Scavenger Life

It’s currently a stressful time at Scavenger HQ. We have a lot of pokers in the fire which is exciting and overwhelming. When do you know when it’s too much?

I guess you really don’t know. We just try to have as much fun as we can while doing projects. If it’s not fun, we don’t do it. Stress isn’t the worst. It’s hating our lives while working on something that’s the killer.

It’s just like listing on eBay. Sure, this pile of men’s ties might make us money, but we hate photographing and listing ties. It makes our life miserable because ties are boring, so we just re-donate. Researching and listing random antique porcelain plates can be overwhelming but is also fun for us. We like to be excited about what we’re doing.

We had a good week of sales on eBay. Sold a lot of fun weird items. Our pipeline of items to list seems never ending. There’s just so much good stuff out there.

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
Join the conversation in the forum>> HERE

Our Store Week April 2-8, 2023

Total Items in Store: 9348
Items Sold: 21
Gross Sales: $1,323.23 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,079.54 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $81
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $200 (vintage necklace)
Average Price Sold: $51.40
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 20
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

No big news on the any fronts. We’re just “heads down and working”. Is the economy going to crash? How scared should we be? How much cash do we need to keep on hand? Will people keep buying our sh*t? These and other exciting thoughts keep us up at night. Welcome to the glamorous life as small business owners.

I did sit for an interview with Mark from “Not Your Dad’s CPA“. We interviewed him for our podcast in 2016 for reseller tax advice. He since has become a tax accountant almost exclusively for other resellers. He’s a good guy and resource.

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
Join the conversation in the forum>> HERE

Our Store Week March 26 – April 1, 2023

Total Items in Store: 9340
Items Sold: 24
Gross Sales: $1,283.34 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $974.82 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $122
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $150 (lot of wool coats)
Average Price Sold: $40.61
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 20
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

Our common refrain last week was “why am I so tired?” Ryanne and I both would be exhausted by the end of the day. It’s the first week of Spring and we realized what a bust Winter we’ve had. Usually the cold season is when we “catch up” with things, but this year we’ve been pushing deep into several new projects.

With coffee, we’re expanding our wholesale business as seen in our recent announcement of roasting the coffee for our local hospital chain, who is a great partner. But doubling our wholesale orders overnight meant a lot of work training new staff, testing new equipment, and building new systems to handle more roasting. It’s exciting to see the roastery that we built during the pandemic full of activity.

As for eBay, we had good steady sales all week. Lots of offers coming in and we’re happy to accept them. Our large inventory is really doing all the work during these times when we’re busy. It’s a good feeling when things you planned/worked come together!

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
Join the conversation in the forum>> HERE

Our Store Week March 19-25, 2023

Total Items in Store: 9360
Items Sold: 28
Gross Sales: $1,438.58 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,140.14 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $117
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $95 (artwork)
Average Price Sold: $40.71
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $50
Number of items listed this week: 50
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

When we started selling on eBay, it was 2008 when banks were collapsing across the country and hundreds of thousands of people were losing their homes. We didn’t own much of anything. eBay was a way to make some money in a rural community.

Fifteen years later, banks are collapsing again. I’m not educated enough to know how serious things are in the economy. We’re still helpless to do anything about the larger world, but we know we can work and be smart. Our financial lives have grown since 2008 and yet scavenging and listing on eBay is still part of our habit. Our scavenger knowledge have only improved. Nothing else has really changed. Here’s one of the first weeks we started publicly posting our numbers.

No magic or secrets. Just listing the same as before. Hope you had a good week.

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
Join the conversation in the forum>> HERE

Our Store Week March 12-18, 2023

Total Items in Store: 9316
Items Sold: 21
Gross Sales: $1,335.52 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,062.02 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $117
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $110 (antique scale)
Average Price Sold: $50.57
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 10
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

Let’s talk numbers. We have about 9300 items for sale on eBay. 18 items sold this week. 5 of those sold items were over $30. This week is a new week.

A couple podcast listeners stopped by our cafe to say hi. Unfortunately we weren’t there. You can always send us an email to let us know you’re coming and we can try to make sure we’re around. Our staff is always confused when people call us Scavengers. They don’t really understand that part of our lives 🙂

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
Join the conversation in the forum>> HERE

Our Store Week March 5-11, 2023

Total Items in Store: 9345
Items Sold: 18
Gross Sales: $785.10 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $613.71 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $68
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $100 (vintage dinner plates)
Average Price Sold: $43.61
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 10
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

It was a normal steady week for us on eBay. We sold two broken appliances (aka “for parts”) which is always fun. I’m glad to see there’s a desire to fix broken items, especially when they may not be available anymore.

When we first started the podcast in 2008 and posting our weekly numbers, we got some blowback from sellers because we were “revealing all the secrets”. It’s not realistic to think that we ever had that much reach to affect US society reselling habits. But if we helped move the needle on how people saw all the trash/junk around us, we’re very happy. We hope we helped in the slightest way to remind people that used items are extremely useful and valuable…and to show there’s a simple system to sell these items. Reselling is now a normal, popular activity. More competition for sure, but hopefully less stuff ending up in the landfill.

Our coffee business is growing and keeping us excited. We just signed a contract with our local hospital chain to roast the coffee they serve in their cafeterias. They’ll be serving much better coffee and we now added hundreds of pounds to our roasting schedule each week. Our two roasters are excited to soon be roasting full time. Plus our cafe is now a hive of activity on a daily basis with local people understanding we’re the place on Main Street to hang out. We now work laptops at the cafe and watch the action. It’s a joy to see and  a good sense of accomplishment.

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
Join the conversation in the forum>> HERE

Our Store Week February 26 – March 4, 2023

Total Items in Store: 9357
Items Sold: 23
Gross Sales: $1,024.88 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $766.91 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $60
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $110 (vintage cowbell)
Average Price Sold: $33.34
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $75
Number of items listed this week: 40
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)