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Check out the completed Ellwood Bowls with Nutcrackers. They are a cool thing to list all year round, but especially at the holidays.
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Trash to Cash. A podcast about making a living on eBay.
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Check out the completed Ellwood Bowls with Nutcrackers. They are a cool thing to list all year round, but especially at the holidays.
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Even though we didn’t list much, we had a good week. Our sales felt like the holiday season. Other than packing sold items, we were busy running around taking care of a bunch of other tasks on our house project. It’s a week like this that reminds us why we like having a a big inventory so sales keep coming.
It also reminds us that our success with eBay has come because we remember that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Instead of being angry we aren’t selling more, we’re grateful when we make the money we need to pay our bills + a little extra. This buys our freedom. The steadiness gives us peace. The slow pace keeps it all manageable. Perfect for us. We hope you’re finding the right pace as you run your store and hopefully pursue other projects (or raise a family!)
In this episode, we mentioned the following links:
Our Store Week December 6-12, 2015
———-Bonanza: 0 ———-
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One of our highest selling items this week was a pair of Vintage King Sheets. Check out completed listings to see how much they go for, even used! They are a great find if you see them.
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Some nice high dollar sales this last week. Check out completed Vintage Stanley Roberts flatware sets. A great find if you see them.
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Does it matter what I sell on eBay? How do I make the most money? How can I quit my job and live the good life? All common questions. The answer is not always so easy.
It’s obviously smart to sell items that are easy and cheap to find. When we started selling on eBay, we sold clothes. Lots and lots and lots of clothes. We had a couple thrift shops where we could buy clothes by the bagful for pennies on the dollar. It was a lot of work, but we also had a very low investment so could afford to make mistakes and still make money.
As we evolved as online sellers, we definitely felt the stress of “always be listing” in order to make a decent income. It started to feel like a job we didn’t like. As one smart listener said, we created a sweatshop for ourselves. We were finding items to sell for cheap, but we were also not making much profit on each item.
Plus, it felt boring. We knew what each day would be like. No surprises. If we’re bored, we don’t work as hard. If we don’t work as hard, don’t list as much. If we don’t list as much, we don’t make money. If we don’t make money, we have to start searching for a job where we work for someone else who tells us what to do.
This is why we began focusing on selling items that we enjoyed scavenging, researching, AND listing. In a country with so much excess and waste, why not treat it like an actual Treasure Hunt? We began digging and searching and having fun finding weird items that most people overlooked. We enjoyed learning about the history and use of these items. And we realized that many of these items would often make us a higher profit margin. But in the end, the most important thing is that we enjoyed what we did.
So does it matter what you sell on eBay? Yes and no. Everything sells. It’s relatively easy to be a successful online seller for short periods of time. The key is finding a way to make sure you enjoy the process day in and day out. Month after month. Year after year.
Our Store Week November 22-28, 2015
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Bonanza: $20 (Dr. Pepper hat)
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Check out the completed listings for the wacky Christmas Electric Fireplace. An amazing sale, which technically happened on Bonanza. So they should really get the credit!
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After noticing the gorgeous pieces of furniture that could be cheaply purchased at auctions and yard sales, we started an ongoing experiment with selling furniture on eBay. I guess most buyers don’t want the hassle of hauling furniture home? It’s perfect for us since we’re always trying to find the items that no one wants but can be sold for huge profits. For example, we paid $80 for two pieces of furniture and recently sold them for almost $1000.
The issue with selling furniture on eBay is storage and shipping. We have plenty of storage so that’s not a problem. We use “Local Pickup” on our listings since we don’t want to deal with preparing pieces for freight. We also list shipping companies that will give buyers free shipping estimates. It’s better for us if the buyer directly works out their own shipping if they choose to not pick it up themselves.
For the most part, we’ve had good luck. Buyers are willing to drive up to 9 hours ONE WAY to pick up unique furniture. People are nice. We make them pay by Paypal before they come so there’s no fumbling or last minute negotiations. Then we “mark as shipped” on eBay. You read the about strange nightmares online about buyers picking up items and then telling eBay they never did. We only make money. 99.9999999999% of people are going to be normal and nice.
But these past two furniture pieces we sold only because we offered to deliver them ourselves. Why? Because we didn’t want to lose the sales. So we spent Saturday and Sunday driving all day to the South and then North of our state. Wouldn’t recommend this delivery service regularly, but we had fun scavenging along the way. It was just another adventure.
These are the links we discussed in this podcast:
Our Store Week November 15-21, 2015
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Bonanza: $320
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Gotta love the Stihl chainsaw trucker hat sale. They go for at least $40-50, people love them!
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Check out completed listings of Antique Gold Filled Glasses. Nice thing to keep an eye out for!
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Another quiet-ish week for us on eBay. We haven’t seen the holiday sales yet (Hope they come!) But things are still selling and we’re listing as fast as we can.
Many Americans are obedient consumers always buying new things whether they need them or not. But even as Scavengers, we can get into the habit of constantly acquiring more stuff. We may never pay retail, but there’s always more to bring home. We remind ourselves to use what we have and sell anything we don’t need. It’s a lesson that has done well for us so far…especially when sales are slow and money needs to be saved.
This week we talked about the following links:
–eBay is starting the new Performance standards in February which will do away with Defects. But now there’s a new things called “Late Shipment Rate“. Obviously eBay expects tracking to be uploaded within your handling time. However now eBay will ask the customer if they received the item within the estimated delivery date. If not, that’s a “ding” against you. Hopefully it won’t cause issues because of slow post office issues.
–If you use Go Daddy Bookkeeping, I’ve finding the Profit/Loss page very helpful. If you’re logged into your account, that page will let you compare your sales from different months. Helps give us an better perspective on our sales at different times of the year.
Our Store Week November 1-7, 2015
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