Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Great info, thanks!
“We’ll also be getting the ability to send coupons to past buyers, and we’ll get notices when a buyer is a returning buyer.”
Jay and Ryanne have been publicly wishing for a way to identify past buyers within the eBay account for years – nice to see eBay taking some action in that direction.
Sorry. Went a little too far down one of those holes. I’ll just give you the list, as I don’t think the average would be helpful:
“Vintage Working 1950’s ….” $199.95 on July 18, 2018.
“Vintage Columbia 360 K2 Leather Case Record….” $59.99 on March 18, 2017.
“Vtg Record Player….” $699.99 on July 16, 2016.
“Vintage Columbia 360 K2 Record Player” $20 on March 1, 2014. All sold on eBay.Reminds me of the time a while back that I bought and paid for a lot from a seller with a Russian name who wanted me to withdraw the Paypal payment and instead send the money to a different email address. But in the messages he attached a photo of the email address he wanted me to use, which was too tiny and fuzzy to read. I played along a bit and told him to send a better photo or just type it out but he wouldn’t do it. After a little back and forth I finally told him end of discussion; I paid for it so ship it, or else. And he did, so it was all good. I eventually made about $200 net profit on the lot so I was happy.
I was not offended. It’s the type of thing that happens when you snipe for bargains among marginal auction listings put up by flaky sellers.
This took me down a technical rabbit hole but it was good exercise. Here you go:
6/6/21 – 6/12/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 356
Items Sold: 16
Gross Sales: $619.35
Highest Price Sold: $280 – consignment challenge coin from the US Naval Special Warfare Command 2-Star Admiral (in charge of the SEALS, etc.).
Returns: 0
COGS: $221.72 (including consignment commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 6
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0For sure FedEx and UPS are not perfect. Another thing I learned about them is that they don’t always pick up at drop boxes unless someone has scheduled a pickup there with a service higher than Ground/Home.
“Excuse me! I’m takin’ a bath here!” says Midge.
This rare antique bayonet took a while to sell at $285 plus shipping, despite its poor condition. It was a $50 online auction snipe from a couple years ago. It’s for a Dutch 1895 Cavalry Carbine and had its original scabbard and frog (leather hanger). It’s a quality piece of period engineering, compared to many bayonets.
This is a Smith Gage Ski/Snowboard Helmet in camouflage that was $5 at a yard sale. It sold for $38 with free shipping.
I don’t intend to make DVDs a regular part of my inventory but I do keep an eye out for sealed ones and around here they’re often only asking $1 at yard sales which can be talked down to .50. Most sales are quickly picked over by the local movie and game resellers but sometimes I beat them to a sale. (There are 3 used game stores within a couple miles of me.) I paid .50 for this History Channel documentary about the Mayflower which turned out to be comparatively desirable. It sold for $35 with free shipping.
When it comes to challenge coins, often the figural ones are more desirable. Over the years they have gotten more and more elaborate and sometimes even have moving parts. This one is cut out in the shape of Master Chief insignia anchors but it’s also one of the personal coins of a guy who recently retired and was a popular leader in the Navy. A consignment, it sold for $55 plus shipping.
This vintage 1918 aluminum Mirro tea or coffee pot with wooden handle was part of a large free lot. It sold for $45 plus shipping.
Glad you could follow the link – I seem to have lost the ability to post photos from Imgur in my forum posts as I have done in the past. I’ve tried a few different ways and nothing seems to work.
I did list her other abstract: https://www.ebay.com/itm/274149568414 I’m also glad you don’t think it’s horrible- I’m counting on a buyer somewhere out there who agrees with you. 🙂
Cool museum. I think it would go in the Unseen Forces collection:
[img]https://i.imgur.com/4LumhjR.jpg?2[/img]
The only way I knew which way was up was that she signed the back. She painted two like this and in the other one the colors are worse, if you can imagine that.
Cool museum. I think it would go in the Unseen Forces collection:
The only way I knew which way was up was that she signed the back. She painted two like this and in the other one the colors are worse, if you can imagine that.
5/30/21 – 6/5/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 365
Items Sold: 16
Gross Sales: $395.91
Highest Price Sold: $90 – incredibly awful amateur abstract oil painting done by my wife’s grandmother in the ‘60s.
Return: 0
COGS: $78.86 (including consignment commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 50
$ Spent on New Inventory: $0It was a great week on eBay for me. I managed 50 listings, which I think is a record for me, though many of them were low dollar bread and butter items like books, DVDs, and postcards. My INR buyer from last week got his patch finally and contacted me to repay what I refunded him, which was very kind of him, considering I had no proof of delivery. He also had already given me good feedback praising my good customer service and quick refund. My faith in humanity is restored.
You mentioned my chargeback in the podcast – it ended up that it was decided in the buyer’s favor but eBay covered me under seller protection so I did not have to refund. It was done automatically; I got a message about the chargeback initiated and the next thing I got was an email telling me of the result and being covered.
Most of the used cannon replicas on eBay are tourist items, the type of things that have been sold in museum gift shops and the like for probably 60 or 70 years to the present, as are these two. These two are intended to be more or less replicas of 16th or 17 th Century European cannon. The one with the large-wheeled limber is a field gun (so it could be towed around easily) and the one with the smaller wheels is supposed to be a marine or fort cannon since they only had to be rolled back and forth a short distance on a relatively smooth surface to be reloaded. They are often seen with little identification plates such as “Carlos I Siglo XVI” (for King Carlos I of Spain of the 16th Century) and the like. The construction details and barrel decoration are not especially accurate but the buyers don’t seem to care.
As with many decorative collectibles there are sellers who give them away and others hold out for more money for the same item. Here’s one that looks to be the same as your large-wheeled one on a BIN for $57, marked down from $60, plus shipping:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/384168477269
That’s about what I’d put each one up for, and be willing to go down to about half that to sell it on an offer. I recently sold a smaller vintage brass and iron replica cannon for $40 plus shipping, and there are a couple solds on Terapeak for $38 – $39 plus shipping for this type of 16th Century replica more like yours.
If you don’t have an option to open a case, you might see “Buyer hasn’t paid” somewhere in your eBay Sold or Seller Hub page, but it can vary by what kind of store you have (if you have one) and other factors.
Ebay is messing with it and the timing (used to be 2 days now 5 days) and apparently not every seller has the same options. You might need to call eBay to find it in your account.
5/23/21 – 5/29/21
Total Active Items (2 different stores): 330
Items Sold: 7
Gross Sales: $279.84
Highest Price Sold: $129 – consignment challenge coin from 1995 – 1997 Bosnia operations.
Return: 1 (and 1 INR refund – a patch shipped in an envelope with stamps)
COGS: $98 (including consignment commissions but not including cost of any family castoffs sold)
New Listings: 9
$ Spent on New Inventory: $10So maybe it was the supermoon and blood moon (and full moon) but it was a bit of a strange week. I had a challenge coin that was going eBay International Standard Delivery to Japan returned to me by eBay for supposedly being a prohibited item, which it’s not. So it’s back to direct shipping by First Class International Package for all my challenge coins.
Earlier this year I mentioned a negative feedback that was my first as a seller in 24 years that I was having trouble getting removed. Although I have 30 day free returns the buyer never opened a return case so the situation did not fit within the four corners of the eBay seller protection policy. Well last week I finally lucked into a CSR on the phone who got it done. The long, effusive email I subsequently received notifying me of the “Wonderful News!” was amusing. BTW, it did not matter that I had already replied to the negative.
Lastly, I had a credit card chargeback on an item for unauthorized purchase in Managed Payments. When I messaged the buyer to ask what the hell (because he had given me positive feedback) he said it was because he had reported his card lost but he insisted that he had told his card company that my payment was authorized. Of course the credit card company eventually found for the buyer, but eBay then covered it for me under seller protections, automatically. Woo hoo!
Loved the podcast. Buying what no one else wants: In the stock market it’s called being a contrarian. That’s Warren Buffett. He bought railroad stock when everyone thought trains were done, among other famous picks.
If a seller is in “business” to the extent they are registered with state and local authorities with a resale tax number and/or their activities are taxed as a business such as on a Schedule C or Form 1065 or 1120/1120S and their business is at their home, isn’t their home residence address also a business address that would need to be disclosed in the listing?
Perhaps most importantly for most of us here on SL, though, only a “high-volume third party seller” has to disclose. And that is defined as a seller who enters into 200 or more sales of “new or unused consumer products” of an aggregate $5,000 or more. So the disclosures do not apply to sellers of only used products. Another exception is for a seller who is a “business entity that has made available to the general public the entity’s name, business address, and working contact information” which should include just about any corporation, LLC, or registered partnership in the country where the state corporation commission or secretary of state has a public website.
But before we breathe any easier, I can foresee that there may be difficulties in implementation in differentiating the sellers of new and used items. It would be significantly easier for eBay to make everyone do it.
Quite a flurry of 8-track stuff going out, eh? Congratulations on your son’s graduation, Steven! I had two graduations on May 14-15 – my daughter from college and my son from high school. My daughter’s was virtual and she came home to watch from here but my son’s was in-person with activities over a 3 day period so fortunately my wife and I didn’t have to split up to cover Mass and Florida.
I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t get more for this consigned Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter challenge coin but at $89 plus shipping I guess I can’t complain. Some SecDefs are just more popular (or notorious?) than others. https://imgur.com/fSCvbrm
It took a little research for me to identify the relatively uncommon Ryan aircraft pictured in this WWII-era postcard of an aerial shot over the San Diego Civic Center but I think it helped me get $20 for it. It was $2 at a flea market. https://imgur.com/EWBso9r
This souvenir Ukrainian pyrography 17” mace or bulava sold for $24 plus shipping. It was a family item. https://imgur.com/4in96Oj
This cute little souvenir pin is originally from Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, Indiana and sold for $25 plus shipping. It was about $1 as one of a handful of smalls picked out of a flea market dealer’s box. Vintage souvenir items from less popular attractions will sell but are usually long tail. This one surprised me by selling within a week or two. I don’t bother with most items from popular places because there’s too much competition for only a mediocre sell-through rate. https://imgur.com/txRCXtf
This is a 1954–1955 yearbook from the US Army 187<sup>th</sup> Airborne Regimental Combat Team stationed in Japan. This had a couple strikes against it: It did not contain full unit rosters with soldiers’ names and photos, it was from a peacetime period after the Korean War and before the Vietnam War (though conflict there did begin in 1955), and the cover was stained. It still sold for $74 plus shipping. https://imgur.com/SgCMr91
There is intense competition nowadays at yard sales and flea markets for movies but I was lucky to pick up this sealed Blu Ray of a Harrison Ford double feature for 50 cents at a yard sale. It sold quickly for $27.55 with free shipping. https://imgur.com/dhB8kY6
