eBay the Right Way
Learn how to sell on eBay the right way. Suzanne A. Wells has been selling on eBay since 2003 and has been an influencer in the eBay community since 2007. This podcast is designed for the full or part time at-home seller who loves the reselling process including the thrill of the hunt, rehoming used items, and building a home business they love. eBay is a way of life, not just a side hustle. Suzanne has been featured in Money Magazine, Martha Stewart Magazine, Women's World, and All You magazines as an eBay expert. You can find her on YouTube and Facebook as Suzanne A. Wells.
eBay the Right Way
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Music. Hello, listeners, welcome to episode 197 of eBay the right way. Today's date is December, 25 2024 Yes, Christmas Day. My podcasts always drop on Wednesdays, so I'm just staying consistent here. And this is the last podcast of 2024, pre recorded, of course, my guest today is Katherine in Montana. Well, since this is the Christmas Day episode, I'll give you some insight on my Christmas traditions. Manheim steamrollers, classic Christmas music will be playing all day, throughout the festivities, and I will be singing loudly and badly, even though the music doesn't have lyrics. We all know the words to the classic Christmas carols anyway, and if you have never experienced Manheim steamroller, well, you just aren't living life to its fullest. My favorite is Joy to the world. Here is a sample for your listening pleasure. You Yes, yes, yes, let heaven and nature sing. How can you not feel joyous singing to that my favorite food on the menu today is spaghetti, a new tradition I have adopted, because why not? I love spaghetti. It's delicious any day of the year, and not the spaghetti with syrup and candy like in the movie Elf, the regular kind with tomato sauce and meatballs. I say, heck with tradition. Eat what you like and be happy. I'll be watching my favorite Christmas movies, which include Little Women and the bishop's wife, the 1947 version with Cary Grant. I'm a sucker for old black and white movies, snacking on Chex Mix muddy buddies, the kind with chocolate and peanut butter. I'll also be enjoying a Claxton fruit cake. They are so delicious and a family tradition. They're made in Claxton, Georgia, which is kind of near Savannah, we pass through the town every summer on the way to the beach at Saint Simons Island. I grew up on these fruit cakes. The bakery dates back to 1910 when I was doing my Amazon grocery business, back in 2010 to 2014 I made a killing selling these. I saw them in the grocery store at holiday time, like every year, and wondered if they were on Amazon. The grocery category was kind of new to Amazon at that time, and I was experimenting with a lot of different products, so I looked up the Claxton fruit cakes, and they were not on Amazon. I added the listing and was selling these $4 fruitcakes for between 20 and$25 and I sold hundreds of them during two to three holiday selling seasons a quite lucrative product, until other sellers figured it out and the market tanked, because prices dropped and dropped and it was no longer profitable. So that is what I have lined up. If you are listening to this on Christmas Day, I hope you are doing what you want and enjoying spending time with those you love. Okay, now for the conversation with Katherine. Welcome back, listeners. I have Katherine with us today and a little bit hesitant to come on, but she has a lot of great information to share, and she's been posting on the money making Mondays, and just have an interesting life. So how are you doing this early morning? I'm
Unknown:good. Thank you. How are you? I'm
Suzanne Wells:great. Well, your mountain time, so it's 930 There. Maybe you got up way earlier than this.
Unknown:I typically get up, I don't know, between six and seven. It just kind of depends on the day. It depends on if the kids are up early, or if not, today, nobody woke up till seven o'clock. So that was a good, a nice,
Suzanne Wells:good. Okay, and how old are your little ones? My
Unknown:oldest just turned five. My middle is three and my youngest is two. Oh, busy, busy, yes, at one point they were all under the age of three. So those were much busier times than they are now, a lot, a lot of diapers, lots of diapers. Yes,
Suzanne Wells:well, I promise you it does end Yes,
Unknown:I can see the light. Now it seems like we're, we've, we were in survival mode for a while, and now it feels like we're coming out of survival mode. We can take more time to do other things. I'm spending less time glued to the couch with a nursing baby. You know, I'm not changing 400 diapers a day. So things are easier.
Suzanne Wells:And looking back after they're grown, it's like, you know, diapers was kind of easier than having teenage drivers. So, oh yeah, every stage has its challenges.
Unknown:True. That's true. I guess we'll find that out as we go.
Suzanne Wells:Okay, well, let's start off with how you got involved in eBay when that was so
Unknown:it was in May of this year, May of 24 I was in a Facebook group that I think was geared towards, like, work from home moms. I have a lot of friends that make things and sell things, and, you know, they have like, a little side hustle, because I'm a stay at home mom, and I thought, Well, I would like to have some little stream of side income, and what can I do? And I found a post where this woman explained how she got started with reselling books on eBay, and she shared her whole process of how she did it. She used an app called Book Scouter, where she could scan barcodes, and I think it tells you, like the lowest price, that it's for sale on Amazon or something like that. And I thought, Well, I I can do that. So I went through some books that I had, I went to the thrift store. I listed probably 10 or 15 books in the first couple of days. And the first book that I sold sold for$27 it was, it's called Legion. It's part of the Horace heresy series, apparently, a sought after book. I think I priced it low, but when it sold and I told my husband, he was like, we'll do more of that, that's really cool. So then I found somebody selling cross stitch kits on Facebook, and I had started listening to podcasts and YouTube people talking about how they resell on eBay, and somebody had said they had good luck with cross stitch. So I looked up the comps for these kits that she was selling, and they were astronomical. So I messaged her right away and said, I'll come get these right now. So I drove over there. Two of them were already opened and missing a bunch of parts. One of them was already gone by the time I got there, so I got two of them and listed them that night, and one sold within an hour. I think I listed it $200 and I got an offer like immediately, for 150 and I was so excited, I accepted it right back. I'm like, I probably could have waited a little longer than an hour, but I didn't care. I was so excited. And then the other one I listed, I think, for 38 and it sold that night also. So then I was just really excited. I'm like, okay, I can totally do this. This is something that I can do in my free time. And so it just kind of went from there, and I continued listening and watching and just taking in as much as I could and learning about what types of things sell, and I learned how to do research. I made some blunders in the beginning. I bought books. I wasn't doing good research. I just was looking them up and saying, Oh, well, this book, you know, is listed for 20 something dollars. But then getting home and realizing, okay, there's 400 listed and one has sold in like 90 days, or whatever, or the ones that are listed are listed higher, and the ones that have sold have sold for four or $5 so I made some mistakes in the beginning, but I've kind of learned from it, and just kind of ran with it. And so here I am now, so it's been about six months,
Suzanne Wells:yeah. And I think people forget to look at how many are listed, especially in the beginning, yeah, we're so ingrained in, like, what is the cell for? What is the cell for? And like you said, you may look at the solds and, oh, you know,$50 but currently there's 900 listed,
Unknown:yeah, and that's something that I wasn't looking at, was how many were listed. And I got some bridgerton books, and I was like, Oh, bridgerton is so popular right now. But then when I actually, like, got home and did the research, it was like, Oh, right. But there's, like, 600 of them listed, and they're all selling for four. Dollars. So it's popular right now, but it's a mass market, you know, paperback, so it's not really worth my time. But I have had some good luck with really niche books geared towards specific things like clock making, or I did find a nursing book at Goodwill that I sold for like$68 or something. So that was a and that was early on. That was a good one. I found a dental assistant textbook. So that one was a good one. I had a lot of duds in the beginning, and some of them I ended up just pulling off because I was like, this is never going to sell, and if it does, I'm going to make 50 cents. It's just not worth my time. So they went back to the thrift store.
Suzanne Wells:Yeah, books do take some patience to look through them. And I sold books back when they started that on Amazon for several years. And the scouting tools, I mean, they only give you so much information. It's still like the human brain needs to make that decision. Because, right, you know, they'll they'll just show you what they're selling for, or what the actives are priced at.
Unknown:Well. And the app that I was using, this book scatter app, I don't use it anymore, I found that it's just not accurate for me. So what I used to do was I would load all my kids up, and we would go to Goodwill, and we would go to the book section, and I would make them a little pile of Kid books, and they would sit there in the aisle with me and look through the kid books while I was scanning all of these other books. And I would end up with a cart full of books. And then we would go to the toy aisle, and they would play with the toys, and I would do some research on my phone for the next half an hour or whatever. And I would end up putting almost every single book back once I did the actual eBay research. So even though the app told me, this book is selling for 2498 on Amazon, or that's what it's listed for, really, there's, you know, it's selling for $12 maybe on eBay, but there's like 60 of them, and only three have sold. So it's, like, not worth my time. So that's kind of how I did it in the beginning. And I've gotten away from books now, because I have not it takes a lot of time, I think, and I can't look at a book and just know that it's going to sell really well. Do you know what I mean? And so I've kind of, yeah, gone away from books a little bit, with the exception of, like, you know, old leather Bibles, like I got a Bible at a thrift store. They had a $10 fill your cart to the brim with books. So my mom watched the kids for me while they napped, and I went back down there and filled my cart up with books. And the Bible that I had found sold for $75 in like, two days. So that covered all of my books, and some of the other ones have sold for not that was early on, and I don't think I would do that again. It's just not worth it for the small amount of profits that I have made from the rest of the books. The Bible was great, but the rest of them, you know, I could have just left him and I wouldn't be any worse off now. So I've kind of learned that books aren't really my thing unless, you know, it's like textbooks I'll look at, or, you know, old Bibles, stuff like that. But that's kind of where I am at with books these days. Well, I don't
Suzanne Wells:know if you heard how it was back in the day when all this started, maybe around 2010 because they came out with the book scouting, like those handheld it was like a handheld device. I've seen those, okay, like a brick cell phone, almost that size. And the thing was, you could scan the barcode and it would tell you what it's listed for on Amazon, and how many there were. And you know, you can do a lot of things with that information, and you can do and on the other hand, it's like not enough information. You know, it's not telling you, yes, buy this, because it's all about how much you're paying for it, how many there are available. But people were just crazy about those book scanners. And I would go to library sales, and it was brutal. People tag teaming. You know, there's one scanning, and then he's throwing the book across the room to his partner. He was putting him in a bag. And you would just see him at Goodwill, just monopolizing the whole book area with their scanning stuff. And, I mean, people were downright rude about it, and I just never really I had one, and I tried it, and it was like you had to connect the device to the computer with a cord and download the newest information every day, if you were going out, you know, whenever you were going out to use that device, you had to update the database inside of it. And it wasn't wireless or anything it was. And, you know, I, I embrace anything new, like, oh, there's a new way to do. This. Let's see how it works. But again, it just comes down to the human brain making that decision because a lot of sellers were intimidated to do books because of these people with these devices, they were they weren't cheap, they were over $100 and you know, now that's a snap on your phone, so it's different. But you know, they're like, oh, they have this magical tool that's telling them what to buy, and you know how much they're going to make. And, no, it's, it's not that. It's just like any other product you're doing the research on. You have to understand the market and how many are available, and what you're paying for it. And you know, how what kind of seller are you? Do you want to flip things fast or, you know, wait, and so that was a real education back in the day, and the technology has really changed now. There's nothing wrong with looking them up on your phone right now. It's just, what are you going to do with that information? Because it's not, you know, Aladdin telling you buy this and you're going to get this sale. It would be different. Maybe if it said,
Unknown:like, you know, there's 100% sell through rate or an 80% sell through rate within 30 days, or something. I don't think they probably give enough information. And I did see, when I first started researching this, that people had these little devices, and I thought, Oh, I wonder if I could justify buying one of those, because I've always been very frugal, very thrifty. I don't like to spend money on things that aren't a necessity. But I I thought better of it at the time, and now I'm like, I'm so glad I didn't do that, because I'm I've kind of shifted away from books. I'll still sell them, but it's not my main focus. My mom got a mailer a few months ago for a church book sale, and she was like, Oh, why don't you go? And I was like, I just it's less appealing to me now that I have found other things that are more profitable than books and take a lot less effort, at least for me,
Suzanne Wells:yeah, and they are a lot of work, if, like, I don't know how Eileen the book lady, does it, because she just sells these big sets of books, and, you know, the decorative books, and just, she comes at it from every angle. But books are heavy, yeah? So you know, if you have to carry them in, like, upstairs, and that's where your eBay room is, or whatever, and it's, you know, schlepping them from the store to your car and then out of your car. And, like, if you're selling hundreds of books, that's, that's a heavy product. The day
Unknown:that I did the fill your cart for $10 I had to carry boxes of books back into the house. And I was like, Why did I do this? And I probably took half of them back
Suzanne Wells:your card for $10 that's why you did it well.
Unknown:And I grabbed all these romance novels because I had all this extra space in my cart, and I had, I was burnt out, and I had gone through all the stuff I wanted to, and I'm like, well, I might as well fill my cart with sets of romance novels. And then I got home and I organized, organized them all by, you know, author, or they were, they all grouped together somehow, and they're in my death pile. They're just still sitting there, and they're all in separate boxes. I have all the shipping information. I'm just not excited about them, and I so they're I'm just, like, kind of dreading, do you know what I mean? Part of me wants to take those back too. Because I'm like, is it really worth the hassle? I could have all these shelves back, if I would just take those books
Suzanne Wells:back. You mean, like, re donate them? Yes, yeah. I
Unknown:didn't really pay anything, the way I'm looking at it. I didn't pay anything for them. It was $10 cart. The Bible paid for all of it. Plus I got a bunch of books for my kids in that deal too. So I'm like, I got all these books. It doesn't really hurt my feelings to get rid of them again. So I may end up doing that. I may not, I don't know well,
Suzanne Wells:and you could just donate them to the library, because they have their library sales, and kind of just put them in a different a different sphere. Instead of taking them right back to the store you got them at, right? They could go somewhere else. That's true. Yeah. So now we didn't talk about where you live, okay?
Unknown:So I live in South Central Montana. Billings is the city that I grew up in. It's the biggest city in Montana. There's still only 100,000 people here. But we lived out of state for a while, and we moved back in March, and we bought property about 25 minutes outside of town, and we are building a homestead from scratch, basically. So we spent the summer building a shop and living in our camper. And it was great. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it it was way easier than I thought it was going to be. I think the with the weather being nice, we spent all of our time outside. Me and the girls basically all day, every day, we were just playing outside. And now that the weather is cold, we've come back to my mom's house. We had planned on living in the shop over the winter, but we ran into an issue with the spray foam. It it was, it's kind of a big order. Deal. But so we lived out there for, I think, four months or so, and that kind of changed how I did things, too, because I was not in town, it was about 25 to 30 minutes to the closest thrift store. And also living in the camper. I didn't have a lot of space for stuff. We were living a very minimalistic lifestyle. So I did bring a lot of the books that I had bought, I put in a tote and just slid them under the camper with some padded envelopes and, you know, tape and all that stuff. So I did have some of my stuff there. My mom was so kind to let me leave a lot of my inventory at her house in her basement, which was kind of a pain, because if I sold something, then I had to drive into town. If it wasn't a day I was already planning on going, we had to drive into town so I could ship out this thing. So that was a little bit of a pain. But I just kept sourcing and kept doing what I was doing, but instead of going all the way into town to thrift stores, I started sourcing through online auctions. And I know you've been talking about this a lot in your podcast lately, there are two local online auctions. One of them does the thrift stores, and some other like estates and stuff, and the other one mainly just does estates. And so that has been a good way for me to source because I can do the research from home during nap time, you know, in the morning, at night, just whenever I have some time, I can scroll through and what I find the cool thing about that is the people that run the auctions typically have a pretty good idea of what things are valuable, and that's why those things are going in auction. So instead of me walking into an entire thrift store and having to figure out what obscure things have value, someone's kind of already picked them out and set them aside. And sometimes some of these items just go for nothing. Other times they you know, they go for a lot people see the value in them, but it's been a fun way for me to learn about a lot of things without having to drag all the kids to the thrift store and spend a couple hours and, you know, then Everyone's tired and cranky, we can just stay home. And then there's a pickup day, and I can run down and, you know, we can go pick them up and go visit grandma or whatever. So that's been a good way for me to source I bought a few duds, but I've had some really good success. Like, one of the things that I bought was it was a lot, it was in Oculus, like VR headset, tennis shoes. And the other thing that I've noticed about the auctions is they have a lot of typos in their titles, and I think people miss things, or things are mislabeled. So it said like toga tennis shoes and VR headset. So I bid $1 I bid $2 and I won it, and I was like, Cool, I'll get this headset and hopefully be able to sell that in the shoes. You know, maybe they'll fit someone I know. Well, they were brand new Sketchers, Goga Max tennis shoes, even though they were just listed as toga shoes. So I sold the shoes on Poshmark for 20 bucks, and I sold the headset for a either 100 or 105 and it sold in less than a week and two bucks. I, you know, sold. I made 125 bucks, you know, minus the fees or whatever. But that was a pretty good flip. I thought for Yeah, you know, something like that. I've noticed that
Suzanne Wells:too about the way they title things. I keep talking about this, but it just Yes, it's mind blowing that they'll just have this box of stuff and they'll just title it things we think are cool, and, oh, we have a paperweight. And just, you know, all these random things, and you might find, like, zoom in and see, like, two things that that you could sell. And the other day, I got, I got some of my winnings shipped to me, and there was this lighter in there, what looked like a lighter, but it was a cloisonne a sleeve for, like, a Bic lighter, like decorative and pretty, and that wasn't even shown in the pictures. And I'm like, Well, what is this? And I looked it up and I sold it for like, 30 bucks in a couple days. It was just a little freebie thing thrown in there, and it wasn't even what I was bidding on. But so I love those. I like that they label their lots just in these crazy ways, like nobody's going to search for that. Nobody's going to search for things we think are cool. Yeah, yeah. And
Unknown:at first, I kind of thought it was annoying. I'm like, I don't want to zoom in like, I want it to just say exactly what it is, but now I'm kind of using that to my benefit. Yeah, people zoom in that closely, or maybe some do, but maybe
Suzanne Wells:they only search. They're only searching for. What was it? Low leak ornaments that, yeah, right. I'm like, yeah, that people. All over this. They're bidding on it. You want the box lots, let's say I want a lot of baby clothes, like hand crocheted baby clothes and embroidered napkins, you know, little small linens like that. And it was labeled something like old, handmade stuff. It wasn't vintage baby clothes, hand crocheted, embroidered napkins and tablecloth. So it's almost like you become a real treasure hunter, and you don't search for things anymore, maybe enough to get you to find the auction, because I have pretty much everything shipped to me, and so I'm focusing on small, lightweight things. And I just love these box lots of random odds and ends, because there's always treasures in there, and it shows up at my door and I'm like, oh, what's in here? There have been
Unknown:a lot of times that I've gone to pick up my pick up my stuff, and I get home and there's some random stuff in the bottom, and I'm like, I didn't know this was in there. And, you know, there was, like, a really nice new beanie in one of the boxes of stuff, and, like, a thermos. And I, I bid on a lot of Christmas decor last week for me not to sell, just for me. And there's also locally, we have a Facebook group. It's called bid it to win it, and people post their stuff in there. The bidding has to start at $1 and you have the option of a 2448 or 72 hour auction, and it's just local people bidding, and you never know if it's something's going to go for $2 or $50 or whatever. It's just kind of luck of the draw. So in the bottom of my Christmas decor was a bag of, like, bikini wax beads, so I put that on bit it to win it, and then I took all the decor that I didn't want out of the box and put it on bit it to win it, and I sold that stuff for more than the box of decor cost me. So I got the decor that I wanted for free. Basically made a few extra dollars. And the people, it's all porch pickups, so they all come to your house and pick it up. And so I don't have to do anything except take a picture and put it on the site. And he doesn't have to be eBay quality pictures. It's like, throw it on the kitchen table, take a picture of it and post it up there. So that's really cool. Um, from that Facebook group, I got a set of cloth diapers, brand new in the bags with the tags on for $2 and I just sold them this week for $90 so that was an awesome flip that I was pretty excited about. So that that worked out good. They
Suzanne Wells:sat on eBay or on your local site. The sale was
Unknown:on eBay. Oh, actually, it was on Poshmark. I rarely post on Poshmark or Mercari. I do occasionally for certain things, um, I find that, like, I don't do a lot of clothing, but the shoes, I think, are a good Poshmark item, and then the cloth diapers, too. I posted, I did have those both on eBay, but they both actually did sell on Poshmark. But I think those are the only two Poshmark sales I've had in the last few months. So I don't use it a lot, but I did for those, um, but yeah, so that's another way that I can source is that bid it to win it group, and it's kind of fun. You never know what you're going to find on there. So
Suzanne Wells:that's a good one. So have you bought things on there to sell on eBay. I
Unknown:actually did last week I won. I actually paid up 50 bucks for it, which is way more than I like to spend on anything. It's an R generation ambulance. So you know the dolls, the 18 inch dolls. It's the ambulance, but it's brand new. It's got the tags on it. It's got all the accessories still in the plastic and the comps on eBay, the used ones are going for a couple 100 bucks. The last new one that sold, I think, was like $595 or something. So I thought, you know, even if I only sell it, only sell it for a couple $100 which would be great if I could sell it for more. Since it's brand new, they're out of stock online, so I'm thinking someone for Christmas maybe will, you know, buy this for their kid. The problem I've run into is I cannot find a box big enough. So that's on my to do list, is to go find a box big enough, or Franken box a way to ship it, because I'm afraid that it'll be too big to ship USPS, and I'll have to go ups, because I listed it with the dimensions that I thought, and it was showing local pickup only. So when I reached out to eBay, they were like, oh, it's because you have it as USPS ground advantage, and it's too big, so I need to find a box, but I'm hoping that that turns out to be a nice flip, and it might not be. And if it's not, I have three girls that would probably they actually were with me, women to go pick it up, and they are so bummed that Mommy's gonna sell it. It's not for us. Oh, no. Oh, it might end up being a Christmas present, but. Yep, we'll see. Well,
Suzanne Wells:I'm getting into the American Girl and our generation dolls. I started after talking to so many people on this podcast that are having success with the dolls and the clothing and the accessories, and I have to learn it, because I don't have little ones that, you know, play with it, and I'm not around it, but I did find three of the American Girl Welly wisher dolls. Oh, it's like a, it's like a line of their dolls at a thrift store. I mean, I made, I'm like, I'm gonna start looking for these dolls. And, like, the next day I was out, I saw them. Oh, awesome. They've been there, you know, you know how when you are intentional about something, and then you start seeing it everywhere. But, yeah, they were, like, $2 they immaculate condition. You know how some dollars are written on or have dog teeth marks or whatever. And I've got them up for like, $30 a piece right now, just to see how it works. They all have the original outfits on. Their hair hasn't been cut. That's a miracle, all the things that happen so and then I have seen the bags of clothing occasionally in the thrift stores. And I love doing those bags of anything, because, again, it's, it's like, it's a mystery what's in there that I can't see.
Unknown:It is fun when there that element of surprise. You don't know what it's going to be. It could be great. It could be a dud, but it's just fun and exciting to find out. Yeah, and
Suzanne Wells:I respect the stores policy. Don't open the bag, you know? You kind of move it around, flip it over, look and see what you can see. But there's always stuff in the middle that you can't see, yeah, for sure. Anyway, okay, now, have you always lived in Montana, or I
Unknown:grew up here? We did move. So I lived in Tennessee for a while, which is where I met my husband, and then we moved back to Montana, and got married in 2017 and then we moved to Arizona for a couple of years, and it was too hot. My husband does commercial refrigeration and HVAC stuff. He spends a lot of time on roofs, and we were in Tucson, and he was like, this is brutal, it's hot, it's miserable. I don't want to be here. So we moved back to Montana, and then we moved to West Virginia for almost three years. He got a job out there that paid for our move, and then we just decided, like, we miss Montana. My parents are getting older. My dad lives like in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny house that he built. And I just thought it would be nice to be close to family, especially with young kids, it's hard to raise young kids away from all of your family. And my husband's family is in Arizona, so we decided to move back. So we moved back in March, and that's when we bought the land and decided that we're gonna build everything ourselves. And it's been a really, a really fun adventure. It's gonna be all self funded, and we're gonna build everything basically ourselves. We're gonna try not to hire too many contractors. We hired a contractor for the spray foam. He's not a contractor. It was a neighbor, and he did a very bad job. But it's okay. We're moving on. We're moving up. We're gonna do a YouTube channel. We have recording as we've been going because I think there's, you know, people like that DIY type of thing. So we I've recorded stuff all all summer. Basically, I'm learning how to use the editing stuff to make our you know, I'm working on our first YouTube video right now. So, yeah, home setting Montana and excellent. Basically, just building from scratch. So it's a it's good to be back. I don't like the cold weather. I love snow. I think it's beautiful. I am always cold, though, and I don't like it when it's cold, but that's okay. The nice thing about eBay is I don't really have to go out a lot just, you know, driving here and there to pick things up. And my husband's willing to drop stuff off at the post office for me all the time, because he's got to go in anyways. So he's going into town if I have packages, he takes them for me and drops them off. And it works out wells so well,
Suzanne Wells:I was expecting you to be talking about, it's difficult to find things in a rural area, but, well, I have resources that you
Unknown:there are any? I think that the types of things that I find here are just different than people would find in big cities. I think, do you know what I mean? There's a lot of Western stuff here. There's a lot of cold weather stuff here. There's a lot of you know that show Yellowstone kind of made Montana and this whole western side of the country, like it's like all the rage, or whatever. So I think that Western style stuff. Is selling pretty well. Western decor, you know, that type of thing. There's a lot of like, higher end winter clothing and stuff. I just don't like doing clothing. I don't want to do the measurements. I don't want to deal with returns because things don't fit, because I offer free returns. And I just don't really want to go there. You know what I mean. So not something I'm interested in doesn't make me excited. But I've also sourced from garage sales, couple of estate sales, free piles are like my favorite. I'll find leftovers from a garage sale that people leave out in just a pile for free. I have sold quite a few things from free piles. I found a piece of Weller pottery, some books, and I'm trying to think of what else came from a free pile. I found some dirt bike parts, which I know nothing about, but my husband and his brother both raced dirt bikes their whole lives, and so they knew exactly what it was when I brought it home. Trying to think just like random things that I can find for free, and then if it doesn't sell for a lot, it's okay. I was trying to qualify for the eBay international shipping at one point when I was new, and I knew I had to sell 100 items. So from this pile of free stuff, I had all these books, and the comps weren't great, but I thought, even if I'm not making a lot of profit, if they're going to sell quickly, it's going to boost my number of sales, and then I'll qualify for the eBay international shipping more quickly. So I listed them all, and then my phone would catching and I'm all excited, and it's like, oh, this book sold for, you know, 699 so, you know, I'm going to pack a few bucks, and it's fine, but
Suzanne Wells:well, but you have to do what you have to do to get where you want to go, and jump through the hoops. And I think that was smart, just to get sales. And, you know, sometimes people get below standard on their eBay account for whatever reasons. And one of the things is you gotta get more sales to bring up your percentages, so you just do what you have to do to move forward to your goal. And you know, looking back, you're like, Yeah, I wasn't real profitable, but I got where I needed to be.
Unknown:Well, yeah, and it was a little more work. But, I mean, I'm not afraid of hard work and having to
Suzanne Wells:put living in Montana on a homestead, I would say, not, right,
Unknown:exactly. So, I mean, it's just kind of like comes with the territory, you know, but it helped me get to where I wanted to be, like you said. So put in the extra work in the beginning to get where you want to be quicker. And then, you know, I just got the email, I don't know, a couple weeks ago that I qualified for the international shipping. So I'm like, yay. Hopefully I will have an increase in sales. We'll see. So,
Suzanne Wells:yeah, absolutely. Now, how many items do you have listed?
Unknown:I think right now, I only have about 80. So 81. Of the nice things about eBay for me is that I have so much going on. We spent so much time building over the summer and then having the three little kids. And, you know, like, I cook all of our meals from scratch, so I do a lot of meal planning and prepping and that type of thing. I bake all of our bread products, like, I do a lot of extra things. So I don't always have a lot of time, but it there's kind of a correlation between how much effort you put in and what you get out. So if things are slow for a while, like if I'm not able to put a lot into eBay, that's okay, because I've put in a lot of work before, so those things will keep selling. And I just know that down the road, things might slow down because I haven't been adding as much, but when I have more time, I can put more thing, I can list more things, I can get more stuff on there, and then my sales will go back up. But it's not like, Okay, I'm so busy for these next two weeks I'm not gonna be able to list anything. But that doesn't mean everything just comes to a halt and my eBay account is no more. Do you know what I mean? And it's not like a normal job where it's like, Hey, boss, I can't come to work for two weeks. Can I still keep my job? So it's kind of there when I need it or want it, and if I need to take a step back, I can take a step back, and it's okay. And that's kind of the beauty of doing your own thing, is you decide what you're able or willing to do, to put into it. And if it's not a lot right now, it's not a lot, and maybe some other times, I'm going to have a lot more free time, and then I'll be able to, you know, put more in. But I've really been trying to, I've told myself I'm going to list bare minimum, one thing a day, every day, no excuses, no matter what my goal is, three a day. But some days are just so chaotic that one is my bare minimum. So that's what I've been really trying to do, just to keep myself in the algorithm and keep things going. But at this point in my life, I don't think I'll be a huge seller with a store and, you know, hundreds of items listed, but that's okay. That's the beauty of eBay, is you can make it work for what. Works for you and make it fit around your lifestyle. So that's kind of probably one of my favorite things about it, is I can take a step back, or I can really dive in and, you know, put a lot into it
Suzanne Wells:well. And with three small children, I don't know how you have time to do anything.
Unknown:Some days I have more time than others. So it just the weather is a big factor. If we can go play outside and burn off some of their energy, and I can sit on the computer while they're, you know, playing in the art, or whatever it just, it kind of depends. And some days I've got lots of time, and other days are just nothing gets done as far as eBay. And that's fine. And I've just kind of accepted that because, I think, because I'm not trying to build this empire right now, this eBay Empire for myself, it's okay with me, maybe someday, that would be really cool. But I'm also going to start homeschooling my oldest next year, so that's going to be more of my time that's taken doing other things. But like I said, it'll always be there. I'll always find things, I'm sure, and I can list them, and you know, it'll be good. It's a nice, flexible way of just bringing in a little extra income. I'm not trying to replace a full time income. I'm not trying to, you know, buy a car. I just want to help build our homestead quicker, because it takes money. And when the, you know, we're paying as we go, and there's only so much we can do at one time, so if I can add some money to the pot, to, you know, add the next thing, then that's, that's great. It's just getting us closer to our goal. You know what I mean? So absolutely
Suzanne Wells:now, what was your professional life before you became a stay at home mom? I
Unknown:did real estate for a short period of time, and then I decided, once we decided, like, I want to have kids and stay home and do all these things, I kind of backed away from real estate. I worked as a receptionist at a hospital for a year. That was That was fun. I worked in a vascular surgery clinic, all kinds of cool stuff. So I never really like had a profession. Well, I guess kind of, I was a realtor, but I've just kind of done all sorts of things. I was a bartender for years. That's how I met my husband. So not really like a professional job, but that's
Suzanne Wells:okay. I mean, just, you know, you don't go from zero to stay at home, Mama three, there's, there's stuff in there, but yeah, to have good business sense. And I really love the moms out there that blend this with, you know, blend this with their life, because, you know, you can't go back and raise your kids over again, right on shot and eBay is going to be there. Reselling has been there since the dawn of time. Yeah, you know, back in the 50s, consignment stores and garage sales started in the 70s, and, you know, wheeling and dealing and barter and all that stuff. So reselling isn't going away, right, but it is addicting. Like you said, when you It totally is seeing for $1
Unknown:and you sell
Suzanne Wells:it for 150 and you're like, oh, what else is out there?
Unknown:Yeah, once I started, I just was like, I just can't stop. And I'm always telling my husband, do I know what I sold today? He's like, Yes, tell me. So I tell him all the things that I sold. And some days I sell a couple things. And some days, you know, sometimes I go a week without selling anything, and I'm okay with that, you know, like I said, I'm not trying to turn it into this huge thing right now. Maybe someday that would be really cool. But right now, I'm okay with sporadic sales, and I've also been trying to really hone in on the types of things that I sell like I want to turn and burn. I don't want to store things for months on end, especially because I don't have a lot of space. So I want to bring things in and I want to list it, and I want to sell it, and I typically will list for $1 or two lower than the lowest price, as long as it's not extreme. Do you know what I mean? But so, for example, I recently bought, well, I bought a lot from a gal probably three or four months ago, and it was some Rodan and Fields stuff, some sunscreen and some other creams. I can't remember the sunscreen. I don't think there were, like, two other listings, maybe, and she had four bottles, and I paid $5 a bottle, and I sold the lot for 120 so that was a good flip. The other things there were more. There was, like, eight to 10 of them listed. And so I just looked at the lowest price. They were all pretty close, and I just priced mine $2 lower, and it sold within a week. And so that's kind of how I like to do things, price it just a couple bucks lower, just enough to incentivize somebody to pick mine, and then I can get it out, and then I don't have to deal with storing it and all of that stuff. So that's kind of how I like to do things. Turn and burn, yeah.
Suzanne Wells:I mean, if you have a supply and it's easy for you to get things, I've, I've come over to that mindset recently, and just, I like selling things. I don't want to sit and wait, right? I don't like selling things. I like shipping things and like, oh, this person's going to get this. A thing that they is unusual that they really want. And I got a great feedback the other day. I've been selling those empty perfume bottles, and I bought those on an online auction, and it was, it was labeled really weird. It was just like, Chanel bags and bottles or something. And you would think it was handbags, but it was like shopping the store bags and boxes, containers Chanel stuff to put things in. But anyway, there were, I think, five or six of these perfume bottles that had the original box and this beautiful glass top. And I was like, somebody's gonna buy that. So I got the whole lot of stuff for $3 nice, and it's all almost sold. But this lady bought one of those perfume bottles, and she left this feedback. Let me, let me pull this up so I can read it, because this is what makes it. This is what makes us keep doing eBay. So she said, purchase item for 60th birthday, visual display for centerpieces for a friend. The bottle is in excellent condition. The original box is in pristine condition, and is the best purchase of an empty bottle with box I have purchased so far, packaged with TLC and shipped quickly. Highly recommend seller to all and will purchase from again. Now here's the thing is, like she took the time to write this glowing feedback about an empty bottle and right, there was nothing in it, and so I I reached out to her, and I said, Thank you so much for that wonderful feedback. Thank you for letting me know what you're doing with this. Because I wonder when I sell these empty boxes and like, what are people doing with it? And yeah, another person that bought those was an art student. She was making a project. And, you know, people do collect empty perfume bottles, but there's a whole lot of other things that's going on with them too. So you know, that helps me be a better seller. When I can get information from my buyer, like, what are you doing? What they're doing, this. It
Unknown:gives you ideas for what you could possibly sell in the future. Yes, yeah. She took the time to do that. That was, I
Suzanne Wells:know, and she was just a very classy, kind lady to do that. I was like, I really appreciate you telling me the story. It helps me be a better seller. Yeah,
Unknown:that's cool. I love getting positive feedback. I put a little handwritten note in every single thing that I ship that just says, you know, thank you for your purchase and for supporting us. And if you have any questions, please reach out. And depending on the item, I like to put a little joke at the bottom, because I think that kind of lightens the mood, and I think that's what makes people leave me positive feedback. In the beginning, I got a lot of positive feedback, and I kind of chalked it up to the, you know, the personal touches. So something that I've been selling a lot of is vintage Kirby vacuums and vacuum parts. Okay, somewhere when I was first researching, or, you know, learning about eBay, that some vacuums and parts sell well, so I went on Facebook marketplace, and somebody was selling three vintage Kirby vacuums. They've been listed forever, and so I offered them 30 bucks. And she said, Sure, please just come get them. So I went and bought them. And then there was another listing. A lady had one listed for, I think, $50 it was a garage sale listing, and I saw in the pictures, and I asked her how much, she said 50. And I said, if you decide that you would like to sell for $10 please let me know. And she said, Oh, that's way too low. And I said, Okay, that's fine. Well, the next day, she messaged me and said, If you still want it for $10 please come take it. So I went and got it. So now I have four vacuums. So I started researching and realized that so many of these parts are just selling for boat loads, and I think later that week, all in the same week, I ended up with five vacuums. There was another person selling a vintage it's called a dual Santa Tronic 80. It's from like, the 50s or 60s, and it had all of the accessories with it and everything. So and I picked that one up for 30 bucks. So for $70 I have these five vacuums, and I just tallied it up. So far, I've made $778 off of vacuums and parts. So I've sold two full vacuums, and then I've sold the cords, the bags, the handles, the motors, the hoses, the attachments. I all of those different parts. So that has been fun for me. When I find a vacuum, I get so excited. And my husband the other day said, Man, I'm sure glad all those vacuum parts are out of here. And I was like, don't look in the closet, because I just got another free one last time. Yeah, I just have one listed. Someone had one listed forever. And so I sent him a message and said, Would you consider 10 bucks? And he said, You can have it for free, if you can come get it today. So I just drove over and got it. And so now we have another vacuum that I need to part out. But so when
Suzanne Wells:people ask you, when people ask you, what do you sell on eBay? Oh, vacuum cleaner parts. And you just, you have this random list, like, I'll be like, Oh, empty bottles and trash. Yeah,
Unknown:right, well, but not just vacuum parts, vacuum parts from the 50s. Like, really vacuum parts. But we had a Kirby when I was a kid, and, man, that thing was a workhorse. So it's been actually pretty fun. I can take the Kirby's all apart and put them back together. And it's, it's pretty cool. So and the people that bought them have just been thrilled. One guy bought a vacuum, a whole vacuum, for $160 and then was so pleased about it. He left me good feedback. He also sent me a message, and I said, Well, I have more accessories that go with that vacuum. So then he bought more to go with that. And he said, I really just bought it because my mom died, and it just reminds me of her, you know, some nostalgia. It's exactly the same vacuum that we had when I was growing up, and that's why I wanted it. And I just thought, Man, how cool that I have. The exact thing that this guy wanted to remember his mom like, just a sweet, you know, a sweet story so
Suzanne Wells:well. And, you know, vacuum cleaner bags are another thing I look for. Yeah, I haven't found any really good ones lately. Usually the package is open and there's a few and, but the parts, you know, they don't make them anymore, right?
Unknown:Well, and those Kirby's were made to last forever. I haven't sold any of the bags like that. They sell like they go on the inside, but like the cloth bags that came with those old ones. I sold a cloth bag from a vintage Kirby for $76 I think, really, just for the bag. So I mean, people like the and people restore them. There's like, there's Kirby groups on Facebook, and there's people that restore them, and they shine them up and they make them look brand new, and that's their hobby. So I just think it's cool that people keep those
Suzanne Wells:well and good for them, for keeping it going and keeping it out of the landfill, and looking for the parts so they can continue to use it for however many more years.
Unknown:Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah.
Suzanne Wells:Okay. Um, well, we're getting close to the end here. Okay. Do you have any other sales you want to share?
Unknown:Um, I did sell a knitting machine that I bought off of Facebook marketing. I saw that, yes. So I bought it for, I can't remember if it was 70 or$75 and it was missing a part, not an important part. Um, I can't remember what it was that it was missing, but I disclosed it. Um, something that I hadn't thought about at the time was like, how big of a pain it was going to be to ship it. But I just estimated on the shipping dimensions and all of that stuff, and I had it listed for maybe a couple weeks. And one night, we were getting ready for bed, and my phone went off, and someone had sent me an offer, I think I had it listed for 350 someone had sent me an offer for like, I think, 300 or something. And I was so excited. And as I was running downstairs to tell my husband, yeah, so I was running down to tell him, and then when I clicked on it, it was gone. They had retracted it. And I was like, oh, man, I didn't even know you could do that. So I was all bombed. And then half an hour later, I got another offer for 280 and so we chatted back and forth, and she said, if you can get the shipping cost lower, I'll pay more for it. And I said, Well, I don't know. I have to get packing materials. I'm fine with 280 if you are. Because I knew, even if she pays extra in shipping, like it doesn't matter if it's she's paying for the shipping or the item, because I'll just, even if she overpays for shipping, I'll just keep that extra. Do you know what I'm saying, instead of selling it for 300 and lowering the shipping for $20 so we just sold it as is shipping. It was kind of a nightmare. I used pool noodles and bubble wrap and all kinds of everything that I could think of. I ended up shipping it in two boxes and for like, almost exactly what she paid in shipping. So it worked out fine. I think I might have made $10 on the shipping, but she paid over$100 to ship it, I think, like 120 something. And I was so nervous, and it was heavy and it was long, it was really long, like 36 inches long or something. And I just waited anxiously and was constantly checking the tracking, and it arrived, and she left me great feedback, and she loves it. So I was really happy about that one. And then the other cool sale I had was one of these local auctions. I won a set of Royal Albert bone china, which, again, I didn't really think about shipping when I bid on it. I just knew it was the lady. Carlisle pattern, and I had done some research, and I knew it sold for a lot. And it was some dinner plates and some salad plates. So I sold the salad plates fairly quickly for $95 I think there was four of them, and they went to West Virginia, which I had just moved back from Virginia. So I wrote a little note to the lady and told her that we lived there. And then she when she got them, she messaged me and said, these are so beautiful, and how cool that you lived in West Virginia. I love to visit Montana someday, yada yada. And then I said, well, and she said, these are way more beautiful than I imagined. And I said, I also have some dinner plates listed if you're interested. You know, I'll give you a deal if you buy all of them. And so she asked me how much I wanted, and I said, 200 bucks. So she bought those for $200 so then I shipped, or wrapped up all the dinner plates. I think I had four of those, either four or six, I can't remember, and shipped them to her. And then a couple weeks later, I got, or I was looking through that same auction, and there was more of the same pattern of the lady Carlisle in that Royal Albert, and it was a tea set. It was a three piece tea set, with the tea pot, the sugar and the creamer, and it was in the box, in the original box. And I thought, Oh, that would be so easy to ship, because I can just pack that box in another box. And so I bid on that, and I think I got it for like, 19 bucks, maybe, or maybe it's 28 bucks. I can't even remember now, but I sold that for $174 not to the same lady, but it was still a good sale for me. So now, every time it was from one of the thrift stores in the area, it was from their auction. So every time they have a new auction come up, I'm always looking maybe there's more of that because it's the same person probably donating it to this rescue mission thrift store. So that was a good one. And I sold somebody had bought the wrong type of toner for their HP printer. They had it listed on Facebook. It was five of the big cartridges that they sold me for 50 bucks, and I sold in two lots, the color and the black for a total of 390 bucks. And those sold in less than a week. Those sold quickly. So that was a good flip, and that was something that I also paid more for upfront than I like to, but I was pretty certain that it was going to be worth it, and it was in the end. So
Suzanne Wells:Well, that's, gosh, you've done a lot. You don't sound new at all. Oh,
Unknown:well, I feel like it often times I just feel like, man, what am I even doing sometimes? But I'm I'm really learning a lot from your Facebook group. There is so much helpful information in there, and people are so kind. I'm in another thrifting group or a reselling group, and people are a lot less friendly in that one. So I typically go to your group to ask questions as a newbie, because people are kind in their responses and they're not judgmental. And, like,
Suzanne Wells:you don't want to have arrows shot in your back for asking a question. But
Unknown:yeah, it's like, Come on, I'm new. Like, just answer the question. Don't tell me why I'm dumb. I already feel dumb. Don't make me feel worse. Yeah,
Suzanne Wells:I mean, you know, that's why we moderate my group. The way we do is everybody's new at some point, and they shouldn't be afraid to ask a question. Because, I mean, there are people on social media that never say a word. They just read and watch. And I hate that, because if they need help, there's people that will help you, just ask. And you know, when
Unknown:I actually get help from the group, it's people that are so willing to help and offer advice, and then the other group, it's more just like snarky responses and sarcasm, and it's just like, okay, that's not what I that's not why I'm here. I would like to learn, right? Like, I can appreciate sarcasm because I am a sarcastic person, but when someone's genuinely looking for help, that's not really the time or place.
Suzanne Wells:Yeah, we just don't be rude and unkind, because, trust me, everywhere in life, you're going to need help with stuff, right? And you get back what you put out there. So if you you know, ridicule people for not knowing something, um, that's going to come back and bite you. That's, that's, I look at it, but yeah, and there's, there's some people, they're like, they just love helping people. That's, yeah, I used to go on Yahoo groups and answer questions about eBay because I was like, Oh, I know that. I can tell you, you're wired that way. He's like, Oh, that's so easy for me, I can tell you how to do that, and it's something that somebody might be very overwhelmed by, but really, just break it down into steps. It's, it's not, yeah, and that's, that's the thing is, like you see this whole eBay process of the listing and the shipping and dealing with customers, it's all very overwhelming. It's just separate pieces that you eventually string together, and you get good at all of them,
Unknown:right? Well, and it's hard when something comes up that you weren't expecting, maybe your first return, or something like that. Because when I had my first, well, I've only ever had one return, but it threw me into a panic. I was like, What do I do? I don't know how to handle this. What you know, and I think. I asked in the group, and people were very helpful, and it, it all got figured out and everything, you know, it was fine. Yeah, it wasn't the end of the world.
Suzanne Wells:I have a friend who has a house full of stuff, and I've been trying to get her to do eBay and, you know, helping her and doing zoom calls, and she, she's not gonna, she hasn't listed anything, and she's like, Yeah, I've been reading about returns and all these, you know, problems and scams. And I'm like, Look, if it was all bad, millions of people would not be doing it.
Unknown:I haven't been scammed a single time yet. People love
Suzanne Wells:to go on the internet and put their bad news and complain, gripe, and, you know, just don't listen to that. You know, you can hear that about a restaurant all these people, oh, it was terrible. Was awful. And then there's these people over here, like, Oh, we love it. It's great. So,
Unknown:yeah, think about the car you drive. There's probably millions of people that hate that car that you drive. They drove one once, and it was their least favorite car ever, but it works great for you. Like, don't let the naysayers scare you away from doing something. Yeah,
Suzanne Wells:exactly. So I don't know if she'll ever get on board, but hopefully it's just, you gotta put your filters on and, you know, pay attention to what's going to help you and focus on that and just the rest is just noise. Just Just forget it. Yep. So, well, thank you again for spending some time with me. And what is your plan for today, playing with the kiddos?
Unknown:Yeah, we actually don't have much planned for today. We may go out to the shop later today, my husband got four deer, and so we're working on processing those and getting them in the freezer, and it's been we've been going out in the evenings and doing that, so probably that later. But other than that, I think we have a pretty laid back day for today.
Suzanne Wells:So what kind of temperature are you going to have today? I think
Unknown:about 50. Oh, wow. Um, I didn't actually check today's temperature, but I know it's going to be warmer today than I was expecting, for sure. So or for this whole week, I don't think we're expected to get any snow, and I think it's going to be fairly warm, so maybe we'll be outside today. Take advantage of that before it's below, and I know it be to snow and all that always does.
Suzanne Wells:Okay? Catherine, well, thanks again, and we'll watch for your post on the Facebook group.
Unknown:Awesome. Thank you. Thanks,
Suzanne Wells:bye, bye. That wraps up this Christmas Day podcast. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll be back next week, which is also next year, with another unique and fascinating guest. Happy Selling everybody you