Ebay sellers thread (other platforms too)

[disneysteve]

My ebay sales have come to a grinding halt. I haven't sold a thing since June 2. I'm pretty sure this is the longest I've gone without a sale in the past year and a half since I started selling again regularly. I'm sure it's just a seasonal thing, coming after a holiday weekend, kids getting out of school, people starting to take vacations. I'm carrying on with business as usual listing new items, sending out offers, occasionally tweaking prices and refreshing things. Hopefully it picks up soon. I do have an auction ending tomorrow so I know I'll make at least one sale.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I may buy that same $24.99 scale you showed. I can see where a big box could obstruct the display on the scale I showed.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Will be listing some small denomination foreign currency soon. Thanks to disneysteve for making me aware of standard envelope shipping it'll be a cost effective way to ship currency rather than me taking a chance on a forever stamp and the buyer saying they never got the item. 1 oz is .60 cents up 3 oz max at $1.08. My small denomination foreign currency ranges from $3 to about $30 each. I'll do auction style and take my chances with whatever the market price commands for each bill.

[disneysteve]

Unlike QMM, I rarely run auctions on ebay. The only time I do is when I really can't establish an asking price for an item.

I listed something last night for auction with a starting bid of $19.99. Around 9am someone messaged me and asked if I'd take $30 for it. I politely declined. Around 2pm, he messaged again and asked if I'd take $150. I declined again and wished him luck bidding on it.

The item is a 16mm film from RCA and the US Air Force Reserve put out by the Government Marketing Office in 1961. Multiple copies were made (this is print #11) but who knows how many are still in existence today. This could well be the only one. I'll report back when the auction ends with the final price.

I started this auction at $19.99. I turned down offers for $30 and $150 (from the same guy).

The auction ended a few minutes ago.

It sold for $477.77.

Winning bidder is the guy who offered me $150. Looks like turning him down was a wise move .

By the way, I bought it on May 26 for about $8.00.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Good call.

[disneysteve]

I went to an estate sale on Friday. I bought 3 Lenox carousel animal figurines, 4 books, a bunch of cross stitch fabric, and a mug. I paid $30 for everything.

I just sold one of the Lenox figurines for $93 so I've already tripled my money just from the first item. By the time I sell everything, I should make over 10 times what I spent.

ETA: This sale put my profit for June at $541.08 so I'm over my $500 goal and we're not even halfway through the month.

[bjl584]

I went to an estate sale on Friday. I bought 3 Lenox carousel animal figurines, 4 books, a bunch of cross stitch fabric, and a mug. I paid $30 for everything.

I just sold one of the Lenox figurines for $93 so I've already tripled my money just from the first item. By the time I sell everything, I should make over 10 times what I spent.

ETA: This sale put my profit for June at $541.08 so I'm over my $500 goal and we're not even halfway through the month.

That's a pretty good score.
I haven't been to an estate sale in quite a while.
Currently, I don't really have an eye for things that have value.
I'd be guessing

[disneysteve]

I went to an estate sale on Friday. I bought 3 Lenox carousel animal figurines, 4 books, a bunch of cross stitch fabric, and a mug. I paid $30 for everything.

I just sold one of the Lenox figurines for $93 so I've already tripled my money just from the first item. By the time I sell everything, I should make over 10 times what I spent.

Today I sold the second of the Lenox figurines for $78.50 bringing me to $171.50 in sales from my $30 purchase 4 days ago.

[disneysteve]

That's a pretty good score.
I haven't been to an estate sale in quite a while.
Currently, I don't really have an eye for things that have value.
I'd be guessing

I have been dealing with collectibles my entire life so I've developed a rather good eye for value. Even when it's something I truly know nothing about, like the film I sold the other day, I have enough experience to spot something that is unusual like that. As long as the cost is reasonable, I'm willing to take a chance.

As for this being a good score, I agree, but I have to say that getting a 10x return has been surprisingly common for me. It sometimes takes a while but I'm in no hurry.

[disneysteve]

That's a pretty good score.
I haven't been to an estate sale in quite a while.
Currently, I don't really have an eye for things that have value.
I'd be guessing

Also, we have great resources at our fingertips today that we didn't years ago. I can pull out my phone and look up values of items on ebay in a few seconds. I can see sold results going back 2 years. If I'm not quite sure what something is, I can use Google Lens to try and identify it. It's not a foolproof method but it can be very helpful.

With the estate sales, they post a ton of pictures in advance and I can use those to check values before I even set foot in the house. The app also lets you make notes on the photos. So for the sale I just went to, I looked up each of the Lenox figurines and noted their resale value so I walked in knowing what they were worth and how much I was willing to pay for them.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Also, we have great resources at our fingertips today that we didn't years ago. I can pull out my phone and look up values of items on ebay in a few seconds. I can see sold results going back 2 years. If I'm not quite sure what something is, I can use Google Lens to try and identify it. It's not a foolproof method but it can be very helpful.

With the estate sales, they post a ton of pictures in advance and I can use those to check values before I even set foot in the house. The app also lets you make notes on the photos. So for the sale I just went to, I looked up each of the Lenox figurines and noted their resale value so I walked in knowing what they were worth and how much I was willing to pay for them.

Seriously anyone looking to pay off debt and make some extra cash fast should do this. They should start with stuff in their house to get the hang of it for dave ramsey snowball but then if they need extra cash it's a quick way without finding a job.

FWIW i sold a pair of concert tickets for 4x what i bought spare tickets for. Thought friends were going they weren't so I just listed it for whatever. I am going for free. Now if only ticketmaster will pay me.

[disneysteve]

Seriously anyone looking to pay off debt and make some extra cash fast should do this. They should start with stuff in their house to get the hang of it

Starting with stuff you already have is standard advice in the reselling groups. There's definitely a learning curve so better to do it without putting new money at risk. Learn what you're doing and see if you like it. Once you feel comfortable and find you're enjoying it (it's not for everyone), then you can start buying stuff to resell. The great thing is the barrier to entry is virtually zero. Everyone has something lying around the house that they could sell and then use those proceeds as seed money. I know of sellers who have never invested a penny into their business. They just sold stuff around the house and used that money to buy more things, and then that money to buy even more, and now they're making hundreds or thousands each month.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Sold 2 foreign currency notes today at auction beginning at $1 each but didn't do so well. Each note when I researched it was worth about $10 each. Oh well cannot win em all the time, lol. i still have more foreign currencies to sell later which I hope will do better.

[disneysteve]

Sold 2 foreign currency notes today at auction beginning at $1 each but didn't do so well. Each note when I researched it was worth about $10 each. Oh well cannot win em all the time, lol. i still have more foreign currencies to sell later which I hope will do better.

I know you like auctions but they really aren't the best option for most things. In this case, you have items with a clearly defined value. What's the point of an auction? If the note is worth $10, list it as a Buy It Now for $8.50 or $8.75 with free shipping.

Save auctions for items with fuzzy value and high demand. My recent auction of the vintage film reel is a perfect example. There was no way to come up with a price for that in advance. Mine was the only one on the market. I couldn't find any evidence of another copy being sold in the past couple of years. And it was a film related to the government and military and space age stuff so very desirable topics. Perfect auction fodder. I started low and it sold high.

[disneysteve]

Of course the big sales are fun to talk about but the daily bread and butter sort of sales are what really keep things going in between the big scores.

At the same estate sale where I bought those Lenox figures, I also bought 8 vintage sealed packs of cross stitch fabric for 25 cents each. I listed them 2 days ago and have already sold 5 of them for a total of $33.90. That's almost 17 times what I spent for all of them and I still have 3 left to sell. They're listed for $8.95 each but I'm open to lower offers as 4 of the 5 sold so far went for less than that.

Items with a quick turn around and a great margin can add up to significant money pretty quickly. Turning $2 into $34 in a couple of days is tough to beat. This really emphasizes what I said earlier about the low barrier to entry for selling online. Start with a few dollars. Make 5 or 10 or 20 times your money. Then reinvest that into more stuff to sell for 10 times cost. Rinse and repeat and before you know it, you're doing hundreds of dollars in sales each month with little to no upfront investment.