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So far I’ve just heard you discuss buying new items to resell. Have you considered or tried scavenging for vintage German items?
Maybe to your surprise or to the surprise of the others: No.
To be quite honest, there is some inner barrier in me which doesn’t make me want to go to flea markets and so, could possibly be my Ex-USSR-upbringing.I’ll try to get into it, in order to diversify my inventory and test new niches.
Do Germans decorate this way?
Yes!
Actually another brilliant idea of yours, Jay.
I didn’t think of this, because I’m more of a pragmatic, minimalistic sort of guy when it comes to decoration (almost no decoration in my household)@Antique Frog
Camera lenses may be good for you. Digital cameras can use c-mount lenses from movie cameras. Other lenses can be used with adaptors. Lenses with brass barrels (Voigtlander for instance) are worth checking, as are early Zeiss and Leitz. It’s one of those markets where vendors (e.g. flea markets, thrift shops) price both the rubbish and the good stuff high-ish because they don’t have the knowledge to distinguish between the two.
Thank you for the suggestion, Antique Frog. That sounds interesting, but wouldn’t it take a rather big amount of time in order to get a good feel for what sells and for how much I can source stuff ?
The best way that I do this is to look at the number of items for sale in your search compared to the number of SOLDS for that same search. So if 1000 are available and 1000 are showing as sold (eBay shows 90 days of sales), the you should expect a sale in 90 days. Just keep in mind seasonality (looking up coats in summer vs in winter).
Thank you, T-Satt!
Another guy told me the same, some weeks ago and i also follow this approach by now.What makes me curious, nontheless, how narrow do you define the search term in the “currently available” and “sold” category?
I’ll give you a pragmatic example:
Let’s say i got some merchandise by Diesel (Italian fashion brand),
i’d type into the eBay search bar the brand, the particular model and now i get about 2000 currently available items (Diesel Zathan)
I do the same for the “what sold” category and now I have about 500 sold items.
So this should mean that i can “predict” that my item will move out of the shelf inside of 12-month period, right ?Now:
Let’s say i type into the search bar the brand, the particular model, the measurements, the color, maybe even the fabric. (Diesel Zathan W40 L34 bordeaux 100 % cotton)
I’ll have much fewer items currently available and depending on how “extreme” (i lack a better word for what i want to describe) the other features of the item are, i’ll also come up with a much, much lower number of already sold items.
Let’s assume i’ll end up with currently availabe: 90 items and already sold: 45 items.
Relying on the above mentioned prediction model, it’d mean that i can expect the merchandise to move in a 6-month window.So, which approach of these both examples am I now able to trust ?
The more general approach or the very specified one?
The “error” / difference between both results is 100 % and depending on what’s your sourcing strategy is, could have extreme consequences for you (Imagine sitting on some capital-intensive item, which you predicted to move inside of a 90-days window, but which actually moves only in a 12-month window)European beauty products are always of demand to American women – esp skincare. Find the niches, check solds.
Interesting coincidence, but I have an Assyrian friend who told me the same about females from the Middle East. A friend of him buys literally the cheapest beauty products availabe in Germany, before he heads home to Lebanon and sells them at home for a rather extreme 200-400 % mark up.
@Jay:
From what I’ve seen, bulk purchases and wholesale buying is tough because margins are thin. Plus if its easy for you to purchase in an online auction, its easy for anyone to do it.
Yeah, what you say is probably right and I need to think about it.
Thank you for your kind comment!
are you able to source BMW / Mercedes things cheaply in Germany that will sell well globally online?
It’s funny that you mention it, but another failure of mine are car & motorbicycle parts.
Having a lot of family working in the car industry sourcing stuff cheaply was one of my first moves, but up to today I’m still waiting for the first sales of those replacement parts (new & much cheaper than the competitors, replacement parts are either for Mercedes Benz or BMW)Although (mostly American) eBay sellers on other forums told me & others quite often that it doesn’t matter to the buyer if you are a certified expert on the stuff you are sellin’ or not, i strongly doubt this opinion.
I actually can only speak for Germans, but trust in degrees, certificates and other paper work, showing your qualification, was, is and will forever be at an all-time high here, so I wouldn’t like to move further into the car parts area, risking capital.
But your suggestion made me curious & I’d like to know what other products from Germany / Europe would be interesting to American buyers?
I always thought food-related items would be the most demanded goods, which are an (obvious) no go for me, cars are a bit to bulky to ship, haha.
Other interesting, small and easy to ship “technical” stuff from Germany would be knifes/razor blades from the city of Solingen, which rank at #1 together with knifes/razors from Japan, but i doubt that there is either a) demand for this b)there isn’t already one major distributor for these in the US.
Sorry for a lot of typos in my initial post, y’all.
Regarding experimenting:
I had an interesting experience with some completely new, Italian fashion brands, which i was able to source cheaply in Milan, Italy.
My initial thought was that it would be a non-brainer to buy them for cheap and move them fast for 3-4 times i paid for, but to my utter surprise, I’m still sitting on a rather stylish jacket, which seems to fly out of the shells in Italy, but doesn’t move at all in my home country.
Same experience with a sports brand, which is actually highly popular in Germany, but it took me 2,5 months to sell and then it went to Greece, out of all places, haha.How big of an inventory can you handle?
I got about 100 sqm of free space availabe right now at my hands, probably could free up additional 50 sqm of space in case i truly need it.Youtubers with a focus on Ebay-reseller-related content
I still can’t really recall how i found you guys, but what i truly know is that there are very, very, very few other people who are worth following, because the majority of Youtubers, who focus on this topic, are extreme BS artists.
I just follow craiglisthunter and another Ebay-powerseller couple who does scavenging as well as buying bulk, from time to time.
I’m also on other reseller forums and it’s pretty hard to get some useful informations out of the known bulk sellers/purchasers, because (i can understand this, actually) no one wants to make his sources/his methods public, because the danger of being pushed out of this business at this level might be too big (?)Has anyone besides T-Satt already tried this method and has some results ?
I already changed some of my listing ( ~ 200 listing) to the 30 day listing period and will report back on how it went for me.
- One suggestion for T-Satt
As aperture already mentioned in a different context:
Wouldn’t it be smart to list your items in such a way that the final date will always be on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday evening?It seems to be the best time for auctions if you want to recieve the maximum amount of money, mainly because on these days most of the buyers are online.
I had the same positive experience removing a completely unearned negative rating/feedback 2 weeks ago on my side of the pond.
A buyer gave me a negative rating and feedback because i only offered wire transfer as a payment option (this was CLEARLY declared, now i offer for every item paypal as a payment processor, too).
A short convo with an Ebay rep on Sunday morning cleared the issue in about 15 minutes and my negative feedback was removed a hour later.
Maybe eBay wakes up to the fact that not only the buyers are important, but the sellers as well.
Another not well elaborated suggestion of mine would be to nudge the buyers to leave an review with some sort of incentive. I might be a little to strict, but I can’t stand the fact that i have a lot of customers who don’t leave any review at all, even if they are/were satisfied.
I mean, c’mon, it’s a matter of seconds to give a positive review with the dropdown menu of pre-written statements.
I’d say mostly the same as in the US, BUT it’s quite rare to find real estate auctions here.
On the other side there is big flea market culture here.Hi Jay.
Yes, we do have such auctions in Germany, although it gotta admit that those are rare & if you’ll find one you gotta be extra cautious regarding bidding, because the prices tend to be extra high.
https://imgur.com/ALbY0Oa
https://imgur.com/eGHg49M
https://imgur.com/2aoL6J8
https://imgur.com/V4uCMSE
https://imgur.com/S0sYFEk
https://imgur.com/WqF2O2H
https://imgur.com/xppfhjy
https://imgur.com/Bzsbagc
https://imgur.com/XIEtpDxSorry for the delay, but i was banned by the Stop Spam Bot.
This leads to Jay’s point about needing a good size inventory to get consistent sales.
May I ask you & the others how many items you have in your inventory ?
I’ll immidiately admit that i’m a bloody beginner with roughly 150 articles in his inventory (but i’m expanding it weekly)we sell items with 0 watchers all the time. Sold 14 items so far this week. 4 of those items has zero watchers. That’s almost 33%.
That’s exactly what i experienced too.
I sold last week some articles, which sites might have been visited 10 times and had 0 watchers as well.Regarding this:
eBay is great because you can see the historical data from the last 90 days of sold items.
I do wonder if you still oppose the use of Terrapeak ?
My problem with the historical data from the last 90 days is that i sell some “rare” products which haven’t been sold in the last 90 days on eBay, so i don’t have any reliable info from eBay on this particular product and I’m the guy with only 150 articles listed.
How do you deal with this problem without any additional eBay research tool, Jay ?
I snipped some high priced clothes (True Religion, Versace) the last week with this method (1,5 € + shipping) & i try to resell them this week, will report back on my experience, but i think I can get a very nice profit margin.
I decline bids automatically which are at 50 % of the price i’m asking for.
Not a big fan of low-ball offers & trying to negotiate the price up, which is most of the times a fruitless endeavour anyway.
Still i’m a bit surprised that haggling isn’t common at all at eBay, cuz this is what I’m enjoying the most (unless the interested buyer begins with really hilarious low ball offers).
Do other sellers also experience the following behaviour:
An interested buyer puts your item on the watch list almost right at the start of the listening period and then never does anything again (until probably the end of the auction)?I got some items in my inventory, where i do experience exactly this kind of behaviour at the moment.
Since i’m relatively new i’d be interested in the motivation of the interested buyer in doing so?
Do they wait until the end of the auction, cuz they do expect a sudden price drop (motivated by the action of getting rid of inventory from the side of the vendor ?) or do they want to up the pressure on the vendor (lol, if so) by offering a low ball offer with the argument that this specific item didn’t sell ?
Thank you all, Nancy, Temudgin (are you from the Ex-USSR as well? Your username is very common around Central Asia/Mongolia) and also Amatino.
I’ll list the pictures this weekend as “Buy It Now/Make Best Offer” for around 49,99 € with free shipping.
Hopefully some sales will happen, if so (or not) i’ll report back to this thread.
Yes, you are very right, Jay.
Germany is quite a good place to scavenge, especially if you are into tools & tech equipment.
