Steve – If you ever move to business policies, you won’t get that issue with eBay deciding to check the free shipping box.
Last week was pretty poor for me as well, but I did have one sale I wanted to mention:
I don’t like to do commissions, but I do for one family friend. His wife passed away a bit over a year ago, and she used to sew quite a bit. I grouped several partial spools of elastic into one listing, which sold for $29. The buyer said that she was going to make masks for a local hospital. https://www.ebay.com/itm/184092509977
Well my sales have picked up a bit since being in the doldrums since the beginning of 4th quarter 2019. Probably because I have been able to do more listing recently, despite my college junior joining my high school junior at home. Both are online with distance learning at scheduled times to keep them partially busy but try as i might, I can’t seem to get them on a low maintenance schedule. And the high schooler starts spring break Monday. Also busy doing our taxes, research and writing an annual book update due to the editor in a couple weeks, and purging for the upcoming family move. I use Dropbox for my backup and it had some issues lately, too, that took more time to fix than I would have liked but finally resolved.
My better sales are mostly my bread and butter, challenge coins and military items. The collectors are buying. I’m not selling anything that I can attribute to the current situation. Though others have reported an uptick in postcards and ephemera, I’m not getting any activity in those listings.
Here’s a US military M6 Vietnam War rifle bayonet bought for $24 that sold for $110 plus shipping.
I’ve been carrying a large box of my son’s Nerf blasters around for a while and now finally getting them listed. They were almost all cheap yard sale finds or the occasional grandparent birthday gift so there’s little to nothing in them. Most of them don’t bring big money but there’s quite the active trade in them on eBay, I’ve learned. Here’s a particularly fancy one from 2011 that is motorized and has lights that sold for $33, tested working. (The cats love to watch that part.) I’m listing free shipping due to the competition (but not offering returns). I usually only offer free shipping for something that will fit in a flat rate container (or first class package) for predictable overhead. The Nerfs don’t usually fit in a flat rate but I do my best to predict worst case scenario and exclude PR, AK, HI, and APOs.
Here was one of my better recent consignment challenge coin sales at $70 plus shipping. It’s for a 2011 event involving the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, an aircraft carrier.
This antique 100% scratchy wool English farmhouse blanket had stains, moth holes, and old repairs and sold for $55 plus shipping on a best offer. Age indeterminate but based on the Victorian style of the label I listed it pre-1930 which I think was safe. It was $5 at a yard sale. It took about a year to sell.
Another older listed item was this 12”x10” handmade lidded box with inlay design of Lady Justice. I’ve been holding out for a high price for someone looking for that perfect gift for a lawyer or judge so it’s been sitting as I’ve dropped the price periodically. It sold for $150 plus shipping, bought for $15 at a flea market.
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