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15 listings for me last week. More importantly, finished the carport, once and for all. This was a long time in the coming but well worth the effort. It’s amazing what you find in the death piles. Some really good stuff for sure. And we took two more car loads to donate. A very productive week all the way around.
37 listings for me last week. Hit the death piles hard and donated a minivan worth of stuff. Much much more work to do but feel like I’m getting somewhere finally, at last. I hope I’m not jinxing myself by saying that!
Hope everyone gets to feeling better and has a good week.
Ten listings for me last week.
There’s a weird phenomenon going here locally this Spring. The volume of garage sales has decreased dramatically, week to week, compared to other years. There’s just not as many as usual and it’s very strange. It’s not weather related because there’s been sunny weekends. My brother in Colorado Springs says he’s noticed it there also. Anyone else noticed this…and any theories?
Hope y’all get over your colds!
Zero listings for me last week but we did have great fun on a picking trip to the Sacramento Antique Faire last weekend, where we scored over 35 vintage books for a buck each, plus lots of fun other treasures.
5 listings for me last week. Had both bronchitis and a trip to the beach…one definitely a lot more fun than the other. All’s well now, though and planning another fun picking trip this coming weekend.
Happy May everyone…wishing y’all a good week ahead.
26 listings for me last week.
Hit a rummage sale Saturday half an hour before they closed and scored big…they didn’t advertise it so there was tons left and they were desperate to move it…we ended up with half a van full for $11.
Sending good thoughts your way VT…and hope everyone has a good week ahead.
VT….sending many good thoughts to you and your husband and your family. Hopefully everything is going well.
Our Spring show was down 10% from last year, which isn’t surprising considering what’s going on right now with tariffs and the stock market. Another show the same week was down over 30% so I guess we are lucky we weren’t down so much! It was a fun show, however, and went very smoothly. It’s all we can hope for right now. I did do a video and maybe I will post it next week.
Back on board with 15 listings for the week. Already have more than that this week, so things are clicking along.
How funny….zero listings for everyone except VT. Go VT!
Thanks Christine…I have an exciting show planned. Hopefully people respond and spend money! I price what I think the market will bear…it depends on the show. I do look at Ebay solds, but I also look at how fast do I want a particular piece sold? How fragile or heavy or awkward is it? People pay higher at the Oregon City show but some of them want to dicker so I certainly mark up for that particular show. Brookhaven is more mid-level…some collectors, but more customers just want something nice to put in their homes and pay accordingly.
Zero listings for me. Completely in Brookhaven show mode now.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Thank you everyone for your well wishes about my dad. I’m doing well.
10 listings for me last week. Brookhaven is just a week away from set up so that’s my main focus now. We’ve put our Niknax auctions on hold until after the show.
Christine I am very excited for you! Looks like a great opportunity and you have already learned so much from your other booth. You know, we rent a smaller Uhaul truck for our Oregon City show and it’s well worth it. I would most certainly bring all your higher ticket items and very unique pieces. It also looks like a great opportunity to network and get your name/brand more out there. You probably have already thought of this, but since you set up on one day and sell the next day, bring sheets to cover everything overnight. Keeps off the dew and everything neat and tidy until you return the next day. You’ve got this! It’s going to be awesome.
18 listings for last week. Thank you Sharyn for the compliment! We’re in Brookhaven mode now, but still trying to get a few listings done.
The biggest news is that my dad died on Sunday. While I will miss him a lot, it was truly a blessing because he was really suffering. We had a chance to say our final farewells, and our journey with him is over. I have lots of great memories to treasure and I am doing well….just glad he is free and at peace.
As I mentioned, we do quite well selling on Amazon and it provides about 40% of our income. However, in my opinion, Amazon does NOT care about it’s sellers and even having a flawless record doesn’t count for anything.
The bulk of our Amazon sales come from an artist who makes figurines and a company reproduces those figurines in China, using specialty painters…they are all handmade and quite detailed. Her figures have a huge following and I sell thousands of them every year. There are several of us who sell them on Amazon, and last year one of them tried to put me out of business, by buying one of the figures from me and then telling Amazon that I was selling counterfeit figures. Amazon takes the accusation of counterfeit VERY seriously (as they SHOULD) and I was immediately placed on notice of having my account closed. It was terrifying. I have been buying from this particular company for over 20 years, and have become good friends with the Vice President and she’s always had my back. She immediately went to battle for me and forced the other seller, who also buys from her company, to withdraw the complaint. It was a terrible few days as it all played out but in the end the accusation was taken off my account and I was back in good standing. On a side note, the company decided not to do any more business with this seller who had accused me, as it was malicious.
The whole mess really shook me up and made me double my efforts to work on other income streams, as one never knows when something outside our control can completely shut things down. You can give the best customer service in the world, or at least try, and it still doesn’t matter in the end.
I agree Sharyn with your insights about the Crazy Lamp Lady. She’s worked really hard to build her brand and people buy things because it’s her. As both an introvert AND camera shy it’s been especially challenging for me. I do live Facebook sneak peeks before every preview night at Brookhaven and that has helped me gain some confidence and customers do comment how much they like it. We also have been working to build our brand on Youtube and that again is a challenge for me, but I also think it’s good to push myself out of my comfort zone. I’m much happier NOT being on camera and just making commentary. We are working and have worked on having several income streams, so if one goes under we won’t be struggling. We’ve done very well selling on Amazon over the past 18 years, but the rug could be pulled out from under us at any moment, so there’s always that fear. I’m going to share a cautionary tale on a separate post.
30 listings for the week. Concentrating on DP items right now, although my focus this week will be shifting to Brookhaven, as it’s coming up fast.
Watched some of the Crazy Lamp Lady show on Niknax yesterday. Very educational. She has a HUGE following…over 700 people were watching her live show. She had 60 pieces for auction…lots of higher end glass and pottery pieces and people were bidding like crazy. Most pieces had 3-4 pre-bids before she even started. She easily sold several thousand dollars worth. Good for her! It was really impressive.
That being said, it takes a lot of time and effort to build that kind of following and I just don’t need another thing on my plate. I also don’t have enough knowledge. The money is there, if you know what you are doing. We’ll just keep plugging away, much more low key. Christine, I am not doing BIN jewelry on there. Just the live auctions. We’re having some issues with our listings…the website is very clunky and not easy to get things right.
Y’all are working it! Keep up the good work! Everyone is getting so much done!
Sending good wishes to everyone for a productive and peaceful week ahead.
Christine…I would agree that Niknax is primarily all about auctions. I’m not putting any effort to listing on there unless it’s something I’ve already had in an auction, as it’s good to show potential followers the kind of things you sell. We just switch the items from “auction” to “buy it now”. It mainly seems to be about jewelry and collectible glass like Fenton. People go nuts for the glass. That’s not really something I want to get into selling and having to ship. I have a phobia about shipping glass!
While I was organizing the carport I ran across a large box of jewelry left over from when I had my brick and mortar shop. It’s all costume jewelry, fun pieces I picked up extremely cheap at the Atlanta Wholesale market and I’m going to hopefully get rid of it this way. I’m going to have a Spring Bling Fling jewelry auction next weekend. Our shop name is Penelope’s Hope Chest.
