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
eBay Seller Chat with Jane in Oklahoma: Sells the Obscure: Orange Juice Cans, Fast Food Drinking Glasses, Ugly Mugs 😂
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Music. Hello, resellers, you have landed on episode number 200 of eBay the right way. Today's date is January 15. 2025 Yes, we made it to 200 you I want to thank everyone out there listening for supporting this podcast, because I wouldn't keep doing it without the support of my audience. I'm proud to say that the 200 episodes have been consecutive. I haven't missed a week since the very first one on March 24 2021 so we are going on four years. I really love how the podcast has evolved, celebrating the eBay community and hearing from sellers from all walks of life, all seller levels, and most importantly, how every seller has valuable experience to share, even if they don't think they do. Sometimes, when reaching out to guests, they think they don't have much to contribute, but the episode always comes together beautifully. So I am sending a big thank you to all my listeners for supporting this podcast by tuning in and listening and, of course, telling your friends about it. My guest today is Jane in Oklahoma, so let's dive into the chat. Hi listeners, and welcome back. I have Jane with us today. And how are you doing this afternoon? I'm doing great. How are you I'm wonderful. And you're in the middle of a snow event.
Unknown:Yes. Where are you located? Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Suzanne Wells:Okay, so not much snow there throughout the year, and we can
Unknown:have it's kind of depends on the year, and it depends on the day. This is Oklahoma, okay? Said, If you don't like the weather in Oklahoma, wait five minutes. And that's kind of, yeah,
Suzanne Wells:exactly, okay, well, I'm glad you're you're inside and warm and not having to be out in it. Yeah, good. Okay, well, normally, we start off with a little bit about you and what brought you to eBay and when
Unknown:I've been selling since 2017 but I have been working from home since 1989 Wow. Yeah, I worked in I worked for a publishing company. I have a graphic design degree, and I worked for advertising agencies, and, you know, publications. And the last big stint I had was producing telephone directories. Oh, we all know where those went. Yeah, but anyway, I had a lifetime career of producing telephone directories, and in that, in the process of doing that, I learned about photography, I learned about copywriting, I learned about advertising, all different kinds of companies. You know, accuracy was a big deal. I started out on the boards, producing everything myself, and I ended up managing the people that did that. Didn't know how to turn on a computer, until I started my own business, when everybody got laid off, right? I worked for a small company for years, and then they got bought out by a Dun and Bradstreet company, a large company, and they put me in charge of the whole state of Oklahoma's production. So I lived in two cities at the same time for two years. That was an interesting thing. Oh gosh. I worked in Oklahoma City, and I worked here, and I had graphic designers, typesetters and proofreaders in both offices working for me, and I split the week. Split the week. Drove up and down the Turnpike, you know, all that kind of stuff. Well, they closed the Oklahoma operations eventually, and laid everybody off if we didn't want to move somewhere crazy, which I didn't want to move anywhere crazy. So I took the layoff. I was like, I'm going to stay here. I don't know how they're going to do with these other markets, because they're not doing well here. And turns out they didn't do well in the other markets, so I'm glad I didn't uproot myself. So as a result of that, the salesmen who were selling all these yellow pages ads, they started their own companies, because this company had just abandoned those markets, and they needed somebody to produce them. So here I was working from home. Them, and I had to learn over the course of time how to produce them on the computer, how to send, you know, then, then I would print the pages from the computer. Then we ended up sending CDs back and forth. Then we ended up doing emails. And I sent four or 500 page phone books back and forth to the printer on emails, oh gosh, PDF files. So I learned all that. Okay, so we hit up, and in the meantime, I worked in film and commercials and motion pictures because I had a flexible schedule, and that was fun. It was just kind of a side thing, and I could do it because, because I had a flexible schedule. And so that added to my income some, and it made my life really interesting. And I got out of the house because I was working after a job where you work with so many people, and you're traveling to go to, okay, it's just me sitting here in front of this desk by myself with a dog. You know, it was quite a, quite a different thing. So the film stuff kind of got me out doing something with people. And it was, it was fun and it was interesting. And I will never watch a motion picture with the same point of references I had. Now, I know all the stuff that goes on to do this and that, and I see all kinds of glitches, and I, you know, it's, it's kind of funny, but that was fun, and I did that in between. So then I
Suzanne Wells:think if you don't, you don't work in the film industry, you just have no clue how much goes on to produce that product. It's just so many people and so much time, and we just sit there and watch the movie for an hour and a half, and it, it might have taken years to make it.
Unknown:Yes, exactly. And it's, it's, and I worked one of my jobs, I worked up to being a production coordinator, which meant I had my fingers and everything, and I had production assistants running around, doing errands, and we had to send film back and forth for the dailies every day. We had to make sure all the actors were picked up at the airport. We had to provide, you know, housing and transportation and food for people, and, I mean, it was just everything, and then make sure if I was on set, on time. And it was fun, but it was, it was a lot of work and it was, it was challenging. But I like challenging, because my my job in corporate America was very challenging, that Oklahoma City office was challenging, so it was kind of a battleground, but I enjoyed it because it was challenging, and I like the people I worked with and stuff, so we got it done. You know, good for you, but that's the way that went. So, you know, fast forward a few years, I could see that the phone book industry was going to be on a decline because of all the, you know, online stuff and the phones and the cell phones and the texting and all that, and I could see it coming, and there was a slight decline. And I thought, well, I need to do something else. So I started taking pictures for Getty Images, and I stuck photo, and I still have 914, pictures available for download and passive income coming from that nice I threw that in at the time. This is before eBay. Before I knew anything about eBay, well, I was buying on eBay, but I wasn't selling on eBay. So then later on, a friend of mine showed me how to to to use eBay and to I sold a pair of boots that I had that just I had bought them. They were almost new, but they just weren't comfortable. And I sold those pretty quickly. And I thought, Okay, well, I can do this too. I'll just add this to the pile. So I'm still doing graphic design, I'm doing photography, I'm doing eBay, I'm working commercials here and there, blah, blah, blah. And so I did that and and got, you know, started on eBay, but not doing it all the time, because I'm doing all this other stuff, you know. So then the opportunity came up for me to do real estate photography for online, online tours. So okay, all these real estate all this real estate photography on top of everything else, still working from my home, you know? Now my home had I ended up buying a larger home because I had rented an office for a while, because I had to have extra help for this phone book thing. And I finally decided, you know, I need a bigger house. If I get a bigger house, I'm gonna have to be throwing my money away on this rent. So I bought a house that was twice the size of the one I was living in before, and so I could have people come and work for me. Well, down the road that stopped, because the phone book company, the phone book production, stopped, you know, started slowing down, so that then I started working more on selling on eBay. So seriously, I probably have been probably 2017 18 is when I really started trying to sell a lot on Ebay. I mean, I threw a few things up on in 2016 17, so that's how I got started. And I also sell a little bit on Etsy. Okay,
Suzanne Wells:so what was the catalyst of like, Oh, I'm going to try to sell this thing on eBay.
Unknown:Well, then on top of everything else, I. Have a background of loving to go to flea markets and collecting things, and I've been doing that since I was in my 20s. And so I thought, all this stuff, all this time I go to these places, and I think, Oh, I would buy that, but I only need that. But then I think, how much neat stuff have I seen it have passed up? And if I can turn around with and look at it through a new lens, no pun intended with the photography. Yeah, and where I can sell this stuff and make some money, then I can, I can, you know, possibly be successful at this? Of course, you know, everybody makes the mistakes at the beginning of buying things that are not going to sell it well, because they don't know how to check sell through rates. And, you know, there's a lot to learn. And so it wasn't terrible, because I didn't spend a lot of money for anything, you know, and I didn't have a cash flow problem because of all this other income that was coming in about like, I'm just starting out cold turkey. Okay, this is all I'm doing at eBay, you know. So I've been in a little bit different boat. I still am, you know, because I do so many other things, and I'm still doing most of that stuff, except for the film stuff that's kind of declined so, but that's hard work. You really need to be kind of young to do some of that, those long hours, and you're on your feet, and that's working in the film industry is hard work. So that's where I am. And
Suzanne Wells:I don't think people realize that, because it all looks so easy when the final product is put together, it's just you don't realize there's what, 50 people behind the camera like that. You don't see that made that happen, yeah,
Unknown:don't trip over the electrical wires. And you go to work at four in the afternoon and get off at seven o'clock in the morning and do a lot of shooting at night. Oh, right. Lot of interiors are done at night, because you can get into places where there's not a lot of foot traffic and put your own people there. Ah, I see, you know, if you need to shoot at the mall or a restaurant, well, nobody's going to be there two o'clock in the morning, you know, stuff in the middle of the night. Put your own chef in there and your waitress and whoever, yeah,
Suzanne Wells:all your friends and your your cousins. Hey, I need some bodies in this.
Unknown:Yeah. Well, have you mentioned
Suzanne Wells:your due to your inclement weather, you had to cancel some classes that you teach.
Unknown:Oh, yeah, um, I teach dog agility. Oh, I love that. I train people to teach their dogs how to do dog agility. I have dogs on my own, and I've competed for years. I've been doing it about 20 years, not teaching. I've been teaching maybe 10 to 12, but I teach advanced and intermediate levels of dog agility, and I had to cancel my classes tonight because they're at night. And yeah, of course, the only person that kind of whined about it was this little guy that's, well, he's not a little guy. He's a big guy. He's 13. Of course, he doesn't know, he doesn't drive.
Suzanne Wells:He was disappointed.
Unknown:Yeah, he sent me a frowning face. I was I was looking forward to it, or I was so excited, and I was like, oh. And then his mom was right on the heels of him, and she said that was a smart decision, right,
Suzanne Wells:right? Well, at least he was enthusiastic and looking forward to it.
Unknown:He was and we all have a good time, you know. And it's about having fun, and you have to learn too, you know. But it's mostly about having fun and with your dogs. And I've got people like I said, He's the youngest, and I've got people up into their mid 70s in these classes, oh, in the same class with him, all different breeds and all different age levels. So that's what I do. It's not a job. It's a volunteer position with the dog club. Oh, I see. Okay, it's not a job. You know, that's why I could just like, I'm not having class tonight. You know, it's not
Suzanne Wells:approved by anybody, so you're not going to be out anything. Okay? So not going to be.
Unknown:Students pay to do that. The students pay for the classes
Suzanne Wells:I see.
Unknown:Okay, yeah, and if I can, I'll do a makeup class. And if I can't, we just will miss this one. You know, just that happens sometimes. Yeah,
Suzanne Wells:that's life that much here. Yeah, life happens sometimes. Hey, well, we've got all the background now, so let's talk about some things you've sold on eBay, because you post your fun sales on the Facebook group, and that's where I found you trolling for sales.
Unknown:Okay, things I've sold? Okay, well, the last thing was that purse, and I put it up recently, and it was a Isabella Fiore tote bag, handbag, okay, large purse. And it had, it was black fabric with hummingbirds, with beading, or throw fancy beading all over it, and leather handles, and then the whole interior was lined with like this checkered gold fabric that, and it just looked expensive. And I don't sell purses. I don't. I have another purse that's up for sale. I mean, I usually don't even look at purses, but I was wandering around in Salvation Army, which was over by the grocery store that I go to sometimes, and I just went in there, and it turned out they were having half price day. So I just put it I'm going to do a quick swoop of this, mostly glassware and stuff like, that's what I look for. And I saw this purse hanging there. And I thought, well, that looks kind of interesting. It's got this hummingbird and the beating, and it's large. And I opened it up and looked at the name, and thought, don't know what that is. So I looked real quick on eBay, and they had some by the same name that we're selling for, like, $50 $60 but they were smaller. They didn't have the beating, they weren't fancy, like that one. So I thought, You know what? This is half price. This is four bucks. I if I can sell it for $25 you know, even I don't know anything about so I took it home, and I couldn't find anything like it, but I found one that was similar, and it was up around$175 and so I just threw a $200 price tag on it, and it's sold within. Let's sell 14 days. It took 14 days. Oh, very good. Flip, yeah, for full asking price. And off it went. And I knew nothing about that brand. And tell me the name again, Isabella Fiore. It's f, k, O, R, E, is we
Suzanne Wells:spell it? Yes. The listeners will want to know that. Yeah. I'd never heard of it,
Unknown:you know, good for
Suzanne Wells:you. And then Salvation Army hadn't heard of it either, or they would have marked it
Unknown:up probably, well, they had it at $8 long enough to be up to $8 you know, then it was half price. So I don't know just and maybe it was just behind a bunch of stuff until I saw it, because sometimes can be that's what happens. Things are on the bottom shelf. Like recently, I sold the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally mug, and, yeah, they were 50 cents at this place. And I never buy mugs there, because they're usually three bucks. And I'm not paying three bucks for a mug to sell it for $12 and I usually, and that way, that day, they were 50 cents. And it was on the bottom shelf, back behind everything, and it was handcrafted pottery from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. And I very
Suzanne Wells:good. Yeah, I've noticed that too. Sometimes, if it's an effort to get to the item, like very bottom shelf, push to the back. Most people aren't going to bend down and look under there. I mean, you really have to be a treasure hunter these days, yeah? And
Unknown:I kind of like that part of it, actually, yeah, you have to dig through stuff and because sometimes you find the best stuff. Case in point, my mom lived in Arkansas for a while. She passed in 2019 but I was going back and forth a lot, but, but during, you know, the end of the of her life, because she was in a nursing home, my sister also lived down there, and so I went so, but she was in a nursing home. I go visit her. I didn't have a whole lot else to do, so I would go hit the thrift stores in Fort Smith, is where she was. And I learned, I love the thrift stores in Fort Smith. I haven't gone down there since she passed. I just, I learned them all, and I went to this thrift store, and it was a mom and pop thing that had just opened. Well, maybe a year they've been open. And I saw, I picked up this cup, it would look pretty, and I turned it over and it said Irma's Limoge on the bottom of it. Wow, yeah. And I thought, okay, okay, Irma's no price tag, because it's, you know, they just go up there and they tell you how much things are. And so I went up there and they said, How much is that? 50 cents? Well, I said, Okay, so I took it home, back to my sister's house, and it was a Friday, and she works. She was working that day, and so I took it home, and I started looking at it, and it was a large coffee cup. It wasn't like a tea cup size, but it wasn't as big as a soup bowl either. It was kind of in between. And so I looked it up, and I found it, and with the saucer, it was selling for $200 and I thought, okay, I wonder if they have the saucer. So my sister said, Well, I want to go back tomorrow, when I'm off work. So I said, Okay, we're going back, and I'm going to look for that saucer, and sure the other side of the store in the at the bottom of a pile of small plates, I found the saucer, and they charged me 75 cents for the saucer, and so I'd spend $1.25 and I I sold it In three weeks, $200
Suzanne Wells:plus shipping, congratulations,
Unknown:yeah. And I was like, I didn't know, I mean, I knew Hermes because I, I've bought some of their ties and resol those. That's one of my favorite things to find. Um, they're hard to find, but I've, I've found five of them, and I like to look for those, you know. So,
Suzanne Wells:yeah, those, I found a couple, and it took them a while to sell. But yeah, that's good money there, and fits in with that doesn't take up much space, easy to ship, all all that criteria that we like as sellers, the faster you can get it listed and get it out the door, the better. Yeah.
Unknown:Yep, exactly. Yeah, that's I had one that was damaged. I bought it at Salvation Army, and I think they charged me 50 cents for it. It was the Hermes type. I mean, some of these, I didn't pay more than $1 for any of them, but any of the Hermes, I had five of them and but it was damaged. It needed repair. It was going to need some professional repair. And I still sold it for like,$17 you know, even though I need to repair. And so I thought, I'm picking these up even if they're torn up, because it needs, it needs, well,
Suzanne Wells:and you never know. It could have been purchased by a shop owner that was going to display it and have it folded so the damage didn't show. Or know what people are using these things for nope, good for you. Okay, what else is on your list?
Unknown:Oh, my famous orange juice cans are on my list.
Suzanne Wells:That all about
Unknown:in college. Instead of drinking beer, I drink a whole lot of Donald Duck orange juice in the little cans, six ounces. Okay, they had a vending machine in the dorm, and I would go down there and I would drink orange juice cans like it was, I mean, drink orange juice like it was going out of style. And so I saved up my orange juice cans and made a pyramid in my dorm window with everybody else was doing that with beer cans. So I thought, well, I can just say, yeah, why not? Somehow, over all these years, I have kept those orange juice cans, and I had no idea I still had them. I found them out in the garage, in a big trash bag, not maybe last year, year or four, probably 200 of them. I have sold what 50? I've sold 17 of them, and I have made$225 selling 17 of these orange juice cans. And I bet I have another 100 or
Suzanne Wells:more to go. Oh, wow. Are you selling them individually or in lots individually,
Unknown:but sometimes somebody, and there's three different ones, they're they're just a few years apart, but there's three different styles of them, and sometimes they'll buy one of each. Sometimes they'll just buy one or two. Sometimes it depends on which one they want, and they all look alike. Unless I have a really badly dented one, I can't. I can use the same picture. It's like, I just keep throwing it back up there, right? And there's no thing that I do that with, and that's the Arby's winter scene glasses. Okay, we're familiar with those. It was like in the 80s, early 90s, Arby's had this thing, if you bought, like, a large drink, you get one of these wine glasses or drinking glasses. They had different styles of them, okay, this frosted snow scene on them, and they were very popular, and they're really pretty, and I started buying those and selling them. Now they don't sell for maybe between eight and $10 a piece, but once you photograph that one time, I have sold 52 of them, and I have made $513
Suzanne Wells:now. These are ones that were your own collection, or did
Unknown:you find no? No, no. I didn't have 52 I would just, I just find, I found one this last week, and I hadn't had 90 group. Okay, I just look for them everywhere I go. I say, Well, I go through the clear glass and I look for the Arby's glasses. And I just found I hadn't had one for a couple of months. It was kind of low supply right before Christmas, because a lot of people like them around Christmas. And I thought, well, they sell all year round. Kind of like what you always say, stuff will sell all year round, doesn't matter. And I was in some it was like a charity thrift store, and there was one one up on the shelf, and I grabbed it, and I brought it home, and I just stuck that picture back up there that I've been using the Z and times, and it's the same thing. It looks the same, right? It'll sell. I'll get eight to 10 bucks for it, and then I'll wait till I get another one, and then I'll throw the picture back up there again, and the whole listing is still good.
Suzanne Wells:So have you thought about creating a multi quantity listing so people can buy more than one? I
Unknown:have thought about it. I haven't really done it because I just, I don't know. So I usually end up with uneven numbers. For some reason, I don't know why. I get three or five, you know? And I sometimes,
Suzanne Wells:Oh, I see, okay, so stockpile,
Unknown:no, I don't have a big stockpile, like, right now, all I have is one. Okay,
Suzanne Wells:I see, all that makes sense. So telling them, as you're finding them, you're not stockpiling, okay, and that's orange juice cans. About how much do you get for those? A piece,
Unknown:uh, orange juice cans are a little bit I get a little bit more for those. I get between 11 and $14 for those, yeah, for an empty can, that six ounces that has rust on it and is old, you know, and they don't have dents, and they may have some little scratches or something, but they're, you know, one guy was going to buy all of them one time, and he said, Well, can you take a picture of the tops of them? And I think what he was going to do is take the tops off of them and put them on some other kind of cans, the right kind of tops. And he was. Okay, so Well, I was hoping they didn't have that stamp that has, it has, like a number stamped in the top of it. And he said, I was hoping it didn't have that. Oh, too bad, because
Suzanne Wells:he's not by them all. Have you received any feedback from customers about, oh, I've been looking for this, or I so glad you had this. I remember this.
Unknown:I had one. It was just hilarious. I bought this mug, and I would have never bought this mug. It came in a box with a lot of other mugs. At a flea market, there was this box of mugs, and I think she said it was $5 for the whole box. And there was a couple of them on there, in there, that I thought were valuable. So I thought, okay, yeah, I can do that. Five bucks for a whole box. Well, this mug was in there. It was the ugliest mug I think I've ever seen. It was like, brown or like, well, it was really beige, and the artwork on it was brown. It said Japan on the bottom, but the artwork on it looked like an untalented an untalented second grader had done this art, and it was a record. It was the ugliest thing ever. But, you know, I had it. I thought, Okay, I'm going to put this up for sale. So I put it up for sale, and I'm trying to find where it's written down about that I sold it. It didn't take super long to sell, maybe a few months, and I sold it for like, 1299 and I thought, okay, who bought that? So I always wondered, who bought, who would buy that mug? Because 1299 This is back when I first started, first started selling 1299 for a mug was a lot. That was before I started finding things that were worth$200 1299 for that one, whatever. Two or three years later, I get a message from this guy going on and on about how he was so thankful that he was able to find that mug, because it had been his dad had had that mug, and it was his favorite, and he had broken it, and then before he found mine, he had been searching for years for the same mug, and he'd given up and thought it just didn't exist. But he didn't send me this message till two or three years later. It was really strange. I don't know if his dad had passed away and he was just thinking about it, or if he just, maybe just just thought about it, I don't know. But it was kind of funny to hear from someone that that far, you know, away from when I sold it. You know, usually, I wonder if he
Suzanne Wells:just came across the invoice or something printed. Because how could even know your username?
Unknown:That's a good point. Sales are not,
Suzanne Wells:they're not kept in your sales record that long, like or your punches history. If you're a buyer, I don't think maybe they are now, but I wonder if he, you know, we did. Used to put an invoice in there, you know, print it off. And I wonder if he was cleaning something out and just came across that maybe,
Unknown:I don't know, but I thought that was so odd, you know. And then, then there's the stories about the people that are just good people, you know. I I've sometimes I buy these Pyrex libs that go in, like, the visions cookware, I'll just find one for cheap, like 1520 cents, or make, you know, 10 bucks on it, or eight bucks on it, or some bread and butter type things. Well, I had sold one to this lady, and she actually sent me a thank you note in the mail, because she had got that Saint that set as a wedding present in the 70s, and she hadn't been able she had broken the lid to this one pan or whatever, and she had not been able to find it, and she was so grateful that I had that. And it's just kind of fun to get that kind of feedback. But the kid, the one that probably wouldn't surprise is the lady. And I used to do this because I when I was when I still am, but I don't have the same printer. I had this big industrial printer that I would print stuff off to go to the printer, to the printer for the phone books, and it took this ginormous toner cartridge. It cost like $200 for this, just for the toner cartridge, if I had to order it from quill or get it, we couldn't get it at Office Depot. Nobody had that printer. And so, because it was kind of unusual and but I could, I learned that I could find the printer toner cartridges on eBay for 30 or $40 sealed in the box. So I started buying them like that for my printer. And I was saving a lot of money. Well, one time I got one, and they're sealed in the box, and it was, it didn't work. It was, it just, there was some faulty about it. Well, it had been several months since I bought it, so I thought, ant just wipe, you know, just write that off, you know, just order another one. Because it'd been like three months. Because what would happen was I put a new one in, then I would order another one. Well, made 8000 copies. It took me a while to get to where I needed another one. And so, hey, so I, so I did that. Well, anyways, same thing happened to somebody that bought a toner cartridge for me. I had a printer toner cartridge, and it might have been for, I think it might have been from that same printer, and that printer quit working. It was no longer compatible with this new Mac that I had put in. So I sold the sealed toner cartridge, and it wasn't old, it wasn't expired. The lady got it, and I think I sold it to for 34 $5 she got it, and she said, It's not working. I put it in my computer, it's not in my printer. It's not working, she says. And I said, Okay, I'm going to send you a refund. She goes, Don't worry about it. I said, No, I'm going to send you a refund, because if it's not working, and this was within the time frame, I said, if it's not working, you should not have to pay for it. She goes, No, really, seriously, don't worry about it. I turned around and refunded her anyway. About two weeks later, I got a cashier's check in the mail from this woman. She sent me the money in a cat on a cash in a cash check. Yes, she went to the bank and got the money. She was going to win that argument.
Suzanne Wells:Oh, that's crazy. Well, I wonder what. You know, she was going to sell it somewhere, and, you know, knew that she wouldn't lose her money, you know, she had
Unknown:to opened it and put in the machine to not to know that it didn't work. True, true, you know. And so it was. And then we talked about the printer quite a bit. So I really do think she had the printer. She wasn't quite didn't have the printer, because I was talking about the particular printer and specific things about it, and she knew all about it. So I think probably what ran in, what she ran into, was just kind of what I ran into, only she not, right, she was, she was not going to let me refund her, which I thought was funny. Wow,
Suzanne Wells:we all love customers like that. That
Unknown:was kind of interesting. So back to your your lids,
Suzanne Wells:your pot and pan lids. I was in goodwill a few days ago, and there was a maybe 50 ish woman with maybe a 20 ish girl, and she was showing her things to buy, to resell. And so we're in the kitchen section, and the older lady says, Okay, now these, these lids to pots and pans, are great sellers because a lot of times it's a universal size. So if it's revere wear or calfalan, or, like you said, the visions cookware, like the older ones, definitely, you know, they're more valuable because they're not making them anymore. But she says, yeah, sometimes they're a universal size, and they sell really well because it could fit on the skillet or the Dutch oven or whatever it is, and they're cheap, and they don't take out much room, and they're, you know, easier to ship than a whole set of cookware. So that is definitely a thing that you can look for that is, I think, overlooked, because a lot of resellers might think, oh, it's gotta have the pot and the lid. Well, no, it can just be the lid.
Unknown:Yeah, I haven't found as many as I don't know if people are onto it or not, but they seem to be. They've raised their prices on those everywhere. I've seen them little Pyrex lids with the tabs on them. I'll grab those in a heartbeat, because they sell, like, almost as soon as you put them up. Because there's some like, revisions cookware, no, like the like this, like the stuff, it's all different colors that have the little tabs on the on the lids that go on the top. They have, okay, okay, you're talking
Suzanne Wells:about the storage, yeah? Storage, not cookware, not Yeah, exactly. They have the
Unknown:and people don't know what they are a lot of times, because they're just clear and they're sitting there and, you know, I'll grab them, yeah,
Suzanne Wells:for you, yeah. That's kind of thinking outside the box, yeah. Oh,
Unknown:well, some of the things that I really like selling, I'll just is cross stitch kits and finished needle work. Mm, hmm. I picked up a it was a biblical thing. It was a giant finished needlework thing. I was up at a dog show with a friend of mine, and she likes to thrift too. So after we got finished running dogs all day, we'd go hit the thrift stores. We had a great time. We were in Springfield, Missouri, and we went up there, and I found this giant it was probably 20 by 18 square, and it was a kind of like a sampler finished cross stitch thing, but it had like a Bible verse on it, and it was green and brown. I remember it was kind of like your your 80s colors and stuff. The colors were kind of dated, and it was matted, but it wasn't framed, and it was 50 cents. And I bought it, and I figured I put it in the back of a van, and I brought it home, and I took the mat and the frame, or the mat and the backing off, because it was all faded and kind of the tape was bad, and all this kind of stuff, and I sold that for$100 within like, a week or two, you know. And I told her that, she goes, what? And I said, Yeah, I sold that thing for $100 because it was finished. And somebody it was large, you know, and I was able to just roll it up and put it in a box, and it was, it was fine. It worked out great. And, you know, you salvage that kind of stuff, you don't know where it's going to end up if it doesn't sell, you know? And I thought it was kind of cool that that so finished needlework is a good thing. And, you know, I like that. I sold a a hooked wool pillow this week. You know that I bought for $5 and I think I sold it. It wasn't a big sales, 39 or something like that. But still, you. You know, it's, I hadn't had it very long. It was at a garage sale. And then there's, oh, my three favorite people are Mary Englebright, Marjorie, Baston and Sandra Boynton. I like all Yes, I love their products. I will almost always pick up their stuff, and it's usually sells pretty good.
Suzanne Wells:So not not just needlework, but stationary
Unknown:mugs they make, you know, they make dishes. You know, I heard you talking. I listened to a podcast of yours this morning, and you're talking about Susan wing it Susan wing, it makes dishes. Yeah, and I and mugs and stuff. And I've sold some of her stuff. I like her too. And most recently, I think I sold some pot holders that had one of her it was Christmas, and it had these little characters on it, and it was real cute. And this lady was so excited, because she said it's going to match her daughter's dishes or some kind of thing, you know. So I like to buy
Suzanne Wells:that I had that stuff like in the early 90s, the Susan Wingate calendars and the Mary Englebright stuff with the cherries and the black and white checkerboard stuff. And that's where your age comes in handy. Is, but you remember that you know, a 25 year old is not going to know that's unless they're just in this world of vintage stuff. They're not going to know that's worth
Unknown:anything. No, they don't. And then, but then they may pick up something that came from Kmart that is really not worth anything, and they think it's, oh, that's so cute. I'm going to sell that and make, you know, 20 $30 and it's not. And I was guilty of that a little bit when I first started, you know, because everybody picks out things that they like, and they think, oh, somebody else is going to like this if I like it. Yeah. However, the tendency to like the most expensive thing when you can't afford it, that I experienced all through my youth kind of is coming back to pay off now, yeah,
Suzanne Wells:well, I find that with clothing, if it's something like, Oh, if this doesn't sell, I'll keep this or I or start wearing it anyway, and that's what's going to sell, is whatever. So I started kind of going with that. If I really love it, it'll probably sell. Like, the style, the colors I like, the sequiny tops, you know, and the boho looking stuff, and feel like, Oh, if I love it, and I think I might wear it, it's probably going to go up for sale.
Unknown:Yeah, that's especially if you wear it, yeah, the night before, then all of a sudden, you gotta wash it and do all this other stuff to get it mailed. Yeah, don't,
Suzanne Wells:don't eat while you're wearing it. Right? I'm terrible stuff, which, that's where I look on clothes, is right around the neckline. Like, is this person a sloppy eater like me? And they've got, that's what the sayings are going to be on the cuffs or right around the neckline? Mm, hmm, yeah, that's true.
Unknown:I got stuff sitting all over my house. It's for sale, and somebody will come over. Well, that's cute. Well, that's for sale. You know? It's like, never,
Suzanne Wells:yeah, everything's for sale. I'll do that too. Just yeah, instead of storing everything, it's like, okay, some of that's hanging in my closet, some of that's hanging on my walls. You just keep
Unknown:switching it out. Yep, yep. That's, I've got that that kind of thing going on around here, for sure. Because I didn't buy this house with the idea that I was going to be storing inventory. I bought this idea that I was going to have people working for me, which I did for a while, you know. So it's a totally different
Suzanne Wells:thing. So I'm playing I spy with your background. Is that stack of longer burger baskets?
Unknown:No, those are actually antique picnic baskets. They're not for sale. Those. I have stuff stored in there, like tape and
Suzanne Wells:storage. Briar horses
Unknown:on the show. Those are Briar horses from my childhood. Those are not for sale either. Yes, yeah, I haven't. I'm not selling them yet, okay?
Suzanne Wells:I'm just, I do this everywhere I go, every TV show I'm looking in the background. So are those photographs of dogs?
Unknown:Oh, yeah, those are, those are my seven dogs that I've had. They
Suzanne Wells:look like collies or shelters, Shelties. Oh, those are so sweet. Okay, they're
Unknown:very smart, you know, I've had seven, I've got two at a time. Yeah, I've had seven, but most of them are one at a time, four, three or more, one at a time. I
Suzanne Wells:love that breed. If I ever get another dog, it'll be that just because we're so smart and they're smaller, but it would not be fair unless I had, you know, room for them to run or, you know, be
Unknown:outside. Actually, that's why I got my first one, because I lived in an apartment. Oh, really, yes, I wanted a Labrador. And real because we'd had a Labrador growing up, and I love that dog, and I wanted Labrador. I knew that a Labrador and a one bedroom apartment was not gonna, you know. It was not going to fly. So I got this friend of mine at work suggested a shelter, and so we went out. I got this little shelter. Of course, we I only lived in the apartment for about a year before I bought a house. Mm hmm, yard, you know. So it wasn't like I was there forever. I wasn't planning to stay there forever, but that
Suzanne Wells:back on the third floor so I don't want to have to fog up and downstairs like I'm too lazy for that. Yeah, it's not the dog, it's me. Mm hmm, yeah, walking part of the reason I did it so that I wouldn't get a dog, and I learned to love Instacart for bringing groceries up here. I don't feel bad about it at all, because I'm giving someone a job, and I usually get things like substitutions better than what I paid for or they there's just extra stuff in there. I love it. That business really took off during COVID, and the people who deliver my groceries are older than me. Oh yeah, yeah. So they're doing it. I guess during retirement, it's a this nice, little old couple, and I guess they're doing it during retirement, like maybe they work half a day and they get out and do this for people, but
Unknown:maybe they don't want to be at home all the time. Well, yeah,
Suzanne Wells:I am proud to say I support Instacart 100% and I am not ashamed of it at all.
Unknown:I've never used it, or any of that, any of the delivery stuff, I've always just gone so I think it,
Suzanne Wells:sometimes it comes up if you're recovering from surgery or something like that, where it's temporary, like you're not going to do it forever, but it sure is a nice option to have, and they're in here all the time. So I'm like, why not? I'm going to jump on that bandwagon, but off the topic of eBay. So you mentioned Salvation Army. Do you like any other thrift stores.
Unknown:We have a bunch of independent ones around here that are run by like the veterans and like we have, we have the Restore, run by Habitat for Humanity, right? They have, they have their own thrift store. Sertoma has one the how foundation they deal with people that have had a substance abuse issue. There's a Family and Children's Services. One my favorite ones are the ones that are just kind of a little small. You have to dig through stuff, and there's in there, and they don't have price tags on anything, because they practically give stuff away. And there's a couple of those that I go to the they're my favorites good. I find
Suzanne Wells:the smaller ones, the merchandise is not as man handled as through the, you know, Goodwill that's just dumped in the bin and the bin, and then it finally gets out on the floor. And I feel like the the smaller one location thrift stores, it's like the people drive up to the back door. Here's her donation. It gets priced and put on the floor, and it's, it's in better
Unknown:condition, yeah, yeah. Sometimes you have to look for it, though it's more disorganized. Usually, that's true goodwill. You can find stuff in the craziest places. Yeah, it's, it's kind of but that's kind of fun to me. I mean, I don't mind that some people don't like to dig through stuff. I like a junkie. I'd rather go out in the garage or down in the basement at a state sale and see what I can find that people don't have a clue about, right? That's, it's kind of, it's kind of, you know, it's kind of a game. It's almost like a game, okay, what can I find here that especially the last day, when everybody's been there,
Suzanne Wells:right? And you still find things. Mm, hmm.
Unknown:How this gets stuck? You have people don't realize what this is worth. Evidently, you know,
Suzanne Wells:yes, I'm a limited digger. I'll kind of dig, but I'm sure, and a lot of times you can't reach all the way to the bottom, especially like at some of these thrift stores that put the plush in these big wire, yeah, containers and, and it's, you know, they're four feet tall. And it's like, I can't get to the bottom. I need to start bringing one of those grabber things moves, yeah? But yeah, I'll dig some. It just depends.
Unknown:Yeah. Plush confuses me. If it's like that, I just, I don't know enough about it. It's like, oh, this. I'm not even going to go there, because I don't understand.
Suzanne Wells:It's its own, its own animal, I guess. Haha, I don't know anything
Unknown:about it, so I'm probably one of those people that passes by stuff that's worth a lot of money, but that's okay. You know
Suzanne Wells:more for the rest of us, exactly,
Unknown:exactly, you know, it's like, I've heard you say, you know, people don't know everything. You can't know everything. You just don't you know. And it's, you know, it's fun, though, to me, it's fun. It's, it's eBay is kind of a part time business. For me, it's not like I spend 40 hours. Hours a week in here. Okay,
Suzanne Wells:right. That was my next question. How many items do you have listed?
Unknown:Well, that's going to sound like I do more work than I do. I have 1023 Oh, yeah, but I leave stuff up forever. I mean, I've sold stuff that was up there for five years within the last, you know, two or three weeks, if the work's done, they're not charging me extra for it. Why shouldn't I leave it up there for I've got to work, I've got a house that's twice the size of where I used to live. I mean, I can't a lot more. Okay, my storage system not even using the garage to store stuff, you know, except for boxes. I have boxes. But other than that, you know, it's I just do what I want to do and but I'll tell you the skill sets that I learned with between photography and between copywriting and accuracy and managing people and dealing with people, all of that has been super beneficial to me in this because, you know, you get some irate customer. I know how to deal with those people. I know how, you know, I usually, I don't think I've ever had a negative. I've had people mad at me. I don't think I've ever had a negative. Had I had one lady that accidentally put a neutral on there one time, but then she left me this rave review about this. It was a dog toy. I was like, I said, you really want to put neutral on this? She goes, No, I didn't mean to do that. So she went back and she changed it. You know, not to say that I won't ever get a negative, because all it takes is the person on the other end to be a complete jerk, right?
Suzanne Wells:Yeah, that's always a possibility. But yeah, people are people are funny. I sold something last week, and the it was pillowcases, and I had the measurements that were on the the tag inside the pillowcase, and the lady wanted to argue with me about the measurements, and she sent me all these pictures of, you know, here's a king size, here's a standard. Yours is this and that, and then the yardstick and all the pictures. And I'm like, you don't have to prove anything if, if it's not right, send it back. If it's an item not as described, that's fine send it back. I mean, it was $100 item, so, yeah, it's back. But, and just for the listeners, you don't get a defect on an inad Unless you don't address it, right? You only get defects if you sold an item that you cannot ship, you can't find it, or something like that, or the customer contacts you about the items not as described, and you don't resolve the issue. You don't accept a return, or you don't answer them, or whatever. So and on the first one, what I do is say, you know, if I think it's only happened like twice, where I broke the item when I was packing it or something, and we're so sorry. We found a defect on this item. We it broke while we were shipping it. Whatever would you like to choose something else from our store, up to a whatever dollar value? And sometimes they will, they'll take a substitution, and so you could still ship something. So that's kind of a backup. I feel like that's better customer service than just saying, Oh, too bad. So sad it broke not shipping. I was like, and I usually make the dollar amount higher than what they bought, right? I'll be encouraged to pick out something else. So if you have items in your store, that's a great solution to not having to take that defect. If you can offer them something else, let them pick and then you're still shipping something. So that's the way I I've never done that,
Unknown:you know? I probably never, I haven't had a lot of returns. I don't deal with clothing that much, which, yeah, not having a lot of I like vintage night gowns. I sell those a lot, you know. And I've got clothing because I bought a bunch of clothing cheap, and I've still got to list it. But now they're saying they're going to come out with this new thing about clothing conditions, and they're going to have all these characters eBay is doing, going to getting ready to possibly change a bunch of stuff that has to do with clothing. So I'm kind of like, do I really want to do this? And I have to go back and redo all my listings. Where did you see that information? Um, I saw them on somebody else's video on YouTube, and it's seen any announcements about that put it well, they've put it into effect in one of these other countries, thinking that end up here, and it's like they're not going to just have, you know, they're going to have more categories of condition for clothing, Oh, I see. And they're not going to and if you don't have, if you have existing listings up, it's going to default to one that's a little bit lower than where. Be okay. And so there's a couple different trains of thoughts on how to handle that. Somebody said, get them all in drafts. And then you when, when they do that, then you'll, you can release a bunch of them that have them the correct way, you know, and everybody else is going to be lower, and you're going to have advantage. The other is just to, you know, do it as you can. But since I have a lot of other things I can list besides clothing right now, I think I might just not concentrate on clothing. Yeah, see what happened.
Suzanne Wells:And the listeners, if that happens, we will be notified. It will be in your announcements. It'll they'll make sure no, because I remember when they added new with defects, maybe it used to just be new or used, and then it was new with tag and new without tag, and then they added new with defects, meaning, you know, whatever, missing a button or something like that. So that was many years ago. So they don't change that very often. It'll be interesting to see if this happens. I don't know if it will or not, you know, yeah, but it's, you know, interesting to watch and see. But don't worry, listeners, put things out there. They will tell us months in advance, just like with managed payments, when that was going to happen, and you know, all the other things that happen, they they'll let us know. And we can all come up with strategies like you said, you know, have them in drafts, be ready to release when the new conditions are added. But yeah, it's really hard to keep up with those item specifics. Do you ever end listings and start them over? Oh yeah, yeah. Every
Unknown:morning I every morning, I go, I get into my computer, I look up the earliest start date, and then I go down those and look for all the ones that have had no views, and I pick out the top five of those, the first five I see, and I end those and start over.
Suzanne Wells:Well, I'm glad you do it that way. I do it that way. I go to the oldest some sellers prefer to end and restart what's ending that day, which does not make sense to me, because you're not getting charged. That used to be the thing when you were going to get charged for it, but now, most of the time, depending on your store, subscription or whatever, you're not getting charged. So why not go back to the oldest ones that have been sitting there the longest and evaluate, do you need to change the price? Are there items specifics that you don't have checked? That's what gets me, is when I end and restart, there's new choices there that weren't there before, and sometimes they're relevant, sometimes they're not, but that does get you higher in search the more of those you have filled out. So I just feel like it's more beneficial to focus on the oldest listings, especially if they're not getting any traffic, and do what you can to change that so they do get traffic.
Unknown:Yeah, the views are really important to me, because I can go into the oldest listing and it's got 14 views in the last month. I'm not going to re list that. I'm just going to go down to one. It has zero or maybe one, alright, something like that. Usually, usually I go to zero. I just keep going till I get five, zeros nine. And then today, there was one that was zero, that had been three, you know, last month, and so it was the top one on the list. And I thought, okay, that's going in there. Now it's
Suzanne Wells:got zero on it. Well, that is a good strategy. I like that looking for the zero views, because, yeah, you gotta change something to get some views. Yeah, that's, that's
Unknown:kind of what I've come up with. I used to do it the way you described. The ones that were getting ready to end, you know,
Suzanne Wells:yeah, because they used to charge you for them, yeah. So you didn't want them to renew if, if you're going to end them and restart them, you want to change something before you get charged. But
Unknown:now you should take that way. But I quit. So yes, I try to do that every day. I don't always get to it on the weekends, but I do it every day. You have a
Suzanne Wells:lot going on with all your your jobs and your volunteer work and keeping up your house and running your eBay business. You're busy.
Unknown:It's so busy keeps me out of trouble. Good, lot of energy. And you know, I needed somewhere to put it. And for
Suzanne Wells:you, do you have any final parting words for the listeners?
Unknown:For people that are starting out, I had wrote down a few things that would have been really helpful to me when I was starting out. The first one is to watch a bunch of videos. Find several resellers that have really good videos. Suzanne's good. Suzanne's Facebook page is good. The bolo book is excellent. But there's also a whole bunch of them, and you can find them because there's lots of little nuances that people don't know about when they first start that they kind of have to learn the hard way, unless somebody tells them. The other thing is, there's a lot of them that cover what people have been selling well. Like, like you do on yours. You know what people have been selling? And there's several of those. And you learn about different things, you know? And I'm learning every day. I still listen to them all the time. I've got my TV now to where I I've got a fire stick on there, where I can put YouTube up on my TV. And if I'm editing pictures or something, I can sit in my den with my feet up, and I can absolutely, I can actually see the items that they're showing. It's not on my phone where it's like the size of a quarter, when you look at it and you're going, well, right? Yeah. So now
Suzanne Wells:I've noticed on the, I guess, column shopping videos, where the people will find an item, and then they'll pull it up on their phone to see what it's sold for. And I just, I'd rather see, like a person show the whole process from start to finish. I found this item. I listed this item. I sold this item. Just because you find that thing that somebody else sold for $80 does not mean yours is going to I mean, you've got to buy it, you've got to actually list it, which is the hurdle for a lot of people, and it has to sell. So I felt like those are misleading. I know they're. They're more about YouTube than about eBay, because, you know, they're wanting to get the YouTube revenue, and so they're showing the best case scenario, which we would all like to have, but I don't know. I've never been a fan of the haul videos, because those items didn't sell. You just bought them, yeah, and the proof is in when it sells,
Unknown:that's true. And I'm, I'm with you on that. I still watch them every once in a while, just because they're on my entertainment, yeah, yeah. You know, just to see, you know, sometimes you see something familiar or whatever, but most of the ones I watch are the what souls. Yeah, we're doing those other people that we're doing a lot of hauls, or, I think they've wised up and they're doing more about what souls now, yeah, I think
Suzanne Wells:they're seeing the numbers of those videos that are getting viewed are the what souls, because
Unknown:that's where, that's where it's the truth comes out, right?
Suzanne Wells:Exactly. Okay. Well, I enjoyed spending the last hour with you and chatting about eBay, so you're just gonna stay inside and stay warm and not go into the icy outdoors today. Exactly.
Unknown:I didn't want to send, you know, 16 people out into the icy outdoors either, so I've decided to cancel my class. So I'm going to plan here, probably do some photography this afternoon. Well, enjoy
Suzanne Wells:hunkering down. That system is headed our way. So we'll see if we actually get any snow or not, because right now we're in the snow alert, slash panic state, where everyone's at the grocery store buying all the food and like, okay, and half the time it never even happens, yeah. Is
Unknown:it really cold? There? Somebody said it was Florida or something. I was like,
Suzanne Wells:what it was about? It's about 35 to 40, so it's not much enough. And then after the system moves through, it will be in the 20s, so it'll be a yucky, frozen over mess.
Unknown:Well, and see that's the thing is, we would be coming home at 930 at night tonight, that would have been a sheet of ice, and
Suzanne Wells:it's not safe. Yeah, good. So okay, well, I'll let you go and get to your photography and your listing. Well, thank you for inviting me. It was fun. Yeah, it was, and we'll see you on the Facebook group.
Unknown:Okay, thanks again. Bye.
Suzanne Wells:Thank you, Jane for today's parting words. I found a graphic that is relevant to us as entrepreneurs. So let me try to explain this, since you can't see it. It's called the 2% mindset, and it has a circle, and inside the circle is 98% of the population operates in their comfort zone, which means things like being like everyone else, playing it safe, operating in survival mode, settling for less, and fear of change. So 2% of the population, which is us as entrepreneurs, operates outside of that, doing things like going for their dreams, being confident, exploring new things, choosing happiness, Acting in spite of fear, Living without limits, abundance, liking change, excitement about life and embracing the unknown. So you can Google that the 2% mindset, if you want to take a look at it, it's just interesting that entrepreneurs. Do have a certain mindset, and this is mapped out in a graphic, so you can save it, put it on your phone, put it on your desktop, and remember that we are different. Okay, next week, my guest is Patty, who was on the show in April of 2022 she will check in and catch us up on how her eBay business has evolved in the last almost three years. Thank you again for listening, and now get out there and be that 2% that goes for their dreams. Talk to you next week. Bye, everybody you.