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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.
Week 3
# items listed 35
# times listed 8! (sometimes only got like 2 items done, but I tried often)
items from death piles: 31
% from death piles: 91%Current week is insanely busy and my numbers will be tiny.
Regarding the golf club caller:
I don’t often shop on Ebay, except for shipping supplies. I had virtually no sales the first two weeks of January, then a huge week this week. I compared the bumps in sales vs. purchase dates. It’s not a direct correlation to all of my purchase dates but the holiday weekend I sold most of the items and also bought several items. Inconclusive, but interesting and maybe I’ll just experiment with sprinkling my purchases as I build my daughter’s wardrobe in this size to see what happens.Total Items in Store: 465
Items Sold: 17
Cost of Items Sold: $366 + free shipping $68
Total Sales: $1,253 (Less $40, buyer not likely to pay)
Highest Price Sold: $381 (New Duvet and two shams, paid $110 about 9 months ago)
Average Price Sold: $73
Returns: None, but two no/slow pays so far – ouch.
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: Maybe $20
Number of items listed this week: 45Yeah! Someone turned my store back on this week. 🙂 I sold a beautiful Hudson Stripe vintage new old stock blanket for BO $200 and the buyer hasn’t paid for a few days. Also had another $40 sale and that payment is not coming I can probably safely say.
I’m working the backlog, just went thrifting once at my favorite place. Worked on a box of Dasnk dishes and tableware this week, plus a bin of vintage bedding that I really did not enjoy listing and found a bunch of light stains on half of it. I’m going to reward myself by switching to ephemera, which I do like listing and find really interesting. One good thing about a backlog is that you can sort and switch types when you get tired of dealing with something.
Headed to LA for girls’ weekend and slammed at my other job, so probably will be light progress this week. Looking forward to listening to the podcast. Have a great week everyone.
My cousin turned me on to this trick and an app for finding deal details. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/happy-hour-finder-find-local-food-and-drink-deals/id321327691?mt=8
