New eBay/Whatnot Reseller Intro

Since 1996, my wife Lisa and I have made a full-time income working part-time from home in the affiliate marketing arena. In February of last year... we 'retired' and stopped actively promoting anything online and started to focus our time investing, etc.

About the same time, our two adults sons (26 and 38 years old) asked what my advice might be about starting a new business in today's economy and... THAT put me on a quest to find a good business model for 'the boys' - which led to eBay and becoming a used clothing reseller.

We watched a LOT of youtube videos about Average Sales Rates, Brands, Bolos and all of that stuff and started sourcing for items with a 100% sell through rate in 90 days with at least a $25 profit back in August.

It only took a few days to discover finding 100% sell through items at a good price can be challenging so we amended our target numbers to be:

$15 average profit

50% average sell through rate

Our starting budget for supplies, COG, etc was $5,000

We sourced for a couple of months and listed our first item on eBay on 10/3/24.

So far, as of 11/12/24... (39 days)

551 Listed Items
95 Sales
$2,275.81 net sales
$2,275.81/95 = $23.95 average sales price
$4.77 average cost of goods

We made a LOT of sourcing mistakes early on - buying things that did not match our metrics and/or buying things for too much... or buying things we did not thoroughly inspect only to have to toss later... and now our #1 focus is to source closer to at least a 50% sell through rate with a profit of $15 or higher. Higher is better.

The challenge, though, right now for us to find enough items within that range on a consistent basis.

In the meanwhile - we just hosted our 2nd whatnot show to promote bins finds that don't necessarily match our metrics that we sourced on purpose for whatnot. COGS for what has been $1.77 - though both shows have only been marginally profitable because we haven't had more than 5 peeps on at a time yet. If figure if we stay consistent with 2, two hour shows per week we should gain a nice audience in a month or two.

It's been a crazy amount of work and learning and even more learning... but what fun!

Blessings...

Rob

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