Scavenger Life

We had a much lighter week with several days of only one sale. Most satisfying sale was a pair of boots that Ryanne lightly wore for a couple years…and then sold for $200 after she got tired of them.

But we had a frustrating week with a buyer purchasing a $750 coffee machine that was listed local pickup, but the seller swore we said Free Shipping. Cancel. We accepted several other offers but the buyers never paid. Cancel. An overseas buyer was angry that an item had damage that the listing clearly showed in photos and words. He said we edited the listing after the sale (not possible). He’s welcome to ail back for a refund. All communication was short and professional. All you can do.

We’ve had several warmish days sneak in which excites everyone in our town. Feels like Spring is around the corner. Very good news for our coffee shop because it means tourists are coming.

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
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Our Store Week February 13-19, 2022

Total Items in Store: 8152
Items Sold: 23
Gross Sales: $1,105.67 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $813.66 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $55
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $200 (pair of boots)
Average Price Sold: $35.37
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 40
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

The Winter Seller Update is now live so we can discuss. For anyone new, eBay has two or three updates that change how the site operates. Sometimes it’s small changes that affects very few sellers, and sometimes it’s huge changes that forces every seller to change how they do business on eBay.

As much as we hate to change how we do things and sometimes grumble, we recognize that eBay must evolve as more online selling sites appear. These past several years have seen quite a few positive changes. Overall, eBay is still the best place for us to sell the kind of items we do. We have yet to try another platform that connects us to enough buyers to sell weird, vintage consistently.

So what’s new in this update? This is what jumps out at us as we read over the list.

Good:

• Amazingly, eBay has heard us about unpaid items from Best Offers. Now when buyers submit an offer, they commit to paying. Once the seller accepts, the sale is processed. Good!
• Looks like a buyer can’t leave negative feedback without first messaging the seller, giving the seller a chance to make the customer happy. This is great because most of our negative feedback is from buyers who don’t ask for a refund or return.
• Sometimes a buyer ask us to cancel a purchase. It’s annoying, but more annoying because eBay keeps the final value fee even though we’re making the buyer whole. eBay says they will now fully refund the seller for any cancelled item or partial refund to buyers.

Not Great:

• eBay is raising the Final Value Fee by about .3% across all categories. So we’re getting close to 13+% fees on many of the categories we sell in.
• Promoted Listing Fee is now applied to the total sale price INCLUDING shipping. We dabble a little in promoted listings and can’t blame eBay for maximizing profit. but see it as another weird way for eBay to make even more money per sale. It’s totally voluntary to promote or not.

Did I miss anything?

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

Our Store Week February 6-12, 2022

Total Items in Store: 8126
Items Sold: 36
Gross Sales: $1,440.21 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,076.33 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $78
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $75 (raw honey from our hive)
Average Price Sold: $29.89
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 40
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

We had a good life week. Got a lot of things done. Tied up a lot of loose ends. Had a good amount of free time to be ourselves. Plus we sold another $1000 of junk on the internet. What a life 🙂

If you have an adventurous coffee palate, try this limited coffee that Ryanne is now roasting. We have just under 120lbs of it before it’s gone.

Check out our coffee! ► Broadporch Coffee

Join the conversation in the forum: HERE

Our Store Week January 30-February 5, 2022 

Total Items in Store: 8114

Items Sold: 25

Gross Sales: $1,311.69 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)

Net Sales: $997.32 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)

Cost of Items Sold: $55

Cost of helpers: $80

Highest Price Sold: $210 (woodblock prints)

Average Price Sold: $39.89

Returns: 0

Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20

Number of items listed this week: 40

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(Your numbers can be found here:  https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales

This week we had two very painful returns. One return was $100 pair of boots for fit. The second return was a $300 set of dishes. She says she just didn’t like them so agreed to cover all shipping. Refund and relist. That’s all you can do.

Lots of good sales otherwise. Ryanne has been on a listing spree while we stay inside during these cold winter months. I keep the woodstove going.

Much of our time is spent helping get Broad Porch Coffee ready for the Spring: new food menu, some new coffees, training staff, tightening up processes. Running an IRL business is so much different than selling on eBay: more resource and time intensive, more moving parts, more points of failure. Why do it? We enjoy the challenge, enjoy hospitality, enjoy (mostly) interacting with people, and are excited to build something bigger than us.

Hope you had a good week.

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

Our Store Week January 23-29, 2022

Total Items in Store: 8101
Items Sold: 38
Gross Sales: $1,793.99 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,410.30 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $73
Cost of helpers: $0
Highest Price Sold: $225 (commercial food processor)
Average Price Sold: $47.21
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 80
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

Scavenging has been around since the beginning of human existence. It’s human instinct to hunt for something that will keep life going. So when we started scavenging to sell on eBay, we’ve simply carried on that instinct. But I have to admit that I assumed we found a loophole that would soon close. How could it be possible that we could buy items for cheap (or even find for free) to resell online for $30+? Why are people giving all this stuff away? Why isn’t everyone reselling items they don’t want? Well…fourteen years later, we had another good week of sales doing the same thing we did back in 2008. My feared loophole is now simply a way of life.

Our most satisfying sale is a coffee maker we found on the streets on Brooklyn. Sold for $150 within a week. I didn’t believe it’d sell for so much but Ryanne believed. That coffee maker paid for all the fancy coffee drinks we bought that week 🙂

We’re really enjoying reading the stories people share of their finds.

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

Our Store Week January 16-22, 2022

Total Items in Store: 8072
Items Sold: 32
Gross Sales: $1,759.37 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,441.06 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $131
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $200 (vintage mask)
Average Price Sold: $45.03
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 60
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)