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I part out games I buy that end up not having all the parts.
desirable games that have ALOT of parts are the best ones to part out.
I just had my 5th accepted offer this morning. This is great! It’s very exciting to get that instant gratification on items that have been sitting for a while.
Absolutely! I love these small item pipelines. Quantity is the best but I’m fine with breaking large lots of misc stuff into small lots or individual listings. Templates can be used to greatly speed it up.
Last spring I went all in on brand new smart wool socks for $3 a pair. I bought over 200 pair! I only listed 67 total pair before winter hit and I have sold 65 pair. Yep, sold all of them except 2 pair of kids socks!
My gross profit after COGS and shipping on those 65 pair was $602 before ebay/paypal fees.
I still have the other 150 pair to list.
Other small pipelines I’ve formed is doll house accessory lots, legos, and thomas the train engines, and parting out board games.
Wow, that is an amazing haul for $2k!
And it’s like christmas too as you probably don’t know what is in many boxes until you open it, right?
I don’t mind if they keep the 30 cent transaction fee, but them keeping the percentage is total crap. I would think that would be worth bring to a state attorney general to see if that is legal to keep the commission on a voided transaction.
FINALLY!
I’m an offer machine this morning. Hopefully I get some sales out of it. Most of my offers are 30%+ discount. I haven’t ever had one accepted before, but I’ve never been able to send this many at once.…or asks for a free water cup at a restaurant and then gets pop instead. My mother-in-law does it ALL. THE. TIME. If she does it with us I absolutely shame her in front of my kids. I want them to know that is NOT cool at all. Honestly its not even the stealing that bothers me as much as the lack of integrity in the situation.
The question I pose to them is “How much is your integrity worth?”. It takes a sad person to sell their integrity for a $1 soft drink… If you’ll do it to save a dollar, what else will you toss aside your integrity for?
Time out on scrapping that copper there buddy.
Those look like some type of mixing valves. They could be worth ALOT more than scrap.I’ll do quick fixes if the item has value.
– gluing back shoes that have good value.
– magic eraser vintage toys or electronics.
– cleaning up leaky battery compartments.If an item is high dollar and needs significant repair, I tend to just list as-is. Typically high dollar electronics or mechanical devices have a very specific customer in mind – either a person who is well versed in repair with all the knowledge tools and parts, or an end user who wants a perfect restored piece.
If you try to shoehorn yourself in between those two typical customers you will likely alienate both. If you do a shoddy repair then you are likely to get an INAD.
Sometimes it is best to accept your role in the supply chain and sell to the professional repair person, unless you are willing to invest more time and money than it is worth for a one-off repair.
Occasionally I’ll try out a repair or three in a new genre just to test my interest. I learned real quick that I don’t want to do radio/stereo repair other than VERY basic fixes and cleanup.
I’ll still occasionally take on an arcade/pinball to do, but it is very rare now. Maybe one a year at most. Several of them I’ve changed my mind and just sold unrepaired and still made a nice profit.
Whoah… Those are some crazy nice RV’s.
I have zero desire to ever have an RV. I don’t want to drive one, don’t want to store one, and definitely don’t want to pay for one or the gas that is required to power it.
I am simply not a leisure driver. I want to get to the destination in as short of time as possible.If I had the money to buy one of those, I’d just fly to where I want to be and stay in a luxurious condo. $750k would buy me at least 750 weeks of really nice condo stays (likely much more if I played my cards wisely and took into consideration off seasons and monthly rentals). That is staying in a WEEKLY condo rental for 14 years straight. It is also almost 14 straight YEARS of staying in $150 a night hotels. Both options are longer than the useful lifespan of that RV!!!
We could make it work if I was home full time. We’d basically trade off on the ebay thing. I’d create listings while she did some School and games with kids and some chores, then I would do some chores/school with kids while she took pictures.
Pictures is the only thing she currently likes, but she says she would want to be able to do everything I do.
I disagree about the uninterrupted time thing. I work in 10-15 minute increments. I just now created listings for 5 items in 10 minutes on my phone in my car during break. Just have to take photos this evening. Sometimes if I’m lucky I get up to 30 minutes. After that I can feel my attention start to drift and I’m not as efficient.
This is the way I’ve had to get things done for years, because uninterrupted time simply does not exist in my house. I fought the process with kids 1-3. Once I had 3 kids though, I had to learn to adapt because working for hours at a time just wasn’t an option and I wasn’t getting ANYTHING done anymore.Just a few months ago I found out there is an entire work strategy based off of intense short bursts of work broken up by breaks called Pomodoro method.
https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-techniqueI talked with my wife over dinner last night about our interesting partner conversation we are having here.
I really would like my wife to become more involved in our ebay business. In the many DIY projects we’ve done over the years, I cover the highly technical and process driven side, while she is the “outside the box” creative side.
I’m really only good at taking what other people have done and improving it. I’m a fixer, mainly because that’s what I do as an Engineer – improve processes. Sometimes I don’t think I have a creative or visionary bone in my body.
My ideal living room is big, symmetrical, and bare bones white walls. Clean, simple….highly efficient but bland and boring. She is the one that will add the character, the interesting asymmetrical lines and shapes, the colors, etc. Make it into something other people want.
My wife is the kind of person that spends some time learning the ropes of a new skill, then branches out to do things with it that other people wouldn’t even think to do – blaze her own path if you will.
I NEED her in this business to help it move to the next level, to evolve. Sometimes I feel like my ebay store is like that room – bland and boring. If we are going to turn this into our livelihood it has to be more than that.
I personally don’t know what “that” would be. I think she would once she knew the business enough to do her thing.My personal test to determine if someone is cheap or frugal is what I call the toilet paper test.
Frugal people still buy the good toilet paper, but may try to use coupons or buy on sale to keep costs down.
Cheap people buy the cheapest paper thin crap even though it don’t work.
Only a truly cheap bastard will suffer WILLINGLY through bad toilet paper. Lol!
