Book Sale

So tomorrow Tyler and I are going to Roanoke two hours away for a big book sale. Actually, two big book sales. One's at the Roanoke mall and one's in Salem, which is basically the next town over. I really have no idea how much money to take to these things. I don't know what to expect, either. The one in Roanoke says it has over 20,000 books...amazing...but will I have to dig through boxes of these bad boys? We'll see.

My books have been doing well this week! Here's what I sold:
*On the Road by Jack Kerouac Original Scroll 1st edition - $16.99 (I tried to read this but just couldn't)
* The Long Run by Matt Long - $10.92
* New Nancy Drew books #'s 1-6 - $18.99
* Fun Funky Things to Draw - $10.99
* Hello Cupcake decorating book - $5.99
And I have a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows first edition that's being bid on right now. I tried to examine these and see a pattern but I didn't see squat. A mix of non-fiction, cook books and fiction kid's books? Hm.

I've read a lot of stuff that says at first, selling books on eBay is intuition. I have that about some things, but with old books I have no clue. I saw an old Poster Art book for sale at our local library a few weeks ago. It was from the '60s and I thought it was pretty cool, something that would go for maybe $20-ish, but I got home and checked completeds and, nada. Luckily I didn't buy it.

My boy's Remington hunting coat sold for $24.00 today, too! Hurray!

I'll be sure to rant/rave about the book sale tomorrow!

WHAT IS THIS?

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Nevermind.
Ok, so I uploaded a picture onto here, pasted the address, wrote the description and it gave me some crazy preview page then I clicked "add listing" and it said there was an error, so I went back through it and everything was normal again. Whew. I had a minor freak out moment. The whole listing page was CRAZY. I hope that's not some new thing. Anyone else seen this?

Why didn't that sell??

Have you ever had an item where, when you picked it up, you thought "this is it! This is going to do so well!" And then it doesn't? And you have relist it umpteen times and even then you just want to put "PLEASE BUY THIS I WANT IT GONE" in the title?

Yeah, I have like five of those right now.

1) My collection of Clique books. I had a ton of views and a couple of watchers. I started the auction at $11.99 and then I actually lowered it to $9.99 and all my watchers left. What?

2) A great skating package I found at Goodwill. It's by Chicago, which is apparently a good brand. It's got some trainer inline skates and all the guards and helmet. I think my BIN price is reasonable at $22.99 so why doesn't anyone want it?


3) My boy's Remington hunting coat. It's in amazing shape, it's reversible and hunting season is upon us. I am really surprised at this one.
4) My NWT Gymboree Halloween costumes I discussed here. The Strawberry Fairy had 7 watchers when it ended, so I'm clueless. They were up for 30 days and I relisted them for another 30.

5) A few books that have sold well when I checked completeds, but for me, they're doing nada. My prices are right on with the completed listings, so I guess the buyers just don't like me.

What are some things you've got gathering dust that you thought would be flying right out of your house? Isn't it so frustrating?

eBay math

I guess it's just bugging me because it's so ridiculously rainy here, I've checked eBay more than I ever need to, but nothing has happened today. I don't think anyone new has even looked at my stuff. Which might not be true because I have 47 things listed and could not even tell you what half of them are.

Holiday+eBay= Forget about it.

Holiday+non-payers = Another excuse to not pay me.

(Cost of bubble wrap + shipping) - Cost I charged to ship some glass canisters = No profit for me!

On the bright side, I haven't done the final math yet, but I know I made at least $200 this week, so I think I'm out of the sales slump, but we'll see what this week holds!

Yard Sale Tales: 9/3/11 edition

So yesterday was OK. No toys to be had, but I did find lots of clothes, a few books and the cool mugs I was after. Behold:
This is a Stromberg Carlson rotary phone. It's sold for as much as $49.99! I figure it was a good investment for $2.00
Ceramic mugs made in Japan. Buddy, if you ever find tiki mugs like this (ugly, right?) you'd be crazy not to get them. Listed auction style for $9.99, paid about $.75 cents for them.

1970's Adlib game. I guess it was Scrabble's predecessor. No completeds on this, and I haven't listed it yet, but all the pieces are there and the box is in great condition. I'm taking suggestions on how to list it, so holla at me if you have any clue.

I picked up some men's Polo shirts, a few primitive style posters and Tyler got a sweet Timex vintage kitchen clock, a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes and some Fire King mugs. We'll see how these things do!

Selling books is boring.

So I have more BIN on my eBay selling page than I've ever had before and most of them are books. Usually when I have lots of kid's books, I do them as an auction, but with single books I figure it's better to just give them a reasonable BIN price based on their condition.

Now I love the feeling you get when you wake up and check your eBay and someone's bought one of your BIN items. It's a good adrenaline rush. I also like waking up to see that my auctions have had a bunch of bidders and I'm making good money. This morning I had none of that. My auctions haven't budged and no one's bought squat. Of the books I put up yesterday afternoon, no one's even looked at them. I know, I know...patience. Well, I have none of this.

I even went ahead and re-listed three of my books from last week and did them as 30 days instead of my usual 7. Ugh. It's torture.

I did sell another used, nonfiction book yesterday for a whopping $7.99, so whoooo.

Tyler's sick now and I'm still hacking like crazy, but we're going to try to get four yard sales in today. For some reason I'm feeling like buying some cool mugs.

Starting the day off with a nice dose of crazy.

I hate days where I go back to school after having a sub. You never know what kind of notes they'll leave you about how awful your kids were (and boy were mine RIDICULOUS). Before I even rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, though, I got on my email and saw this regarding a Gevalia coffeemaker I sold a couple weeks ago:

"There is a problem with your auction listing. You "forgot" to mention that the pot was defective.

The pot was listed as new and the claim was that it had never been used. I have very good close up vision, so I noticed right away that there was very light coffee staining in the cone (apparently used only a time or two, just enought times to realize that the pot was defective) but I really wasn't concerned about a few uses.

I wasn't concerned about the missing lid either as I had a lid from another pot that I could use. However, it does concern me that the reason the lid was missing is that the pot is defective--the drip spout is offset, thus water cannot drip into the cone through the lid properly.

I found this out this morning when I tried to use the pot and water was sizzling all over the heating plate. NOT WHAT I PAID FOR!

Being of a logical mind, I am left to conclude that the lid was "missing" in the hopes that the buyer would use the pot as sold, with the assumption that the buyer wouldn't have a lid to put on the pot.

This is totally unacceptable. I do expect a full refund including all shipping cost."

I had to read this a few times to understand what they were raving about, and although I'm still fuzzy on the details, I finally realized she seemed mildly unhappy with her purchase. I had gotten the coffeemaker from a coworker three years ago. She said she'd never used it, and I took her at her word and after it sat on my shelf for three years, I decided to list it. I listed it as new and didn't bother to check it's working order. I know nothing of Gevalia coffeemakers, but the first time I listed it, someone told me the cone lid was missing. So I ended the auction and re-listed stating the cone lid was missing. This person bought it and away it went. Hindsight is 20/20 and I realize I should have been more thorough in my investigation of this "never used" coffeemaker.

However. I was slightly flattered at all the malicious scheming the buyer had thought I put into this swindle. Look at me! I'm hoodwinking all the people out of their money with my clever no-cone-lid plan! I emailed her back and assured her this was not the case. I told her my story and immediately refunded her money. I also told her she could keep the thing or trash it, I don't care. She did apologize for immediately assuming the worst of me and I assume all is right in the world of cone lids and offset water dripper thingys.

Tonight's lesson: Check to see if your stuff works. No matter what.