Mrs. Potato Head van Gogh Edition; Unusual and Interesting Items I’ve Sold Part 2

evolving. I feel like I'm talking to my eBay friends, not only about eBay, but chatting about life. And based on my podcast stats, it appears that the listeners like it this way too. And I always love to hear from you. So feel free to email me at Suzanne, at Suzanne a wells.com or reach out on Facebook or YouTube. And it's really weird how there is no engagement on a podcast. Everywhere else I am on the internet on social media, through my eBay store email.

There's a way for my audience to let me know how I'm doing whether with a thumbs up or thumbs down or comment, but can't do that on podcasts. So all I can really do is watch my stats, and hope you will reach out and let me know how I'm doing. So we're going to start off with a little personal story of something fun I got to do this week, I talked about my best friend of 41 years, who lives in Greenville, South Carolina, and we get together every few weeks. And this past

weekend. She came to Georgia, because our gymnastics coach from the 1980s who moved to California back around 2000 I think he was in town. So the three of us went out and did what's called a progressive dinner. Normally, it's done like in a neighborhood where one person has the appetizer their house, and then everybody goes to a different house for the salad. And then somebody has the main course and somebody has the dessert, and you just constantly move around. And it's called a

progressive dinner. Well, we did that was restaurants. And we just thought of refund, move around. And so we went to one restaurant taco Mac, which is like a sports bar and had our first adult beverage and some artichoke dip and tortilla chips and spent a couple hours there just talking and laughing. And then the next place we went was a Mexican restaurant. And we had our main meal there. And I ordered a pineapple Margarita in the small size. But as fate would have it it only came in

the large size. So we drank giant margaritas and had Mexican food and that was just that was just so fun to reconnect with people that you've been friends with pretty much your entire life. And you know all the inside jokes that we know and all the songs and movies and TV shows of the 80s all the pop culture stuff and it was just

really fun. And then we ended up at the Cheesecake Factory and a couple of pieces of cheesecake to go and just shared those because if you've ever been to the Cheesecake Factory, there cheesecake slices are gigantic. And there's something like 50 different flavors to choose from. So it was a very overwhelming decision. But anyway, that was fun to get together with old friends and

talk and laugh. And when you have friends scattered around the country, it's really special when they come home to visit and have time to work you into their schedule. So we enjoyed ourselves on that. Okay, we're gonna move on to listener comments and questions. Okay, we're gonna start off with Anne, who sent me an email about using my aggressive eight point plan to break a sales slump, that is in the premium library. And they are exact steps you can do to get your sales going.

Again, if you are in a sales slump, it has nothing to do with buying more inventory. It's actually about how to optimize all the work you already done. So she said that she employed only one step of the eight point plan. And that has to do with a very specific way to use promoted listings. It's July 15. And I've had more sales dollars and profit than I normally do in a full month, I was skeptical that it would cost me too much money, but it's been totally

worth it. So if you are a member of the premium library, check that out, it's in the same section as the Do It Yourself store critique. And if you are not in the premium library, you might want to join just to check out this plan because it's aggressive, but it works if you do all the steps. So I was glad to hear that she found success with that plan. And she's already made the same profit in half a month than she would normally in a full month. So that speaks to her and taking

action. Because there's a lot of information out there on the internet about eBay, how you should be doing it, how much inventory you should have, how many listings you should have. And this is really not like anything out there on the internet that is the same old, same old, this is very different. But the key point is you have to take action, you have to do the steps, you have to be disciplined enough to follow the

plan. Because all the great advice in the world is never gonna work if you don't take action. So that's the key. The next message I received was from Kathy, and she was talking about the episode where I was discussing selling damaged and defective items on purpose. Because not everybody wants something, especially clothing, in perfect condition based on what they're going to be using

it for. And I had talked about crossing paths with another shopper in a thrift store, who it was a guy and he was trying to buy clothing for his mom tops and sweaters for her. She was in a nursing home and would frequently spill food on herself. And they didn't want to take away her dignity by not letting her be independent enough to feed herself. So the family figured well, let's just still buy her nice clothing. But let's buy it used at thrift stores. And it doesn't have to

be in perfect condition. Because it's probably going to get food stains on it. But that was why he was in the thrift store was looking for clothing for his mom. I remember watching him and thinking he kind of needed a little help. Maybe he just didn't really know what he was looking for. He looked very out of place and uncomfortable in that setting. So that's, you know, he just explained what he was looking for. And I'm like

that. That's a really smart way to think when you know, the clothing is is probably going to end up stained. But you know, his mom still wanted to look nice. So that's when they started buying her secondhand clothing anyway, so Kathy sent me this message It says, until two years ago, I was a nursing home administrator for 25 years, I thought you would appreciate this story, because it repeated itself in various ways over and over. She said we ruined a residents favorite blouse in our

laundry. Of course, the family said they paid at least $100 at a high end store and wanted a reimbursement. I found the exact blouse on eBay for 95. That's $4.95 in excellent condition, and gave it to the resident Case Closed. Missing in damaged items are a frequent and chronic problem for any nursing or assisted living home. eBay has saved me more times than I can count. So I really appreciate Kathy giving her input on that because I do sell damaged or

defective clothing. Really, every week, something sells it has a little bit of a stain on it, or buttons missing, or it's just not perfect. In fact, I sold a Ralph Lauren denim shirt today. Button front, well, actually, it's snap front denim, but with the pearl snaps on the front, the pockets and the cuffs, and one of the pearl snaps

was missing. And so I noted that in the listing, and I feel like this is going to someone who works outside or in a barn or you know, it doesn't matter if it's in perfect condition, they just like their denim shirts, because they are durable and high quality. And when you're working outdoors, or in like a farm atmosphere, that's important. So this is just to reinforce, things don't have to

be perfect. A lot of times I don't find the defect till I get the item home anyway, and I'm not just going to trash it, I'm going to try to sell it. But you know, especially if the clothing is for a situation where it it's going to get dirty, it's going to get stained, it might get torn, it's going to be worn outside, it's going to be worn as a layer, it really doesn't

matter. So don't be such a perfectionist, if that is your nature, which it was mine when I started eBay, I had to learn that you know, there's a buyer for everything, just show him what you got. And eventually someone is going to purchase it. And they're going to be perfectly happy with it. So as our population ages and nursing homes and assisted living homes, you know, there's gosh, there's so many being built around me in metro Atlanta, but that's a situation we should pay

attention to. And you know, people who live in nursing homes assisted living who are slightly disabled or maybe severely disabled, they still want to look nice, they still want nice clothing and there's no reason they can't look nice. And so when you find these higher end brands that have some little defect or flaw, try listing it anyway and see what you get. Next is an interesting email from Bill who is a guy he said, Let me begin by saying thank

you. I love the materials in the premium library and learn something new on every video I watch. I have sold off and on on eBay since 2003. Hard to imagine I have been there almost 20 years. Yeah, I know that feeling bill. I started that year too. So he went on to say that he is working his way through the bra course. I am six foot four and about 300 pounds. I was thinking I'm going to look ridiculous in the bra section. But no one batted an eye. I love that bra course already found and sold

three in a week's time. And I just replied and commended bill that you know good for you and going outside of your comfort zone. My philosophy has always been if you're in the three Store Anyway, you might as well learn as much as you can about all the departments and sell everything that's profitable. Because, you know, if you only let's say you only sell golf shirts, which I did for a long time, when I first started eBay, that's all you have. And maybe you have like 1200 Golf shirts.

And that's all you do, and you just go from one store to the next. And that's your product line. That's it. First of all, how incredibly boring, it's going to get just selling the same thing over and over and over. You know, whatever you choose, whatever your business is, whether it's eBay, or a bakery, or, you know, being a veterinarian, whatever it is, you have to prevent burnout. And it has to be sustainable. This is why people change things up all the time. Because they get

bored. And when you're bored. You know, you're not jumping out of bed in the morning excited about what you're going to be doing. You know, boredom is a thief of time. It's a thief of enthusiasm. And so if if you're in the thrift store Anyway, you know, why not? Learn as much as you can about all the different things because if you're just selling one product, and you're running from thrift store to thrift store all the time, just looking for that one thing? That's not time efficient at

all. That is a huge waste of time. And this business is all about time, how much can you get done in a day. So I've commend him for diversifying that much. Including selling women's clothing and bras because really 75% of the clothing in a thrift store is women's clothing. So if you're not learning it, you're really leaving a lot of money on the table. But I asked bill if I could use his story in this podcast, and he says, of course you can. You're welcome to use my story. in an upcoming episode

of the podcast. If I'm not embarrassed to wander the aisles of the women's lingerie department, I am not too embarrassed to have my story relate in the podcast. So I love that attitude that, you know, he's just willing to try anything and why not, you know, it's all about making money. And being time efficient is a very important part of that. Okay, now I'm going to move on to something new I learned this week. And this is more like something that happened out in

the world this week. I mentioned last week that I purchased a pair of prescription sunglasses. And they just weren't fitting right, they were slipping down on my nose. And you know, like a nerd, I'm pushing up my glasses, every five seconds. Just got really annoying. So I looked up all these different hacks you can do to keep your glasses from slipping. And one of them was put extra nose pads on like these little clear stick on nose pads you can use, or these

little foam things. They look like miniature pool noodles that you slide on the arms of your glasses to like hold a more snub to your head. So I got my glasses at Walmart. And I just happened to be in a target and walked by their optical department and thought Oh, I bet they have those little accessories. I want to see if they have any. So I can get these glasses to stop sliding off my face. So I went in there and asked the employee if they

had these accessories. And she's like, No, we don't have any what what are you trying to do? And I'm like, explain to her you know that these new glasses just aren't fitting right? And she's like, Oh, I can fix that for you. And I said well, I didn't get them at Target. I didn't get them here. I got them at Walmart. She's like that's that doesn't matter. I can still fix them for you. As what was the charge on that? She says nothing. We just do it for free,

which I did not know. So I gave her the sunglasses and she put them in some kind of little machine that heated up the plastic so it could be molded, and moved and bent, and she got them to fit perfectly. And I thought, you know, that was so nice. And I said, Are you sure there's no charge for that? And she's like, no, it's perfectly fine. We do this all the time. And, you know, she didn't have

to help me. She could have said, Oh, we only do this for our customers, you know, do you have your receipt when you bought them, you know, let me look you up in the computer and make sure your customer, she could have been a real pain and not helped me. But she went out of her way to do something nice. That took less than five minutes. That, you know, really helped me out. And I just really appreciated that. So, you know, that's the kind of business person I want to be is you just do the right

thing. And you just help people when they need it. And I don't know if that's, you know, targets policy or if she was just being nice, because there was no other customers in there. But I just wanted to commend this employees actions, and put that out there into the world that you will never go wrong, helping someone and doing the

right thing for them. So try to be tried to be the better seller and go the extra mile and do the right thing because when we're customers out in the world, we really appreciate it when people do the right thing for us. So you get back what you put out there. Next up is what happened in my eBay store this week. I did not have any earth shattering sales, it was very steady. I sold cashmere sweaters Here we are in the middle of summer and those are selling. I sold some dry Oh, at home dry

cleaner starter kits. I found these on sale at the grocery store marked down to $2.50 a box. And I sold two boxes to one seller. Sorry, one buyer for $20 apiece. So that was a $40 sale $5 investment on a clearance item from the grocery store. I sold a fossil leather handbag, for $50. Some athleta clothing. A Halloween costume was a mermaid costume, adult medium mermaid fantasy costume with glitter. So Halloween sells all year. And just some other odds and ends. So nothing earth

shattering. But I wanted to tell you a little story about my thrifting trip to Goodwill. Where I look at everything. And I take my time and I'm in there three hours, three and a half hours sometimes because I do look at everything. But I was going through the plush aisle. Now the entire aisle on one side is completely jammed full. There was so much in this store that you could hear things falling off the shelves every now and then because they had so much stuff crammed onto the shelves.

And I finally asked an employee I'm like what's going on in here There seems to be like so much merchandise. And she said that the manager quit and then two employees quit all within a couple of weeks. They were severely understaffed. And donations are up. So what they normally do is they pull the oldest color tag every week. And she said they just throw it in the dumpster. So that's kind of harsh. But that's not being done because they don't have enough people

working there. So they just keep putting out more and more stuff and not pulling the oldest stuff off the shelves and the racks like they would if they had enough help. So I mean this store is just busting at the seams. There's so much stuff in there. So I took a photo of the plush aisle which I will include in my sales update video for July so you can see what I'm

talking about. But Anyway, you know it, it took a good half hour, 45 minutes to go through that entire section because it's three shelves tall, and it's just completely jammed full of stuffed animals. So there was another younger couple kind of ahead of me looking through everything. And they were just looking at what was on top. They weren't digging, like I was digging. So I was listening to them because they were right

there, I couldn't help it. And I knew they were resellers, because they were looking things up on the eBay app. And they were doing it wrong. They were looking at current listings, not completed listings, so they weren't even getting the right information. But I just didn't say anything, you know, I'm just minding my own business shopping. And so they were only buying things that were $1 some of the plush was marked at $3. So I mean, I was basically letting them pre select everything I was gonna

buy. They picked up this vintage Mrs. Potato Head plush. It was $3. But it had a tag on it from 1991 playschool 1991. So, definitely vintage. And it only had some of the little Velcro stick on things. So it had her eyes. It had these little flower things that I think were Brett's and then a hat, and only had one year. So they put it back because it didn't have all the pieces. And it was $3. And so I immediately pick that up because it was vintage. And it was Mrs. Potato

Head that's very well known. But my friend says, oh, it must be the Van Gogh edition, because it only had one year. thought that was brilliant. So I did purchase that. And I'm about to list that in my store. As soon as I'm finished making this podcast, I did find some Kohl's cares. plush Charlie Brown new with tag, he was $3 and a little Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit pull

toy that was 50 cents. But I mean, this is just another example of don't assume that just because other resellers are in the store, or have been there before you that there won't be anything left for you. Because everyone has their criteria for what they're going to choose to resell. I personally hate listing pants, I hate photographing them. They just don't sell for me unless it's athletic like leggings, or yoga pants. But I just don't like them. I just don't like working

with them. It doesn't excite me. So I want to look at the pants. But you know, that may be somebody else's jam is they love selling jeans. And that's all I want to do. Well, you know what you can have them because I am not interested. But I thought you know, these plush items that this young couple rejected and put back. They're perfect for me. Some of them will sell for $40. So a $3 investment is fine. But you know, they may have had a budget and maybe they were only going to

spend $20. And they're picking only 20 things for $1. You never know just don't assume that everything's always going to be picked over. And that if there are other resellers in the store that they know as much as you do. Because I know for a fact I know more than most people. And I watched them put things back.

And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, put it back, put it back, because I know what it can sell for because I've sold it before, or I've seen on money making Mondays or the $100 sales thread that other people have sold that thing. So that other reseller in the store might not know what I know, they might not want to ship something. They may have had a bad experience with a

particular item. Like you know, it was returned or they had to, you know, do a refund for an item not as described or something like that, you know, they're like I'm never selling that again, or they don't ship internationally. And a lot of things I buy intentionally knowing Oh, this is definitely We're going to go to Europe, this will go to Australia, it's like I just know because I've

done it so much. So that was just an interesting observation, watching other people shop and watching what they put back. Because, you know, sometimes it's perfect for me. And then I moved on to look at ties. And this tie bin was just, I mean, overflowing with ties. And I stood there for a minute or so thinking, you know, I really need to look through all of those. But this is such a mess. I can't even get one out without

all of them falling. So I took all of them out and put them in my cart, and then put them back neatly one by one, as I looked through them, probably took me 30 minutes to go through all of them. But I found three Aramis ties, that's h e r m e s, not pronounced Hermes. Aramis is the French pronunciation. And those ties added together. I have a for sale for total amount of $200. One is $100 tie. And then the two others are $50 ties. And I found some other ties in there

as well. But that was another example of you know, if you just take the time to look, there's going to be treasures in there. It's just I had to convince myself to look through all of those ties. Because you know what, if something's in there, and I didn't, I didn't look through all of them. I'm going to be leaving money on the table. And this is a perfect segue into this week's vocabulary builder. The word this week is Ms. Again LMS.

Again, FMS air mez which is French, this is the luxury brand spelled h e r m e s, it is not pronounced Hermes, or her Ms. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard it mispronounced especially down here in the south where words are mispronounced frequently, it's a constant battle to pronounce things correctly. So about this brand. Air mez is a French luxury goods manufacturer, established in

1837. Specializing in leather goods, lifestyle accessories, home furnishings, perfumery, jewelry, watches, and ready to wear apparel. Its logo since the 1950s is a carriage with one course. And again, the pronunciation. Ms. Again LMS. Again, FMS it's actually spelled out when you go online to listen to the pronunciation of words you're not sure how to pronounce lowercase AI r dash capital M e z. So the emphasis is on the second syllable. Ms. Again, SMS again SMS. And that is your

vocabulary word of the week. And now for the main topic of the podcast. Some more stories about the most interesting and unusual items I have ever sold on eBay since 2003. So the first item I want to talk about is simply a pair of movie theater tickets. I think it was regal cinema. And I got these because I donated blood. The Red Cross I guess was pretty desperate at the time and they were giving away freebies if you donated blood. So this was at the high school when my

kids were in high school. And they were advertising this blood drive which I've never been a real Committed donator of blood because I just don't have great veins. And I think the needles they use for donating blood are really big, because my arms would just get totally bruised, like my entire arm. And, you know, they'd have to try three or four times and then go get somebody else who's more

experienced. And, you know, I began to think it wasn't really me it was, whoever was drawing the blood just wasn't doing it. Great. So I didn't donate for a while. But the high school was really pushing this to, you know, get the parents to come donate. So I did. And your little freebie was a T shirt, and a pair of movie tickets to regal cinema? Well, I was never a real big movie goer, I just, I just like watching movies at home, it's more comfortable. You have everything you need, you can

pause it when you need to. Or if you miss something, you can rewind and go back and watch it again. Like sometimes movies move pretty fast and you miss stuff. So anyway, I'm like, huh? I wonder if I can sell these on eBay. And so I did. I looked it up. And people were selling regal cinema movie tickets for like $12 apiece. And they sold in just a few days. And I shipped them to Hawaii. Apparently, everything there is really expensive. So that was a

deal on movie tickets. And what people would do is order one on eBay. And you could get them cheaper on eBay than maybe you could locally. So I thought that was fascinating that somebody would buy movie tickets on eBay, and it was free to me. So I didn't really, I didn't miss out on anything, didn't cost me anything. But just a follow up to the blood donation story. I don't donate at all anymore. Because in 2014, I got really sick and was anemic and didn't

realize it. And I just kept feeling worse and worse and more fatigued and just headaches and my kids were like, Mom, why is your face gray? Like son was seriously wrong? And so I went to the doctor, and you know, explain what's happening, like, we're going to check your blood, you maybe you're anemic. And so the nurse that was drawing my blood and doing the hemoglobin test, she looked at me and then she looked at the other hearse. And she was like, go get Dr. so and so. And she was like did you

drive yourself here? And I was like, yeah, and she's like, the doctor came over and looked at it the results and they're like, we need to get you to the hospital right now for a transfusion. Apparently your hemoglobin supposed to be somewhere between 11 and 14. And mine was six. And no wonder I felt so bad. I actually did drive myself to the hospital because it was right next door and I'm like, and I'm not paying for an ambulance to take me you know, 100 yards. I can make it

got over to the hospital. They admitted me. This was it. Four o'clock in the afternoon had to stay overnight because it takes like two to three hours per pint of blood to transfuse. So I was getting three pints. But you know, as soon as that first pint was about halfway in, I just came back to life. It was just like a miracle. And I just all I could think about was, you know, thank you to the people that donated this blood so that I can have it. I really needed

it. But I said all that to say that after you get a transfusion, you can't donate for a certain period of time. I think it's one or two years, so I just kind of gave up on that. But the superstar blood donator in my family is my brother in law. Who? Oh my gosh, they just called him all the time Red Cross was always calling him he would donate, you know, as often as possible. Either he had the most rare kind, or he had the most common kind that they

always needed. And he was just cooperative and went and did it. And he had this card that was like the, you know, 10 gallon club at Red Cross, like, gold starred, blood donation guy. But he actually ended up donating a kidney and say, this little girl's life, and so he can't donate anymore. But I feel like, you know, he's covered the bases, I don't need to worry about donating blood. So that was like the whole backstory of how I got some free movie tickets and sold them on eBay.

Okay, and now the next item that was interesting to sell was some female golfers autographs. My mom grew up on policy, a golf club in Tampa, Florida. Her grandfather actually built it. He was in the real estate business. And so that's beautiful house on the golf club. And so they would have tournaments there, and she got to meet some of the famous female golfers back in the day. She was born in 1938. So, you know, through the 40s and 50s. And so she had an autograph

book. And we went through that book and sold the autographs separately. Now, one of the autographs was babe didrikson, who became babe zaharias. She married George is a hilarious who was a professional wrestler. He actually, that was his sports name. He had a different name. He was Greek. And anyway, his ring name was George. so hilarious. So they actually met playing golf. So it was a very interesting story. But we did sell babe didrikson zaharias,

his autograph for about $200. I mean, it's just a piece of paper with an autograph on it. So that story, I'm sure hits home with a lot of people who are baby boomer age, maybe cleaning out their parents, possessions. And when you come across things with autographs on them, or even old documents, receipts from stores don't, that don't exist anymore, or ticket stubs, or playbills. From Broadway plays or any of that old kind of stuff that it's history, you can sell all of

that. So look into that, if you're in that situation of cleaning out, be careful what you throw away because pieces of paper are only going to become more valuable, because they're going to be getting older and older, and there's going to be less of them. And they're going to be more meaningful to collectors. And I know for a fact that a lot of these house clean outs, it's just so overwhelming. People don't know what to do with all this stuff. And they may not go through all these papers and see

what's in there. So a lot of this history and memorabilia is getting destroyed or thrown away. And it's just going to be gone forever. So if you're able to take the time to go through these things, there are definitely treasures out there. You just don't realize it, you know, postcards, photographs, people don't have to be famous in the photographs. What collectors want is the photographs of vintage fashion buildings that don't exist

anymore. like old Walt Disney stuff, you know, disneyland Disney World stuff in the background, you know, old cars, anything that is historic And shows a point in history in a photograph or on a postcard has value. So just keep that in mind. There's just so much to sort through and Lord only knows how much of this stuff has just been destroyed. Somebody was telling me they were cleaning out a house and they just had a

burn day. And they literally just got, you know, a 55 gallon metal drum and just burned papers and documents all day long. And who knows what was burned up that could have had value and been meaningful to a collector. So just putting these little nuggets in your brain. But we have made it to the end of another riveting and extremely fascinating podcast, I'm being sarcastic. Hope you enjoyed it. Again, this is Suzanne a wells teaching you how

to do eBay the right way. And you can find me on YouTube and Facebook under the same name. Be sure to follow me on your favorite podcast platform. As new episodes are added every week. Be nice to each other. Make sure you are living the life you want and have a profitable and productive and fun day on eBay. I'll talk to you next week. Bye