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Sharing some sales, no home runs – just bread and butter – but a butter dish that was a winner.
Have two full boxes of flatware I never get around to listing. I don’t know why not because it usually does well for me. This sold quickly (twice, first buyer didn’t pay), paid $8 at my favorite indy thrift. https://www.ebay.com/itm/332531129960
I adore Holt Howard midcentury items and I buy anything I find. The look always stands out to me on a shelf. Paid $4 at a rummage sale and most of the photos didn’t successfully load into my listing but they sold anyway. https://www.ebay.com/itm/332362302508
From the death piles emerged some Dansk dishes. This was the best piece, paid $3 https://www.ebay.com/itm/332522343863 My family has broken two butter dishes in the last several weeks, so I get it.
Sharing this item just because it makes me remember that I am doing well to anticipate the holidays by a couple of months. Next up is Easter, so I need to get that box out. Paid .99 https://www.ebay.com/itm/332514407485 As you can see, I’m not on team all white background for smaller items and this is part of my overall strategy of using Pinterest.
I need to get back to listing bigtime. It’s been a pretty major break in the action.
I think it makes sense too to think outside the big bins. After hunting and losing a couple of small things, I bought some (used, thrifted) smaller plastic bins to keep very small items in. I also have a filing system for loose paper items.
Yeah, I know Brian and I know you are SO smart to go right to the source. Many times I picking the leavings at GW Monday mornings, plus we have estate sales year round here. I will get these items to people who will use and appreciate them again, which makes me feel good. It’s just that I have a little sensitive side thinking about respect for the humans who lived their lives there and traveled places, didn’t finish projects, etc. Silly I guess. I once wrote into someone’s trust that under no circumstances would a bunch of scavengers go through his house like that! Funny.
I’m waiting on estate sales too because even though they are well attended I think I would have trouble processing as much as I could easily pick up. Since thrifts are thinner pickings, it keeps me in line a bit. I hope by the time I allow myself to attend them that I will be able to identify items people are missing – like these craft kits. Keep the what sold posts coming! I also always look in garden, under tables, up high, on the walls…
Total Items in Store: 409
Items Sold: 8
Cost of Items Sold: $74 + 15 free shipping
Total Sales: $317
Highest Price Sold: $76 Dansk Arabesque Butter Dish (death pile thrifted find – paid $3)
Average Price Sold: $40
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $106 (mostly a cache of high end stitchery kits from estate sale)
Number of items listed this week: 0Glad I ran the numbers because it felt very slow. Hectic week outside of ebay with hosting a big superbowl party, a number of medical maintenance appointments for the fam, and family visting. No progress on the death piles and I hit one of our big three annual rummage sales. On the way home, I found an estate sale. I’m kind of looking forward to allowing myself to shop those after I’m through the piles. However, I felt like a total schmuck when I lied to the late homeowners’ daughter after she asked me if I needlepoint. I’m a bit sketchy about digging through someone’s house and life. I suppose I’ll feel better after I start selling these off, here’s a bolo for you: Ehrman brand kits. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=tapestry+kit+needlepoint+ehrman&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=tapestry+kit+needlepoint+ehrman&_sacat=0
Have a great week.
After a good start I am super busy outside of Ebay last two weeks. No listing and all zeros for me. To boot, I went to one of our big three annual rummage sales this weekend and one estate sale down the street from my house. Good thing I don’t have time to go to many estate sales! I basically bought one large grocery bag worth of stuff – a few multiples – so about half of what I would have bought in the old days of creating piles. We have family in town this week and work is busy, so I hope to list a bit this coming weekend. I also have taxes and bookkeeping for last year to tackle. Oye!
I try to always make sure it is unchecked since the first time I had a problem with it. I know I don’t have over half of them that were checked before, so I’m confident that it auto populating when I start to revise the listing.
ChristineK, if you can get the page to load try searching for the topic on Smartpost not calculating correctly and there is a whole discussion. FedEx just added a quite stingy dimensional weight factor for Smartpost package charges. It’s hard to imagine having a package that will be cheaper now than USPS flat rate or even regular USPS. To add insult to injury, Ebay is undercharging buyers because they did not update their calculated shipping for Smartpost to reflect the new DIM factor. In my case, about $25 short per package and these were not huge items, so I sent them in very overstuffed flat rate boxes.
Thanks. I’m too small time for software and I don’t charge handling but didn’t like business policies because I didn’t want to go through all of my listings to narrow down the polices. Maybe it’s a good time to turn them on if I have to make changes anyway.
Have fast shipping record but waitlisted for GD. Recently I’ve put overnight as my final option just in case it helps later.
I hope Ebay does a good job negotiating commercial discounts going forward. I have to be even more selective I think on buying items that don’t fit in a flat rate envelope, especially being coastal.
So, from what I can tell SP no longer makes sense vs. the Post Office on the vast majority of items due to the new dim weight assumptions. I believe Ebay does not sort your shipping to show the lowest priced option to the buyer for search or at the purchase point unless they dig, which many do not. Correct me if I’m wrong. So everything defaults to your first option. Therefore, I need to remove all of the SP options or at least change the order of SP out of first place. I certainly do not want my items showing up with $38 calculated shipping taking 8 days. Ugh. Wish I could spend that time listing instead.
Tough for sure to find a good podcast. I listen to Thriftycast occasionally but it’s kind of by passionate quirky vintage collectors, rather than resellers focusing on the business end.
You have to watch the screen but I do still like The Paper Castle and Karen Leabo. The Paper Castle is storyteller haul style but I love how she follows up with banner insertions saying how much she ended up getting for most of the items. Her estimates are pretty accurate. Karen is amazing at describing vintage jewelry, hard goods, knives, and textiles. I try to absorb her descriptive terms as much as possible. She also follows up with sale price banners and Etsy sales videos.
Whoa! Found out about this issue this morning bigtime. Has anyone figured out what dimensions still make sense for SP? I guess something that is pretty small and heavy at this point. One of my packages was only 12x12x8 and like $35, buyer paid like $13. I only ate about $6 shipping priority, but still. The other one was $38 but I crammed it into a MFR priority box luckily.
Also, if Ebay fixes, I have SP as my first shipping option on a lot of items. If a buyer sorts a search by total cost, doesn’t Ebay only have the functionality to sort by the first choice? Thanks.
I just shipped on Ebay this week while doing other things, so it’s zeros for me across the board. At least I only bought one item for resale.
Total Items in Store: 465
Items Sold: 10
Cost of Items Sold: $52 + $21 free shipping
Total Sales: $213
Highest Price Sold: $40 (Pair of new Pottery Barn pillow cases – paid $12 two weeks ago)
Average Price Sold: $21
Returns: 0, one $200 no pay last week.
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: One item for $6
Number of items listed this week: 0Felt slow but it was an extremely busy week outside Ebay so no listing.
Made the no kids trip to LA this weekend. Finally got to stop at Oceanic Arts. Paul, you recommended this place for tiki lovers. It was a bit frustrating though because it was really part museum and part store. The staff brought the cute old guy out who’s owned the place forever because I wanted to buy this AWESOME carved wood panel for our backyard – one of the many “NSF” items on the sales area of the floor. He’s like “oh, that’s from our old store in Hawaii”, “our local carver isn’t skilled enough to reproduce it”, etc. and I tried to sweet talk him and offer $ but no luck. It was a real treat though to look at all the authentic tiki stuff and I bought a few items they would sell that made me happy.
Then, I had a short amount of time to thrift in Torrance. Made it to the huge Savers and GW. The prices seemed high, especially GW. and the % of stuff was way more made in China new. We have limited shopping in my area and lots of old people, so the mix is more vintage here and the prices are slightly lower even at chains. Didn’t buy much. Also hit a store ironically called “Cheap Vintage” with cool midcentury stuff. Looked around and found nothing is priced, it’s all dusty and crammed full. The people were just hoarders with sky high prices. So, kind of a frustrating weekend for buying, but always fun to hunt in new territory. Salvation Army was closed Sunday when I could go, so will try to get there next time. Thanks to the Joe and the other guy in LA for the recommendations!
I’d be so tempted to cull some old stuff when you start to reorganize your storage R & J. I know it’s about volume but it would be tempting to freshen up I think while you are touching everything. Even going through my death piles now I find some items I’m not at all keen to list but I feel determined to eat my vegetables. Will feel good I’m sure when you have it all organized and in one place, so I’m very excited for you. Have a great week.
Thanks Joe! Really appreciate the tips. It’s always fun to check out new thrifts. Ususally I get the sense there is a lot more competition than I have here but still totally fun to look. BTW, have you been to the Long Beach Flea Market? I heard it was better prices than the Rose Bowl.
Sharing a few vintage sales from this year.
Paid $3 for these NOS sheets at indy thrift. I love finding vintage linens in the package and find they routinely sell within a year. https://www.ebay.com/itm/232481758436
This past year, I’ve started anticipating the holidays and listing items about two months prior, pricing to sell during the current year. This seasonal thinking is paying off I think. I love to pick up vintage greeting cards because the graphics are so cool. Paid .50 for this pack. https://www.ebay.com/itm/232629832455
These sold the day they were listed. Didn’t enjoy photographing and listing vintage used sheets but these are really retro so glad to share them with someone who appreciates them. Paid $2 for the pair. https://www.ebay.com/itm/232637545177
Was lucky to find this and paid up at $40. One of my most favorite finds so far. Took a best offer of $200 but sadly the buyer hasn’t paid yet. https://www.ebay.com/itm/232579864884
Doubly love your ephemera sale! Such a fun item. I think that is my favorite stuff to find. Have a great weekend. BTW, I’m missing the menu above this post to create a link. P.P.S. I’m trudging on with the poor lighting and sacrificing my photo quality for speed and just getting the piles up.
