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Negatives only bother me if it is a new seller and they are racking them up quick, or if it is a recent pattern. I figure someone even with a low-90’s feedback selling “picky” items is fine as long as I’m not picky about condition.
I figure any retail store would think they are doing well with 92/100 satisfied customers.
Hi Linda – I’m in the process of a move 30 minutes away. I have a strict end date to my job and once I’m done I’m moving again to another house we bought about 4 hours away.
At the moment, we have all our inventory and supplies on 5 4′ shelves – we consolidated what we are selling and are selling large items online or in a yard sale to make the move of the inventory easier.
We plan to take a day to move the inventory from one location to another – everything we have is in bins at the moment, and the shelving is easy to take apart and re-assemble. We are just going to rent a cube van, throw everything in, and then move it as one stage of the move. As items sell, we can still pack and ship them at either location with only a minor delay (a day). We won’t have things setup perfectly, but will have our items easily available to pack and ship (and that may not be efficiently done, but possible).
We are in a unique situation in that we own a house we are in, are renting a place, then moving into another house we already own – the transitions will overlap where we don’t have to be in a rush – we can take several days to move.
For us, the address change won’t have much of a change on postage – we would cover the $1 or so that would occur if something sold with the old address but mailed from a new one. Our bank, email, and other information will remain the same – just an address change.
We also are having our mail forwarded – in case any unknown returns or undeliverable items come back to us.
We only have about 700 items at the moment – so the move isn’t horrible – it just needs some planning to keep up with any sales that occur while the move is in progress. Our biggest thing as been getting rid of big/bulky items locally before moving – saves a lot of space and eliminates items that are annoying to move.
I found an open box of 5 Kohler ceramic wall tiles with some gold metallic design on them – they were about 1.5″ x 5″. Paid $1.99 for them.
Did a quick lookup at the store, and saw they were going for $400-$600 – the gold on the tiles was real gold, and these were specialty tiles to match high-end decorated toilets, basins, etc. that Kohler makes.
Sold them for $450 almost immediately.
I’m very familiar with the algorithm software also – it’s pretty neat how they can fill a pallet or a truck almost to 100% efficiency with 1000’s of random boxes.
It’s also funny when the dimensions of 1 item out of the 1000s is incorrect – it can throw off everything. Even one dimension being out 1/8″ can multiply into a disaster quickly.
There are even warehouses/shipping companies now that use cameras/lasers/etc to measure each box and robots decide how to stack them on a pallet or in a truck efficiently. It’s scary and interesting at the same time how fast and efficient this technology is.
I’m sure for a few hundred million dollars, you can have the same technology for your eBay items…
Storage and time are the issues I am struggling with when I expand. We will soon have more storage space (which will eventually get used up) and time is the other factor I can’t change at the moment.
However, if I had more time, I would need more storage…
I think the world works on different points of view – most Americans (or Canadians like myself) wouldn’t live in China, but we gladly buy there cheap stuff and our middle-men make profits. Without China, our lives would be different – but we don’t have to live there or support their political viewpoints.
We need different governing bodies to test out what works, what sucks, and provide options for people who want to live differently. Different countries, governments, and people add diversity which the world needs – if we were all the same, it would be a boring planet with not much going on. We need Americans to invent stuff, Chinese to make it cheap, and democratic socialist countries like us Canadians to sit back and watch what goes on and sell Americans and Chinese oil, wheat, lumber, and canola.
Interesting your experience with Facebook vs. Kijiji – we’ve begun downsizing and getting lots of sales on Kijiji, and nothing on Facebook – could be a regional thing. Going to try a yard sale in a few weeks as well to see how that goes…
The “fun” of working in a brewery will wear out quickly – trust me – I’ve been in the alcohol industry for most of my life and it’s driven me to become completely sober – I probably will never have a drink of alcohol in my life again! It loses it’s appeal very quickly and working with inebriated co-workers is the worst. Everyone I mention what industry I work(ed) in thinks it is the greatest…it’s the only place I’ve worked where the company offered free cab rides home to people for doing there job. You’ll be better off enjoying beer at home instead of swimming in it…
I’ve seen documentaries that paint a different picture on “donations” being dumped in 3rd world countries and they are just burned to get rid of them.
Countries like Uganda are starting to ban imports of used items as they can’t handle all the junk coming in.
Unfortunately, even poor people don’t want a used corporate training exercise shirt from 2008, even for free.
Just look up donation dumping, clothing dumping, or other key terms on Google and you will get a different picture of how all this garbage is polluting these poor countries.
The same thing happens in the U.S. – CBS Sunday Morning had a good story of donation dumping after various hurricanes in Houston and NYC last year. Some of the first responders called it a “second disaster” as they have a bunch of “garbage” to clean up.
Many people feel good donating, but the majority of items are not put to good use, and are a burden on those who get them and can’t pass them onto the next sucker…
One of my ways of learning is to use the location search on eBay to look at items that sell in my immediate area to find new and interesting things that sell.
I just type in some generic term like “Vintage” or “new” in the eBay search, select a search area, and check out what sold. It’s a good way to get a bunch of random stuff with prices you may never have thought about selling, and see items you can source locally that sell.
I can spend hours when I’m bored looking at what other random items others have sold to learn.
04/16/2019 at 12:49 pm in reply to: Winchester38's Journal – A Journey To Full-time Reselling #60308Good luck with the cats – 4 days in a truck!
We have 4 cats – and are trying to figure out how to move them only 5 hours away – we’re thinking of renting an RV (seriously) for the day to keep them comfortable…can’t imagine 4 days though. Going to the vet for us (10 minute drive) is a struggle.
You may think it is odd, but seasonal items sell all year round. I just sold a bulky Dallas Cowboys coat last night – winter is over, and NFL season isn’t even close to starting. I also sell Christmas and Halloween items all year round – people buy them more near the season, but consistently buy them during the off-season as well.
Hi Greg – you have to be VERY careful if you are unsure of what you are doing – for example, the 1989 Ken Griffey Jr Fleer card has several variations. Are you sure it is the Glossy one you have? Do you have the Tiffany version? Do you just have the regular issue? By chance it may be the regular issue, but a “printed in Canada” variation and not “printed in the USA”?
There is a lot to educate yourself on – if you do have the Glossy, awesome – if not, you still have a $5 card to sell if it is a more common version.
Baseball cards are very tricky – I’m glad I sold out my collection when I did…
I use to be a huge card collector – but sold my collection in 2008. My collection was from the same era.
If you have full sets, they will sell – some are close to worthless, others worth a few hundred, but buyers are out there.
Individual/random cards are harder to sell. If you have good ones (you may want to get a copy of Beckett Baseball Magazine – it has pricing of the best cards) they will sell at the right price. Cards for “common” players may sell if they are from a expensive set, but even then they are not worth much. I put my incomplete sets together and listed what cards I had – usually if you have a 100 or more for a premium set, they will sell. For worthless sets, you are better off ditching them.
You can also try and put together lots by player or team – they won’t get much, but if you want to make a few bucks and feel it is worth your time, it’s worth a try.
If you don’t know anything about baseball – good luck. If you know a bit, at least you will know who the stars are and see if their cards have any value. Most won’t from the late 80’s on unless they are from a premium set.
The one thing I can suggest you are doing that I use to do is ditch the fluorescent curly q bulbs. The color of those bulbs affected my photos, and looking at your store, it looks like my old photos.
I would use standard LED Sunlight or Bright White bulbs (names change depending on the manufacturer – but you don’t want a yellow hue). I use 3 100w equivalent LED bulbs with no other light (even a fluorescent light on the ceiling away from my photo station affected the colours with the LED bulbs).
If you try a professional camera, don’t use the flash – that throws off the color as well in my situation on most clothing items.
Most of your pictures look slick – you do a good job editing out the background. That took me awhile to get the hang of!
Overall, your photos are good – I wouldn’t redo what you’ve done.
Just some “good news” from my perspective so far at the mid-way point of April…
I have a date when I know I will be finally unemployed! Well, it came to me in a round-about way. I was reading the local Civic News (this is how legal information is communicated by municipalities in Canada) and the empty building I’ve been sitting in has planning permission to turn into a residential subdivision – road and sewer works will start in May 2020…so I’ll be out of here before then. I asked the owners of the company I work for about it, and yesterday they got back to me and they didn’t deny anything, but still haven’t determined an end date for me (hopefully before the wrecking ball arrives). I can handle another year sitting in a dark warehouse to get my golden parachute at the end…but now it’s exciting. I feel bad for the building though…it was a productive facility for years…
Yesterday also I hit my “luxury lifestyle” profit for the month of $1200! Woohoo! Still 19 days to go! I would have been happy with my survival number of $800 by the end of the month, but very excited about this month so far!
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