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I have been using Auction Sniper for years and have never had any problems. It has an app for your phone that is handy.
Reminds me of some of the mid-century Czech Bohemian glass that I’ve seen. Similar to Murano.
Great podcast this week. I’ve been thinking a lot about cross posting for many of the same reasons people have mentioned. I think I would have to find a pretty seamless solution before I would consider it in earnest. I’ve occasionally cross-posted to Craigslist or FB Marketplace, but I haven’t found them very useful. I mostly only post some larger items that I’d rather not ship, but find dealing with the low-ball offers that make up the majority of queries frustrating and more high maintenance that eBay. That said, I did sell a set houses for a light up village over the holidays on FB.
Here are my numbers for last week. Fell a bit but still higher than my average run rate. About half of the sales were Christmas items. Must be people filling in gaps in their collections as they put them away for the year.
Week Ending 01/04/2020
Total Items in Store: 1152
Items Sold: 27
Gross Sales: $1,206.17
Gross wo Shipping: $941.45
Cost of Items Sold: $50.78
Highest Price Sold: $100.00 (Murano glass Christmas tree)
Average Price Sold: $34.86
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Sold via promoted listings: 14
Promoted Percentage: 51.85%
Average Days Listed: 229
Longest Listed: 635
New items listed: 0With the kids being off from school and the holidays, took a break from listing. Getting back at it this morning. I’m going to miss the Christmas boost.
I’m sure there are a lot of buyers that are discouraged with the cost. That said, I’m on the East Coast and as I review my sales for the year, I sold more to California than any other state. I try to focus on unique, vintage items, so maybe that helps. I also think that overall, it balances out, like Jay suggested: we have the advantage on the East Coast.
I also make sure I have Fedex Ground added as an option for the heavier packages, as they are usually cheaper. The caveat to that is that Fedex costs me the time it takes me to drive it to a drop off, so it needs to be a higher profit item before this option makes sense for me.
Yes, I was worried at first that some of the notes might be fakes, but fortunately they all are the real deal. I did get a forgery of George Washington’s signature in the batch, though. It’s posted for sale on my store.
Those are awesome sales for the figures. I picked up a lot of Thundercats and Masters of the Universe figures over the summer and those have been good sellers also, but I don’t think anything matched your Cave Beast.
@Steve – ALways something in your sales that amazes me. I definitely would have passed over that Teac remote, especially when your research came up empty and you couldn’t identify the system it went to.
Continuing to have strong sales through the holiday season. This last week I expected to have things fall off, but people are still shopping. Always think that after Christmas sales must be the people buying themselves what they really wanted.
Sold this Victorian era scrapbook cover. I purchased the entire scrapbook at auction for $51. Scrapbook was in really bad shape, pages completely deteriorating from age, but the ephemera inside was still in OK shape, mostly advertising cards and greeting cards from the 1890’s and 1900’s. Have had a great time researching them and it has been quite an education. Cover was separated from the rest so I thought I’d throw it up and see if I’d get any bites. Took a month to sell for $19.95.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133258650798Biggest sale was this 1864 Confederate $500 note. This came with a stack of notes in an envelope in box of ephemera I purchased for $35. By far my best scavenge ever. This one sold for an offer of $400 on a list price of $549.95.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133084346630ALso sold this Civil War era 10 cent fractional currency note from the same envelope as the bill above. Was asking $34.95 and took an offer of $26.25.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133116109861I like selling old religious items and came across a table full of rosaries and religious medals. Pick up this Saint Benedict medal for $3. Priced it high at $74.95 and took an offer of $50.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133239845020Sold this vintage magnetic tape eraser that I was given by a neighbor $34.95 for full asking price.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/132841167287Happy New Year everyone.
I believe it is a bird house. The notch on the bottom is for hanging on a nail. I was given something similar and had it hanging on a nail in a tree in the backyard.
@the_seam_store
Those are some impressive numbers. I’m surprised there isn’t a helper or three on the expense line with that kind of volume.DC area is great for sourcing with so many estate sales and online auctions, I find I have little need to visit thrifts except for fun. Since you seem to specialize in clothes, the estate sales in the Bethesda/Chevy Chase/Potomac area could be great for you. It sounds like you may know that already, though. Thanks for sharing your numbers, it is always great to get a gut check on what others are doing.
Happy New Year!
Interesting what you were saying about breaking eBay out two sites. It seems like there should be a place where you just go to buy used and vintage stuff. I know when I search ebay for something I want, a big issue is wading through the “noise” of all the cheap new junk to find the good quality used item at a price I want to pay. I hesitate to buy any new items from eBay unless it is something that is a brand I’m familiar with due to all the questionable items, and I’m more inclined to go to Amazon to buy them due to the reviews and Prime shipping, but even there the glut of cheap junk is overwhelming.
I find myself longing for an online store that curates all their items and limits the selection to just those items it has tested and believes they are good quality for a good price. There are some small niche stores that do that, but nothing I’ve found large scale for commodity items.
Had another good week on eBay. I feel like we’ve been really lucky sourcing this past year. The items have been selling much better than expected and I guess we’re learning better what sells. Our holiday sales have been up way over our weekly average.
Here’s what we saw this week:
Week Ending 12/28/19
Total Items in Store: 1179
Items Sold: 33
Gross Sales: $1,952.56
Cost of Items Sold: $95.86
Highest Price Sold: $400.00 (Confederate $500 note)
Average Price Sold: $51.00
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $0
Sold via promoted listings: 17
Promoted Percentage: 51.52%
Average Days Listed: 215
Longest Listed: 812
New items listed: 8Had two high dollar sales this week. The $400 confederate note and a $300 transistor radio. Tha pushed our average up and really made the week for us. Kids have been home on winter break, so haven’t done much listing.
I hear what you’re saying about poking the bear, but I think my curiosity would get the best of me. Maybe I haven’t gotten enough crazy buyers yet.
@Steve – You’re an inspiration selling that messenger bag. I would have probably passed thinking it was too far gone. I guess grunge is alive and well.
@Doublythumbs – that hair boutonniere is kinda creepy, but interesting. Not surprising considering the “memento mori” photographs that people used to take of their dead children.The Christmas season has been good to us. We’ve had a lot of higher dollar items selling that had been sitting on the shelves for ages and just a good variety overall. This week the sales just keep coming which feels like a Christmas bonus since we expected little during the holiday week.
Biggest sale over the last week was a 1965 Toshiba transistor radio. I got it in a lot of cameras from an online auction. Took an offer of $300 on an asking of $495 as it had been sitting with no interest. Cost me about $10.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/132994158537Sold two Ursula Leyk lighthouses to the same buyer. Bought a lot of 6 at another online auction for $12. They’ve been selling well with the holiday season. These two sold for full price of $75 and $60.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133148772597
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133148152774Slides sell, at least travel slides do. Sold a lot of 275 travel slides from the 50’s – 70’s. Family seemed to take a big trip every few years and had some great shots. I was asking $125 but took an offer of $75 on a $11 investment.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133139124749Selling a lot of Christmas items. Go figure. Finally got motivated to list several Nutcrackers last week that we got in an online auction lot back in January. This Swarovski nutcracker sold first with an offer of $65, listed at $75.95. Paid $20 for the lot, so this one cost us about $2.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/133278095928Woke up Tuesday morning to a combined sale of a stuffed animal and a carving knife. Pulled the items from inventory and started the packing process only to see the buyer was my brother. Apparently the family back home in Florida was sitting around looking through my store to see what craziness I was selling now and found something they liked. I refunded their money and shipped the item off. Couldn’t charge family $50 for something I only paid $2 or $3 for.
@ Jay
Paid $75 for the lot of three at auction. Higher base % than we usually go, but it was a quick sell. We’d researched before bidding and saw there was no inventory on eBay.What keeps me going is that every day is something different. I get bored easily and having something new to research, buy and list each day keeps me in the game. Back in my work days, it felt too much like the Dunkin Donuts guy, “Time to make the donuts” each morning. I’m constantly learning something new. It’s work, but it rarely feels like work.
Here are my numbers for the week:
Week Ending 12/21/2009
Total Items in Store: 1208
Items Sold: 36
Gross Sales: $1,691.44
Cost of Items Sold: $135.00
Highest Price Sold: $175.00 (Dogtivity Nativity Set)
Average Price Sold: $39.00
Returns: 0
Money Spent on New Inventory: $960.00
New items listed: 31
Sold via promoted listings: 15
Promoted Percentage: 41.67%
Average Days Listed: 242 days
Longest Listed: 963 daysBeen selling a lot of Christmas. Biggest sale of the week was a Dogtivity nativity set. Keep an eye out for them if you see them.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Complete-Big-Sky-Carvers-Dogtivity-I-and-II-Canine-Dog-Nativity-Set-with-Boxes/133273371431
Basically it is a nativity with dogs as the characters. The company that made them is no longer in business and they don’t show up often. We listed two sets together for $400, but someone wanted the smaller part of the set enough to pay $175, so we broke the set apart and relisted the other half for $300. We then listed a 3rd smaller set for $150 and took an offer the next morning from the same buyer for $100.@almasty – Good luck with the Christmas items. We do a lot of that in our store, my wife loves them, and it is a great boost in sales this time of year, though they may sit gathering dust the rest of the year. Just about 1/3 of our sales last week were ornaments. Often can get them for very little and some of them go for very large amounts. It takes time to learn the market and this might be a good one to invest in some reference books so you know the hot ones when you see them.
I’ve been adjusting my titles to try to meet that “first five” rule as I’d heard that somewhere, but I’m not sure it plays out in the real world of eBay. I could see eBay giving some preference to some of these items, like picture size, for aesthetic reasons, but a quick ebay search seems to support them not prioritizing. Very little of what the person wrote seems to hold up on a search. I searched on “Golden Eagle” with best match as my sort and the first 5 listings were rectangular, only two of the first 10 had free shipping, and the 3rd listing had Golden Eagle starting at the 7th word (with an emoji and Very Rare being first). Perhaps it’s a number game and it moves you up more often. Or perhaps, this is the general direction eBay is moving in and they are slowly tweaking the system to get them there.
Interesting food for thought, though, and many of the suggestions make sense just from having a good listing. Having your key words in the first 5 makes them visible when the title is truncated in some views, square pics are the size of preference on mobile devices, and it can’t hurt to add the additional item specifics to allow for better filtering.
