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Total Items in Store: 122
Items Sold: 7
Total Sales: $248.88
Highest Price Sold: $79.88 – Disneyland 1968 park map
Back to a more normal week for me. I am cranky today as eBay changed the shipping page to not include what they buyer paid. It helped me know if I was packed too heavy or needed to adjust something, especially on items I had offered free shipping. I will have to find a new method (again) to not have to go multiple places for information. On a crazy note – I had the BEST buyer ever – I shipped the item NOVEMBER 25 – it arrived to the buyer FEBRUARY 3!?!?! The box was absolutely demolished, crushed in half. Luckily it was a wooden figurine and survived unscathed. The buyer was so patient, wanted the item and was experienced enough not to panic since tracking showed it never left the distribution center. We kept in touch and alternated opening cases with USPS. I have been mostly lucky with good buyers overall, it makes this gig much easier.
Congrats to episode 500 Jay and Ryanne – that is quite the accomplishment. You don’t have to do all this great stuff for us – for free! I had a blog and YouTube channel but they are work to maintain and create content for, and I am not disciplined enough to keep them going regularly. I am happy with my 2020 scavenging efforts, and want to take it up a notch in 2021 – you and all the other scavengers here are an inspiration – than you everyone!
Total Items in Store: 128
Items Sold: 14
Total Sales: 503.48
Highest Price Sold: $95 Hagen Renaker Pottery Arabian Foal
Wow, I knew this week was good, but didn’t know how good until I did the numbers! I worked hard listing and it paid off, posting here helps keep me accountable and motivated. I spent a lot of time in the storeroom this weekend rearranging – to fit some workout equipment in. I’d love a permanent listing spot, but the light in the kitchen is too good and I am too bad at lighting to move it to another spot. On another plus side moving stuff around I found more to list so yay!
As to RetroTreasures work experience, that was exactly what led me to quit my previous job. More work, barely even a thank you and any promotion went to others. That is the corporate world! Work smarter, not harder – get it in writing that your work will be rewarded or leave it to someone else. 30 years in one career left me with good memories with coworkers and boxes of stuff to get rid of. Bah, now I gotta go list stuff to get my spirits back up! Scavengers forever!
I am selling sealed VHS tapes, particularly the horror genre. Trucker snapback caps are perennial quick sellers. I do well the last day of estate sales for cheap prices, not everything goes the first day! Oh, and vintage theme park maps and brochures are popular, I have sold Opryland, Disneyland and Six Flags maps for good money.
I personally avoid costume jewelry as the market is vicious with knowledgeable buyers. If you find good stuff it sells quick, but it is too tedious for me to go through piles to find the good stuff.
I didn’t have any issues I noticed with eBay, but did wonder why I under-estimated everything I sold over the weekend on FB. Now I know, guess I will have to pay more attention to USPS shipping rate change dates! Luckily I only had a few sales, but some were thin-margin anyway so this hit hard.
Total Items in Store: 123
Items Sold: 8
Total Sales: 180.25
Highest Price Sold: $48.75 Breyer Chalky Paso Fino (offer accepted)
Sigh – I had a mess of a week last week. I was taking pictures for eBay on my ipad, but someone suggested using the iphone instead as the camera and in-camera adjustments were better. They may be, but it was a total pain. Evidently iphones no longer take pictures in .jpeg – they use a Super Special Fancy Format that eBay does not accept. So I spent nearly an entire day learning how to reset my phone format and change the format on my already-taken pictures. Since it was my first time with the phone, the pictures needed some editing anyway, and I am still not happy with the quality, but the format challenge put me over the edge. Hope this week is easier, photos are my achilles heel in listing.
I also have a PITA buyer that I hope doesn’t snowball out of control. New buyer, just made the account, bought something then initiated a return a few minutes later as they changed their mind. I can’t process a return on something I haven’t shipped, and none of the options looked correct, so I called eBay. The rep said to ask the buyer to call and cancel the return, then initiate a cancellation. I hold no hope this buyer will hold up their end, and all the responses in the help center that I can find aren’t helpful or offer conflicting information. Well, there is a first time for everything, so once this gets resolved I can check off another seller learning lesson.
Total Items in Store: 121
Items Sold: 7
Total Sales: 193.50
Highest Price Sold: $45 Planet X Pottery desert sunset plate
I echo the previous comments – thank you so much for this website, the podcast and forum! It inspires me and helps me keep working at this crazy venture. So hard to tell people what I do, they think an antique dealer is just old furniture and a picker is what they see on TV. It is nice to read about the real experiences of others working as resellers.
I had an average week, but was totally bummed that my best sale was cancelled because (supposedly) a kid used their parents ebay account. Relist and keep moving. I so wanted to file an unpaid item so they would get a strike, but reading here I know better. Keep it easy and move on! I am behind this week already, don’t need any more grumbling. Off to list some death pile stuff!
Total Items in Store: 119
Items sold: 7
Total Sales: $121.45
Highest Price Sold: $30 Littlest Pet Shop Zoo Baby Tiger in box
I was SO nice to take a break from listing and have items still selling over the holidays. I did notice a steep decline in sales, so I am back to posting here to prod me into getting back into the groove. My experiment in listing items for auction first, then if not sold relisting buy it now with free shipping (only first class items, and after increasing price $5 or so) is working well, over half the items sold this way, and from my notes I ended up with a bit more profit than if they had sold initially. There is the occasional mistake, I really need to weigh stuff BEFORE listing, I get bit a few times a month with having to ship priority because I under estimated.
Hit two amazing sales in the last weeks, sources may get fewer but they are still around. One I picked mainly from their trash pile, filled the car and will be listing and putting stuff in the booth all month. Oil cans from the 1930s, old wooden advertising crates, two sturdy shelves to help me organize, vintage golf shoes, sealed VHS tapes, Playboy magazines and more. I also stumbled onto an auction site I was not familiar with, and for some reason there were few other bidders. I spent a total of $6 on 10 pieces of patio furniture and 10 nice purses. Keep scavenging!
Total items for sale: 132
Number of items sold: 13
Gross sales: 248.50
Average price sold: 19.12
Highest priced item sold: Breyer Percheron horse $41
I came across a box of nice Christmas ornaments I bought for myself years ago and since I have 50-ish boxes of Christmas up in the attic decided to list instead. Good timing – I sold 2 outright and 2 have multiple bids. Went to 2 fun estate sales and spent about $20 on items to sell. I mainly buy items I like – tiki, Disney, animal figurines – because I want to enjoy the selling process. Also spent a day decorating the antique booth for Christmas, hope people are still shopping in person. I mainly put things I don’t want to ship there (too large, heavy or inexpensive). Shipping fragile porcelain and pottery gives me grey hairs and takes forever. I do it, but only for the right price!
I am also thinking about next year. I need to get a label printer, the cut-and-tape method is annoying. Need to organize the packing area as well as put the odds and ends that pile up in boxes. I think if I can put away the clutter I’d have a much easier time with the listing and shipping process. Onward and upward!
Pre-1982 pennies are also valued by people that collect smashed or elongated pennies. The newer pennies smear when put through the machine so you get this unpleasant silver streaking marring the pattern. Earlier pennies look better as they have a more uniform color when squashed. I keep a stash of early pennies for when I go on vacation to get a cheap souvenir. Squashed pennies are also collectible and can be sold – as always the earlier and rarer the better. Some command quite a bit of cash.
Total items for sale: 125
Number of items sold: 13
Gross sales: $622
Average price sold: $47.87
Highest priced item sold: $295 Breyer Connoisseur horse
I worked my tail off last week listing and preparing for my first holiday season reselling and it paid off! I enjoyed checking in on eBay and seeing sales almost every day. It was a challenge for me juggling the listing and shipping and the holidays but worth it. I scavenged in my storeroom and found 2 boxes of nice Christmas decorations so hope people are still shopping as I wont get them listed until tomorrow at the earliest.
I discovered I can’t ship books via media mail that are not listed in the book category. Bummer – I had some books listed in the entertainment category as they were about movies (trying to avoid the extra 3% on the book category) that ended up costing a ton to ship priority as eBay wouldn’t let me ship Media Mail, which was what the buyer paid for. Learn something new every day!
Total items for sale: 120 (listed and sold a bunch!)
Number of items sold: 8
Gross sales: $232.29 (sum of sold prices)
Average price sold: $29.00
Highest priced item sold: $58.50 Zoo Line wood articulated 10″ Giraffe
Very happy to be back to a normal week of sales for me. Experimented a bit with listing lightweight items free shipping and just mark up $5-8, seemed to work as 2 of those items sold BIN. One of them was the Zoo Line giraffe!
For boxes my favorite size is 12x12x6 for shipping model horses. Hey, there is a business idea – selling 12x12x12 boxes! If you are bold or have a friend who works in kidney dialysis, we get TONS of boxes of great sizes every week, and usually have a dumpster full of cardboard boxes for trash. Ask the admin if they would call when they have a shipment – they even get insulated boxes every week. I know I get most of my box supply from work, and depending on the staff we would welcome not tossing them. Mention that you recycle them and the clinic can get credit for their company Village Green initiative (well, one of the companies anyway).
Items for sale: 125
Items sold: 4
Total sales: $120.50
Highest sale: Hallmark Beatles ornament $65
Sales are WAY down for me the last few weeks. The only reason I have had half my sales were accepting offers. Still sticking to my goal of listing 10 items/week. Just keep listing!
I have noticed my auction style sales don’t relist for as long as they used to. It seemed erratic to me, but they usually relisted at least a few times, lately it seems they don’t relist at all. I like the auction style format to start because I can evaluate my price before setting at a fixed price. Now I have to keep track each week of what to relist and for how much. Trials and tribulations…
Off to ship my 2 whole sales for the day. Might stop at a thrift store to scratch the itch since there have been no yard or estate sales to speak of for at least a month (mostly due to weather).
Yay! My first time posting to this thread!
October 25-31
Active Listings: 118
Items Sold: 8
Gross Sales (including shipping): $442.89
Cost of Items Sold: I don’t track this, pulling out of my storage room of doom
Highest Price Sold: $123.50 (Breyer Special Run Arabian Stallion)
Average Price Sold: $45.11
Returns: 0
Sourcing Cost: Nothing this week
This is my first week under managed payments and with the new-to-me dashboard. Love the downloadable report (I was making my own spreadsheets before). Question if someone knows: if the PayPal fee column is empty, and the eBay fee column is more than my usual 10% does that mean they paid through eBay (credit card, I assume)? The new layout is confusing to begin with, it took me forever to find where to start listing now! I do like the adjustable table of items for sale. Some good, some bad, typical of change…
These are made in Japan copies of Beswick horses. The Grazing Shire and Trotting Arab. Not a lot of good ways to search for information – but I have heard the image search in Firefox or Bing beats Google. Beswicks are always marked, most made in Japan are not. The ‘official’ made in Japan like Lefton might have a number/letter marking, or a symbol sometimes or a foil sticker. Both are fairly scarce, the Arab moreso than the Shire. Hope that helps!
Oh my goodness Jay – if you have Hagen Renaker Designers Workshop animals (especially horses) the prices are through the roof! There are a few identification websites – mostly geared towards collectors, they can be hard to use for non-collectors. There is almost no way to identify what brand if not marked, other than asking a collector! Value is a combination of rarity, condition and desireability. There are Facebook groups like Clinky Connection that are groups of collectors sharing information, or I would be happy to help! I don’t know how to message people here yet – but feel free to email me at christinaldils at gmail dot com.
Yes, Temudgin, ebay was a different animal years ago. Wish I knew then what I knew now. Email me anytime with questions about plastic animals, I love to help. My dad passed away earlier this year and has an extensive ‘guy’ collection I will be dealing with (some military, lots of knives and the like) so at some point I will be getting around to asking for help with that.
Sales are up and down, I will put it on my calendar to join the weekly what sold thread. Lots of good info there. I find it so interesting what sells and when. Just sent an offer for an item listed for $80 for a few months, sent offers of $60 to a few watchers, no bites, then it sold full price a few weeks ago. If I believe in the item I just let it ride. Sold a few things recently that I listed much earlier this year. I also pulled about 10-20 items for a yard sale earlier this month. Gotta keep things moving!
Thanks for the messages, looking forward to participating a bit more here!
