Scavenger Life

Sold a lot of stuff this week. Most of it lower dollar. Highest priced item was about $45. Our average sale was $22. Churn and burn.

We’re not sure if this is new or something we overlooked, but we realized that each week we’ve been charged for “offsite ads”. These are ads for our items that eBay places on other websites. If someone clicks on the ad, we pay a fee whether it sells or not. Last week we spent $27 on these offsite ads. Yikes.

No idea how long we’ve allowed these ads to occur. I think we’ve been able to turn them off because these ads do not fit into our system of selling. The whole point is we list items we find cheap/free and pay just a couple cents cents each month to keep them listed on eBay until sold. These offsite ads are eating into that profit margin since we pay whether the items sells or not. The Harvard grads at eBay are really finding more and more ways to get into seller’s pockets 🙂

eBay just list our item and let it all happen naturally. Trust the process.

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Our Store Week June 23-29, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9502
Items Sold: 37
Gross Sales: $1,233.03 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $830.84 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $44
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $45 (designer throw pillow)
Average Price Sold: $22.45
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 big sale this week was a $900 vintage appliance. Ryanne finds these things online when people are cleaning out a house. Since we have a storage building, we can keep it for a long time since they’re slow sellers. This oven probably sat for over six months before selling to someone across the country.

The other challenge is working with eBay buyers to use freight companies. Sometimes we get eBay buyers who are savvy with Uship. In this case, we had to get the freight quote, organize the shipping, and make sure the buyer felt confident in the process. So it’s definitely no easy money.

Otherwise, we have a new kitten in our household so that’s always fun 🙂

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Our Store Week June 16-22, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9498
Items Sold: 35
Gross Sales: $2,426.76 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,703.38 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $145
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $900 (vintage oven)
Average Price Sold: $48.66
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)

Let’s blame it all on the heat. Gdamn is it hot outside.

Sales have really picked up for us over the past month or so. Definitely selling a lot of lower dollar items, but it all adds up. We sold a jacket for $40 that must have been listed for at least ten years. TEN YEARS! Everything eventually sells….as long as something is selling today.

eBay sent us this message:

We’re excited to let you know that we’ve increased the selling limit on your account to $50,000,000.00. This means you can list more of your items and help grow your business on eBay.

It’s good to hear that all the rage among the youth is buying vintage. We’re here for it.

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
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Our Store Week June 9-15, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9502
Items Sold: 42
Gross Sales: $1,646.83 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,154.15 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $87
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $90 (vintage wool hat)
Average Price Sold: $27.47
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)

We’ve been selling a lot of items the last several weeks because we’re taking almost any offer people send us. So lots of volume but lower profit. Some items are selling for under $20. We change with the economic times. With a big inventory, we can churn when we need to.

Otherwise, we’ve been dipping our toe back into thrift store shopping. We’ve avoided thrift stores the last two years because of the crazy pandemic prices and general saturation of shoppers. (Maybe we were just too tired too). But it’s been fun to randomly stop by an independent thrift store in an old rundown strip mall to see what the kind of junk is bubbling up. It’s been fun. We’re definitely buying less but paying more for quality items.

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Our Store Week June 2-8, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9512
Items Sold: 46
Gross Sales: $1,574.03 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,062.28 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $109
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $85 (vintage neckace)
Average Price Sold: $23.09
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $35
Number of items listed this week: 0
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

Better week for our sales. Lots of random sales. Highest sale was a vintage denim jacket to someone in Japan. Another was an amateur carved wooden head sculpture that we’ve had for a long time. There’s value in things people can find no where else.

Summer has kickstarted our vacation rentals and cafes. Now we start saving up for the slower winter. Always look ahead.

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Our Store Week May 26-June 1, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9543
Items Sold: 38
Gross Sales: $1,747.01 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $1,268.04 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $113
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $230 (vintage denim jacket)
Average Price Sold: $33.36
Returns: 1
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)

Feels like summer sales aka the slow season. No idea if its just us. Good news is this week is already better. For some reason this week people are buying from us.

We sold a pop-up book for $250. This was something we found on the street in a box of old books. After some research we found it its by an artist that people collect. You never know.

We randomly drove by some yard sales and did some great scavenging. It felt like 208 where stuff was plentiful and cheap. Load up the truck.

When we do have slow sales, we remind ourselves that we pay very little for our inventory. Risk is low and profit is high (when stuff sells).

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Our Store Week May 19-25, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9576
Items Sold: 16
Gross Sales: $1,090.86 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $703.06 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $37
Cost of helpers: $80
Highest Price Sold: $250 (pop up book)
Average Price Sold: $43.94
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $75
Number of items listed this week: 10
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

Definitely a slow week of low dollars sales for us. Half are sales were clothes. Clothing is a niche we can’t quit. Feels like a weird time right now. Keep on listing.

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
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Our Store Week May 12-18, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9598
Items Sold: 19
Gross Sales: $606.66 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $413.73 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $42
Cost of helpers: $40
Highest Price Sold: $50 (vintage drawers pulls)
Average Price Sold: $21.75
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 30
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

We just returned home after almost two weeks away. It was nice to get away from our daily life, though we’re always connected to our different businesses online. For us, running our business is more of a lifestyle than a burden. We’ve created ways to make money that we don’t hate and have consistently tried to change the parts we don’t like. From scavenging to hospitality to roasting coffee, it all comes from a place of things we enjoy. Thankfully these things also make us money to live in this world.

While we travel, we also scavenge in new places that is always fun. We probably picked up another couple months of new inventory that we now have to photograph and list.

Our best sale this week was a vintage dresser that we sold for $1500 on eBay. For our rentals, we’re always looking for quality furniture for cheap. This dresser was an example of something we bought for $100 and ended up not using. So we list it on eBay as “local pickup” and it sits in our garage. It took about a year for someone to finally buy it. They’re working through Uship to get it picked up. Perfect example of being patient for the right buyer. We list furniture on Facebook as well but the wacky messages are constant and everyone wants things cheap.

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Our Store Week May 5-11, 2024

Total Items in Store: 9541
Items Sold: 20
Gross Sales: $2,868.67 (including eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Net Sales: $2,089.26 (minus eBay fees, shipping, and taxes)
Cost of Items Sold: $326
Cost of helpers: $0
Highest Price Sold: $1539 (vintage dresser drawers)
Average Price Sold: $104.33
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $30
Number of items listed this week: 75
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(Your numbers can be found here: https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/sales)

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.

Check out our coffee! ► broadporch.coffee
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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)