Paperwork

I am so far behind in my Dome book, it's not even funny. I bought the weekly version of the book this year, thinking I would be able to stay caught up a little better. How wrong, how wrong, how wrong. The last date that I have any records is February 18th. Yes, a month and 11 days ago. Let me tell you ... it is SO much easier to spend 5 minutes a day on recordkeeping than it is to spend 3 hours trying to get it caught up. Ugh.

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Hey guess what I sold today? I bet you'll never guess .... Actually, you probably will.

I have sold 16 denim skirts since the beginning of this year! THAT is a consistent BOLO item.  I really liked this one, but it wasn't quite the right size. Close, but not quite. I'm still on the lookout for the perfect denim skirt for ME for this summer. I have one that I really like, but it's got a shockingly high slit in the front that makes me uncomfortable if I wear it out of the house. Especially on a windy day.

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I get SO SICK of picking up the gazillion videos we have in this house. I reached a boiling point 2 weeks ago. I went through them and put the vast majority of them in my eBay pile. I got all of our Veggie Tale videos listed. I wasn't expecting to get much for them. I just wanted them gone. They were in pretty bad shape. Well, not the videos. They all work perfectly. But many of these videos were from my husband's first marriage and kids. They've been around for over 10 years, handled by 5 kids. They weren't pretty. But they sold anyway! I got $19.99 + shipping for 13 of them, which is more than I'd have been able to get at a yard sale, so I'm happy.

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Remember when I mentioned the other day that I keep buying Sag Harbor, even though it never sells? This was one of the earlier SH pieces I bought. It's a size 14 (pretty common size), new with tags, nice wardrobe staple. My problem is that black garments are SO hard to photograph. This jacket is truly gorgeous. But can you tell that from this photo? No, of course not. I priced it for $39.99 or best offer, and I sold it today for my full asking price!

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Thanks to Becky, I picked up these cute little owl chalkware bookends a month or so ago. I didn't really look over them closely at the store. I got them home and discovered a couple chips in them. I also discovered that they had scratched into the back of them: "Merry Christmas! Love, Mom"  You gotta wonder what made the kid donate these... Anyway, they were listed less than a month. I accepted a $20 offer on them today. They are going to Australia, so the buyer paid an additional $24 for first class international shipping. Yikes! I sure hope she loves them. That's a LOT of money to pay for some bookends...

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I got a request for a return today. I sold a pair of shoes a couple weeks ago that ended up not fitting right. The buyer requested a full refund. I wrote her back and gave her my address. I told her that once I received them back, I would refund her original purchase price, but not her original shipping. She wrote back that she was paying for the return shipping, so I should refund her original shipping. I was able to quote her my refund policy, which is clearly stated in all of my listings. I haven't heard back from her. I'm a little nervous. I was hoping she would threaten my feedback, so I would for sure be able to get it removed if she left me a negative. It always amazes me that buyers seem to feel that WE should pay for THEIR mistakes. I include several measurements in all of my shoe listings, for exactly this reason. She knew the measurements. If they didn't fit her, that's not my fault. Why should I be out any money at all?

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Ryan at Terapeak is still looking for user success stories to post on the Terapeak Blog. There have been a lot of great stories posted already. Do you have a success story that you'd like to share and have posted on the TP blog? If so, tell your story in the comments and I'll forward it to Ryan.

Welcome! (Again!)

Grr. I'm really sorry about this. Hopefully this is the last time I have to move blog content.

This past weekend was the kids' consignment sale. I am pleased with how I did. I ended up with over $200, and I sold at least two-thirds of my stuff. Yay! I'm already looking forward to shopping at yard sales this summer for consignable clothes.

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I had a crazy sales weekend this weekend. I have 25 packages ready to go to the post office this afternoon. I sold 19 items yesterday alone!

I sold 3 denim skirts over the weekend:

Sonoma (19.99), Levi Strauss (24.99), and Villager/Liz Claiborne (19.99)

I think I'm pricing them too low. I research each one individually. I do not have a set price for my denim skirts, because I know all brands and styles are different. And yet, they are still selling so quickly. I buy them at a low enough price though, that I am still perfectly happy with quickly turning them over for a decent profit.

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I had two sales in a row the other night for two pairs of Clarks sandals. It was about 2 or 3 am when I saw the emails on my Kindle. The pictures for both listings were the same. Imagine my horror when I realized I had not changed the photo for the second one. Yikes. But I wasn't about to get up out of bed at 3 in the morning to double check. I was SO relieved to discover in the morning that I had two pairs of the same sandals - a black pair and a dark blue pair. The small pictures on my Kindle looked like the same pictures to me, but they were in fact two different pairs of sandals. So yay! I love shipping more than one item to the same customer!

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These books were given to me a couple weeks ago. They sold surprisingly quickly. They're older editions, so maybe that's why. Again, I didn't see this particular lot anywhere to get an idea on pricing, so I just guessed. Guessed to low apparently. Isn't it nice of me to give so many books away lately?

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I made my husband several pairs of shorts and pants from this pattern. It's a great pattern - a favorite of his and mine. But I just don't have time to sew anymore. Fortunately, I hadn't cut this pattern. I just traced all the pieces onto tissue paper. So I was able to sell this one as uncut. It sold in 3 weeks!

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This sale surprised me. I bought 2 pairs of Ferragamos last summer at an out-of-town Salvation Army. The cashier started to take the shoe stretchers out of them, and I asked if I could have them. She said, "We usually keep them and sell them separately." I said, "oh, ok." But I was buying a TON of stuff that day, so she said, "Actually, here, I'll just throw them in your bag." I thanked her profusely, knowing I would get lots of use out of them. Well, I used them a grand total of once in all that time. I was clearing out the other day and decided to see if they would sell. I was really surprised at the completeds for cedar shoe trees. I listed both pairs the other evening and sold a pair yesterday already - for $19.99 + shipping!

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I bought these jeans in Harrisburg last month. I had never heard of the brand before - Z Cavaricci, but I got them cheap, and they were new with tags, so I figured they were worth a shot. I also sold them yesterday for my full asking price of $29.99.

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I've had so much going on the past few days. I've sorely neglected my blog. It's so much easier to post short posts every day, rather than big long catch up posts every few days. I'll try to remember that :)

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Remember to spread the word about my new blog address!

Legal Matters

I got a phone call from eBay's legal department this morning.

To recap: I registered theebaythrifter.com as a domain name for this blog. A couple weeks later, I got an email from the eBay legal department informing me that it was a trademark violation, and that I needed to cease use of the domain name immediately or they would take legal action. I immediately cancelled the domain name and replied to them letting them know that.

A few days later, they wrote again, upset that I hadn't stopped using the domain name. I wrote back that I HAD stopped, and that I had emailed them to tell them that.

Several people suggested that it might not have been a legitimate email, so I contacted eBay customer service, who suggested that I forward it to eBay's spoof team. I did, and a couple days later got a response back saying that it was "most likely not sent to you from eBay." I decided that in legal instances, "most likely" wasn't good enough, so I called customer service again, and she suggested that I write an old-fashioned postal letter to the legal department.

I did that about 2 weeks ago and heard back from them today. Turns out, it actually WAS from them, and it actually IS a trademark violation to have the word "ebay" in any domain name at all that isn't actually eBay. I thought I was safe by cancelling my registered domain name, but the domain name that I was assigned by Blogger when I created this blog also has the word "ebay" in it. I asked her if that was ok, if it wasn't a registered domain name, and she said, "no, that's still a trademark violation."

Ugh. So I have to change the name of my blog. But just changing the name of it doesn't change the blogger-assigned URL, which means I'll have to create a NEW blog, export/import all of my posts/comments here, and shut this blog down.

Now that I'm fully informed, I refuse to be a "willful infringer," as they called me in a previous email. :-\

So, once that's complete, I'll be sure to post here where the new blog is. I guess I'll be working on that this weekend. One more distraction from listing, as if this goooooooorrrrrgeous weather hasn't been enough of a distraction. lol.

Ketchup

I know, I know. I've gone from faithful daily blogger to ... this patheticness. I've been spending most of my evenings listing, listing, listing. And the evenings that I'm not listing, it's usually because I'm doing something else. So either way - no time to blog.

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I dropped off all my stuff at the kids' consignment sale this morning. I had originally signed up for a 3-hour volunteer shift, but then she dangled the "70% of your sales" carrot in front of my nose and I bit. I left there having signed up for a 9-hour shift on Sunday. Eek.

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I just finished filing our taxes. Phew. I don't know why I put it off as long as I did. I was expecting to really owe a lot of money, but we actually ended up getting a pretty decent refund. SUCH a load off my shoulders to have that done.

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I've set an official financial goal for myself, in order to have my storage shed by the end of the summer. I'll need to transfer an average of $500 per week out of my Paypal account into my checking account, while leaving as much in my checking account as possible in the meantime - which is always hard with the kids' extra-curricular activites, etc, but I'll do my best. I will try harder to curb the spending that I CAN control: restaurants, shopping, etc... I seriously need to get my thrift shopping under control. I have enough inventory here to last me a couple more weeks, a month or so if I dig hard enough.

Hopefully, by having a firm weekly goal, I will be better able to keep focused on cutting my spending. It's pretty sickening to look at my sales and see how much I've made, and then look at my scrawny little checkbook balance and realize that it all went to pizza and inconsequential nothings...

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Just a quick sales highlight from the last couple days, because I need to hit the hay:

As usual, I've been selling a lot of homeschool books and denim skirts. I sold 2 denim skirts just yesterday, in fact. I have discovered that my Goodwill seems to accidentally hang their denim skirts in with the jeans. (But that's my secret... don't tell anyone!)  Yesterday, I found the exact same skirt that I was wearing. That was kind of cool. I bought it, because mine has a hole in it and the new one didn't. :-P

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Don't be afraid to list Christmas items year-round. I sold this set to an Australian buyer this evening:

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I bought this vintage Sears buttonholer at Goodwill one day without being able to look it up on my phone. It sold for my full asking price. I seem to be getting a little better at following my instinct when I can't research (well, except that Kodak instant camera I bought yesterday, but we're not going to talk about that...)

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These both sold to the same buyer the other day. That was pretty cool. I never get repeat buyers except for shoe cream. They're both headed to Canada, and for nice prices too! The buyer did kind of push her luck on a third item, offering me $5.99 for something I have listed for $23.99. I was perfectly willing to give her a decent deal, since she was buying multiple items, but that was a little much...

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I also sold another set of books super-fast, which tells me I again underpriced them. I've not got the hang of pricing books yet. This particular set hadn't sold for over $14 recently, so I priced mine at $16.99 and they sold the next morning. That tells me I could have sold them for more, so I'll definitely pick them up when I find them for a quarter or so. Goodness knows they're easy enough to find - I see them everywhere!

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I haven't forgotten about the blog topics that I promised last week. I just haven't had a minute to write them yet. But I will - I promise!

Consignment Sale Tomorrow!

I've been very busy getting ready for another consignment sale this weekend. Drop off is tomorrow, so I've been in a flurry of pricing, tagging, hangers, safety pins, bins - ack!

Hope to have a real post tomorrow, if time allows... I feel like I've been so busy lately. Blogging has really taken a backseat to real life.

My Top eBay Moments This Week

Sales were pretty steady this week. I sold 68 items. Even my shoe sales have picked up. I sold a good mix of old inventory and new. I didn't have any returns. I had one pair of Clarks break (ugh), so I refunded her. I had an unpaid item case close for a suede eraser. It's ridiculous how many of my UPI's are for items under $10.

I sold several more Rothschild jackets this week. Hallelujah! I'm so glad to see those finally going. I don't know if it's because I lowered the price, or if it's because springtime is here. But either way, they're moving out, and at a price I can be happy with.

I think I also mentioned that I had sold a couple pair of men's Florsheim dress shoes this week too. They were very stale. I dropped the price on them and they sold quickly. I will no longer be afraid to pick them up. I'll just price them immediately at my new lower price ($35) instead of hoping for $50+.

This bowl has become a thorn in my side. I dropped the price ridiculously low and it's finally good. Good riddance.

• Acquired On: 1/24/11 (Harrisburg road trip)
• Listed On: ? This one was relisted and auctioned and relisted so many times I lost count.
• Sold On: 3/12/12
• Paid: $5.29
• Sold For: $10.00 + shipping.  Yep, that one was worth the wait. <eyeroll>

This are Basic Editions, which I think is a K-Mart brand. I would never have bought them, except they were NWT and they were the half-price color that day. I overpriced them and added best offer. I went back and forth with a buyer this morning and she finally accepted my price. I'm not jumping for joy over the price, but I still got 10x my investment, and considering they are K-Mart shorts, I'm ok with that.

• Acquired On: 1/11/12 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 1/12/12
• Sold On: 3/17/12
• Paid: $1.49
• Sold For: $13.99 + shipping

I have a bad feeling about these Clarks. They are old. They sold right before my decision to go through and cull my currently listed Clarks. I tugged and pulled and bent and stretched them. I shoved my too-big foot into them and stepped around, and they didn't break. So I've got my fingers crossed that they'll be alright. Ugh. I really need to get that done. I don't want to sell anymore old Clarks. Quite frankly, I don't want to sell anymore Clarks period, but I'd like to at least get some of my money back out of the nicest ones.

• Acquired On: 5/5/11 (Harrisburg road trip)
• Listed On: ? (relisted as Sell Similar on 3/7/12)
• Sold On: 3/15/12
• Paid: $2.99
• Sold For: $15.00 + shipping

I don't know what on earth possessed me to sell this western Wrangler shirt as low as I did. It must have been a slow sales day. I know I can get $24.99 out of these, but I accepted a ridiculously low offer this week.

• Acquired On: 1/3/12 (local thrift store)
• Listed On: 1/4/12
• Sold On: 3/14/12
• Paid: $2.00
• Sold For: $16.00 + shipping

This pattern was given to me several years ago. I actually made the nurse costume for my daughter. I knew the pattern was 100% complete. There were none others listed, so I listed it high and hoped for the best. It sold pretty quickly for my full asking price. Then yesterday, the buyer actually called me to thank me profusely for having this pattern available, because she'd been looking for it for two years. It was kind of weird, but it made me smile to know that I had made her so happy.

• Acquired On: 2006?
• Listed On: 3/2/12
• Sold On: 3/13/12
• Paid: -0-
• Sold For: $19.99 + shipping

This skirt is Tweeds brand. I'd never heard of it, and the retail price wasn't on the tag. But it was super-cute and just in time for spring/summer, so I thought I'd take a chance on it. I got a really low offer on it the other day. I counter-offered, and in the meantime, someone else bought it for full price. It always makes me feel good to know that my pricing isn't too far off base and that there are people out there who are willing to pay full price.

• Acquired On: 1/25/12 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 1/29/12
• Sold On: 3/16/12
• Paid: $2.39
• Sold For: $24.99 + shipping

These just sold this morning. I wasn't sure they'd sell at all. See the end of the top strap, where there's a long thread hanging? It's supposed to have a black plastic stopper on it. Of course, I disclosed that in the listing. I knew I wouldn't be able to get the $25-30 that I usually get for kids' Keens, but I figured I'd add best offer and take what I could get. I listed it at $29.99 OBO and got a really nice offer today. Some people DO know how to make respectable offers :)

• Acquired On: 11/26/11 (my sister-in-law picked them up for me)
• Listed On: 12/11/11
• Sold On: 3/17/12
• Paid: $4.90
• Sold For: $26.00 - shipping, which will probably be around $3.00

I mentioned this Oh Mamma maternity dress back when I first listed it. Someone asked if I had put a basketball under it, but nope - that's an actual maternity mannequin belly. This one also didn't have a retail price on it, so my pricing was just a shot in the dark. It sold last night for my full asking price.

• Acquired On: 1/25/12 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 1/29/12
• Sold On: 3/16/12
• Paid: $3.99
• Sold For: $39.99 + shipping

What were your favorites this week?

To the Point...

Just saw this on latenight-coffee.com and it made me smile. I couldn't not share.

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I got a lowball offer for this skirt earlier this week.

I counter-offered with a so-so price that I would have been okay with, but not overly excited about. But someone bought it for my full asking price today! I had this one on Pinterest. I wonder if the buyer saw it there?  Anyone know how I can tell?

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Back in December, I bought a New York & Company suit. When I got it home, I realized the jacket and the pants were two different sizes. I split it up into two listings. I sold the jacket last week, and I sold the pants this week. So don't be too discouraged if you find yourself in the same situation. You can still make it work.

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I'm dumping all of my kids' old soccer uniforms at auction this week. They're used, with some light stains, pilling, snags, etc... but I'm hoping someone will want them for practice uniforms. When our kids were in soccer, it drove me crazy trying to make sure their uniform was clean for a Saturday game, after they'd been practicing in it all week. After the first year, it was a relief to have that spare uniform from the previous year. The next year, we had even more spares. So hopefully someone will want them. I honestly couldn't care less how much I get for them. I just don't want to throw them away. We shall see...

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I stopped in at Salvation Army yesterday after my doctor's appointment. I found enough Captain Underpants books to list as a lot. I'm listing those tonight, fixed price. I'm not sure how well they'll do. I only have $2 in them. Surely I can make a decent profit from them. If all else fails, I'm sure my 8 year old BOY would like to have them. Because boys are just like that...

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We let the beautiful weather this week disrupt our schoolwork, so now we're stucking doing a partial day tomorrow. Yuk. But just a partial day. Hopefully we'll be done by lunchtime, because we have a family bike ride planned. The first of the year - hooray!

My listing just keeps getting pushed further and further to the bottom of my to-do list.... But that's ok. This gorgeous weather will be gone soon enough (boo hoo), and I'll get back to the grind then.

Better Things To Do

Ahhhh... the weather here has been crazy-warm! It has been in the 70s the last two days, which is absolutely unheard of for Pennsylvania. Consequently, we've gotten very little schoolwork done, and very little eBaying done. There's just better things to do. Who knows how long this weather will last? We got our flower gardens all weeded and cleaned out and even mulched already! We're usually still working on that in late May.

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I finished listing ALL the homeschool materials from my friend the other day. It ended up being 53 listings. Two of the books have sold already. I priced them all very competitively - toward the bottom of the current pricing. As a budget-minded homeschooling mother myself, I don't like to price my homeschool materials too high. Hopefully I can move this stuff out quickly and help other homeschooling families in the process.

Today I dove into the clothing from that trip. There wasn't as much as I thought there was, once I really started examining the stuff. Some was stained or faded. Some were missing buttons. But I ended up with a small stack of stuff that should do alright. Here's my favorite:

I haven't researched the brand yet, but it should do well. There are a couple light stains on the back, but just on the white part. I should be able to easily get that out with a bleach pen (before I list it, just in case there are any bleach bloopers).

I also have a couple Air Force jackets. I've sold several NWT Army BDU jackets for $27.99. These are used, but I'm still hoping to get $16.99 or maybe even $19.99 out of them.

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I got a message today from yet another buyer whose Clarks broke. Sigh. I am officially giving up on Clarks. I'll go ahead and list the ones I have waiting to be listed, but I won't be buying them anymore. They are no longer my top-selling category anymore anyway. It's just not worth the risk to me. I've had to refund quite a few buyers over the last couple months. I'm tired of it. I've been lucky in that all of these buyers have been understanding so far, agreeing to cancel the transactions and leaving me either positive or no feedback. But if I keep selling them, sooner or later, I'm going to sell a pair to a jerk who assumes I'm a swindler and a cheat.

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I didn't sell anything interesting today. An old Blair sweater, a skirt, some shoe cream, and an old pair of Clarks that's probably going to come back to haunt me. They are old. They look old, they feel old. They were a relist using Sell as Similar the other day. Before I relisted them, I tugged and pulled on the seam, and I even shoved my foot into them and bent them and stepped around in them. No breakage, so we shall see. They're only $15, so if they break, I won't be out much money. Ugh. That's too bad, because there are some really nice Clarks out there, but I'm just not willing to take the chance anymore. In fact, I probably ought to cull my current inventory and get rid of all of the questionable pairs. Money down the drain. Maybe I'll sell them at our yard sale this summer. No returns. No refunds. $2 each.

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I had an out-of-town doctor's appointment today. I stopped into the Salvation Army while I was there, "to buy myself some new summer shirts." I had even managed to convince myself that that was the truth. And yet ... I came home with a large Bear in the Blue House plush (I sold the same one once before for $24.99), and 53 children's books - all additions to collections I already have started: Junie B Jones, Goosebumps, Babysitter's Club, Saddle Club, Series of Unfortunate Events. Also found a cashmere sweater (but found a hole in it once I got it home - boo), a denim skirt, and a pair of Dockers NWT denim shorts. It just sorta happened. Not my fault. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

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I guess that's it. Not much to talk about when I'm not actually doing much.

Where, Oh Where Has That Sold Item Gone?

Oh where, oh where can it be??

Sarah from Vancouver emailed me last week:

With your hundreds of items, how do you find it again after you listed it and it has been sitting around for a while?

I am very fortunate to have an entire bedroom devoted to my eBay inventory. I don't have to store any of my inventory in bins. It's all right out in the open, where I can see it.

I am also pretty lucky to have an obsessive memory. I just plain remember where I put stuff. And because it's all out in the open, I see all of it every day. It's always fresh in my mind where things are.

But to give you more details, I'll describe how I have everything stored. (No pictures, because I use certain storage items in ways that they are not intended, and I don't want to post pictures and get caught for doing that and get in trouble ...)

Shoes: I have open-ended shoe boxes stacked floor to ceiling along one whole wall. Each box is numbered. When I list a pair of shoes, I put them in one of the boxes and write the shoe box number in a note on my listing. When a pair sells, I can easily see what box number they are in, and it takes me 2 seconds to find them.

Clothing: I have 2 hanging clothing racks set up in the center of my room. I have all my clothing hung there. They aren't sorted very well - just by basic category (tops, skirts, pants) I need to get them sorted by size or something, because it usually takes me about 10-15 seconds to find the right garment. Time is money, people! Gotta get faster than that! :)

I also have shelving units on 2 of my walls. I have all of my denim skirts, jeans, pants, and shorts stacked on one of the shelves. I'd love to have them all hanging up, but those racks only hold so much.

I have a shelving unit full of open-ended boxes that was originally for shoes, but I've moved all of those to my original shoe wall and am now using this unit for sweaters. I roll the sweaters up and slide them into a box. I'd rather have them hanging, but they are very bulky and take up a lot of hanging space. Also, rolling them prevents those goofy hanger marks in the shoulders.

Any longer garments (dresses, coats, jackets) are hanging in the closet.

Plush: I have a smaller floor-to-ceiling wall of open-ended boxes that I had originally built for shoes, but now that my shoe inventory is declining, that whole wall is empty. I use it for my plush. I don't have to dig through bins to find what I need. They're all plainly visible. Of course, that means they are plainlyg visible to my kids, so from time to time, I have to chase some of my plush down from other rooms in the house, but for the most part, it works well.

Books: I desperately need a better system for my books. I just pile them on a shelf as I list them. Again, in no order whatsoever.

Housewares (mugs, casseroles, coffee carafes, etc): They are all on the bottom shelf of one of my shelving units. They only take up one shelf, so it's really easy to find what I'm looking for there.

Microwave Turntables: When I list a turntable, I write on a post-it the number that's on the turntable. I stick that to the turntable (sticking out from the side like a tab) and add it to the stack on my (very heavy-duty) shelf. That way, when I sell a turntable, I don't have to move and sort through 30 turntables. I can just glance over the post-it notes that are sticking out and find the right one.

Board Games: They're just stacked on the very top of my shelving unit. Easy to see and find the one I need.

Toys: I sell very few toys. They're all just on one shelf.

Odds 'n' Ends: They go wherever I can fit them. I do occasionally forget where some of these things are, because it's not a real category, so they don't really have assigned places. But usually I'm able to remember.


That's pretty much it. You can see that my 2 best tips for finding inventory is to store like inventory together (have a section for mugs, or a section for jeans, or whatever...) and keep as much out in the open as possible so it's always right there. If you've got the space, get that stuff OUT of the bins! It's so much easier to find stuff when it's not tucked away in bins.

On the War Path!

Every now and then, I get in my insane listing mode. I warn my husband that if he's particularly attached to any of his possessions, he'd better nail them down or hide them. I go through the house like a maniac, clearing out anything that hasn't been used recently (and by recently, I mean in the past 15 seconds) or that I'm tired of picking up off the floor for the gazillionth time, and I throw it on the to-be-listed pile, never to be seen again.

I'm kind of in that mode, except not with personal belongings. I'm insanely listing my actual eBay inventory. It's going well! I've gotten 70 new items listed in the last week. I've got about 15 more sitting here beside me that I'm planning on cranking out tonight yet. After those are done, all of the homeschool materials that my friend gave me will be listed. That was a big chunk of what I brought home from her house. Then I'll move on to the clothes. I keep buying clothes. They keep piling up, no matter how frantically I list!

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What's a girl to do?? We were out running errands today. We had some time to kill, so I had my family drop me off at Goodwill today while they went to guitar lesson. I was absolutely only buying clothes for myself. I have been so focused on buying inventory clothing that I have no clothes that actually fit me. The few that do fit me are the ones I wear all the time and I'm sick of them. I spent a great deal of time trying on clothes and came away with 2 shirts, a denim skirt (by accident - I bought that to sell and once I got it home I realized it was my size!), a pair of black church pants (finally), 2 pairs of capris, and a pair of jeans. That's it. I'm good on bottoms, but I'm still pretty desperate for tops.

So while I was flipping through the jeans rack, I came across several denim skirts that had been hung on the wrong rack. Yes, I was only there to buy clothes for myself, but really ... they were right there. How could I not? I got some cute ones. I haven't got any pictures yet (homeschool materials right now, remember??), but as soon as I do, I'll post a couple.

I also found this guy and his 2 brothers (triplets, apparently - they're all the same)

I can't find ANY information on this thing at all! The back of it says "Accents Unlimited 1999 Patent Pending." I have found other gnomes (even swinging gnomes) from the same company, but they are red and green, not just green. I have checked eBay, Terapeak, Google, everywhere I can thing of, and haven't found a single one. I never know if that's a bad thing. In cases like this, I price ridiculously high and see what happens. If I get hardly any hits the first month, then I know it's a dud and I price it lower. If I get lots of hits and watchers early on, then I know it's apparently hard to find and highly desired, so I leave it priced high. I'll probably stick these guys on for $99.99obo for a bit and see how it goes.

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I have finally found the right price for my Rothschild jackets. I sold another one today. Hooray! I'll be so glad to have those things gone. I'm tired of looking at them.

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I sold some more play food today - the meats and sandwich fixins this time. $59.94 so far, with only the fries/etc and the veggies left. I'm surprised neither of those has sold, especially the veggies. That's a nice big lot with a bunch of fun veggies (did I really just say "fun veggies"???). This stuff has sold SO quickly. I will definitely be on the lookout for more, especially with yard sale season coming up!

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I just sold this vintage sewing pattern a few minutes ago.

This was given to me in a huge box of other vintage patterns. I actually used this one a few years ago to make my daughter a nurse costume for Christmas. I included a picture of that costume in my listing (with a very obvious note that the finished costume was NOT a part of the listing and was for display purposes ONLY). I'm surprised that it sold for my full asking price of $19.99, even though I had best offer on it. Yay!

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I promised a post on how I find my inventory once it's sold. I will do that tomorrow...

Working Through the Mountain

I've been getting so much listed! You know I have all these boxes and boxes of fresh inventory to get listed. I decided to start with the homeschool material, because it's the bulkiest and heaviest, but it's also the easiest to list. Snap one picture of the cover. Use a short description template. Change the details and done. I got 12 listed Friday, 13 listed Saturday, and 20 listed tonight. That's one box of curriculum. There's still 2 more half-boxes of curriculum over there.

I'm cracking down on myself. I WILL get through that pile as quickly as possible. Next up I'll do the basket of clothing, because it's also pretty quick and easy. I'm concerned about what might happen to this stuff if I leave it out here too long. If I let my guard down, my three-year-old will get into it all and ruin it. Ack.

I know I promised pictures of stuff as I get it listed. Do you really want to see pictures of 40-some homeschool books? Use your imagination :) But here are the listings, if you're really that interested. A couple of them were my own materials, but most of them are from Melissa. (Hi, Melissa!)

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Last summer, I set a financial goal for myself. I wanted to save $10,000 by December 2012 so we could hire someone to completely finish our basement. We desperately need as much upstairs living space as we can get, especially as the kids get older. We have 4 kids sharing 2 bedrooms right now. Our oldest really needs her own room. No 12 year old girl should have to share a room with her 4 year old sister. So the plan was to get the basement finished and move my eBay stuff downstairs.

There are a couple hitches in this plan. #1 - no matter how well the basement is finished, there will always be dampness. I can't risk ruining my inventory by storing it in an always-damp basement. #2 - once my husband graduates from nursing school, he plans to get a job nearer to our church (an hour away) and we hope to move closer to that town. Why sink $10k into a sub-par basement, only to move 2 years later?

So there's a new financial goal - save $5,000 by the end of this summer. I really don't foresee any problems with that, as long as I stay focused and quit blowing my money on stupid stuff. Ahem. I'm going to buy a monstrous storage shed. My current eBay room is 10' x 10'. I've got my eye on a 14' x 24' shed.

My $5,000 goal should be enough to buy the shed, baseboard heat, and a window air conditioning unit. I'm very, VERY excited about this goal. It's less expensive (yay for my bank account!), it'll happen significantly sooner than the basement would (yay for my daughter!), and we can take it with us when we move (yay for common sense!) I'm looking forward to having all my eBay mess OUT of our house (yay for everyone's sanity!)

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Today's sales have been great! Very steady, all day long. I've finally found the magic price to get my Florsheim shoes moving. I've had quite a few pairs just sitting here for over a year. I sold 3 pairs in the last week and a half, after I lowered my price. $35 is the magic number. Yay for getting rid of old inventory! (Lots of celebrating in this post)

I'm so sick of this bowl. SICK of it! I sold a set of 3 nesting bowls in this Gooseberry pattern awhile ago for $70, so I thought for sure this single large bowl would do well. Nope. I've tried EVERYTHING to move this stupid thing. Sales, high prices, low prices, best offer, free shipping. Nothing. I'm sick of it. It was time for it to go, so I knocked the price down to $10 + shipping and it finally sold. Stupid thing.

Here's one pair of the Florsheims that I sold today. The other pair was burgundy loafers, and they're going to Canada.

I bought this set of Goosebumps books awhile ago at Goodwill when the whole set was the half-price color. I paid $8 for all of them. I just didn't feel like messing with them and taking pics and describing the condition, so there they sat (in my way on my packaging table, I might add) for weeks. I finally listed them the other day and they sold already this morning. Oops. Underpriced. But they're gone, and I'm totally happy with the price I got for them. They're actually headed to a town 45 minutes north of me.

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I also had two large shoe cream orders today - one for 10 jars to the UK and one for 11 jars to Washington state. My stock is getting dangerously low on that stuff. I'll need to place an order this weekend, I suspect.

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Guess that's it. This time change has us all so messed up. We have an ugly, over-scheduled day tomorrow, so we're taking a planned no-school day. Too bad I can't spend it being productive, rather than running all over creation for appointments and meetings. Ugh.

My Top eBay Moments This Week

My sales units have been decreasing lately, but the dollar amounts are increasing. It's always nice to see my average price per sale go up, because that means I'm working less for more money! I sold 43 items this week. I didn't have any returns or complaints. I didn't have any UPI's close. I do have one open right now from a buyer in Singapore who bought a suede eraser. But other than that, I had a great week, customer-wise.

My favorite sales:

I have a love-hate relationship with Wilton pans. This one would be on the "hate" side. I am so glad to be rid of it. I tried everything to sell this stupid pan: sales, auctions, high price with best offer, low price without best offer, low price WITH best offer, free shipping. Nothing was working. Finally, I ended the listing and relisted it using the Sell Similar link. I changed it to first class shipping instead of priority (do you know you can wrap these in a couple layers of bubble wrap and ship them in a poly mailer via first class mail??), and it sold very quickly. Good riddance, I say.

• Acquired On: 5/8/11 (from my sister-in-law)
• Listed On: ??
• Sold On: 3/7/12
• Paid: $2.01
• Sold For: $9.99 + shipping

I've been avoiding Fashion Bug clothes, but for some reason, I bought these anyway. I am surprised at how quickly they sold.

• Acquired On: 1/25/12 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 1/26/12
• Sold On: 3/10/12
• Paid: 99 cents
• Sold For: $17.99 + shipping

I mentioned this men's Ecko Unltd shirt the other day. That seems to be a good brand. I've only ever listed 3 or 4 of them, but they've all sold quickly. This one had a cool holographic rhino thing on the front that just didn't show up well in the photo.

• Acquired On: 1/17/12 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 1/19/12
• Sold On: 3/8/12
• Paid: 99 cents
• Sold For: $21.99 + shipping

I bought these Sanita sandals at a yard sale last summer thinking they were Danskos. Sanita used to be a part of Dansko, but then they went off on their own, I believe. You might still find Sanita's that also say Dansko on them. These didn't. They were slow to sell. I probably won't bother with that brand again.

• Acquired On: 8/12/11 (Yard Sale)
• Listed On: ?
• Sold On: 3/9/11
• Paid: $1.00
• Sold For: $25.00 + shipping

There are two different types of Earth-brand shoes. There is Earth with a big E, which is a Walmart brand. There is earth with a small e, which is a really good brand. I have always known the difference between the two, except for the day I bought these. I came home that day with 3 pairs of Earth shoes, all excited, thinking they were earth shoes. Ugh. So I've been stuck with them for a long time. Fortunately, these were just wild enough to find the right buyer eventually. The size didn't help much. Who wants red leather mary jane sneakers in a size 11? Probably a pretty small segment of the population...

• Acquired On: 7/15/11 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 11/22/11 (I suspect that was probably a relist date)
• Sold On: 3/9/12
• Paid: $4.97
• Sold For: $25.00 + shipping

This belonged to my sister's mother-in-law. I have been selling most of her wardrobe since she passed away last fall. I thought this outfit would be one of the first to go. It took awhile, but I finally got a good price for it.

• Acquired On: Fall 2011
• Listed On: 11/1/11
• Sold On: 3/4/12
• Paid: $0
• Sold For: $29.99 - $4.99 shipping

This Jones New York blouse sold very quickly! I will always buy all JNY clothing NWT, and will probably seriously considering buying any I find without the tags, as long as they're in great condition.

• Acquired On: 2/29/12 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 3/6/12
• Sold On: 3/8/12
• Paid: $3.19
• Sold For: $29.99 + shipping

I don't know why I was hesitant to buy Ralph Lauren clothing when I first started buying clothes for resale. I've done well with them so far, so I'll definitely continue buying them in good shape. This one was a larger size, so I think that helped it.

• Acquired On: 1/25/12 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 2/6/12
• Sold On: 3/6/12
• Paid: $1.20
• Sold For: $30.00 + shipping

Lilly Pulitzer ... I've heard a lot about it. I VERY rarely find it around here. I found this gorgeous jacket on my most recent road trip to Harrisburg. I aimed high and ended up taking an offer I was quite pleased with.

• Acquired On: 2/17/12 (Harrisburg local thrift)
• Listed On: 2/20/12
• Sold On: 3/7/12
• Paid: $5.99
• Sold For: $35.00 + shipping

Another quick one. Clothing sells so much faster than shoes do - I love it! This was a Villager Woman brand, which is a division of Liz Claiborne.

• Acquired On: 1/31/12 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 2/6/12
• Sold On: 3/5/12
• Paid: $3.99
• Sold For: $39.99 + shipping (got my full asking price, despite having the best offer option on this one)

You're probably tired of hearing about the big yard sale I went to last fall. I bought 120 pieces there, and I only have 40 left. So hopefully you won't have to hear about it too much longer :)   The pieces I was most excited about from that sale were the huge stack of 10 or so Rothschild spring coats. I realized that because I bought them in September, they would be slow sellers, and I thought I was content to sit on them, but I am so sick of looking at them. They're taking up too much space in my closet, so I dropped my price on them this week. I sold one the next day, so I might have found a better price point on them. Hopefully.

• Acquired On: 9/3/11
• Listed On: 9/9/11
• Sold On: 3/8/12
• Paid: $14.00 (way too much - I didn't know there was going to be a half-price sale the next weekend!)
• Sold For: $40.00 + shipping

This is the only pair of Justin boots I've ever found. They are apparently good sellers. I think I probably paid a little more for them than I should have. Or maybe my purchase price would have been okay if I had held out for a higher price, but I was happy with a quicker turnover on these.

• Acquired On: 12/28/11 (Goodwill)
• Listed On: 12/19/11
• Sold On: 3/4/12
• Paid: $9.99
• Sold For: $50.00 + shipping

And last but not least, I suspect I let these Allen Edmonds go a little cheaper than I should have, but I've become rather fond of turning my inventory over a little quicker, rather than waiting an extra 6 months to make an extra $10 on it. I was perfectly happy with this offer, so I decided to take it.

• Acquired On: 8/4/11 (Virginia Goodwill)
• Listed On: 8/8/11
• Sold On: 3/4/12
• Paid: $4.20
• Sold For: $90.00 + shipping

What were your favorite sales this week?