check in, kids!

[grasswire]

What's happening in your neck of the woods?

I've been back on eBay for a few weeks now, and also trying out Etsy for a spin. They are SURE different! The slow pace of Etsy takes some getting used to.

EBay. I've sold about 40 percent of what I listed, on auctions. I used to sell about 70 percent, but that was in eBay's salad days before a Republican CEO ruined it.

And I have had to learn that watchers are not as indicative of a sell as previously. Back in yore, if I had two watchers on an item I could pretty much be assured of some good bidding back and forth. Now, two watchers or more can also mean that the item is not even going to get one bid! Why would people watch something that they have no intention of bidding on? Are they sellers keeping an eye on the competition?

Once again, I encourage you all to carefully review what you throw away in terms of paper items. The market is still out there for vintage paper stuff.

So now I'm doing one of the things I love best. Scouring thrift shops and estate sales for ephemera.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. thanks for the reminder...I built my old seed catalog collection up using ebay

early on, I could find great stuff at great prices because it was still new. Now things get bid up to ridiculous levels. I tend to go for seed catalogs that are pre-1900, and aim for Burpee, Maule, Livingston, Henderson, Isbell and Salzer companies. The really hard things to find are pre-1880, but I nabbed a few.

I think my collection is well over 200 catalogs now...hope to write some books using the info in the catalogs as a basis to start from.

[grasswire]

4. I had some really good seed catalogs a few years ago.

Consigned them (and other good stuff) to a local store. She moved out of town without notice and took my stuff with her.

[safeinOhio]

2. At the mall,

small figurines have been hot this week, like Gobles. Small tables and heavy bigger pieces, I'm the one that has to load them out. Sales are picking up, as usual this time of year.
I bought a coin collection yesterday for $400. thought I could turn it over for $600. To my surprise, my trusted coin dealer found a couple of good ones in there and gave me $886. for the lot. A buddy went to the worlds longest yard sale and picked up a metal sign. It was made in 1990, too new to put in the mall. He paid $20 for it and had his daughter put it on Ebay and about fell over when it ran up to $1,100.

Seems more folks are selling than buying at the moment. A lot of people are down sizing, moving to smaller places, like retirement homes and older family members are passing away.

[grasswire]

3. ...plus the fact that everyone wants to be a PICKER these days!

Hey, what the heck kind of sign WAS that, for 1100 bucks?

[safeinOhio]

5. Some designer

like Ralf Lauren or Calvin Klein, can't remember the which one.

Can't imagine how many folks come into our retail store and try to make low-ball offers, like 50% off. We tell them that we will not call a dealer with that kind of offer. I asked one guy what kind of car he drove, he said a 2012 Chevy truck, I asked if he'd take 4 grand for it.

[brer cat]

6. Good for you!

A very good comeback. These folk drive me nuts, and especially when they get huffy when we refuse to call a dealer with their offer.

[democraticinsurgent]

7. A lot of customers are incredibly misinformed and disconnected from the realities of retail

They want us to sell to them at wholesale prices so they can flip on eBay, but they want us to pay them close to retail prices for the stuff they want to sell to us. Of course, in neither case do they have the overhead of a brick and mortar store to consider, which has to be built into the price.

Fortunately it's not always like this, but more often than I care to see. We have a "no haggling" policy that upsets some people because they think it's part of the experience. We just try to keep our prices low so that we, and our employees, don't have to deal with it. I tell them prices are "pre-negotiated".

And on the other end, you have people who look stuff up on eBay but they have no idea how to do it right. They don't know how to look at completed/sold items. They don't do apples to apples comparisons.

For example, I had a young couple in thinking that their Michael Jackson album was worth $200 and a Beatles Sgt Pepper LP was worth $300. What they did was see a colored vinyl pressing from Venezuela being sold for $200 and an original mono UK Sgt Pepper LP going for $300. I told them their regular old Michael Jackson Thriller LP was worth $5-10 tops and their 4th pressing Sgt Pepper was maybe $10-15 retail. I offered them a nice price for their collection but they didn't bite, because they already had faulty info in their brains that they couldn't get past. They probably thought I was trying to rip them off.

Aye yi yi.

[arikara]

8. It drives me nuts when I go to a garage sale

and see some questionable stuff worth $10 or $15 with an asking price of $160 and a big sign "listed on ebay for $200". I try to educate them too but they think they have the mother lode as it were.

[pipoman]

9. Last Monday

I went to a Wichita antique mall after visiting a friend in the hospital. I found a Coleman Lantern paperweight I thought was interesting for only $6. I bought it and the clerk said that the person whose space I bought from had just stocked their space from a local estate sale including this piece.

I haven't sold anything on ebay for a year or more...last time the fees totaled over 20%..I usually sell pieces that are pretty desirable to collectors and can sell at a specialty live auction for 20% and usually realize 20% more for the item than on ebay. This was a good enough buy however and I had just received a message that there was no listing fee, so I listed it...It closed last night at $174.50..the final value fee was 10%..I can live with that..


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=281154195980

[grasswire]

10. SCORE!!

Excellent.

You should think of yourself as a curator. You find items that have good value to others, and rescue the items from obscurity.

[pipoman]

11. I used to shop and sell all the time..

traveling for work and shopping malls and stores off time. This was before eBay..I had people I picked for and lists of other people's wants. Several of the people I picked for, picked for me..It was a different kettle of fish before ebay..it's the occasional homerun like this that has kept me interested all these years..

[safeinOhio]

12. You might try renting a show case at a big mall.

I got one about a year or so ago for $50/month. Made a bundle and now have six show cases and 2 booths at 2 different malls.