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I love this thread! Kindness matters. If you’ve ever put on an estate sale yourself you know just how hard they work and they are already tired by the time they start the sale. I know they appreciate every little bit of consideration they can get. I certainly have, at the ones I’ve worked on.
It goes both ways too. I have left sales because the people working were so rude. A month ago I heard an anti-semitic remark by a worker at a school rummage sale and it upset me so much I left and wrote to the principal, expressing how offensive the remark was. To her credit she wrote back immediately and apologized and wrote a very thoughtful reply.
Thanks Sharyn!
You are so right….it’s much easier to list similar items. With the fabric I was able to copy a previous listing, scan the fabric twice (once with a quarter to show scale of print), measure it, weigh it and change out the title slightly (depending on color, manufacturer,and other differences), change a few tag words and done.
Easy peasy. And fabric is SO easy to ship!
I’ve mentioned before that I used to be a folk art doll artist, and that also means that I have (or Had) an enormous stash of fabric from those days, all stacked neatly in boxes in the upper part of the garage. In the past I have pulled boxes and listed them but it’s been a year or two since I have done that. People are starting to buy fabric to sew for fall projects so I decided I needed to get more of it listed. So I got out the ladder and climbed up to pull down two large boxes of flannel and 30s reproduction prints, both great sellers and the fabric has been languishing in my garage for way too many years. With the gauntlet VT threw down….now was the time. I was further encouraged when once I started listing, the fabric began immediately selling.
I spent all last week listing that fabric, many hours (it was pretty much mostly what I did) and have sold over $400 worth already. Extra bonus is getting rid of two boxes of death pile items.
The result:
I listed 125 items.Best listing week ever. Thanks VT! And everyone!
I hear ya, Vintage Treasure. Bring it. π
Gosh so sorry to hear about your dog Amatino and your cat VT. Our fur babies do tend to make life more interesting. And Sharyn, great haul! I meant to take a picture of my full minivan but forgot. I found some vintage 1950s coloring books at the Sacramento Faire and listed them right away last week, and the Halloween one sold in two hours! Very motivating to get more of the picking trip treasures listed.
I listed 48 items last week and plan for even more this week…you listening Vintage Treasures? (grin)
Hope everyone has a less eventful week…some peace and quiet for all.
One teeny tiny little listing for me last week. I left on my picking trip on Tuesday and just got back this morning. Had a fabulous time and filled the minivan up floor to ceiling, front to back. Since I am a writer I love vintage typewriters and the holy grail for me has always been to find a vintage turquoise portable typewriter…..and I found TWO. TWO!! At the Sacramento Antique Faire. Different models so I will try out both and see which one I like best and sell the other. Maybe. (wink)
The most popular booths were selling either Farmhouse or Mid-century Modern. I haven’t seen anything else coming along to replace either of those trends, although there were a lot of African carved wood pieces, linens and artwork. More than I have seen other years.
Vintage Treasures, so sorry to hear about your family member. Sending you good thoughts and a hug.
Wishing a good week for everyone ahead.
Worked my tail off last week and plowed through a huge stack that had taken over a corner of a room. Priced and boxed up a bunch of it for the street fair in August and listed a bunch too. It’s lovely to have that corner back. Listed 50 items.
Leave tomorrow for the picking trip in California but do plan to list like crazy today, so should have some numbers to post next Monday.
Vintage Treasures….you are funny! I rather thought of you as darling…so let’s share the title. π
Hope everyone has a great week.
I have never been called a vintage darling before. It made my day!
I have the house to myself this week so I have a HUGE project under way, pulling all the bits and pieces of various picking excursions out to the living room, sorting, cleaning, pricing or listing, and boxing and getting on top of it, hopefully once and for all. Hard to do with my usual limited work space so I am taking full advantage. We normally try to keep the living areas relatively merchandise free.
Hope you are having a blast on your vacation Sharyn! Charlie and I are going on a week-long picking trip to California next week so my numbers next time will be WAY down…but this week I listed 44 items.
Amatino,
Don’t be daunted by Etsy. They make it as easy as possible to start and list. Agreed, there will be a learning curve, and it’s important that you make your listings attractive, but it’s all well within your wheelhouse. As VT says, you should use tags on your listings. But here’s the cool thing. If you list in an organized fashion, similar items in a category, you can copy a listing and just switch out photos and so forth and it will go fast, once you learn how.
I picture Ebay as an enormous flea market, filled with crowds and thousands of booths, some cluttery and messy and some organized and nicely displayed. I picture Etsy as a large Victorian house, each room filled with beautiful treasures, curated and beautifully displayed. With fewer customers, but ones that are willing to pay more for the shopping experience.
It costs five cents a month to list on Etsy, and list it and forget it is the norm. It might take longer to sell a particular item, but you will make more, in most cases. As VT mentioned, I do well with vintage children’s books and get good money for them, much more than I would get on Ebay. I sold a book to Thailand last week for $45 and two books to Vietnam a couple of days ago that sold for $35 each. It’s easy to ship internationally and you can pick and choose which countries you ship to.
I had a really fun sale yesterday….I sold 26 pieces of fabric to ONE customer.
It’s a very different customer base. There’s more personal conversations and there’s also the expectation that you ship things in attractive packaging, or at least not in cereal boxes. It’s all about the WHOLE shopping experience. Your storefront should reflect your personality.
If you need help getting set up, or have questions about the whole thing, please let me know and we can converse through email.
Amatino,
It’s not just you. π But are you offering free shipping on a six dollar item? So the customer is really actually only paying $3 for the item, plus shipping?
I sell a LOT of fabric on Etsy and sometimes I list items that sell for 3-4-5 dollars, plus shipping. However, it’s super fast to list (2 scans and a template) and my customers often buy multiples. Several times a week I have customers order 6 or more pieces at a time, so the sale actually is a $25 or more sale, instead of a small sale. And I pay very little for the fabric. I get it at the bins or at garage sales. I picked up a huge box of high quality quilt shop fabric last weekend for $18. There’s 87 pieces of fabric in the box so my cost was around 20 cents for each piece. That’s well worth listing for me.
I agree with Vintage Treasures, though. I don’t want to have to do a huge amount of research or a lot of time cleaning. It needs to be items that are easy to list, easy to ship, and easy to store.
I listed 28 items. The week kinda got away from me with one thing or another. The good news is that I spent a LOT of time on the novel and only have 2 chapters left to write before the first draft is done. That’s very exciting for me.
I have my eye on you Vintage Treasures. (grin) It seems you are going to give me a run for my money. And Amatino…..you are coming on strong! Sharyn, you beat me last year for the win, so I have my eye on you too. π
You ladies are a riot!
And way to go Vintage Treasures…you certainly aced me this week. I listed 11 items but I worked over 60 hours last week on the rummage sale. Some days I was there 10 or 12 hours. It was well worth it as we raised over $5000 for the Grange…that’s a lot of $1-3 items! But man, I am glad it’s over.
Brace yourself…I am back in the game. (grin)
Here’s how I have been counting…I count unique listings. At least half my listings are retail items and I might have 3 or 6 or even 12 items in stock for the listing and I only count it as one. Or if it’s a set of things, like three ornaments in one listing, I count it as one.
If I counted it as number of items listed my totals would be in the hundreds each week. I felt like that would be unfair, since it takes no more effort to type in quantity 6 than it does quantity 1.
Amatino….the costumes look fantastic! I really enjoy all the pictures you share.
Vintage Treasures….ugh. Certainly sounds like a bad week. Perhaps you have used up your quota of bad customers for the year…one can hope! Hang in there, this week is sure to be better!
48 listings for me. Will have to hustle on listings this week, as I will be spending every single day on the rummage sale for this weekend, at least a few hours each day. Sale is Friday and Saturday. Have found a few cool pickings, so that’s the upside.
Saw your challenge above, and all I can say is…game on! π
Listed 40 items AND had a fabulous time at the Farm Chicks Show in Spokane. Well worth the 6.5 hour drive! Came back last night inspired and invigorated and ready to get great things accomplished this Summer.
Hope everyone has a wonderful week…..Happy June to you!
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