Monday, January 30, 2012

How do you keep everything organized?

I could totally make this a post about how do you keep all of your inventory organized and make your life (and house) walk-through-able, but this is a post about how to keep all of your orders organized as you pack them. I got an email from an Amazon buyer this week and I discovered I had switched two labels on two book orders, and she is not a happy camper! So, now I have possibly two negative feedbacks just for a simple switch-a-roo mistake, and I can't even blame it on lots of orders to fill, as the night I packed this order I only had 5.

So I'm wondering what do you do to help keep it all straight?
So you write the customer's name on the package, do you do one at a time or all at once?
Please, share some strategies with me.  I need to get crackin' and not do this again, I don't want to put my selling on Amazon in jeopardy, with my non-existent ebay sales this week, I need the book sales!

I'm planning on posting more about how to organize stuff in a few weeks, when I have my mess slightly under control !

Happy Monday!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Sales for the week, pyrex, Mickey Mouse, Thermoware

Ebay: Dark Vanilla Perfume, fisher price little people girl- for 1.25, otherwise all you hear is the crickets chirping in my store. . . . total 67.00


Etsy: 2 lots of scrapbook paper (25 sheets, you choose the theme(s) you'd like-A huge part of our retail store used to be scrapbooking, but I am wanting to downsize that a lot, so I am offering scrapbook paper in lots for a discounted price just so I can get rid of it!) 10.00

mickey and minnie mouse vintage toys (still awaiting payment, repeat customer, yea!)
14.95

rusty door knocker (still awaiting payment)
9.95

Big Pyrex order all to one person, love that! 


20.00                 9.95                     14.95
-8.00 for shipping miscalculation

Kitchen Utensil Jar
7.95
Thermo-ware Ice Bucket
10.00

 These boots sold last week for 24.95, but the buyer is returning them because they don't fit, bummer! 




Not totally dead this week, but nothing too stellar either. 

Hope sales have been better for you!
Melissa

Thursday, January 26, 2012

So, what do you do while you list?

I read somewhere that the average toddler requires the caretaker's attention approx. every 4 minutes- I think it might be even more often at our house. Take that combined with the timer going off every 20 minutes to take little one to the potty (we are on week 2 of potty training), and hubby working late to get some overtime pay that we really could use and it means that mommy doesn't get to start her work-ebay work- until at least 9 pm or so. (Which would be okay if it didn't continue until 3 am or so, the 5:00 alarm clock rings too soon!)
I look forward to listing time because the house is quiet, no one is wanting to share my soda, my chair, or anything else and I get the TV all to myself. No hunting shows, no wonder pets, just me and my TV.

Maybe you should know this about me- it drives my hubby crazy-I tend to get on kicks. Last summer when I sewed over 200 children's clothing sets for a local craft show and my etsy store  I was on a Who's the Boss kick. Other times its been the golden girls, felicity, big love, sex and the city. . . . I just keep watching all of them until there are no more to watch. Well, okay, really it's more listen to them than watch, but you get what I'm saying. (I've also been known to do this with food. The week after Christmas I ate 4 full jars of those green olives with the red thing in the middle- now I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole)

So today, I discovered Hulu. I've read about it before, but never really took the time to check it all out. Now I am jumping for joy.  I just take my ipad, set it to Hulu, watch/listen wherever I am working, and I can list, or sew or cook dinner and watch a show. That makes me very happy, and much more patient with my little big boy, when I have just a few minutes to myself. (I hit pause about every 4 minutes, can you guess why?)
Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes to an audio book from the library, but most often it's old tv reruns.

What's your favorite while I list activity?

So- here's to dry pullups almost all day long- and Roseanne reruns. (There are 8 seasons to go thru, so this kick might go on for a while!)

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

I'm having a bad day. . .

so little one and I are cutting out of our afternoon job (being my dad's secretary at his paint business) and heading to the big thrift store in our area and then the grocery store for some couponing. (hopefully there's enough stock left to make it some extreme couponing!) hopefully I will have some fun items to post tomorrow that we scored.

 I haven't been thrifting in several weeks, I've been trying to be a good girl and list the mountains of inventory I already have! But since my doctor thinks I may have a stomach ulcer I haven't been able to drink caffeine or eat chocolate for about 6 months, so I am in need of some thrift store therapy.


Hope you score big today too!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Where did all my pictures go?

feeling very frustrated at midnight.  I need to go to bed soon so I can get up and survive another day with the 22-5 year olds, and one 2 year old who's being stubborn with the potty training.

Things have been very slow this past week for me on ebay. Etsy and Amazon have been doing pretty good. After reading this post a while back (love this blog by the way, have learned so much from it!)
I started changing my listings from good until cancelled to ending in about 30 days and then relisting as similar. Everything has been looking fine and dandy from my ebay selling page and the listings that I have been looking at. Then tonight I got a message from a buyer that my photos weren't showing up when she clicked on the listing. So, I started looking around and there were a lot (almost 200 of my 230 listings, everything I had relisted as similar) that were having this problem! UGH! might be while sales have been slow- ya think? So I have been spending the last two hours fixing photos instead of listing new items. I think it has something to do with the photos I've loaded using Auctiva, vs. the photos I've listed using ebay. I've been making the auction on auctiva and then uploading photos on ebay- seems faster then loading them on all on auctiva. But I think they photos don't transfer if they were uploaded from Auctiva, so I will be adding all of my photos thru ebay from now on! Hopefully this will help things to pick up a bit.

So, its 12:30, my plan is to check my local grocery store ad for what I can coupon for after work tomorrow- my almost 19 yr old stepdaughter is coming up this weekend to learn how to coupon, so I have to have my act together- update my book scanner- (we live over an hour away from a "town" with any decent shopping, so I must coupon and thrift on the same day to save gas money") and then get to bed.

Has anyone else had problems with pictures disappearing from listing pages but not the thumbnail on the selling page?

Sunday, January 22, 2012

What's with the lowball offers?

This has been a week for me and lowball offers.
I've had some Dark Vanilla Perfume listed for a couple of weeks.
Within a day I sold it to a lady in Canada. But, she didn't read the listing well, and ended up not wanting to pay the import cost, so I cancelled it for her.

So I relisted last week for $65. Amazon has it listed at $120. I figured that I would be willing to go down to $50.
A few days later I got an offer for $20.  Seriously? I thought that was a low ball offer, but then a few days later I got this...
an $18.00 dollar offer - I thought surely this would be the lowest one, but no!
at the end the weekI got an offer for $15.  Seriously people? I'll keep it for that- even though I can't wear it due to my son's asthma. Even my hubby got a laugh on this one, and he doesn't usually get ebay humor.
Then, this morning,. . . hallelujah! SOLD for $65, FULL ASKING price!
Yea! It pays to wait for the right buyer.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Hey, I have Followers

I was so excited to look today and see that I have some followers! Thanks for joining me!

This has been a busy week for me, although not on the reseller's front.  My part time job is as a kindergarten teacher, and my other part time job is as a secretary and my 3rd part time job is reselling. School was busy this week as we had 2 staff meetings this week and hosted a literacy night last night at our school for over 300 parents and children of all ages.  So, I haven't had much time for listing this week and am hoping to plow thru the pile this weekend.
Here are some of the items I plan on listing this weekend.

Born clogs great condition, paid 6.99, will be listing for maybe $49, I need to research them still.

ALF car plush, my hubby found while cleaning out his stuff and wanted me to list it for him
plan on listing this as BIN for 39.95, and we'll see what happens


Very cool vintage look lampshade, purchased at goodwill, still new in wrapper for 1.99.
I've had some luck selling lamp shades, so I'm going to give this a try for 20.00.  The only part I hate about lamp shades is figuring out how to pack them so they don't end up crushed.


Also, was finally able to get to town and check out Target's clearance toys. I picked up two more of the doll I sold earlier in the week and some v-reader games for a very good deal. Got them all listed all ready and hopefully will be hearing ca-ching very soon.

I was reading a blog yesterday- sorry can't remember which one- that was talking about a dictation app that can make listing items a lot faster as it types as you talk. It think it's called Dragon Express.  I think that sounds great, but at $50 I was wondering if anyone else uses it and what you think about it for using to make listings for ebay?

The last few days have been slow for me on the ebay front, but sales continue to trickle in on Amazon and Etsy.  Hopefully getting some new listings will help bring in the customers.
Happy listing!



Wednesday, January 18, 2012

What I've sold this week

I always like to read what other people have successfully sold, so I thought I'd share with you what sold for me this week.

Charlie Brown Encyclopedias- lot of 9, pd. .49-.99 each sold for 18.95, I always snap these up when I see them, then combine them when I have enough for a lot. These sell surprisingly well, I think it's nostalgia- that's why I originally purchased them- because I remember my brother had some like this when I was growing up.


Ugg Slippers pd. 8.99 sold for 39.99


Dopey Dwarf fabric panel free from mom, sold for 5.00. I've had these listed for almost a year so I was happy to see it go~!


Mickey Mouse Train Vintage Toy, picked up by my dad at a garage sale for me. I think that he paid $1.00 for the whole large plastic shoe box full. This is the 3rd of 6 of these vintage Disney toy's I've sold.

80's game, got this at a goodwill in another town that's much better than the one closer to me, but is an hour drive. Paid .99 brand new except for tape on the outside of the box. Sold on Amazon for 24.95
Somerset Magazines- came across these while cleaning my craft room. With a two year old I have no time for projects like these right now, so I listed them. They've sat for a few months, but sold for 29.95 and 10.50 shipping. I always try to ship my magazine lots in the medium priority box, it's sturdy and they fit great without a lot of packing, and boxes the right size for magazines are hard to come by.

Silver dustpan paid 1.99, sold for 14.99- I wouldn't recommend buying this, it's sat for almost a year with no interest

Alphabet teaching book paid .49, sold for 14.99


Metal Recipe Box

pd. .25 sold for 8.95- this one has had a lot of interest on both etsy and ebay and is very rusty on the bottom, I was surprised it was so popular, but purchased it becuase of the color and it was from the 60's
Pillars of Wisdom book, by international collections paid $1.00, sold for $9.99, item arrived damaged and even though the buyer didn't purchase insurance, I refunded half to payment to save getting a negative feedback. I am really looking at changing some of my refund policies and adding a 20% restocking fee unless the item description was totally off base.  Read more about policies at

http://www.ebayundergroundblog.com/2011/10/sure-ill-take-that-back-but-its-gonna.html
and just this morning, a toy doll I picked up at Target yesterday for 70% off, listed last night and greeted me this morning with a SOLD! email,
paid $11.98, sold for 24.95 UPDATE: Buyer left positive feedback after refund, Yea!

It didn't seem like that busy of a week, butlooking at everything together it doesn't look to bad for the time when Christmas credit card bills are coming in for most shoppers. Maybe things are picking up again. Amazon and Etsy have really helped fill in for the absent customers from Ebay. My goal now, not to buy anything new (ok, maybe a revisit to Target to get the rest of those dolls) until my huge mess of inventory I've already purchased is listed and organized (somewhat). We'll see how it goes. How about you, did the Christmas rush leave your work space and storage area a complete disaster?

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Sales for the week, pyrex, dansko, freebies!

As I was pondering what to write about today I thought I would post some of my favorite sales of the week.

I found this beautiful pyrex bowl on the goodwill a few months back, and for some reason let it sit on the shelf for a while, mostly to keep it out of little one's reach,  I think.


Well, I got it listed this week, on both etsy and ebay. I know, shame on me for double listing, but it cuts down on listing time and helps keep the inventory moving.  The only problem was I  didn't know the name of the pattern and even after 3 days of research still couldn't find it.

Well, thanks to a helpful shopper on Etsy, I found out the pattern is called ocean filigree and as soon as I added that to the listing it sold within a day, for my asking price of $24.95, I paid 2.99 at Goodwill.  It's a rare piece, and in great condition and I hope it brings much happiness in it's new home.



Other money makers I sold this week:
Dansko loafers, paid $6.99 at ARC, Listed for $54.95, sold for best offer of $40.00. This one was kind of a strange sale. These have been listed for a couple of months with no interest. This week, I had a pretty lowball offer, which I countered, while I was waiting to hear back from them, I got another offer from someone else for $40, which I happily accepted and sent them on their way. I love a brand that sells  consistently

Lastly, I've got to remind you to use all of the sources that you can to get inventory. My mom has been doing her annual January clear out (as it's possible that the hoarder gene doesn't skip a generation). She brought me about 8 large black trash bags stuffed full of clothes, household items and craft supplies that I will slowly be sorting thru to list. In one of the bags I found this adorable stuffed bear footstool, still in very good condition, she originally paid 10.99 for it, and I sold it for 24.95, cost to me- $0

Gotta love family, and new years resolutions that involve decluttering. One man's trash is my profit.

Happy thrifting,
Melissa

I'm back......

Whoa Friends, has it been a long time! Hard to believe my last post was over 3 years ago- but here I am. A few things have changed- I am now...