Just Because It Sells Eventually Doesn’t Mean It Was Worth Listing
I bought this lot of five fishing lures at a garage sale for $8.
At the time, that probably felt like a reasonable gamble. Five older lures for a few bucks each is exactly the kind of small purchase that seems harmless.
The problem is what happened next.
I listed the lot on January 4, 2019 and it did not sell until May 27, 2025.
That is roughly 6 years and 5 months of waiting for a sale that, after all the costs are considered, actually turned into a loss.
A Little History on the Lures
The listing described the lot as five lures, including one T.D. Pencil Popper and four unmarked lures, approximately five inches long.
The identified lure appears to be from Daiwa’s older Team Daiwa / T.D. hard-bait line. Daiwa was actively building its Team Daiwa identity in the late 1980s and 1990s, and the company sold a range of premium hard baits under the T.D. name. Daiwa’s current history material specifically traces the Team Daiwa era back to that period, while fishing publications also remember the late-1990s T.D. hard-bait lineup as premium Japanese lures that included pencil-style topwater baits.
Pencil-style lures are generally topwater baits, designed to work across the surface rather than dive deeply. Daiwa still describes modern pencil and popper designs around surface action such as side-to-side “dog walking,” splashing, and popping.
The other four lures were unmarked, so I left them unidentified rather than guessing at the manufacturer.
The Sale
Item: Lot of 5 fishing lures
Purchase price: $8.00
Total paid by buyer: $17.68
Sales tax collected by eBay: $0.75
eBay transaction fees: $2.65
Shipping label: $5.62
Order earnings: $8.66
Listed: January 4, 2019
Sold: May 27, 2025
Time to sell: About 6 years and 5 months
At first glance, $8.66 in order earnings against an $8 purchase price looks like a tiny $0.66 profit.
But I also allocate part of my monthly eBay Store fee to each active listing in my own accounting.
I currently estimate that at about $0.07 per item per month. It is not a literal fee that eBay charged me specifically for this listing, and the actual amount is probably a little lower. I use it as a way to estimate whether each listing is contributing enough to justify its place in the store.
Over roughly 77 months, that adds about $5.39 in allocated store overhead.
That changes the picture considerably.
Order earnings: $8.66
Original purchase cost: $8.00
Estimated allocated store cost: $5.39
Estimated fully loaded result: -$4.73
That is before considering packaging materials or the time involved in buying, photographing, listing, storing, packing, and shipping the item.
What I Learned From This Fishing Lure Lot
This sale proved something, but probably not what I wanted it to prove.
Yes, almost anything may eventually find the right buyer if you are willing to wait long enough.
But eventually selling does not automatically make something good inventory.
I tied up a listing for more than six years to generate essentially no gross margin before overhead and an estimated loss after allocating part of my store expense.
That is exactly the kind of transaction I want to avoid now.
Long-tail inventory can still make sense when there is enough potential profit on the other end. A small collectible that could eventually produce $30, $50, or $100 may be worth allowing to sit if it takes almost no storage space.
Waiting six years to make a few cents before overhead is different.
The Bigger Lesson
One of the easiest traps in reselling is focusing only on whether something will sell.
A better question is:
Is the expected profit worth the listing slot, storage space, and time required to wait for the buyer?
If I saw this same $8 vintage fishing lure lot at a garage sale today, I would pass unless I had a much stronger reason to believe there was significantly more value in it.
That is part of the benefit of keeping records. The old sales tell you what your newer sourcing rules should look like.
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