eBay the Right Way

eBay Seller Chat with Joy in Nebraska: Magazines, Trash Picks, Homeschool Supplies - Enjoys Flexibility of Reselling 😊

• Suzanne A. Wells • Episode 213

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Suzanne Wells:

Music. Hello, listeners, welcome back. This is episode number 213 of eBay the right way. Today's date is April 16, 2025 my guest is joy in Nebraska, and she is my first guest from Nebraska. So even after over 200 episodes, we are still experiencing firsts on this podcast. Announcements. I wanted to update you on the premium library my online school. I try to do this quarterly. I add new content every week. There are now 630 lessons in the form of videos, audio files and downloadable documents. I keep everything updated so you are getting the most current information. Here is what was added for the first quarter, 2025, some bolos. Those are items to be on the lookout for that I have learned or that are being discussed in eBay groups, two cleaning videos, specific items that students have asked about third segment of the wig course, an extensive lesson on collectible trolls, something I've been learning about my commentary about eBay suggested pricing. Some points you may not have considered some Q and A audio files questions from students and my answers so you can listen while you work. And for those returning to eBay after a hiatus, a summary sheet of eBay changes over the last five years in chronological order. EBay has a lot of moving parts, and you want to be informed when you jump back in. I've added a couple of customer response letters. This is like your policies and procedures manual, what to say to customers in situations where you may not know what to say to a buyer. And remember, as a student, you have access to all content, not just the new stuff, and it is all downloadable. You also have access to my Help Desk service. Ask Me Anything via email, and I guarantee an answer in 24 hours, usually much less. I started the premium library in 2018 and can honestly say it is the best resource for both learning to sell on eBay and taking your business to the next level. Membership is $20 a month, and there is no commitment. If it isn't right for you, no problem. We will cancel your subscription, and I won't nag you to come back. So that is what I have been up to behind the scenes. Now let's talk with joy. Hello listeners, and welcome back to an exciting, fun filled episode of eBay the right way. And I have joy with us today. Who was one of those had to think it over people, or it wasn't a good time the first time I asked, right? So I got her and so how are you doing this afternoon? I'm doing great. And tell me again you're in Central Time Zone. Yes, I am

Unknown:

in Omaha, Nebraska, okay,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, how about that? That's funny, because Catherine, who was on last week, her daughter, lives there. Oh, fine, talking about Nebraska. So there you go. Okay, and what, what brought you to Nebraska is that where you've lived your whole life? No, I grew up

Unknown:

on a farm in northeast Iowa, family farm, and I just my husband, I moved around a bunch, you know, doing different ministry opportunities, and we landed in Omaha, and it felt like home. So we just stayed here.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, okay. Have you had a brutal winter? Um,

Unknown:

this year there was some really cold days, and we did get snow, but then it would like melt every time it snowed, so that was nice. What's worse is when it piles up and it gets hard, but that's refreezing

Suzanne Wells:

stuff is terrible, okay? And is it just you and your household? You said your husband?

Unknown:

Yeah, my husband and I have been married 25 years, and we have four kids. Oh, so ages 21 1915, and 13. Okay, so yeah, we're kind of, we're busy, but I've also homeschooled them, and so we're kind of on the lighter end of that journey,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, yeah, when nobody's driving yet is, yeah, that's everybody, yeah. Okay, well, that's a little bit of where you are. Do you want to say what town you're in? Um,

Unknown:

yeah. I mean, I just am in Omaha proper. Oh, Omaha. Okay, okay, yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

some people don't like to say because they don't want to create competition that, yeah, there's

Unknown:

so much opportunity here. Yeah, yeah. So certain about it at all, but it's, it's grown quite a bit since we've lived here. And, yeah, it's just really big. Now, if

Suzanne Wells:

you're willing to say where you are, other sellers may reach out to you. And yeah, hey, I'm I'm near there too. Let's meet for coffee and talk eBay. And if you can find people willing to share information, that is very helpful, because you're right there, there's just no way you can be everywhere and get everything right. So, and if you're willing to share, then others will be willing to share, and that's where I get some really good information.

Unknown:

Plus, if you're, I mean, I think it's fun to go sourcing with people. A lot of times, I'm not looking for the same things they are anyway, so absolutely, yeah, you

Suzanne Wells:

can have all those electronics. Okay, well, do I dare ask what got you into eBay? Was it just selling your kids outgrown stuff, or was there an event that happened? You

Unknown:

know, it's kind of been a journey. I will say that the as a child, my mom was a heavy Thrifter and garage sailor, so that is what sparked the Thriftiness in me. But I would say, like when, when I grew up in the 80s and 90s, there was just that was not a cool thing to do, to wear clothes from thrift stores and garage sales. And I also think maybe they didn't have as good a selection back then anyway, so I kind of stepped out of that thrifted mindset for a while. But yes, when my kids came along, I wanted to be able to get clothes cheap, and I knew that's where garage sales would help me out.

Suzanne Wells:

So, right. So can I ask what year you were born?

Unknown:

I was born in 1980 Oh, yeah, babysat

Suzanne Wells:

you, yes, 14 in 1980 So, okay, yeah, so you're right, at least where I was raised, in the suburbs of Atlanta. We didn't have the thrift stores like they have now, yeah, just it is a booming business, and I totally, as a teenager would have done that. But yeah, the thing was being a mall rat, hanging around the mall. We gotta go get dropped off at the mall, try on clothes we're never going

Unknown:

to buy, right? Get a chocolate chip cookie, go

Suzanne Wells:

to the movies because the theater was there, and thrifting was just not in our our routine, yeah,

Unknown:

and we were, we did thrift for like, our farm clothes or clothes we were just going to wear around the house, but, um, and I mean, I, I, my mom was good at garage sailing. She would find some, sometimes she would go to some and find things that I would want. She'd take me back. And that's the only reason, you know, I didn't really go to the mall that much. But that's because in school, you would know who had what, what you needed to wear, you know, that kind of thing. And she would keep her eye out for those. So you were in high school

Suzanne Wells:

in the mid 90s, yes, yeah. Okay, so you, you were like the the pink hair and the loud neon color,

Unknown:

yeah, loud neon for sure. Yep, okay,

Suzanne Wells:

which all that is now considered vintage.

Unknown:

Yeah, so now I feel like I know what I'm looking for, because, yes, it was everything going on when I was in high school, absolutely.

Suzanne Wells:

And we're just your generation's doing it too, like kicking yourself or throwing away a concert. Oh, yeah. In the concert ticket stubs and all the little do dad toys that were, you know, coming at my kids were born in 94 and 96 so Okay, yeah, I wouldn't end of that, either myself or my kids. But yeah, that's, that's a hot thing, all the toys, like the Giga pets and the all those little funky things from them. Yeah,

Unknown:

I kind of I recognize them as they come up. And I said, Oh yeah, I remember, remember hearing about those things. You know, I had my little ponies and, oh yeah, Kirby's, things like that when I was growing up. So Care Bear.

Suzanne Wells:

Do you remember the first thing you sold that got you started rolling on eBay?

Unknown:

Well, here's the thing I did a lot of buying first, because when my husband was in seminary, is probably when we got a eBay account, and that's when I started looking for his used books on eBay. And you know, there wasn't really a memorable first thing, because I think just at some point we had been buying so much on eBay it made sense to sell. We probably had something that we wanted an audience to sell to, and we just, I just randomly started selling things. And then through the years, I did sell, you know, some of my kids clothes and stuff. I don't know that they were anything I would sell now on eBay, but you know they were. I also did a lot of person to person, selling, selling, to buy, sell, trade stores or things like that. And I know I purchased big things for my kids, like a high chair and a stroller on eBay, you know, because I wanted a certain pattern and I wanted to find it at a good price. And and with,

Suzanne Wells:

with kids, multiple children, it's hard to go shopping for me. Yeah,

Unknown:

yeah, it is so but yeah, I with eBay. Well, the first time I really flipped something, I would say is I had a garage sale for my kids clothes, and I said my goal is to buy a double stroller. That's what I want to do. And that was maybe the first time in my mind, I mentally thought about turning this stuff into something else, you know, that I wanted so but eBay, we did look frequently for things to buy on eBay when they were expensive, and also to fix things. So I remember one time when my kids were little, we had a Wii U video game system, and it's the kind that you put the disc into, like in a car CD player or something that kind. And I was schooling my older kids, but my younger ones were playing in the room that had the video game system, and they decided to stuff their goldfish crackers into the

Suzanne Wells:

video game system. Yes, let's see what happens when we do that, right? Yeah.

Unknown:

And so we were just, I was like, oh, no, what are we going to do? My husband, you know, he took it apart. He said, I think it's just this part, you know, that I need to fix. He said, Why don't you look on eBay and see if you can find find a for parts only system, which I did, and I purchased, we replaced the part, and then we, of course, resold that system that we had bought for parts, we resold it for parts. So it was kind of a wash in the end. But those were kind of some of the ways we used eBay throughout the years as to just, you know, flip things out

Suzanne Wells:

there, things that children have put food in. I have a story like that. I think it was my son, yeah, because he's he's the analytical mind. He used to take things apart see how they worked. It's like three, yeah, so one day he puts the grilled cheese sandwich in the VCR, oh, my goodness. And I'm like, oh, Mitchell, why did you do that? And he looked at me just very nonchalant. Said, I wanted to see what it looked like inside. Yeah,

Unknown:

it looks like it kind of fits in that, yeah, and

Suzanne Wells:

he didn't see a problem with it. He was like, interested, and so I supported his curiosity on that and didn't. But I'm sure lots of parents have stories of Lego and all kinds of stuff that got shoved in those VCRs because that slit was was big enough to put all kinds

Unknown:

of Yeah, like a little pocket that, yeah, Polly Pocket,

Suzanne Wells:

all kinds of stuff, yeah. So I'm sure the wanting those for parts, and even probably now, is Yeah, the thing, because little kids. Get curious, and if they can stick something in there, they're going to do it. Yeah, they are. That's a good one.

Unknown:

So, but over the years, I've sold a lot of just things we didn't use. And it's not necessarily things that were I mean, yes, I sold leftover things of ours. But sometimes people would just give us stuff, and we'd end up with hand me down clothes or random homeschool books or whatever landed in our house. You know, if I knew there might be a market on eBay, then I would kind of flip it over there. A lot of homeschool stuff you can flip in person or just locally. But, you know, some of it, you get a wider you know, if you can't do it there, then you'll get a wider audience on eBay. And they're all looking for things, especially around this time of year, I find like April to August, the people that are educating, they're looking for their next year's curriculum and trying to save money on it. So

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, there's even, well, the homeschoolers know this. There's like, conventions or expos and go and sell your your stuff and buy the next year and but not everybody can go to those right? May not be one in your area, or you may not have a day to blow to go do that. So eBay is a very convenient way to recover your investment and then find what you need next.

Unknown:

Yes, so there was a time when we were in one of our locations we I we were, my husband was bi vocational, so he was living in, we were living in a parsonage, and then he was working another job. And I just there was somebody at our church who just would bring, like, he was kind of like a junk dealer, or somebody who went out and sourced good things. He saw somebody throwing a Christmas tree in the dumpster. He didn't see anything wrong with it. He brought it over, and this is about October one year, and I thought, well, I'll put that together and see if I can sell it, you know? So I did. I put it together in my corner, and was able to flip that locally. Just kind of fun, fun things like that. Somebody was cleaning their appliances. They got a moved into a new house, and they wanted to get new appliances. So they took out all the old appliances, and they brought them to us, and I cleaned them all up, and, you know, flip them locally. But I just didn't realize, you know, what I was doing, was just making it just made sense to me, but I didn't realize that it could be actually a business venture. I didn't think of it in those terms. It was just very sporadic and very as needed. So when I did kind of dive into some social media and start, you know, I even took a while for me to actually get fed some of the relative material. But by the time I did, I just, I did have a light bulb moment one day, and I thought, Well, I've been, I've been doing things like this for years, and why? Why would I not do this? I didn't know there were other people that actually did this, and especially as a job. So,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, I had that epiphany when I started. I was at 2003 Yeah, I was just, I gone through a divorce and was downsized out of my part time job, and I was just frantic, and just had a garage sale, just like trying to keep my head above water till I can get a job interview and get a real job. And just my neighbor was like, why don't you sell this stuff on eBay? And I was like, I don't even know what that is. What do you mean? And and so I started doing it, and started selling my own stuff, and then ran out of my own things to sell, and, you know, started going to other people's garage sales and thrift stores, and it just hit me, I could totally do this on purpose all the time. You know, it doesn't have to be just to tide me over till I get, like, a corporate job, which I really didn't want, because I wanted to be home for my kids. They were in school. And it was, you know, I could work this around their schedule. And it was just, like you said, an epiphany of, wait a minute, this could do it all the time intentionally. Yeah, I know a lot of people say. That way, because they don't think like, you want to be Fred Sanford forever? And I'm like, Yeah, I think I do.

Unknown:

Yeah. I've just really enjoyed how flexible it is, how I can continue to support my family in, you know, like driving my kids around and doing the you know, I can take my computer anywhere long as I have drafts ready. You know, I can sit there and list things while they're or even just research

Suzanne Wells:

or, like, go through the money making Mondays and see what other people are selling. There's right, always something doing on your phone, even if it's just educating yourself in those moments in the carpool line or whatever you're doing,

Unknown:

yeah. So there was one time where we were, another thing that we that I did kind of intentionally flip, was we were at a library sale, and they had these magazine back issues they were getting rid of. They were for magazines called cricket and faces and spider I think they're like literature magazines. They have a tree and short stories in them, and they're quite expensive to get a subscription to. And I knew this because my daughter was young, and I had thought about getting the subscription. Well, I think they were selling them for like 10 cents a piece. And I thought, I'm going to get these so we can use them, you know, in our in our homeschooling. And then after we were done with them, you know, it probably took us six months to a year to work through them. And then I thought, well, I'm, I wonder if these would sell on eBay. And they did, you know, I don't remember how much they sold for anything, but I know at that time, you know, it was, you know, it's just part of that lifestyle of using something and then finding a new home for it. So part of my journey has been flipping things locally, or just getting rid of things locally. But I think really, when I moved to a rural town outside of Omaha, that was when I started thinking more. With internet related selling because I didn't have the the access to an audience that I had before, and that was part of what sparked me to looking into eBay further, as, you know, a continuous thing, instead of just a here and there type of thing. So there were some things. When we moved there, I think my daughter was growing out of all the, you know, little little girl clothes she had, and we had a bunch of those IKEA hangers. IKEA makes a special hanger that's like, between the baby size and the adult size, okay. And so I had had a bunch of those for my kids. I think I had nearly 100 and I thought, you know, people might want these. If they don't live near nikea. They kind of want that organization, so I did, I think I listed them at the equivalent of $1 a hanger. And I did take a best offer, so it was a little less than that. But, you know, I made back probably what I had spent on the hangers, so I was happy to help somebody who didn't live near an Ikea too?

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, that's the thing is that stuff isn't everywhere, and sometimes it's it's not even on the website, like, right? Limited, own limited time only. And IKEA stuff, I've learned can be hit or miss. It just depends, you know, if it's a shower curtain they only made for a short time, and it's real funky, or some of the hardware for the shelving or stuff you hang on the wall, those work is very specific to those pieces. So you ever see IKEA hardware, check that out. But not not like everything out there. IKEA just always pick it up, of course. But I was a learning experience over the years. Like, oh, why would somebody want this, the solid white shower curtain, right? Well, they like it, and it was only made for a short time, and they're non there are none on the website, and so like, Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel are like that too. It doesn't have to be a really funky, outstanding design. It's just, uh, I call it a utilitarian item that they can't find anywhere. Yeah,

Unknown:

right, yeah. Well, and another thing about IKEA is they're kind of modern, sleek. Look with their furniture. We actually in our neighborhood last summer, my husband was driving around, and he saw somebody had put a couple chairs on the curb, and he was on a walk, and I had the vehicle, so he said, Why don't you drive over here and pick up these chairs. And one was one of those bowl chairs, and, like, the buttons were pulled off and stuff, but we just use that as an extra seat when needed. But the other one was kind of a sleek, I don't know if it was real leather, but it felt leathery, and it had a footstool with it, and it just had that modern, like, kind of reclined, bouncy look. And I thought, Okay, well, maybe if somebody would want this, and I google lends it, and it did come up as an Ikea chair. And I think the price at IKEA was like 300 something dollars, yeah, chair with the ottoman. And I thought, Well, I mean, let me I didn't, I didn't sell that one on eBay, but I think I did get something like $75 locally for it, you know, just by picking it up on the side of the road. So that was a win for us.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, once you love those and and then it just opened your mind to you just don't leave anything behind, right, right? It doesn't work out. You can donate it or trash it or whatever. But I had that happen with a chair. It was a, it was a rattan chair with a cushion on it, okay? And it was, it was at a garage sale I went to, and it just had free on it because it, it wasn't perfect. And I was like, I was just going to use it on my deck, uh huh. And like, okay, so I got that for free. And I was like, just for the heck of it, I'm going to look it up. And I forget what store it was from. It may have been Pottery Barn, okay, it was something like that. And, yeah, it was a $300 chair. Yeah. Well, I'm going to put this on marketplace and just see what happens. Right, right? I am not fancy enough to put my rear end in a $300 chair all the time. I don't need that. So, sure enough, somebody responded immediately. Drove down from Tennessee, oh my Atlanta to get this chair. Wow. And it turned out he had several of them on his porch, and a tornado came and destroyed a couple of them, and always looking for him, because he loves this and wants the other chairs. And, like, in my world, that's like, way too much trouble for a chain, but he was thrilled to get it. And I thought, Gosh, people just don't know what they're throwing away, right? What they're getting ready for free. Yeah, you know, look at me. I'm just, I'm like, a little ant. I'm just taking this thing from over here and putting it over here and making money on it, and also

Unknown:

trying to help somebody out too, you know. So I bought myself a $50

Suzanne Wells:

rocking chair. Oh, nice from the money I made selling the free chair. Yeah,

Unknown:

yeah. You still got a chair that you want? Yeah, yeah.

Suzanne Wells:

And everybody want on that, yeah, yeah. I love these people that find stuff on the curb or do trash picks, because it's just, it's just a gold mine out there. Yeah,

Unknown:

and I've seen a lot of that when people are done with their garage sale Saturday, you know, they just kind of put everything at the curb and market free, and people can come around and just check it out. So

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, and good for us. Yeah, that's a great story.

Unknown:

Well, I did find out about this series of books. Everybody knows about the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books, but there are several spin off series to that. There's one about her daughter, and then there's one about her mom and her grandma, and then her great grandma. And, you know, I don't know really how accurate these books are, but my daughter was a fan of Laura Ingalls, and so when I found out they had these other series, I kind of kept my eye out for them, and we borrowed them from the library. Well, then I was at a library sale one week and found that they were getting rid of all these books, and they're kind of hard to find, because the demand wasn't necessarily super high when they were being published. And so some of the publishing numbers toward the end of those theories fell off, and then some of those books now are worth more. So I picked up a bunch of whatever they had at this library sale. I picked up for a quarter a piece, you know, just for our personal library, knowing that later I would probably sell them. And then my husband and I were on a trip to Lincoln. A few years ago. And at that time, they did have a goodwill that was just dedicated to media. So they just had books, DVDs, CDs, and maybe, like, computer equipment. And I happened to look in the books, and I found a whole stack again of these spin off series books, you know, just for real cheap, like $1 a piece or something. So I have had one, you know that I had a duplicate of sell for just under $40 and some of them do go for as high as, like 80 or 90. It just depends on what books you have and but I am getting ready now to start selling off, you know, our personal collection that we had, we don't need it anymore, and I definitely want but I know that those books are sought after, and they kind of have an emblem on the top that say little house. And so, you kind of know, it's part of a series. But if you're familiar with the regular Little House books, they have kind of the same font and but they're a good thing to look out for, and can be worth money, but you just find them in those odd places, you know. So it

Suzanne Wells:

does have Laura Ingalls Wilder name on it as the author.

Unknown:

No, they're written by other people. I think there's like a Melissa, somebody, and then there might be a male author too. So that's why you want to look for the little it's like a golden oval emblem on the top of the book, and it'll say little house. And the pictures are reminiscent of Little House, so it kind of gives that vibe. But, yeah, it is different authors. So

Suzanne Wells:

okay, well, that's good to know to look out for, yeah.

Unknown:

So I guess after I heard about, I was hearing, you know, watching Social Media of people buying and selling things as a business, I thought I did start keeping my eye out for things, because I'm a natural Thrifter and i i Just thrift anyway with my daughter, one of the first things I found that I wanted to try out was I was at Our local chain thrift store, and I found a Walt Disney World cast member exclusive pin bag, and it's like, it's like, it looks like a CD binder, but then there's felt pieces in there where you put the pins, like they Get specific pins, I guess, yeah. It's like, yeah. So I didn't even know what it was. I think the logo on it, like might have had Mickey Mouse, but it said W, D, W for Walt, Disney World. And it was new with the tags. And, you know, I did Google lens that to find out what it was. And I thought, Oh, well, I guess, you know, I might, I might try this and see, I think I paid 350 for it, because I think it was a half off day. And that one I flipped pretty quickly into, I think I got $75 for it pretty quick. Oh, yeah, nice. And I showed it to my husband, and he was like, wow, that's a great,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, we,

Unknown:

you know, a lot of times when you flip kids clothes, you're not making quite that much money. Or the the kids clothes I was flipping, I'm making quite that much money. That was kind of a fun um, one of my first intentional sales. And then another one was, I had heard about somebody who sells clothing on YouTube talking about seat belt bags, and it's, you know, like a purse or a bag, yes, seat belt

Suzanne Wells:

Yes, it's a seat belt handbag, yeah. And

Unknown:

she was talking about how those were coming back, because it was kind of a y 2k thing. And I thought, Oh, well, that's interesting. And then when our family was thrifting one day, I was at a goodwill, and I was looking at their new racks, and I saw one of those seat belt bags, and it was kind of a bigger, bigger purse style, and it was mauve, like a pretty paint color, and I just thought, well, that's interesting. I don't know if that's going to make it do better or worse, but I think it was $6 and I decided to get it and take a chance on it, and then I ended up selling it for $89 pretty quickly, and that one went international too. That was, must have been right after, I think I'd heard you talk on one of your podcasts about how if you offer international sales, it kind of boosts you, gives you a boost in the algorithm. And I thought, well, I can. I can certainly offer international sales for that work. With and then got an international sale. And do you remember where it went? I don't. I think it was a name that began with a the maybe Cambodia. Mm, okay, so, yeah, that was just kind of crazy that I had an internet and there's

Suzanne Wells:

no reason not to have international now with the eBay international standard, right? Ma'am, I had, I had an item that person opened a return on it, and it was a heavily beaded, what you call ugly sweater. But I thought it was beautiful. It had dragonflies on it. And I think they're quite beautiful, um, but, you know, they get thrown in with the ugly Christmas sweaters. But anyway, they're, you know, 90s and vintage and handmade. And it sold for like, $80 okay? And it went to Germany. Oh, wow. The lady left me positive feedback, but it was very choppy English, and it wasn't distinct enough German to put in Google Translate to figure out what she's saying. Yeah, just something about maybe it got destroyed, or the package was opened and, oh no, it got damaged, you know, on the way to her, but Yeah, as soon as she opened that, Return. Next email that came says, we've covered this for you. You don't have to do anything. And that's what I love about the international sales program, is that you're covered, right? If it gets damaged, you don't have to do anything. So, and I don't even know if they can leave negative if that happens, so maybe it was a positive, you know, green feedback. It was, you could tell she was angry, yeah, and, but she got her money back. So, yeah, well,

Unknown:

I liked also offering international sales, because even if you're offering a common place item, if you don't, if not, everybody is offering international sales that might make your item in demand, so Right? They're

Suzanne Wells:

going to pick you if you're going to ship there, right?

Unknown:

So I had, I had listed a lot of DVDs that my kids used, and they were like PBS shows, and so sometimes those are hard to find on DVD, and I was just selling them personally because they were sentimental, which is a lot, a lot of things I do sell just because it's something my kids used, and I just want to find a good home for it, right? And these DVDs only, I mean, the sell through, the selling price was around $15 and I was like, That's okay. I just want somebody to have these. Well, they ended up somebody in Australia buying them, and I thought, well, I guess it's probably harder to get PBS show DVDs over in Australia. So I was glad I had international shipping turned on for them too. Yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

absolutely. And it just opens your item up to millions of more people, right? And I'll go through phases where I'll have international sales, like every day for a week. Oh, wow. And like, this plush went to Italy, and this, this thing went to New Zealand. And it's just very interesting. I'm just fascinated. Like, Why did someone over there pay so much money? Right? Shipped to them. What is the deal? Sometimes it's like a $15 item, but they paid 30 for shipping, right? What is going on with that? Is it? Is it American living overseas that wants items from home? Is it a military family wants items from home or not. All the military addresses are within the USPS. It depends on, okay, where they're living and that kind of thing. But, yeah, I've sold things to people on submarines. Oh, wow. It was like a APO FPO address. And I would Google, what is this? And it's, you know, an aircraft carrier. Oh, my goodness. And I was doing the grocery business on Amazon. I sold food people everywhere.

Unknown:

Oh, yeah, people like their food staples for sure, yeah. So

Suzanne Wells:

just, you know, eBay does not pay me to say this. I just find that it makes your business more interesting. It does if you're going to ship worldwide, I sold a bathing suit to Alaska a couple weeks ago, and you know, that was in March

Unknown:

yet, like, Okay, I wonder if they're going on a cruise. They

Suzanne Wells:

have indoor swimming there. So, yeah, true, whatever. Maybe they're doing a polar plunge. I don't know, but yeah, now fitted for whatever it was,

Unknown:

I sold a bathing suit to Maine last week. And yeah, well, yeah, maybe

Suzanne Wells:

it's just like, going on. It's positive thinking like it's gonna get warm.

Unknown:

You're gonna be prepared, right,

Suzanne Wells:

right. Okay, we. You

Unknown:

have any other stories you want to talk about? Yeah, there was one. It was funny. My daughter wanted a pair of ice skates. She goes to college in Chicago, and there's ice skating there, and so when she came back for winter break, she found a pair of ice skates locally and purchased them, and they came in like a white, like old luggage bag, is what it looked like. And she left that behind, because obviously it was too bulky to kind of take on the train and everything. And I messaged her. I said, Do you want this thing? Because it didn't look like something she was going to keep. And she said, No, I don't want it. And I looked it up. It was a vintage it was Samsonite luggage, and it was, you know, probably from the 70s era. It was vintage, and it was like this white, kind of marbled looking thing, um, but anyway, I sold that for $70 you just something that landed in my house, and I decided to look it up before I just put it in the thrift in the, you know, donation pile. So that was fun. So how much were the skates? Um, I think they were, like, $25 Maybe

Suzanne Wells:

so, and you bought that on eBay.

Unknown:

Um, that one, I think I just, well, it's, yeah, it might have sold on eBay. It was, it definitely sold. I definitely had to ship it. So I

Suzanne Wells:

had to, what I mean is, when you bought her the skates, where'd you buy them from?

Unknown:

Oh, she just found those locally on Facebook marketplace. Okay, okay, drove and picked them up from

Suzanne Wells:

somebody. So you ended up making money on that deal and skates and again, everybody won, yeah.

Unknown:

And there was another one we when I was at, like a homeschool used book sale, some people just are wanting to get rid of stuff. I found some DVDs that were of a show called Popular Mechanics for kids. Mm, hmm, you know. And they had, like, season one, season two, season three, and I think they were a quarter a piece, like it was too good not to pass up. I was just like, Oh, these are something that would be great for my kids to watch. Well, they finally were, we were getting ready. We were watching through them one fall a few years ago, and I looked up and found out there. There was a season four also, and I it was a little harder to find, but I did find one on eBay for $10 and had it shipped. And then I thought, well, I'll sell them all together, because that always makes a nicer sale if you can have all the seasons. Well, when I was looking for there must have been one of the seasons, besides four, that was hard to find, or hard to find all at once, because I couldn't find any complete sets, or the complete sets I had found were selling for over $100 and so I listed these for $200 and I ended up getting an offer for 150 I hit Accept real fast on that one. Yeah, I guess so I just thought these have been sitting in my house for years, and I can't believe they're worth this much, or maybe they weren't worth that much before, and now they are. I don't know what you said they were from the 90s. I don't know when they were from those Popular Mechanics for kids, and it was a DVD series, okay,

Suzanne Wells:

so was that a PBS thing? Um,

Unknown:

I don't, I don't think it was PBS, because I don't call the PBS logo, but it probably was, like, one of those, you know, a kids dedicated television show, yeah, like

Suzanne Wells:

Amy, or TLC, or some things. But I where I'm going with that is a lot of those PBS things, yeah, VHS or DVD are great sellers, like I was forced to watch the old Yankee Workshop. Oh, man, when I was a young married, you know, Bob Vila and all that building stuff and, yeah, that was, you know, the era where I was reading all the John Grisham books. So husband, at the time, would be watching that, and I would be in the other room reading. But now those kinds of things sell for great money. Yeah, and I don't know if it's just because it's like a vintage production, or are people really watching them, and because you can find that online, and I think people just like to have the physical DVD or VHS tape.

Unknown:

Yeah, sometimes they do. Sometimes it brings just to mind that, oh, this is a thing I want to watch. Mm, hmm, physically it's there. And so they remember that's something they want to do well.

Suzanne Wells:

And. Know, not everybody has great internet, if you're rural or whatever, and or streaming, maybe it's on streaming, but they keep changing things and right, charging you for stuff. Yes, like, I want to watch some movies from the 90s. One of my favorite movies is double jeopardy with Tommy Lee Jones,

Unknown:

okay, yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

for it, I will buy the DVD at Goodwill for $1 Yeah, I'm not paying you $4 to watch a movie that's almost 30 years old, right? And these streaming channels are getting so greedy with everything they're putting on there probably now 75% you have to pay something extra. You have to do this free trial. And it's, it's getting to be like, Okay, I dropped cable 10 years ago because I didn't want to pay all that. And now here we are with the streaming channels getting so greedy. Yeah,

Unknown:

it's basically just splitting up that amount among like, 10 services.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, it's a principal thing. I'm like, No, I'm not paying that. I'll go find it or even buy it on, you know, ebay or amazon for two or$3 and watch it whenever I want. I'm not paying you, right?

Unknown:

Well, you know, and they're starting to bundle a streaming service with different things, like, you have this option with your phone plan, and right, you have Walmart, plus you get this one for free. And, you know, so they're just trying to, you know, maybe offer it another way. Maybe they,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, that's true. I will say that I pay $8 a month for Paramount, plus, which has the Smithsonian channel. Oh, I love that. Okay, so educational, like in a fun the productions are really good, so I will pay $8 I will pay $2 a week for that.

Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, if you know it's something you're going to watch regularly. Yeah, I have not explored Paramount plus that much, but that is one that comes with a service we have. And so I like watching documentaries, and so that's the first thing I want to explore on any service I get a trial of what kind of documentaries do they have?

Suzanne Wells:

Well, they have Ariel America. Have you ever seen that? No, it's all filmed from the air this 2012 and it, it's every state, and they film everything from the air. It's not drones, wow. The big thing back then, it's okay, like helicopters had to stabilize the cameras on it. And so then they made all these other ones, aerial France, aerial Greece, Ariel, wow. Um, VISTAs where it's all, you know, nature stuff. And I started because of that. I loved that. And then there's just other things like that coming up. So the productions are really good, because it's the Smithsonian, Mm, hmm.

Unknown:

Those are the kind of things I like to watch with my kids. You know, it's kind of, it's a learning venture, you know, it's something we can all find interesting. There was one on Disney plus about the making of a cruise ship, a new cruise ship. And that was just fascinating. We all loved that. My kids were really intrigued by, like, I mean, we haven't taken a cruise, so they but just the intricate details and how, even after the ship pulled out of where it was being structured like they were putting touches on it all the way to its destination point, or, you know, it's, it's docking, when they were going to have the initial takeoff,

Suzanne Wells:

right, the launch? Yeah, that does sound that reminds me of that show how it's made. Yeah, I used to watch that with my kids, and again, my analytical son, you know, it would be somebody like random things they just put together. Like, today's episode is making wheelchairs cupcakes and, you know, door locks or, yeah, like all these random things and and we just decided we like the food ones,

Unknown:

the weird ones, are watching

Suzanne Wells:

unwrapped on the Cooking Channel. It's like the factory, and they have how they make everything, and it's kind of hypnotic watching all those machines do everything. But yeah, we're into that too. And see We totally got off the topic of eBay that has nothing to do with anything other than we started talking about DVDs. Okay, well, do you have any final words for the listeners? Maybe moms that juggle so much like you, or just getting into eBay in general.

Unknown:

I mean, I'll just say it's, it's eBay is something that can grow with you. I mean, you can just do it as needed and use it as a resource. And if that's all it ever is, that's still great. And. And if you want it to become more at some point, you know, it'll be there for you when you want it to become more. So I just really enjoyed, and I'm not even really doing it to the fullest extent yet, but I do see the future when I won't have any homeschool duties anymore, you know, then maybe I will have more time for it, or maybe that will get filled with something else. But I just, I really enjoy the flexibility it allows

Suzanne Wells:

your older kids. Do they do any reselling?

Unknown:

Um, they don't, but they do everything. They clean out of their rooms. They do give to me so that I can resell, if it's worth it for them. So

Suzanne Wells:

and then they get the money, um, depending on what it

Unknown:

is, but yeah, usually they get the money like

Suzanne Wells:

they're not going to get the money for that $300 dress, or you bought them,

Unknown:

right? Yeah, that is funny

Suzanne Wells:

when they start driving, because I saw this with my kids. I started when they were six and eight. So when my daughter started driving, she would bring me things, how much you think you can get for this mom? Because, you know, she had paid gas money and, Mm, hmm, she she did babysitting for for money. She didn't work outside the, you know, neighborhood, but, yeah, that when they have a car, then they're ready to they're ready to part with their things. Like my son, when he started driving, he brought me the LEGO sets, those building things that, yeah, imagine X and yeah, when

Unknown:

you have a whole set, you can usually get a good bundle price on that. Yeah, because he would

Suzanne Wells:

put those complicated Lego things together in a couple days, and they just sat in his room on a shelf, and he had the box, and then intentionally, I said, I'm not going to make it again. One day you're going to sell it. So, yeah. So shout out to the all the moms out there buying these expensive toys for your kids, they will outgrow them. Save the boxes somewhere. Save the instructions. It will make them more sellable, and you'll get more money for

Unknown:

it. Yeah, yeah. Well, even we we always looked out for Thomas the train engine at garage sales. When my kids were little, I usually let them pick maybe one or two cars for their train set. And, yep, that's something that's going to probably get listed this summer, because nobody's playing Thomas train anymore,

Suzanne Wells:

right? And it it's going to get older and they don't make them. I don't care how far ahead we get into the future, we're still going to be saying, Yeah, they just don't make it like they did in right? The year was because everything changes, right? Well, yeah, okay. Well, it was great to finally meet you, and I hope I didn't nag you about coming on too much. No, you're and I hope you enjoyed it. Don't regret it. Very painless. Yeah, okay. Well, so it's three o'clock there. Yes, it's happening the rep for the rest of your day.

Unknown:

Well, my kids are have some obligations this afternoon, so I'm home, so I I probably will work on eBay a little bit today, and then I'll just get supper ready for when everybody's home. So okay, I do a lot of my listing at night when we're watching TV. So I just, it's easy to have a computer and pull up your drafts and just list a couple few things. There you

Suzanne Wells:

go. Every day you touch it, every day, that's that's what the algorithm likes. Yeah, okay, well, thanks again, and we'll see on the group with your great sales,

Unknown:

yeah, thank you. Suzanne, bye bye.

Suzanne Wells:

Joy was so efficient that she emailed me a few days later with some follow ups. She said it looks like the Popular Mechanics for kids was a Canadian TV show that aired on Global TV from 1997 to 2000 and then reruns were aired on BBC kids Canada until 2018 this is what I found on Wikipedia, which I know can't always be trusted, but if that information is True, that would explain why the DVDs were in demand. The Little House on the Prairie spin off series are written by Roger McBride, who wrote the rose years, Maria Wilkes, who wrote the Caroline years, and Melissa Wiley who wrote the Charlotte years and the Martha years, the seat belt purse I sold went to Croatia, so now you have all those details. Next week, my guest is Rachel, who is just as sweet as she can. Be and very resourceful in her eBay selling so please come back for that episode. Thank you all for listening to and supporting this podcast, and I hope you have a fantastic week on eBay. Bye for now. You