Search This Blog

Monday, August 8, 2016

August Is Off to A Slow Start and An Amazing Surprise

July and August would appear to be slow months, with sales so far being just under $350 this month. Most of this has been repeat business. Out of curiosity I compared the sales for the first week of this month with the first week of August last year and found that it is $100 lower this week. However, last year we had a single sale for $192 that skewed the total. In terms of sales volume, we are doing better, with 26 items sold last week, compared to just 16 this week last year.

We are gearing up for the wedding now, which is just under two months away, so I expect that this will cut moderately into the time we have to devote to blog writing and listings. We had our preliminary meeting with the bank last week and are now waiting to hear back from them as to arranging a meeting for Steph and I to explain the ins and outs of the business to them. We have also explored several other lending options and found that there are several different options open to us. So I am fairly confident that we can find something that works for us.

We have decided after working on the Nigeria inventory to revive the blog for this area and I am toying with the idea of listing some of the material from Lagos, just to see what the response is from collectors, as it would be nice to increase the cash flow, and I have a hunch that this material will perform better than Canada, especially if a deep offering is made that contains lots of the scarcer items and it is all properly described.

Over the weekend on Saturday night a got a call from my ex, which totally stunned me. It seems that she has been on her own journey and is finally ready to take responsibility for her part in the events that lead to the demise of that marriage. I am attending her graduation from the program that she has been enrolled in, so I am cautiously optimistic that she has found something valuable for her. We'll see.


6 comments:

  1. A straight-off comparison of this year to last isn't all that realistic, is it? - given that your listings now have to be at least double (perhaps triple??) what they were in mid-2015.

    Curious to know what the alternative financing sources are.

    How do you pay rent and eat when your GROSS income is ~$1,500 a month? Net income is somewhat less than that. Not to mention a graduation gift for the ex, the upcoming wedding, potential moving costs....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Perhaps not. I had thought about that.

    The alternatives include self-employment mortgages, and asset based business loans.

    We are living on savings at the moment, as I had saved enough money to last for 2 years. After that the company owes us money so we can withdraw the accumulated sales for the next two years until all of our inventory is listed, which will take another two years or so to list.

    By then, sales should be well over $12,000 per month. Our gross income right now is not $1,500 per month. It has been slow for one month, but is usually $3,500-$4,000 now and that is just with just 20% of the inventory listed. There is a cost of sales, but it is no longer a cash cost and will not be for a very long time - until I start replenishing inventory.

    The actual cash overhead costs are actually less than $1,000 per month, so net income right now is really about $2,500 to $3,000 per month, which isn't that bad and is more than enough to live on in New Brunswick. Just not here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Graduation gift for the ex? Surely you jest. Believe me, my agreement to attend a 5 hour event which includes a 2-3 hour high pressure sales pitch is a gift enough in itself, believe me.

      Delete
  3. what kid of graduation comes with a sales pitch? The ones that I have been to just include long, perhaps boring, speeches.

    ReplyDelete
  4. sounds like a scam...... waste of $$$$

    ReplyDelete