Ebay sellers thread (other platforms too)

[QuarterMillionMan]

The broken Invicta watch sold for $8.50 + $8 shipping to a buyer in TN. Ebay is amazing at making money selling things. Why more people don't sell behooves me. I guess people like to store their belongings in Public Storage or just dump or donate their unused items.

[disneysteve]

The broken Invicta watch sold for $8.50 + $8 shipping to a buyer in TN. Ebay is amazing at making money selling things. Why more people don't sell behooves me. I guess people like to store their belongings in Public Storage or just dump or donate their unused items.

Glad that worked out well for you.

I totally agree. I say it here all the time. ebay is like printing money. Day after day I sell things for 5, 10, and even 20+ times what I paid for them, sometimes within days. The ROI is incredible. Folks who are struggling to make ends meet or trying to pay off debt or save for some big event like college or a wedding really should consider it. I just think the average person doesn't have it on their radar as a thing to do.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I underestimated the cost of shipping where I charged $8 and the actual shipping cost is $8.24, but no biggie.

[disneysteve]

I underestimated the cost of shipping where I charged $8 and the actual shipping cost is $8.24, but no biggie.

How are you determining your shipping cost?

[QuarterMillionMan]

Ebay provided a "calculate shipping" tool which gave a range of $5.85 - $8.24, so I went with the high range and put a flat $8 shipping charge.

[disneysteve]

Ebay provided a "calculate shipping" tool which gave a range of $5.85 - $8.24, so I went with the high range and put a flat $8 shipping charge.

Ah. Never use ebay's estimates for anything. Not price. Not shipping. Not promotion level. It's all AI crap. Weigh and measure your package and use a shipping calculator to determine the cost to ship to the farthest point if you are doing flat rate. I live in NJ and use CA as my guide. Now and then when something sells to AL or HI it might cost a bit more but that's rare.

[disneysteve]

It's taken a while but people in my life are starting to learn what I do. Twice in the past week, someone has reached out to me because they had stuff to sell and wanted to see if I'd be interested.

One friend is cleaning out her late mother's house. The other I'm not quite sure why. Maybe thinking about downsizing as they have a large home and all 3 kids are grown and on their own and they are nearing retirement so perhaps.

I haven't connected with the one yet but the other I sent them an offer today on a set of china and I think I'll be buying that from them. I gave them a more generous offer than I would have given a random stranger but still left myself a reasonable profit.

Word of mouth is always great advertising.

[disneysteve]

I had a good sourcing weekend.

Yesterday, I went to an estate sale. Today I went to another estate sale and a flea market. Here's what I bought and what I sold it for. All sales to Replacements already locked in.

Pitcher. Paid $10. Sold for $80.
Cake plate. Paid $5. Sold for $20.
Pie server. Paid $5. Sold for $20.
Set of cups and saucers. Paid $165. Sold for $280.
Deviled egg plate. Paid $5. Sold for $25.
Olive dish. Paid $5. Sold for $40.
Candle holder. Paid $10. Sold for $60.

Total spent $205
Total sales $525

Not bad at all.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Good job. For me it is gratifying to get rid of things I no longer need and get money for it. Sort of like decluttering which is liberating to free myself of the clutter.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Fast shipping packaging good just as described good price Invicta diver's watch broken for parts not working (#267171300554)

Buyer: dons72272_1 (423) US $8.50 Verified purchase

[disneysteve]

Good job. For me it is gratifying to get rid of things I no longer need and get money for it. Sort of like decluttering which is liberating to free myself of the clutter.

I totally get it. I also use ebay for a lot of our decluttering.

And nice job on the feedback.

[disneysteve]

Tuesday is member discount day at the one chain of thrift stores here with 25% off everything. I haven't hit the thrift shops for a few weeks so I went to one of them yesterday.

I spent $11.12.
I sold the items for $126.00.

Although there are some advantages to accumulating a van load and driving down, there are also benefits to not doing that. For right now, I'm giving myself the mental break of feeling pressured to accumulate enough to make the trip worthwhile and just shipping items as I get them. Right now, I've got $763 worth pending that I've either recently shipped or just picked up yesterday and haven't sent off yet.

The biggest problem with driving down is that the cost of the trip itself is pretty fixed so if I don't have enough merchandise, it's not really worth it. That means I have to really push myself to buy as much as possible in the 50-55 day window that I've got. It's truly not hard to find stock to flip but there is still a decent amount of work and time involved and I just wanted to focus more on some other things for a bit.

[QuarterMillionMan]

When promoting an item for sale before there was only 1 promoting option available which had cost about a 10% fee. Now there is a choice of general or priority. What are the fees associated with either one. General is less promoting. Priority is more promoting so maybe 20% fee more?

[disneysteve]

When promoting an item for sale before there was only 1 promoting option available which had cost about a 10% fee. Now there is a choice of general or priority. What are the fees associated with either one. General is less promoting. Priority is more promoting so maybe 20% fee more?

There are a few promotion options. The basic one is where you set the rate, 2% or higher. Then there is a pay-per-click option where you set a daily budget, I believe. There is also off-site promotions. I honestly don't know all of the details but it's easy enough to look up on the site. Personally, I don't promote my items. I tried it for a while and saw no difference in sales. It just cost me more money.

[disneysteve]

In late December, I bought 2 books on the USS Shangri-La at an estate sale for $2 each. One sold in a few days for $195. The other sold tonight for $129. $4 to $324 in under 3 months. I'll take it.