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Hi Lee,
I’m curious about what kind of law you practiced? I went to the University of Miami program for estate planning. Not many fellow parent-lawyer-pickers around these parts.It’s the item equation – difficulty to find in your area, difficulty to pack and ship, estimated holding time, price, storage space of that available, difficulty to locate or stack in storage, return risk, uniqueness, time to clean, test, mend, steam/iron, or repair (credit: Retro T), etc.
Lately I’ve been editing too based on whether I find it personally interesting and compelling. I love Beth? Waller’s videos though. Of all the sellers who make videos, she seems the least attached and disinterested in her items. 🙂
You’re welcome Liz. If you head up North, feel free to post a reply. A San Fernando Valley meet up would be cool sometime if LA sellers are interested. Sorry Fred we hijacked your thread.
My selling experience on FB is mixed. I mostly offer my kids’ stuff and art I thrifted that is large to ship. In the local selling groups once the membership swells, your offerings get buried down in the feed quickly. Also, the item has to be significant enough to coordinate a pickup or people won’t deal. I don’t really want to spend time packing and storing larger framed art but FB has been pretty disappointing. FB and CL I would say are lower pricing than Ebay too. The number of potential buyers is so small by comparison so unless you have a quick flip business model, it doesn’t really pay off. We don’t have offer up, etc. here. One plus to FB is that people are less flaky than CL.
Total Items in Store: 348
Items Sold: 7
Cost of Items Sold: $9 (used) + $70 (new RA)
Total Sales: $222
Highest Price Sold: $55 (2 Corgi Dog Mugs)
Average Price Sold: $32
Returns & Int’l Sales: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $225 After Xmas Clearance Sale
Number of items listed this week: 0Dead until after Xmas eve. Last year I had fairly good sales between now and the second week of January, with people buying my new items for themselves. Hoping to repeat that and get to some listing while I’m off with my kids this week. The last few weeks were insanity and I’ve really been struggling to fit Ebay in.
Re this week’s topic, I like the idea of trash elves reporting experiments and results. But, I don’t mind hearing speculation because Ebay doesn’t come out and tell you how their search engine works and gets tweaked. We keep having to throw around this one Australian guy video from a few years ago since that seems to be the only comprehensive public break down. Plus, Ebay loves to give sellers self-serving advice that might help move items but not get sellers the best price. So, I love to have an independent place where people can gather to share their thoughts, even without proof and you can make your own choices with that information.
Re Pinterest, I hope buyable pins are coming soon for Ebay sellers. In the meantime, I have more and more buyers with zero feedback, so I’m suspecting that the pinned items are getting hits on Google while the Ebay listings are not. I’m tempted to ask more of them.
I ran into a downsizing sale at an Eastside estate on my way to work. Bought some midcentury pottery, canoe muffin flatware, Ken Edwards mexican pottery, and more. Ugh – shopping estate sales is so fun but dangerous because of the quantity – at this rate it would take two weeks to process what I bought and I’ve added to my backlog. The new stuff sells quickly so I feel ok about that.
Have fun R&J on the rest of your trip. Glad you thrifted some great items. Happy New Year to everyone!
Hi – Love San Diego and used to live there but I’m up now in Santa Barbara at the Northern end of So Cal, sort of considered Central Cali almost. Have fun if you go picking down there. I’ve written before I like to hit the thrift cluster around the Balboa/Rosecrans area in Point Loma.
Total Items in Store: 348
Items Sold: 10 (1 Facebook)
Cost of Items Sold: $16 (used) + $113 (new RA)
Total Sales: $423
Highest Price Sold: $166 (Quantity 3 Anthropologie cow butter dishes @ 1:00 in the morning. I confirmed. 🙂 Paid $66 earlier this month on sale.)
Average Price Sold: $40
Returns & Int’l Sales: 0 – International sales have completely dropped off. Mine were mostly Canada and UK.
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $25
Number of items listed this week: 4Sick all week, personal life stress, and not much listing. Have a bunch of Christmas stuff that didn’t sell or went unlisted (sigh). Week was just ok, but the big sale was helpful. Lots of buyers with zero feedback, which seems to suggest pinning is working.
The Hatchimals are still around. They released some into stores this month and other Ebayers dropped prices to unload while I was not paying attention. The Facebook group totally called it – priced to sell and 1.5x their $ in November – and I think at least one person here on the forum expected that too. Luckily, I only bought two for my experiment and plan to donate them if they don’t move express delivery even though I can maybe still double my $.
I don’t offer free shipping but plan to rework my older listings of new items in the new year in accordance with my suspicion that Ebay is placing an emphasis on freshness and my (so far) positive experience with Smartpost.
Happy holidays trash elves!
Hi Liz, glad you are ok. We are a Subaru family and very happy with the value and safety features. We also have a minivan, and that topic has been discussed here before – very versatile but not cool and kind of a pain to back up in the City so you get a bit more car for the buck. We got a really good deal on a repo. Good luck!
Pinning is super fast, so there is not much of a time investment. I have been pinning and participating most mornings on two Facebook “Pinterest parties”. It’s difficult to tell in Ebay, but given that Google and outside traffic are up, I do think it is helping generate sales.
A couple of used items to share this week
Paid like a buck at a rummage sale. I love vintage linens but these were pretty subdued, so I was surprised at the value.
I don’t think Scentsy is really en vogue around here, but thanks to YouTube I’m familiar. Paid $10 at Indy Thrift Xmas boutique.
The real expert (or one of them) is Jason T. Smith. Here’s a link to his store – maybe he has a similar one listed or recently sold? http://stores.ebay.com/Tiki-Pug-Music
He knows exactly what mugs are worth on Ebay. If you find a rarer one, he has an open offer – send him a photo and he’ll evaluate or even offer to buy it. He also has a Facebook group you can join and they encourage asking questions.Maybe those of us with a big backlog should have some sort of group challenge in 2017. “) Good luck with yours.
Total Items in Store: 344
Items Sold: 11
Cost of Items Sold: $23 (used) + $152 (new RA)
Total Sales: $368
Highest Price Sold: $122 (Anthropologie peacock toile euro shams)
Average Price Sold: $34
Returns & Int’l sales: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $85 ($10 thrift + $75 RA)
Number of items listed this week: 10 (multiples)Happy “Green Monday” everyone – free shipping deals abound. Considering that it’s Christmastime and I sell some new items, just an ok week for me but I’m grateful. Sick this week, some personal stuff going on, and not a lot of listing going on unfortunately. A few older listings sold and I’m hoping the condition description was adequate for two buyers. :_ January sales were good for me last year, with people buying I suspect for themselves after Christmas.
In another topic post, I explained that I’m really feeling like I need to get my Ebay life in order next year. In a nutshell, I definitely overbought used items as a rookie and now I realize I only have so much time and storage and really want to sell quality items I’m personally excited about and/or have worked well for me. I love selling on Ebay, and I feel really confident about being efficient now. I want to keep learning to identify artists and marks in my areas of interest. It’s mostly time management I need to work on.
Quick shout out to Sheldon. After watching your packing videos, I bought a couple of supplies that have helped lower my frustration when I’m rushing in the morning – like the one handed tape dispenser. I have these dull handheld guns that are driving me nuts. If anyone can recommend a sharper gun, please do. I’ve also asked for that knife for Christmas.
So, I’ve been thinking about this and my own equation – limited time and storage, big backlog, loving the hunt as a treat and continuing to learn what has value.
I don’t have a firm time deadline or simply follow the ribbon. I do hesitate to pull items that I’ve actually managed to work on since there are many more that I haven’t listed. I think the ribbon is helpful only that it suggests which items are not getting views and/or not selling in the recent past, perhaps a good indication of the likelihood it will sell in the next year or two. Then, I consider if I’m personally excited about the item, it’s potential selling price, and the storage requirements. (I keep my inventory out of our living space – in the garage and guest room closet, which are (oops!) bursting.) I also consider my strong suspicion that Ebay increasingly rewards activity, and while the item might eventually sell, it’s so very easy to find others that will sell faster and better around here (in the garage and in town).
My hunch is that cleaning up my old listings in the new year, culling the very lowest view cheap items, and listing higher end and faster selling items will better my Ebay treatment generally speaking. I’ve experienced that Ebay likes a successful ending to an auction, so sometimes I do a .99 cent auction on an item before I give up on it.
So, these are my thoughts looking toward next year. I have a lot of catching up to do and there may need to be a yard sale in my future after I’m done with physical therapy! I’m keeping an eye on Etsy too and what sellers say they get more money for or can sell faster on that platform. I hope the customer base continues to grow as I attempt to get my Ebay inventory in order.
I think this goes way beyond the scope of this topic. 🙂 I do like to see what others’ have trouble moving so I started this topic. People rarely make videos about that, or comment on things that are not as popular as they used to be.
