Catch Up Sales (A Dump and Run Post)

Well! I'm not too sure what happened, but something on eBay is working right for me again! My sales have really picked up! I have been running 50% off clothing sales, and my clothing has been flying out the door! No, the prices haven't been what I was hoping for, but I buy my clothing at low enough prices that I am still at least doubling my investment on them. I'm glad to see a smaller clothing stack to transfer to my building and put on hangers :)

Here are a few highlights of the last 2 weeks:

I've sold a good bit of Miche over the last 2 weeks. I sold 2 bags and 4 shells. That lot has more than paid for itself, and I have a lot more of it to sell!

$29.99 + shipping
The same buyer bought the coral colored shell below.

$34.99 + shipping

$25.00 + shipping
The same buyer bought the black shell below

$25.00 + shipping

$29.99 + shipping

$29.99 + shipping

Some more denim skirts:

$29.99 + shipping

$29.99 + shipping

Some clothing:

Christian Dior blouse
$24.99 + shipping

NWT Talbots dress
$49.99 + shipping

I had someone make me a ridiculously low offer on the Christian Dior blouse not long before it actually sold for a good price. And the Talbots dress had a $120 price tag. I have had it since February with no interest. Last week I got a low offer on it, and then a few days later it sold during my 50% off sale.

Some shoes:

Converse - $25 + shipping

I have had these Converse listed for quite awhile. I had 13 watchers on them at one point. I don't know why they took so long to sell!

SAS - $35 + shipping

SAS are good, reliable sellers!

Wile E. Coyote Keds
$36.66 + shipping

I sold a pair of red Looney Tunes Keds high-tops before, but for only about $15. These were just too cool to pass up though. I only paid $3 for them, and they sold pretty quickly!

Dansko Mary Janes
$65.00 + shipping

These Danskos sold the morning after I listed them!

Salvatore Ferragamos
$65.00 + shipping

I'm so glad these finally sold! I have had them since last August. I sold them in March for $45, but they were returned for fit. I was pretty thrilled to sell them for $20 more the second time around!

And lastly, 2 odds 'n' ends:

2 qt. Revere Ware saucepan
$20.00 + shipping

 My Revere Ware always sells pretty quickly. This one has sat for a VERY long time, and I could never figure out why. I finally realized it's because I called it a 2 qt. in the title, but a 1 1/2 qt. in the description. I changed that and it sold within 2 days.

NEW The Clapper
$29.99 + shipping

 This one made me laugh. I bought it during one of Tina's and my shopping trips. Paid $5 for it. It immediately got watchers. I got an inquiry from Australia, but it turns out it's the wrong voltage or plug or something. Sold it to Canada about a week after listing it.

Now that THAT song is stuck in your head ..... I apologize for the quick dump post. I'm spread too thin! Can't keep up with blogging!

Have a great selling week!

Plan C

I'm working on a new (temporary!) business model. Which reminds me. I cannot beLIEVE I didn't mention that my building came! It's been here for a week and a half. We decided to completely finish the inside, so my husband is working hard at insulating and running wires for electricity. He'll be doing drywall, hopefully next week.

So, back to my business model. As you all know, and are likely experiencing for yourselves, business is slow right now. Very slow. I have a HUGE mess in my eBay room. We had a yard sale a couple weeks ago. I took ALL my eBay clothing off the hangers and off of my clothing hanging racks in order to use them for our yard sale. After the yard sale was over, I didn't bother putting the clothing racks back in, using the excuse that the building would be here any day now, and I would just have to take it all apart again to move it to the building.

Well, I didn't take into account the fact that the building would need a couple weeks worth of work done before I could move in.

I am about to bare my soul here. I know I have shown you photos of my eBay room before, but it looked nothing like this:

It's hard to get a good feel for the mess, based on this picture. But let me tell you ... it's about hip high. It goes literally from wall to wall to wall. The mess touches those boxes in the back by my red dress form. The mess touches those boxes in the upper left corner. There is a pathway from the door to the table (the white thing on the far left). It's a nightmare. These are my piles of listed clothing that I threw on the floor to use their hangers and hanging racks. It was a bad BAD idea to not hang them back up again. Aside from the obvious nightmare of trying to move and work around the piles, do you have any idea what it's like to find something when it sells????

So anyway ... bringing this all back to my opening sentence.  I am trying out a new temporary business model. These clothes have to go. I love selling clothes. They can bring an incredible profit margin. But many of them I have had since January, February, or even earlier. I paid so little for them that I can slash my prices and still make good money on them.

Besides the issue of mess and storage, I am in desperate need of cash flow right now. So my new temporary business model is this:  I have put all of my clothing 50% off in my store. I've started with just a 7 day sale to see how it goes. I'm hoping this will help with 2 goals:  #1 - clear out some of the mess and stale inventory.  #2 - get me some cash fast.

So far, so good. I have had 7 sales today. 5 of them have been 50% off clothing. Of course that means that now I have to find those 5 garments in that mess, but I am grateful for the sales. I am anxious to see what my sale does for my business over the next week. And I might even leave that sale on until I am ready to move to my building. Who knows?

Warning: Plenty of Sarcasm Ahead

I forwarded that last email from eBay's legal department to eBay's spoof team the other day. I got a most informative response back from them today:

Thanks for forwarding the information in this message to wlmailhtml:{FD125A45-F992-41C7-A2B8-C9DB1078E68A}mid://00001023/!x-usc:mailto:spoof@ebay.com.
We take reports like this seriously and appreciate this kind of feedback
from you. Most likely, the message you received was not sent to you by
eBay.

"Most likely."  That was helpful. Thank you, eBay spoof team. If it truly wasn't sent to me by eBay, then I'd really like to re-register that domain name. "Most likely" just isn't a good enough answer for me. I'd rather not take their "most likely" as gospel truth, re-register the domain name, and then get sued for it. I emailed them back and told them so, but I haven't heard back from them. I'll just call eBay's Trust & Safety number tomorrow and find out for sure.

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Remember the buyer of that Ralph Lauren shirt I've mentioned a couple times? The one who told me there was no need for me to open a UPI case against him because he was planning to pay on Thursday? Guess what today is. Guess what didn't happen today. I'll give him another day or so, but then I'm opening a case. I'm so disgusted, because I really wanted that sale. What on earth possesses people to make offers on something they have no intention of actually buying? Ugh.

**********

I had a very helpful buyer make me an offer today on a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes. Allen Edmonds can go extremely high in the right condition. I have one pair listed. They're far from like-new, but they're in really good pre-owned condition.

I have them listed for $149.99obo. I know full well I'm not going to get that amount. I'd be happy with half of that. But the offer I received today was for $25! With this message: "very overpriced considering the sole modification and the condition of the structure"   Thank you, sir. I appreciate your opinion.

Obviously, I declined. I'd like to clarify that the "sole modification" would be my use of sole dressing to improve the look of the shoe. I'm not sure what he means by the "condition of the structure," but I didn't care enough to bother finding out. Someone who's picky from the outset doesn't need to be buying things from me. So I blocked him, and that's something I rarely do.

**********

February's sales were so strange. I'd have a week of crazy-high, soaring sales. Then I'd have a week of practically nothing. It's been sluggish lately, so I decided to run a 25% off sale through Sunday night. That's only 3 1/2 days. Hopefully it'll be just long enough to clear out some old inventory and increase my sales a bit, without taking too much of a hit on my profit margins.  I put 445 items on sale - ALL my shoes, all my old junk stuff that I'm sick of looking at, and all clothing 2 months or older.

*****We now interrupt this scheduled blog post to inform you that Mr. Ralph Lauren just sent payment for his shirt. I guess I kind of owe him an apology, but not a very big one, because he wasn't nice, and he waited until the very last minute... Carry on... ****

So about the sale ... It seems to be working so far. I've sold a couple things since the sale started. Like these Doc Marten sandals that I've had since September.

And this "dull-colored" Chadwick's blazer (a brand I won't bother with again).

And these equally bright Clarks.

My profit on those stunk. I paid way too much for them to begin with. I offered free shipping, and they were 25% off. So I ended up profiting something like $7 on them. And to make matters worse, my sister-in-law had picked them up for me. She gets 25% of my net profit on anything that she picks up for me. So I ended up with around $4. Oops.

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One last exciting tidbit before I sign off. On February 15, I received a $100 offer on a pair of Salvatore Ferragamo men's wing-tip shoes that I've had since last summer. I accepted the offer, but the buyer immediately wrote that he didn't read the listing closely enough, and they aren't the right size. I'm pretty sure I ranted about it here... I was annoyed, but whatever. I cancelled the transaction and relisted the shoes.

The other day, I got a new offer on the same pair of shoes. This one didn't even require a counter-offer! I had them listed for $169.99obo, and the offer was for $130. Plus shipping. SOLD! He paid the next day, and I shipped them out this morning (insured, of course). Woot!

I love finding Ferragamos. They don't sell quickly at all, but they are worth the wait. I've sold 2 pairs of them now - one for $150, and this pair for $130. Out of curiosity, I checked he buyer of this pair to see what else he's bought on eBay lately. This recent purchase tells me that he's a classy chap indeed: