October from a stats perspective was definitely an improvement over September with the overall figures coming in at $1004.31 net profit from 66 sales.
Profit was up, sales were up but inventory procurement doubled against September coming in at $493.40 resulting in an overall net positive cash flow of the month of $310.91.
I was expecting to see more of an increase in sales heading into Q4, and the overall result is OK but it seems like there has been a direct impact from the eBay Glitchgate during this month.
Take the middle of the month for the first example where after eBay pushed the update sales died (to zero) and didn’t really recover for the best part of 5 days.

This was then followed by a second strange lull at the end of the month that had significantly less coverage across socials. Whilst logging into the eBay My eBay page I received an error message that showed along the lines of: there is a technical error involving populating the reporting on your account. Funny how this also corresponded with no sales during the time this was present. The moment I noticed this I jumped on the eBay chat to see if there was an error on my entire account but I was assured it was all in order…
I remain unconvinced this was the case as if by magic once this error notice disappeared from the dashboard sales started slowly rolling in again…

Listing Theory
So this month I managed to add an additional +105 listings which is honestly the most I think I have added in a month. Really this is the equivalent of 171 listings when sold items are included with items listed to replace. This is the equivalent of around 6 per day which, realistically should be easily achievable for a part time seller such as myself.
I did find though by modifying my listing routine I achieved a lot more success with getting actual listings up. I batch processed photos for hard goods into one Saturday (or half of one) and combined with photos and measurements from the outsourced clothes I found I had plenty to keep me listing.
Started getting up at 5am, an hour before I would usually to get ready for work anyway and smashed some listings out. This meant on a few days I was able to get more than 10 listings completed before even leaving for work. It is a good way to start the day and also reduces friction on the back end of the day with taking away from family time.
I will be continuing in this manner moving forward.
Post Glitchgate I spent some time revising listings that were affected by item specific issues. Frustration ensued when it was apparent there was no easy way to amend these without having to use a third-party software. I refused straight out on that principle.
In the end I managed to combine a task that needed doing anyway that also doubled as a way to identify affected listings.
What was this task? Well it was simply updating the SKU to reflect the item storage location as well as the Cost Of Goods Sold.
Originally, I just had the item location in the SKU but post tax season after speaking to the accountant I realised I could make an easy way to download the cost of goods for all active listings if I just added the cost. This of course was a requirement to complete this year just gone return and was a pain in the but.
So now my new SKU might look like: MA8 #2 $5
Which is just Bin Number | Label Within The Bin | Original Cost Of Goods Of Item
Then its as easy as downloading the report for all active listings to excel and separating the SKU. More on how to do that in less than a couple of minutes in an upcoming Video.
Anyway, so seems I was modifying each SKU to capture this I would receive an error every time I encountered a listing that was missing an item specific. It wouldn’t let me update the listing without it. Easy simple way to work out what needed amending while at the same time improving a business process.
I still have a few of these left to do but have made good process.
Sourcing Theory
The plan for October was to reduce the spending aside from the Garage Sale Trail.
This didn’t quite work out and I actually doubled my spend from the previous month.
Again, I still have a ton of items to list. I can literally see 6x 50ltr tubs full of stuff that needs my attention. I’d like to think I’m good for a while.
My attention for the next few months is going to be getting items listed and optimising processes.
Garage Sale Trail 2019
So this was my first year doing the Garage Sale Trail and honestly I actually really enjoyed it. There were loads of places to go and I spent a total $144 in 6 Hours. I ended up leaving early and starting down south away from the city and i think this paid dividends at least for the initial first 4 or 5 where I had zero competition.
To assist in planning an efficient route I ended up creating a video on the Friday night about how to plot out your own personal trail map using google maps. This could be used for any Garage Sale weekend route also though. You can watch it below. Quite a few people found it very useful with the ability to plan routes or allocate different colours for different start times etc…
I managed to get some really good deals on the day with some highlights being:
- A whole box full of PS2 games and 2 PS2 consoles controllers, eye toys etc… for $20.
- A guitar hero and rock band haul for $40 which included some vintage books and other games etc…
You can watch the full haul in the YouTube below.
Outsourcing
This month my outsourcing took a detour away from clothes (as I hadn’t sourced many) and included an expansion into hats. I was a little unsure if this was a good idea or not, after all this is adding an extra cost again to the base Cost Of Goods Sold but the photos came back better than I had expected and again it helps me get all the stuff listed.
Play to where your strengths are.
Mine are definitely the sourcing and listings sub systems of the overall reselling process.
To put it bluntly it will never sell if its not listed. Therefore even if it costs me some potential profit to get this done it is money well spent.
If you missed the outsourcing concept a full explanation can be found in the month of August Summary 2019.
Auto Hot Key
Nothing too ground breaking with Auto Hot Key this month however I did make a handy little script which helps automating the printing of Dymo labels I use as part of the outsourcing process. Its seems trivial but the script will print a number and then wait and then print another number all the way up until 25. This then saves me time by me not having to manually do each one and wait for it.
Handy, Yes but worth it in time??
Well to actually get this to work properly was very easy with a simple loop. Of course there will be times where this might not function as intended and you would need to restart from a specific number. This proved to be much more annoying to get to work. Finally after I had gotten there I considered was this time well spent?
I actually got angry with myself temporarily as I realised I could have got another 10 items listed in that same time but after a while it dawned on me that I was still learning and still infinitely better than sitting watching TV.
Strange how the mind can punish you like that.
Plans For November
- Finish The Business Cards – Still. I have a graphic designer giving some assistance here with a new concept logo.
- 10 listings a day (or more) for the entire month.
- Continue to revise listings to qualify for the top rated seller benefits.