Scavenger Life

We’ve been away this past week so have our store on “time away’ which sometimes feels like it affects sales. We do really like that eBay created the “time away” feature because we no longer have to keep changing our handling time while we’re gone. It’s a positive sign that eBay does evolve. Just like it seems like we get more automatic payments when we accept a buyers offer.

We sold our last Singer Sewing machine this past week. In the past decade, we could find old sewing machines for cheap and resell for a good profit. They often didn’t even need to work. Whether because of competition or more affordable new sewing machines, that market has fallen flat for us. Reminds us when we sold old record players all the time. These days, we would never try to list one. Too much trouble for not enough profit.

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Our Store Week April 28 – May 5, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9541
Items Sold: 18
Gross Sales: $880.51 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $549.92 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $112
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $80 (vintage Singer sewing machine)
Average Price Sold: $30.55
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 25
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

Better week but still slow. Not having any big dollar sales affects the total, but we’ll take it. We have time in the next couple weeks to really focus on eBay so we’ll see if we can make the eBay gods happy.

Overall life is good. Just hanging onto this capitalism train.

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Our Store Week April 21-27, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9541
Items Sold: 23
Gross Sales: $875.31 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $628.27 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $47
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $50 (vintage light switch)
Average Price Sold: $38.04
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 25
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

Slow week. Number of items sold were down, mostly low dollar. Disaster! Was it because we’ve focused on other things? Or are people just not buying what we have to sell? It’ll pick back up. We’ll have more time for eBay soon.

We just celebrated three years of the opening our of first cafe in Luray. I clearly remember when we first opened in April 2021. We were still doing the podcast back then.

From what we’ve learned the past 15 years when we first started selling on eBay and then vacation rentals and now cafes, it’s all just work. Just depends on where you want to spend your time.

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Our Store Week April 14-20, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9526
Items Sold: 16
Gross Sales: $689.31 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $493.08 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $28
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $100 (coffee grinder)
Average Price Sold: $30.81
Returns: 1
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)

Sales continue to roll in. Coolest sale? We sold a digital still camera that we found in the trash still in the box. It’s one of those early digital cameras from 2008 before everyone has iPhones. I guess kids love them these days because they’re “retro”: $110. We’ll take it.

Hope you guys are having a good week juggling life. The struggle is real.

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Our Store Week April 7-13, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9535
Items Sold: 26
Gross Sales: $1,468.09 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,074.10 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $99
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $110 (digital still camera)
Average Price Sold: $41.31
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 50
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

We’re in a period where we’re not listing because life has gotten very busy. Other projects are needing our immediate attention. It’s nice that our eBay store hums along without constant supervision. Getting our time is what we value most.

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Our Store Week March 31 – April 6, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9494
Items Sold: 29
Gross Sales: $1,570.66 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,030.39 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $126
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $150 (steel sink)
Average Price Sold: $35.53
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

I mentioned our big sale last Sunday. Turned out to be $675 for a set of Tiffany dishes. One of those finds on a big table lot at an auction that we had no idea was worth so much. Took a while to sell. But patience can sometimes be a virtue?

Otherwise we sold some shoes, artwork, a knife, a DVD, a pillow case, a tote bag, nightgown, a slide ruler. Completely random. Just the way we like it.

By the way, we really like Martin over at Things I find in the garbage. He posts rarely these days but always has fun stories of all the stuff he finds for free on the street. He’s also been scavenging for a long time. He shares how he sometimes struggles with his chosen lifestyle. His stories are great.

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Our Store Week March 24-30, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9529
Items Sold: 22
Gross Sales: $1,642.83 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,145.90 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $144
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $675 (set of Tiffany dishes)
Average Price Sold: $52.08
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

Normal week for us on eBay. On Sunday (not reflected in these numbers), we sold $400 of some fancy plates. Dishes and china are difficult to store and slow to sell, but we find they can sell for high profit. Usually no one wants the fragile dishes so we get them cheap. Ryanne has gotten good at knowing what patterns will sell.

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Our Store Week March 17-23, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9465
Items Sold: 22
Gross Sales: $1,065.26 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $756.10 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $62
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $125 (Hudson Bay Wool Blanket)
Average Price Sold: $34.36
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

eBay sales have been coming in weird spurts of sales. Slow/dead on one day. Then lots of sales the next. We’d drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out why. All we do is keep listing 🙂

Maybe it’s old, but I just noticed that when I click on someone’s eBay item that I see their item info, but then there’s now “You may also like” with an almost infinite scroll of other people items for sale. eBay has for a long time put other listings on the page, but this feels new. Ultimately I assume we sella lot of our items with “promoted listings” in this way. All’s fair in love and war.

Our new cafe is in full gear. We even met a scavenger who happened to be in Harrisonburg with his family.

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Our Store Week March 10-16, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9476
Items Sold: 33
Gross Sales: $1,685.75 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,238.84 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $128
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $140 (cash register stand)
Average Price Sold: $37.54
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $60
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 some good sales on eBay, even though it was slower than last week. Our new cafe is busy and fun to hang out in. Otherwise, we’re focusing on just strengthening what we have and taking on no new projects.

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

Our Store Week February 25 – March 2, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9455
Items Sold: 19
Gross Sales: $1,353.45 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $873.82 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $55
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $135 (antique cutlery)
Average Price Sold: $45.99
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 50
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)