Scavenger Life

iTunes   YouTube  Download .mp3  Download .ogg

A slow week if you exclude the anomaly that was our highest sale ever, an $1800 piece of fabric. We’ve continued to pursue our Amazon FBA experiment with good results. It’s like learning a new online selling puzzle. We still love eBay for selling weird, one of a kind, vintage items though. If you haven’t listened, we posted an interview with Mark, an accountant who specializes in online businesses. We also just posted a new interview on Shampoo and Booze. Check em out. Hope all of your weeks pick up!

Links we talked about in this show:

• eBay’s new Monthly Evaluation, now shows your return rate.
• FitShipper is a cool tool that allows you to figure out the best prices for shipping, now with new options. Thanks Josh!
• Commenters pointed out that you can get vacation rentals on eBay. Who knew.

Our Store Week February 14-20, 2016

• Store #1
• Total Items in Store: 3846
• Items Sold: 17
• Cost of Items Sold: $80
• Total Sales: $696.16 + $1800 (fabric)
• Highest Price Sold: $75 (vintage copper cups)
• Average Price Sold: $40.95
• Returns: 1
• Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $80
• Number of items listed this week: 10

———-
Bonanza: $0
Amazon: $468.57
Vangoe: $0
Etsy: $0
———-

• Store #2
• Total Items in Store: 915
• Items Sold: 9
• Cost of Items Sold: $10
• Total Sales: $280.92
• Highest Price Sold: $110(vintage painting)
• Average Price Sold: $38.99
• Returns: 0
• Number of items listed this week: 0

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

iTunes   YouTube  Download .mp3  Download .ogg

We enjoy doing a weekly podcast and running this blog because it often feels like we’re all shopkeepers sharing the same street, interested in what each is selling and happy we’re all in business. Instead of being isolated in dark rooms across the country, we’re helping each other. Camaraderie over competition.

It’s the deep of winter where we are. This is Jay’s favorite time of year. Since there’s no yard sales or flea markets to distract us, we continue to get a lot done. “Death piles” (boxes of unlisted items) continue to disappear in our house. We are working on three years of stuff we have put off photographing. We keep mentioning “death piles” because they are the thing that often paralyze sellers who shop way more than they list. Attack those piles since it’s money just sitting there waiting to be sold.

We continue our Amazon FBA experiment, sending in 431 items in the past two weeks. About 25 items have sold. After in-bound shipping and final value fees, we’ve made about $145. Lots of low dollar items. We’re learning. We’ve become scan monkeys.

If it wasn’t for one very large $1500 commissioned art sale, we would have had the slowest week we’ve ever had. As others have said in the comments, sales trickled in for us. But we made the money we needed to make. When sales are good, keep listing. When sales are bad, keep listing.

Here are links we discussed this week:

• A listener told us that eBay has started a pilot program to help sellers find better resolutions when a buyer starts an unfair return. Sign up for it here.
• Thanks for every who educated us on the MSDS document we need to send in items to Aamzon considered “hazmat”. Here’s the page explaining how it works.
• Dave has also set up a search engine specifically to find MSDS documents (super nerdy!): http://msdssearchengine.com/
• And if you are in the area, think about renting our Farmhouse for a vacation. It’s already filling up for the Spring and Summer.
• You can listen to our other podcast on running a rental at http://shampooandbooze.com

Our Store Week February 7-13, 2016

• Store #1
• Total Items in Store: 3855
• Items Sold: 21
• Cost of Items Sold: $818
• Total Sales: $2,165.40 ($665 before art sale) (1415 after COGS)
• Highest Price Sold: $1500 (Bronze Head)
• Average Price Sold: $103.113
• Returns: 1
• Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $110
• Number of items listed this week: 0

———-
Bonanza: $0
Amazon: $160
Vangoe: $0
Etsy: $0

• Store #2
• Total Items in Store: 925
• Items Sold: 16
• Cost of Items Sold: $60
• Total Sales: $623.88
• Highest Price Sold: $84 (vintage wool yarn)
• Average Price Sold: $38.99
• Returns: 0
• Number of items listed this week: 17

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

iTunes   YouTube  Download .mp3  Download .ogg

With the help of fellow Trash Elf, Vic, we finally started our FBA experiment and it was quite fun. Jay even started calling us Scan Monkeys, since now we’re looking for FBA stuff during sourcing. I even bought a barcode scanner on eBay. So I guess that really does make us Scan Monkeys. So far it’s fun and we’ve even sold a bunch of stuff. Hope you’re all having a good week so far with lots of sales.

Links we mentioned this week-

• A Theory on why eBay sales are down from past years.
• Treasure Hunt guy, Forrest Fenn, in Santa Fe. WHAT. Sell everything and find his chest of gold.
• Ryanne was on eBay radio this week. Excitement. 
• Selery is a service that will store and ship your eBay items for you. It’s like Amazon FBA for the weird, vintage stuff. Could be perfect for sellers who have limited storage.
• A caller asked about “that website” we mentioned last week: Remodelista.com
• We’re trying to figure out how USPS and FedEx work together on SmartPost. 

Our Store Week January 31-February 6, 2016

• Store #1
• Total Items in Store: 3871
• Items Sold: 29
• Cost of Items Sold: $157li>
• Total Sales: $1,340.84
• Highest Price Sold: $149 (vintage brass bookends)
• Average Price Sold: $46.23
• International Sales: 6 GSP (wow, what?)
• Returns: 1
• Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $22
• Number of items listed this week: 0

———-
Bonanza: $20
Amazon: $160
Vangoe: $0
Etsy: $0
———-

• Store #2
• Total Items in Store: 930
• Items Sold: 9
• Cost of Items Sold: $20
• Total Sales: $357.92
• Highest Price Sold: $75 (vintage lock)
• Average Price Sold: $39.76
• International Sales: 0 GSP
• Returns: 0
• Number of items listed this week: 0

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

iTunes   YouTube  Download .mp3  Download .ogg

Good week for us. No drama. Just an unglamorous steady stream of sales.

Here are links we discussed during the podcast:

• Remodelista.com is a great site that gives examples of interestingly designed rooms. You may notice these designers use items they might find in your eBay store.
• Terry sent us a smart blog post describing how much you can really make on Amazon FBA. We love the writer’s quote: “You’ll never really know what others are making and it doesn’t really matter.”

Hope things have been going well for you.
 

Our Store Week January 24-30, 2016

• Store #1
• Total Items in Store: 3911
• Items Sold: 36
• Cost of Items Sold: $630
• Total Sales: $1,832.55
• Highest Price Sold: $350 (vintage fashion illustrations)
• Average Price Sold: $50.90
• International Sales: 1 GSP
• Returns: 0
• Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $20
• Number of items listed this week: 65

————

Bonanza: $0
Amazon: $0
Vangoe: $15
Etsy: $0

————

• Store #2
• Total Items in Store: 944
• Items Sold: 18
• Cost of Items Sold: $250
• Total Sales: $1,074.36
• Highest Price Sold: $290 (Lot of cartoon illustrations)
• Average Price Sold: $59.68
• International Sales: 0 GSP
• Returns: 0
• Number of items listed this week: 79

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS