Thursday, May 12, 2005

Ebay Sales and Random Thoughts

I have another eBay sale ending tomorrow and I'm currently breaking even. This will potentially by my worse eBay transaction (but I should at least break even).
My grand totals for 2005 are as follows (not including the pending transaction):
Total cost: $490
Total revenue: $989
Profit = $499
Return percentage = 101.84%

So far, my worst sale has a return of 33.9% and my best sale had a return of 212.50%
It's all about supply and demand!


Two quick points: I'm going to look further into Aeropostale when I get a chance, since it has been sliding from 34 to 25.75 these pass couple of weeks. I've owned ARO in the past and made a decent return, maybe I'll get another chance to make some more gains.
Today, I came across a good article off the Motley Fool site (you might need registration) about Warren Buffett and the discounted cash flow valuation model (DCF). It involves some math, but it's an important read.

Before I sign off, I had a quick question about Jones Soda (maybe stockdiva can help?). I've been looking at their financials from 1999-2004 and I was stumped at one part. Sales in 2001 was about $23.6 million, while in 2002 sales came in at $18.56 million. I also research the locations where they sell their products and there's a strong correlation between sales and the number of states (and provinces) where they sell.
In 2001 the products were sold in 41 states, while in 2002 they were only selling in 30 states.
Why the big drop-off in the locations where they sold?

Also if anyone would like to comment (or email) on how I can make this blog better. Do you want to see more links, more personal finance stuff, more stock talk? I'm open to all suggestions, thanks!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh, that’s an easy one to answer. Jones actually pulled out of a lot of markets during that time period, particularly many markets on the East Coast. Jones felt like that they were overextending themselves by trying to launch and promote their product in too many NEW markets at one time (i.e. the East Coast, MidWest, etc.). They also had limited funds for marketing and even more limited manpower at that time. You have to remember, during that time, Jones didn’t have any of the huge accounts that they have now like Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, Panera Bread, and Target. They felt that they could be more efficient and effective in growing their business if they streamlined their business strategy. They revamped their strategy to strictly focus on building a stronger customer base in markets that were bringing in the most revenue for the company like the West Coast. They really pushed hard in these markets by relying heavily on grassroots marketing. Yes, grassroots marketing is more time consuming than traditional forms of marketing and its reach isn’t as big but if it’s done well, it can be just as successful as traditional marketing. It is also a lot less costly. By sticking to the new strategy Jones was able to focus on their top markets and its core customers while growing their market share in those regions.

Since then, Jones is slowly moving back into some of the markets they originally had to abandon. They are also entering into a lot of new markets such as the Southeast, which seems to be going well so far. They have mentioned that places like Texas have been challenging. Apparently that area has stranger beverage tastes than some of the other markets that they’ve entered. LOL Hopes this answers your question.