My husband was out of town for a bit last month so between the listings and managing the household I had my hands full.
However, I feel I did great on sales. I made just under $600 in sales. I am still working out the profit part.
I did some more organization to my set-up. Somehow I REALLY screwed up and sent a shirt that I listed as XL and it turned out to be a Medium! The buyer was good about it but I felt like a real idiot! I guess I need to stop denying I need to get reading glasses!
Lesson learned:
1. Triple check your listings! I was complacent with the wrong size listing because it was actually something I wore and didn't even think to check the size because hey....I know what size I am. Well, at least I now know I am able to squeeze into a medium top!
More to follow........
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Caring for clothes
So I have experience in selling used baby and maternity clothes. In order to sell at a good consignment pretty much all clothes must be perfect. When I buy clothes I inspect and separate. I have a perfect pile, needs help pile, and a donate pile.
Perfect pile: I lucked out and got pieces that are ready to list!
Needs Help Pile: Clothes that are nice styles and I feel will sell. But maybe they have a small tear, piling or stains. When my son takes his bath I keep this pile in the bathroom. Under my sink I have my stain gear. Several Carbonas, spray bottle of spot lifter and a toothbrush. In between giggles and playing I sit on a stool and work on the stains. Then I wash the clothes I treated. For piling I have a little fuzz shaver and work what I can out. For all other defects it is case by case. After I wash I NEVER put the clothes in a dryer. I air dry them and see if the stains come out. If they do I put them in the perfect pile. If not then I determine if I try a different solution or just donate it.
Donate pile: Sometimes you just have to buy inventory by the lot. Many times when you buy cheap from a seller they don't allow you to cherry-pick. I don't blame them. So I take the risk. So far I haven't had much to donate. Actually I started saving these clothes to tear into strips and make rag rugs!
One day I hope to make a video showing you how I can get stains out. Sometimes I really impress myself. I have bought maternity clothes that had questionable stains and I went ahead and bought them cheap because I think I can get it out. I say I have about a 75% success rate.
Lessons learned:
1. Turn lemons into lemonade! Some people pass on anything not perfect even though it is used. I use this to my advantage and buy the items cheaper!
2. Time Management. It's easy to never have time to do things but if your have the will you will have the way!
3. There are always risk. You must determine how much risk you can take. I am a 'GO FOR IT!' kinda gal. However, I am not a compulsive gambler. "You must have Bhaw-lence Danielson"
Fiddler out......
Perfect pile: I lucked out and got pieces that are ready to list!
Needs Help Pile: Clothes that are nice styles and I feel will sell. But maybe they have a small tear, piling or stains. When my son takes his bath I keep this pile in the bathroom. Under my sink I have my stain gear. Several Carbonas, spray bottle of spot lifter and a toothbrush. In between giggles and playing I sit on a stool and work on the stains. Then I wash the clothes I treated. For piling I have a little fuzz shaver and work what I can out. For all other defects it is case by case. After I wash I NEVER put the clothes in a dryer. I air dry them and see if the stains come out. If they do I put them in the perfect pile. If not then I determine if I try a different solution or just donate it.
Donate pile: Sometimes you just have to buy inventory by the lot. Many times when you buy cheap from a seller they don't allow you to cherry-pick. I don't blame them. So I take the risk. So far I haven't had much to donate. Actually I started saving these clothes to tear into strips and make rag rugs!
One day I hope to make a video showing you how I can get stains out. Sometimes I really impress myself. I have bought maternity clothes that had questionable stains and I went ahead and bought them cheap because I think I can get it out. I say I have about a 75% success rate.
Lessons learned:
1. Turn lemons into lemonade! Some people pass on anything not perfect even though it is used. I use this to my advantage and buy the items cheaper!
2. Time Management. It's easy to never have time to do things but if your have the will you will have the way!
3. There are always risk. You must determine how much risk you can take. I am a 'GO FOR IT!' kinda gal. However, I am not a compulsive gambler. "You must have Bhaw-lence Danielson"
Fiddler out......
October 5th 2011
I made my goal for the first week! I was very happy and so was my husband! Now I have to reinvest and get more inventory. I started following the blog http://www.theebayentrepreneur.com/. The info there has helped me open up to new ideas. Like I have been trying to get my husband to list his homemade cookies! They are his great-grandma's recipes and they are SOOOOO good! He hasn't bit yet but I can tell he was daydreaming about it! It was good for us because it motivated him to make a couple batches of 'test' cookies! YUM!
I also went to Goodwill to try and get some jeans to make complete maternity outfits to sell on EBAY. I think that was a mistake. I started doing those semi-annual children clothes consignment sales and what sells best are complete outfits. Well, I realize that isn't the magic formula for EBAY.
Tangent: I made over $700 at a consignment sale last month. Of course it takes time to prepare but it's another source to make money!
I was digging through our book case and came across a couple books I bought at a local online auction. I thought my husband would like these books but he didn't. Anyways, one of the books was The Whole Last Earth Catalog. I did the research and saw this was going for big bucks!!! I think I paid $5 for it. Sadly it was in bad shape. The back cover got a tear in it from my toddler! Anyways, I listed it and wrote all the defects and it still sold for $148. But a really good copy sold for $305! Sigh.....
Lesson Learned:
1. Be open to new ideas on what to sell but don't go to far off from what you know. That could be costly. I went ahead and bought 3 golf shirts from Goodwill to sell on EBAY but I still haven't listed them. I am kinda lost on them.
2. What sells well in one venue might not in another. At the kids consignment sales complete outfits sell best. But it seems to me single pieces or huge lots sell best on EBAY.
3. Keep your inventory separated and away from possible damage. I really lost out on some money because I was careless with the book I sold.
Fiddler Out......
I also went to Goodwill to try and get some jeans to make complete maternity outfits to sell on EBAY. I think that was a mistake. I started doing those semi-annual children clothes consignment sales and what sells best are complete outfits. Well, I realize that isn't the magic formula for EBAY.
Tangent: I made over $700 at a consignment sale last month. Of course it takes time to prepare but it's another source to make money!
I was digging through our book case and came across a couple books I bought at a local online auction. I thought my husband would like these books but he didn't. Anyways, one of the books was The Whole Last Earth Catalog. I did the research and saw this was going for big bucks!!! I think I paid $5 for it. Sadly it was in bad shape. The back cover got a tear in it from my toddler! Anyways, I listed it and wrote all the defects and it still sold for $148. But a really good copy sold for $305! Sigh.....
Lesson Learned:
1. Be open to new ideas on what to sell but don't go to far off from what you know. That could be costly. I went ahead and bought 3 golf shirts from Goodwill to sell on EBAY but I still haven't listed them. I am kinda lost on them.
2. What sells well in one venue might not in another. At the kids consignment sales complete outfits sell best. But it seems to me single pieces or huge lots sell best on EBAY.
3. Keep your inventory separated and away from possible damage. I really lost out on some money because I was careless with the book I sold.
Fiddler Out......
September 28, 2011
This week I went to a couple yard sales and bought some Halloween decorations to list. I also saw some really nice name brand (banana republic, Fei, Gap, etc....) women's clothes for a quarter! Also, in the clothes bin was a Dorothy from Wizard of Oz Halloween costume! When I got home I did some research and listed the Halloween decorations price to the going rate. I never pick the highest or lowest price I see for the same or comparable item. I am middle of the road. As I did my research I found The Dorothy outfit was selling in the $25 range! Of course some of the listing were at the $35 range but they didn't sell. I want to sell so I started the listing at $9.50. My listing sold for $16.43! What a profit margin for a quarter buy! Of course those aren't everyday finds! In the clothes bin I also found a couple peasant/boho type skirts that would be great for Halloween. But I wanted to experiment and I listed those as Buy It Now. Next I went through my baby clothes and found some more Halloween sleepers and outfits and lastly I listed some 3 piece maternity outfits from my closets.
Lessons learned:
1. Make sure you take your time and get great pictures. You have 1 free photo per listing so make it count. With some of the Halloween decorations I added another photo for 15 cents to show how the decorations would look at night. Also keep cats and toddlers in another room! I took several pictures with a 'gremlin' in it! I know they look cute but I don't think they would add value to the listing! :)
2. Organize your space! I had the shipping tape downstairs, the printer in my bedroom, the merchansdise in my sons room and the shipping boxes in the basement! It was fustrating to list and ship out something. I finally put up a table and made an assembly type area in my sons room. Still not the best senerio but it's what I got for now.
Fiddler out......
Lessons learned:
1. Make sure you take your time and get great pictures. You have 1 free photo per listing so make it count. With some of the Halloween decorations I added another photo for 15 cents to show how the decorations would look at night. Also keep cats and toddlers in another room! I took several pictures with a 'gremlin' in it! I know they look cute but I don't think they would add value to the listing! :)
2. Organize your space! I had the shipping tape downstairs, the printer in my bedroom, the merchansdise in my sons room and the shipping boxes in the basement! It was fustrating to list and ship out something. I finally put up a table and made an assembly type area in my sons room. Still not the best senerio but it's what I got for now.
Fiddler out......
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Sept 18, 2011
This is the day I started to sell for a living. I have sold before but just odds and ends for fun. Now it was time to get serious. I decided to look around the house and came up with empty baby food jars. I had sold lots of these earlier in the year to recoup some of the cost for buying baby food. Every listing I put up had sold. So this time I was able to put up 4 listings of baby food jars. Next I go to the basement and get all the Halloween decorations I had and didn't sell at our yard sale this past summer! I find 5 Avon Halloween decorations to sell. I used to work for AVON in human resources and I got these for super cheap back in 2006! I also find an old plastic electric fabric flame cauldron I bought several years ago at the after Halloween sales at Target. I listed them all for the standard 7 days. All my listings sold! I did 4 different versions of the baby food jars to see what sold best. It seem lots of (50) 4oz jars bring in the best money. I had done smaller lots of 25, 20 and 15 and only got the asking bid on those! The best lot sold for $13. I used large box flat rate rating shipping and charged $14.95 but since I did online postage I paid $14.20. I didn't intend to profit from the shipping so it was a bonus! So using USPS online is the best shipping option for me.
So how much did I profit from these 7 sales? I don't know! Since these were around the house items what I paid vs what I made is a bit difficult to determine. I look at these as sunk cost items so the amount sold is the total profit since I hadn't intended on selling these for profit when I got them. However I did meet my $100 a week goal of sales but I didn't take out fees, etc....yet. Plus I started hitting auctions and yard sales for future sales.
The sales I was most happy with was the baby food jar lot that went for $13. I figured bottom line I got 21 cents for each jar. I paid 46 cents a jar so each jar of baby food cost only 25 cents! What a way to keep you baby cost down!
Next best sale was the black fabric flame cauldron that went for $10. The price tag on the box said $14.99 so I know I didn't pay more than $7.50 for it at the after Halloween sales. Plus I had it for a couple years. SO I got paid for that!
Lessons learned:
1. Scrutinize what you throw away! I know I threw away tons of baby food jars before I realized how much I could get for them. So every now and then I look at what I am about to throw away and do a search for it on EBAY. If I don't see it worth my while I go ahead and throw it away. If I can sell it, I clean it up and keep a box in the pantry to put these things in for me to list later.
2. Don't try and profit from shipping and handling! To me its just an ethical thing to do. I HATE when I would see listings for 99 cents only to see a $25 shipping and handling fee! That's just poor salesman ship.
3. Take advantage for regional a and b shipments from the USPS! When I price shipping I take my zip code and how much it would cost to zip 90210. I figure that to me my highest POSSIBLE shipping cost. I have unexpectedly profited from selling such an item priced for California shipment only to send it to Indiana. I live in Ohio. When I was able to fit that item in a regional A box and did all the online postage stuff I profited over $5. I did think about doing a small refund but I am small potatoes for now and can't afford to. One day I hope to ship just for actual cost. But that's just me! So go online and order these FREE boxes along with the priority mail boxes and do all your shipping from home in your PJ's and have the post office come and get them from your porch the next day! I think you are silly not to take advantage of this!
Fiddler out......
So how much did I profit from these 7 sales? I don't know! Since these were around the house items what I paid vs what I made is a bit difficult to determine. I look at these as sunk cost items so the amount sold is the total profit since I hadn't intended on selling these for profit when I got them. However I did meet my $100 a week goal of sales but I didn't take out fees, etc....yet. Plus I started hitting auctions and yard sales for future sales.
The sales I was most happy with was the baby food jar lot that went for $13. I figured bottom line I got 21 cents for each jar. I paid 46 cents a jar so each jar of baby food cost only 25 cents! What a way to keep you baby cost down!
Next best sale was the black fabric flame cauldron that went for $10. The price tag on the box said $14.99 so I know I didn't pay more than $7.50 for it at the after Halloween sales. Plus I had it for a couple years. SO I got paid for that!
Lessons learned:
1. Scrutinize what you throw away! I know I threw away tons of baby food jars before I realized how much I could get for them. So every now and then I look at what I am about to throw away and do a search for it on EBAY. If I don't see it worth my while I go ahead and throw it away. If I can sell it, I clean it up and keep a box in the pantry to put these things in for me to list later.
2. Don't try and profit from shipping and handling! To me its just an ethical thing to do. I HATE when I would see listings for 99 cents only to see a $25 shipping and handling fee! That's just poor salesman ship.
3. Take advantage for regional a and b shipments from the USPS! When I price shipping I take my zip code and how much it would cost to zip 90210. I figure that to me my highest POSSIBLE shipping cost. I have unexpectedly profited from selling such an item priced for California shipment only to send it to Indiana. I live in Ohio. When I was able to fit that item in a regional A box and did all the online postage stuff I profited over $5. I did think about doing a small refund but I am small potatoes for now and can't afford to. One day I hope to ship just for actual cost. But that's just me! So go online and order these FREE boxes along with the priority mail boxes and do all your shipping from home in your PJ's and have the post office come and get them from your porch the next day! I think you are silly not to take advantage of this!
Fiddler out......
My adventure learning to sell on EBAY for a living
Things have changed for me. I want to stay at home and in order for me to do that I must make at least $400 a month profit (after fees, shipping, cost of inventory, etc...). Doesn't sound too bad huh? Well, what do I sell? How much of a profit margin? Where do I get stuff to sell? How much time do I put into this before I throw in the towel? I have done searches for info on selling on EBAY and everybody doesn't really say much besides the basic generic stuff......Buy stuff for cheap and sell for A LOT more and people will buy on EBAY. Of course you have those who want to charge you for the 'magic formula'. In fact I have seen people try to sell you list of what are the hottest items/niches to sell on EBAY! I don't know but to me paying for that info is just lining the pocket of someone else not yours. If you can't do your own research then you really shouldn't be trying to sell on EBAY for a living. By no means am I an expert but I am trying to navigate and find out for myself. I also do not want to 'hoard' all this valuable info for myself. I am starting this blog more for a record for myself to keep track of how I am doing. I tend to forget how I did things or stay on course to reach my goal. Remember what I post is tailored for me and my goals. If this info helps you... well I hope I get some good karma in return. Thanks! Fiddler Out.....
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