What are realistic sell-through rates by platform for resold yard-sale finds?

eBay clears roughly 60% of well-listed inventory in 90 days at full ask, climbing to 75-85% once you accept best-offers and price drops. Etsy is slower at about 40% in 90 days but holds margin better because the buyer is searching for the exact category. Facebook Marketplace clears about 80% in 7 days but is strictly local, capped by your metro area population, and trends to lower-ticket items ($20-200). Mercari sits around 50% in 90 days with lower fees than eBay but a smaller buyer pool — best for clothing, small electronics, and toys. A picker running all four channels in parallel turns roughly 70% of total weekly inventory inside 60 days.

How do I keep an 8-minute-per-sale time budget on a Saturday loop?

Walk the perimeter first, not the tables. 30 seconds tells you whether this sale has your categories. If yes, hit your two highest-margin zones (jewelry, glassware, tool bench, book shelves — whatever your specialty is) before browsing general. Lookups happen on the move: phone in hand, eBay sold-listings shortcut on the homescreen, scan the item while walking to the next pile. Decide-buy-pay in under 8 minutes inside and 4 minutes back to the car (including loading). The pickers who lose Saturdays are the ones who let one chatty seller eat 25 minutes — the math falls apart fast when a 10-sale loop becomes a 6-sale loop.

What is the buy-floor formula for a picker on a thin-margin route?

For items destined for eBay/Etsy/Mercari, buy at no more than 33% of the proven sold-comp resale price. After 13.25% eBay final-value fees, payment processing, shipping cost variance, and a 15-20% no-sale rate, 33% in nets roughly 45-55% margin on the items that do sell. For items destined for Facebook Marketplace or local cash flips, buy at no more than 50% of comp — the fee structure is lighter (free listings, no shipping) but the turn window is shorter and pricing tops out lower. If the math says “maybe” on a $30 item, walk. There are 9 more sales on the route.

When does it make sense to negotiate a price down versus walk away?

Negotiate when you can buy in volume (5+ items in one transaction) or when the marked price is 50-70% of comp — you are inside the margin band but want to widen it. Walk when the marked price is 80%+ of comp; the seller is anchored to retail and a 10% discount still leaves the math broken. The classic ask is “would you take $X for these together?” with a pile in your hand — pile discounts run 15-25% on a willing seller. Never haggle on $1-2 items; the time cost eats the discount.

Mobile Picker Arbitrage Guide

Written by Jack Westover, Yardy founder

Running 8-12 yard and estate sales per Saturday morning, sourcing inventory on thin margins, and the math behind a sustainable mobile-picker route — treat your truck as a small business, not a hobby.

The picker's economic unit: cost per item × turn rate

A picker route isn't valued in "great finds" — it's valued in gross margin per hour on the truck. The unit you optimize is cost per item multiplied by how fast that item rotates back into cash. A $4 buy that sells for $32 on eBay in 21 days is a better picker unit than a $40 buy that sells for $180 in 9 months, even though the second one looks like a bigger win. The math: $28 net into a 21-day cycle = a 17x annualized turn on the dollar. The $40 buy with $140 net in 9 months is a 4.6x turn. A weekend picker with a $500 working bankroll only wins if that capital is moving 12-15 times a year. Pick for turn, not for trophies.

Sell-through math: eBay vs Etsy vs Facebook Marketplace vs Mercari

eBay — ~60% sell-through in 90 days at full ask, 75-85% with offers accepted. Fees: 13.25% final value + ~2.9% payment processing. Best for collectibles, hand tools, vintage glass, signed jewelry, anything with a sold-comp history. Shipping cost: $5-18 for small items, $25-80 for mid-size, freight for furniture.
Etsy — ~40% in 90 days, slower but margin-rich. Fees: 6.5% transaction + 3% + $0.25 payment + $0.20 listing. Best for vintage decor, textiles, advertising, ephemera, mid-century smalls. Buyers search by category, not brand, so listings need strong keyword density.
Facebook Marketplace — ~80% in 7 days, local cash only (or Facebook's shipping for sub-$200 items at 5%). Best for furniture, tools, appliances, anything heavy or low-value. Local buyer pool caps the ceiling: $20-200 sweet spot.
Mercari — ~50% in 90 days. Fees: 10% + 2.9% + $0.50 = ~13.5% all-in. Best for clothing, sneakers, small electronics, modern toys. Lower buyer count than eBay but lower friction.

The picker who runs only one channel leaves 30-40% of weekly inventory aging in the garage. The picker who lists every item on the right channel within 72 hours of buying it turns the bankroll 12-15 times a year instead of 4-6.

Time budget: 8 minutes inside, 4 minutes between

A 10-sale Saturday loop running 7 AM to 11 AM has 240 minutes. Subtract 30 minutes for gas, coffee, and traffic. That leaves 210 minutes across 10 sales — 21 minutes per sale, of which 8-12 are inside browsing and 4-6 are drive-and-load between sales. Lose the budget and you lose two sales off the back of the route — the two that opened latest, which is usually where the lowest-competition picking lives. Discipline: 30-second perimeter walk on entry, two highest-margin zones, lookups while moving, exit decision before 8 minutes. If the sale is dense (estate company with three rooms of inventory), commit a second pass and skip the next sale on the list. Don't try to do both — half-picking two dense sales nets less than fully picking one.

Category multipliers: where the markup actually lives

Not all categories have the same buy-to-resale multiple. A picker who knows the multipliers cold can do the math in 5 seconds at the table:

Signed costume jewelry (Trifari, Weiss, Coro, Eisenberg): 5-15x. Buy $3, sell $25-45.
Sterling silver flatware: 1.5-2x scrap floor protects you. Pattern sets sell at 2-3x scrap.
Vintage Pyrex with intact pattern: 8-20x. Buy $2-4, sell $30-80.
Vintage hand tools (Stanley, Disston, Starrett, Lufkin): 6-12x. Buy $3-5, sell $30-60.
Cast iron Griswold/Wagner: 10-30x. Buy $5-10, sell $80-200.
Vintage clothing (1960s-1990s with brand): 5-10x on Mercari/Depop.
Mid-century furniture with maker label: 3-6x but heavy capital tied up. Best for Facebook Marketplace local flips, not eBay freight.
Pre-1970 hardcover books with dust jacket: 4-10x on the keepers, 0x on the rest. The dust jacket is the value.
Sealed/working vintage electronics (McIntosh, Marantz, Pioneer SX, early game consoles): 5-15x.

Low-multiplier categories that look tempting but don't pay: post-1990 dishware, modern CDs and DVDs, mass-market paperbacks, exercise equipment, generic 1990s oak bedroom furniture, Beanie Babies. The multiplier is 1-2x at best and the freight/time cost eats it.

Capital recycling: how often a $500 bankroll rotates

A picker with $500 of working capital is not a $500/month operator — they're a $500 × turn-count operator. The math: $500 bankroll spent on a typical Saturday with 33%-of-comp buy discipline becomes roughly $1,500 of listed inventory at full ask. With a blended sell-through of 65% across channels and a 45-day average turn window, the same $500 cycles back to cash 7-8 times a year — meaning the picker is gross-margining $4,000-5,000 a year off a $500 working float, before any reinvestment. Reinvest the gross margin into a bigger float and the operation compounds. The pickers who plateau are the ones who let inventory age past 90 days without a price drop or channel switch; aged inventory locks up the bankroll and kills turn rate.

The Yardy Friday-night planning workflow

The Saturday route is built Friday night, not Saturday morning. Open Yardy's map view, filter to a radius you'll actually drive (15-25 miles for a tight loop, 40 for a destination Saturday), and sort by start time so the 7 AM sales stack at the front of the route and the 9 AM sales at the back. Cross-reference listing keywords ("sterling," "tools," "vintage," "estate") against your category specialties before committing. Saved-search alerts catch Wednesday/Thursday postings before competing pickers refresh EstateSales.net on Saturday morning — a 48-hour route-planning head start that pays for itself the first time you find an unlisted Pyrex shelf at the third stop. Open the map →

Negotiation: when to ask, when to walk

Negotiation is a margin tool, not a hobby. Ask in three situations: (1) you're buying 5+ items in one transaction — "would you take $X for the pile?" nets 15-25% off; (2) the item is priced at 50-70% of sold comp and you want to widen margin to comfortable; (3) the sale is in its final hour and the seller is visibly motivated to clear inventory. Don't ask on $1-2 items — the time cost beats the discount. Don't ask on an item priced at 80%+ of comp — the seller is anchored to retail, a 10% discount leaves the math broken, and you're burning the relationship for the next sale this company runs. Walk away clean instead. The polite walk-away keeps you welcome at the next 20 sales this seller hosts; the haggle that turns into a debate gets you remembered for the wrong reason.

Inventory aging and the 90-day rule

Every item gets a 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day decision. At 30 days unsold on eBay/Etsy, run a 10% price drop or accept any open best-offer above your 33%-of-comp floor. At 60 days, drop another 15% and cross-list to a second channel (eBay → Mercari, Etsy → eBay). At 90 days, the item moves to Facebook Marketplace at clearance pricing — anything that recovers cost-plus-fees is a win because the bankroll is now free to recycle. The picker who treats every item as "hold for full ask forever" ends up with a garage full of 18-month-old listings and a frozen $500 bankroll. Aged inventory is the silent killer of the picker business — the operators who do this professionally treat the 90-day rule as non-negotiable.

Find this Saturday's sales

Yardy aggregates 23 sources across SC, GA, NC, FL, TN, VA, and AL — free, no signup required to browse, no paywall on the map. Build a 10-sale loop Friday night, sort by start time, and walk in with the math already done. Browse this weekend's sales →

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Estate sale reseller guide
Weekend yard sale route planner
Flea market haggling rules
Yard sale pricing guide