Hello From New York

[crazycorey280]

Hello My name is Steve From NY. I’m just getting started with eBay!!! super excited to see what type of “fun” Money I can make from this experiment. Not looking for a full time job, but some vacation money. Can’t wait to hear some good ideas for items I should be on the look out for.

Any Advise is welcomed!!!

thanks and take care,

Steve

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Well Steve the answer to this question is right at your finger tips. I did this about 4 or years ago and got a great list of things to look for [BOLO]. It also will give you what the approx. selling price is and also you can work backwards from that and decide about what you should pay for it, depending on what type of gross profit margins you are looking for.

This is what I did and what I encourage you to do.
First either take a piece of paper or create a simple spread sheet.
Next start with the recent what sold videos here on SL or look at each weeks posting of the members store data.
Next write down each item that each member reports that they sold and what they sold it for. In the posts you will see the highest priced item sold for that week and what it sold for.
Now write those down on your list or in your spread sheet.
Repeat this for one year, just like I did. After doing that I had a list of over 1,000 items that sold and what they sold for.

Now J&R have made this task very simple because they have everything organized so well, you can start with this weeks podcast and work backwards. I bet in about a few days you will have a huge list also along with what they sell for. Now just divide that what sold for number by whatever profit margin you would like and that will give you an approx. price of what you should be paying.

Example if you see a stack of a certain type of flatware or knives listed and they sold for $80 and you would like to make at least 5 times your investment, then $80 / 5 = 16. So if you see anything that is the same item then you should pay $16 or less. And of course “less” is better.

So I have just given you a method for creating a 1,000 item list of what you should be on the lookout for. All you have to do is put in the hours to do the research to build your list.

After we built a list of over 1,000 we used to carry a print out of the SS with us, but we have it memorized now and don’t need it. And of course you will get many new items in each weeks podcast.

Bonus Tip: When you create your list and you start to find duplicates of the same item sold, which we did find, then just add that sold price to the first one you had and average the two SOLD PRICES to get and avg.

So put in the hours and due diligence and you have the worlds best BOLO list right here at SL at your finger tips. 🙂

Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta

[Jay]

Agree with Mike. Just get started. Buy stuff you think is interesting. research it. List it. Repeat.

That process will make you as good as anyone on here.

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Yep.. Example at an auction Friday night. We did a preview earlier in the afternoon and while digging around saw an original case with Eldan marked on it. Open the case up and it was a double layered box of which only the top layer had content in it. Guess what, because of SL and creating our BOLO list and remembering, it contained 44 pcs [partial set] of Eldan Stainless “Canoe Muffin” pattern of spoons, forks and specialty pcs. Won the auction as a second bidder at $7.50 and estimate the chest will go for around $5 a pc. x 42 ++ = $200 plus dollars. We also did the same for some Disney character drawer pulls. Box of 20 pulls of Winnie the Pooh that will list at $10 each=$200 and got the whole box for $5.00.

It is things that you learn like this from just going back and reading through what everybody has sold over the past several years and you will build your mental BOLO list.
On Sat. we sat through another auction, higher end stuff, we had 17 items on our Want to Buy List and got out bid on all but one. But these were items that all would sell for hundreds of dollars but it had my cut off point because of what I knew I wanted to be my profit spread. We did get an Antique Victorian, Silver and glass pickle jar. Never been mentioned on SL but our databases all showed them have sold for $300-$350 dollars at about a 67% sell through ratio. We got it for $80. Smaller Margin Percentage wise than we usually get but higher dollar item so $80 will get us about $220 gross +/-. That’s all we got out of the 17 item list and it took 5 hours of sitting there. I swear, they had those special chairs that after 9:00 they automatically double in hardness. LOL..:-)

So see, as Jay says, you just have to start, use your head and work at it. This is a job, just like anything else and it’s your business. I easily work at this 50 to 60 hours a week. But I do when I want, where I want, do it in my pajamas if I want, but you still have to put in your “quality time”.

You will find and hear on SL, over and over, what should I buy, where do I buy it, what should I pay for it, what should I charge for it, how do I clean it, how should I store it, even what is it. And the answers are at your finger tips, most of the time, but you have to create lists, bookmark places and answers, archive articles, research other places other than Ebay Solds. I use Ebay almost as my last pricing source, but we do pay for outside databases that give me tons more data, so that is a cost of running a business. One especially for real antiques for the higher dollar items.

Good luck and hope to see your numbers posted someday and maybe I will include your “highest item Sold and selling price in my spread sheet database.

mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta

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