I bought these microcassette tapes at GW for 50 cents each.  I just sold all four of them for….

2.  Old Spice Cool Contact Wipes – eBay Selling Coach

Finding no longer manufactured products and reselling for a nice profit. Through you I have learned there are people out there who still want to use these items and will pay for it.

3.  American Girl Dolls – Money in the Garage

This may seem obvious but here goes…American Girl Dolls sell for a lot of money! I know what you’re saying, “No kidding Dude, tell us something we don’t know!” Ok, so maybe you already know American Girl is super collectible and can make you big money. But judging from one of my garage sale excursions, it seems not everyone is aware of this obvious fact.

4.  Sourcing for FBA on a Budget – Kat Simpson

The main message I’d like to get out there to entrepreneurs considering FBA selling is that you don’t need thousands of dollars to get started. The most expensive item you need you probably already have.

5.  Cash for Trash: Disney Musical Memories Music Boxes - Ms. Goodwill Haunting

Musical Memories was the name given to a series of collectible musical figurines that celebrated the Disney animated features. It was a limited edition collection of 20 music boxes released by mail-order in 1986.

6.  Buying and Selling Products in Lots: Pros and Cons – Kabbage

7.  How to Become More Efficient When Listing on eBay – Danny Ackerman

 Over the years, I’ve found ways to utilize time to the fullest when it comes to listing on eBay.

8.  Don’t Buy This Red Dress at a Thrift Store – Fruzies

Perhaps this knucklehead has read about the great deals to be found when thrifting. But he forgot these unwritten rules of the game.

9.  The Wrong Way to Build Your Inventory – eBay Selling Coach

This article made me see red.  Would it be wrong to say that we should throw the book at these people?

She called the police who reported that her bonus item was actually dynamite.

When we say that a thrift store purchase explodes, we usually mean that we make a nice profit.  Thankfully, this potential explosion never happened.

Have you ever found a bonus inside a thrift store or yard sale find?  We haven’t…yet.  We have received bonus items that are thrown in with items we bid on at auctions.

HT: KABB Fox San Antonio

1971 Kentucky Derby Glass sold for $35

On the first Saturday of May each year, short people hop atop three year old thoroughbred horses at Churchill Downs.  They race around an oval track for about two minutes.  This year 164,858 people gathered inside and outside of that oval to witness these fast two minutes.

While at the race track on that Saturday for the Kentucky Derby or on the day before for the Kentucky Oaks, about 190,000 people bought a mint julep.  A mint julep is a mix of a sugary syrup with Kentucky bourbon and a sprig of mint.

The interesting thing for collectors and sellers is that these drinks are served in a commemorative glass.  Each year a new design theme is rolled out on the fronts of the glasses.  The backs are updated from the previous year so that the each winning horse in the history of the Derby is listed.

Both members of Fruzies (FRank + sUZIE) previously worked in the hotel industry in Louisville.  Most hotels in the city provide free Kentucky Derby glasses to their guests.  Each year many people would leave them behind.  We built up a nice supply of these left behind glasses at no cost to us.  We also purchased quite a few at yard sales for fifty cents to a dollar.  In South Florida we have found a few at thrift stores for a very low price.

In April we made sure that we had all of our glasses listed in our eBay store.  Sadly most of these glasses sell far below book value.  This is because some sellers are just unwise in their pricing strategies.

In spite of having to compete with these low, low prices, we have still managed to make some good money off of our glasses.  In the past two and a half weeks, we have sold fifteen Derby glasses for a little over $180.  We have also sold Derby pins, t shirts and sweatshirts.

Our best sale was for a 1971 Kentucky Derby glass that went for $35.

We’ll be on the lookout for additional glasses before the next first Saturday in May.

Auction finds for May 4, 2012

Friday night we headed back to Auction Liquidators in West Palm Beach. This auction block was loaded with items that would be nice additions to our eBay store.

Unfortunately, the early crowd was in a bidding and buying mood. I simply could not justify paying the price for some of the items that attracted my attention. As the evening wore on and the crowd begin to thin, we were able to snatch several items for a reasonable price. Perhaps the early bidding limited later bidding due to the slimming wallets of the bidders.

Keep that in mind when you go to an auction.Be willing to lose out early. Later on you will be the one with your full bank roll.

Of the items we purchased, we only had to work hard on one item. I knew that the other bidders would probably not be willing to go as high as I was. This was the case of bidders liking an item without knowing the true value of the piece. If recent eBay activity is any indication, I should easily be able to pocket at least $150 off of this item.

Here are the items we picked up:

1. 32 pieces of blue Willow dinnerware pieces. Some are marked Churchill and a few Johnson Bros.
2. 76 pieces of Noritake Glenwood china.
3. 6 collector plates – I really like the Mary Poppins one.
4. Cabbage Patch George Washington porcelain doll
5. Lenox President Barack O’Bama figure
6. Wizard of Oz cookie jar
7. Whimsiclay cat figurine
8. Cabbage Patch figurine
9. 11 old books – all classics including Faulkner and Fitzgerald

Listing begins today, so we will see how well we did pretty soon. Our most previous auction listing has already yielded three sells over $100 each. What has been your best find lately? It does not have to have been from an auction.

This picture is of some dude who ran through a glass window of his nearby motel and then broke into the Goodwill Store – NAKED! He then donned this red dress, hat and purse (around his neck) while he ran around the store leaving a bloody trail throughout the store.

The picture is from surveillance video. Sadly, that thrift store is out $30,000 to cover discarded items, a hazardous materials cleanup crew and other damages.

Perhaps this knucklehead has read about the great deals to be found when thrifting. But he forgot these unwritten rules of the game.

1. Don’t go thrifting after hours.
2. Put on clothes when thrifting.
3. Avoid thrifting when bleeding profusely.
4. Don’t accessorize a nice dress with a straw hat and purse.
5. Purses should not be carried around the neck.
6. Wear clothing items only after paying for them.

These articles were the most read on this blog during the month of April 2012.  Catch up on what you might have missed.

1.  Cha-Ching: The Story of Civilization

2.  Cha-Ching: 6 Volumes of Ernest Hemingway Books

3.  Clothing Designer Recycles Items from Seattle Thrift Store

4.  Cha-Ching: Royal Doulton Sweet and Twenty Figurine (March 2012)

5.  Ohio Man Spends $14.14 at Thrift Store for Signed Picasso Print

6.  South Carolina Man Spends $3 at Goodwill and Resells for $190,000 (March 2012)

7.  Cha-Ching: Boch Fes La Louviere Plates (February 2012)

8.  Thomas Kinkade – Painter of Light – Dies at the Age of 54

9.  Watch an Auction Go From $5K to $28K in 2 Minutes

10.  Selling Auction Freebies

"What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

How do you avoid the unwanted chatter and still communicate what is vital for a successful eBay transaction?

Informative Product Titles, Pictures and Descriptions

The first point of contact you will have with a customer will normally be your product listing. If you communicate clearly at this point, you may save yourself and your customer from prolonged and unnecessary communication down the road.

Create your listings so that your customer knows exactly what they are purchasing. The only surprise a customer should have when they open their package is the “wow” of an item being even better in their hands than what they envisioned from a two dimensional computer screen.

My listings have evolved over time and will continue to evolve. I peruse listings from other successful eBayers to see if I can improve my own listings.

One of the best teachers for me has been the questions I receive for potential buyers. Their question is often an indication that I did not present my item clearly enough in my listing. So I have added descriptive fields to listing templates based on the questions I receive.

Automated Communications

eBay allows sellers to configure your settings so that you can communicate with buyers during important steps of the selling process.  We take advantage of two automated messages.

The first one is to leave positive feedback for a buyer as soon as they pay for an item. Some sellers like to wait until after they have received positive feedback before returning this favor. I would advise against doing it that way. It puts the burden on the buyer to act first. I would much rather begin the process. I have found that most will return the favor.

A few times I would have loved to have given a harsh feedback when a buyer has been unreasonable. But I can count those times on one hand. By and large this process is an effective means of garnering positive feedback. I would rather receive more positive feedbacks than leave one negative one. I handle the pain-in-the-neck buyers by blocking them from purchasing from me in the future.

The other automated communication we use is to send tracking information to the buyer. As soon as I prepare a package for shipping, they are provided the tracking number in a message from us. Once a purchase is made, the shipping is the biggest question for the buyer. Automating this process answers that question quickly.

Packing Slip

We include a packing slip with every package. This reminds the customer that their wonderful purchase came from Fruzies Collectibles. Our packing slips include several pieces of important information to our buyers.

1.  The purchase information – they can tell what they ordered and the price they paid.

2.  The link to our store – when they like what they bought, they might want to see what else we have to offer.

3.  A paid advertisement for possible savings – we currently use the AdShip app on eBay. They pay us 18-20 cents per packing slip to include a graphic ad. It is an easy process and provides additional value to the customer. My only issue with this is that AdShip continues to get slower and slower in paying out. If they do not improve, I will be looking for an alternative.

4.  A hand written note – this is the most important part of the packing slip. I use this section to thank the customer by name and to ask for positive feedback. Here is the text that I use:

Thank you, (first name).

I have left positive feedback for you and ask for all 5-star feedback from you.

Enjoy,

Frank

Since we are confident that our buyers will be satisfied with their purchase, we make this one request of them. I do not know the percentages of feedback to transactions for other eBay sellers, but I am confident that this strategy increases our numbers over what they would be if we did not ask.

Rewards Program

Our final means of communicating with our customers is to send an automated invitation to join our rewards program. I will go into more detail on this in a latter post. When a customer joins our rewards program, they get cash back on their purchase. If they make a repeat purchase from us, they will receive even more cash back.

The benefit to us is that they will receive an tailored email every 15 days featuring items we have for sale. The customer can opt out at any time. This is a new program we are using. Once more detailed data becomes available, I will let you know. But already we are finding out that a fair number of our customers are signing up. We are paying a very small amount to have a targeted email campaign.

Of course, we answer any questions promptly and politely. But the above communication pieces comprise our strategy. It is not too much or too time consuming. It does allow the customer to receive the information they need without infringing on the convenience they desire from shopping online.

Are you using any of these methods? Do you have other methods you use that you would recommend. I would love to hear what you do, so share your info in the comments section below.

Over $1 million a year in sales!!!

Eliza’s Top Tips for selling success

• Sell internationally—take advantage of the worldwide market and reap the rewards.
• Find ways to be more efficient—realize the value of your time and make the most of it.
• Give buyers all the information they need to make an informed decision.
• Build strong sourcing relationships—you need each other so you need to trust each other.
• Be on the up-and-up—think of yourself as a serious business and act like it.
• Be consistent—establish standard practices for photos, listings, and customer service.

2.  The Big Scoop on BigLots – Cynthia Stine

In this post, I show you how to use BigLots efficiently and which categories I’ve found profitable.

3.  NEW Name…Same Old Blog – The Rag Picker

The new name “The Rag Picker” just seems to be more relevant to my thrifting activities and reselling clothes will continue to be my main focus.

4.  Old Video Games = Big Money – The eBay Entrepreneur

A few months ago I found a huge lot of N64 games, and I bought them all for $2.99 each.  I really had no idea what they were worth, but there were too many to look all of them up right then and there.  As it turns out, there are a lot of desirable games!

5.  Selling on eBay and Amazon: A Comparison from the Trenches – Kat Simpson

Do I recommend eBay or FBA? Well, IT DEPENDS. It depends on so many factors. What are you selling mainly and what are your goals for your online business?

6.  Looks Like Cher Has Joined the eBay Craze – eBay Selling Coach

Yes, the very same eBay we use to sell our items is now being used by Cher!

7.  Just One More Little Thing – Money in the Garage

Just another example of why you go to Disney for the rides, but buy your souvenirs when you get home!

We recommend you buy your souvenirs from Fruzies – Disney listings - Disney Pins.

8.  Collecting Disney Pins – Fruzies Archives

Collecting pins can be a fun and rewarding experience.

In total that night at the auction, I invested $25 for two great sets of books. Both sets sold quickly for a total of $295.

That kind of flip is sufficient proof that I made a couple of wise purchases. However, the earnings did not end there.

When books are sold at general auctions, often the auction house will throw in other books. They realize that most people at an auction did not come for books. It would take all night to auction off the books one by one. So they lump the books into lots for one money.

When I was bidding on the books that I won, I was really only interested in the two sets. But I received a bonus of a few other books. Now most of the books like this are not worth trying to sell online. They usually have condition issues and are simply not in demand.

However, I did list a few of my freebies. So far I have received an extra $27.10 for these extras. If you are paying attention, that is more than all of the books cost me at the auction.

I am looking at it this way. The freebies paid for my sets. So my investment in the sets which sold for $295 is actually zero – or less than zero.

The takeaway lesson is to be on the lookout for the throw-in freebies. Most might wind up being discarded, but some might actually pay what you really want to buy.

Witherspoon browses the racks at her area stores. Most of the time she will modify the items so that they are unique. Her signature modification is to add ruffles.

Here is a dress that is currently for sale at $96.

Ruffle Haze Dress by Glam.Spoon - $96

Most of us who resell items from thrift stores, do little in the way of modifications. Witherspoon has found a way to add her artistic flair and be able to increase the prices of her items.

Have you ever modified a thrift store purchase before reselling it?

HT: King5.com