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I have done it with envelopes a couple of times without problems and once with a box (GI Joe Aircraft Carrier toy). HOWEVER, don’t do it with flat rate Priority Mail through USPS (legal envelopes, Regional Mail, flat rate large box, etc). I understand they have cracked down on that. You could tape two Priority Mail boxes, envelopes together and pay the weighted/measured price-just not with flat rate.
Hey Matt, welcome.
I live in central Indiana.
I also use the iphone 5 for photos and am happy except for close ups of small items (coins).
I would say ebay is the thrift store for the lazy and too busy (to shop) people.
I
To succeed with buying things at Thrifts, you need to shop many and often. For example, currently, I am finding lots of nice shorts for me (lost some weight), but I know I won’t find any jeans. Too many jeans lookers right now in late fall. And I found 3 nice womens sandals (like new) last week-but no snow boots-I was buying boots last summer.I have been buying 90% plus of my clothing and shoes at thrifts/yardsales for the last 5 years. But I can’t expect to find what I want at any one random store-I have to hit many. If I am patient, I will find nice things for $3-7 each. Or I can go on ebay and find them for $25-35 plus shipping. It can be cheap, or easy, but rarely both.
Week of Oct. 30-Nov. 5, 2017
Total Items in Store: 489
Items Sold: 26
Cost of Items Sold: $77
Total Sales: $560
Highest Price Sold: $50
Average Price Sold: $21.54
Returns: 1
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $19
Number of items listed this week: 22
Prices do not include shipping charges, which are charged to the buyer (no free shipping).J&R, you mentioned finding money in your couch. I occasionally (3 or 4 times a year) find a few dollars the pockets of jeans I purchased at a thrift. Found $13 two weeks ago. Last summer I found a Starbucks gift card in a purse with $10 on it. Nice bonus since I only paid $4!
I find the occasional wood hockey stick and quite a few skates here in IN-but youth hockey is not real big here. Anything I find is always a good sale at the store.
Play it again sports is a national franchise-I frequent one in Indiana and also in FL (when snowbirding). There may be others.
I visit about every two weeks, and drop off $75 to $100 or so. They cut a check for anything that has sold then. Easy-peasy.
I told a friend in Michigan about them. He found a store near Detroit. His first sale was 4 referee (zebra) shirts he purchased at a church sale for $1 each. He made $35.
Don’t forget to remove any copper line and keep for a semi-annual trip to the scrap recycler. Last summer I grabbed about 30 ft. of copper line from the “free box” at a garage sale. Cha-Ching!
Welcome Chris. How do you ship your hats?
I have about 50 hats listed, but always wonder how others do it.Yeah, letting go can be hard, but you just have to move on.
I had another Realtor cheat me out of a $10,000 commission once. Yes, that is $10k. I had a signed contract and sought legal help. The attorney I contacted was very, very intimidated by the response he received from the attorney representing the crooked Realtor-they threatened to counter sue, etc. I was told it would cost me $6-$7k if we went to court, with only a 50/50 chance of success. I decided it just wasn’t worth it. I really had to work through the anger, “not fair”, etc. BUT, I kept the file in case I changed my mind. I saw the file in the bookcase about every 3 days. After a couple of months, I finally destroyed it. Only then did I find peace.
That experience taught me something about “moving on”-don’t hold on to anything that pulls the discouraging event back into your conscience.
I have had a couple of low ball buyers continue to badger and beg. After the second contact, I block them. With two, I finally said “please do not email me any longer”. I was prepared to contact ebay if they did not stop.
BTW, I am not exaggerating the “begging”, the last contact with one of them was “pretty please?”.I thank low ballers for their email, but tell them I am in no hurry to sell. Usually, I knock the price down 2-5%, with my response but no more. I love the “respond with an offer” button. About 1 of 4 take the 2% off.
Like many, I eye roll the sob stories: Single mom, senior on fixed income, donate to a good charity, lost my job, etc.
I have a return where ebay says “we asked the buyer to ship the item back by Nov. 2. When can I call ebay and ask to have the return closed, if the item isn’t shipped. The 2nd or the 3rd?
Thanks.
College move outs seem like a good bet. A flea market I frequent has a young woman whose part time job is cleaning campus apartments when they become vacant. About once a month she rents a couple of tables and sells items she has found.
Great post. I have wanted to check it out for some time, but watched a couple of youtubes on people who went there and were disappointed. One picker said he had better luck hitting the thrifts on the way there and back.
Kind of like going to an estate sale and deciding the prices are WAY too high, and coming back the next day hoping for discounts. But the stuff is picked over by people paying WAY too much. I guess people think estate sales (and unclaimed baggage) are always great deals.
Enjoyed your game room post, Retro.
At one time, as a Realtor, I represented 4-5 major banks by listing and selling their foreclosed properties in my area. People routinely leave some valuable items when they move out. Part of my job was arranging the clean up of these homes. BUT, I would walk through and take anything of value I wanted. We found nearly new ladders, furniture, kitchen items and even a one gram gold bar (about $85). We used to take the books to half price books, and put a few larger items on CL (this was before my ebay experience, or I would have really made some money!). Once I found a non-working pinball machine in otherwise excellent condition. My teenaged sons and I loaded it into the van, and took it to a guy who fixes machines part time. It cost about $50 to get it repaired. My eldest son still has it.Week of Oct. 23-29th, 2017
Total Items in Store: 495
Items Sold: 22
Cost of Items Sold: $72
Total Sales: $575*
Highest Price Sold: $60
Average Price Sold: $26.13*
Returns: 2
Money Spent on New Inventory This Week: $23
Number of items listed this week: 30
*does not include shipping charges (paid by buyer)In the last 10 days, I have been notified of 4 returns-all did not fit! Ouch! 2 shoes, 2 belts. The belts are really head scratching, since we measure each one-I mean, how hard is it to measure your own waist? But, I know some buyers purchase off the listing headline and never read down to the measurements. I’m hoping 1 or 2 will decide it isn’t worth the hassle to return things.
