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  • October Summary 2019

    November 5th, 2019

    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.
  • Instantly Run Multiple Searches For Item Sourcing On Facebook Marketplace Using Auto Hot Key

    November 3rd, 2019

    A video I have created providing an example of how I use Auto Hot Key to run multiple searches across different sourcing platforms executing multiple search terms. All in an effort to make sourcing just that little bit easier and more time-efficient.

    This is a method to in effect have saved searches. One double click to run the script and open all search terms.

  • September Summary 2019

    September 30th, 2019

    You can now also watch a YouTube version of these Profit Summaries from September 2019 onwards.

    September from a stats perspective was pretty poor.

    I started off the month with a roar like I intended, listing more than the 10 per day that I was intending to average and then got the flu which hit me like a sack of potatoes keeping me bedridden for more than 24 hours and then several days following of a general terrible feeling. I probably spent the best part of 2 weeks recovering.

    In some ways this is what the store would be doing were it only on auto pilot

    This was followed by a change of priorities immediately once feeling better to getting several jobs around the house completed for the impending little one in December. I can honestly say I have got more done around the house in one week than probably the last 2 or 3 years.

    I channeled my inner eBay demon (I wonder what that would look like) and worked my ass off till 9:30pm each night to get things completed.

    3 weeks of effective downtime obviously impacted sales a lot as listing was very limited after the first week but I still managed a positive cashflow after inventory and outsourcing expenses which is great. Reflecting back on 2018 at this time September returned a little less in profit (against waaaay less inventory mind you) and October was dead before a big upswing into November and December.

    One interesting point was the $ value listed rose by a massive $4388 against 70 new items listed equals ASP of approximately $63 average. Higher quality items with better returns.

    Sourcing Theory

    Selective September was the theme for this month. With limited time due to the aforementioned I made good use of the times I did call into an Op shop.

    I was lucky enough to even come across a massive chunk of inks on clearance in a Woolworths one afternoon that someone appears to have possibly mucked up on the pricing. I say this as I attempted to call past other supermarkets in the area. All had clearances on some inks but nothing like I stumbled across. Right place right time!

    We visited several Op Shops looking for quality baby items and often found a hidden gem each time. This belt below was at a Salvos under a counter at the back. Unless you took the time to complete a crouching squat you would never see it.

    I think I have reached a critical mass as far as inventory goes now ahead of the little one arriving which means going forward I will be limiting sourcing, with two exceptions:

    1. If the network contact from August contacts me again.
    2. I will be heading out on the Garage Sale Trail in October 19/20 https://www.garagesaletrail.com.au/

    Other than those I am almost certain I have enough items to get listings to 1500 which is my short goal.

    Outsourcing

    The outsourcing continued this month again with the clothes photography. If you missed this concept a full explanation can be found in last months August Summary 2019. Thus far I have sold enough from each lot of 25 to retrieve my expense cost. More if you consider the tax deductions for the expense. So its been great really, I have currently 75 items of clothing that are ready to be listed and now that I have gotten through the initial couple of lots where I had some marginal buys I am feeling pretty good about it. I have noticed that I am thinking a lot more about this when picking up clothing items when out sourcing as the outsourcing directly impacts the cost base I find myself being super selective.

    Auto Hot Key

    I haven’t written about Auto Hot Key for a while now as I have been coasting along with things working well. This month however a new team member started at work (the day job) and in the process of training some new innovations became apparent. This team member seemed excited by the idea of Auto Hot Key so it was installed and they commenced their own basic learning of this.

    I installed a watered down version of my own script with some useful functions. Others I removed as I wanted this team member to create a few scripts themselves before moving into the more advanced ones I had created.

    I wanted the learning and discovery to occur else there won’t be the motivation (as someone else has simply done it for you).

    As an example, imagine in your new job you have a particular task to do every day which requires a few different windows to complete. Every morning you come in, turn on the computer and click through to open each window maybe using a bookmark or shortcut on the desktop.

    Like starting any new job, sometimes the fastest way to improve your productivity effectiveness is to simply know where to find things that you need quickly or better – instantly. It’s often the navigation slowing down everything initially and simply improving this frees up time in actually learning the new role.

    This formed the idea around the startup scripts whilst I was completing training of the new team member.

    The concept and execution is simple.

    There is a task A which requires 6 specific spreadsheets to be referred to. All of the web addresses these relate to (google sheets) are loaded in and coded to a shortcut key, say Crtl+Ctrl+G. Hit that key combination and all 6 launch at once instantly.

    We repeated this process across three very different tasks, each with separate hot keys opening different variations of windows and programs. The effect was remarkable. The next day this team member after only two days of training was able to come into work and complete the first task of the morning without any assistance.

    Another innovation I found useful was 3 key email replies including sending the email itself. There are times that you simply need / want to thank some one or indicate you have received information. Perhaps you need to forward an attachment and write the same text each time.

    Now it can be simply use the keyboard short cut Alt+R (reply singular) or Alt+L (reply all) then type “]rr”, the shortcut string and Auto Hot Key inserts the pre-scripted prose and uses the keyboard short cut Ctrl+Enter to send the email.

    Bingpot.

    How does this relate to reselling? Well I use the same concepts to launch my eBay GUI, eBay itself, Sizely, the folder my pictures reside in all from a hot key. I can be literally listing (assuming I have the photos already) in less than a minute from turning the computer on. Removing some of these barriers helps immensely from a motivational perspective.

    I also have a previous post about using this for sourcing on Facebook marketplace using specific search terms and tying them to a one click script (which can also be hot key). That post is here.

    Plans For October

    • Finish The Business Cards
    • 10 listings a day (or more) for the entire month.
    • Explore future options relating to Amazon. With Aus Posts pricing changes effective 30 September 2019 it appears as though getting inventory to Melbourne may become feasible cost wise.
    • Update listings to qualify for the top rated seller benefits.

  • August Summary 2019

    September 2nd, 2019

    August was a beast, with a huge amount of different things going on.

    Overall profit was down more than 30% on the previous month mainly I think heavily due to my lack of getting listing done. I actually made comment on this in the July summary so it is my own fault, 100% evidenced by a huge drop in the number of sales.

    Feed the beast or you will starve yourself it seems.

    Between some early withdrawals to the bank account, some (much) higher inventory spending later in the month and new subcontractor costs my actual cash flow for the month appears negative.

    Still not to worry, I suppose it’s a little bit like spending upfront now to prepare for a big push in the 4th quarter towards Christmas.

    To combat this from happening again in September I have resolved to commit to some consistent listing. Indeed in the last day of August and first two days of September I have already added another 50 quality listings adding over $2000 total value. Did this translate into an immediate uptake in sales? Nope.

    It doesn’t matter though, my aim for this month is to average 10 new listings per day. I have plenty of listings with photos and measurements ready to go so there should be no issue here.

    Facebook below was pretty quiet for the most part. Etsy has been dead, hence why I haven’t included it. That said I haven’t used it to list either.

    Sourcing Theory

    “No Buy” August was a nonevent, there was just too many good deals around that I couldn’t pass up and I ended up spending the most I have in several months.

    I’m not even going to bother with “No Buy” September. With a baby on the way due in December I’m figuring that I’m going to have less and less time to source over the next few months and then immediately after the baby is born I will be taking a long break from sourcing to focus on the family.

    The idea is to have a stash of inventory that I’ll be able to list periodically during this time to keep things active. That said I will still keep a close eye on cash flow and reign back in the spending on inventory to a better level.

    Sourcing Missions For August

    I had a couple of notable sourcing finds for August:

    I went out on a Saturday morning to an op shop that I’ve recently rediscovered which had a lot more to it with some rooms out the back that I never knew existed. Anyway this day was very wet and windy. When the ladies arrived to the shop they decided after 5 minutes to close it due to the forecast impending storm. This meant I only had a couple of minutes to look around which I made the most of by picking up a sealed 3-D puzzle.

    I got talking to the lady in charge and she asked me what I was looking for and I replied with PlayStation or Wii games as a soft start. She pegged me straight away though and asked me if I was a reseller on Facebook marketplace. I replied I was, and realistically this is the first time I have really told anyone that I am a reseller at an op shop (though I am sure a few might know). Anyway she replied that she had hundreds of DVDs and PlayStation games and that I should come and take a look in the next hour at her house which, honestly, caught me a little off guard.

    So an hour later I arrived and sure enough there were huge cases of DVDs, video games and game systems. I picked a few out that I was sure I could easily turn over mainly due to being sealed and also picked up a Ps2 Slim. At this point I still wasn’t exactly sure what she would even ask for a price as nothing had really been discussed. When the time came to negotiate we reached a deal we were both happy with. She understood that I also needed to make some money to make it worth it and that I can buy in bulk and help her unload some items.

    “You can’t take it with you.” was her direct quote.

    Truth.

    We got talking some more and she had been collecting all sorts of things for many years and done a bit of reselling herself. Her sitting room or lounge room looked like an antique store, with expensive looking statues and cases full of uranium glass (the glass that’s neon green and glows – expensive).

    Apparently she had a lot of vintage items stashed away that I would be most interested in selling and we spoke about making that happen either by me purchasing directly in bulk or perhaps even me selling under a consignment arrangement for items I don’t really buy as yet. Could be some promise there, a paid way to learn other niches in effect. I followed up the next day with a thank you and sent through a list of items that I am looking for. I will set up a time to meet again and hopefully make a bulk purchase of items that I like selling and are easy to ship!

    This, I hope will comprise most of my purchasing for September. Time will tell, still it was a timely reminder to get those business cards finished to lead to more opportunities like this in the future.

    I also had a couple of days where I was able to pick up bulk lots of Jeans and books for good prices. On one occasion at a Good Sammys I picked up 12 pairs of Jeans in the space of 20 minutes of which 80% were Levi’s and the rest Wranglers and 1 Thomas Cook, never seen that before, so many in one place. All were in the woman’s section. It’s getting towards the end of jeans season but still a great score.

    Those were the two days that really stuck in the memory but there were several others where good items were found such as toners, ink and huge lots of valuable books for minimal cost. These are the best kinds also with solid completed items so I know they are guaranteed sales.

    Premier Live YouTube Appearance

    Nothing like throwing caution to the wind.

    Early in the month I responded to a request by @2aussiethrifters for resellers looking to do a live interview session on YouTube. Initially it seemed like a token gesture at the time of something that would be great to do but it soon became an apparent reality with a scheduled booking less than a week later, which, of course sent fear coursing through my veins. Fear is a good reminder that whatever your doing is challenging and has risk but this doesn’t inherently mean what you are doing is bad. On the contrary, great personal growth comes from these types of endeavours.

    I had been meaning to get onto YouTube as an extension of this site and this had simply fast tracked the process albeit with minimal room for error in a live setting.

    Doing this really made me think that I need to get some more content out there as I could probably be helping people that actually want to be helped grow their business improve the processes and maximise their time spent on growing on either a part time or full time basis.

    I actually enjoyed this process so much that I will be taking the monthly summaries to YouTube also. In may ways it will likely be faster to generate that content than it takes to write it!

    Anyway here is the recording, please enjoy.

    Outsourcing

    This month I outsourced my most hated task – photographing and measuring clothes.

    The process to get this up and running was interesting to say the least. I simply created a Facebook post in a local community group I am a member of and let it run. The only real stipulations I made were that they must live locally, have camera that was better than my own and that it was part time ad-hoc work for now requiring the person to have their own respective business number ABN so invoices can be generated and I can claim this process as an expense.

    I was quickly inundated with messages and after only an hour with around 30 persons interested and actually had to comment to say that I would not accept anymore submissions. To be honest I found it a little difficult to pick someone to complete this task from the pool of potentials, its not exactly a common task. I quickly discarded anyone who led with “how much will I get paid? as their opening message then followed by removing anyone with multiple spelling errors (details!). From the remaining pool I ended up settling on 2 persons who had taken the time to put a bit more effort into their initial introduction. I figured by selecting 2 persons in case one didn’t like it or wasn’t very good I would have a backup.

    The setup process of getting this started was a little bit more involved than I initially thought. I needed an itemised sheet to record the details on. Creating the sheet was fairly straight forward however my own desire to have this sheet look aesthetically pleasing resulted in this taking longer than it really needed to. This was followed by creating a basic set of listing instructions, basically making a mini eBook to ensure that things run smoothly whilst having minimal impact on my time. Its not rocket science as the saying goes but a bit of extra care upfront to save me time later should I have to change subcontractors later.

    The actual process itself at this time looks like this:

    • Find items.
    • Get a new empty bin / tub.
    • Create Bin SKU labels for bin / tub outside to stick on. (SKU System)
    • Load items into tub and record onto the listing sheet. I actually do this by using the dictation on my phone in Bear (A notetaking App). I then email this to myself and add it into the listing sheet and then print out. All nice and neat and really doesn’t take long at all.
    • Add the bags that clothes get wrapped in.
    • Add the “Thank You” stickers that also hold the item SKU number.
    • Add the listing instructions (first time)

    The best part about this is it frees me up to get listing and removes the bottleneck created by my least favourite aspect of this business, clothes listing.

    So going forward, there should be no reason why this doesn’t massively help build this business. I was thinking about this the other day where I have previously talked about buying bulk lots and having a couple of items pay for everything else within the lot. This concept effectively rings true for outsourcing these items as well. At the moment I am sticking to 25 items per bin, there’s a couple of reasons, at a price of $4 an item for photographs and measurements x 25 items obviously makes $100 which is a nice even number to keep track off. The other reason is the physical size of the bin where 25 items is almost maximum they would fit depending on item size of course.

    Anyway the benefits of using a subcontractor have been apparent already with the first lot of photos coming back having several that were of higher quality than I would’ve been able to take myself. This was a nice surprise indeed. The other immediately obvious benefit from my perspective is that it forces me to keep listing, I already have 50 clothing listings ready to go all I have to do is list them, I also have another 50 that will be ready this week so I am always having items ahead of me to keep me pushing.

    Basic Maths on Outsourcing

    So obviously outsourcing is a cost which impedes on margins whilst conversely increasing the velocity of sales (in theory) by allowing more items to actually get listed and therefore sell! Still I was curious to work out where I needed to be to make this work, bearing in mind the subcontractor has to make a half decent hourly rate to make it worthwhile also from their perspective. I already had a rough idea of what my own throughput per hour would be doing this task so that is where $4 an hour comes from, photographing and measuring 10 items an hour approx. This might include the odd bit of spot cleaning / ironing also.

    My own thinking is this: I can pay someone $40 per hour (equivalent) which will save me 1 hour of my time. I can then use that hour now to make $100 per hour by listing items (assumes 10 items with average net profit of minimum $10, all listed in that hour and all sell eventually). So on this basis, I am coming out ahead every time. I haven’t included the setup time which will get faster and faster every bin and also excluding the tax deductions applicable for simplicity.

    Running the numbers on what is currently been outsourced, so 100 items at $4 equals a $400 subcontractor expense. 100 items sold with an average price of $10 net profit per item yields $1000 net.

    I want to work this backwards to work out the effective hourly rate, I want this rate to be better than the day job rate.

    $1000 Net – $400 Expense = $600 Net profit. I estimate that it will take between 4 to 5 hours to list these 100 items. Factoring also in a 5 min average to source and 5 min average to ship. 100 items x 10 min = 1000 minutes. Divide this by 60 to get time in hours equals a total of 17 hours (Rounded Up). Add this to the listing time of 5 hours to get a total of 21 hours.

    Thus the equation becomes $600/21 = $28.57 per hour.

    It is important to note that this is the base hourly figure and that the actual figure will be higher than this due to finding those higher quality items. For example a brand-new with tag Harley Davidson shirt I will be making at least $30 net profit on.

    After listing the first few items and working out the estimated net profit it became clear that I should probably be using $15 an item which returns a much better result of $52.38 per hour. As an example the first 10 items from bin one I estimated net profits as $19,$29,$14,$16,$29,$19,$29,$29,$19,$10 which has an average of $21.

    It also should be noted that this is only a rough calculation to work with. There are several items in each bin like the Harley shirt mentioned but conversely maybe there are some items which take forever to sell or never sell at all! Some of these initial listings have items found during my early ventures into clothing that I would no longer pick up now in my travels. Some of these I may sell at fire sale prices just to make some space.

    What Else Got Done This Month

    I did finally make a start on the business card and have basically finished the initial design. Really I was trying to incorporate what I look for as a list on the card in some way. The chance meeting last weekend forced me to create a list of sorts so I have this now. I will have them sent off the printer within the next couple of weeks when a decent sale comes in.

    After watching some YouTube and coming across a Daily Refinement episode which mentions customer specific coupons I created my own unique coupon code, turned it into a QR code able to be scanned and now are adding those to items being sent out. I have been getting great feedback for existing packaging, now maybe this will boost some repeat customers!

    Plans For September

    Business is all about synergies and harnessing skills or situations which create advantages. I have been lucky enough to access to some lockable storage space. Part of this month will be to move some of the inventory out of the house into this space, thereby allowing more of the house to return to normal function whilst simultaneously allowing inventory expansion / business growth. Exciting times.

    10 listings a day, for the month.

    Create YouTube content, starting with the August 2019 Summary, Reselling – One year in review and a generous introduction.

  • Save Money With Australia Post Business Account

    August 26th, 2019

    I had previously seen a couple of posts on the Australian Resellers Facebook group about using the AusPost business account which gives discounts on shipping for bulk volume.

    As I was really starting to get some volume numbers adding up in May I finally got around to checking this out recently and was pleasantly surprised:

    #1 That it was easy to setup and #2 connecting to eBay and importing orders was very straight forward.

    I was up and running in less than 5 minutes. On logging in I was immediately drawn to the Band Savings amounts which list the discounts that are applicable if you send X amount of packages per week. I found out that I could print 1kg Satchels in place of 3kg satchels. 1kg Satchels are unable to be printed through the eBay platform so this alone will save me quite a lot of money over the course of year with those items which sneak just over 500gms.

    My initial excitement was dashed however as there was a long lead time of 8 weeks for what band I was to be placed in. I attempted to bypass this wait time by appealing to the friendly lady on the other end of an AusPost chat line. With my already decent volume it was more economical to print labels through eBay whilst waiting for my discounts to take effect I posited. I was not successful. She did suggest I could simply pay for everything through AusPost straight away at the higher rate which would mean they could review it sooner and ergo I would obtain the discounts sooner, however I declined on principal of not paying more just for that privilege, and simply waited it out.

    Saving $$$

    The wait was worth it and at the end of the review period I was thrust into Band 2 gaining access to immediate savings.

    As you can see in the below photo a simple $1.36 discount to another major city with a 1kg Satchel. It may not seem like much but extrapolated over a year and that’s the equivalent to a return trip to Bali from Perth or more than $2000 in interest of my house loan (including the savings over the full term) saved.

    1kg Satchel Savings Other City
    500gm Satchel Savings Other City

    Other Unexpected Benefits

    The savings aside a couple of other benefits also appeared. As you are directly within the AusPost business platform the page will attempt to auto-validate the address. I have been pleasantly surprised on a few occasions where this has picked up an address error And potentially saved painful time-wasting problems later.

    The other feature I am really liking is the quick access to tracking which shows all updates in the history very quickly.

    Applications To Reselling

    As the reselling business volume grows I am hoping to move up the tiers to take advantage of the scaling discounts. The savings of course can either go straight into the profit bottom line or can be factored into pricing to become more competitive.

    Either way if this is something you are not currently doing, there is money being left on the table.

    The full savings rate table can be found here on the AusPost website.

  • July Summary 2019

    August 9th, 2019

    July was a steady month that had significant deviation from the norm with a huge reduction in inventory purchasing as part of “No Buy July” and some severe time restrictions.

    I took part in the listing  challenge that @2aussiethrifters laid down at the end of June and this helped keep listing somewhat consistent each week and briefly pushed through 800 listings. This was made much easier by limiting sourcing and I was so close to completing the whole month without doing any whatsoever. I came unstuck in the final days when visiting a couple of Op Shops to find baby related items (for the impending little one). My reseller brain took over and I could not help but see items that I knew would easily make money, so much so that all of the baby items being purchased would easily be free. The resellers curse at it again.

    And yet, even with the above minor purchasing slip up (if I can call it that, I had a massive score detailed down below) this months results still managed to top last months resulting in a new record profit of $1765.45 and positive cash-flow for the month of $1605.45.

    Time Restrictions

    I spent a large chunk of time this month completing and submitting my tax return including getting some further advice from the accountant which will set up this coming year to enable next years return to be completed much more efficiently.

    It was nice to get that done but impacted on several hours of what would have been listing time. You can read the 2019 Tax Analysis post here.

    No Buy July And The #HustleOfTheWeek

    “No Buy” July was excellent, I got a bunch of old stock listed that had been sitting around and I found myself heading home after the day job and be pumped to get some listings up. Going straight home also allowed some extra time to take quality pictures while there was still some decent light in the afternoon.

    Like I said earlier I did break my rule but I had a solid reason. Later in the month I had a fantastic day which just kept getting better so I just rolled with it. To kick it off I was rewarded with a $200 voucher from work for good work performance which was a nice surprise. After work I decided that I had therefore qualified to end my “No Buy” July early (I have heeeeaps of stuff still to list…) and call past a couple of op shop’s on the way home.

    The first one was a nonevent with a couple of generic bread-and-butter items. The second however I managed to find, finally, something that I was really stoked with. I came across a whole clothes basket full of posters. They caught my eye because one had been unrolled and glued to the window displaying a fantasy style scene. I check listings and solds on eBay and there’s quite a variance but they should fetch at least 10 each and they are all part of a set so would be able to sell in groups also. Anyway, the sticker prices were a mess and there were so many different ones (stickers) I could not actually tell what they wanted for each one. The basket had $4 on it in several places, the posters themselves have 3 different prices $8, $25 and $20 (this one being the original price). They were all from the 1970s and I guesstimated there were about 50 in total. Anyway, I ask what the price was to a near by clerk and he didn’t know, goes and gets his manager and asks. She comes back and says $2 each and I was like “Ok, what if I I was to buy the whole lot”, you know the old Frankie Fritz bundle trick (American Pickers reference). She pauses for about 5 seconds then says $25 for the lot. I stay cool and agree (while freaking out internally), head to the register to pay immediately where she tells me they are all old store stock. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention they are all sealed with the wrapping still. I get home and count them out and turns out I was waaaay off, there’s actually 93 in total.

    At $10 each there’s almost a $1000 right there and I think I can get more easily if I’m patient. And of course I only need to make about 5 listings with multiple amounts available.

    Lastly to top it off, right at the bottom of the basket is a small vinyl trim floral pattern roll, made in Canada still in its original packaging. These are super hard to find apparently and if I sell this for just $25 which should be easily achievable , the posters were free.

    So I ended up spending $160 for the month which works out to be roughly 10% of the cash flow and I am totally ok with that. Over the last few months after reviewing the numbers this seems like the sweet spot to maximise profit when factoring in sourcing vs time vs money, for now anyway.

    The Stats

    Listings were up, sales were up but the total value listed isn’t increasing by much. This leads to a bit of a conundrum. As a part timer, I am reaching the limits of time that can be allocated without ruining other parts of my life. My wife actually made the comment a couple of times this month that I seem to have found a good balance. So then, what can be done to improve things from here?

    Focus on higher value items with larger returns. Seems instantly logical but unless you are looking at the numbers how will you know. My recently created new spreadsheet tracks additional metrics such as Return On Investment (ROI) but also Gross Profit Per Hour (GPPH). It’s the gross profit per hour which is the interesting metric as once time is factored in it becomes easy to tell if a particular item is worth picking up. A good example are board games, they sell and I have sold some nice ones but the time taken to list and then ship is far more compared against say a book or a DVD. Once this is factored in (time) it can become apparent that I would have made more with an hour at work. Profit is still profit yes, but focusing on those higher value items is critical when extreme limited time applies.

    Spend less time sourcing but still get sourcing done. How? Source online and get delivered. Thinking about this, if I spend 2 hours driving to some thrift shops on the way home from work I will likely find some items. I am guessing that if I spent an hour looking online I could probably find some items to flip and then have an hour spare that can be used to list. I have had some success with this to date so will continue to put more of a focus on this.

    Lastly, get some more listings up! Again I’m running into constraints as I have sold almost as many items that have been listed. So ideas to get around this? Get some help. There are always certain aspects within jobs that people hate doing. For me its taking photos of clothes. I don’t hate it per se but its definitely not my favourite activity involved with this type of business. So then, logically, I can outsource this to someone local to take some quality photos and measure up batches of clothing. Will start looking for someone suitable and see what happens.

    What Else Got Done This Month

    I did end up modifying the “Thank You” labels to add some style to these labels and now I am actually starting to get feedback come through with positive comments specifically on packaging so I guess it is definitely helping. You can never quantify it but I feel like this will help reduce the amount of returns and problem buyers over the longer term.

    Still yet to get into the YouTube space. There hasn’t been enough time available to make this happen yet. Considering using Instagram in the mean time.

    Still to make and distribute the business cards.

    August Focus

    The focus for August is split into 5 distinct areas.

    1. Continue the listing mission. I definitely noticed a pickup in sales related to the increased listing activity on the back of the July Challenge. At the very end of July I slacked off over the course of a week and surprise surprise sales dropped straight off into the first week of August.
    2. Reorganise inventory to maximise space utilisation. I have a bunch of inventory stored in a couple of bookcases which is a legacy from the early days. I need to get all of the items stored here re-stowed into the bin system. By doing this I will be able to fix items which were Pre-SKU and simultaneously increase inventory storage space.
    3. Sort The Business Card. This one should be relatively easy to get done. I plan on perhaps getting out and doing some sourcing later in the month (depending on sales) and really need this card to be able to hand out.
    4. Increase knowledge on precious metals and jewellery. There are literal gold (and silver) mines out there. I’ve been doing some research on expanding my knowledge into this area.
    5. Find a part time helper to get some scale.

    And do all of this while working every weekend for the month at the day job. 100% commitment.

  • Reseller Tax Analysis 2019

    August 3rd, 2019

    Disclaimer: Any words assembled below into sentences within this post constitute general information only. For advice specific to your own reselling journey consult a registered tax professional. Also: Be 100% accountable (pun intended) for your own tax obligations and do your own research.

    2019 RESELLING AS A BUSINESS

    These concepts relate to Australian based resellers.

    When I first decided that I wanted to elevate reselling from a hobby into a part time business or side hustle that supplements my current 9-5 I knew I would be writing this post at some stage. I have been looking forward to it actually. Why? Well, I feel like I have read a disproportionate amount on the subject of taxation over the years (I like money theory what can I say) and I have also noted the absence of this discussion in the reselling space.

    Some don’t take the subject of taxation as seriously as it should be. I get it – It’s tax. It already has the stigma of being boring and mundane it it is also critical to maximise business advantages (such as paying tax last – post expenses). In many ways this is the business of my dreams, imagine being able to load up the car, drive 500km over a week, stopping at all the small op shops you are ever get to, staying at some nice Air BnBs and as long as you pick up a few items along the way to resell being able to claim the whole trip as a business expense. This is my eventual plan one day as I transition to part-time work and more full time reselling. My point is that understanding of taxation can actually markedly improve your life, particularly with this business that involves a lot of travel.

    I thought I had a reasonable way of tracking items and certainly I have been able to keep a close eye on the cash flow of this business. As always however, I look to improve processes and practices as I better understand them. Seeming as this business was growing at a steady pace I knew that I needed to become better organised to have any chance of scaling one day in the future.

    To this end I collated some questions and put them to an accountant for some feedback. They are somewhat generic but should give a broad overview of some ways to meet tax obligations and also some possible ideas of some tax deductions which may apply to this type of business legally.

    The more knowledge you can accumulate on tax issues the better questions you will be able to ask your tax professional relevant to your own personal situation.

    TRACKING THE COST OF GOODS SOLD

    This items was where I needed the most clarification for my own business.

    I was already tracking the costs of my purchases with all receipts. Every time I purchase items I take a photo of the receipt and once I return home it automatically uploads to Google photos. Later I will enter incoming inventory into my spreadsheet with its cost. If I have multiple items to sell with one cost, for example, a bag of 10 magnets I will sell individually, I will simply divide the total cost by the amount, so if the bag cost $2, individually each magnet is 20c.

    I was also diligent in recording the cost of each item that had sold over the last financial year, which was lucky as my eBay sales report has been broken for the last month not showing the correct figures which eBay is still looking into. I may have been overcharged hundreds of dollars… more on that another time.

    The other critical item to track is the cost of the stock on hand of the inventory. I didn’t really have this covered as well as I would have liked and this resulted in a large amount of time to go back through and work out the cost value of almost 800 items that were listed… and the death pile…

    Still, I now had the knowledge I needed to move forward here and make some adjustments to the spreadsheet I am using and to processes moving forward.

    One last point I asked about was tracking of those cash sales that have no receipts, for example, garage sales. The accountants reply was to record this using a ledger type system. So if using cash, they suggested on Friday go and get $200 out from the ATM, buy all the items from the garage sales over the weekend and then redeposit the balance back in on the Monday. Sounds simple in concept but creates some painful time issues also. Anyway the point is there needs to be an opening and a closing amount on the ledger. I suppose you could do this with a separate business account as well with digital transfers which would be the same, transfer money out to a different account, take out the cash, buy items, transfer left over remaining balance back in to business account. This way removes the need to go anywhere near a bank to deposit money!

    TRACKING BUSINESS ITEMS

    Q: Do you have a recommendation of an accounting app or software for people using eBay or PayPal or for this type of business?  What is the easiest format from the Accounting side of things? What do you actually need or how would you like this laid out? What MUST I have on a spreadsheet?

    A: An accounting system we recommend to all our clients is Xero. Xero is an online accounting software that has many applicable features which will assist with your inventory tracking. Xero enables you to track your inventory you purchase. From here you will be able to assign unit price, quantity, account code, tax code (making BAS preparation simple) and provide a description. This may be something to consider if you are buying bundle a of goods with specific amounts.

    Xero will also allow you to track the sale side of the business . When you raise an invoice for the inventory sold and send to the customer, Xero will recognise the double entry. As Xero has a live paypal feed, this will allow you to reconcile the sale when cash hits your paypal or bank account.

    Xero’s features will enable you to track your inventory purchases and raise sale invoices once you sell these goods.

    **I followed this response up by considering the cost of Xero for my own requirements and decided that at this point in time I could not justify the cost, and therefore asked the following question**

    Q: How about a Spreadsheet? I am already using one.

    A: An accounting software such as Xero is a much more practical and effective method at tracking inventory but that is not to rule out your spreadsheet.

    If you are opting into a spreadsheet, what I would recommend is tracking your inventory purchased, purchase price, total value of the inventory as well as a running balance of inventory. Once you have sold that inventory on hand, raise the sale and update your inventory sold in the same row but different column. Essentially showing the cost of sale (expense) and sale (income). As well as recording all other expenditure such as packaging, eBay and platform fees, posting and other material expenses.

    **I took the opportunity to review and massively upgrade the spreadsheet I am using. I now also track Return On Investment (ROI) and also now tracking Gross profit per hour. That is, what is the equivalent hourly rate I am effectively making once time is factored in. This has been most useful in determining what items I should pay more attention to and where I can continually improve. I will make this spreadsheet available in the next week or so.**

    GST

    Q: At what point do I need to think about registering for GST?

    A: The point at which you will need to consider being registered for GST is when your reselling business reaches or is expected to reach a GST turnover (gross income minus GST) of $75,000 or more. Your GST turnover is your gross business income, excluding the following:

    • GST included in sales to your customers
    • Sales that aren’t for payment and aren’t taxable
    • Sales not connected with the reselling business
    • Sales not connected with Australia

    Q: Do I have to do Qtrly BAS Statements? Or IAS? Or does this only apply once registered for GST?

    A: When you initially register for GST you will be able to report GST in two ways:

    1. Annual GST return
      • An annual GST registration is where you pay you quarterly GST in instalments with a full reconciliation done at 30 June, where you will either be liable to pay extra GST or entitled to a GST refund as you have overpaid your instalments.
    2. Quarterly BAS’
      • Lodging quarterly BAS’ is based on the actual income and expenditure incurred for that quarter, reporting the GST you both collected and paid in relation to your reselling business. As mentioned earlier, using Xero will automatically track your GST obligations.

    IAS (Instalment activity statement) will not be applicable if you do not have any employees withholding wages.

    DEDUCTIONS

    Q: What items should I be looking to legally deduct for this type of business?

    A: Expenses you should be looking to legally deduct for this type of business is any expense you have incurred to produce that income.

    • Car travel used to source items

    Two approaches you may take for claiming your car to source items:

    1. Cents per Kilometre method
      • This method is a single rate used allowing you to claim a maximum of 5000km. You will be able to claim a deduction for the business kilometres you travel.
    2. Logbook method
      • Claim the business-use percentage of the ongoing running expenses. This is includes fuel, registration, insurance and decline in value of motor vehicle. For this to be applicable you will need to keep a logbook of your odometer readings for a 12-week period detailing your business and private usage.

    At year end we will calculate which method provides the best tax outcome and apply accordingly.

    Computer and the Internet

    Eligible to claim the business percentage of depreciation for your laptop and total internet bills.

    Packaging Materials 

    Packaging expenses you may claim as they are expenses incurred as a result of reselling your goods.

    Postage

    Postage expenses you may claim as they are expenses incurred as a result of reselling your goods.

    eBay and other platform fees

    eBay and other platform expenses you may claim as they are expenses incurred as a result of reselling your goods.

    Q: I’m currently doing this from my main residence. The physical storage of these items takes up almost an entire bedroom now. Can I claim power, etc…? What options are available here and tax implications of doing this?

    Dedicating a specific room of your main residence for your reselling business you may claim the following:

    • The cost of the rooms utilities such as gas and electricity. This must be apportioned based on the hours of business and private usage.
    • Decline in value for the plant and equipment used such as any storage platforms / desks used to store your inventory, decline in value for any other capital items in that storage space (e.g curtains, carpets and light fittings), costs of using your home computer this will need to apportioned accordingly to your business and private usage.
    • Occupancy expenses such as your mortgage interest, home insurance, council rates and other expenses you incur from your main residence. This will need to be apportioned too, a reasonable way in which we can determine how much you can deduct is working out the floor area of your storage room in proportion to your whole home (floor area or storage / floor area of whole house = deductible percentage). However, this does  attract CGT implications, reducing our main residence exemption. See below:

    Tax implications

    Normally if you sold your main residence you will not be liable for any capital gains tax. However if you choose to claim the above mentioned expenses, you will be liable for capital gains made for that area of your main residence used to produce assessable income.

    For example – You make a capital gain of $350,000 when you sell your main residence, the floor area used for your inventory storage was for 1 year of the 10 years you owned your main residence, the floor area for your storage is 15% of your house.

    The capital gain you will liable for is (Capital Gain x percentage of the time storage was used at your main residence x floor area of storage room) = $350,000 x 10% x 15% = $5,250.00 assessable income.

  • Facebook Marketplace Seller Time Productivity

    July 29th, 2019

    This is just a quick post on making selling things on Facebook marketplace a little bit more palatable. I’ve seen a bunch of social posts over the last couple of weeks where people have been getting frustrated with people basically wasting their time, and fair enough too. Unfortunately this is an annoying by-product of selling on this platform. It is definitely more of a buyers paradise compared against eBay and others. Indeed, whilst researching negotiating bots while writing this post I noted that: “Facebook Marketplace Waste Of Time” featured prominently in Google search queries.

    As a seller, most of the time these messages will be coming to you on your phone, and because of this you want to be able to quickly respond and get back to whatever you’re doing. Time really is money, baby.

    One way to improve your efficiency and decrease the amount of time typing replies is to automate some of them by taking advantage of keyboard shortcuts on your phone.

    See my recent real life recent example below where a potential buyer has offered under 50% of what the original price of the item is selling for, a common low ball offer.

    It begins with the standard incoming message – Is this available message.

    Yes I reply and then I’m rolled the low ball offer.

    You could (just like I have with $35) reply with a number that you’re after and then the conversation continues.

    I had the feeling however after the initial offer and the $5 counter offer to $20 that we were never going to reach a deal as I was looking for $30 as my lowest price I would take. So I decided I needed to cut my losses here (time).

    So I follow this up with that rather long paragraph and conclude the conversation. I certainly wouldn’t want to type this on the phone while out and about but I don’t have to as this whole paragraph is tied to a simple keyboard shortcut on my phone of 3 keys.

    I simply type out “FBM” on my keyboard and out comes this whole phrase.

    It’s an easy way to respond, take the emotion out of it and get negotiations done quickly. In the example Angela (the buyer) has even responded with a like. After all people can and often do change their mind. I have been experimenting with other phrases that could be used to try and speed up other interactions due to the amount of time wasting that can occur.

    In this same real example I could have also responded with a price where I had an offer from another buyer for $30 (either real or imagined – in this case real as I sold to another buyer around the same time) with the below phrase. I would simply type $30 as the lowest price I would be prepared to take, make a new line and then type “FBMO” which would generate the following.

    The above tells the buyer that this is the market price and implies I will not go any lower (which I won’t) and therefore ends the negotiation with either a “Yes I’ll take it”, a “No thank you”, or no response back at all which is obviously a no.

    The other common phrase I would also set up is the initial response to Is this available? There’s been a few times where, after replying yes, this is followed with “where are you located?”. Now alot of people don’t often read the description very well, so people will still ask this question. Therefore why not preempt it by replying:

    “Hi there, thank you for your enquiry, yes this item is till available. I am located in XYZ suburb. Would prefer a local pickup but depending on your area I also might be able to deliver (depending on the price)”

    There you have it. Once you have this setup, all those messages won’t annoy, frustrate anymore.

    If anyone has seen any function negotiating bots for Facebook market place let me know!

  • Raiz Micro Investing

    July 25th, 2019

    A couple of years ago I opened an investment account through the Raiz app (known as Acorns at the time) and then promptly forgot about it. Now that reselling is generating some actual cash-flow surplus to day to day living I have decided to reopen it and automate a very modest base amount of $10 a week and then add 10% of the weekly profit from eBay on top (See the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://<a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1508524351/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1508524351&linkCode=as2&tag=thrifterking-20&linkId=3ec7cf4d8f34a6f7b242518fddafd369">The Richest Man in Babylon: Original 1926 Edition</a>""Richest Man In Babylon rules on wealth – I love this book). The other 90% of profit is still going into paying off the investment property.

    The Raiz app is basically a gateway introduction to index investing and is super easy to set up. I have only been going for a month and already have cracked the $100 mark. You can use my referral code through this Raiz link, to get $5 when signing up a new account. If you do, thank you.

    There are a few reasons why I am really liking this app.

    1. Automatic Investments – Set it and forget it.

    I was explaining this to a colleague the other day and noticed that my account had more in it than I thought it would. Oh yeah that’s right it automatically does it….! This is half the battle, doing something is infinitely better than doing nothing.

    2. Round Up Investing – Spend $3.5 and the account will round up to $4 by investing the 50c difference. Lots of these add up over time and lets be honest are you really going to miss 50c?, probably not.

    3. Rewards – I don’t remember these being here when I signed up last time and if you shop a lot you could get a bit of cashback for something you would do anyway, I.e shopping for groceries with Woolies. Watch out for the survey rewards, although they will give you a few cents they really are not worth the time they take to complete…

    4. Referral Program – Send a link for someone to sign-up and both people get $5 win-win. You can use my referral code through this Raiz link, to get $5 when signing up a new account. If you do, thank you.

    An example from a recent friend who joined is below notated as referral reward, 5 whole dollarydoos!

    https://app.raizinvest.com.au/invite/A3AZQ7

    5. Raiz Kids – A separate tracker for your kids goals and dreams. Don’t think this was here last time either but now with a little one on the way I’ll definitely be using this to build for the future!

    #ebayreseller #resellercommunity #aussiereseller #ebaysellers #ebaycommunity #ebaylife #ebayhustle #passiveincome #sidehustle #sidehustles #the20yearbusiness #thrifterdotme #raiz #investment #richestmaninbabylon #barefootinvestor #1000dollarproject #nestegg #indexinvesting #investingapp

  • June Summary 2019

    July 3rd, 2019

    June was a crazy month.

    • Best profit result to date coming in at $2035 for June across all platforms.
    • Implemented a Thank You note for all purchases.
    • First 2 Etsy Sales, one of which was over $100, great for a shop with 0 feedback!
    • Managed to successfully have a negative eBay feedback be removed. This has its own post and can be found here.

    The plan for June, was again List. List. List. Unfortunately (solely from a listing goal perspective) I failed as I kept selling items and barely managed to keep up and maintain the listing total over 700. At the 30th of June 2019, I had 725 active on eBay.

    As you can see above, the trend of this reselling business is definitely heading in an upward direction and interestingly it appears to have taken 8 months of effectively “spinning the wheel” (and even a couple of months of negative cash flow) before things have taken off in the last 3 months of the financial year. If I was to overlay the total number of listings on top of this graph also there would also be a direct correlation with increased number of listings equaling increased sales. An easy way to think about this is assuming the same sell through rate of 10% of total listings then 100 items listed would equals 10 sales, 1000 items listed equals 100 sales!

    Sourcing Strategy

    Inventory procurement this month was a little more reserved vs May. In fact, after 10 days of the month I had spent only $55. By the months end however I had grown this amount to $380 mainly due to a last big spend up on a day trip mission down south.

    I was extremely picky but still managed to come away with some great items. There is definitely experience assisting in this regard, lessons learned from previous sales. It could also be my conscious reminding me gently that I have lots of items which need listing. Buying things that I might make $5-$10 is not going to help.

    Closing Down Sale

    One of the local op shops closed down and had a sale spread over the month. I went several times over a couple of the weeks and picked up a large lot of band T Shirts, some video games, among other things including a bunch of free genuine printer ink worth about $200, could not believe my eyes when I saw that sitting there and that no one had grabbed it already.

    In the final week this store had a $2 everything sale, and when I saw this advertised as I pulled up in the car I did not hold much hope of really finding anything left. Sure enough the store had been raided well and truly with many shelves totally bare and yet even in desolate landscape I still managed to find 5 things which people had not seen any value in. My favourite find, a pair of vintage sewing scissors which I paid effectively 25c for (after using the last of my store credit) I sold 1 week later for $100. There was also a set of vintage sewing patterns which I haven’t listed yet I hope to get around $100 which was marked $35 down to $2.

    One point I will make here is if you come across these closing down sales make sure you get in early and spend up. If you wait until the end where things are at 50-75% off you will find that quality items will already be gone. This is what I did with the T Shirts, the store manager had been saving them to make a big music themed display, now that the store was closing she put all of them out at 25% discount (and they were already reasonably priced). I managed to negotiate even further on top of this (built on a long standing network relationship with the store manager) and ended up with a huge stack of T Shirts for $27 and a free Nirvana flag thrown in on top.

    So great sourcing here with the only down side being the loss of a built up network relationship and a local store. 😦

    The Bins

    I made two separate trips to the bins this month and they did not disappoint. No $500 single item finds as such but I found several quality items at fractions of the cost they would usually be in an op shop, even found a pair of Levi’s! (At this bins price paid is based on weight).

    The estimation is being able to generate close to $1000 in total sales from a spend of about $23.

    Garage Sales

    This month I actually took the time to stop at a couple of garage sales. It is something I have been meaning to do a lot more particularly with climbing op shop prices but they can be hit and miss. This time I was lucky and one that was only a couple of minutes from my house had a lot of deceased estate items. From this I was able to purchase a few old Jaguar Car items with I promptly listed and sold within a week. I got more than 10x my money back with limited fees (split local and eBay) and still have a stack of old vintage Tea Towels to list (yes you read that right) which are 100% pure profit.

    eBay Arbitrage

    I had another crack at some eBay arbitrage this month. I ended up buying a bulk lot of football pins, a couple of scout badges and some odd ball items. Within this bulk lot was a Kirby Game Boy cartridge and a horse shoe. Between Kirby , the 2 scout patches and the Phillip Island patch I should get most of my initial investment back. What I like about this is that the other items are super easy to list and storage space is next to nothing.

    Other Expenditure

    The overall cash flow although good could have been even better still. While I was making good sales I thought it prudent to take the time to reinvest some of the profits back into improving critical infrastructure including a huge stack of tubs for inventory storage, poly bags, bubble wrap and wrapping paper. Expenditure on next month for all of this should be very minimal.

    Other Savings

    At the start of last June I signed up for the Australia Post Business Account. This account has given me the ability to print 1kg and 5kg Satchel labels which, frankly, has already saved me over $30 in June by itself. I will be writing a separate post on this in July as there were some unexpected outcomes which deserve more detail.

    Listing Strategy

    This month I made a concerted effort to do a lot more cross posting across Facebook Marketplace and Etsy. Although I only had 6 sales across these platforms the total profit was $285 or more than 10% of the overall monthly total. I will be making much more use of Etsy in particular going forward with lots of vintage items still to list. Dual listing across eBay and Etsy only adds probably an extra minute or two in time as all the details entered are still in my Auto Hot Key GUI and I can use Auto Hot Key to fill the listing in both eBay and Etsy. If I had 2 screens I could probably make this even faster still.

    The only downside of having dual listings is having to remember to de-list from the other platform when it sells! Having 2 simultaneous sales of the same item would be a problem. I could perhaps create an Auto Hot Key script to automate this process in the future once I have hundreds of cross posted items. For now its not much of an issue.

    General Improvements

    Network Sales

    A Network Sale to the legends 2AussieThrifers

    This month I also added a new category to my tracking, network sales. This is as it sounds, sales achieved through building a network of people who I think or know would be interested in items that I pick up.

    This month I sold the above Bootlegged SNES Games complete with boxes to the Aussie reselling legends 2aussiethrifters (find them on Instagram @2aussiethrifters). I knew from watching their YouTube channel that Brad was an avid collector of Nintendo. As a thank you for the great content he had been putting out I offered these to him first and we agreed on a win-win deal, the best kind of outcome. He also ran an unboxing video of these at the start of his huge RM Williams Mega Haul which was epic.

    Why is a network important? Well because I often sell things which are collectable or sit within a certain niche and I can offer items to these network contacts first.

    There can be a number of benefits to doing this including:

    • Hopefully speed up the sale (Save Inventory Space),
    • Perhaps bypass having to even list it on a platform (Save Time),
    • Save money on fees (Keep More Profit),
    • Get repeat purchases (Make More Money),
    • Get information from collectors who are often experts on a particular subject. For example, I know a guy who I can contact anytime for prices on a group of niche items. He will tell me what it retails for and if he wants to buy what hes willing to pay. (Build Knowledge, Make Sales)

    Network sales this month amounted to $100.

    Thank You Label For Customers Combined with SKU Update

    This month I implemented a very simple Thank You label to be added to outgoing orders. It is super simple with just a thank you for your purchase along with a smiley face.

    Built on top of this implementation I also decided it was time to upgrade the use of my SKU system. Previously I would just list the bin # and that was that. When a sale occurred I could simply walk to the bin and fish through what was in there to find the item. Over the last couple of months I have collected so many pairs of Levi’s and RM Williams Jeans that this would simply not work anymore as I could have more than 20 of the same type of jeans in the same bin. So the easy fix is pretty obvious, Bin # Item Letter. Example A1 # D.

    So now I have one label which acts as both a thank you and helps optimise my inventory. The only thing that remains now is to perhaps create some graphics for the label. Perhaps the SKU could even sit inside the graphics so it blends and becomes part of the picture itself.

    Sell Through Rate (Or Perhaps Store Turnover Rate)

    This month I came across an interesting statistic called a sell through rate. It is calculated on total sales divided by the total number of listings and it gives a percentage of turnover of an item. Seems I don’t have items the have huge multi quantity the store turn over rate is probably a better name for this, in my case total store listings against total sales gives a total percentage of turnover. There are a few opinions around on what is considered good, Sub-Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Flipping/ has some good reselling reading with most comments I browsed through on this topic averaging between 8 -17% which give an approximate idea on what a good through rate is. I’m not really concerned with that as I imagine these are heavily relative against the type of items being sold for each store owner leaving comments. However I do think this might be an interesting metric to keep a track of and see if I can get this trending upward by testing out some ideas. For this month I sold a total of 80 items on eBay against a maximum listing total of 751. Therefore the approximate store turnover for the month was 10.67%.

    The Stats eBay

    June was a cracker, what can I say. There was no huge spikes to speak of, there was just a lot of consistency across the month.

    This month holds the new total profit record coming in at $1660.69 in actual profit (after fees, COGs, shipping).

    The number of listings increased briefly to over 750 and then came crashing back down to 700 after several quick sales. This was the same story as May, I was selling as many things as I was listing which translates to – I am not listing enough to continue this growth. This is evidenced by the big red mark of the total store value actually dropping by $350 this month.

    The Stats Facebook Marketplace

    The expansion into other platforms for diversification continued (a previous post about this concept can be found here).

    I only had 4 sales through Facebook Marketplace this month but they were solid. During the month I found a couple of nice items at low cost that are perfect for this platform. I expect July cash flow to be much better here.

    The Stats Etsy

    Welcome to the team Etsy. I have had a couple of multi quantity listings up on Etsy for a while. Here and there I have sold a couple of things. In June I decided it was time to really start making use of this platform so when I came across a couple of high value items I cross posted on both eBay and Etsy. They both sold soon after within a week, one on eBay and one on Etsy.

    Bad Stuff

    One return this month for “item does not fit” which was no problem as buyer paid return postage and once relisted this sold again a few days later. All in all, nothing unusual here.

    Plans For July

    “No Buy July” has a nice ring to it, so that’s whats happening.

    • I have 800 listing spots I’m paying for that I need to fill. I also have several 50ltr containers packed with clothes that need to be listed. This really does need to be the month when I get this done. I already have approximately 40 items photographed and ready to be listed which is a great head start.
    • As part of this, @2aussiethrifters laid down a listing challenge which was great timing. Just another way to keep accountable for getting through those items that need to be listed.
    • Post First YouTube Video. The account has been created, have found some music. Have spoken to some people about some useful software to help get content made. Now all that remains is to sit down, create some tutorials and get them posted.
    • Create a Reselling Business card to distribute. I came across a couple of instances this month where I missed out on some easy profit. More on this soon.
    • Add some style to the Thank You Labels.


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