Scavenger Life

Trash to Cash. A podcast about making a living on eBay.

Scavenger Life Episode 306: We Love Flea Markets and Craigslist


It’s no secret, it’s flea market season and we love it. So get out there and flea it up!
Also had some mad luck on good old Craigslist this week both in DC and Boston.

Links we talked about this episode-

Why healthcare is so expensive with little oversight:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/04/10/523005353/how-u-s-health-care-became-big-business

Emailed the public press contact at eBay for an interview
–post your questions you want me to ask
http://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/if-i-could-interview-ebay-what-would-you-want-to-know

Join the conversation in the forum>>

Our Store Week April 2-8, 2017

Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,443
Items Sold: 60
Cost of Items Sold: $288
Total Sales: $1,697.89
Highest Price Sold: $175 (vintage luggage label)
Average Price Sold: $32.71
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $550
Number of items listed this week: 25
———-
Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 0 items for 0
———-
Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1351
Items Sold: 16
Cost of Items Sold: $86
Total Sales: $598.33
Highest Price Sold: $180 (winter coat)
Average Price Sold: $37.39
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 0

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Scavenger Life Episode 305: The Biggest Transfer of Wealth in Human History


You guys have made clear that we shouldn’t talk about politics here. Makes sense. But can we agree on one thing? The Baby Boomers and their parents sure have a lot of stuff. Where’s the proof? Stop by any auction and see all the piles of possessions being sold each and every day.

After WWII, the US experienced a wave of expansion and productivity like the world has never seen before. While the government made an incredible investment in infrastructure, scientific research, and the university system, the Baby Boomers and their parents built the US into a powerhouse of design and technology. Getting an excellent college education was inexpensive, and even high school graduates could get jobs that delivered an upper middle class lifestyle thanks to advanced factory jobs.

While we can argue why this system has come apart, we can agree that those particular days are gone. Not every member of this age group found riches, but when you go to an auction, you can see evidence of the great accumulation of wealth that the Post War generations enjoyed. So if you’re skipping auctions, then you’re really missing out on a lot of great scavenging. And because younger generations have much different buying habits, we may never see this opportunity again. Some people have multiple houses to store their stuff, or rented storage lockers for the stuff they can’t keep in their houses.

Think of auctions as a mix of an estate sale (selling off a whole house of stuff) and a yard sale (cheap prices!). What’s incredible is that the stuff in auctions is what the families don’t want. Think of what they’re keeping!  But even the left overs are super valuable if you have imagination. There’s always a mix of practical, useful items plus kitschy, old-fashioned decor, along with truly valuable antiques.

Going to an auction gets you to the source of where stuff comes from. This is why you’ll mainly be competing with dealers and collectors because they have always known that auctions are where it’s at. Many independent thrift store owners and flea market sellers get their inventory at auctions. So why buy marked up inventory from them when you can go straight to the source?

I know online auctions have become extremely popular in the last couple years. Some of our favorite local auctions have closed down because they’ve gone online. While it’s certainly convenient to bid on your couch, there is nothing like being at a live auction bidding on carloads of stuff for cheap. It’s a carnival atmosphere with the heavy scent of glorious excess capitalism.

Anyway, in this episode we talk about the barriers that some sellers say exist to auctions, and how we strategize as a team. Showing up early, looking through all the boxes, do quick research over a meal, pay attention the whole time, know the prices we’re willing to pay, learn who likes what, dedicating our whole day. We’d love to hear your experiences in the comments.

We also discussed these links in the podcast:

TSATT shared a link to an interview with an eBay employee talking about the coming Guaranteed Shipping Program: http://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/scavenger-life-episode-304-do-a-little-bit-today-then-do-a-little-bit-tomorrow#post-15981
Julie B share a link to the trailer of a new Netflix show. It tells the story of an eBay seller that built a multi-million dollar clothing brand: http://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/ebay-the-netflix-series-sort-of#post-15972
Steve List reminds us that getting negative or neutral feedback isn’t the end of the world. You can always leave a comment on that feedback to let future buyers know it was just a misunderstanding: http://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/scavenger-life-episode-304-do-a-little-bit-today-then-do-a-little-bit-tomorrow/#post-15953
Tare shared the 5 stages of the scavenger’s life. I know we followed these exact steps: http://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/the-5-stages-of-the-scavenger-life

Hope you had a great week!

Join the conversation in the forum>>

Our Store Week April 2-8, 2017

Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,487
Items Sold: 71
Cost of Items Sold: $166
Total Sales: $2,322.46
Highest Price Sold: $700 (Burberry coat)
Average Price Sold: $32.71
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $550
Number of items listed this week: 0
———-
Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 0 items for 0
———-
Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1377
Items Sold: 18
Cost of Items Sold: $250
Total Sales: $677.26
Highest Price Sold: $100 (Apple iSight)
Average Price Sold: $37.62
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 30

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Scavenger Life Episode 304: Do a little bit today, then do a little bit tomorrow


Consistency is the main foundation for our successful eBay business. Since 2008, our secret has been to simply list 20 items a day. If we’re not listing items, we are scavenging for inventory, or photographing items, or working on death piles. We always do something each day that builds our business. We treat our business like it’s our job.

We see the danger some sellers get in when they slack off on listing. They start making less money, so they have to get a job, which means they have less time, so they list even fewer items, making even less money. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And truth be told, we now can take off for weeks at a time because we’ve built up a large enough inventory and let out store go on autopilot. I wouldn’t recommend this for new sellers since we know the right balance that works for us. But when we return to our business, we go right back to treating it like our full time job.

Here are the links we discussed in this podcast:

Hope you had a good week!

Join the conversation in the forum>>

Our Store Week March 26-April 1, 2017

Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,595
Items Sold: 72
Cost of Items Sold: $92
Total Sales: $2,250.44
Highest Price Sold: $200 (Shearling jacket)
Average Price Sold: $32.95
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $10
Number of items listed this week: 0
———-
Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 0 items for 0
———-
Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1370
Items Sold: 14
Cost of Items Sold: $27
Total Sales: $697.27
Highest Price Sold: $140 (embroidered Tibetan style coat)
Average Price Sold: $49.80
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 150

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Scavenger Life Episode 303: Failure of Imagination


When we hear Amazon sellers talk about their million dollar businesses, it’s pretty impressive. They tell stories of buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from a factory in China. Maybe even traveling to China to make a big play on some private label merchandise. Or maybe they are sending employees out to buy retail arbitrage at big box stores all over their region. They have a busy warehouse and multiple employees. We imagine a person sitting in front of several computer screens, pouring over spreadsheets that has everything laid out to the last decimal place. They’re basically mini-CEO’s competing with larger corporations.

This isn’t us. We’re scavengers and have more in common with the guys at the flea market who sell out of their cars. Only difference is that we sell online. We know how much we spend each month and how much we need to make. We are frugal and save extra money to invest in things that will make us more money (like rental property). We have often said that we’re probably don’t have much in common with a Harvard MBA graduate, but we do have imagination. Even though we are not masters of spreadsheets and P/L reports, we do know how to turn trash into cash.

Imagination is our biggest strength because we can walk into any situation (flea market, thrift store, auction, estate sale, yard sale) and see where the money is. We’ve learned that we make money by constantly changing. Instead of going out into the world searching for specific items, we just see what is available and then imagine how we can sell them. Finding these overlooked objects is where our business lies. Some eBay sellers seem to want to find a formula to know exactly what they should buy, how much it’ll sell for, and then never deviate change course. Having imagination when scavenging is what excites us and makes us money. We never know what we’ll find, but we know we’ll always find something. Sitting in front of spreadsheets won’t help us. We have to go out and scavenge!

This is why we love the weekly “What Sold” thread every Wednesday. We love seeing what other scavengers are finding and selling. We see how people’s imagination have sometimes run wild and paid off.

Here are the links we mentioned on this podcast:
–eBay is going to roll out a voluntary program of guaranteed three day shipping.
–An interesting series of short portraits of how different Americans get by.
–Here is that embed code for videos that you can copy and paste (hope it works!)-

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Hope you had a good week!

Join the conversation in the forum>>

Our Store Week March 19-25, 2017

Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,667
Items Sold: 72
Cost of Items Sold: $110
Total Sales: $2,260.12
Highest Price Sold: $125 (Set of sheets)
Average Price Sold: $31.39
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20
Number of items listed this week: 20
———-
Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 1 items for $?
———-
Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1228
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $25
Total Sales: $544.20
Highest Price Sold: $135 (Leather purse)
Average Price Sold: $51.21
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 40

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Scavenger Life Episode 302: How to Deal with Dreaded eBay Scammers Lurking Everywhere!!


In over 20,000 items we’ve sold on eBay since 2008, we’ve never had an eBay Scammer™. A scammer is someone who buys an item knowing full well they’re going to cheat you. It involves pre-meditation.  Maybe they exist and we haven’t run into them? Maybe the Scammers don’t buy the kind of weird, vintage stuff we sell. Maybe the scammers exist for the people who only sell new electronics? We know there are long time eBay sellers who will swear and testify to the numerous times they’ve been scammed, but it hasn’t happened to us.

However we certainly have our share of Grumpy Buyers™. Why is it important to be careful about not labeling a Grumpy Buyer with the label, Scammer? Because Scammer is a loaded word that brings way too much emotion into a business transaction. It assumes that the person is coming after us personally to do us harm. Instead, we get buyers who are just upset and need t be treated professionally.

Grumpy buyers include:

  • They just changed their mind ie (Buyer’s Remorse) and don’t want to pay for return shipping.
  • They want to keep the item but are fishing for a partial refund. Usually tied to buyers remorse.
  • Buyers who are unreasonable and most likely unhappy and angry about their life circumstances. We just happen to be in their line of sight on a bad day.
  • Buyers who have untreated mental illness or addiction problems. Yes, these people use the internet and we always hope they seek the help they need.

We never answer any question sent to us outside the eBay system. We are always professional and brief in our conversation. We never accuse or argue or get into long conversations. We always ask for further information where the buyer often ends up admitting there really isn’t a problem. Or we offer choices that the buyer must take action on. We control the conversation following eBay’s rules.

Heres how we handle all returns:

  • We turned on Hassle Free Returns with a 30 day return policy for any reason. It’s important that everything happen through eBay’s system so its documented.
  • We auto accept any return where the buyer just changed their mind. The buyer pays for all shipping.
  • If the buyer says we have done something wrong, they must open a case to allow us to respond.
  • If the buyer’s complaint is valid, we take responsibility and give a full refund on the spot. If we disagree, we ask for photos of the issue. This is important because it makes the buyer take an action and provide proof.
  • After we get the photos, we then may take responsibility and give a full refund on the spot.
  • But if we still disagree, we immediately accept the return to move the process along.
  • The buyer has 5 days to print a label and provide tracking. If not, the case can be closed on the phone in our favor.
  • Once we get the item, we inspect it.  We then may take responsibility give a full refund (including all shipping) on the spot. Having the item abd seeing our mistake helps us learn how to avoid the problem.
  • If we still don’t agree, we escalate the issue. Since we’re in eBay’s Returns Program “Beta”, we can refund the buyer for the item but not the shipping. The buyer then has to open a case if they want to further fight it. Usually buyers are just happy to have their item returned and given a refund. Before the beta program, we would call eBay and plead our case. We often won because we offered the buyers choices and had plenty of evidence that the item was not defective.
  • Worst case: eBay just disagrees with us. So we refund the cost of the item and shipping. Just a cost of doing business. If the person was a scammer, we are taking away their ability to keep the item so foiled their devious plot.

One thing we NEVER do is ignore the buyer who has a complaint and wants a return. When a seller ignores a buyer, this is the only time we’ve seen eBay take money out of the seller’s account for a refund and let the buyer keep the item. The seller has chosen to ignore the system.

And let’s be clear how rarely returns happen for us. In the past 90 days, we have a return rate of 3.26%. That’s 19 out of 582 items. This is high for us since we just got out of the holiday season when buyers are more prone to returns. (Big retailers can have as high as 20% return rate during the holidays.) Out of those 19 returns, only 2 were grumpy buyers. If you have a much higher return rate and a higher rate of buyers you think are Scammers, I would look at your process and ask why so many buyers seem unhappy. Our experience has shown that a wide majority of buyers order an item and keep it.

Because we have a system in place to handle any and all complaints, we sleep well at night. Some frustration pops up every now and again at a particularly grumpy buyer, but they just get fed into our system and processed to eBay’s satisfaction. The main goal is to treat customers fairly and be seen as a good seller in eBay’s eyes. If we have to pay $30 a month in return shipping fees (which would be very high for us), it’s worth every penny for the peace of mind.

These are the forum conversations we mentioned in this podcast:
–A seller found a hat for $1 and sold for $1000: http://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/turned-1-into-1000-in-1-day-scavenge-of-the-week
–If you want to quit your job and sell full-time, you must budget your expenses: http://www.scavengerlife.com/forums/topic/personal-budgeting-and-financial-planning-planning-for-full-time-ebay

Hope you had a good week!

Join the conversation in the forum>>

Our Store Week March 12-18, 2017

Store #1
Total Items in Store: 5,660
Items Sold: 59
Cost of Items Sold: $150
Total Sales: $2,039.03
Highest Price Sold: $135 (old iPad)
Average Price Sold: $34.55
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $8
Number of items listed this week: 100
———-
Bonanza/Trugether:
Sold 0 items for $0
———-
Store #2
Total Items in Store: 1231
Items Sold: 14
Cost of Items Sold: $56
Total Sales: $717.02
Highest Price Sold: $150 (Vintage faucet)
Average Price Sold: $51.21
Returns: 0
Number of items listed this week: 10

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