Where/How do you store your inventory?

[sin-n-dex]

As I spent the evening trying to deal with the fact I have many things that I don't have time to photograph/list, I got to wondering what everyone else is doing...

Coins/Tokens and like items I keep at the B&M store (since that's who owns them), but they don't take up much space. I have a 4 foot wide shelving unit 6 feet high to put my items on. The rule in the store is that if I have no place to put it, I can't list it. They're on to something here.

At home, that's a different story... I have many boxes of comics in my living room. My front hall space has been shrunken to 2 feet wide because of the shelving unit that has all the new in package toys I acquired (not mint, the owner did not store them properly). Not a fire hazard, my front hall only leads from the foyer to the closet under the stairs. I have bins in the basement of things I'm saving for later (action figures, model trains). And a bedroom that's 7x7' large with shelving and cabinets storing all my craft, jewelery making, and sewing stuff for the product I sell on another site. I have a book case with all my reference books too (comic guide, coin guides, stamp catalogues). There's also an entire shelving unit with old technology (stuff that was used 10 years ago, but in great demand in Poland and Russia right now).

But not enough time to list all this... I work 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, and live 50 miles from where I work, so my spare time is spent driving to and from work. I do try to get in one hour every day, but my one hour is often spent packing items, printing packing slips and doing the various steps in my process to transport items to New York for posting (from Canada).

Cheers, C.

[18704d]

Your basement doesn't sound very big?

I'd think it could hold everything you need to eBay...

(plus the washer and dryer and furnace and sufficient walking space, etc.

?

Thanks

Lynn

[sin-n-dex]

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@18704d wrote:

Your basement doesn't sound very big?

I'd think it could hold everything you need to eBay...

(plus the washer and dryer and furnace and sufficient walking space, etc.

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Houses with dry basements sell for half a million dollars where I live (near Toronto, Canada)... I paid less than 200K, and I have a crumbling foundation. Mortgage is the same as a one bedroom apartment rental here.

So it's limited to bins where moisture can't seep in, and it's in a room with a dehumidifier to keep them in half decent shape. They weren't great when I got them, so I don't imagine the storage will change things much.

The majority of my basement is wet floor... as for washer and dryer, I don't have those.

Cheers, C.

So that's why I keep everything upstairs.

[18704d]

Yes, I remember.....

Midwest US here, we all have basements for tornados.

Lynn

[yuzuha]

The stuff that I currently have listed/plan to list soon is in a closet in the (finished) basement.  The rest of it is out in my storage unit, which I share with my dad so we split the cost on it.  Basically, if it isn't listed and I don't have any plans of listing it soon, it stays out there so as not to take up space in the house.

[duchess-at-speakeasy]

I scored 2 storage units in the laundry room; one is the water shut-off for the building so now the manager supplies the lock. Stores about 20 banana boxes plus 2 folding tables and has shelving and space underneath for boxes of personal storage. The second unit is much smaller but holds 5 bins of carded magazine ads, show shelving and miscellaneous stuff.

In my apartment....don't ask!

~~C~~

[sin-n-dex]

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@18704d wrote:

Yes, I remember.....

Midwest US here, we all have basements for tornados.

Lynn

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We have tornados here too. A few years ago one ripped through a town near buy and cost my company many millions in damages to pay out on repairs. (One building sustained 5 million in damages). Our tornados aren't as serious here though, most of the time.

In Southern Ontario we have tons and tons of flooding. Toronto got three feet of rain one afternoon, flooded the city so badly that everyone was stranded, including the commuter trains along the lake.

I wish I lived in the mid west... I bet I could afford to buy a house there. I can only afford my house because I bought it before the big real estate hike (which happened after they put commuter trains to my city... people here commute for 4 hours a day by train to work in downtown Toronto.

Cheers, C.

[theposhmermaids]

I hope people will answer this!!!!

Since my divorce, I had to downsize from a 3500 sf home to a 800 sf apartment.  My ebay stuff is piled everywhere.  I'm living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome).  I'm currently selling almost everything I own not only to make ends meet, but also to not live like an episode of hoarders. 

Once all of this is gone, I'm going to try to specialize in things that don't take up as much room, I still haven't figured out what, yet.

I hope someone will reply with an idea of how to organize things so I can actually find them when they sell! 

[sin-n-dex]

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@theposhmermaids wrote:

I hope people will answer this!!!!

Since my divorce, I had to downsize from a 3500 sf home to a 800 sf apartment.  My ebay stuff is piled everywhere.  I'm living in CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome).  I'm currently selling almost everything I own not only to make ends meet, but also to not live like an episode of hoarders. 

Once all of this is gone, I'm going to try to specialize in things that don't take up as much room, I still haven't figured out what, yet.

I hope someone will reply with an idea of how to organize things so I can actually find them when they sell! 

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That's going to depend on what it is you sell. If you have big bulky things that don't move, find a local venue. Since I have coins/tokens mostly (and B&M space) that's really great, but I find a lot of my other stuff takes up a lot of the house. My living room area is significantly cluttered with stuff (that's where it all goes before it's put away some place). You can buy shelving units to store smaller things.

Alternatively, you could rent a storage locker. Not sure on the cost where you are, but here it's 20-40 dollars a week. I thought of investing in one, but since I'm struggling a bit too much most of the time, I don't want to have additional expenses that aren't being paid with sales of those types of items.

Cheers, C.

[18704d]

I'm a firm believer in the 80/20 business rule:

20% of one's total inventory, contain 80% of your total profits.

It will take 20% of your time and energy to sell them.

It will take 80% of your Time and Energy, to make the remaining 20% profit.. from the rest.

Keep the best 1/5 of the highest profit stuff.

Dump the rest.  (sell to other resellers at break-even.. or whatever you can get)

At one time, I had on two 1 Foot paths through the majority of my basement, and then my home.

Never again.

Best of luck,

Lynn

[sam9876]

I keep my inventory in about a 700 square foot area that is part of my garage.

[yuzuha]

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@theposhmermaids wrote:

I hope someone will reply with an idea of how to organize things so I can actually find them when they sell! 

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Storage boxes with numbers.  Each box has a list taped to the front of what's inside it.  When something sells, I pull it and then cross it off the list.

[mr_lincoln]

@sin-n-dex  We have "X" cubic space availabe for inventory so the key here is two things:

1. Sell through rate - need to keep things selling on a regular basis and replaced with about the same number of listings that sell.

2. Local box lot auctions - after items go so long without selling we box them up and take them to a local auction house that does NOT charge for disposal in the event of a no bid on the auction block.

These two things combined helps to control the amount of "stuff" that might otherwise take over our home.

[theposhmermaids]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

@sin-n-dex  We have "X" cubic space availabe for inventory so the key here is two things:

1. Sell through rate - need to keep things selling on a regular basis and replaced with about the same number of listings that sell.

2. Local box lot auctions - after items go so long without selling we box them up and take them to a local auction house that does NOT charge for disposal in the event of a no bid on the auction block.

These two things combined helps to control the amount of "stuff" that might otherwise take over our home.

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What a great idea! I never thought of this!

[ymeagainlord]

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@theposhmermaids wrote:

I hope someone will reply with an idea of how to organize things so I can actually find them when they sell! 

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Spreadsheets.Storage unit (the space you gain is worth the cost).

That said, I still occasionally have to do a lost widget hunt when I've forgotten to update my spreadsheets when I move stuff around (ussually to find space to stash what I've just listed). Also trying (for the most part) to keep like items together helps as well.