Scavenger Life

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

Open Q&A: What Doesn’t Sell This Week Will Sell Another Week

Image thanks to Doug and Donna!

Well, it’s still summertime sales for us. Our hard-earned pipeline is still pumping out the cash, but it’s certainly a dry season. Have no fear! This is the genius of our Scavenger Equation: be as frugal as we can be to keep costs low + fill our pipeline so full of interesting items that enough sells even during the slowest times to pay the bills. Our experience since 2008 has taught us how to build a store that works year round.

In the meantime, we’re eating healthy, delicious, home-cooked meals between taking photos of our death piles AND our piles of winter clothes. Every advanced HP+12 Scavenger knows that you list winter clothes in the hottest part of the summer before the cold weather people are even thinking of needing a new coat.

This is an open post so talk about anything you want. Feel free to post questions of any issues you have. Some simple rules-

    • We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your
      ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the
      code for each comment.
    • Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
    • We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to the dark depths of the eBay Forums where your hate can be polished like a precious jewel.
    • Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
    • Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.

Open Q&A: The Stages of Desperation of an eBay Seller

This week has been the slowest we’ve experienced all year. It doesn’t even feel like we have an active store anymore. We’re going through all the stages of a desperate seller.

Crickets.
We’re dying here.
Totally dead.
Everything is ruined.
Our business is over.
How will we make money?
It must be someone’s fault. 
eBay must be trying to ruin us.
Why are they killing us?
How are they doing it?
There must be some way we can crack the code.
The secret is deep. It must be complicated.
Our lives depend on finding the answer.
Let’s just start screaming and obsessively focus on the negative, ruining everyone’s lives around us.

Just kidding! Our store is slow and it does suck, but we know sales will return. They always do. (Did I just hear a sale?)

This is an open post so talk about anything you want. Feel free to post questions of any issues you have. Some simple rules-

    • We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your
      ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the
      code for each comment.
    • Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
    • We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to the dark depths of the eBay Forums where your hate can be polished like a precious jewel.
    • Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
    • Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.

Open Q&A: eBay’s Advanced Transaction Defect Report

Today we’re going to give eBay a little free advertising since they just rolled out their new Advanced Transaction Defect Report. Sounds like some secret Pentagon initiative.

We just got access to this new report in our Seller Performance page. Very cool to see the defects on a grid with the associated item. It feels fresh and logical. This is really normal internet stuff, but it’s also a pretty big design/functionality leap for eBay. This feature is probably the coolest update we’ve seen since we started selling full-time in 2008. Makes eBay’s layout not feel like it’s stuck in 1998. So kudos where it’s due. Although it does kind of suck to have to look at your defects no matter what, might as well make them look nice and logical.

We’ve always been clear on two things. First, eBay works for us. It’s still the largest online flea market which has allowed us to earn a consistent living year after year. The site can feel clunky and outdated, but buyers have figured out how to navigate the site. eBay has always been fair with us as long as we’ve followed the rules.

On the other hand, eBay is also just a cold, calculating corporation. What matters are the earnings report each quarter and making money for stock holders. We have no illusion that eBay’s leadership could do some insane things at any moment that screws sellers just to make some quick short-term profit and save their jobs. Many sellers say that’s exactly what has been happening the past six or so years as eBay embraced the Chinese manufacturers who have made eBay feel more like the Dollar Store. There’s always a need for balance.

Corporations are also run by people and we hope that the new leadership continues to improve and update the site. This recent article
has the new CEO say he wants to take the site back to it’s roots as a
place for small sellers selling interesting items. Talk is cheap, so
we’ll continue to judge on action. We’ve dreamed of seeing a Traffic
Report on eBay that feels more like Google Analytics. Wouldn’t it be
great to have dynamically generated charts that showed what is selling,
who’s buying, and how they came to the item? If some eBay engineer is
reading this, contact us. We have lots of ideas!

This is an open post so talk about anything you want. Feel free to post questions of any issues you have. Some simple rules-

    • We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your
      ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the
      code for each comment.
    • Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
    • We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to the dark depths of the eBay forums where your hate can be polished like a precious jewel.
    • Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
    • Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.

Open Q&A: The Wonders of Craigslist

This week we found a newish Jenn Air stove/oven on Craigslist. It’s worth between $1500-$2500 new, but we got it for $200. Do we need a new stove? No. But we have dreams of opening another rental, so it’s always good to begin collecting. Plus how could we turn it down! If anything, we’ll just resell it for 4x the price. This woman said she just upgraded her stove. Must be nice!

Since we live in rural America, we drive about 90 miles to get cool stuff from the closest CL city. If we lived in an urban area, we’d always be fishing for deals. People are moving and dumping their stuff. People are just downsizing and are kind enough to almost just give stuff away. It’s incredible.

Of course, it’s helpful if you scavenge for a living because Craigslist is all about quick response and pickup. You won’t be the only full-time Scavenger looking for treasure.

On Fridays, we’re now just opening up a post to ask any question or share whatever you want. We swear we won’t be mean to you. The TrashElf3000 is switched off for now. The topic can be whatever you want it to be. But remember, we like to think of this blog like a pot luck: fill your plate but we ask you add something to the mix.

Some simple guidelines:

    • We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the code for each comment.
    • Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
    • We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to the dark depths of the eBay forums where your hate can be polished like a precious jewel.
    • Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
    • Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.

Q&A: Open Thread – Filling the eBay Pipeline


https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ebay-scavengers/id638443029?mt=2 iTunes   YouTube   Download .mp4  Download .ogv

As you can see in this video, our home is always in a state of flux. The goal is to have a clean and tidy house. But a single day of scavenging always fills the house with chaos. Ryanne handles much of the heavy lifting of our eBay business online, but my job is to keep up with taking the stuff we buy, photographing it and then storing it appropriately so we can find it once it sells. This is what we call “filling the pipeline”. It ain’t pretty but it’s how money pours out the other side of the pipe.

This is another open post. Feel free to post questions or talk freely (but respectfully). Some simple rules-

    • We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the code for each comment.
    • Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
    • We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to the dark depths of the eBay forums where your hate can be polished like a precious jewel.
    • Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
    • Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.

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Q&A: Open Thread

Since Ryanne is gone for the weekend, I have nothing to do but read the blog. So let’s have an open thread.

You can ask/talk about anything, but some listeners asked for a place to share items they like to buy and sell. A good format would be to mention an item that surprised you when it sold this week. Any links get you a gold star so other sellers can see completed. (Ryanne posts our interesting sold items each week).

This week we sold a vintage sports trophy for $20. Big deal, right? I bought a big box of them about a year ago for $1. But after selling about 15 of them at $20-$30 each, we’ve made over $300. Here are the completed listings. We found that ones made of metal and wood sell best.

Since Ryanne and I like consistency, I think we figured out a fun way to record the podcast on Sunday as usual. I was going to say it’ll be more casual, but aren’t we always casual? Let’s show her we can play nice while she’s gone.

Some simple rules-

    • We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your
      ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the
      code for each comment.
    • Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
    • We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to the dark depths of the eBay forums where your hate can be polished like a precious jewel.
    • Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
    • Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.

Mid-Week Open Thread: You Ask, Others Answer

 We just flew home from Colombia and are happy to be home. Over our ten day trip, we sold 47 items for a gross profit of $2000. Not bad for traveling to another country. We told buyers we wouldn’t ship till Monday, so we have plenty of time to gather the items and package them. Calmly and sanely. Over the past several years, we’ve developed a finely tuned system for selling while traveling and couldn’t be happier.

Since we’re playing catch up this week, we won’t another podcast till Sunday. But let’s use this time to discuss anything causing issues in your store.

    • We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your
      ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the
      code for each comment.
    • Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
    • We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to the dark depths of the eBay forums where your hate can be polished like a precious jewel.
    • Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
    • Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic. 

¿Bien o qué? Open Q&A from Colombia

This is a view from our window in Bogota where we’re working the next couple days. Since we won’t be posting a “what sold” video this week, we want to open up the blog to conversation. Perfect time to ask that question you’ve always wondered.

Both of us have been really impressed with everyone’s numbers because it means you have money to pay bills or debt. And more importantly, we hope that a successful eBay business buys you precious time to do the things you want to do.

Some simple rules-

    • We do allow anonymous commenters, but we encourage you to use your
      ID so people can get to know you. Plus you won’t have to re-enter the
      code for each comment.
    • Be civil. People have different ways of doing the same thing. If we disagree, no big deal.
    • We are solution oriented. If you want to simply hate on eBay, go to the dark depths of the eBay forums where your hate can be polished like a precious jewel.
    • Please back up any issues with facts and specific links. We don’t deal in rumors.
    • Comments are threaded (what?). So you can either reply to a specific comment or start an overall new topic.

Scavenger Life Episode 170: We Answer Your eBay Voicemail Questions


https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ebay-scavengers/id638443029?mt=2 iTunes   YouTube   Download .mp3  Download .ogg

We bring you an extra special holiday podcast full of questions, comments and tips from our voicemail call-in line. Want to be on the next voicemail episode? Call 540-407-8486.

We’d really be interested in hearing what experiments you’ll be doing in 2015.

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