Hey friends, this is Suzanne your hostess. And you have reached episode number 148 of eBay the right way. Today's date is January 17 2024. And my guest is D in Kentucky. No notable announcements this week so we will go straight into the chat. Hello, listeners and welcome back. I have a longtime Facebook group member and eBay friend that I've never met. today. We have D with us and how are you doing this morning?
I am fantastic. Thanks for having me. How are you doing?
Wonderful. Yes, we are recording this on December 28. So heading into the new year's weekend and got any big plans?
No, not at all.
Yeah, I'm a stay at home on New Year's person. Yeah, no
same.
Lot of craziness out there.
No, no, it's end of the year. Clean up. It's hanging with the family. That's it. Yeah.
Good for you. Okay, well, um, where are you located?
I am in Northern Kentucky. Like 20 minutes south of Cincinnati. So real estate southern Cincinnati.
Okay. I don't recall having anybody from Kentucky. Okay. Um, maybe I did. I just don't remember
that. Really. Kentucky is a big state. I do most of my thrifting in Ohio. So
really? Okay. Okay, good. All right. We'll get into that some more. So now we know where you are. And that's is that still Eastern time?
It is.
Okay. You're right.
We're just we're just there at the cup.
Okay, good. All right. Well, let's go over what brought you to eBay. See,
we I was trying to find this. I couldn't find this info. But I'm pretty sure we got on eBay pretty quick when it first became a thing back in the day. So I don't know what eBay start date was. But we were there within a few 96. Yeah. So it would have been, we were there probably 2001 or something like that. So that's how old my account is. And it was just those early days of eBay where it's really cool, wild west kind of stuff. But I didn't seriously get into thrifting as a business
until early 2017. Which is right when I found your group,
right? Yes, yeah. Okay. Good. So what was the catalyst? Like, why did you say I'm going to start selling?
I think I was looking for something new. I had been a stay at home mom for awhile, I had been temping for a while. I had actually developed a client base for virtual assisting all things tech support, web development, stuff like that. And I was looking kind of for a side hustle. And I was interested, I was curious, and I'm sure I came across a YouTube video or two that's like, oh, I
can do this. Huh. So led down all the rabbit holes and took about three or four months to research and then started, just fell in kind of fell into it on my own.
So what is your professional background?
That's a really good question. I do all the things.
Yeah. Sounds like you do. Yeah. Just kind of
figured down. Yeah. No, I really do. I mean, I worked in customer service for many years, many, many moons ago, when we lived in New England. We lived in Connecticut for many years. Okay, then moved here to the Midwest, because a we could afford a house here. family here. And we just like the area my husband's family is from this area. So. But yeah, I stayed at home with my kids for a while.
And then I picked things up really quickly on my own and technologically inclined and just kind of figured that out from there and started getting
clients. And how old are your kids now?
They're in their early 20s. They still so we're still helping them learn how to adult I've got one, not the college so, okay, that's still a busy household. It's just not
that's a good age, though. Because they're, they're just about getting ready to launch and pray. Right. That they're fun to be with and there as well. You know, they're out of like high schools. Right. Right. A little bit a little bit easier on the parents. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, so you said move to Kentucky from New England because of the cost of living and that was a big thing. Yeah. That's repeating itself. Now like lots of people from
California. A moving to Other states, I keep hearing this, you know, buying homes and property sight unseen. Just Oh, yeah. Yeah. To get out of out from under all of that. We've
been here 12 years. Yeah, we've been here. 20 years. I love it here.
Are you in a rural area or more near suburbia? That suburbia. Okay. Okay. And so you mentioned going to Ohio to do your thrifting.
Yeah. Yeah. So in Northern Kentucky, I'm sure they're their lovely little stores around here. I've been to all of them. I used to go out all the time. I've gotten a lot better about that. So now I just coordinate it with other things I've got going on on the regular in Ohio. And I go out a couple times a week to my favorite stores up there. Like 30 minutes to 45 minutes travel time, but I link it up to other things I'm doing there.
Okay, so I had to look up the map because I'm terrible with geography and I haven't lived in so you are closest to what city in Kentucky?
to Florence or Langer.
Okay, oh, okay, way up there at the top notch. Yeah. Daddy's just right over the line for you got it. Okay. Okay, good. So is is thrifting, your main source of getting inventory?
It is right now. Yeah. I feel like I'm gonna be taking this year to really reevaluate that. As I kind of review the year and go over my goals, I'll be figuring that out. But currently it is. Yeah.
Well, I love that you're doing that reviewing here and going over your goals. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, do we want to segue into talking about some of the things that you've sold or some stories about your eBay business? Yeah, community, the eBay life.
I know socket. So I've got a friend of mine. She started her eBay business probably a year and a half ago or so. And we've started working together, we work together on the regular and I was just telling her how much fun this is for me to talk to you about this, because I have very few people in my life that I get to
geek out about this business. So yeah, I've got kind of took some notes and wrote down a few memorable sales because I was I was thinking about this and like, I tend to sell them forget it. Not a lot of them stick with me. But I do have and I do sell on different platforms as well. So eBay is my main squeeze still. And it's where I really got started, but I do have others. So this is one I'm gonna I think I might mangle the name. So you're familiar with Carter's, like Carter's kids
clothing? Yeah, absolutely. The artist, emu Nami, I think e m mu, and a Mae. He's a blind Japanese artist. And Carter's picked up his art and incorporated it in I want to say the early 2000s. And I sold a couple of those blankets, one for 151 for $75. Nice. I think some of it is the color combination. But the cool thing about those is that my style of thrifting is I go out and like does it catch my eye, and then I'll look it up, I still have my main list of things I look for
in categories. But this caught my eye because it's the same receding blankets I had for my kids when they were little. Okay. And then I looked them up and like, Oh, these are actually worth something. So they've all sold them within a month or two of listing. So that was a pretty those are pretty cool finds.
Yeah, that makes you feel old when you start seeing stuff out.
It's, it's a plus on one end, because my main category is plush and toys. Okay, right. And a lot of those things because of how my kids are and the generational nostalgia. Kids are now old enough to be like, Oh, I had this. And now I'm having kids and I want this for my young one or something. So that's kind of okay. Have you
had some eBay customers reach out to you after buying one of those items? And you're getting the I've been looking for this forever, or my kids
and I absolutely love that when people do that. Yeah, I know. I just had one recently where oh my gosh, I've been looking for this. Thank you so much. This was exactly what I was looking for. And I had this when I was a kid and I want to give it to my kids.
Did it? Was it something that sold really quickly? I don't remember. I don't remember. Yeah, no, sometimes they have to sit for a while and Oh, for sure. Until somebody needs it. So I like to put that thought out there that just because it's not getting attention right now. You know, tomorrow could be the day where it loses it or somebody gets the idea of oh, I should get such and such for my child or you know, get it for your grown child for their birthday. Like
oh, you Hey, right. Yes, no Oh, yeah, waiting for waiting for there to be a need.
Yeah, I try not to try not to load too much of my inventory up with waiting for the right person, right. But there are certainly things that I know somebody's looking for this. So I'm good with with letting some things to for sure. Okay. So when I started my way into this, first was I thought I was going to build a Pyrex empire on my Etsy store. And then I realized, Oh, you actually have to find the Pyrex and you have to find the desirable pieces that's not available around here that I
know of. So then I went into the very popular category of clothing that lasted a few months until I realized I really hate clothing. I hate that for me. I hate laying it out. I hate fussing with it. I've got dogs. So now I've got to worry about the hair situation. And then he moved into shoes. And that's still my secondary or dairy
category. And there was the really cool early on memorable purchase and flip of a pair of Chanel, Oxford's little, tiny women's Chanel, Oxford's, I always find them in the tiny sizes like 3637, like size six, whatever. I found those for $2 at a goodwill. And it was one of my first shoe purchases, and I was floored and like, now I'm not so much in the designer brands because they do tend to sit but those sold pretty
quickly. Want to say within a month or two for about $200 That was and that one stuck with me because that was pretty early on that happened probably five or six years ago.
Well and shoes aren't really faked. You don't have to worry about it like handbags and sunglasses.
There are some I actually just got rid of a pair of Louie batons that I determined worth are
finally a guide. I guess not as often as other items because it would be more labor intensive to make I imagined so yeah, yeah. And the the counterfeiters like stuff they can make quickly. Easy for sure. Yeah, definitely. Well, that's a good find. I mean, you just never know you would. Did you find that in like Cincinnati as well? Yes. Yeah, I
did. I remember that. And that's it's been five, six years. I remember the store. I remember exactly the store. I remember finding. Oh,
isn't that funny? What we remember? Yeah, really? I did inventory this month. Just I do it. Try to do it twice a year. And you know, going through it, and I remember where I got things like, oh, yeah, this came from or and this came from? I remember the day I went there, and it was a thunderstorm. Right. Was it just Just what you remember?
Yeah. Yeah. What the connections you make? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Keep going. Yeah,
I had two more that I wrote down. Because I do I was looking at my number of sales per month per year or whatever. And my urine review I was looking at, like, I've sold 900 Plus items and 2023 across four platforms. Okay. 60% of which was eBay. So I don't remember all of them. But the other two memorable sales were I found this mini Casio keyboard. Uh, huh. In the box, vintage working nothing wrong with it. And I
found it for $5. I remember and I remember as we were just talking about, I remember exactly where that was to which store all that one. I don't go to that frequently. And that sold within a week for $125. I may have even posted that and one of the supersize sales.
Oh, good for you. Okay, yeah,
that one was fun. And I think at that same store, because plush is my main category. There's a store I tend to go to that has bags of plush, so you have to pick them up. Look around. Do I want this? I found a bunch of Thai beanie boos. Beanie Babies I never look at but the beanie boos can sometimes be really valuable depending on what you get. I found one with the purple tag. So that means it was for that store. It was a justice
exclusive. And justice is not even a store anymore, I don't think but it was a blue unicorn and I found out that it was super rare. I listed it for sure I got it for $1 in the bag. It for 275 and after probably a few weeks of low offers I took 250 really that one blew me away. I'm like I because I have a handful of plush that I have gotten many hundreds of dollars for but it's a handful. That's all the time thing. So it's really fun when it happens. So
what four platforms are you on? eBay,
Etsy Poshmark. And Macari Okay, I have looked at vestia I have a couple of things on there. I'm about to shut it down because it's too much work. It's too fussy. Okay, I
don't think I've heard of that one. What
is it call this year? Okay, is it clothing?
They bought out tradesy Oh, okay. Okay.
I wouldn't trade Z for a minute, but they were such a pain in the butt to get to get payouts.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Can I need your money?
Right? Right. So I'm kind of not surprised that they're no longer with us and best year. Like I said, it's just it's too fussy for me,
I've got it, you have everything cross listed on all of them
just about, okay. And that's something I'm going to be looking at, again this year. Of where I can buff up the other platforms, there are certainly going to be things I just won't ever list on, say Poshmark because of their weight limit. They felt like their 12 pound labels. And that's it. And I've got other things that I'd never be able to ship through there. Okay.
Do you want to explain a little bit about each platform as it relates to eBay? People are always saying, you know, your sell on other platforms. And I know there's, you know, differences in the listing fees, and like you said, the shipping. And I've tried, I did Etsy for a little while, and I just couldn't get any traction on there. And then my daughter did Poshmark a lot. She always talked about, you know, it's just flat shipping.
Yeah, yeah. So I'll try to sum it up you
I haven't come across that with somebody selling so many platforms that will be very educational.
Sure. Sure. I can say without a doubt finding then do the inventory software has been a game changer for managing inventory across platforms. It's vendu, v e n d. O, I think, lists perfectly across lit, whatever. I know there are others, but that's the one that I've used and worked for me. Okay. So Poshmark, no listing fees. But they do have a higher final value fee, as it were. So it's 20%. But you can have things listed as long as you want you can delist relist what
have you. And the Poshmark culture is different people expect to be able to make offers and expect you to make offers. The thing I love about Poshmark. And honestly, Mercari is once somebody receives their order, and they click received, or it's been three days since receipt, that's it the orders done. Like there's no opening a claim later, there's no 30 day return period, whatever it's three days from receipt of the order, or once the customer says I've
accepted this order. And I have very few issues on either of those.
The two platforms, they do have returns, you just have to do it within three days, you have
to do it within three days. And by and large, even returns I've had opened either it's glaringly like something that's been glaringly like my issue like, Oh, I totally missed that thing. Yes, please watch that. Please let them keep that and refund their money. Or Poshmark sides with me because they don't allow for returns for fit. So I have a lot of shoes on there. And if it doesn't fit to that, but they do have a feature where you can replenish
something. Oh, so it makes it easy for that person to resell it.
Yeah, that's where I was going with my next question is you just resell it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. How's that payment system? Is it like manage payments where it goes straight into your checking or?
No, it goes so posh holds on to it and then you can request it. You can get so Poshmark and Macari both work this way of I can have it sent directly to my bank, but it takes a few days or I can request payouts by Venmo or Paypal or something and it's a small fee. Okay, but they've got a few options. But by and large, it's pretty easy. And Etsy is my so McCurry much like Poshmark. It's got the three day receipt period. Very little in the way
of returns. In order of most listings and most traction, eBay is the thing I do the most on, followed closely by Poshmark, then mercury and then Etsy. So Etsy is kind of like my, I'll just throw things out there and see what happens. And now I'm doing more listings, because like I figure, every platform really likes you to list things. Right. But I've noticed that now that I'm listing a little more, I'm getting more traction on
Etsy, too. But we're still talking for Etsy, like, a couple sales a week versus other platforms where it's a few sales per day.
Okay, and I had a question about Poshmark. Let me Yeah. So what kind of items are allowed on Poshmark
I think pretty much anything anymore. I mean, it used to be really restricted to clothing and accessories and shoes and such but they've opened it up to pretty to everything and that's one
home decor too. Always anything. Yeah,
they may have restricted categories to like. I'm trying I can't remember offhand, but they just flagged Oh, it was HP printer ink laser printer ink. They said, No, we don't allow that. I don't know why. Because I saw other things on there like that, but doesn't matter. It's old anyway on eBay.
Yeah. I guess the person who was doing the security that day must have yours and nobody else thought. Yeah. Okay. Now, if somebody wanted to learn Poshmark, what's the best way? Just jump in and start doing it.
The armpit start doing any kind of that's my approach. So it's great. It's a jump in, start doing it. Watch a bunch of different videos experience. Look for tools to make automation easy, because Poshmark likes it when you share. It's supposed to be a social platform. But I've got some tools that automate, sharing automate offers. Dump.
Okay, how long have you been on Etsy?
Like, gosh, is Etsy is Etsy a little different? Because I've been on there for many, many years as well, because I started out selling candles and Bath and Body stuff, many mo right? Your homemade products, right? So then I just transformed that into, into my current store. Just kept the account for the length of time it's been on there. Right? And then stopped doing Bath and Body and transformed that. So I've been on there for a good while.
I think I started. Gosh, maybe 2013 kind of had been chugging along, and I'm like, I'm gonna check this out and see what it is. And I'd sell some vintage items on there. Yeah, yeah, that's
where I've got the least amount of listings, because I do stick with vintage anymore. Because it yes, the Etsy used to just be handmade. And they had to keep up and open it up to other things, too.
Yeah. And I think the rules have changed over the years. Yeah. About what you can list and how does the shipping work on Etsy? Believe,
yeah, I'm pretty sure you can use Etsy labels or your own. And then you just have to upload the label information. Okay. So, and the same with Mercari is you can use McCarthy's labels or you can use your own if you use McCarthy's labels, you have to make sure you weigh it correctly. Or they'll come back to you and say you owe us money only. Yeah, I've had that happen once or twice. Oh, whoops.
Okay, that's good to know. I feel like the post office is transitioning to just charging the seller more since now. You know, if you if it's wrong, right, right. Because now everything is linked electronically. They can just if you if it costs more than what you put in, you know, right, charge you more. Yeah. Instead of returning the package that
Yeah. which I appreciate. Personally, I'd rather get Yeah, well, for five or $10, then have to go through the trouble of taking care of that package
again. Yeah. And it'll be late for the buyer. And then you have to deal with all that. I feel like it's better customer service. Just, if I mess up, just charge me the difference. Yeah, give a ticket, don't involve the customer. It's not their fault didn't do anything. Okay, and then Mercari, what, what's a little bit about that site, what can be sold
everything. That's another one of those. That's it. And it's why I chose these platforms, because different people use them for different reasons, they have a balance here, or they have a balance there. Or they had a bad experience with that platform. So they want to go over here. That's that's one of the reasons why crosslisted done everything. But Makari. Like said, their shipping labels are easy. It is.
So where Poshmark doesn't allow you to use your own shipping label, you have to use posh marks, and it's a flat rate for up to $5.05 pounds. So I know you just said Mercari. But I'm jumping back. That's fine, no and request additional or different shipping label from Poshmark. If it's overweight, but only up to 12 pounds. So whereas Makari if I choose a record label, I have to have the right weight in there from the get go or I have to cancel the
order and redo it all. So I've got to be really careful about weighing on the upfront. And I do choose to use McCarthy's labels because it's extra Seller Protection, in case anything happens. So I could use my own and that's fine and I could put in the shipping information but I choose to go through Makarios and by and large like with stuffed animals, they're fairly late. So it's almost always going to be the half pound to
the pound weight. Uh huh. Okay. And in terms of selling they're much like the other platforms, the more attention I give it, the more sales I get. Right? I have no, I have noticed, and I don't know about you, but I have noticed a change in the search algorithms across platforms. mercurous. To my mind, mircury Soft search feature kind of kind of sucks. I'll put in something like blue stuffed animal, whatever, in one way. And it'll come up with a bunch of things. And I'll use the same search
terms. And I'll mix it up a different way. And it gives me a different search result. I find that kind of weird personally.
No, I wouldn't know that other than eBay, and I don't really search for my items. And I don't really study that.
I guess I'm not searching specifically for my items so much is when I do research into Okay, how much something is going for what did this pricing for? And then it doesn't find it unless I search for a different way.
Okay. Yeah, sometimes things will come up on Google, and they don't come up on eBay. But I mean, they come up on Google for eBay. Yeah, we'll take you there. But it didn't come up in your eBay search. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've
noticed that too.
Yeah. I don't think we're ever going to figure that out. I think they want it to
be a mystery, bigger brains than ours. I think in that whole,
you know, trying to keep it fair, given everybody a little bit exposure, which I talked about the whole throttling and battery in one of my videos recently, and I don't know, there's no way to prove they do it or don't do it. But it is weird how you might go two days with nothing. And then the third day, you get three sales,
right? That is something that's come up in amongst Poshmark. Sellers, too, is just being shadow banned, or that kind of throttling. That's it's not just eBay.
Yeah. And they call it rolling blackouts, where your listings just don't show. And, I mean, if they are doing it, it's trying. The objective is to make it more fair. So sometimes your listings will be shown. And sometimes they won't given other sellers a turn. But I really think there's something too, when you first open an account, you know, they give you a lot of exposure to get you hooked, I guess. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, newer people, maybe their accounts are
less than six months old. And you would think logically a more established account would get more hits, because it's established. But I have noticed, when people will be like, Yeah, I just started getting all the sales, and then everything just slowed down. Okay, I think there's something in the algorithm about favoritism to accounts
that makes sense to get
rich. But you know, that doesn't mean you need to go open a new account every six months, you know, right, right. Yeah, you'll need an established history with feedback. And eBay wants to see your shipping on time. And you want to get your top rated seller so you can get your discounts and all the things that go with an established account, but I'm just saying about those new accounts. I guess it builds confidence, and, you know, gets you into the eBay lifestyle. The glamorous
lifestyle. Yes, the glamorous lifestyle. You know,
I love it. I don't have to set an alarm. I haven't had to set an alarm in years. And that's one of my favorite things about this business. Hmm. Me too,
just after years of I mean, think about your life, you know, you had to get up and go to school as a kid, then you became a parent and had to get up for your kids and you had to go to a job. And that's one of my top advantages
of it's just, yeah, there. There's definitely a freedom involved in this that it suits me and my lifestyle, my family's lifestyle, for sure.
And especially if you're getting older, and you don't sleep as well as you used to, and it's like, I don't want to get up at seven. I'm going back to sleep for a little while.
I mean, I do I do have like, standing meetings with my friend three times a week so that we can do the thing whatever that thing that week might be so there is there is that part of the business where like yeah, I can do anything I want. Oh, God, I can do anything I want. What do I do? So we help kind of really each other in? So you're
saying just social stuff, going to lunch? Whatever it is with your friends?
No, no, I've got a friend of mine who the one who also has an eBay business. She lives okay. And we have standing meetings three times a week virtually we talked on the phone and we talk about okay, what do we want to get done this week in our business? So that's it and the like right now this past week, we've been talking about our year end review. What did we say we wanted to do? How are our sales? What are we going to? How are we going to use that to
inform next year? And also, what are the things that came up that we couldn't help? What are the things that came up that we can do differently next year? Yeah, things like that. So it's made a huge difference in me just like actually paying attention to my business in a way that's sustainable and not too crazy to.
Yeah, I think that's really important, because you might be going along and things work, and then all of a sudden, they don't work anymore.
Yeah. Yeah. It's good to have another sounding board too for each other. Yeah. Things
that maybe aren't allowed anymore. Like, the big thing this year was the partially used fragrances. Yes, yes, selling forever. And now they're cracking down on that and seller's listings are getting removed. And so the actual rule is either brand new or empty bottle.
Yeah. Good to know. I should accept that offer that just came through today. Because
it comes. It's under the FDA rules for cosmetics even. I mean, yeah, if it's in a spray bottle, it's not touching anybody's. I don't know it's not being consumed. It's it's not going to, like I get it for cosmetics. You don't? You don't want to sell a partially used jaw, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I still see plenty of listings for the partially used, but I also see a lot of people saying, oh, no, my listing got removed. I didn't know. And,
I mean, I gotta tell you, that is one of the one of the one of the many benefits of joining your group, the Facebook group, watching the videos and all that it's just staying up to date with this stuff. I don't have the wherewithal anymore to go actually pursue this. But when I see it come across my feed from the group, like, oh, okay, so that's the thing that's going on now. It's been, it's been massive just to stay up to date with things even though I
go through my phases. I'm not always able to be really super involved in posting and stuff, but I try to when I can, because the group has been so helpful for my own education.
Yeah, I hate to call you a lurker. But there's a lot of that.
I'll take it. I'm an occasional lurker. Yeah, they
never like a post. They never answer. They don't post their own stuff. It's just,
there's just sort of it's my own animosity towards Facebook. It's a love. Yeah, it really is. It's not personal against your group. I absolutely adore your group. And that's what I'm there for is for the groups. And yeah,
a lot of people were like, I don't want Zuckerberg no in my business. So I just go on and read. I don't post anything.
For me, it's actually more mental bandwidth. I'm like, Okay, I need to be doing this thing. It's like, I've got to actually focus on this thing. It'd be really easy to take too much time.
Yeah, it's definitely a time suck. And then the next thing, oh, you're over here watching cooking videos and police police stops on the highway. And all those cat videos. Yeah, it's definitely distracting. So I don't post a whole lot on my personal page. Right? I'm on there for for the group, you know, and I have it set up where every post has to be approved. And it's really not that many a day, maybe 15 or 20.
But just the spamming got so bad that we had to switch to approving because it was just all these people trying to get hits on their video. Yeah, that makes posting all this irrelevant stuff. And that's, that's the thing out there is. People will just go join large groups. Yeah, artless of the topic. So they can spam them with stuff. Yeah. And
yeah, I'm impressed with like, how well you and I, is it your daughter that runs through is amazing. I love like, you guys run a really tight, like, not super tight ship, but you run a very efficient group. And I really appreciate it cuz I'm part of a lot of other groups too. And between that and the videos, that's kudos for sure. Because I tried. Thank you
so much. There are a lot of eBay groups that are, you know, over 200,000 members, but I don't think they're moderated. Right. And a lot of the new members that are not vetted because I've got questions on there. Why do you want to join this group? And how did you hear about it, you know, stuff they actually have to answer. They can't just Yes, yes, yes. Yes. And when they do that, it's like, yeah, they didn't read any of that. But yeah, and the older people are
on Facebook, too. We're not really I don't know maybe you do tick tock and some of those. Oh no gram and all that, but it's just what what I'm teaching and the eBay lifestyle doesn't really gel with those types of sites doesn't seem
to be No, no, I for all of my reselling needs. I used to follow a lot more on Instagram, but I'd rather see different things on Instagram. So I'm curating an art Instagram that just is flooded with art and beauty and stuff like
that. Yeah, yeah. I love that. I used to love Pinterest, but that kind of fizzled. Yeah, same. Same. Yeah. That's another one. The black hole of looking at stuff.
Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
I do like the Pinterest fails. Like my turn out like that. You know? What, sir? Good. Okay, so back to eBay. Do you have do you have any more sales or stories you want to talk about?
I think those are the main ones that I wrote down. I started looking at others. I'm like, oh, no, that was mircury Oh, that was this. So it kind of well,
I mean, you can share those two it's still sales.
Oh, fair enough. Fair enough. I didn't know if you want to just like no, no, just you
know, sharing what sells is the objective of this podcast, you know, the eBay lifestyle and what kind of stuff will sell air.
Okay, so I there is one more that comes to mind because I think it is my highest selling plush that I found at the bins that I'm going to try to pull up super quick here. One of my other favorite places to go thrift is at the bins. And we have one in Dayton, it's where it's very good. We have another one locally, but it's tiny. I don't even bother. So the one in Dayton. Once. So like I said I went from clothing to shoes to plush. And the plush transition was when I discovered the bins
because plushies lightweight. I used to go and find a couple like consistently two or three bins full of plush that I could dig through. And when it was priced at like $1.09 a pound that that that math is really easy. So I started really getting into it. Plus with having kids, even though they weren't young at the time, just like oh, I recognize Pablo from the Backyardigans or whatever. It made an easy transition for me. Also, one of the reasons plus for me is people don't
return plush for not fitting. So like that, yes, my shoe return rate and still is I don't do as many shoes but I still have like 10 racks downstairs. It was like about 4% whereas plush. It's very rare that I'll get plush back and it's usually Oh I thought this was a different size. I didn't read the description. And I have the open return policy that free returns no big deal. But this particular plush was a Disney Build A Bear puppy with the shirt. And if you look these up, it's really
really rare. It's white, it's got the blue, Mickey. eyepatch and I want to say had it listed for a good while for 450 I took an offer on Macari for 390 I think it took about two or three months to sell. So that was I want to say my highest selling plush was almost $400 and in the bins and it was filthy and I got it cleaned up really nice. Yeah,
what was your what's your cleaning process? OxiClean
depends on the plush I'll see if I if it's something where I have to be really careful with it. Yeah, I'll do like a little Tupperware bath full of OxiClean and whatever's around or spot clean it or just toss it right into its own cycle toss it right into the laundry into the washing machine.
Yeah, you have to spot clean those that have any kind of yeah thing inside that you can't take out I've got two right now that are Carter's think they're just one you are one of those guys or mines where it has the music box or something inside but there's no way to get it out. Yeah, yeah, you would have to cut the the plush, take it out. So you could put it in the washer. And I just I'm not going to do that because I don't want to back together.
So I just do the spot clean and you know, might have to do it a few times. But yeah, it's like a miracle. I love boxing.
And that's something that I'm working on getting better you think like six years, almost seven years in. I'm finally getting better at some things and it's it's all good but I have my my repair pile my clean pile and all that and I'm starting to get to the point where I'm like, this $15 item is not worth my time. Right? Yeah. And and really going to be focusing on that this year. I'd like to really focus on On finding higher average sale price things, my average sale
price right now is $30. Yeah, I'd like to get that up. Good while keeping up my volume. So and so.
Just a note for the listeners. I found OxiClean at the dollar store now. Yeah, right. Well, it's a smaller container. But that stuff's expensive. The unknown brands like $8 for the and some stores have their generic, but I was like, I wonder if the dollar store has this? Because, you know, it takes a few months to
go through it. Yeah, the other dollar store miracle and I don't know if you guys have I'm sure it's guy must have been posted at some point or another. Oh, now I'm forgetting it's the yellow liquid. It's like amazing clean or something like that. Oh, I don't know about that the dollar store and I can I'll make a note to post it too. But that stuff's amazing.
So is it laundry detergent? Or is it just a spray?
It's a spray. It's good for spot cleaning. And I'll use it for shoes for plush fur for darn near anything.
That's a good tip. Yeah. For faster, better ways, right? There's something What's that stuff called for? It's for yellowing of vintage fabrics. I think it's like restore restoration, something. I ordered some of that from Amazon. And it's a soak. Okay, I've seen people using that for your wedding gowns or bedding or, you know, the really old vintage stuff than yellows over time. That's a great product to have on hand. Yeah, I'm like you with leaving things behind that
need repair. I used to never be able to leave a cashmere sweater behind. You know, if it was on the dollar sale or something, and there's nothing wrong with it. Now I just you have to reprogram yourself. It's like, hey, I can fix that. But too. How long is it going to take? How many items can I list during that time I'm repairing this thing it's not going to sell for so much. That is the key. I'll just leave it for somebody else
is what I say. I mean, if it's a big chunky LL Bean cashmere sweater with a zip front and it's got a hole in the seam that would be really easy. Right, that's different. Yeah, I'm taking that but just the solid color Talbots that, even if you repair it, it's not gonna get it. So yeah. You know if it's $1.50 Okay, I'll put that in a cutter lot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just put it aside. And I just I did sell a cutter lot not too long ago for about $40 and only had about $6 in it. So yeah,
that's that's one of those things where I don't look at clothes a lot. But when I did, that was a good hot tip. I think I took from from this group many years ago, like Oh, I was I was doing the bins and looking for clothing. And I think I sold a couple cutter lots like that because of the group.
So yeah, you just have to be patient and keep adding to your pile. Right. So that brings me into plastic play food. That's another thing that I accumulate. Do you do? Okay. No, no, no. I mean, do you know how much it sells for?
Oh, no, no, it was that something? thing?
Yeah, the plastic food. Thank you. Yeah, I think that was in. I don't know if I put that in a video or I talked about it somewhere. Sure. Yeah, it's it depends on what it is. And not necessarily all old stuff. But if you go buy it new, it's so expensive, ya know, when you see those bags, little bundles of things like food and
that's what I love about this. In this business is like I am always learning about niche like niche things. Things like
plastic stuff sells for so much. But I've got I've got a listing. I think there's maybe 15 to 20 pieces in there. I think I have 39 on it. Okay, so yeah, it's just
are like the because of the bins and because I've got to reprogram myself around this too sometimes in my head. Oh, it came from the bins it was practically free. Right. Not always the case. Especially since they started raising their price. I want to say it's like $1.79 a pound now but one of the things I will always pick up at the bins is little people, the Fisher Price little is even
moderate, whatever. And once I've got a good amount of them, they're not they're a little fussy, but they're not that that bad to list and to pose or what have you. And those will sell off really quickly for me every time that in the Fisher Price roll around balls or the see through blocks. I tend to find those in the bins and there again another one of those pretty easy to clean up easy to live First and once I have enough of them they're pretty
good resale. That's and it's quick and I love the quick sales too.
So I've never been to a bins. Well, let me take that back. I went to one here in Greenville and okay, there was like nothing there. I guess I'm the wrong time. But well,
it depends on the bins too. I've had bins I've hit that there's never anything there. Like, bands
were literally like nothing was in them. I don't find anything good. I'm like, oh, okay, enough. Okay. Is everything loose? Like nothing is in little baggies together?
Unless it was donated like that. No, yeah, it's really
not. It's just all loose stuff. Yeah.
Like, I almost always go for SpongeBob Imaginext, the Fisher Price. And I remember there was one day at the bins where I had found the place that the day before in a different thrift store. And then in the bins, I found all the figures that went with it. Oh, I'll lose. You have like glove up? For sure. Yeah, get your gloves on. And it's not for the faint of heart, or for germaphobe. So you definitely don't want to go there if you have any of that.
But I did dig through and find like a good pile of those little figures across two different bins.
Wow, that you found them separated
a lot up with the other thing. And so I think $90 That was pretty recent. Yeah.
Oh, okay. Back to the Fisher Price, little people. Yeah, some of those individual ones. It's like Lego minifigs. It's yeah, some of the individual ones can go for a lot. Yeah.
Yeah, I've actually started really relying on Google image search for stuff like that. That's been a game changer for me. Just looking things up, and just to be able to do it quickly and efficiently of like, knowing that if I see a bunch of them listed for maybe four or $5, okay, I'll lock that up. Or this, this individual one is $30. That'll tell me to go start looking into it a little more rigorously. Right. Yeah, I do that with the Littlest Pet Shop figures, too.
Have you found any home runs on those?
No, not the home runs. I know, I know, there are certain ones to look out for. I have certainly sold individual ones for you know, 2030 $40. But I do tend to lock those up. And I've got a couple of wats up right now where it's 15 of them.
I like I forget who it might have been in the group or I don't remember where I saw this where I just took a picture of the bin that they were all in because I like found a whole bunch of them in yard sales or whatever, threw them in a bin and then finally decided to lock them up with one cat one dog, an old one, a new one, no duplicates, that kind of thing. And I sell them pretty consistently. Lots of 15 for 40 to $45. Great. I've got like four left. For those last left. Good for you.
And I was doing some research on those. And there's a whole underground of fake ones.
Yes, yes. I know. It's maddening.
Yeah. So for the listeners, if you find those Littlest Pet Shop do your research because you don't want to get caught for listing a fake and who would even funny, you know, just Yeah, okay. handbags and sunglasses and right.
But the toys to childhood everywhere.
It's just ridiculous. It's like, and it's just it's maddening because, okay, people if, if you put your energy into doing something legit, you could really be successful. Right? Right. It's it's getting away with something or, you know, how hard is it to make those you gotta have the molds and the plastic and I know.
Yeah, boggles the mind. For sure.
Oh, just go thrifting and find good stuff. Easier. Anyway. Okay. Well, we're getting towards the end here. Did you want to answer one of the questions at the end? Yeah. Yeah, it
was so funny. I was looking at him like, Oh, I've got long lists of things. Okay. I can answer any of them. Really. You can throw out a couple if you want to do right. Alright. So the, the book, one of the books, I tend to read a number of things at once, and then nothing for me for months. So I think right now the book that I'm working through kind of slowly. Is rom das still here. Yes. on aging and life and death and all that. So light reading, right?
Yeah. Oh,
that's why this. This one's taking me a little bit to get right. But the podcasts I listened to a lot of podcasts and I cycled through them. I listened to so currently. I'm listening to blokes with Neal Brennan stand up comedy A co writer, co writer Chappelle Show, off with Neil deGrasse Tyson. So get my little hit of science in their creative pep talk because I also like to art and clear.
art, art. Oh, art. Like it's raining? Oh, no.
No Talk is just that it's it's done by Andy J. Pizza who helps creatives through their mental blocks. Okay. Yeah. So that's fun. And then I also really enjoy from time to time Elon, all those clear and vivid. He talks about science and communication. So that's, that's where I am. Wow, you are
all over the place. Yeah. No, I'm gonna like that, too. I'll be into one subject really deep. And then Okay. I've had enough of that. Right. Right. Different. Yeah.
Well, this is why this business is ideal for us. I think there's, there's so much. Yes. And
I'm doing something new today. I met a sister. Yesterday, her husband passed away recently and see, his whole family had passed. So he was the last one. And so he had all the family history stuff. His mother was a bookkeeper. So she was all about record keeping.
So it's all the genealogy and so yeah,
so I've got two huge bags full of all this world war two stuff like ration books, and like, you know, certificates, there's a purple in there, just all this stuff. The 20s Someone family way back owned a boarding house in Charlotte. And there's all these photos, there's a book about it, there's like the ledger, the where they signed in, and I'm gonna just really be going down a rabbit hole on that just
needed by it. It just put a bunch of it together and a lot and do an auction and be like, you know, Oracle, North Carolina stuff for military stuff. But yeah,
I remember it's one of those categories that I haven't personally done it into, but
because we don't come across it, you see it and find it. She was gonna throw it away. She's like, I don't know what to do with it. My kids don't want it. And I'm like, No, hold on, you know. And there's a I think his great grandparents wedding. Marriage certificate 1900
Oh, my gosh, oh, cool. Just,
I think some of the stuffs gonna go to it's just, oh, that's a it's a lot to go through. But I'm going to sort of separate it by topic and just put it together in lots because it just be fast. Yeah. Oh, and there's yearbooks from the 1940s from high schools in the Charlotte area. And yeah, I'm just like, that's just
yeah, you just remind me of the thing I totally forgot to bring up I went to an estate sale a couple of weeks ago where they said the this is the free day like we have so much stuff coming at it. Donations taken off our hands, right. And it was a it was a managed to set sail there. Like the family just doesn't want to see this in landfill. Come and get it make donations if you want. I happen to have actual cash on me. So I
threw a $10 bill in the cup. But I came away with a bunch of vintage plush, as well as vintage magazines from like the 20s and 30s. Slow magazines tight yo. started looking through those and looking at the old ads. I'm like doctor recommended cigarettes. Wow. Stuff like that. Like,
kinda Yeah. And like Crisco and how it's healthy.
That window into the past and like, oh, that's why we are the way we are. Yeah,
the government told us this was good for us. believed that. This explains a lot. Okay. Yeah, exactly. That's what happens to me is I just am personally interested in thing. Right, right. You know, it's three hours later, right.
But now you've got that information in your brain. And yeah, and I think we crave
that just learning new stuff. And now you know, and
so make sure interesting party discussion. Not that I go to parties, but
well, and you don't want this business to get so repetitive and monotonous. You've got to have new stuff thrown in there. Keep going. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Okay, well, I know you've got plans this afternoon. So I will let you go. Thank you so much for coming on. And it was nice to finally meet you after all these years.
Same and I swear I'll try to come back on and like some things and participate a little more
well, when we know you're cutting back on your Facebook. So that's that's a lot of people's like news. I'm on a social media diet, not doing it for a while. So I
think I need to do the opposite and actually get a little more involved in my group. So I'll be around. Okay, great.
Well, thanks again. And hopefully we'll see you on the group soon. Okay, bye. And now for today's trivia question. De mentioned Fisher Price little people. What year did they originally hit the market? Here are a few seconds so think about it okay, the answer is 1959. Fisher Price first offered it's a little people in a 1959 safety school bus pull toy made of wood and lithographed paper. The figures helped small children
Imagine Big Adventures. And if you go over to eBay and put in vintage Fisher Price little people and go to active listings. As of today, there are over 31,000 active listings. So this is definitely a viable product to sell in the world of vintage toys. Okay, next week, my guest is Maggie, known as resale Rebel on the Facebook group and her eBay store. And her specialty is vintage clothing. She has lots of helpful information if you are interested in learning more about that topic. That wraps up
episode 148. Thank you all for listening. And keep going. Keep listing keep your nose to the grindstone. We are all in this together. I'll talk to you next week. Bye everybody.