Back in action
And we're back, baby!
Just when business felt like it was coming to a screeching halt, the thrift stores opened and I felt New Jersey was doing well enough to take the risk. I started the month still without my car. But my dad, now effectively retired, was bored enough to pick me up in Hoboken and help me avoid the train ride home. When we got there, I threw my mom in her car and we hit the usual haunts, masked and gloved up. It was glorious to be back! Let's check out the damage.
By the numbers
Profit this month: $361.96
Profit last month: $138.94
Spend: $626.25 (!)
Listed on eBay: 50/60
eBay rating: 99%
What Sold
Other highlights
After a few weeks of Dad picking me up and me tagging Mom in, I arrived outside the DMV at 5:30am one Thursday morning and braved the lines to get my car registered. It only took six hours! But once I had her rumbling, it was a game-changer. Now I run to the thrift stores before work or on a random weekend trip. This is the dawn of a new era.
Plus, since I've been focusing on toys, listing on eBay has become much easier. Most toys are small enough to be easily cleaned, photographed, listed and shipped. I even found that eBay tends to reward you for listing more often. Must be some algorithmic win. I spent one night listing at least a half a dozen wrestlers and when I woke up in the morning, I already sold one, as well as a Corvette car manual I've had listed for a year. Great success!
Buying has been a lot more fun too. Because most thrift stores barely know the value of some toys, they usually just bag a bunch together and slap a label on. That's where I'm hoping I can succeed. Plus, throwing down a few dollars for an action figure you recognize in the bag also means you bring home a few other toys included. One particular win of this kind was a big plastic bin of Lego Duplo bricks I bought. They're the big kind for little kids. I knew I could sell them to a local repeat buyer, but I noticed quite a few MegaBlocks inside too (non-Lego bricks for the uninitiated). I pulled them out and stored them in a box until I found enough and sold them too. Recycling at its best.
I also found it extremely satisfying to buy a big bucket of Knex pieces (another non-Lego building toy) and then sort them by color. Hopefully, they sell for a few bucks here or there in the future, but it was well worth the meditative state of organizing all the pieces.
Fails
With the growing focus on toys, I figured I'd take a closer look at buying some bulk on eBay and parting them out for profit. I came across an amazing lot of WWE wrestlers for real cheap. It would have easily doubled whatever I dropped on it. Plus, the seller had misspelled a word in their title, so it wasn't going to see the same traffic others would. But my rookie status got the best of me - I wanted to wait to bid a few minutes before it was over, but in the waiting, I forgot about the time and completely missed the deadline! The worst part was that the first and only bid won. Rats!
I was feeling extra froggy after that failure and out looking for blood. I found some more eBay auctions and did some quick research. I found a few listings for some bundles of more modern wrestlers and made a bid. But, of course, someone else jacked it up within the last ten minutes - an strategy called "sniping" which I remember back in high school being the reason no one even tried to buy anything on dial-up internet eBay. But eBay has wised up since those days. They've since made it easy to bid way more than you planned and boy did I! I was eyeballing a lot of 17 wrestling figures and I calculated the maximum I wanted to spend was $40 something dollars. But when the window started to close and eBay kept informing me that my bid wasn't higher than the current winner's maximum bid, I kept hitting the suggestion buttons to add $1 more, add $3 more until it ballooned to $60. After taxes, shipping, and fees, I spent double what I wanted and learned my lizard brain lesson too.
Beyond eBay auctions, I made a lot of buys this month. And naturally some of them are already what I would label as "bad". Sometimes it's hard to inspect toys in thrift store bags. I recently came home to find a Pixar Planes die-cast model was missing a wheel. Doh! I also took a chance on an old Furby but when I threw some batteries in there, nothing happened. Double doh! I'll need to be a bit more cautious and careful.
Speaking of being cautious and careful, I ran to the thrift store one morning to eagerly take advantage of a flash 50% off sale. I did my best impression of Supermarket Sweep down the aisles, grabbed a bunch of things and headed to checkout. But something happened as I hit the "accept" button on the credit card reader - the grand total read something way higher than I thought. In my head, I'd slashed the prices down to something like $30 but the machine, then printing out my receipt, said $60. What the hell! It turns out I needed to scan the barcode in the special sale offer email, not in the regular thrift store app. Cripes!
Going forward
It's been a great month not only because it's starting to shift back to normal, but because I'm seeing how much work it is to thrift more than once every week. I told myself if I just had more time I'd do better and I still believe that, but only to a certain extent. Some days are bigger wins than others. And toys are rarely jackpots. With the goal of this becoming a full-time future, I'm going to need to step out of my comfort zone.
It's funny - as soon as I decided to focus more on toys, I feel like I've lost my subconscious ability to find treasures on the other thrift store shelves. Or maybe it's a lack of practice. Or motivation. I used to be able to swing down aisles and find wins, but now it seems like there is nothing to be found. Maybe this new month will allow me to juggle some different ideas. There is even the possibility of selling at Porta in Jersey City again. Fingers crossed.
Luckily, the junk franchise partnership is still possible. They've been working through the pandemic and now it's time for me to pick up the baton and save some of those goods from the landfill. Plus, now with a car of my own, transporting and offering things around the state is easier.
Another leap into the uncomfortable would be to start a YouTube channel. There is no shortage of resellers making videos and I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel but there is no reason I shouldn't be showing off what I buy. I might share my finds here and there on Instagram, but they disappear. Then what? With a YouTube channel, I can grow a different audience and maybe find some new friendly buyers.
Oh, and I have plans this month to head north to my friend's house in upstate New York. There are some great and affordable flea markets out in the sticks and plenty of treasures to ship back to the hipster cityfolk. Stay tuned for that.
Come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever explicitly shared my eBay profile here before so here you go: https://www.ebay.com/str/theflipshark
So much to do! I can't wait to share next month's report.
Until next time...
