FAQ

🧠 The Logic & Verdicts

Q: How does the app decide if an item is "Junk" or a "Gem"? 

A: Unlike other apps that just show you a price, Junk or Gem calculates your Real Net Profit first. We take the market value, subtract eBay fees (which you can customize), and subtract your "Buy Cost." Based on that final profit number, we assign a verdict:

💎 GEM (Blue): You will make a high profit (over $40). Buy immediately.

🟢 GOOD BUY (Green): You will make a solid profit (over $15). Reliable inventory.

🟠 FAIR (Orange): You will make money, but margins are thin (between your minimum and $15) OR the market is flooded with competition.

🔴 JUNK (Red): You will either lose money or the profit is below your personal "Minimum Profit" setting.

Q: What does "Market Flooded" mean? 

A: Sometimes an item has a high price, but nobody is buying it because there are too many for sale. If our system sees more than 5,000 active listings for an item, we automatically downgrade the verdict to FAIR, even if the price is high. This protects you from buying inventory that will sit on your shelf for months.

Q: Why did an item show as "Junk" even though it sells for $20? 

A: This usually happens for two reasons:

Fees & Cost: After subtracting eBay fees and your store cost, the net profit might be very low.

Your Thresholds: Check your Settings. If you set your "Minimum Profit" to $15, the app will mark a $10 profit item as JUNK because you told it you don't want to waste time on smaller flips.

💰 Cost & Calculations

Q: How does the "My Cost" box work? 

A: This is your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)—the price the store is charging you for the item.

The "Sticky" Feature: The app assumes you are scanning a batch of items with similar pricing. If you type $1.99 into the box, the app applies that cost to every single item you scan afterwards until you manually change it.

Why? This allows you to blitz through a "$2 DVD Bin" or a "$5 Clothing Rack" without having to stop and re-type the price for every scan.

Q: What about shipping costs? 

A: The app profit calculation assumes "Buyer Pays Shipping" (which is standard for most resellers). The profit shown is based on the item price alone.

Pro Tip: If you plan to offer "Free Shipping" on your listings, we recommend increasing your "eBay Fee Estimate" in Settings (e.g., to 20-25%) to account for that extra cost coming out of your pocket.

Q: Why is the default fee set to 13%? 

A: This is the current industry standard average for eBay final value fees across most categories. However, we know everyone's business model is different. If you use Promoted Listings or have an eBay Store subscription, you can easily adjust this percentage in the Settings menu to match your exact costs.

📊 Pricing & Data Accuracy

Q: Why do I see different prices here than I see on the eBay app? 

A: The eBay app often shows you every listing, including crazy outliers (like a sticker for $0.99 or a dreamer asking $1,000 for a $20 item). Junk or Gem uses Median Math. We look at the entire market and find the exact middle price. This strips out the outliers to give you a realistic, conservative estimate of what you can actually sell it for. We strive to err on the side of cautious estimates.

Q: Are these prices based on Sold Listings or Active Listings? 

A: Our valuation engine is based on Active Listings.

The Reason: Sold history is not readily available to small developers via eBay’s API, and scraping this data violates eBay’s terms. Thus, we use active listings as a metric to tell you who your competition is right now. 

The Ethics: Many apps illegally "scrape" sold data, which not only makes them slow and unreliable, but also violates eBay’s usage terms. We use the official eBay API for stability.

The Verify Button: We believe in transparency. Every scan has a "Verify Sold Prices" button that instantly takes you to eBay’s official sold records so you can confirm the sold price data yourself in a manner that is within eBay’s terms of use.

Q: Why don't you show the Sell-Through Rate (STR)?

A: We deliberately chose stability and ethicality over speculation.

The Technical Truth: To calculate an accurate Sell-Through Rate, an app needs to know exactly how many items didn't sell. eBay's official API does not provide this "Unsold" data reliably.

The "Scraper" Problem: Apps that promise Sell-Through Rates are often using "scraper bots" to aggressively harvest data from eBay's website without permission. This violates eBay's Terms of Service and is the #1 reason those apps crash, get blocked, or run slowly.

Our Solution: Instead of guessing at a Sell-Through Rate, we use Flood Detection. We monitor the Active Market Supply. If there are 5,000+ active listings for an item, we know the supply is too high, and we flag the item as FAIR to warn you.

Bottom Line: We prioritize building a tool that is fast, legal, and won't get banned by eBay in the middle of your sourcing trip.

Q: Why don't you support Amazon, Poshmark, or other marketplaces? 

A: There are a few reasons. One is that these marketplaces aren’t very apt to share their API access with small app developers. We focus on the used/thrift market. Amazon is largely a marketplace for new commodities (UPCs). eBay is the undisputed king of the secondary market (games, clothing, toys, books). If you are sourcing from thrift stores or garage sales, eBay data is often king. If other platforms become more open to sharing API access to small developers, future releases of Junk or Gem will likely integrate them.

🛠️ Features & Usage

Q: How does the "Bulk Mode Negotiation Assistant” work? 

A: Bulk Mode Negotiation Assistant is designed for garage sales or other scenarios where you might buy multiple items at once or entire collections.

Switch the toggle to Bulk.

Scan every item in the box/pile.

Tap "View Items & Profit."

The app shows you two numbers: your Total Projected Profit (Green) and a Max Offer (Blue).

Use the "Max Offer" number to make a cash offer to the seller, knowing you have locked in your margin.

Q: What if I scan an item but decide not to buy it? Can I remove it from my Bulk Cart? 

A: Yes. When you tap "View Cart & Profit," you will see a list of everything you scanned. Each item has a checkbox. Simply uncheck the items you want to leave behind. The app will instantly update your Total Profit and Max Offer numbers to reflect only the items you are actually buying.

Q: Is there a limit to how many items I can scan in Bulk Mode? 

A: There is no hard limit—you can scan hundreds of items if you want! However, for the best performance and organization, we recommend keeping your "batches" to around 50–100 items (basically one shopping cart at a time). This keeps your summary screen easy to read and review.

Q: Can I change the settings? 

A: Yes! Go to the Settings icon in the top right. You can adjust:

eBay Fee Estimate: (Default is 13%, but you can adjust for promoted listings).

Min Profit Threshold: Tell the app the minimum dollar amount you need to make to justify a purchase.

Max Offer %: Adjust how aggressive your buying offers should be in Bulk Mode.

🔍 Troubleshooting

Q: The app says "No active listings found," but I see items on the eBay app. Why? 

A: We use Smart Filtering to try and provide the most relevant data for a reseller, rather than just raw search results. By default, we filter out items listed as "For Parts/Not Working" and extremely low-priced listings (under $2) to keep the profit calculations clean. While this protects you from bad data most of the time, it does mean that occasionally a valid item might "slip through the cracks" if it doesn't fit those strict criteria. We prioritize accuracy over noise, but like any professional scouting tool, using strict filters is a trade-off that can sometimes exclude a specific listing.

Q: Does the app work offline? 

A: No. Because we pull live market data directly from eBay’s servers to give you the most up-to-the-minute pricing, you need an active internet connection (Wi-Fi or Cellular) to scan or search.

Q: Does the app differentiate between New and Used items? 

A: Yes! There is a toggle on the main screen for "Used" vs. "New."

Why this matters: A sealed video game might be worth $100, while the used copy is worth $20. Make sure you have the correct toggle selected to get the accurate market value for the condition you are holding.

Q: Does the app work for international eBay sites (UK, Canada, Australia)? 

A: Currently, Junk or Gem is optimized for the US Market (eBay.com). While it may pull up listings for international items, the pricing, shipping assumptions, and currency are calculated based on US data.

🔒 Privacy & Tech

Q: Do you track or sell my scanning data? 

A: Absolutely not. We do not require an account, we do not track your GPS location, and we do not see what you are scanning. All the "secret sauce" calculations happen right on your phone. Your finds are your business.

Q: I have a feature request or found a bug! 

A: We love feedback. Since this tool is built by flippers for flippers, your input directly shapes the next update. Please contact us at www.junkorgem.app.