I seem to have misplaced my TRS rating.

Oh, bother.  I can't seem to find it anywhere.  Oh, wait...it's because people don't read item descriptions and then they give you crummy ratings instead of contacting you when they're dissatisfied. 

So, I'm not a TRS anymore.  Which is lame.  You can only have a .50% rating in "item not as described" and due to an unfortunate string of jerks, mine is at a .53%.  Hopefully I'll be back in the running next time.

A couple weeks ago, eBay ran a listing promotion.  I think it was during May 10-13 you could list auction style free.  So I did.  I listed about 20 auctions, which is the most I've done since last summer.  It was pretty dang successful.  Screw sales, if something's sitting in my store that I'm itching to get rid of, I'm gonna put that sucker up for auction.  You may get a little lower than what you really wanted for it, but auctions sell stuff, and I've actually made more than what I was asking for BIN on several items.  Suckers. 

The best thing is, out of all my sales that I had with auctions, I only had to open one unpaid item case and they paid the next day!  I'm sure that'll never happen again.

It's been a long time since I've posted!  We've been moving and with school coming to a close (thank God), it's been a busy time around these parts.  However, I am now in full "I have to have enough money to pay for vacation" panic mode, so there will be more eBay related stuff happening now. 

I've got a list of BOLOs I want to talk about and I want to show you my new eBay room, but we've got to go grocery shopping, so I'll be discussing that next week.  I hope everyone is having excellent sales!

Whew.

I am exhausted.  We are trying to paint every room in our new house and the baby's been sick, so this week has been a big struggle.  We move all the furniture on Saturday.  My new house resolution is to be super organized and totally clean and awesome.  We'll see how long that lasts.  My eBay room is looking good though.  It's a nice gray color and Tyler's going to put up lots of shelving for me.  I'm also going to break down and order some mannequins.  I am totally loathe to pay $18.00 in shipping for plastic torsos, but with the amounts of dresses and things I've been buying, it would be stupid not to.

Speaking of dresses, I finally got rid of a gorgeous Ann Taylor dress on Monday, only to have the buyer tell me "it's lovely, but doesn't work" for her.  She's sending it back, so that's $40.00 I get to refund.  Hooray.  If it weren't a size 4, I would just keep it.

I've had no chance to thrift or list this week and my store is the emptiest it's been in a long time (145 items). 

One exciting thing this week (you know, other than closing on our first house), is that I paid the first half of our vacation rental for Tybee!  I am really hoping I can pull this out! 

Let's panic!

So, Ms. These-pants-aren't-new-even-though-they-have-tags decided to leave me negative feedback!  I was apologetic, I refunded her money...what else did she want???  Then, when I tried to log into eBay to comment on her feedback, eBay won't let me in!  It says my password is wrong when that's total bull!  PANIC!  Panicpanicpanic.

***Update***
eBay let me in.  I wrote "buyer recieved full refud as requested.  Item had tags and was never worn"  They don't give you enough space in those things.  I wanted to say:

"Buyer is obvious sociopath.  I would request that she remove this, but then she'd probably try to call in the FBI.  This is ridiculous, why can she even do this when I gave her a refund?  I hate eBay."

I think if you refund the full amount of an item, the transaction should be automatically cancelled and they shouldn't be able to leave feedback.  I have never had a buyer be this rude.  I've had returns on more expensive items (remember these were 14-bloody freakin-dollars) and no one has evern pulled this crap. 

Anger.

First neutral.

Well, I got my first neutral today.  It was for a Ralph Lauren sweater I've been trying to get rid of forever that went to a buyer in Norway.  They said there was a hole in the sweater near the logo.  I never saw this hole.  It's not that I don't think they're telling the truth, it just irritates me when I let stuff like that get by me.  It was a sweater my mom's had for a while and never wore, so she let me have it.  I guess even if stuff is new, there can be problems...like my wonderful pants that I got returned to me.  That case got closed, btw. 

The neutral's really got me down.  This is on the heels of several lackluster reviews.  Like I've said before, I hate it when people just say stuff like "satisfactory".  It's not that I want "OMG I LOVE IT", but when people leave stuff like that, I feel like they're not really happy with the item...does that make sense?  It seems to go in cycles.  People leave me really great, excited reviews and then for a week or two, it's like the cynics come out and decide to say "meh" to everything.

I mean, I would rather give a refund than have a neutral.  They only paid $12.00 for it, anyway...heck, I would've refunded it and let them keep the stupid thing to avoid a neutral. 

This is going to bother me all night.

Yard sale and BOLOs

The yard sale was very slow yesterday.  Well, we had a lot of people who wanted to spend about $.50 on everything.  Sold lots of books, DVDs and baby clothes.  I made about $200 for both days, so thank goodness we decided to have it on Friday, too!

I had this Kelty internal frame backpack out there and had to get $20.00 for it.  I only used it once, but no one was interested, so when I got home, I snapped a few shots and threw it up on eBay for $75.00 OBO.  It sold about 2 hours later for my full asking price!

These retail new for about $140.00.  I bought it about three years ago for significantly more, but all it took was one overnight trip sleeping with a rock in my back, cooped up in a two person tent with Tyler and our 50 pound dog to realize camping is not for me.  It's not a heavy pack, but the internal frame will make it tricky to ship.

BOLO alert:  I bought a black version of this bicycling skort a few months ago from the SA and it sold really quickly for about $30.00.  I found this one yesterday:

It looks great and is super clean, so I posted it last night for $27.00 and it sold this morning to a girl who bought that and a pair of Columbia capris I wore once.  The brand is Terry and they specialize strictly in women's cycling gear.  Their stuff is so cute (and pricey), it almost makes me wish I was interested in bicycling!

Another BOLO:  John Le Carre books!  He's the author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which was recently made into a big movie and has boosted his book's popularity.  His protagonist, George Smiley is like the anti-James Bond spy and my husband loves his books.  A local thrift shop we have has a ton of the books in hard back with dust jackets that are first trade editions.  They're $1.00, and Tyler told me that they sell for a good amount online, so I went and got some.  These two sold to the same person last night for $15.00 each!

Not bad for a $2.00 investment!  They also sold quick..in about a day. 

So what was an excrutiatingly slow week has turned into a very profitable weekend!  This is one of the best eBay weekends I have had in a while and I'm very glad for it!  Our chances of taking a great vacation are looking better and better!

Purging

I love to get rid of stuff.  I have zero sentimental attachment to anything.  I mean, I wouldn't sell my husband or child, but if the price was right, I could let mom go.  That's why selling bags of clothes and other items super cheap at our yard sale is so satisfying. 

I was taking stuff over to my parent's house yesterday when dad told me it was supposed to rain this morning (no rain so far, though!).  So, being the genius I am, I said "well, let's do some of it this afternoon!"  And we did.  We were not prepared and ended up being the annoying people who are digging stuff out of boxes while people are showing up, but we were "open" for about three hours and I got rid of a ton of baby clothes (fill a bag for $5.00....iknowright? crazy), knick-knacks that aren't selling on eBay, and some junk we just had sitting around serving no purpose.  I even remembered to take the stuff off eBay after I sold it!  Hooray!

I made a little over $100 yesterday, which I think is good considering it wasn't for very long.  Hopefully this morning will be hopping.  We went through more stuff and have a few more Sterilites full of junk to sell.  So, here's to having enough by the end of the day for a new, used dining room set!

Oh yeah? Your face is not as described.

Well, apparently I was riding high on my American Girl doll streak (which netted me about $300) when I told Tyler I could pay for our entire vacation with eBay earnings.  This week has been totally dead.  I've got watchers, but no buyers.  And I have one crazy buyer who is currently making my life hell.

I sold some Ralph Lauren pants that were new with tags.  I said they were new with tags because they were NEW and had TAGS ON THEM.  I said in the listing that they had been in the closet for a while so they were not "brand new" and the tags were wrinkled, which was true.  My mom's had them for at least a year.  So someone finally bought them for $14.00.  On Tuesday I get an "item not as described" message from them saying they're returning the pants because they were not new.

I'm sorry.  What?  I informed her that they were new and I wanted to say "because no one is stupid enough to walk around in pants with the bloody tags on", but I didn't.  I said I was sorry she wasn't happy and told her I would gladly take the return.  After my message, she opened a freaking case.  I've never had a case opened.  The people just send me the return and I give them their money (in her case, FOURTEEN DOLLARS, mind you) back.  She said I "raised a red flag" when I asked her to send the pants to my parent's house since we're going to be moving and I want to be sure they get to the right place.  I sent her a message explaining, as I had already explained to her, that there was no shady business going on and I didn't want the pants to get lost in the moving shuffle.  And then I cussed loudly at my computer.

So that's been my week.  I'm off work tomorrow because we're going to have a yard sale on Saturday since there is entirely too much crap in our house and I don't want to pack it when we move and I need to get it all together.  This will involve me indiscriminately throwing stuff into bags to take over to my parent's house that I will probably sell at the yard sale and then forget to take off eBay only to sell it on there sometime next week.  Because my life works like that.

On the bright side, everything is a go so far on the house buying front and we close on our first house on the 30th!  The owners are even putting a new roof on it.  I'm not the sort of person to use "blessed" as an adjective because I think God has more on his plate than our mortgage, but we are blessed to have gotten this house.