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Vintage yearbooks can go for a lot of money. Even the ones without famous people. Plus their fun to look through. Those hairstyles!
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Trash to Cash. A podcast about making a living on eBay.
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Vintage yearbooks can go for a lot of money. Even the ones without famous people. Plus their fun to look through. Those hairstyles!
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As we said earlier this week, sales have felt quiet for a holiday season. But when looking at our week’s numbers, we did okay. Sometimes the facts are different from our perception.
Running our eBay business means we’re always solving problems. And there are always new problems to solve. The good news is that we get to solve our own problem. Much different than when we worked for other people who paid us to solve their problems. As we’ve used our eBay profits to start a vacation rental business, we get to have a new set of problems to solve. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
We mentioned the following links in the podcast:
Our Store Week December 13-19, 2015
———-Bonanza: $15
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A photo of a gift we received from Dave using game pieces. “Trash Elf” might even help you win Scrabble with a 14 point word
score.
Here’s a photo from Dan and the Seattle Scavengers. This is their sixth self-organized meeting. Hi guys!
This week has not felt like the buying holidays. We’ve had average sales with some winter clothes, but no big gift sales. Things are selling though. Hopefully it’s better for you!
This is an open comment thread (is it ever not?). Ask and answer as you see fit.
Some simple rules-
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Check out the completed Ellwood Bowls with Nutcrackers. They are a cool thing to list all year round, but especially at the holidays.
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Even though we didn’t list much, we had a good week. Our sales felt like the holiday season. Other than packing sold items, we were busy running around taking care of a bunch of other tasks on our house project. It’s a week like this that reminds us why we like having a a big inventory so sales keep coming.
It also reminds us that our success with eBay has come because we remember that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Instead of being angry we aren’t selling more, we’re grateful when we make the money we need to pay our bills + a little extra. This buys our freedom. The steadiness gives us peace. The slow pace keeps it all manageable. Perfect for us. We hope you’re finding the right pace as you run your store and hopefully pursue other projects (or raise a family!)
In this episode, we mentioned the following links:
Our Store Week December 6-12, 2015
———-Bonanza: 0 ———-
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One of our highest selling items this week was a pair of Vintage King Sheets. Check out completed listings to see how much they go for, even used! They are a great find if you see them.
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Big news in our household. After six months of quiet, but busy, behind-the-scenes work, we just bought another rental cabin this week. We discuss in this podcast how we’ll be using our eBay profits for the renovation, but you can hear the whole story over at Shampoo and Booze (+ see the photos).
Here’s a great post by a guy in his early 60’s who has always saved money. He describes how he’s had a good life because he’s always had “F*** You” money. This is an impolite way to say that you have much more flexibility and leverage if you have enough money to walk away from anything. We’ve certainly found this to be true. And in fact, we find that opportunities can multiple because people realize we work because we choose to, not because circumstances force us into a bad situation.
We’re living a much better life than we were in 2008 before we started selling on eBay. Without any extra income, we’d were forced to take any job that came along. Our future was always uncertain. But as we built our eBay business, this extra money became the buffer we needed against uncertainty. And now building this rental business on eBay profits will give us even more leverage.
In this podcast, we mentioned the following links:
–Ryanne found a site that links to thousands of free online audio courses. Many are college lectures from universities like MIT and Berkley. Interesting to listen to while listing.
–If you homeschool kids, Khan Academy is an awesome site with free interactive courses on Math and Science.
–Josh sent us an updated version of his free shipping tool: http://www.flippertools.com/fitShipperListing/ Helps you figure out the cheapest and most efficient way to send a package.
–And if you missed our last interview, listen to John aka Resale Rabbit talk about traveling the country while scavenging and selling on Amazon FBA.
Our Store Week November 29-December 5, 2015
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Some nice high dollar sales this last week. Check out completed Vintage Stanley Roberts flatware sets. A great find if you see them.
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Does it matter what I sell on eBay? How do I make the most money? How can I quit my job and live the good life? All common questions. The answer is not always so easy.
It’s obviously smart to sell items that are easy and cheap to find. When we started selling on eBay, we sold clothes. Lots and lots and lots of clothes. We had a couple thrift shops where we could buy clothes by the bagful for pennies on the dollar. It was a lot of work, but we also had a very low investment so could afford to make mistakes and still make money.
As we evolved as online sellers, we definitely felt the stress of “always be listing” in order to make a decent income. It started to feel like a job we didn’t like. As one smart listener said, we created a sweatshop for ourselves. We were finding items to sell for cheap, but we were also not making much profit on each item.
Plus, it felt boring. We knew what each day would be like. No surprises. If we’re bored, we don’t work as hard. If we don’t work as hard, don’t list as much. If we don’t list as much, we don’t make money. If we don’t make money, we have to start searching for a job where we work for someone else who tells us what to do.
This is why we began focusing on selling items that we enjoyed scavenging, researching, AND listing. In a country with so much excess and waste, why not treat it like an actual Treasure Hunt? We began digging and searching and having fun finding weird items that most people overlooked. We enjoyed learning about the history and use of these items. And we realized that many of these items would often make us a higher profit margin. But in the end, the most important thing is that we enjoyed what we did.
So does it matter what you sell on eBay? Yes and no. Everything sells. It’s relatively easy to be a successful online seller for short periods of time. The key is finding a way to make sure you enjoy the process day in and day out. Month after month. Year after year.
Our Store Week November 22-28, 2015
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Bonanza: $20 (Dr. Pepper hat)
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Hi. This is Jay. In my 20’s, I did a lot of traveling. Lived in Europe, Africa, and across the US. Rarely did I live in any one place longer than a year. With nothing to tie me down, I was just wandering and looking for whatever this life was about. And as I’ve discussed in the past, I worked a lot of low-paying jobs where I was poorly treated. I was always broke and it was an often lonely adventure. Glad I eventually met Ryanne! I am much better with a partner in crime.
My traveling took place in the 1990’s when the internet and cell phones weren’t ubiquitous as they are now. I guess I was the last generation to grow up without the ability to connect so easily. I would infrequently keep in touch with family and friends through postal letters and pay phones. Remember when you could actually get lost?
This interview is with John or Resale Rabbit. He shows us how the world has completely transformed. He travels across the US, scavenges at thrift stores, and mails these items to the Amazon FBA warehouses. Items then sell, Amazon handles the shipping, and the money is deposited into his account.
Unlike my vagabond days, it sounds like John is exploring the world, meeting other scavengers along the way, and making an incredible amount of money. His scavenging seems to focus on video games and electronics which is different from us, so shows that there’s many ways to make a living on the bleeding overabundance of this great nation.
John is currently traveling the Southwest. He puts a lot of time into editing videos of his thrifting adventures. Check them out. John was also one of the early moderators at the Flipping subReddit where there’s plenty of good info sharing happening.
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