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I couldn’t hurt honestly. I’d post it on Facebook Market Place and Bookoo if you have one local to you as well. People might find it while searching for a auctioneer to handle the estate, it cost nothing so if all it takes is a few minutes of your time to post and nothing comes of it then no lose to you.
I’ve had this happen before. I just gave them a refund (minus 20% if you have your restock fee) and I don’t refund shipping either way, I think the last time I did that the customer lost money returning the item to me because she paid $10 in shipping ($5 to them and $5 back) and the item was worth $10 so $8 returned minus restock fee. Take a picture of the invoice or save it if incase there is a stink raised about it.
You could also cancel the sale if you want your final value fee back but unless the item is worth a lot I don’t bother.
Lol I’ll agree with Jay thats a lot of items TrunkFullofJunk, I have had the same type of success but not on that scale. My estate auctioneer will often give me the numbers to his customers for their clothes/shoes if they are trying to sell them. I live very close to a Del Webb Sun City so Lots of estates from that retirement community, I love all the vintage Made in the USA clothes I get from these estates.
I always pay 25 cents a pound unless I have too much inventory to work though then it drops down to 15 or 10 cents, most people are fine giving me 100lb of clothes for $25.
I can understand your initial reaction to what eBay has told you but I will say as long as you do what you are supposed to do eBay will protect you. Please don’t take this post the wrong way, I can understand how you feel when you sell on eBay and feel like they don’t have your back but what if you did mess up and not send all the pieces, or worse they fell out during shipping and it’s not your fault or the buyers and they are just upset cause they really love legos.
Now eBay does make you take returns even if you do not want to because let’s face it if I send you junk and say “to bad no returns” and your stuck with it then you’re never going to buy on eBay again and that’s bad for your business and eBay’s. I have had two cases this last year of what I would call buyer fraud. Once was from eBay and once from Paypal. Both times I did everything I was supposed to do and eBay and Paypal both found in my favor.
Your buyer sounds like a nut or a fraud, I mean I’d take $50 off something if all I had to do was spend 7 cents to buy the parts I need. That being said, they have to return it. You don’t have to give a refund UNTILL they return it. And only if its in the same condition when you get it back.
And yes if you did mess up and missed two pieces and have to eat the shipping then like the other posters said it’s the cost of doing business. But I bet if you just say “Send it back” it will never come back and you won’t have to pay him anything, and if he leaves bad feedback you did not do anything wrong and you can get it taken down by eBay.
Never feel like eBay does not offer seller protection, you have to follow their guidelines to protect yourself. I got a item I shipped a month ago and the buyer gave me the wrong address and then just disappeared after telling me I shipped it to the wrong address like it was my fault cause he did not include his apartment number. Well it finally made its way back to me but I told him he had to pay for the 2nd round of shipping and I need him to update his address in eBay so I’m covered. If he gives me bad feedback for never shipping it again I don’t care cause eBay can see all the messages I sent him asking him to fix it on his end to protect me.
And don’t listen to all that negative stuff you searched for. I bet 90% of the sellers complaining just did not want to put in the effort to follow eBay’s guidelines.
Also the last thing you said about how to combat the “not as described” complaint. Thats easy, you make them do the work. Ryanne and Jay talk about it all the time, people want refunds for BS reasons and expect you to roll over and give them their money. Just put it on them to mail you the item back and suddenly they have to do work to get what they want and eBay makes them do that work. This guy in Japan is going to HAVE to mail you back the item to get a refund and that is a lot of work for no gain as far as someone trying to scam you, he makes no money off doing this so how is it a scam?
I have a few auctions I go to that supply most of my inventory. I also advertise on Facebook that I buy clothes at 25 cents a pound. I have had good success at the Goodwill outlet but it’s a hour and a half drive for me, so I only go if I am out of inventory or want to visit Charleston.
Yard sales is next. They are hit and miss but you find weird stuff at them sometimes or nice items people are trying to move. I don’t like yard sales that look really neat or have 15 items… They are usually trying to make a lot of money. I’ll take the yard sale with heaps of clothes on tarps in the yard cause I know that is going to Goodwill later (or me I sometimes hand out cards and offer to buy all the clothes when they are done).
I do go to all of my local thrift stores at least once a month, even ones who overprice items will often miss something because they do not know what it is. I feel like the buying part of this job is the fun part so I don’t mind wasting time doing it spending a whole day at thrift stores is good retail therapy and when you find that $200 item for a few bucks it’s what this is all about.
I have done it recently and a few years ago I did it more… Problem I have had both times is the owners of the store cherry picking pallets. How do i know this? Well the place I dealt with a few years ago had their own store and sometimes I would get a pallet that was “covered off the truck” but had items from their store with their price tags on it. Also sometimes got pallets with empty boxes, walmart is not going to just fill a box with newspaper and put it on a pallet.
The more recent place I went to I felt I got another cherry picked pallet cause it had items with return dates that varied by months. I broke even by selling stuff at a yard sale and on facebook but it was not worth trying to sell the stuff on eBay or Amazon.
I have a friend who goes to a place in NC that you get to buy pallets right off the truck when it shows up and he has had good luck (has gotten a few TV’s and a lot of home goods in open boxes but not destroyed like the stuff I got).
The place he goes to is L&W Wholesale its in Chandler NC
Week Dec 11-17, 2016
Total Items in Store: 714
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $29
Total Sales: $214.94
Highest Price Sold: $50 (Renaissance Painting Print)
Average Price Sold: $19.54
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 0Not a bad week. Sold that painting that I got in a lot of 6 that I paid $1 at a auction for so that’s a awesome amount of profit. Did not do any listing last week because of all the cleaning we are doing for the holidays. This week is looking just as bad for listing but sales are steady at least even a week before xmass.
I only offer free shipping on ties or video games because it seems like people just don’t want to pay that extra $3… well they do but they don’t think they are? Its fine as long as I make the sale, I’m not worried about returns on items like that since its only going to cost me a few bucks. Big items yeah calculated shipping all day… I had a painting sell this week that had $40 in shipping and it was only worth $25 so if I had free shipping on that one I would have been out of luck.
Jay you make a good point about selling $5 items, after fees its only like making $3-4, and that really sucks if I only sell that one thing and then have to go get it out of storage. I guess I need to just put those items in the “yard sale” pile and just donate them if they don’t move quickly, its like I got them for free anyway since they usually come from a box/table lot so unless I’m gonna open a thrift store I don’t think I will keep them around.
I think over the holiday I need to purge the cheap junk and just make $10 my lowest limit.
I know you guys talked about your storage situation in the podcast and I wanted to say I was looking into the same thing. Currently I pay $125 a month for a 10×10 at a storage place a few miles from my house, that is as cheap as it gets around here. I think I could get a metal shed for $300 or so and it will paid for itself in 3 months but I might also look into getting a nicer building that I can pay on over time. It might be worth paying $100 a month for a 12×10 with a real roof for a couple of years to have my stuff located in my back yard in a good solid shed then a flimsy metal one.
My Store Week Dec 4-10, 2016
Total Items in Store: 717
Items Sold: 7
Cost of Items Sold: $5.25
Total Sales: $73.94
Highest Price Sold: $22.99 (Metal Beer Sign)
Average Price Sold: $10.56
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of items listed this week: 5Kinda slow this week. I accepted a few half off offers on some clothes I have had for a while that are out of season. The metal beer sign was one that I found in a lot of 8 I paid $20 during the summer. I also sold a corn cob pipe I got at a auction a few months ago.
I have not listed much since Thanksgiving. I had 100 items with pictures and descriptions ready for my holiday trip so I went from 600 to 700 items over thanks giving. But in weeks since December has started I have been so busy with stuff I normally don’t handle and its killing my eBay sales. I know in reality listing does not mean you will sell more but I know that typically when I list I sell the same amount of “old” inventory and then I sell a couple of the items I just listed and that gives me more “old” inventory that could sell the next week.
My goal is to be at 800 items by New Years. I want to start breaking $500 a week and I know I need to list higher end items but its so hard not to list little things that sell for $5 instead of just throwing them out cause they do have value.
I got a lot of ties off liquidation.com once and they where all nice quality… 50% where only worth about $5-$10 but I did get some nice $35-$50 ties… Paid about $0.25 each. I sell about one a week and they help pad my inventory numbers and I can put 200 of them in one box in my storage.
That being said my brother got a lot of belts (new generic ones no label) from them that will take about 3 years to sell, I think he sells about 1 a month cause most people who bought them sell them for a couple of bucks, but my brother is trying to make a decent profit so he has his a $15 but they do sell just takes a while.
I’d like to look into buying from the two local auctions this way but I am usually busy when their auctions are going on. I’ve never had items shipped to me from auction sites before but I guess I’d like to know how it is buying items from places like auctionzip is.
I like to have a mixture of ways to source.
First and foremost is yard sales. This is good for bread and butter items but sometimes you find something worth a lot. Clothes I usually only buy stuff I know is going for a lot (designer jeans). I never buy purses… to many fakes, if I get them in a lot thats great but I don’t go looking for Prada and Couch cause even tho I live near a outlet I find most are just fake. You can sometimes find cool vintage stuff at yard sales but for the most part its clothes, household and tools (depends on your area, mine is newer so less old cool stuff to find and more Wal-mart junk).
Thrift stores are great but I feel like a lot of them are suddenly realizing their items worth. I still find cool stuff for cheap sometimes but I feel like over the past 5 years thrift stores are looking to sites like eBay to price unique items now. Goodwill can still be viable since the people who price their items often don’t care or know what they are pricing (not knocking those people, my mom is a manager at Goodwill and half he people in the back don’t care about their job). Goodwill Clearance Centers can be great since its by the pound. Tons of shoes (gotta dig for the good stuff), and clothes! I do not like the mad rush to get stuff at these places so I usually pick over the stuff that has been out. That being said I can usually go over the whole place in a hour and a half and get a few hundred dollars worth of stuff for $20-$60.
Auctions are probably the best for sourcing and the most fun I think. Depending on the auction tho. I have three in my area that I attend but I am about to drop one of them. First one is a place in town near me, he does estate sales (we have lot of retired people in my area so we have a few estates a week). These are all over the place, from kitchen junk to collectibles. I get a lot of box lots from this one for $2.50 but it is a lot of work going though all of it but its worth it to find the gold nuggets. The other auction a little farther away I’m about to drop be cause its so boring… They go one item at a time and it takes forever and there are a ton of people there who jack the prices up. The last one is about a hour drive but they have a lot of cool little vintage trinkets that I can usually get for $5 per lot. This one has a lot of flea market people but they focus on tools and furniture so I can usually get the lots of pipes and perfume bottles for nothing.
I’ve looked into this before but the main problem with diving in my area is most big companies have caught on and now have the compactor trash cans or have their trash in areas with no trespassing signs. Most residents just throw their trash in their bins and unless its outside you can’t go into the trash can itself. I have picked up stuff on the side of the road next to cans before but I am usually quick about it because people can be weird about their trash.
My local auction guy tho does have a dumpster next to his building and each Saturday I will jump in after the auction to “find boxes” and I have pulled some cool stuff out that he just thinks is junk.
I sorta did this before but from a point where I told people I would buy their unwanted items or yard sales. I don’t think people would trust you to just take stuff to Goodwill out of the kindness of your heart and people get weird when they think your making money off of them. Like if your at a yard sale and buy a bunch of clothes or shoes that won’t fit you and they want to know why, telling them your gonna sell it on eBay and suddenly your somehow stealing from them or something (I’ve been told to leave yard sales for being honest so now I just say I’m buying for my kids or wife or something).
What I did was go to yard sales, find anything I thought was worth it and buy that first and then give them a business card and said I paid per pound for left over yard sale items. 1 out of 10 would call me back and I could fill up a truck bed with bags for less then $100. I just used one of the $5-$10 luggage scales and plastic trash bags. Weighing stuff other than clothes can be a pain unless its in a box and you have some rope tho. Tho most people will only give you clothes but sometimes I would get a whole house of glassware and they wanted me to provide my own boxes and stuff so I’d have to figure that out heh.
I will say with clothes about 50% will go to Goodwill because of holes, stains or just being unwearable but I only ever paid 10 to 25 cents a pound so giving away half was not even that bad. I find most things you buy in bulk have a value but unless you want to handle a bunch of $2-$5 items on eBay you will need a flea market or yard sale or just donate all the junk every week.
Thanks for the info. I’m not sure how to identify a lithograph or a block print. I think I am going to go with Aztec for my description.
This is my first attempt at buying art. The local auction always has all this cool art that no one wants so half the time I can get 2-5 prints or even paintings by local artists for $1-$5.
The image did embed that time. I tried to edit the html but the forum kept telling me it identified me as a spammer (might be because I tried to edit it 1 min after posting)
