My mother and I visited the local Treasure Hunt store in Raleigh to see what was available. We went on a Wednesday, the $1 day before they restocked the bins. We got some interesting items, mostly arts and crafts stuff.

I picked up a DeWalt Carbon Fiber Hammer Tacker-Stapler, it was in rough shape but I think it still works. I also got a MeshForce WiFi Extender. The little light comes on when you plug it in so I think it works.

Both items were scuffed up a bit, but I think I’ll be able to sell them.

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We went back to the store on Friday to see the new items priced at $12 each.

The store was packed with people. We arrived around 11 AM and noticed a few electronic items I was interested in but decided not to take any chances.

All of these items are product returns and only some of the boxes say whether the contents were defective or broken.

I found a great deal though in the clothing bins. Apparel items were all $8 on Friday and I picked up 13 men’s Levi’s shirts for $104 total. The listed MSRP on the shirts was $68.50 and clearance stickers were marking most of them down up to 70%.

The tags all say 2024, so these shirts were all recently released. I checked Levi’s website and I can see that they are still listed at around $45 on a discount.

They came in good sizes ranging from 2XL all the way up to 4XLT. I’ve listed them on eBay at $34.95 each. I am hoping they will get picked up as we roll through Q4.

Unfortunately, one of the shirts was missing the tag and another one had an ink tag still attached to it. I need a strong magnet to remove it without setting off the ink bomb.

Other strategies included burning them off, but I think that risks damaging the fabric. I’ll set those two aside for later.

I’ve had 8 buyers this last week with gross sales of $145 and a net return of $47.03 after fees and cost of goods. My experiment with disabling promoted listings last month was a big failure.

So, I am now always enabling promotions on my listings. It’s not worth trying to go without to save some money. I’ll have to bring down my costs by either sticking to the $2 bins at the Goodwill or by focusing on only selling New With Tag items that I can charge higher prices for.

I am lucky in that the local Goodwill shops do not individually price items on the rack. All shirts and pants have a set price and everything in the bins is two bucks. Sweaters and coats get higher prices, but not a whole lot more unless it is a big heavy ski jacket or something similar.

I’ll see if I can get my spreadsheet uploaded in the coming weeks to give a bit more transparency on how much I am earning and spending with this venture.

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