Monday, June 30, 2014

Money Monday: It pays to list

Following along with Kim from Garage Sale Heaven, I wanted to keep track of my weekly sales,weekly listings and challenge myself to get both my profits and listings up.

Active listings: 468
Items listed this week: 23
Value of items listed this week $522.00
Cost of items sold: $28.50
Number of sales: 15
Total sales: $550.00
Amount spent on new inventory: $37.00
Average selling price: $37.00
International sales: 1
Returns: 0
Feedback: all positive this week


$37.00 is the highest my average selling price has ever been. It would be nice to keep it that high, but I know that it was because of the Mickey Mouse Body Parts Dinnerware sales


I sold two sets at $74.99 each (fs) to same buyer last week. There is one more set left that I am going to break apart and send to auction.


Last week I mentioned that I bought a fill-a-bag of clothes for $10.00. I managed to stuff in about 26 items in that bag!

I have already had two sales from those listings.
Rima beachwear caftan. For $24.99

And this Alfred Dunner blouse with attached tank top for $19.99


After going through all the items I stuffed into that bag, some were not going to be sold due to condition. This raised my cost per item from 0.48 cents per item to about 0.75cents per item. Still not bad!

And just when I think my plush items will never sell out of the blue comes this sale.

It is a Dan Dee plush valentine bear, sold for $24.99 fs
You just never know!

Hope your sales were awesome!!

Friday, June 27, 2014

Jaguar,Thunderbirds and Villeroy and Boch

Coffee cups and mug sales ( and a glass) for last week. I am drawn to coffee cups and mugs when I go to thrift stores. It's a rare occasion that I leave a thrift store without at least one coffee cup in my bag. They are a cheap investment from as low as a quarter to as high as a dollar and sometimes I spend more depending on what it is. For me, mugs are an easy flip.
I've included my coffee cup mug sales from last week to show you what has been selling for me. Sales are slow since I'm coming off a month-long vacation. But now that I'm back to listing almost every day my sales are picking up.
Villeroy and Boch coffee cup. Paid .79 cents sold for 23.00 dollars (fs)

I know, this is not a mug, but just about anything military will sell.
Thunderbird 2005 schedule glass, paid .79 cents sold for 24.00 (fs)



Saving the best for last! A Jaguar coffee cup. I paid .35 cents and sold it for $32.00 (fs).
Yes, mugs are a slow dime, but for me they are easy to store and I don't mind hanging on to them for a while. I would say I have had these mugs for at least a year.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Cleaning Up My eBay Store

I have been working on cleaning up my eBay store. My first step this morning is to work on all my categories. All of my category titles are in capital letters. I have gone back and edited a great majority of my category titles and changed them from capital letters to regular.


Now I am going to go to each category on a daily basis and tweak, cleanup and evaluate each listing in that category. I am also going to add subcategories in each category. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what category the item I am listing is going to go into. So I have added four additional categories to help with my listing process.


 

The categories I have added are the following; for her, for him, for children and special values. I think that this will cover just about any item I am listing and that I have a hard time putting into a particular category. It always seems like I have items that I can't find a place for And end up in the "other" category.


Today I am working on the "Women's Clothing" category. I have added sub-categories to include shirts-blouses, pants, dresses-skirts, shoes,plus size,scarves , purses,and lingere.

 

Now to get busy listing and fill up the sub categories with my latest haul from a local thrift store. The store was having a fill a bag for 10.00 ( with clothes). The bag is similar to the cloth like grocery store bags you can buy for 0.99 cents. This thrift charges $2.00 but you can use the bag again and again.

 

I managed to stuff the bag full of 26 clothing items that included name brand dresses, Levi jeans, scarves,and a couple of men's jackets and shirts. When you break it down, I ended up spending about 0.50 cents an item.

 

Clothes are not my favorite things to list, as you have to include measurements. I hate to measure anything. But, I love to ship clothes, slip them into a poly bag and off they go!