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?

Wowzers!!

I don't post during the day too often, but I can't keep quiet about this one!!

When I was visiting Tina last weekend, I bought this bowl at Goodwill for $2.80.

I didn't know anything about it, but it had a stamp on the bottom that said "Arabia Finland." I have heard Shannon talk about how she buys anything marked Denmark, pretty much no matter what it is. I figured, "Eh - Denmark is kinda near Finland. This might be worth something." So I bought it. When I started researching it, I saw that it was a hard-to-find design. There were NONE currently listed, and none were showing up in completed listings either. I checked Terapeak and saw a few that sold last Christmas for around $60-65, but because those listings were so old, I wasn't able to see the pictures to know for sure that it was the same bowl.  I checked Google images, and only TWO came up. So I figured it was a safe assumption that I had something pretty valuable.

I priced it ridiculously high, for $139.99 or best offer, and I was hoping to get $80 for it. I figured I would probably have to wait until closer to Christmastime to get a good price for it, but at 5 cents a month, I was willing to wait however long it took. Imagine my surprise when I got (and accepted - obviously!) this offer, 2 days after listing it!!

It's going to Japan. No big surprise there. The buyer paid immediately and sent me this lovely note:

"Thank you so much for accepting my offer. It's a beautiful piece. I will give it a good home!"

What a great way to start the day!

What a Weekend!

Well I'm back! My husband and I drove out to Indiana over the weekend to visit my dear friend Tina. It was absolutely awesome to finally meet in person and get to spend the weekend shopping together!! We had a blast!!

We shopped, we yammered, we ate, we giggled. And I can hardly wait to do it again!


I had put my store on vacation the first day I was gone, and then took it back off of vacation Friday afternoon. I'm not sure what happened, but my sales have significantly improved since then. I'm still nowhere near my first quarter average, but I'm doing much better than I had been. Thank goodness.

Some noteworthy sales from the past week:



My hard-won Miche lot has been treating me well. This discontinued Cori shell sold for $29.99 this weekend.

• Date Acquired: 6/28/12 (yard sale)
• Date listed: 7/2/12
  
• Date Sold: 7/7/12
• Paid: $2
• Sold For: $29.99 + shipping
  

My Facebook yard sale group has been treating me well too. I bought these toddler Keen sandals on there recently. They sold fairly quickly.

• Acquired On: 6/11/12 (Facebook)
  
• Listed On: 6/14/12
• Sold On: 7/2/12
• Paid: $4
• Sold For: $25.00 + shipping
  

Another Facebook find. I'm amazed at how often people sell Converse on that group for dirt cheap!

• Acquired On: 6/14/12 (Facebook)
  
• Listed On: 6/26/12
• Sold On: 7/8/12
• Paid: $5.00
• Sold For: $25.00 + shipping
  

More Miche from the yard sale lot. This is a petite bag, only about 6"x8"

• Acquired On: 6/28/12 (yard sale)
• Listed On: 7/3/12
• Sold On: 7/7/12
• Paid: $5, but it had a shell on it too
• Sold For: $19.99 + shipping

And more Miche. This is the classic size bag. It also had a shell on it (which I'll be able to sell for $25-30), and the second set of straps you see in the picture.

• Acquired On: 6/28/12
• Listed On: 7/3/12
• Sold On: 7/7/12
• Paid: $10 (that included the other shell)
• Sold For: $29.99 + shipping

More Miche. Y'all are gonna get so sick of hearing about this lot. These 5 were stained, so I was going to throw them away, but I decided to put them in a lot with Best Offer, just to see what would happen. Imagine my surprise when they sold 2 days later, for 75% of my asking price!

• Acquired On: 6/24/12 (yard sale)
• Listed On: 7/3/12
• Sold on: 7/5/12
• Paid: Approximately $2 each
• Sold For: $30.00 + shipping
  

My sister-in-law brought me this denim skirt recently. It is a really dark blue wash with red stitching down the sides, so I wasn't surprised when it sold quickly.

• Acquired On: 6/25/12 (sister-in-law)
  
• Listed On: 6/25/12
• Sold On: 6/30/12
• Paid: $7.90
• Sold For: $29.99 + shipping
  

Remember how terrible my Kaya doll looked when I bought her? I got a really low offer on her last week. I counter-offered, but as usual, never heard back. I was thrilled to accept an offer yesterday from someone else.

• Acquired On: 4/6/12 (yard sale)
• Listed On: 6/7/12
• Sold On: 7/8/12
• Paid: $10.00
• Sold For: $75.00 + shipping

My American Girl lot has performed stunningly well! To recap, I paid $31 for 3 dolls and a ton of accessories. I have my Kirsten doll left, as well as 5 outfits. To date, I have sold $564.26 worth!!

Holy Moly Miche!

I promised to regale you all with tales from my yard saling adventures from Thursday. Nearly a week later, here goes....

Wednesday evening, someone posted an ad to my local Facebook group that they were having a yard sale the next morning, and that there would be Miche bags and shells. I commented asking how much they wanted for them, and she said the bags were $10 each and the shells were $2. I asked her to hold them for me, and that I would be there at 8:00 on the dot and would probably buy them all. She said she would hold them for me.

Shortly thereafter, someone else who was involved with the yard sale posted a PHOTO of the Miche bags. Several other people asked how much, and the first girl commented that she had someone coming at 8 to look at all of them. I posted that that was me, and that I would like to get there at 7:30 or 7:45, because I would hate to miss them since she had said that she would hold them for me. The person who posted the photo wrote "8:00 sharp - first come, first buy."  Ugh. So I messaged that person and said that the first girl said she'd hold them for me. He replied, "I can't control what she says."  Ugh again.  Other people were commenting that they wanted at least 1, but that it looked like they would all be gone right away and that they [me] should save some for other people. Pshht.

I dreamed about the stupid things that night. I was so annoyed that I was going to miss out on them, even after arranging to buy them all. So I set my alarm for 6:00. Dragged the kids out of bed at 7:00, and we were out the door by 7:30. These people only live about 8 minutes from me, so we got there early and just sat and waited at the stop sign near their house. Someone came up behind me and honked, so I waved her through, and darnit - she went to the yard sale! So I pulled up and parked at their next-door neighbor's house. Fortunately, that woman wasn't anywhere near MY Miche bags and shells, so I continued to wait. Finally at 7:55, they noticed that I was hovering and waved me in with a smile. Yay!

No one else was in sight, so I hopped out of the van and headed over. The man who had posted the picture met me and took me right to them. He explained the pricing on them. There was an organizer full of shells, plus a purse that were all his wife's and they were being sold as a lot. I didn't bother taking the shells out and looking at them. I just said I'd take them. Then there was a big pile of individual shells for $2 each. TWO DOLLARS. Can you believe it?!

So I bought them all (except for 2 of the individual ones that had spots on them) for a grand total of $97. He helped me to my car, I thanked him profusely, and drove off. No one else had shown up yet, but I wanted to be long gone before anyone came and realized I bought them all. lol.

It wasn't until later that day that I finally got a chance to inventory my goodies. I ended up with 4 classic (medium-sized) bags, 1 petite bag, the hanging organizer, and TWENTY-NINE shells!! For $97!!! Two of the shells are still in their original packaging. Y'all ... I am going to do quite well with these!

5 of the ones that were in the organizer are stained. They had apparently been stored right up against other ones, and the dye bled. I went ahead and listed them in one lot and will take offers on it. Someone might know how to clean them, or someone might want to re-cover them. You never know. I didn't want to just throw them away.

I immediately got the others all identified and listed. 3 or 4 of them were duplicates of ones I already have listed or sold, so they were easy to list (relist or update the quantity). I've got watchers on several of them, and am anxiously looking forward to selling them!

 Here they are. Aren't they purrrrrdy?