included our weekly Ebay numbers below. In the comments, go ahead and post what you’ve done this week. And let us know if there are other numbers you want us to share.

The Weekly Scavenger Numbers

Jay and Ryanne’s Store Week Jan 26 to Feb 1, 2014

  • Total Items in Store: 3085
  • Items Sold: 55
  • International Sales: 5
  • Total Sales: $2,371.69
  • Highest Price Sold: $135.00 (wooden owl table)
  • Average Price Sold: $43.12
  • Returns: 1
  • Positive Feedback: 42
  • Neutral Feedback: 0
  • Negative Feedback: 0

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scavenger Life Episode 87: Our Experiences Buying and Selling Military Surplus on eBay

We have been experimenting with selling vintage and modern military surplus on eBay for a couple years now. Sites like Government Liquidation are filled with cool stuff in bulk quantities, but often take a large initial investment to get started. You might also need a big old truck, a trailer and some serious storage. We have also approached individual sellers to help them cull their insane surplus hoarding and have had good luck. Do you have experience buying and selling surplus items? We’d love to hear your stories in the comments.

Direct .mp3 link. Direct ogg vorbis link.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scavenger Life Episode 86: What’s Happening In Your eBay Store This Week?


Hey y’all! As you can see in this link, we have made a new video about how to pack and ship delicate artwork for ebay. We get that question about once a week, so we decided to show you how. Other things mentioned in this episode: Thrift Hunters aired on Spike TV with the dudes from Thrifting With The Boys. We enjoyed it and you can too- they have the full episodes streaming on the Spike website. We have a new FAQ page to answer frequent questions faster than an email could. Check out this cool video on Laughing Squid where Michael Pollan explains how cooking at home is much healthier than eating out.

Direct .mp3 link. Direct ogg vorbis link.

We’ve included our weekly Ebay numbers below. In the comments, go ahead and post what you’ve done this week. And let us know if there are other numbers you want us to share.

The Weekly Scavenger Numbers

Jay and Ryanne’s Store Week Jan 19-25, 2014

  • Total Items in Store: 3105
  • Items Sold: 60
  • International Sales: 15
  • Total Sales: $2435.17
  • Highest Price Sold: $150.00 (Mid-century framed prints)
  • Average Price Sold: $40.58
  • Returns: 1
  • Positive Feedback: 34
  • Neutral Feedback: 0
  • Negative Feedback: 0

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scavenger Life Episode 85: We check in with Adam from The Mysterious Caravan

About 6 months ago, we interviewed new ebay seller, Adam, from The Mysterious Caravan store. Since then, he’s built up his store from under 100 items to 500 items. All while him and his wife, Emma, have full time jobs and a baby to tend to. Pretty amazing work! We check back in with Adam to see what has changed since he started and see if their on track to getting one of this ambitious couple to work full time doing ebay. Thanks for chatting with us Adam!

Direct .mp3 link. Direct ogg vorbis link.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scavenger Life Episode 84: What’s Happening In Your eBay Store This Week?

Cool sparkle vest that we re-photographed and it finally sold (for a mere 5.99). Fire King cup sold to an international buying company for $30. Pair of bench made English riding boots was a nice high end sale this week for $175.

 We talk about what’s up this week in our eBay store. We have been cheating on eBay and listing on Amazon using Profit Bandit app on our iphones and ipad. But we have no idea if we’ll be successful selling books without doing FBA. We’ve had a few very nice sales to international buying sites like the Japanese Sekaimon. Jay mentions one of his favorite blogs Mr. Money Mustache where extreme early retirement, paying off debt and investing wisely are the main topics. We mention using USPS Pickup as the best method for beginner shippers. Also try the USPS Flat Rate Variety Pack of boxes for free. Don’t forget to stock up on our recommended shipping supplies as listed on our Resources page. Also check out Pixelmator for the Mac for simple photo editing.

Direct .mp3 link. Direct ogg vorbis link.

We’ve included our weekly eBay numbers below. In the comments, go ahead and post what you’ve done this week. And let us know if there are other numbers you want us to share.

The Weekly Scavenger Numbers

Jay and Ryanne’s Store Week Jan 12-18, 2014

  • Total Items in Store: 3063
  • Items Sold: 46
  • Total Sales: $1799.72
  • Highest Price Sold: $175.00 (Benchmade leather riding boots)
  • Average Price Sold: $39.10
  • Returns: 1
  • Positive Feedback: 30
  • Neutral Feedback: 0
  • Negative Feedback: 0

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Scavenger Life Episode 83: What If It All Disappears? Conquering Your eBay Fears

I’m not the only one who has 80’s flashbacks when I see this image. Bought for about 5 cents, sold for $25.

When we first started selling on eBay, it never seemed like something we could do full-time. Make a living selling items we scavenged? No way. Then, as we began to consistently list and fill our store, it just became a numbers game. The more we listed, the more we sold. The more we sold, the more realistic it became that selling on eBay could become a full-time job.

But then we had a curious fear: what if we ran out of things to sell? What if the thrift stores stopped putting out items of incredible quality? What if everyone else found out about the treasures just lying around, waiting to be sold? What if people stopped donating and just sold the stuff themselves? I mean, there are now multiple TV shows detailing how to “pick & flip”. Do a search for “selling on eBay” on Youtube and there’s no mystery. Even Goodwill now has their own eBay clone where they sell millions of dollars of items a year themselves instead of putting them out on the floor.

In this episode we talk about how we stopped worrying, knowing that there will always be waste to find. We share our strategies on how we make sure we have plenty of different sources to scavenge at anytime of the year.

Direct .mp3 link. Direct ogg vorbis link.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Return to Top