Sale of the week April 9-15, 2023

I run auctions at the end of every month. Since I get the free listings with my store subscription I figure may as well use ’em. In March, I didn’t run the auctions until Friday the 31st, and I chose a 10 day auction because I wanted the auctions to end on a Monday and not a Friday. So most of my sales last week were from auctions which ended on Monday, April 10th.

This was my best batch of auction results, so I’m going to run a 10 day auction ending on a Monday this month, and see if the good sales vibes continue. If you haven’t tried auctions recently, you should know that all listing extras are basically free now. Schedule start time used to be $0.10, now it’s free. 10 day auctions are free. Adding a best offer option is free. With a store subscription, you get x number of free listings in certain categories (collectibles, antiques, clothing among others).

I usually set my minimum bid at about half of my buy it now price and accept offers starting five bucks above my minimum bid. 2 or 3 of the items will sell to a buyer who made an offer. About 10% of the listings sell through bids (slightly higher rate this past month) and the rest go back into my store inventory as buy it now/best offer. Occasionally a few of these “new” relisted items sell over the course of the week. All of this takes just a few minutes with the bulk editor. It’s always surprising to see items sell when they have been stagnant in my store for months, sometimes years. Maybe they would have sold anyway, but I really think some eBay buyers just buy at auctions or they only check eBay once or twice a week and sort by new.

This week I sold an autographed basketball for $39 which had been in my inventory for over two years without receiving a single offer and a Georgetown Hoyas media guide for $99 signed by Spike Lee (the director) and Georgetown’s longtime coach and one of their best players. It was my third crack at sending the autographed basketball to auction and my second with the media guide. Who knows why they sold this month instead of last month or the month before.

My favorite sales from the week were pure scavenging. Flat rate box #1 and Flat rate box #2 full of used, empty plastic trading card cases. I buy and sell hundreds of cards every week, and I make an extra $50 or so every few weeks by separating the scratched up or dirty cases (trash) from the cases which look new or close to new as I organize my real inventory (the cards). I fill up a flat rate box and click sell similar. Even card cases are expensive in 2023 (almost twice the prices pre-pandemic!), so my buyer always gets a nice deal to protect their cards compared to retail prices.

What did you sell this week?