Our eBay Store Just Hit 100 Items!

Greetings!

OUR EBAY STORE JUST HIT 100 ITEMS!  We are starting to feel like we are getting a decent amount of inventory built up finally!  Our goal is to get up to 500 - 1,000 items so that my wife can work on the store full time and raise our kid (or kids in the future) at home.  We are feeling good and going to keep on listing throughout the day.

Happy Hunting!

The eBay Freshman

When Disaster Strikes and the Death of My iMac

Greetings!

What do you do when disaster strikes your life and your store?

Over the past few months we've had the following problems with our home (which means we had the following problems with our store since it's in our basement):

1. The Air Conditioner broke during the hottest week of the summer. Talk about a miserable work environment.  Hot, humid and totally steamy!
2. The basement flooded - ruining our carpet and causing some mold to start to grow. The water, luckily only damaged a few store inventory items. But I was forced to empty out our basement and move it to the garage - this was no fun ... and the lack of air conditioning only made it less fun.
3. The Garage Door stopped functioning. It's pretty tough to operate your temporary store out of your garage when it isn't opening or closing.
4. We had an ant infestation in our kitchen. Which is just gross.


All of these things on top of having a 3 month old, dog, rabbit, as well as both my wife and I working full time at our regular jobs and maintaining the day to day chores and upkeep of our home ... while trying to go out and buy store inventory and list items ...

Let's just say it's been trying.

I learned today that ...

5. My iMac's motherboard is fried and it would be about $1,000 to replace it.  That's a lot of pairs of shoes to be sold on eBay!

So what do we do when disaster strikes?  You take care of your shit. That's all you can do!

1. We had the air conditioner replaced and the home is now comfortable to live in again.
2. After fixing what we could with the problem outside where the water seemed to be coming in, we tore out the carpet in our basement, dried everything out, bleached any mold areas we found, replaced soggy parts of our walls and re-carpeted the basement with cheap indoor/outdoor carpet.  We moved the shelves and the store inventory down stairs and are back in business now.
3. We were able to figure out what was wrong with the garage door ourselves - a sensor was bumped and just needed to be re-aligned. That was a small miracle that we didn't have to replace that as well!
4. Killed the ants. Sorry guys.

and...

5.  What can you do?  The computer was from 2008.  I'm just thankful that we were able to salvage our photos and music and data.  Going to store that stuff on an external drive and work off of my wifes laptop for now - we were lucky we already had a back up computer - which is a good point - always have a back up plan for you store.

Happy Hunting!

The eBay Freshman

Cautionary Tales of Antique Dealer "Sales"

Greetings!

Was out yard sale hunting today when I came across an antique dealer in town who was having a 'huge sale'.  More like a huge waste of time.  This was one of those sales where, from the street, it looks like you are going to score big!  Boxes and boxes of items to sort through AND everything was 50% off the marked price.  How can you go wrong?

You can go wrong when you realize after an hour of digging through boxes you are holding two items that you might be able to make $10 total off of after your buying price is covered.  In my experience when an antique store is having a sale that sounds too good to be true, it might be.  I spent a good 1.5 hours at this sale trying to find that one treasure that would turn a great profit, but left with nothing but wasted time and energy.  Be cautious when hitting up events like this ... odds are if the antique dealer is practically giving the stuff away, it's because it's flawed, or because they have determined it's not worth much after they already doing the research on the items.

I'm sure that once in awhile a sale comes along that actually works out great for flippers like us, but this just wasn't one of them.  I could've hit up 5 garage sales in the time I spent there and who knows what items I missed out on?

Happy Hunting!

The eBay Freshman

Opening an eBay Store Banking Account

Open Up An eBay Store Banking Account.  

For new sellers I would recommend doing this as soon as possible.  Usually this doesn't cost anything if you are already a customer of the bank and there isn't a minimum required deposit in many cases. Open up a different checking account for your business.  This will give you a place to track all of your transactions.  So if you take $100 out to go yard sale shopping, take it out of your business account.  If you buy shipping supplies online, use your business account.  Link your business account directly to your eBay/Paypal store so that all of the profits and deductions come from the same place.  Using your personal checking account might be ok if you are just selling a few items here and there, but in the long term you are actually going to want to track your costs vs. your profits. What a boring paragraph - I sound like my dad (who is a banker).

I'd make sure it's the kind of account that you can have a pin for taking out cash at an ATM - you never know when you will need to grab a few extra bucks - if you can go through a bank that reimburses your ATM fees that's a HUGE plus.  My bank actually is an affiliate with iTunes and sends me a $10 iTunes gift card every 2 months if I meet the minimum # of transactions required and check my account balance online a couple of times a month.  For me it's a win win situation.  Plus, make it a joint checking account if you have a partner and your life will become much easier.

The eBay Freshman

Garage Sale Finds for 7/25/13

Greetings!

Not much to report here ... had some carpet delivered today so I had to meet the delivery guys at my place on my lunch break. But I was able to squeeze in one quick yard sale.

I decided to start to bring 'personal spending money' along with my 'store money' to the sales I go.  I've passed up too many things I could use around the house this summer so I decided it's time to get smart!

Most of what I grabbed today is for personal use but there are a few items that will o up in the store.

For myself I purchased an air purifier for the basement.  Technically this could be seen as a business purchase because we run our business out of the basement and I'm down there all the time.  Having more fresh, clean air to breath will be beneficial to my health and will also help keep our items smelling ... well, not like an old basement.  Paid $15 for this item - they were asking $20.  I will usually try to make a lower offer on items that are over $5.  Anything that is less than $5 and is worth picking up is probably priced good even for reselling.

Also picked up a vaporizer since my daughter is sick and needs it - $1 - beats buying it new from Target!

Grabbed a small hand saw - $1 - need this for cutting out some spots in my wall where there might be mold from the flooding I talked about in a previous post.  Again - could be considered a business expense since I need it to keep my health in check down there ... but it was just a buck anyway!

Wire cutters - 50 cents - for personal use.

The only items I got for the store today were small ones. Nothing too special.

Paid 50 cents a piece for 4 Lillian Vernon Chinese Bowls (1983) in their original boxes, so $2 there.

And I picked up a pair of vintage Nolan Ear Muffs with the original box (1982) for $1.

So spent $3 on items for the store ... hoping to make $30-$50 off the two items.

I am hitting up a sale tonight that sounds promising so hopefully I will have better finds to share tomorrow!

Happy Hunting!

The eBay Freshman

Your eBay Store is You.

Greetings!

Your Store is You.  

When you first start thinking about an eBay store you will have to, of course, think about what kinds of items you want to sell.  My recommendation which reflects the eBay Scavengers model is to sell stuff that you are interested in.  For me that is yard sale and 2nd hand items.  I love vintage clothes and accessories, antiques and trinkets, and anything that has a little history behind it.  I also like advertising so stuff with nice boxes and in tact directions makes me excited.  Don’t use your store money to go out and buy crap for yourself though, you are buying for someone else.  I'm not saying don't pick up items for yourself while you are out hunting - you gotta live a little, I'm just recommending bringing a separate wad of cash that is reserved for personal spending to not confuse your budgeting later.

Try to trust your gut if you see something that looks valuable, old, gently used and is being sold for cheap, scoop it up (after a quick search on your smart phone of course).  Items with brands and years with original boxes and directions, etc. gives you a lot to work with for your research and descriptions.  This doesn’t mean everything you find at a yard sale that looks old is worth buying of course - I like to take my smart phone with me  to check items out online before I buy. But buy things you are into otherwise it will get old fast and you will have a basement/garage full of boring crap you don’t care about and don’t want to look at.

The items in your store reflect who you are as a person and what is interesting, appealing to you.  Think about the image you want to reflect to your customers and the kinds of customers you want to work with.

Happy Hunting!

The eBay Freshman

Thrift Store Finds 7/24/13

Greetings!

Decided to swing by a thrift store today on my lunch break to see what I could scrounge up.  Normally thrift stores around here are pretty hip to the whole flipping industry, so any time they get something that looks remotely good, old, or of high quality, they jack up the price and have it in like a special 'antique' corner ... those bastards.  We are the only ones who should be making money off of your quality goods damn it!

Anyway - there is one store in town that still has fair prices.  I hit it up and came away with a few decent items.

Found a vintage pair of sports goggles with it's original box. $1

A collector plate (can't think of the brand) $1

An antique French Doll $1

A pair of wing tip Florsheim men's dress shoes - $2

3 new in package Adventures of Galaxy Rangers stories on cassette tape $6

I bought 1 other item for a $1 but can't think of it right now ...

And the pick of the day was something that I don't normally look for, but it caught my eye.  An early 1900's miniature billiards table with a full set of balls. The brand is Burrowes Corporation and I don't see a whole lot of them for sale.  The ones I do see for sale range from $50 - $400 depending on item condition and what all is included. I've seen the balls alone go for $30-$40.  So even if I don't feel like selling the full table and shipping it, I could make a little coin off of the balls.  I do think, that since the table folds up nicely I will try to sell it all together as a package and just figure out the shipping if it sells. Paid $7 for this table and balls ... also 1 cue but it is rough shape.

Total spent today - $19

If things go my way I'd like to make somewhere in the ballpark of $175 - $250.

Happy Hunting!

The eBay Freshman

theebayfreshman@gmail.com

The Haunted House Garage Sale Finds - 7/23/13

Greetings!

Today I took a look at Craigslist to see if I could find any useful 'freebies' or garage sales in my area.  No freebies of interest but to my surprise I found one sale (it's Tuesday and sales are slim).  I punched the sale into my GPS app on my phone and headed out on my lunch break armed with plenty of singles and an open mind.

On my way to the address I passed a house that was very uninviting.  It had not tresspassing signs up on every side of the house, plenty of lawn owls perched on the rickety fence and junk everywhere in the yard.  The house looked pretty much completely haunted and I was anxious to keep moving ... when I realized that this was the house having the sale.  I saw in the front lawn a sign that said 'garage sale inside' and pulled around the side of the house and parked.

Hesitantly I walked up the steps and walked in the front porch screen door.  Their were boxes to my left and boxes to my right.  Then an older, slightly overweight gentleman who was not wearing a shirt and looked in need of a shower walked up the stairs and greeted me as he set down another box.  He said the stuff on the porch was for sale and to start looking through the boxes.

Nothing was marked and I started digging.  My only competition was an elderly couple who seemed to be 'picking' just like me.  They were there first and had first grab on a lot of the items.  I skimmed over what was left and here is what I came away with:

1 Unopened Myrtle Beach Canvas Floating Device
2 Vintage Bear Candles
1 Vintage Rooster Candle that appears to be a Gurly
1 Porcelain Lion Statue
1 Porcelain Lion fighting a Tiger statue (made in Japan) - looks like Dee Bee Co Import From Japan but it is cracked and chipped in several spots.

I paid $2 for these items in total.

I also swung by a local thrift store to kill the rest of my lunch hour.  Came away with a pair of vintage Lazy Bones Wing Tip golf cleats. Paid $2.60 (shoes were half off at this store today).

If things go my way I hope to bring in around $100 - $180 off of these items.

Oh - and the guy was very nice at this sale - so don't judge a sale by the appearance of the house or yard ... never know what you might find and who you might meet!

Happy Hunting!

The eBay Freshman

PS:  I would love to get to know other bloggers that are doing similar things with their eBay stores.  Let's swap stories and follow each other!  Don't be shy - you can email me here - theebayfreshman@gmail.com

Garage Sale Finds 7/20/13

Greetings!

Had a pretty busy weekend, unfortunately most of it was dedicated to non-eBay related chores.  We recently had some flooding in our basement so I spent most of Saturday tearing up carpet, taking off trim and bleaching all of the grungy areas of my basement.  We run our store out of our basement so, needless to say, it's been a rough couple of weeks.  We had to transport all of our inventory and shelving into the garage for the time being. NOT a fun process.  But we are putting in our new carpet on Thursday night this week, so once that is done we should be back up and running pretty fast.

I did hit up a few sales this weekend and came up with a few interesting finds.

I bought a couple of boxes of vintage and newer holiday decorations (Halloween, Christmas, Valentines Day).  Some of the paper decorations are marked as Hallmark from the 1970s, some of the stuff is newer.  Paid $2.  I love Halloween items so I'm never afraid to pick them up - even if they don't sell I don't mind having extra creepy stuff around. :)

I also picked up a Scream 3 cassette tape for 50 cents - because I'm a horror collector and I can't resist.

Found a nice sturdy shelving unit that I picked up for $2 (she was asking $5).  You can never have too many shelves when you are running an eBay store!

Picked up 2 pairs of vintage earrings for 50 cents each.

Bought a pair of hand carved/hand painted "priest" religious themed bookends ... made in Mexico - $2

Vintage wireless headphones with built in radio - $1

Terminator 2 (movie) wind breaker - movie memorabilia - $1

I found an old looking travel 'speaker' that I will have to do some more research on.  Basically it's a speaker in a case that opens up and you can hook up your instrument to the speaker.  It looks like the brand on the hinges is "excelsior" which I believe is an accordion brand.  I have to test the item, but it looks in nice enough shape - paid $1.

Vintage Swedish serving set - $2

And a small chord organ for $5.

Not a really great weekend of sales, but I got a late start Saturday morning (started around 11am).  In my experience it's best to get out to the sales right when they open up at 8am if you can - stuff gets picked over pretty fast.

Total spent on inventory this weekend - $15

If I get my way I will make somewhere around - $175-$250 from these items.

Good Hunting!

The eBay Freshman

Garage Sale Finds 7/19/13

Hit up 5 garage sales on my lunch break today.  I only bought items from 1 sale - the rest were bogus!

Items purchased

2 pairs of Dr. Martin boots in nice shape - $4
1 vintage Arvin portable radio - $1 (not tested - needs batteries)
1 vintage Realistic portable radio - $2 - works
1 vintage Taylor Instrument Company barometer - guy gave it to me for free since I bought the radios

Total cost - $7

My estimated resale value if I get full asking price - $200
(this is just a rough estimate of what I think the items might be worth compared to other eBay sales - will need wife to approve all sale prices first!)

This was a pretty successful lunch break!  Beats wasting $8 at Burger King!  I would recommend to anyone who is interested in doing this to always take advantage of your free time whenever you can.  I usually will hit up at least 2 or 3 garage sales on my lunch break every day that I can find one.  If there are no sales, I might go to a thrift store on my lunch break to test my luck there ... but garage sales are almost ALWAYS better than thrift stores when it comes to prices.

Good Hunting!

The eBay Freshman

The eBay Freshman - One Seller's Journey

Greetings Blogosphere!

This is a blog dedicated to discussing the goings-on in my personal eBay store.  My wife and I have just opened up our first eBay store together about 1 month ago.  I am here to discuss some hurdles and failures that we have had, learning experiences and of course our success stories as they are happening!

I would like to discuss some of my methods of how to pick up great items for cheap to resell on eBay and update you with how much these items might sell for as well as shipping methods that have worked (and not worked), feedback from customers, and other interesting and random tidbits.

Basically I wanted to create a blog that I could post the happenings in my store and life to share with other like minded individuals, sellers or potential sellers. One of my reasons for starting this blog was from listening to the eBay Scavengers podcast (check it out on iTunes) and blog - Ebay Scavengers - if you are just beginning selling or if you are interested in becoming an eBay seller - these guys are a GREAT resource!

Stay tuned for updates on our store happenings and life.

The eBay Freshman