With the close of last Sunday’s auctions The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge is officially over.

During the last week of The Challenge, there were nineteen garage sale items listed on eBay. Of these, only nine sold for a rather disappointing sell through rate of 47%. These nine items sold for $213.01.

As I stated in The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge - Updated a few days ago, there are still a few garage sale items sitting around that will be listed over the next few weeks. Also, many of the items that didn’t sell have been moved to my eBay store. Some of these items will eventually sell but it will take some time and the additional revenue will not significantly affect the overall results of the Challenge.

Here’s how things look after the final week.

In the end, I fell about $2000 short of the goal of $10,000 that I’d set for myself in the five months between May and September. Was The Challenge a success? Not if you look at it from the standpoint of did I, or did I not, reach the goal I’d set. But, there are some lessons that can be taken from this five-month long process and tomorrow we will look at some of them.

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Week seventeen of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge ended Monday evening with twenty-three of the twenty-nine items listed selling fora total of $1099.86. The sell-through rate was 79%.

Garage sales in Grand Forks come to a near standstill over three day weekends such as Labor Day weekend. Rather than stay in town for three or four new sales on Saturday I chose to take a break from garage sales and spent the morning at a flea market and the afternoon digging through a few antique shops.

That means only twenty five of the thirty-seven items listed on eBay this week qualify as Challenge items.

After week seventeen, here’s how the $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge is progressing.

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During the month of August a total of 86 Garage Sale eBay Challenge items sold. Here are the top ten items along with what they brought and some thoughts on each of them. Since there were three items that sold for the same final price all three will be shown, making a total of eleven this month.

1. A nice Reuge music box - I paid $4.00 for this and it sold for $204.52.

Music boxes of various shapes and sizes show up frequently at garage sales and quality examples by established manufacturers are always worth picking up if the price is right. Many of the Swiss manufacturers such as Reuge and Thorens will regularly bring into the three figures and there are plenty of others that will approach that figure. Hint: look for wood boxes that are either inlaid or have distinctive grain.

2. Hand painted Royal Bayreuth bowl - I paid $.15 for this and it sold for $152.50.

This was one of the items I purchased at the Manvel city-wide garage sale. Royal Bayreuth isn’t all that rare, and many pieces don’t bring this kind of prices. What this one had going for it was that it had animals on it and most of it’s inside surface was covered by the design. Many pieces have much smaller designs.

The wide variety of colors in the painting doesn’t hurt it’s desirability either.

3. Old Zenith long range wooden table top radio - I paid $1.00 for this and it sold for $133.55.

This was one of several old wooden radios and related items I found at one sale. They were priced at $2.00 each/or make an offer. I offered the lady $5.00 for everything and she accepted. So far, I’ve listed three of them. All three sold, but this was the only one that came near three figures. The other two sold in the $20 to $30 range. You can make money with these if you can buy them cheap enough, but before going on a buying spree, keep in mind that many of the wood radios from this era were good sized, and finding a box to safely ship them in can be a headache unless you are ready to spend some money at the local UPS store. They aren’t cheap.

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Week sixteen of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge ended Sunday evening with thirty-four of the fifty-three items listed selling fora total of $856.46. The sell-through rate was 65%.

Similar to last week, the sell-through rate for re-listed items was 45% this week.

Last week I did some of my garage saling in a different area. I had a family function in Duluth, MN on Saturday, so I drove to Duluth late Friday afternoon and spent a couple of hours going to a few garage sales in Duluth Saturday morning.

There certainly didn’t seem to be any shortage of sales but I didn’t make it to that many because I was pretty much flying blind as far as knowing what streets were where and every sale required time spent with a map I had figuring out how to get to the next sale on my list.

I concentrated on what was an older, more affluent, area of the city hoping to snag something really good. It didn’t happen, but I did pick up a few things that don’t often show up back in Grand Forks.

After sixteen weeks of the Challenge, here’s how things look:

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Week fifteen of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge ended Sunday evening with eighteen of the thirty-three listed items selling for a sell through rate of only 55%. Total sales were $356.60.

Of the eleven items that were re-listed from previous weeks, five sold for a re-list sell through rate of 45%. These five items were part of the twenty new items listed the previous week, and when combined with the eleven that sold the first week, the sell through rate for the twenty items works out to 80%.

Since an 80% to 90% overall sell through rate is about what I would expect from items purchased at garage sales, the reason why the Challenge is lagging behind where it should be to reach my goal of $10,000 isn’t that the items I’m buying aren’t doing well as much as it is that there just aren’t the number of sales this year that there have been in last year.

Here’s how things look after fifteen weeks.

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Week fourteen of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge ended Sunday evening with twelve of the twenty-two listed items selling for a sell through rate of only 55%. Total sales were $379.57.

Actually, only eleven items sold via the auction format. After the auction ended, the winner of the book ‘Across The Wheatgrass’ wrote and asked if he could also buy ‘Your Neighbor’s Story’, which hadn’t sold, for the opening bid of $9.99. Since the sale was the result of the auction listing, I’ve included it in the total sales for the week.

Similar to the last few weeks, the number of garage sales this last week remained low for this time of year compared to previous years. As a result, while there are thirty-three Challenge items currently on eBay, only twenty-two of them are fresh items, with the remaining eleven being re-lists.

Here’s how things look after fourteen weeks.

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The thirteenth week of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge is now history with the auctions that ended on Sunday evening. There were thirty-three Challenge items listed and twenty-three of them sold for a total of $740.75. The sell-through rate was 70%.

Similar to the last three or four weeks, the number of garage sales this week was way down. In previous years Fridays and Saturdays during July and August would each have thirty-five to forty-five new garage sales. Often there would be as many as sixty or seventy. That definitely isn’t the norm for this year.

Originally, I thought the decline in the number of sales was largely a result of the higher-than-normal temperatures and humidity we had for several weeks. However, the last two weeks our weather has returned to normal for this time of year and this hasn’t brought the increase in sales I would have expected.

As it looks right now, unless the number of garage sales increases dramatically, or I stumble upon three or four items that individually bring $400 to $600 profits, my $10,000 goal for the Challenge looks to be in danger. I would estimate that, right now, I’m running approximately $1500 to $2000 behind where I thought I would be. With seven weeks left, I guess we will have to wait and see what happens.

After twelve weeks of sales, here is how things look to date.

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During the month of July one-hundred-nine Garage Sale Challenge items sold on eBay. Here’s a list of the top ten items along with some thoughts on each.

1. A lot of 13 Rich Dad Poor Dad books - I paid $20 for these and they sold for $172.50. I’ve already commented on this series of books in Rich Dad Poor Dad On eBay. Even smaller lots of six or seven books from this series often will bring $50 to $70 on eBay. The fanatical interest in them isn’t really surprising given America’s thirst for almost anything in the “make money” and “self-improvement” genre.

Following The Trail Of Bread Crumbs from this auction can alert you to many other items you may run across at garage sales that are worthwhile picking up. For starters, there are many real estate investment courses and self-improvement audio books/courses in the DVD or CD format that will do very well.

2. Lighted Smoking Stand - I paid $25 for this and it sold for $130.50. These don’t normally appear at garage sales, but if you should run across one for $25 or less that is complete and in good condition they are worth picking up. If you should run across one with either an airplane or a boat/ship on the top, grab it and run.

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The twelfth week of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge is now history with the auctions that ended on Sunday evening. There were thirty-two Challenge items listed and twenty-six of them sold for a total of $531.80. The sell-through rate was 81%. Four of the eight items that were re-listed sold, which I thought was pretty good.

Once again, the number of garage sales this week was way down. On Friday, there were only eighteen sales in Grand Forks. This is way down from previous years when there would have been at least forty or fifty fresh sales on a Friday in July. Historically, Saturday would have seen similar numbers, but this week Saturday produced only 23 new sales.

Several of the items currently on eBay came from the city-wide sale held in Manvel. If it wasn’t for those items, things would be even worse this week.

After twelve weeks here’s how things look:

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The eleventh week of The $10,000 Garage Sale eBay Challenge is now history with the auctions that ended on Sunday evening. There were eighteen Challenge items listed and thirteen of them sold for a total of $608.69. The sell-through rate was 72%.

This last week, once again, there were nowhere near as many sales as one would expect this time of year. Our wet weather from two weeks ago changed into, what for us, is a heatwave with temps in the mid to upper nineties most days. I’m guessing the people who didn’t want to get wet two weeks ago, didn’t want to sit out in the heat last week. It will be interesting to see how many there are this week because it sounds as though temperatures will be about the same for the rest of this week.

Similar to the previous week, last Saturday provided one garage sale where I purchased a large number of books for either $.25 or $.50 each that all went on Amazon. My total investment was $22.50 and the books were listed on Amazon for a total of $1237.83 with several listed at more than $100. A few have already sold
for a total of just a few cents under $475. Apparently I should have included Amazon when I began the Challenge.

Here’s how things look after the eleventh week is completed.

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