Welcome back to the what sells on eBay series. December was another good month with it being the holidays. Although I’m not really selling things that might qualify as good Christmas gifts, I still sold a good bit of items. I made a mistake on one of the orders and shipped the item to the wrong address. I still haven’t received the item back so it may never show up. It was a $60 order too so that was a bummer.
I had a couple of partial refunds and one return this month. One of the items broke during shipping but the buyer said they could glue it back together so I didn’t refund them their entire purchase. I was able to claim it with USPS and get the money I refund the buyer back. The return was on a pair of boots that didn’t have a size on them. I thought I measured them correctly and put the right size but apparently not. If I didn’t make any mistakes or have any returns, I would’ve made about as much as I did last month.
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Numbers for the month
- Amount of Items sold: 32
- Gross sales: $703.26
- Cost of goods sold: $67.98
- Profits after all expenses: $526.64
- Average profit per item: $16.46
To track my numbers, I use a service called Easy Auctions Tracker. Easy Auctions Tracker connects directly to your eBay account and pulls all the fees associated with each sale to show you the true net profit. All you have to do is keep track of what you paid for each item! The best part about it is that it’s only $49.99 for an entire year subscription! This is much cheaper than any other bookkeeping software I’ve seen but more accurate than other options. Sign up through this link.
Items that sold
Kolpin Gun Case
- Purchased from: estate sale
- Cost: $1.00
- Sold: $20.00
- Profit: $17.23
Duck Phone
- Purchased from: estate sale
- Cost: $4.39
- Sold: $72.00
- Profit: $59.81
Not Your Mother’s Hairspray
- Purchased from: discount store
- Cost: $6.00
- sold: $19.95
- Profit: $7.93
Black Toms
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $2.00
- Sold: $12.00
- Profit: $8.78
July Seven Beanie
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $2.72
- Sold: $9.99
- Profit: $6.28
Military Coat
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $2.00
- Sold: $12.99
- Profit: $9.76
1928 High School Year Book
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $4.39
- Sold: $41.73
- Profit: $32.01
Ralph Lauren Pants
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $1.00
- Sold: $10.00
- Profit: $7.12
Air Force Mug
- Purchased from: estate sale
- Cost: $1.02
- Sold: $20.00
- Profit: $16.20
Military Pants
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $2.00
- Sold: $20.00
- Profit: $16.43
Adidas Jacket
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $5.00
- Sold: $15.00
- Profit: $8.90
Non-Working TI-83 Calculator
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $2.00
- Sold: $5.55
- Profit: $3.05 – I didn’t know it was broken when I bought it. Goes to show you can sell anything on eBay!
Franklin Mint Carousel Seahorse
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $.25
- Sold: $25.00
- Profit: $12.08
Harley Davidson Clutch Cable
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $0.00 – They just threw it in with something else.
- Sold: $15.00
- Profit: $12.60
Military Pants
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $4.39
- Sold: $11.00
- Profit: $5.84
Guy Harvey Mug
- Purchased from: thrift store
- Cost: $.50
- Sold: $10.99
- Profit: $10.48
Original Gameboy with Tetris Game
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $4.39
- Sold: $30.00
- Profit: $22.68
Franklin Mint Carousel Zebra
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $.25
- Sold: $30.00
- Profit: $26.62
Tracker Boats Hat
- Purchased from: thrift store
- Cost: $1.00
- Sold: $19.99
- Profit: $16.84
Walmart Hat
- Purchased from: thrift store
- Cost: $.25
- Sold: $8.99
- Profit: $7.56
Harley Davidson Rat’s Hole Hat
- Purchased from: thrift store
- Cost: $.25
- Sold: $35.00
- Profit: $30.67
Metroid Gameboy Game
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $0 – They just gave this to me.
- Sold: $11.50
- Profit: $9.34
Disabled iPhone 5s
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $4.39
- Sold: $20.00
- Profit: $13.50
Vintage Bellsouth Phone
- Purchased from: thrift store
- Cost: $1.87
- Sold: $19.99
- Profit: $16.11
Lot of Four Vintage German Jars
- Purchased from: estate sale
- Cost: $4.08
- Sold: $59.96
- Profit: $47.63
Ski Overalls
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $5.00
- Sold: $15.00
- Profit: $8.52
Vintage All Seasons Dress Pants
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $2.10
- Sold: $9.99
- Profit: $7.23
Lot of Misc Shirts
- Purchased from: parent’s attic
- Cost: $0
- Sold: $24.93
- Profit: $22.19
Levi’s Shirt
- Purchased from: yard sale
- Cost: $2.72
- Sold: $18.00
- Profit: $12.72
Carhartt Hat
- Purchased from: thrift store
- Cost: $1.00
- Sold: $15.00
- Profit: $12.28
White Jeans with Red Stripe
- Purchased from: estate sale
- Cost: $1.02
- Sold: $20.00
- Profit: $17.21
Hollister Jeans
- Purchased from: parent’s attic
- Cost: $0.00
- Sold: $23.72
- Profit: $21.02
Nathan created Millionaire Dojo to document his journey to reaching a million dollar net worth and inspire others to follow the same path. Go here to read how he intends to become a millionaire. If you’d like to contact Nathan, you can do so here.
What a great month!
I’m just starting to get into selling on eBay, and I’ve done well so far, but that’s mostly with a few collectibles I had that were already worth a lot.
I’d like to do what you’re doing, and sell smaller items at a decent profit that aggregate to BIG profits when totaled.
Way to go on the great month, Nathan!
Thanks Shawn!
Selling things you already have is a great way to start and even better if you’ve got valuable things you want to sell 🙂
It’s easy to do what I do, just find a source you can get things for cheap and keep going to the source each week and you’ll accumulate things to sell. It can take a while for things to sell but that gives you time to build up your inventory. I’m about to break the 300 item mark in my store and want to get to over 1,000 items eventually. Should be able to cover our monthly expenses by the time I reach 1,000 items in my store.
MD, I have been doing this for a while. It’s hard to get into listing items after a long day at work. I have to say hunting for the items is where I get the high, especially when you find a inexpensive item that is worth thousands. I was looking over your numbers per item, are you including the percentage eBay takes or your store cost in your profits? I am also in the 300 range of items trying to get to 1000 in inventory. Keep up the good work, it’s inspirational, makes me want to go list more items.
Thanks,
Martin
Hey Martin, I agree. It is a grind listing things, but I’ve got a process down now that isn’t too painful. I think the hunt is everyone’s favorite part but it works out nicely since you come off that high when you get the items home and just want to get them out of your house so you want to get them listed as soon as you can. I am including the fees in my items and the profit listed is after the fees and what I paid for the item. Now that you mention it, I have been forgetting to subtract the store cost from my profits I list on these reports but that’s just $25 a month right now. That’s cool that we’re at the same amount of items! Good luck with your store and I’m really glad that you’ve gotten some inspiration!
Wow! How much effort goes into all of this? Do you know how much time you are spending buying, posting, and shipping all told?
It’s a great return on investment!
I really need to start tracking the time I spend on it. It certainly isn’t a high hourly rate, but it’s a whole lot more than the zero dollars I’ve made blogging lol. If I was going to do an extremely rough estimate and say that each item is a 30 minute time commitment, buying, listing, and shipping, then I made a little over 30 dollars an hour with the 32 items I sold last month. I’m not spending a ton of time each week on eBay. I’d say easily less than 10 hours right now. If you were to spend 40 hours a week on it then you should be able to support yourself on eBay alone, depending on where you live.