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Total Items in Store: 176
Items Listed: 14
Items Sold: 9
Total Sales: $142.50
Highest Price Sold: $35 Hagen Renaker Bug Band Cricket with Viol
As I expected all the Hagen Renaker figurines I am listing are selling very quickly. I really need to dig in the storeroom and find the box of HR’s I packed away years ago before I was selling so regularly. Halloween is still selling strong as are baseball hats. I purchased very little this week – I have too much inventory build up over the summer when I was slacking on listing, gotta prioritize ‘shopping’ my store room, prices are cheaper than elsewhere! (^;
I did want to share my annoying mistake as a parable of keeping organized and detail-oriented. I listed a lot of 8 plastic toy cars (all by one brand) with one extra unmarked car as a bonus (just in case it was something special). I then made the first mistake of just dumping the cars in a box with other small items I had listed. Item sold, second mistake was just browsing the listing title of 8 toy cars, finding 8 cars and shipping. Buyer was very nice and emailed because of course the 1 that slipped to the bottom of the box was one of the branded ones he was actually interested in. I paid for my lack of detail with paying for some extra shipping to get that car to the buyer. Moral of the story, be sure to bag/box/tie together everything listed in one lot and double check when packing that everything in the photos is included!
Total Items in Store: 150
Items Listed: 10
Items Sold: 8
Total Sales: $113.25
Highest Price Sold: $25 Hagen Renaker Pottery Siamese Cat
Wow, this end and relist thing is working like a charm! Of the 8 items I sold this week 6 were old stock that I had done the manual end/relist to recently. I continue to try to do 4-5 a day, hope to keep the momentum going! Thanks to the commenter last week reminding me there is an auto-decline feature for offers, I always use the auto-accept, but never even thought about the reverse. Hope it isn’t a trend to get a bunch of lowball offers, but I will likely start adding this to my listings for the future.
A tidbit of information for those who might be interested – Hagen Renaker Pottery will be closing for good this year. It has been in business since the 1940’s, family run and all produced in California. Primarily they make small animal figures, but started in functional pottery (plates, bowls and the like). You used to be able to find them in nice card stores and touristy places on little rotating display shelves. The actual pieces are usually unmarked, but they usually came with either a paper label on the side or belly, or on a paper card. I have seen an uptick of interest in buyers for HR figurines new and old, and also driving interest in small animal figurines in general as the word of the closing gets out. There is a business that bought the most well-made of the molds (horses mostly) and will be continuing to produce those but very small numbers and exclusive releases. If you have any pottery animal figurines in your old stock, now is the time to list or polish up your old listings. There are several good reference sites out there for identification, or feel free to message me – my eBay seller name is the same as my forum name.
Total Items in Store: 133
Items Listed: 10
Items Sold: 10
Total Sales: $174.50
Highest Price Sold: $50 Breyer Special Run Grane Model Horse
Glad to see my sales are improving. I listed my goal of 10 new items, and have started ending and relisting about 5 items every day. It seems to be stimulating sales of old and new stuff – several items sold this week I originally listed at least a year ago. I am still leery of ending items, I sure thought I used to see a message that eBay could penalize sellers for ending too many items, so I always was picky about ending listings.
I have gotten a ton of really silly-low offers on my items with best offer enabled recently. Like something listed for $20 will get an offer of $1 or something for $50 will get an offer of $5. I always counter, usually about half way between listing and offer, and never hear back. I haven’t paid attention to the person making the offer to see if they are high feedback likely resellers fishing for deals or newbies. It gets old to see I have a bunch of offers only to click through and see them all ridiculous numbers.
Did a bit of shopping at yard sales, but they were all total duds. Prices way too high and sellers unwilling to come down. Baseball caps continue to be a staple selling item for me so I watch for them, but even those were priced high. Luckily the storeroom is full of stuff to keep working!
Thanks for the info @craig-rex – Learn something new every day!
@lukastreasuretrove – as a collector and member of several specialty FB groups myself I love to help others learn about rarities, even resellers. One motivation is to get these rarities into collections and keep them out of the trash. I have saved, or helped others save many cool items that people were going to throw away or give to a kid to play with. I don’t mind at all if the person I give information to then lists it, most of the time I’d like a link to the auction to see who it goes to (or bid on it!). I cheer when others find good stuff – it isn’t just good for them making money reselling the item, but good for the hobby to have those items in collections. In my opinion we need more active collectors in our hobbies or they dry up (Avon, much of California Pottery), and we need great finds to drive enthusiasm for older collectors to keep them interested.It is an interesting time we live in – I think more knowledge is being lost than gained sometimes. Many of the old hobby-run web pages are disappearing into the ether, books are out of vogue (although they keep knowledge available much longer than the average web page), and the sheer volume of non-information is drowning the real great sites to 10+ pages down the search. I understand many collectors now are mainly curators of decorations (can’t count the number of times I see someone with a killer piece displayed that knows nothing about it other than it looks cool), and it frustrates me that this can ripple down the collecting hobby so newbies get taken advantage of since they not only don’t know what is real, they cant’t even find out how to determine new/old, vintage/reproduction. I am rambling now, so I need to go get the kids off my lawn dagnabit!
Total Items in Store: 146
Items Listed: 12
Items Sold: 5
Total Sales: $71.50
Highest Price Sold: $19.50 vintage Goodyear keychain measuring tape
I am getting back in the swing of listing, even if sales aren’t back to where I would like. My only gripe this week was for TWO items eBay charged the seller less than it cost me to ship. Dimensions and weight were correct in the listing, both were listed recently, and I don’t think there was a rate increase this week so I am just plain grumpy. Luckily I have been right on the mark with my estimates recently so no losses due to my own cluelessness.
Not sure how to tag someone – but for Lucastreasuretrove – there is a FB group called We Love Vintage Cookbooks (two actually – one for information, one for buying and selling), might be a good place to join especially if you have a bunch of unexceptional books that you wouldn’t want to list on eBay.
Finally, I do envy all the scavengers living on the east coast. Every single free shipping item I sell has gone to an east coast/midwest state this month, and even for my FB Marketplace listings all interested buyers are out there. I sold some large fragile pottery to Minnesota and was so happy to find a buyer that understands the weight/size/distance cost to ship. Usually I get a grumpy ‘you charge too much for shipping’ message like I do it on purpose. Not sure where all the west coast buyers are lately, hope they start shopping soon!
Total Items in Store: 135
Items Listed: 9
Items Sold: 6
Total Sales: $89.50
Highest Price Sold: $39 Mr. Peanut gold metal tray
Wow, I am catching up on my favorite site and just read the big news. I am sad and glad to hear about the changes – I will miss the podcasts, but glad to read all the success stories and also glad the forums will stay. I get so much information here from fellow scavengers. I have been dealing with a case of the blahs and come here to find inspiration to get back in the reselling game. My storeroom wont empty itself, and even the annoyance of trying to get good photos doesn’t outweigh the enjoyment of making cash and keeping good stuff out of the dumpsters.
Halloween is selling well, and I need to get a leg up to get Christmas stuff out and listed. I will also try out the end and relist tip to see if that can move some of my older listings. I have been active listing stuff to Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace with mixed results. Sold some stuff I wasn’t expecting, but some of the good stuff hasn’t even had tire kickers. I was hoping to get some furniture moved out to make room for processing boxes and organizing but no such luck. So weird that my mid-mod retro lamps and furnishings are languishing while selling scrap metal and posters.
Thanks Jay and Ryanne and all my fellow scavengers for keeping it fun and interesting!
Total Items in Store: 156
Items Sold: 2
Total Sales: $23.10
Highest Price Sold: $12 9 Dolly’s Hosiery cardboard stocking forms
Kinda embarrassed to post my numbers this week, it is glaringly obvious I haven’t listed in far too long. I need to get back to business but will be gone next week taking care of family stuff. I plan to take a bunch of pictures and make up drafts or just have the listings go live next week so I don’t end up with much of anything selling while I am gone. Also need to see if I can change my handling time to longer since I don’t have an eBay store.
On the bright side I did make money at my yard sale this weekend. Didn’t sell the larger furniture I was hoping to, but I did clear out some space in the garage. I have been keeping records for about 5 years now and it seems my fall sales always lag the spring sales. I have been having 1-2 yard sales a year for a very long time and that was my feeling, but looking over the notes I kept it is obvious any sale after June nets about 50% the April/May sales. Live and learn, and my next sale will be in the spring! Craigslist and FB ads have had no finalized sales, I might just take them down and relist the stuff in another form closer to fall.
Thank you for your help! All the similar ones I found were listed in the thousands, but I figured sold would be quite a bit less.
Total Items in Store: 156
Items Sold: 3
Total Sales: $94.50
Highest Price Sold: $75 Melody Pena (Windstone figurines) The Wizard print
I am pretty bummed, nothing on Craigslist or Facebook sold last week – not even any inquiries! I did do listings with multiple items and little description so I might go back and relist the individual items, we will see. I do need to explore Facebook Marketplace sales with shipping; I am a bit leery of that platform, so will likely try the smaller less expensive stuff first. If I have to ship anyway I might as well do eBay with better seller protections. This week I will be having a yard sale with lots of stuff that college students might need – vacuums, furniture, microwaves, office supplies and the like. I will still do my best to start listing on eBay again, 2 weeks with no listings is impacting my sales I am sure. Lots to do, so I will get at it!
Total Items in Store: 160
Items Sold: 7
Total Sales: $67
Highest Price Sold: $13 Death Train VHS
Looking at my July summary I believe sales were low not due to general malaise but the fact I have been coasting for a while. I still list, but more casually and I am certainly not working to improve my sales. I only had one big sale last month, my average price sold was $19. Lots of odds and ends, some older stuff and I am happy that the baseball hats are selling steadily. The auction experiment was a failure, all sold but for minimum bid with only one bidder. I made money, but would have likely made more if I listed fixed price and let it sit for the right buyer. Glad I discovered this site or I might not have made the change in strategy to mostly buy it now listings.
This month I am more focused on Craigslist and FB as we start to have lots of big special events (most outdoors) that draw visitors, so hope to hit some buyers coming into town with stuff they might be looking for. Hot August Nights starts this week so I am pulling out big lamps, suitcases and vintage stuff participants might like that I’d prefer not to ship. I also will do a yard sale the week college students move in with more furniture and things that they might need for a first apartment/dorm. Will see how that goes.
Total Items in Store: 170
Items Sold: 5
Total Sales: $75.50
Highest Price Sold: 2 Taylor & Ng naughty rabbit mugs
Slow sales but I listed a bunch so hope to see a bump in sales in a bit. Almost everything I bought last week sold, so I must have had them priced well. I was happy! I did a few auctions recently with disappointing results, only half the items sold and only for minimum bid. I am glad I found this website with the emphasis on buy it now instead of auctions. I was old-fashioned and only thought that was for the new stuff.
Did some light sourcing and found a cache of old halloween Beistle decorations in a box under a table in the corner of a basement at an estate sale. Those can go for big money – mine aren’t in mint condition but the market is super-hot so they should still fetch good prices (especially since I spent $5 for a huge bag full). That is one area I almost always put items at auction, the prices really can take me by surprise. Just check out vintage halloween sold prices, tiny bridge tallys and greeting cards sell for amazing money. The only hard part is several of the decorations are very large and will require a specialized box to keep them flat and unbent. I am thinking wood dowel rods to hold them from being bent in shipping.
Snaffle bit for a horse – also called eggbutt snaffle, or single joint snaffle. Looks newer, just left out too long.
Similar to the other responders – it varies. If I see something I KNOW is great I will get there early (just drove 2 hours and arrived at the sale an hour early for a great buy). Otherwise I have come to dislike the scrim and elbows so I tend to arrive later in the day. I have been avoiding most yard sales lately, don’t need the inventory and too much work and time for the buck, I prefer estate sales. They sell everything, not just the chosen items people put out for yard sales.
My best new habit is checking sales early in the week, those that open Wed-Thu-Fri are great for fewer buyers and good stuff. Also creating a list of the estate companies in my area to track their business policies. If they hold prices firm or price every item individually they fall down the priority list, those that make things free or crazy cheap on the last day always get me to come by twice!
Total Items in Store: 159
Items Sold: 7
Total Sales: $150.15
Highest Price Sold: $45 Breyer unpainted Clydesdale Foal
Seemed like a super-slow week, but looking at the numbers it was low but decent. I did just discover a new gripe with eBay – noticed they charge a fee on sales tax! That is a super-bummer since I had never really put it in my thought process for pricing items. It ends up quite pricey for some sales! I understand the rationale for charging a fee on shipping, and the discount makes up some of that, but the sales tax fee is a lose-lose for me. I also had an odd occurrence about a week ago, my listing eligible to send offers went from 25 to 2 overnight. I don’t get a lot of sales that way, but some, and usually higher priced items so I was pretty unhappy. Then every day it increased by 1-2, so I am now up to 9 items, many of which were there before but disappeared. Dunno if it is a programming glitch or what, but I am keeping an eye on it.
I am slowing my scavenging, but went out on Saturday running errands and had to stop at the thrift store I passed. Found nice stuff, of course! Taylor and Ng naughty rabbit mugs, a rarer Lefton Teapot, a baggie of neat old toy cars, and an awesome mid-mod pink and gold bowl. I did spend time sorting old paperwork which is frustrating until you find something fun. I keep all receipts, but don’t have a good organization system, so I am working to rectify that. This week my focus will be on reorganizing the storer room – it gets out of hand quickly!
Mom and I did the entire length a few years ago. My impression was most sellers do this year after year and are either picked over or high priced. There are pockets of multi-seller lots which is where YouTubers go, but they are much farther apart than they seem. Most action is Fri-Sat-Sun since that is when people are off work, mid-week is pros only (selling and buying, so fewer sales and deals). It is classic mid-west yard sale so pull over, hike across a ditch and big yard, check out yard sale, return and repeat – all day long. No or few restrooms, no or few places to buy food or drink so bring your own, and no or few places to stay on the sale route. Big dealers (furniture and yard art) did well and went home. I personally wont do it again, it has been going so long there are very few finds for the work to get to them.
My yard sale pack has lots of drinks and snacks, a magnifying glass, battery for my phone, kleenex, writing tablet, socks, and boxes, bags and wrapping.
Hope this helps!
