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After watching this video, in which the sellers were very positive about eBay and stress several times that this is not an eBay-bashing video, I wondered what folks would do if eBay shut them down the same way?
Quick recap: this is a British couple who have been selling on eBay for over 20 years. eBay restricted their account, from the sounds of it due to Mangled Payments, and it impacted them strongly. They posted an open letter/video to eBay.
They said they’re not giving up on eBay, but this has made them very worried. Do you have a back up plan?
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Amatino, Thanks for sharing that video. I have a few furniture pieces in my garage that I either am working on updating, or need to. I am finding that I am enjoying the process. I also believe that there is money to be made there. All the furniture I have, I either found in the alley or at a thrift store. As I type this, there is a nice parsons chair in the alley that my neighbor threw out and I so want to take it and re-upholster it. I just have not taken it because I have enough projects-one being a queen sized platform bed that I am planning and will be starting tomorrow. This is what I would replace my ebay income with. I would sell up cycled furniture. I would not put them on ebay, I would sell locally. Keep the profits and keep it moving 😀
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Yeah, this seemed to be a big worry among eBay sellers about a decade ago. One reason why we bought some rental property. Instead of keep investing in eBay as the only source, we diversified. Now we can also serve coffee if the rental business and eBay fall through.
I worry about the people who only sell on Amazon. I hear many more stories of Amazon squeezing them out or shutting down their store.
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Curious Curator, great side hustle! I too considered furniture and even upcycled a couple pieces. I got well paid! However, in my rural area there is too small of a market, so I would either have to pay to have it trucked somewhere, or take a booth in a Mall or something. It’s a fun field, though!
LOL, Jay, I thought about you two and your diversification as I was writing the post! I think that is the key, here. Multiple income streams wherever possible! Then if one fails, you still have another as back up. That being said, how many folks have the time to develop multiple platforms? Or the space for multiple businesses? I have to admit that my current four businesses keeps me super busy! (Okay, one is my husband’s, but I do all the admin and marketing and customer interaction and – well, everything except the actual mechanical work!) I have to consciously and deliberately schedule time for eBay. And housework.
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Curious Curator I have dabbled in restoring furniture also. Where do you end up selling your stuff? I haven’t had much success with CL or FB marketplace. Everyone seems to want everything for cheap.
Anyway, I am looking to retire this December and will have more time for Ebay! However, my main plan is to follow my life’s dream and become a certified riding instructor, professional horse trainer. I am only 55 so I figure I have some good active years left. I am really curious to see what kind of income I can generate with the horses.
– Liz Catmom
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catmom, I have not sold furniture since before the pandemic. I do not have a FaceBook page. In the past, I have used Craigslist with great success. My only caveat is, with Craigslist, I have found that buyers will wait to meet you and then throw in, “Would you take $____” rather than the initial agreed upon price. It has been years since I’ve posted any sales on Craigslist though, but only because when I peruse CL to see what is selling, I see a lot of junk, and I want to sell nice, refinished pieces, or nice unfinished pieces, depending on what skills are required to finish the piece(s) or how much time I want to spend on them. The last time I posted furniture was on OfferUp and that was good for me. People seem to be more serious about buying and I’ve learned to ask about 20-25% more in the original post, to get the price I want.
About 3 years ago, a cousin was visiting from Florida, and she called me from the alley near her moms house. Someone had thrown out a beautiful hand carved hope chest. I could not believe someone threw it out. She sat on it till I got there (about 20 minutes). It was hilarious! We laughed about it. I wound up selling on OfferUp for $150. Looking back, I could have gotten more, but I was really in need of money and just needed the space in my garage. I probably could have doubled the price. It was truly a nice piece. My plan is to post my items in OfferUp this summer and monitor my sales closely to see what kind of margins are there.
I have a lot of “furniture” stories. For some reason, I have a lot of tables and chairs and enjoy buying/selling them. I hope to get some things taken care of this year, and hope to next year have a more aggressive plan for time management to buy/refinish/sell furniture.
Does anyone have a “furniture” story they would like to share? I would love to hear it.
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Oh, go on then! 🙂 My friend was a university professor. When she retired she took with her a piece of junk which (I think) is called a specimen chest. Anyway, it was about 4 foot tall and had lots of drawers, and it was a wreck, with a rough piece of wood nailed on as a top and missing drawer pulls and paint splurges etc.
After sitting in her garage for a number of years she decided to get rid of it; I offered to take it to a local auction house. We expected to maybe get £10 (12 USD) for it. Sold for £140!
Encouraged by that, I picked up an Ercol chair from a charity warehouse for £20, thinking “Yeah, Ercol! They sell for hundreds”. Took it to the auction house, and noticed that someone else had brought in an identical chair, except in pale beech- mine was stained dark. Theirs went for £80, mine went for £10, so I made a loss after fees of £15. Damn- blonde beats brunette every time!
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I love Nic and Andrea ( the British couple from the video) and follow them religiously. After watching the follow up video posted today(?) the Ebay support person indicated that the issue with their store was caused by an auction of a rare video game that they had put up and people bid up on the listing super high, like $65,000 I think. So they had called Ebay while the auction was still going and Ebay told them it was fine to end the auction. But when they did, their account was suspended.
As far as other streams of income, Nic and Andrea also have an Etsy store (Andrea has one and now Nic has opened one). They are very active on YouTube and make some income that way.
Curious Curator, I met someone who scavenged and refinished furniture and did pretty well selling it on Facebook Marketplace. I still see her listings, and she asks for pretty good prices.
One thing that came out of the call to Nic and Andrea was that the Ebay rep said that only people who go against Ebay’s rules multiple times would actually lose their account.
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declutter978, I follow a local instagrammer who sells furniture which they refinish, among other household items. They have a brick and mortar and post every week, if not every day. They have had to close their store due to low stock because they cannot keep furniture in their store! I have been refinishing my own furniture for my own use, but I have had friends ask me to do theirs. I have never taken them up on it, but only because I don’t like to do things “your way”, I like to do things “my way”! By that I mean, in the past, I have gotten people who make too many demands on my time, or want the impossible (for my capabilities). Rather than waste my time like that (or theirs) I would like to refinish furniture I find-if you like it-you buy it. If you do not like it, someone else will buy it. Win, win!
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