I am going to call this month “maintenance month”. Realistically I have listed basically nothing throughout the whole month nor made any real progress with advancing the eBay business in any form such as increased productivity. I had every intention of course but, life smashed me directly in the face and had other ideas for me. Sometimes things just happen and you must adjust. Add time sinks of management of repairs to two leaking showers and two 4 day weekends and well a lot of time was spent elsewhere on other projects and some quality family time.

And yet, as my comment above on the below Instagram post from Ralliroots I could have done more. #iamnotworkinghardenough. I know I could have done more but I found it so hard to focus at times, and I did have some large chunks of time, they just weren’t utilised well. I wasn’t motivated to list at all. I look at the results below from Ralliroots and know I could get close to this if I only just put in the work. I mean I can think of 4 items off the top of my head which would sell for around $500 total, cost me $20, but aren’t listed. I literally am hamstringing my own results.

The month overall (outside eBay) as a whole has been a massive life win and very successful.

I’ve finally managed to secure a new tenant for the rental which will immediately provide some much-needed cash flow to help pay this rentals mortgage.

Sourcing Strategy

This month was my third (I think) attempt at a “No Buy” month due to having no tenant in the rental. I needed to spend less as I was pretty sure I was going to have to pony up for the mortgage payment of April. I’ll be honest, I failed once again at not buying anything! It’s a resellers curse I tell you. If you are here reading this, you likely can relate. I did, however, make it through almost the entire month only spending $150 which is much lower than most of the previous months. I will add that in the last 2 days of the month I spent another $100 in celebration of finding a new tenant for the house. So the total spent on inventory for the month was $250.

I have really noticed a difference this month with my thought processes.

There is still a monster pile of things to list. I certainly do not need to go sourcing anytime soon. I can count 8x 50ltr tubs filled with items which need to be listed. Its an organised death pile, what can I say.

I missed the sourcing, its true, so when I ventured out to buy something, in particular, to actually use, (which I knew I could find in a thrift/op shop for cheap) I just couldn’t help myself by doing the rounds of the shop. I found blank VHS tapes for a great price. What was I to do? Just walk away and leave free money?? I don’t think so. This month I have been super extremely selective with what I have brought as I already felt guilty breaking my “no buy” rule. Making $10 profit from an item just was not worth going ahead with the number of items I still have to list ahead of me. Consequently, I feel like this month has actually forced me to improve item quality and only take those special deals or pick up only rare finds, which over time can only benefit the store and the income it generates. I passed on a lot of items this month and it actually felt really liberating.

I have definitely spent considerably less this month on items and have been much more selective with what I am picking up. I am leaving those items which could probably net $10 profit but could take months to sell. All though these are generally bread-and-butter items so to speak I already have probably 100 I need to list for a start.

An example of this from yesterday: I had to travel to the rental to move a fridge and inspect the overall condition. On the way, I made it my mission to stop off at a couple of thrift shops and see what I could find (have to frequently look!) I purchased only 3 items over 3 shops.

Guilty haha.

I ended up with a fitness DVD pack (which was free on store points), another WAFL ISC Jacket that was in great condition for $12 which I ended up getting for $10, should sell for $50+ and last but not least an old Holden workshop service manual that was sitting on a display holder on the counter of one of the shops. It caught my eye before I had even entered the shop, I knew what it was and that it was old. I walked straight up to it expecting it to be around $50 but the sticker showed $10. Other current listed ones of the same item were listed for $130 plus shipping in worse condition. Solds were much lower, but I think this will still get a decent return over some time.
$20 into $150 – $200 with only 3 items.

Another example, a Sydney Bears jumper from the early 90s official NSW RL. I paid approximately $2 for this due to an error on the clerks part. I didn’t feel bad at all about this however as earlier in the month I had been overcharged at the same chain for some items that should’ve been discounted so I considered the balance of the relationship restored. Anyway, this is the type of item that is really unique and will appeal to a collector somewhere. Comparable anything from this era is getting super rare. A match worn Jersey’s from this team (the only one listed) was sitting at $800 currently with several watchers. This is just a jumper, of course, however, should return $50++. I will obviously start this much higher due to its rarity.

This was the story of this month. I made it a point to try and spend as little as possible for maximum profit picking up very niche items with potentially much higher returns.
More of these finds, please.
Less time to list, pack and ship and fantastic ROI.

In summary, my “no buy” turned into spending $250, which, in turn, could transform into $1500 – $2000. I will be more than happy if I can roll like that each month and I can forgive myself for overspending now and then.

The House Update

So this month a tenant was finally found, hooray! Only took two weeks after the previous tenant signed a break lease form which was great.

Total confirmed damage/loss: Approx. $750. This amount remains owing as a combination of unpaid rent and costs incurred from the break lease and relisting process. These are payable by the previous tenant under contract.

So now the process is:

#1: Get back to normality! I can finally start applying the reselling profits back onto the rental mortgage once again.

#2: Chase up the outstanding money. This will be a slow process and have to go through the court and then likely followed by a debt collector. Could take a while but done by the property manager so only a minor inconvenience. On the positive side of this, the house is in good condition with no damage, the loss can also be incurred in this financial year and provide some tax relief whilst I wait for this money owing to be returned. My insurance provider also may help with this process.

After I had confirmation the new tenant was all signed up and had paid his money I celebrated as any reseller would do! By going out and doing some sourcing!

The Stats

Sales were par for the course this month. I didn’t actually list much at all (24 Items, most in the first 2 days of April) and this probably contributed a lot to flat growth here.

This month has a profit of $573.17 after all fees, shipping charges and Cost Of Goods Sold (COGS).

One anomaly noted was the total value of all items listed managed to rise even in the face of a reduction in listings. This is due to listing higher $ value items on the items I did end up actually listing.

The cash flow for the month is $323.17 which was sent to the rental mortgage account to assist for Aprils payment. Not quite the full amount I was hoping for but still better than nothing!

Returns

No returns this month. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

May Madness

This coming month of May, the plan is simple.

List.

List.

List.

Get to 600 listings and then bust through that. I checked today (1st May) that I have 509 active listings so I have 91 to go to get to 600, excluding the 30 odd I should sell for the month based on prior month, meaning I really need to list 120+ to hit this target.

It really should be as easy as saying I will do 5 a day, which equals 155 over may.

The other thing I need to work on doing is a whole store audit to check I don’t have any stupid listings up from last year which really have no chance of selling. Perhaps this might be a good month to unload a bunch of stale items at cost (or even a slight loss) to make way for my ever-growing cache of higher value items. Makes sense to me.