Last Sunday evening the auctions for the fourth, and final, week of the March $1000 A Month Thrift Store eBay Challenge ended. Of the twenty items listed on eBay thirteen sold for a total of $291.77.

Here’s how the Challenge looks for the month of March. All that’s left to be paid for are three items from the fourth week and the buyers of those items have indicated they will be sending either a check or money order so the figures shown should be final for this month.

With a monthly net income of $684.42 I fell considerably short of my $1000.00 goal. When I decided to extend the Challenge into March, I expected that this might be the outcome for two reasons. I already knew that, with various high school and college hockey tournaments taking place, I was going to be gone for a fair part of the month. Additionally, historically, as the garage sale season draws near, there has always been a decrease in desirable merchandise showing up in the thrift shops in Grand Forks each year.

During the three months of the Challenge, I never did reach the magical $1000 figure in net profits, although I came close the first two months and probably would have the last month also if it wasn’t for my obsession with hockey.

In the end, I hope I’ve shown two things. First that, while sourcing inventory from thrift shops may not be a viable eBay business model if you want to generate several thousands of dollars a month in income, for those who’s goal is to be able to net somewhere in the area of $1000 a month from their eBay business, thrift shops are one alternative if there are several in the area you live.

With the end March the Challenge is going into hibernation for while. April will see a trip to St. Louis for the conclusion of the NCAA College Hockey Tournament with the Frozen Four and trips to two or three good sized flea markets in the area so I won’t be in Grand Forks for much of the month. After winning one of the wildest hockey games I’ve seen in years against Michigan (The two teams tied the NCAA record for number of goals scored in a playoff game), the UND Sioux beat Minnesota 3 to 2 in overtime to advance to the Frozen Four so St. Louis is a must trip as are the flea markets.

In May the Challenge will return but with a few twists. The source of products will move from thrift shops to garage sales. The garage sale season in Grand Forks starts to pick up some steam in May and has pretty much slowed down by the end of September with the majority of the sales taking place in June and August.

The new Challenge will be called The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge. My goal will be to generate $10,000 in net profits for the five month period between May and September with weekly recaps and progress reports throughout that time. The actual goal will be to average $2000 a month from garage sale finds for the five month period of time.

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