August 29 – September 4, 2008

Week 4 of the $500 eBay Experiment

August 29 – September 4, 2008: Friday, August 29, 2008

I started the week off on a good note.

Remember that $3 fishing shirt I bought at a garage sale?

Well, I sold it for $59.95!

Since I am now offering free shipping, my shipping price was built into the total.

However, an international bidder purchased this shirt, and I do not ship internationally for free. This means that I was able to keep the full $59.95 purchase price and ship on the buyer's dime!

I'm starting to really like free shipping!

When the buyer ended the listing by using "Buy it Now", he immediately sent me a note saying he was traveling abroad and would be home next week. He wondered if it would be possible to pay for the item on Tuesday instead of immediately. That seemed reasonable, so I told him that was fine.

Reasonableness When you are selling on eBay, even though all your auctions clearly state that a bid is a contract, and you need to be paid within a certain time frame, you will always get those who either do not read the listing or who do not understand that this is your livelihood. You will have those who do not pay, who ask to pay via a different method, or who suddenly fall off the face of the earth. Sometimes these people find themselves in a situation where they thought they had the money for an item, but when the auction closed, suddenly personal circumstances have put them in a financial crunch. Though this is their responsibility, you will occasionally get a sob story about how their car broke down, or their electric bill was too high and they cannot pay you. It is important that you understand that these issues are common to eBay sellers, and that you handle the situation correctly. First, never get angry at a buyer who is contacting you. It is much better to have an open communication with a buyer than to try to chase one down who does not reply to email. Next, be sympathetic to the situation. If they are out of town, or waiting until payday, then wait! A few days with a buyer who communicates his situation is nothing. Be polite in your emails, and thank the buyer for contacting you. Remember, due to new rules in eBay, you cannot leave a buyer negative or neutral feedback anymore, but they are able to leave it for you. So always be friendly, no matter how much you are annoyed, and be reasonable. If you have a bidder contact you about an auction that is not completed, and he wants you to remove his bid, DO IT! The last thing you want is someone to win an auction who doesn't want it, which may cause them to not pay or to end up leaving you a negative.

The eBay seller who sold me the damaged goods and I worked out a fair deal. She asked me what I would like to have done with the items, and I offered to split the cost with her. I was still able to use 4 items from the lot, and I didn't feel it would be fair to ask her to give me an entire refund when I was still able to use some. So I offered this solution, and she immediately refunded me half.

I also took time to leave her positive feedback. Yes, there was a problem, but she handled it appropriately. I have had my share of problems through the years. I've had things broken while packaging them for shipping, I've miscounted items and come up short, I've had my daughter (while a toddler) get ahold of something that was listed and draw pictures on it with a permanent marker. Stuff happens. It's how we handle it that we should be judged on.

I had placed several ads on craigslist looking for various things, such as Mary Kay liquidations. Well, one of the things I placed a wanted ad for was American Girl dolls and accessories. You see, I have personal experience with these items because my daughter and I love them. So we know how much they are worth, and how they sell on eBay.

I got an email from a woman who said that she had three American Girl dolls and 20 outfits for sale in her Saturday morning garage sale about an hour away from us.

Well, there were two problems with this.

First, the garage sale was over an hour away.

Second, my husband had to work on Saturday morning, one hour in the opposite direction, (rare; he only has to work Saturday on a holiday weekend) and we only have one vehicle.

So I began a series of telephone calls and emails with this woman to get to the bottom of what she had. Most people who sell off their American Girl items want as much or more than I can get on eBay, but this woman was different. She told me she had three dolls, Felicity, Samantha, and Kit. She also had dozens of shoes, some accessories, and 15 authentic and 5 non-authentic outfits.

We worked out $150 for the entire lot! This was an incredible price for me, as the dolls alone would bring, in my estimation, $60-70 each on eBay. She even offered to hold the items back from the garage sale so that I could pick them up after my husband got home.

Now, I should mention that all of this negotiation was done based on her word for what she had; I never saw any pictures. She just stated that the dolls were very clean, in excellent condition. It has been my experience that anyone who thinks to mention the word "clean" is serious. Now, if you ask them, this might vary, but when they volunteer this specifically, you can usually trust them. Plus, since you haven't paid yet, if upon inspection of the items they are not what was claimed, you can either pass or lower the price.

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August 29 – September 4, 2008: Saturday, August 30, 2008

I spent the morning looking at various listings on Craigslist. I was finding a lot of garage sales I wanted to go to, but not much more than that. I was getting excited about the American Girl dolls. As soon as my husband got home, we started the hour long trip to her house.

When we got out to her place, she had all the dolls in a big bucket that she gave us.

I handed the dolls to my daughter to play with in the truck, and put the bucket in the front so that I could look through the clothing and accessories.

About five minutes after we pulled away from the house, my daughter says from the back seat "Mommy, they cut Samantha's hair!"

Oh no, I was thinking. I really should have examined that doll a little better! Cut hair on an American Girl doll significantly reduces her value. But as I was looking through the clothing, I figured I'd still come out ahead with the other items, despite the loss.

When we got home, I started to look up the various outfits and found that many were retired, and worth $20 or so each! That was exciting. Then I looked at the dolls. The Kit was in excellent shape. The Felicity turned out to be a rare, early doll, worth $150! I owned this same doll, but a later one not worth as much. I decided to swap out the dolls, keeping the older one for myself and reselling the newer one for $90 including shipping.

Then I looked at the Samantha doll, and something just didn't make sense. First, her hair, though shorter than I had seen any other American Girl doll, didn't look as though it had been cut. I used to cut doll hair when I was a kid, and let me tell you, it never turned out nice after it was done! This was styled, curled, and very cute! And her eyes were not the same color as other Samantha dolls.

Upon research, I discovered that she was NOT Samantha; she was a super rare, retired doll from 2000. She was worth almost $250. I've listed her, along with all her clothing and accessories, for $500. I'm not sure I'll get that price, though it would be nice! I'm going to give it two weeks and then send it to a one cent auction if she doesn't sell at that outrageous price!

I stayed up practically all night getting caught up on listings.

Listed the medical scrubs, finished listing jerky, and started listing my new American Girl doll items. It was exhausting, but fun! We'll see what happens!

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August 29 – September 4, 2008: Sunday, August 31, 2008

My auctions closed Saturday from those I had listed last week.

I had a buyer email me telling me she couldn't pay for the auction she had won.

It was only won for $3. I emailed her back asking when she could pay, telling her I had no problem waiting two weeks until her next payday. She seemed happy I had offered this. We'll see if she pays.

I'm starting to search Craigslist for other items that I have sold in the past.

For example, I am looking for beads today.

A couple years ago, I went to a garage sale where a guy had a bucket full of interesting beads he had used to make macramé jewelery.

I made him an offer of $20 for all his beads as well as a flute he had in it's case. It was late in the afternoon, and he begrudgingly accepted it.

I got home and listed the flute; it was worth $200. But I held off on the beads because the task before me: sorting and listing, was overwhelming. So I waited a few weeks. Finally, I tackled the sorting. It took me literally 8 hours to get them sorted and listed. But when my auctions finally closed, I had made over $350! So I like beads.

I found someone selling a box of various beads for $40. I asked if she'd take $20 and she did. So now I have a basket full of beads to list!
Craigslist is a very valuable place to find stuff! I just cannot understand why someone would go through the trouble to list on craigslist, but not the trouble to list on eBay.

August 29 – September 4, 2008: Monday, September 1, 2008

I spent the day listing and trying to organize my eBay room. We're planning to go and get plastic tubs but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I've sold one doll, the Felicity one that I exchanged for my own. And a couple retired outfits. And more Mary Kay.

I also put up some of my Mary Kay inventory, three different pieces, on auction this week to encourage visitors to come to my store. I used items I had duplicates of, and started at one cent. I also listed some samples this way.

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August 29 – September 4, 2008: Tuesday, September 2, 2008

As promised, the buyer who bought the fishing shirt paid me this morning. I will get that shipped out later this week. I used to charge a $1.25 handling fee for international shipping since it meant going to the post office during regular hours and standing in line, instead of just dropping in the package box. But since I include shipping in the price now, I don't add in that extra for international shipping.

I emailed someone on craigslist about a lot of Mary Kay that they wanted $100.

It was a guy!

He said he had $1600 worth of product from 2005 that he needed to get rid of.

Apparently, he was talked into selling but didn't know anything about skin care!

When I got to his place (my husband was with me in the truck; never go to a strange man's house alone!) , he showed me the product. It was three boxes worth, and one box had major damage. Product was leaking (we think he stepped on it) and some had damage from being left in the sun. A few items were expired. I offered him $75 and he took it.

When we got home, I realized that several pieces were worth a good chunk of change. He had a couple of retired colognes in there worth $40 a piece, plus all the other stuff. Good deal!

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August 29 – September 4, 2008: Wednesday, September 3, 2008

We're going to be visiting family in a couple weeks in some other areas across the state. So I am now looking in other areas on craigslist to see if they have any Mary Kay I can buy.

I've decided to word my replies a little differently. If the seller has no price in her ad, or has an offer of 50% off or something along those lines, I send them an ad such as this:

Hello. I saw your ad on Craigslist mentioning that you were quitting Mary Kay. I buy up liquidation lots, and may be interested in your items. I am not interested in paying 50% of retail for these items, but will pay less than that. If you are finally done with your Mary Kay business, and you are ready to move on with your life, please email me a list of your items and I will make you an offer. You do not have to tell me exact shades (ie, 10 medium coverage foundations is fine). Please also include any business materials and samples you would like to get rid of. I will come to you to pick up your items, there is no need to ship them. I pay in cash. Serious inquiries only. Thank you!

Even if they don't take my offer, at least if they go through the trouble to create a list like this, they have it available for others who may want a few pieces here and there.

I had a reply on one of my BJU books on craigslist. Remember that I had placed them in various places in Florida? Well, I ended up shipping a $60 set to Maryland. Works for me! Two down, 12 more to go.

I joined a couple homeschooling book exchange yahoo groups to see if I can unload more books. Placed a couple ads.

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August 29 – September 4, 2008: Thursday, September 4, 2008

I am on a local yahoo group for garage sale type items. People post daily lots of junk type items, usually much too big to resell on eBay, or much too expensive.

But today I had someone selling 159 items for $75.

The items were store returns and free with purchase video game items. After doing some research on eBay, I felt that the lot would bring significantly more than $75.

So I called the seller and asked what else she had.

She had a train set she wanted $80 for, an older camcorder she wanted $50 for, and some board games for another $30.

I made a split second decision and offered her $150 for everything. She wavered and offered back $175. I told her to be able to commit to that price, I needed her to email me a list of the board games and the model numbers of the train set and camcorder.

Boy was I glad she wavered! After researching the prices on eBay, I would have been seriously hard pressed to get back my money on those additional items! In the end, I offered her $60 for the original 159 items and she accepted.

When we got out there to get it all, she needed to keep the totes she had stored the items in, so we placed them in our truck bed. She also had a ton of really great bubble wrap to ship them all in, so I put all the bubble wrap in the back seat with the kids. I paid her, and climbed into the truck.

And then I smelled it. Horrible, overwhelming stale cigarette smoke. I hadn't gone into their home, instead meeting them outside, so I didn't notice it until we got into the truck. We immediately went to a dumpster and tossed all the beautiful bubble wrap. The products, though only a couple were cloth, reeked as well.

I'm presently airing them out on the patio, and the cloth ones I'm going to try kitty litter. I've heard that if you fill a garbage bag with clean kitty litter and place your item inside of it for 2-3 days, it will take out the smell. I've got to try it now! Will let you know!

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August 29 – September 4, 2008: This Week

Income:

Total eBay Payments Recieved: $458.15

Mary Kay Refund: 7.27

Craigslist BJU books: $60

Purchases:

American Girl Dolls: $150.00

Craigslist Mary Kay: $75

Craigslist Beads: $20

Yahoo Groups Lot: $60.00

Expenses:

eBay fees paid: $84.90

Paypal fees: $20.60

Shipping fees:$67.46

See the running total on the Accounting Page.

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August 29 – September 4, 2008: Plans for Next Week

I plan to list the BJU books on more craigslist sites this week. I really need to unload these, fast!

I plan to organize the eBay room and finally order some darn shipping supplies!

Leave August 29 – September 4, 2008 and Return to the $500 eBay Experiment