I must say that I don't know it all. (Don't tell SweetiePie I said that!!) Every day that I list things I look at some and say, "why did I buy that?". We all have been there. Sales are slow and we grab stuff that has been sitting in the to be listed tote and throw it up on ebay. Our reasoning when we purchased it was "I can sell that for a profit". Well, I'm trying to upscale my thinking and say to myself that I can sell that "for $20 profit, or $10 profit". That is extremely hard for me to do. I feel like I am admitting defeat if I just never list and re-donate. I feel like I have failed at something...
So, to fix that, I changed some of my listings to good till cancelled. I was selective about what I changed and at first I just picked out $24.99 and up listings that I felt good about. I changed 40 on Saturday and I have already sold 5 of those listings. These were things that had been sitting since last year or longer.
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| Vintage shirt tales crib skirt, dust ruffle from the 80's and in great condition. Found digging at the thrift in the 25c bins, along with some VTG 80's Care Bear sheets |
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| Older, not vintage Bill Blass cotton fisherman sweater. Another item from the 25c bin. Gotta love the bins. You have to be careful because a lot of things are damaged. |
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| Luxurious silk and cashmere sweater set, very nice cardigan and shell in the ever popular beige, taupe, neutral color. But it is redeemed from its beige blah by having cute buckles trim. Picked this up off of the 2/99c rack. Since this was originally sold as a set, the two pieces were 49c. I guess the taupe/beige turned women off. But there was someone out there that loved it!! |
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| This funky dress was given to me by my daughter to sell because it didn't fit her like she thought it would. Who wouldn't like purple giraffe? |
So for a total investment of $2.00 I turned it over to $127, gross. Not bad.
I plan to get more things on the GTC bandwagon so I don't have to relist manually each month. I am trying to do the original switch at different times during the day and night so that I will pretty much have random things listing throughout the day. Here is hoping it works.(fingers crossed)
Update on the yard sale buyout. I sold this almost new Eddie Bauer canvas messenger bag last week. An investment of 33c flipped to $30.
But I'm afraid that some of the remaining buyout stuff will have to be donated. They just don't meet my new profit margin guidelines. Oh, I'm sure the Battered Women's Thrift Store will be glad to get them.
Can't wait for the Labor Day weekend....thrifting in Atlanta. Anyone know any good places to go?
I know what you mean. I probably have a whole bunch of stuff from buying in the early days that I should not even list and just redonate. But I can't. If I can at least recoup my money, I'll be happy. To me it's still throwing money away. I definitely source high end items now.
ReplyDeleteI feel that way too. Like I need to recoup my money. But if I list an item for say $8.99, even if I paid 25c for it, it won't take long to eat up any profit I may make since listing cost me 10c a month when I go over 500. With 1000+ listings its a guarantee that I'll go over each month. I'll just donate it and let someone else use it or make a profit.
DeleteI'm the same way. It's so hard to re donate things once I've bought them and/or listed them. I know some are a waste of time but I can't stop myself.
DeleteI do the same thing except I wait for the free listing promotions. Like last time I got so many auctions for free. That promo ends tonight
DeleteGTC is how I roll. With over 1,000 listings I can't imagine trying to re-list every month. Buyers will still find your stuff. Every week I sell some newer stuff as well as some older stuff. Most everything sells within a year. You made a great profit on the items above! :)
ReplyDeleteI love GTC listings. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE that purple dress :D
ReplyDeleteWhat's not to like about little purple giraffe? My daughter was upset when the dress was way too big.
DeleteI did GTC untll my listing software changed the way they do pictures and I had to pay extra for it. I miss it - it was like crockpot cooking ....fix it and forget it.
ReplyDeleteI use sellersourcebook and I don't think they charge extra for GTC. Right now I list a bunch of stuff and have it scheduled for early morning. I am still doing 30 days on all new, daily stuff. At the end of 30 days I'll relist as GTC. That way I can weed out stuff that the profit margin is too low to continue forever or I can just list it again for 30 days, depending on the item. I realize that you need some cheaper stuff in your store. A store couldn't survive if everything were $24.99 and above, IMHO.
DeleteI use Garagesale because I have a MAC & I can have the same app on my phone/ipad/iphone so wherever we are I can list/see what is going on. I just looked and either the fees have dropped or they aren't as high as I thought for GTC - $30 a year but that is another fee.....I am thinking about it again after seeing this post though.
DeleteEbay always has a free offer for me sometime during the month, Lately it has been auctions. I don't do auctions. Or better yet they don't do anything for me.
ReplyDeleteI re-donate all the time. It's frustrating but what can you do? Sometimes you just don't notice that stain or hole until you're taking a picture. :-/
ReplyDeleteI haven't tried yet, but you can donate it to Goodwill and get a receipt. TurboTax has a handy little website that calculates what the item is worth, and it's a good list to have for tax time. Once you calculate out your amount, bring it to Goodwill and tell them the $$ value. They'll give you a receipt for that. That way you can claim it on your taxes!
I did donate to GW all the time but I read their annual report and saw that the executive director of the GW in the eastern part of our state made over $1.5 in salary and benefits a year and decided I didn't want to support that. I rarely shop at GW because of the higher prices and check or cash only policy. I have two private thrifts that I donate to and they seem to manage their money much better and provide services for local families and charities. They give me a receipt for my donated goods and it is tax deductible. I feel better giving to a cause that seems to know where the money should go. Goodwill doesn't treat their employees well and that reflects on the employees attitude at the stores.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad isn't it? I remember reading an article many years ago (don't recall where) that talked about CEO's of non-for-profits often times getting paid a lot more than CEOs of for-profit corporations. Go figure!! Does make you think twice about donating back to them. Thanks for the reminder!
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