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Congrats ChristineK! If Ebay or local don’t work out and if you are flipping more large high end items, there is also Chairish. https://www.chairish.com/maker/povl-dinesen.
I could literally drive around town right now and pick up 15 afghans. They are bulky so I don’t need that right now. But a seller I follow on Etsy has some bedspread size ones going for $100 and some with the 3d flower design for $40-50.
I wrote on Facebook Ebay for Business Page and they required me to submit my info and some listings. I ran the list from the site someone posted here and emailed all of the items numbers (28 for me) with one photo. They are giving me one month’s subscription credit. I told them in the original email I knew they had done that for others, and my tone was not harsh.
Mostly RA items selling last week from my dwindling inventory of new items. I think I mentioned this find in the forum before, but amazing value on these vintage phonics books $119 and best offer $45. I said no returns because I didn’t want them to just copy and return them. They sold pretty quickly. Hard to believe the prices. The books are 8 page paperbacks. Paid $3 at a boy scout fundraiser for both sets.
Finally got my first sale on Mercari of my daughter’s Ivivva Shorts. Yeah! Bought a label on Paypal. Hope it goes smoothly.
Sold this pink afghan from the death piles for $40. Paid $3 at the thrift store. I’m not picking any new ones up, but I think some designs and nice, unusual colors sell. The buyer left feedback that the color was hard to find.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I’d love to hear from more sellers too.
Jay I had a hybrid new RA and vintage but I’m moving away from RA. Usually there are at least a couple of recent Ebay solds for most of the items I’m pricing. So far I’ve been slow dime, but there is just so much to source (and I have my piles to list first) and only so much time to list so probably not a store upgrade for now. I’d like to get my sell through rate up, and I can handle more packing in the mornings. So, I’m wondering if I’d do better with that if I start pricing under solds in the first place.
Best offer I use for higher price items – over $30 – or if there are not many comps, with auto decline at about 50%. I found it really distracting to get offers on my phone at work before I set limits. Sometimes people send me offers anyway and I realize I only paid under $5, and want the sale. It’s emotionally harder for me to set the auto accept, but that would be wiser.
I also find that if it’s something I’m not really into personally, then I tend to be willing to price lower – like the coffee mugs from my death piles. I just want them gone. I did sell quite a few of those I recently listed.
I listed 17 items, mostly death piles.
Actually mostly vintage pyrex I had stowed away in a hard to reach kitchen cabinet. Only keeping one set of pyrex Butterprint and one really cute set of hazel atlas. Some of the less desirable stuff I just put on facebook. Good luck with the packing and move VT. I can’t imagine how disruptive to Ebay after just packing the kitchen…Total Items In Store: 457
Items Sold: 16
Cost of Items Sold: $154 + $64 free shipping + some items were my kids’ ($0 COGS for $230 in sales, items sold at a loss)
Total Sales: $807
Highest Price Sold: $172 (New bedding set, paid $85 9-12 months ago)
Average Price Sold: $50
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $0
Number of Items listed this week: 17 plus several on Facebook
Mercari update: 0 sales still, about 26 items listed.Nice week on Ebay after turning my store’s full vacation mode off and trying to list while the free listing offer happened. Plus I also ran a 20% off sale. I had some Pyrex and Hazel Atlas stowed away in our kitchen so had to list it as we are remodeling. Some of the patterns and condition I shouldn’t have picked up for the hassle to ship, so put those on Facebook. If they don’t sell I might swing them on to Mercari. Spent some time recounting and relisting all of my multi-quantity since I had an issue with that. I have 26 items with one photo, which means I got hit by both the June and July glitches because I only had 12 in June. Still need to swing back and fix those.
I’m down to about the last 25% of my retail arbitrage items and not buying much more at all. Makes me feel a bit vulnerable, but there is some cool vintage stuff in the piles. It is also harder now to get the deals I once got at the main retailer I shopped with. Haven’t been listing on Mercari but I’d sure like to get a sale over there. I’m hoping with back to school that my daughter’s clothes sell per my experiment.
I was distracted listening to the podcast but thanks for doing it. My takeaway is that leadership is trying to do a lot at once, know they are having issues and saying the right things to reassure sellers. I suspect though that maybe the employees who they are able to get and retain are simply not up to executing it well and quickly in this old environment. Despite their issues with growth and investors I think they would be unwise to continue the path of biting off more than they can chew. Making unnecessary and incomplete changes right now like shipping labels is super lame.
As a seller, the thing I’m most concerned about though is the product pages. I don’t want it to be easier for buyers to make price comparisons and not have my listings seen. No bueno. Plus their catalog sucks even for brand new items and media. Hopefully they will back off this for used or at least vintage items and have a hybrid system. I’d also like to see Etsy advertise and pick up vintage buyers to make a greater time investment over there worthwhile. Etsy should for sure step up and try to capitalize on Ebay’s issues. Have a great week!
Not much happening since I just got back from true vacation. But I did get a couple of nice vintage sales when I turned my store back on.
This was a weird item I wasn’t even sure about buying at $2. Sold for $55 in a couple of months and buyer was anxious to get it. Go figure.
These 60s trays I got at a rummage sale for $5 and I’m very happy to get $70 for both sets to the same buyer!
Have a great weekend scavengers!
I posted about this problem before. I called Ebay and the foreign rep told me they are super fine with the buyer being undercharged. I haven’t had time to go back and review all of my multi-quantity listings but need to because found count off on one. There is so much going on with Ebay – temporary issues – that begs review. I only got Smartpost off half of the listings after the rates shot up. Haven’t fixed the missing photos yet. I’d rather just focus on creating new merch. Love selling on Ebay but… sigh.
T-Satt, I like how you summarized this at the bottom. Love to learn from those selling higher quantity. Heavy and very small I would think USPS flat rate boxes. Assuming a buyer is not very near to a seller, can you boil down the size box and weight that makes Smartpost a winner vs USPS. It doesn’t take much weight to make USPS expensive in non-flat rate, even with parcel post. I took Smartpost off as my first option and never added it back, so will need to think this through and adjust listings (again!). Thanks!
Zero for me. We just returned from vacation. I just bought two items to resell while away. The house is a disaster due to the remodel and my daughter has a pretty short day camp, so listing will be a challenge. But, we’ll see… We don’t have home air conditioning in my town because the weather is very mild almost year round. Only a handful of weeks in July and October that it gets really hot and this is one of them. Doesn’t help with the motivation. Stay cool friends.
Hello from Bend, Oregon. We are on vacation scavenger style staying free at my cousin’s house. It was a soft week on EBay before I left.
R&J congrats on your purchase! It must be exciting to help shape the future of your little town. It would be cool if the lower half became a coffee shop / beer & wine destination you could cross market to your guests. Having no familiararity with it, it makes me wonder if this is a riskier endevor than your previous projects. Perhaps you might stick more closely to a budget this time if true. This says the person spending mucho to redo a kitchen as we speak. 🙂
I’m the noodge who keeps suggesting you to go to urban garage and estate sales. I think some may be busts, crowded or expensive. But I still believe it would pay off in more premium inventory that sells faster. Shopping in Bend and some other places makes me realize how good I have it at home. Too much new made in China crap here. At home, lots of baby boomers and elderly, lots of rich people who donate nicer brands, and busy younger people without time to scavenge. I can’t wait to clear the piles and go to estate sales as my reward!
I liked it when Will / Terminal 99 compared pipeline selling to the coin drop game @ minute 9 of his interview.
I agree with Steve. The fun “game” element is learning to find value where others don’t see it. That’s the hook.
Love the graphics on that vintage box of tissues. It should be pretty fun to brag about selling a box of tissues for $40 too! Nice.
Sometimes I feel like Ebay is a slot machine because you never know what’s going to sell when. I attribute this to so many potential buyers being on the platform. It also feels like a slot machine in that sales often seem to go in spurts. It used to be that I would post 5-10 listings and within a couple of hours a couple of other previously listed items would go and sell. This pattern is less noticeable though lately. On the other hand, I have started listing holiday and seasonal items 2-3 months ahead of the event instead of just randomly throwing things up at any time. It worked out better for me last year with that process.
