Saturday, December 29, 2012

Christmas Highlights

I have had a great sales month - finally! I had a good mix of high and low dollar sales, quick and slow sales, old and new inventory. December kept me on my toes. And we didn't have to put a single penny of our Christmas on a credit card! Hooray!! Thank you, buyers!!

Here are some of my favorite sales from the past couple weeks...

These were my husband's from his grandfather. He has had a huge bag of them in his closet for as long as I have known them. He finally asked me to sell them. I listed them in 12 lots of 3 and one leftover lot of 2. I am surprised at how quickly they have been selling. I only listed them a little under a month ago and am down to just 5 or 6 lots already.
  • Acquired: Years and years ago (inherited)
  • Price Paid: $0
  • Date Listed: 12/4/12
  • Date Sold: various
  • Sale Price: $12.99 free shipping per lot ($2.48 shipping)\

 This sale makes me laugh. This was an incomplete K'Nex set. Complete, this particular set was only selling for about $5. I split them up by color and called it "Miscellaneous Bulk Lot" and sold it for $17.99. Ha!
  • Acquired: A couple years ago at Goodwill for my son who never played with it
  • Price Paid: 50 cents I think?
  • Date Listed: 10/25/12
  • Date Sold: 12/23/12
  • Sale Price: $17.99 - 4.99 shipping
I've been having pretty good luck with Lia Sophia necklaces. The ones I have listed so far have sold in just a week or so after listing them.
  • Acquired: 12/12/12 (Facebook yard sale site)
  • Price Paid: $5
  • Date Listed: 12/13/12
  • Date Sold: 12/22/12
  • Sale Price: $21.59 - $1.64 shipping




I've sold several of these black and white silent film reels for a friend of mine. This one sold the highest. I couldn't find this title anywhere, so I priced it high and hoped for the best, never dreaming it would actually sell for that much.

  • Acquired: n/a - consignment item
  • Price Paid: n/a - consignment item
  • Date Listed: 12/12/12
  • Date Sold: 12/24/12
  • Sale Price: $35.99 + shipping


I've never had luck selling these stupid things. I finally managed to dump a couple earlier this month for $10 each, but I left the uglier ones priced a little higher. This one finally sold last night, AFTER Christmas!
  • Acquired: 1/12/2012 - Goodwill
  • Price Paid: $3.99
  • Date Listed: ?? January 2012, probably
  • Date Sold: 12/28/12
  • Sale Price: $39.99 - $4.99 shipping
This is another consignment item that I'm pretty sure I underpriced. It sold within 10 hours of listing it. But the seller was pleased with the price, so I won't dwell on it.
  • Acquired: n/a - consignment item
  • Price Paid: n/a - consignment item
  • Date Listed: 12/12/12
  • Date Sold: 12/13/12
  • Sale Price: $39.99 + shipping

This Kirsten doll has become the bane of my existence. Good riddance to her, I say! You might recall that I bought a large AG lot for a song at a yard sale this past spring. I fully expected Kirsten to be among the first couple items to sell, yet here she still is, 8 months later, the LAST AG item I have. Ugh. I've had her priced all over the map - even tried auctioning her in early December. I've had her on my FB yard sale group, best offer, no best offer, on sale, full price, high price, low price. I just could NOT figure out why she wouldn't sell. I retook the pictures and changed the title around and relisted her using "Sell Similar" and immediately started getting inquiries, watchers, and offers. So apparently she just got buried so far down in search results that no one was finding her. Within just a couple days, I had gotten 3 or 4 offers, but not for the price I wanted. Originally I had been hoping for $100 + shipping, but I finally realized the higher-selling ones were made in Germany. Mine was made in China :(  So I finally settled for $65 + shipping. Ugh.
  • Acquired: 4/6/12 (yard sale)
  • Price Paid: $10
  • Date Listed: April 2012
  • Date Sold: 12/26/12
  • Sale Price: $65.00 + shipping
So here is my final American Girl tally:
You can probably click on that to view it bigger.
  • Total Paid: $31.00
  • Total Sales: $718.25!
Apparently Furbies are back. I found this one at an indoor flea market in November. This particular color combination seem to be hard to find, so I priced it high. I listed it quickly, hoping it would sell for a Christmas gift, and it did!
  • Acquired: 11/18/12 (indoor flea market)
  • Price Paid: $8.00
  • Date Listed: 11/21/12
  • Date Sold: 12/17/12
  • Sale Price: $69.99 + shipping

This last one was another consignment item. It was my highest-ever sale and it wasn't even my item :(   This is quite possibly the coolest chess set I've ever seen. The king was 8" tall and weighed 1.5 pounds! Each pawn was 6" tall and weighed 1/2 pound. This set is HUGE! And HEAVY! Most of these sets were only selling for around $40-80, but my friend wasn't in a big hurry, so I priced it high, prepared to wait. I got an offer that wasn't too far below my asking price, so I jumped on it!
  • Acquired: n/a - consignment item
  • Price Paid: n/a - consignment item
  • Date Listed: 12/2/12
  • Date Sold: 12/21/12
  • Sale Price: $225.00 + shipping!
I'm looking forward to getting back into shopping, listing, and blogging. I've gotten a little lazy with all of those things over the last few weeks. It was good to take a break, but now I'm ready!




3 comments:

  1. An excellent tally - you must be very pleased!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice job! I am a new seller and I am so glad I found your blog. You have shared some really useful information. I have several friends who have asked me to sell things for them. I noticed that you sell on consignment sometimes. Do you have a percentage you take of the sale? I would love to see a post written on consignment selling. Thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I only sell on consignment for a few people. I have different systems, depending on who it is. Family and close friends - I just take 20% of the sale and pay fees out of that, because it happens very rarely. Acquaintances, I take 20% before fees, and then subtract fees out of what's left of their portion. From what I've been told, that's a very low percentage. 40-50% is more common, I think.

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