How I went beyond my record profits
Whoa, mama! What a month!
It's been my single best month yet in terms of profit. Why, you might ask? Quite a few reasons, but I think the simplest explanation is effort. Based on the advice of the YouTube reselling couple Ralli Roots, I started making a few easy eBay practices into a full daily habit. Every single day I sent offers to. buyers, listed new items, and re-listed the old stuff. Just that alone produced the giant What Sold section you'll see below.
All that and I didn't even list 50 items. Less work for less money - I'll take it!
Not to mention, I sold at the Good Times Trading post, stumbled on a local used book sale, flipped from some garbage finds, and a few more jackpots.
Let's get into it.
By the numbers
Spend: $319.68
Gross profit: $1,649.64 (vs. $836.07 last month)
Net profit: $1,329.96 (vs. $607.55 last month)
Listed on eBay: 43 (vs. 51 last month)
eBay rating: 99.5%
What Sold
Highlights
First things first, let's break down the inventory. Beyond all the eBay and Facebook Marketplace sales above, I had a few other windfalls.
Good Times
This month, I sold at the Good Times Trading Post for the second time. They changed locations since my last outing (from Rutherford to South Hackensack) so I was both nervous and excited to see how I would fare. I should mention too that I don't bring my toys to Good Times (although maybe I should). I was selling off the last bits of my original attempt at reselling - home decor.
It was a slow start and I worried for the first hour of the day that I wouldn't even make my vendor fee back. But shortly after the hour and a half mark, traffic picked up and people got busy buying. It felt like it flashed by and, all of a sudden, I had cut my inventory in half and made about $100. Plus, once the flea market transformed into a jam band concert, I saw my way out an hour early, went home, and celebrated with some Indian takeout.
Stumbling local
One hungover Sunday morning I stumbled on the bi-annual used book sale here in Hoboken. It turns out I was an hour early before they “officially” opened but I browsed the outside tables and locked down a few stacks so cheap I knew I needed to flip them. When it comes to reselling, there is only one thing better than making money, and that’s making it quickly. I sold these all within a week of buying:
Garbage gold
Ma usually accompanies me on Thrifting Thursdays. She doesn't drive much on the highways herself, so sometimes, on the weekends, she finds herself bouncing around to local garage sales too. This month, though, she started keeping her eyeballs peeled for the aftermath. When the garage sale stuff doesn't go, sometimes it makes it's way to the curb, and that's just what happened. She scooped up some random Christmas ornaments that ended up making a nice fortune.
Add onto that the time my brother's beyonce, Celeste, stumbled on some Hoboken curb-side treasure and called me up. She asked what I wanted and I said take 'em all! A few weeks later, we found some profits:
Get by with a little help
The infamous Radio Murdock, a good buddy of mine from the SecretFormula crew, was nice enough to offload some of his collectibles on me. He said he needed to make some room, but it doesn’t get much sweeter than handing them over without giving it a second thought. I was more than happy to accept and get them listed quick. Hopefully, more sales to come!
Polar Plunge
I shouldn't be surprised anymore when I finally take the few minutes it requires to list something I've avoided for ages and it sells almost instantly. That happened this past month when I just threw up a $40 price tag on a collection of Blaze and the Monster Machines Polar Pals (see in the gallery above). I originally bought them all, plus some more, for something like $15. Then I sat on them for months(!) because the tires were dirty. But enough was enough one day this month and as soon as I did the deed, I had a profit in my pocket.
Adding the SecretFormula
Nell and Michael, the co-hosts of SecretFormula and now I'm happy to say, my friends, joined me for a Thrifting Thursday around New Jersey. They were sweet enough to drive from their Brooklyn homes and meet me at the bright and early hour of 9am. I did my normal zipping around while they grabbed all sorts of goodies for their return to real-life theaters! (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, get your candy ass to secretformulany.com.)
We hit my usual haunts and found the usual fun. I tried to do my best to impart some tricks of the trade on them and they were generous enough to offer up anything they found to me first. (I actually ended up flipping a Max Headroom mug to one of our mutual SecretFormula friends, Ali, after posting about it on Instagram that day!)
We ended the day the only way one should, with some Wawa in the park. We bullshitted about the biz for a bit before they had to head out to beat the interstate traffic. It was a real nice change of pace and a great way to spend a day with friends. Makes me think I should do it more...
Clearing the tiny shelves
For those that didn't read along last month, I've been trying to turn my living room into less of an overwhelming toy museum. I figured if I owned some interesting stuff I should display it, but for the uninitiated, it might look out of hand. So I started doing what I do and during this month, I attacked a tiny bookshelf I had used to display some tiny toys. The following were flipped:
Instagrammin’
I definitely didn't do as much blogging or guide-writing as I wanted this month, but I did find the time to produce an Instagram slideshow! I'm so proud of it. More importantly, it was a hurdle in productivity too. Much like avoiding the listing of a slightly difficult toy, I think I made the task too large in my head. This might be the biggest lesson this month. I was too comfortable using my nights to do the thing I always did - buy and sell. But, like I've been telling myself for months, that's not going to be the plan that makes me money! Sure, it's short-term, but when I finally decided to not list my heart out one night, I was able to find an uninterrupted hour to work through Canva and design some kick-ass slides for why resellers should buy toys. And people really dug it! We need more of this.
Fails
It's hard to chalk it up to a fail when the profits were so good, but I didn't list nearly as much as I could this month. And that's fine. I needed to take a step back from the inventory to make sure the bigger stuff got done. Now the challenge is finding a happy medium.
I was lucky enough to avoid any serious damage during Hurricane Ida but I was silly enough to think I should hit the thrifts the day after. New Jersey was still full of debris, pockets of water, and awful traffic. I was surprised to hear some stores were open, despite the disaster, but they might as well as have been closed. Waste of time.
Going forward
Well, this month was astronomically successful and ironically easy. I think I should do more of that, right? A good amount of listing is necessary but I'd be real pleased with myself if I could find some more uninterrupted time to do some research, write some guides, and share more on Instagram.
Until next time…
