eBay the Right Way

eBay Seller Chat with Lisa in Oregon: Specializes in Overlooked Items, Finds Thrift Store’s Mistakes 😳

• Suzanne A. Wells • Episode 221

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Suzanne Wells:

Announcer, hello, listeners, you have landed on episode 221 of eBay the right way. Today's date is June 11, 2025 and my guest is Lisa in the Pacific Northwest. One quick announcement. If you are not following my Facebook business page, please do so my assistant, aka my daughter, Melanie, has been managing it for years, and she has finally had enough and relinquished it back to me. So I am doing some new things that you might enjoy and learn from. The link is below the podcast. Or you can look for my business page, not a group, but a business page, by searching for eBay the right way on Facebook, and I will see you there. Okay, now let's talk with Lisa. Welcome back, resellers. I have Lisa with us today, and Lisa has been very, very busy the past few months, which she'll explain that in a minute. But first of all, where are you?

Unknown:

I am in Bend, Oregon, okay,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, and I see those pictures on your wall. Is that around you the beautiful nature and snow capped mountains and all, yeah,

Unknown:

those are pictures that I don't know if I took or one of the kids took, but, yeah, Sparks, Lake, Mount bachelor, yeah, this is what we get to enjoy in the summer around here. Lovely.

Suzanne Wells:

That is so pretty. Yeah, and I'm, I don't do it on purpose, but I do like something in the background catches my eyes. That's us eBay. You're always looking Yes, exactly. Pay attention to the details. Okay, well, do you want to catch us up on what you've been doing the past few months and how busy you've been,

Unknown:

yeah, so one of the things that I appreciate about doing this business is that we have the flexibility to really make our priorities what we want. And so we've had two college track athletes and cross country athletes. So our daughter is finished up her college career, and we've been to all of her cross country and track meets, and our son just got married this weekend. So yeah, it's been a busy couple of months.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, I'll say, and so you're an empty nester now, yes,

Unknown:

well, we've been empty nesters for six years, but we've been chasing the college race, actually, for four years. I guess our daughter's just been gone for four

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, so are you ready to get back into your eBay now? Well,

Unknown:

I haven't stopped. Yeah, yeah. I even last week, while we were gone for the wedding, went down to the bins one time in Salem and went to a few thrift shops and, I think a garage sale. So I don't know. I think that if you have been doing this this long, you still just kind of are always on the hunt. Well

Suzanne Wells:

now you don't have all these big life changing things going on, so you can do it more,

Unknown:

right? Okay, okay.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, when did you start selling and what brought you to eBay? So

Unknown:

I started selling in 2010 and we had moved from Southern California up here to bend at that time, and my husband was working for my mom in property management, construction and real estate, and that's about the time that all of that, the bottom fell out of all of that. And so prior to that, I was a junior high teacher. Prior to the kids being born, I taught junior high PE for 12 years, and student government. And so I did a bunch of stuff, but in 2010 my husband said, I think you really need to go back to teaching. And there were no teaching jobs because people were leaving here. So we had a friend visiting. She's like, Oh, I gotta go ship something on eBay. I said, Tell me about that. So she told me about that, and she's so I started just by pulling stuff out of the closet. So, yeah, I always bought cheap so, like, I would go to Target and buy all the Super Soakers on clearance, and that's what my kids took to birthday parties. So I had stacks of little things and. I started, I think my first thing I sold was a Thomas train that was supposed to be a birthday gift, so it was new. And then probably I just sold. You know, I knew I was going to make some mistakes, so I as I was trying, so I was really just selling stuff I had around here, just testing it out. And then a couple months into it, we went down to the Nike outlet. We have an awesome Nike outlet here in town, and I found a pair of snowboard boots for like, $15 on clearance. And I said to my husband, I go. I know I can sell those for more. Please just let me spend 20 bucks. So I bought those, I sold those, and I put the the profit in our pocket, and I took the 20 bucks back to the Nike outlet. And so I did that for a long time, that $20 turned into 200 to 500 to 700 to 1000 and I was going, I figured out when the sales were, and I was going all the time down to that Nike outlet, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, they only let me buy five of one item, you know. And so I sold a ton of Nike shoes, Nike apparel, and they all knew me in there. And the kids were every every time I went in there, the kids that worked there were like, come over here, check this out. Come over here, check that out. So I had a pretty great gig going. And at that time, Nike wasn't gated on Amazon, so I started selling some Nike stuff on Amazon, and to this day, I still can sell Nike on Amazon without having to go through the gating. I don't know. I just feel fortunate. Oh, they didn't. I was pretty lucky. Yeah, I don't as much, but I have that. So that progressed to, like I said, we're from California, really, and so we go to Santa Cruz a decent amount, and there's a Patagonia outlet down there. So that was sort of next step. Is Patagonia at that time was they had really great sales, and I kind of was being a little coy about what I was doing. And then one of the girls that worked there, she picked up that I was, you know, basically doing retail arbitrage, and she's like, Oh, come here, talk to our manager. And so the manager, like, took us in the back. We were climbing around. They have a really cool shop there. We were climbing around the attic of they're pulling out, you know, amazing stuff, $5 $17 puffer Jack, puffer vest that sell for $179 I was getting for $17 Oh, and so, um, they would send us the markdown list. They would say we're having 40% off. And eventually I just would look, I'd order and I'd have boxes of Patagonia show up here in Bend. It was a very sweet gig. I mean, at 1.1 time, I spent $10,000 on all my Patagonia stuff. So between Patagonia and Nike, I felt like I had a pretty sweet deal. And then, I don't know, it was probably a couple years into that, I got a message that said, you need to stop selling Patagonia on Amazon, and it was from their legal department. And I said, no, wait, they help me. They tell me. She's like, No, we're changing all of our policies. And so, yeah, so they gave me 90 days to sell out on eBay and Amazon. Well, on Amazon because I still have stuff I put on eBay, but they, they gave me 90 days to sell it on Amazon, and then they actually bought back the stuff that didn't sell. So, oh, here you can have the stuff that really is a dud,

Suzanne Wells:

and before the listeners become worried that they're going to be contacted by companies legal departments, I feel like this was because of the amount you were selling, and it was new with tags, and it was like a completely different situation than if you found two or three of them in a thrift store,

Unknown:

100% Nothing on the thrift store. And I've never had them say anything about my eBay. It was all the stuff I was selling on Amazon. So, yeah, I don't, I don't think that

Suzanne Wells:

Well, I can. I can see their point of your undercutting their business by selling it for less than they can. But you know, sometimes you'll get these emails from what looks like the headquarters of said company. And really, if you find the item in the you know, out in the wild, if you. Bought at a garage sale. It's yours. You can do whatever you want to with it, right? Put it out in your front yard and catch it on fire. You can sell it on eBay whatever you want to do. So a lot of times it's just sort of bullying behavior. I know that company, melaleuca, that sells like, skincare products, yeah, they're multi did that a lot back in the day when all this arbitrage started. But really, you know, if you're a garage sale or a state sailor Thrifter, and you're just finding these things here and there, you have nothing to worry about. And if you ever for for the listeners, if you ever receive a letter like that, talk to eBay about it. See, is it legit? Do I need to do something because it's, I think it's bullying.

Unknown:

Yeah, I think most they're trying to, I understand, because they're trying to protect their brand. But yeah, yeah, and this was really Amazon, directly it, I mean, not Amazon, but it was for my listings on Amazon. I've never had any trouble on my eBay, and I just kind of went dark on my Patagonia on eBay for a while. And now I'm back, and I kind of, you know, I still go to the outlet, never find the deals that I did in those days,

Suzanne Wells:

right? Yeah, around 2010 you said,

Unknown:

Yeah, that might have been, yeah, it was 2010 so that was when all 2011

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, retail arbitrage really kicked up on Amazon. Around that time I started in 2009 with toys. That was kind of what people were doing. And then it just grew and grew and blew up. And we're, we're in a different time now, like you said, categories are gated. You can't just put things on Amazon anymore, like I used to, you know, maybe used books, something like that, something simple, but all these branded items, and, you know, big names, you have to go through such a process to, yeah, be approved to do it. And speaking of Patagonia, I know their vintage stuff. Some of those vintage, you know, pullovers sell for like, $300

Unknown:

Oh, yeah, that fleece. If you find a vintage snap key Patagonia, you are in the money. I

Suzanne Wells:

was watching a movie on I think it was paramount plus over the weekend, and it was called significant other. It's about this couple that goes camping and all these weird things happen in the woods of the Pacific Northwest your area. And it was good at first, and then it got like, Yeah, this is not realistic. But the girl was wearing a vintage, what looked like a vintage Patagonia fleece. I saw a little tag with the blue and the mountains and the pattern, and I was like, Oh, Gosh, I wonder where she got that. You know, did she buy that? Did they buy that on eBay for her to wear in this movie, it was definitely

Unknown:

vintage. You just need to come visit bend because it's, like, super saturated with Patagonia around here. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, we, we have tons. Where's their headquarters in the United Oh, Patagonia's headquarters is in Ventura. Ventura, okay, okay. Santa, Barbara, yeah, it's

Suzanne Wells:

like Coca Cola over here on the East Coast, it's like everything is Coca Cola Delta, you know, all those big companies that are here, right?

Unknown:

Yeah, bend is, bend is the home to Hydro Flask. Yeah. Bend has a lot of small business, but yeah, Hydro Flask started not very far from where our shop is. So okay,

Suzanne Wells:

alright, so that is your retail arbitrage slash eBay story. Now, are you still doing it that way? Or are you a Thrifter estate sale? Or did you did you migrate over to other ways?

Unknown:

So yeah, so I, I don't usually. I don't really panic. I just say, Okay, what door is opening next? I feel like, in our business, God has opened doors, closed doors, open doors, closed doors. And so when I thought, if Patagonia is going to do that, if my whole rest of my eBay business is based on Nike, I could be in trouble. So and you know, at that time, Amazon wasn't super saturated with people, either, so I found a wholesaler who I was buying. It's crazy, but I was buying bungee cord, and I was selling bungee cords on Amazon, okay? And they developed a bungee boat line product, so for docking, for anchoring, and we ran the table on that, and they're like, You are caught. Causing us we can't keep up with the demand that you have created this product. So 10 years ago, we bought that portion of that business, and we are manufacturing the bungee dock lines and anchor lines and all of that. So we're just about to hit our season of what we did. I mean, really, Memorial Day is our season, although it's not like it used to be. In addition, yeah, nothing is right. It's like, because, really, because there's a lot of import stuff that's junky, that's similar to what we sell, but people will buy. They always will pay a lesser price. But yeah, so that led to US manufacturing. And then I also for Amazon stuff. I picked up Maxi glide ski wax, which is a company that was based in New York, for cross country, mostly cross country recreational skiers, but for other stuff too. And that gentleman is, he's like, 78 so two years ago, he said that my husband and I needed to take over production of that. So we also now produce ski wax, which, you know, it's like, I know that our story isn't everybody else's story, but it's pretty amazing. And the doors that will open, if you just, you know, you talk to people, you ask questions, but I've been thinking a lot lately. At, you know, I'm 58 at my age, it's like, I'm thinking, I don't really want to work that hard anymore. And, you know, how do we stream streamline this down. And I always tell my family, the stuff I love the most is the eBay stuff. It's the thrill of the hunt. It's the thrill of the sale. And so we're doing all this other stuff. We own the building we do all our manufacturing in, and we have a little corner of it that's a little retail store. We don't get a ton of people in there because it's in a weird location, but so, yeah, we've done all these things. But I when you asked me to be on this podcast, I think back to you saying, Oh, I've done it all. I've had a huge staff, and I've been by myself and I and I heard you say, it's a lot easier by yourself. And when we first started doing all this other stuff, I was like, Ah, how could it be so bad? Suzanne. And now I'm like, Oh, I'd like us just to turn back the clock, and I just love the eBay stuff. So I don't want

Suzanne Wells:

to come across as it's bad. It's just for me. It it was time consuming to manage people all the time, and you have to hire them the process of hiring people, and then they work for a week, and they don't work out, and you have to hire somebody else. And you know, all of that was taking me away from the fun part. Well, that's your hunting. And the, you know, the excitement of the sale of something like that I picked out. And, you know, it may be perfectly fine for other people to have a staff and do it that way. I just, I just thought, for me, I didn't like it, because I get to the end of the day and I'm like, I didn't get to do anything I wanted to do. I was busy putting out fires all day and handling, you know, employee problems and all that stuff. And, you know, we only have so much time in a day and so much time on this planet. And I'm 58 like you, and I, I've got my site set on February of next year, because I'll be 59 and a half, and that's magic number to be able to get into your retirement money. And you know, so that's not that I'm going to like, quit doing everything and live on that. But, you know, it's nice to know, okay, the pressure is going to be off if, right? If I can take more risks, I can do more exploring in this business and figure out what I like to do, but it seems like you only have so much energy every day, and the days go by really fast at this age,

Unknown:

like, how was two weeks ago? I haven't done such and such that I meant to do two weeks ago, right? Well, I just think that it's I wouldn't discourage people, especially if you're super young, right? I mean, I had a whole career prior to this, and then raising my kids so but yeah, I I would just say, count the cost. What's important to you. And I always say you can't get the time back. Time is so valuable. And even when I'm out selling ski wax to the ski shops, the guy's like, well, when can I catch you? I said, I'm at the shop 11 to two or 11 to three. And, you know, time is more important to me than money at my at this point in life, right? Like,

Suzanne Wells:

did you, you know of Steve Gitler that's in the Facebook group? Um, does? He's doing a lot of China with replacement stuff. Com, and he answers a lot of questions. Very smart guy, and he was a doctor, or is a doctor, and retired a year ago. He put a post up about that, and he's like, I'm busier now than when I worked. And all about he's doing all the eBay business. He showed a picture of his van just full of boxes of China and dinnerware and stuff that he was taken to replacements.com and so I like to see that like transitioning from one career to to the reselling, it's it's just whatever you want to make it. And a lot of retired people say that, you know, I'm busier now than when I worked, but because you get to pick what you do, right? You know you don't have to go to work for eight, nine hours a day. You can, you can pick what you want to do, and that's why people love this business, is it can be whatever you want,

Unknown:

right? It's fun. It's, it's like a hobby more. The eBay part is like a hobby more. Now, although it makes us very good money, and I don't put as much time. I mean, I seriously, I'll, you know, go to some garage sales on the weekends, but around here, you don't go to garage sales except from maybe the end of May till the end of September, because otherwise it's too cold and people don't do garage sales, right? And I have two thrift stores that I stop at maybe three or four times a week. They're on my way to the shop, so I drive across town, I pop in for 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. And, you know, I still make very good money just finding things and thinking out of the box. I mean, there's a there is $1 clothing sale on Friday nights and on Sunday mornings at from one of the thrift stores. But I really just don't love to sell clothing, you know, because then I have to bring it home and wash it's a lot of work and look for the holes. And so I do it because, you know, some of it I throw into our shop, actually, so people come in and buy stuff at the shop. But yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, so you said you have some notes? Do you want to talk about some things you've sold?

Unknown:

Sure. So one, I think I posted this in your in the group on the money making Mondays, but I found they were little DS Pokemon games, right? Well, I I looked in the basket. So this one thrift store I always kind of go at about 10 o'clock on my way to the shop. It's like five minutes from my shop, and so I looked in the basket. I'm like, Oh my gosh, she has Pokemon games in there. I pull them out. I'm like, Okay, I'll take these, and then I open them up, and the cases were empty. Oh no. She goes, Oh, I'll have to throw those away. Meanwhile, I looked up the empty cases. The empty cases sold for $50 each. Or, yeah, I sold them all within a couple of days for $50 each, but she made me pay the video game price for the empty cases. But that was like a couple bucks. So that, to me, was like a coup, yeah. I mean, I just love that I could sell empty if you find the right case, you can sell video game cases. I love

Suzanne Wells:

that when you find something that you're not even really looking for, and it's like, okay, wait a minute, what is this? Mm, hmm, what can I do something with this? And, yeah, right, I did not know that was a thing, just the cases for those games, but those were from, what the 80s.

Unknown:

I don't remember the they were DS and they were Pokemon. And I think it's the Pokemon piece that, yeah, you know there was, I don't know one was called Silver. And so I tried to go back and look, but I think they get archived, right? And I found this swatch watch about a year ago now, I think it was in the dollar watches somewhere, and that sold, like, in, I don't know, 10 minutes for 100 bucks, really. So it was one from, you know, I saw it, and I was like, Oh, I wore this back in the 80s. Uh huh, you know. So not all Swatch watches are that because I have two kind of sitting and I have them listed for about 25 bucks, but I think the newer ones don't go for the one the price that the ones from the 80s, right?

Suzanne Wells:

People want the vintage. Yeah? Swatches very 80s. Yes, exactly.

Unknown:

And then I found these vineyard vine Tevis cups. So they were Yeah, turbos tumblers. They were Vineyard Vines and Kentucky Derby, oh yeah. And so I think I underpriced those, but I sold, I bought them for four bucks for all four of them. And those sold like almost in. Recently for 80 bucks or something.

Suzanne Wells:

Was that, like a few weeks before the Kentucky Derby?

Unknown:

I don't think so. No, it was because I sold those maybe eight or nine months ago. Okay, probably some collector, but there, you know, that kind of stuff. Um,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, on those service tumblers, anything that's a collaboration, like, there's some masters ones that go for like, $75 any of those collaboration sports teams, and it has, like, the fabric thing in between the two parts of the yes, the insulation part, yeah. So it's, you know, the more rare it is, of course, the more it's going to be worth. But that that's a huge collaboration product. Mm

Unknown:

hmm, that was super fun, because I saw those. I was like, this is a good one. But I always tell my husband, I'm going to the thrift store to look for their mistakes, because, you know, they can't know everything. And so I go looking, you know, they price some things really high, and then I'm like, No, that's not really worth anything. And that's what I kind of tell them, I show them. And then sometimes they price things really low. And I'm like, Okay, thank you. I'll take this. I found a revel. It was like a tea percolating tea maker or something, and I paid, I don't know, 499 for that, and I parted it out and made $200 on, like, selling all like, I took the the heated base, I sold that the carafe, and then inside was a filter and something else. And that'll, you know, and that's

Suzanne Wells:

r, e, v, I, L, L, E, B, R, E, oh. Breville, yeah. Breville, yes, okay, wait, do I know this brand? Right? Those are expensive

Unknown:

machines, right? If you find any of those things, it's like, if you are prepared to ship bigger items, it helps. When I was just working out of the house, it was harder because I didn't have the supplies to ship bigger items. But right now, I picked up a rainbow vacuum and I was, you know, I turned it off while I had one of our employees shipping for us during the wedding week, but I put it back on. You know, it's like, if you're used to packing heavy things, you can do that, right? So I'm not intimidated by appliances and stuff like that. Because, well, really, my husband does all that packing. He does the harm. I do the easy work.

Suzanne Wells:

But he's in. He's the manager of the shipping department,

Unknown:

yeah, and the bookkeeping department, and yeah, he still works for my mom a little bit, but he really does our boat lines and stuff like that too.

Suzanne Wells:

That's what I say. Like, when my daughter, my son, calls, I'm like, Well, I'm working the shipping department right now. Let me call you back in a few minutes, because, you know, we we wear many hats. Well,

Unknown:

the funny thing to me is, I know I used to see people complain about shipping all the time on these groups, and I'm like, that's my favorite part. I never want, really, to let anybody else ship my stuff, because I want to make sure it's done right, and it gets there unbroken, and the right item goes in the package. And I I know everything. Every time I put a label on something, I'm making money, right? So I don't mind. I love the packing. I'd rather, you know, do the shipping than the bookkeeping

Suzanne Wells:

well, and every time you put a label on something that you've already made your money, right? Yeah, yeah. Unlike listing where you're like, Okay, I'll put this out there and hopefully it will sell really soon, but when you're shipping, it's like, Nope, this is a done deal. I've made the money, and I hope it does not come back,

Unknown:

right exactly, and things do come back, yeah, I know.

Suzanne Wells:

Yesterday, I got a I got a notice of a charge back on eBay, like this is something that happened two months ago. And the the thing is, is it was returned two months ago. I gave them their money back. Was fine. It was relisted. It had already sold again, which was what confused me. But apparently the person did not recognize the transaction. And I'm like, so you're trying to get your money back twice, once from me, and one's from your credit card company, maybe, and maybe they just have memory issues. And, you know, it wasn't like an intentional fraud thing, but so it's covered under the eBay seller protection if anybody does a chargeback. Mm, hmm. Some people, that's their way of life. It's like, I'm gonna go buy this and then I'm gonna dispute it on my credit card and get money back. And you do that enough times they shut down your card. But, yeah, that was weird.

Unknown:

But, well, I think that we're gonna have to kind of brace ourselves on the eBay side, because Amazon's going to a no returns return policy. We'll

Suzanne Wells:

see really. Okay, tell me about that. And where did you see this information? Well,

Unknown:

I see this information because me and my my bungee cord guy, are always talking about what's happening on Amazon because our, you know, I think that our sales aren't as robust. Definitely, I know they're not. But now you know, even us with small businesses on Amazon, it's going to be harder, because they have this opt in policy of you can opt in to not have your customer return a return. But I'm not sure the date, because I haven't read all the details, but it's coming where it's like, when you buy something, I think it's under $50 and under a certain size, then they won't make you return it. So you can order something and then say you want to return it, but then you get to keep it. And so, yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

that's happened to me, but it's usually some little $10 product, like cheap made in China, and it didn't work, right, or it broke right away, or something like that,

Unknown:

right? But it won't be sustainable, for example, for our for example, for our business that where we manufacture, right? It's like, I can't have a set of $45 doc lines not come back to me every time you know or

Suzanne Wells:

well, so you're saying it's not across the board. It's something sellers can opt into.

Unknown:

No right now, yes, but it's coming where they're going to force everybody, all sellers will be opted in. That's on Amazon. So I say that for the eBay side, that, you know, the eBay customer will begin to think, Oh, well, we can do this here too, right? It's like trying to discern, like I had a I sold this pencil set, and I think it was an older couple, but I felt like they were hustling me when they were trying to send it back on a return just based on their emails, but then when they actually returned it, and I could see they wrote a handwritten note, I'm like, Oh, this is an older person. And I was like, pushing back. Like, no, I don't think you're I don't think you're telling me the truth, but really, it was an older person, but I feel like we're all getting more skeptical of the returns and how people do them, because it there are people hustling,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, but you know, Amazon's platform is built on that premise of, it's not right, you can return it

Unknown:

right, but that's right. That's the problem, though. So if, if it's not right, and you can return it, but you don't have to return it. The seller can't weather that kind of loss. Oh, I see

Suzanne Wells:

what you're saying. So you'd still get your money back if it wasn't right. You just don't have to

Unknown:

return the product. Yes, correct. So as a buyer, yeah, that'll put

Suzanne Wells:

people out of business. Yes, right. But there's even locations that are, I think here, they're called bin time. I don't know. These are Amazon return businesses. It's like a warehouse, and it's all Amazon returns. And so they don't even go back to Amazon. They're just written off as a loss, or some of these online auction companies, that's all they do is Amazon returns.

Unknown:

Well, I think that's why Amazon's going to this model. I think it's costing them a fortune to handle the incoming returns and then dispose of all the stuff that never goes back to well, if it's not a third party seller, if that's all the stuff they're getting back, for example, or stuff that gets stranded in the warehouses. So, but my concern is that if that's how buyers begin to get trained, they're going to push more for that to the eBay seller as well.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, like the buyers on eBay, who know to do and item, not as a scribe, so they can get free return shipping. Yeah, right. And it's, I don't know how to win that battle, because, you know, I do everything the right way and provide lots of pictures and measurements and everything they would need. Now, I don't mind a return, because no, if it's clothing, it doesn't fit, or whatever I get it. I want that as a consumer. But you know, just these people that say, itemize, describe, and they don't go any further, and then they get free return shipping, and eBay does not step in to say, No, the seller did everything right. They have the photos and the description and you like, how could they make a system where buyers can't do that?

Unknown:

Yeah, it's always buyer friendly. And I have always kind of taken the stand that if I'm going to play in their play in their sandbox, and I'm. To benefit from their platform, you just have to roll with it. You have to know that some things aren't going to shake out your way, but a lot of things do. And when you're not, you know you're paying a couple bucks for something that you can make a couple $100 and you just kind of have to absorb it. And I think that you know, you just have to weigh out those values. It's like, I would never have the reach, right? I have three websites are Maxi glide boat lines and then the outdoor SOX and gear. But I never get the kind of traffic i get from amazon or ebay. So, you know, it's like, just by being on their platform. Now their fees, you know, are kind of going up and up and driving me a little crazy. And I don't know what you think about all the promoted stuff, but I don't really promote I just, you know, every once in a while I put two or 3% but I'd say, well, that's just eBay making more money off of my stuff. So I hopefully I buy good stuff without a lot of competition, and it sells. And I'm sorry, sat for a long time, but Okay,

Suzanne Wells:

so two comments, back to the item, not a subscribe. If eBay is so adamant about that, why can't they pay the return shipping? Well, right? Taking it out of the seller's pocket? Well,

Unknown:

the problem, I think, is they're not going to take the time to go one by one if there's so many returns, they're not going to go back and look at your particular listing. They're going to go, oh, okay, it's all automated. That's how I

Suzanne Wells:

get that. I'm just, well, I wish that it would be being a creative thinker and be like, you know, people abuse that, so if eBay is going to let them abuse that, then eBay should pay the return shipping. Yeah, well, I agree. You're like, Amazon Prime, you know, it's free. Return shipping doesn't work. You just ship it back.

Unknown:

Yes, but you know, do you know who pays that? You know, as a third party seller, you're charged for the return shipping.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, I get that, but I'm, I'm a prime customer, and occasionally I do return things because that's one of the perks.

Unknown:

Oh, totally. I bought for the wedding. I bought, you know, five dresses, tried them all on, and I kept the one that worked, and, you know, I sent the other four back. So I don't do that because I'm sensitive, sensitive to that as a seller, but most people don't think about it, and right?

Suzanne Wells:

I don't. I don't get that very often, maybe every other month, I'll get one, but it's just, it just sort of chaps my hide. You know this, this is allowed to go on, but that's like you said. It is what it is, and I can always not sell on eBay anymore if I don't like it.

Unknown:

Well, it does feel like they stack the deck against the seller. Everything is for the buyer or the, you know, eBay, Amazon, whatever platform it is, they're set up to make money, and you got to kind of go through the gauntlet to make sure you still make money

Suzanne Wells:

right, come out ahead, so it's okay always. But I'm like, the kind of person that's always looking at ways to make things better. So and then promoted listings. I play around with it. I don't have any great conclusions, because I feel like there's too many factors to figure that out, too many variables, like, if you're promoting something, and you know, 100 other sellers are promoting it too well, probably the person who's doing it at the highest rate is going to get that sale. That be how it works. If it's truly limited in number a unique item. There aren't any more like it. I don't, I don't promote it. It'll, it'll get found, and it'll sell in categories where there are a lot of items, like swimwear. I will play around with that depends on like the time of year. And I'll look up, I'll look up an item like it, and underneath, you can see sponsored listings. You can see, you can't see the percentage, but you can see other sellers that are promoting it. So I kind of look at that. But people ask us all the time on the group like, what should I do? What percentage? What do you guys do? And really, it's just, you just have to play around with it for yourself, because there's so many things specific to your business, to your store, that you can't just say, Okay, everybody do one and a half percent. Because, like, what if there's 500 other sellers with the same product, and 100 of them are promoting it 5% you know how? You can't figure that out. There's no way to know.

Unknown:

Well, I would rather send offers and give the customer a discount than pay the more advertising fee or the promotion. Listing fee to

Suzanne Wells:

eBay. Yeah, I get that and but you kind of also have to think about a brick and mortar like, if you are renting a brick and mortar space for your store and you want it in the more populated areas, you're going to pay higher rent, pay more to be seen, for more people to walk by, and so it's kind of that same concept of, so if you pay more, do you get more? And it's interesting individual, the individual can figure that out, like month over month, or seasonal, or whatever it is. So I'm really not like an advocate for promoted listings, because I agree with you. It's just a cash grab, another thing eBay can charge you for. And we don't get to see, oh, you got the sale, and you were competing against all these other sellers and their percentages were this. We don't get to see any of that. So we don't know, you just start shooting arrows in the dark and see what you hit. Right exactly. So Okay, back to your list. Do you have anything else you want to talk about? Oh,

Unknown:

let me think about this. I wrote those things down. I mean, it's like, I feel like I come across things and I can't remember all, but what I what I would say is, I mean, you're better off doing what you know, right? So for me, because I was a PE teacher, I know sporting goods. I know athletic stuff, and that stuff a lot of times, doesn't get picked up by, like, rock climbing gear, right? I know what that is, and even the goodwill people don't know what that is, right? So it's like,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, you sold some kind of rock climbing. What do you call the things that you actually saw? The handholds? Yeah, somebody sold some of those for some good money. And I was like, I would not have known what that was. I would have thought that was like kind of hardware. I don't know

Unknown:

right well. And if you see anything that's Petzl, P, e, t, z, l, like, there's a device called a Gree, Gree. It looks like you would go, what do you do with that? It's a belay device. And I picked one of those up for a buck because nobody knew what it was, and I sold that for $75 Oh, excellent. I picked up a, I think it was specialized bicycle. They call it a cassette, but it's like, you know, a derailer, where you have all the rings on the where the chain goes. And I that was, like three or four bucks, and I sold that for like, $90 and these are, like, instant, you know, so if you know your stuff, I mean, I think it helps to be my age and have the life experience that I've had, because I know things and I've

Suzanne Wells:

it's like, I Are you finding these unknown items, like at garage sales?

Unknown:

I found those at thrift stores. There's a couple thrift stores here in town that actually have decent prices still, and they just don't know. I mean, one of them that, oh, I sold that Scotty Cameron putter for $175 and they had that sitting in the golf thing for$3.49 and I'm like, my heart skipped a beat on that one, right? It's like, oh, how do you not know this well?

Suzanne Wells:

And then again, even if it's a one location thrift store, and there's always turnover, there's always volunteers. And, you know, they don't have any skin in the game. They just back their price and stuff. Ah, put 350 on this. Ah,$1 on that. And, you know, they don't have time to look it all up and figure that out, right? So that's where we come in. Is like, you know, hungry, like the wolf. We go in there. What can I find that's not that's valuable, that's priced too low, and you just keep your mouth shut and go to the register and pay for it and have a great day, right? I grabbed

Unknown:

that putter and I paid for it and walked out the door as fast as I could before somebody else. And then he goes, Hey, wait a minute, that should be priced higher, right? One of the other things I found recently, what were some stainless steel hues, H, E, W, E, S, and they were 35 millimeter film spool. So you put your, you know, when you're developing your film, you roll it in a bag onto those, and then you put it in the canister. Well, in my years of teaching, we put together a photography program. So I knew what that was, and I quickly scooped it up. But most people would walk past that stuff. Yeah, it's just really trying to educate yourself. And I still, you know, I watch videos. I see what's selling. I don't go, like, deep dive, like, some of these people go, what's the highest price? Tie selling. And, you know, but I. Watch what other people are selling. I watch the money making Mondays. I watch some other, you know, YouTube things if I'm sitting around drinking coffee or something in the morning, right? And I just try to educate myself and pick up something new along the way so I can add to my arsenal. And then I if I see something unique, I take a picture of it and I or I research it, but I sold a Rain Bird controller, you know, for 100

Suzanne Wells:

and sprinkler system rain, yeah, right. I paid 750

Unknown:

for that at the Restore. Sometimes those habitat restores are very good, right? Sometimes they are putting, oh, eBay price, so you gotta watch out. But, yeah, that, I think I made $130 on that, but I found that because somebody else had put it in some group, right? So that was not something that I would have thought to grab.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, and isn't it amazing how you'll learn something, and then a few days later, you see it, right? Oh, I know what that is. Two weeks ago, I would not have known what that was. So you just can't, you can't learn it all. There's too much, right? I mean, you keep trying every day, but there's always more. And like you're very specific in what you're looking for with your sporting goods and your bungee cords and all the things you know. You know for the listeners, it's, it's not just going to Goodwill and buying clothing anymore. It's, it's all these very specific products. And I think society is now being trained to go look on eBay first. If it doesn't matter, you know, a component for your sprinkler system. Okay, so it's used, but it's 50% of the retail price, so good. Everybody wins on that,

Unknown:

right? Well, and they're looking for replacement parts, right, right? Uh huh. And so that, yeah, that has been super

Suzanne Wells:

something that was for an invisible fence,

Unknown:

you know, I sold that I saw. Did you sell that? Okay, yeah, yeah, pet fence. And a pet call, you know, electronic pet collar. And I always look for those things, anything Garmin. I've sold Garmin e tricks, Garmin watches. Garmin, even really old Garmin watches. It's like that stuff never sits in my store. So it's just really knowing right and and honestly, you can't sell medical stuff on eBay, and you can cut this out if you want, but I found this diet, like a g7 for diabetics or something. And some of them get on, I don't know how they get on eBay, and they're sold for them, but they they won't let you. But I found somebody on Facebook that paid cheap for it, and it was brand new. And I found a group on Facebook that buys those things. Oh, okay,

Suzanne Wells:

and so, what is it? Some kind of glucose monitor.

Unknown:

Yes, it was a glucose I don't know if was a CGM or something,

Suzanne Wells:

but the rule on eBay is you can't sell it if it requires a prescription, right? And I think like you could sell, you know, a risk brace or something, you know, if, if it didn't require prescription, but things like following surgery that require prescription, the C packs, you know, prescription medications, all that kind. It's, it's a, there's some gray areas. And one thing to look at is, go to completed listings, and you'll see a whole bunch of red like red circles. And this item was removed for violation of eBay policy. If you see that a lot on on these items, don't do it. I sold well listed an item last year. It was a little cooler that had a tube that was attached to a knee brace. So it was for after knee surgery. Could, instead of putting ice on it, it was this cooler thing that blew cold air on it. And I was like, Oh, this is great. And it was removed, like, within five minutes of listing, and then I but I was like, but there's some on there, and there's some that are sold, but probably 30% of the sold listings had that flag on it with the red this item was removed. And I'm like, Well, okay, I'm never doing that again, right?

Unknown:

Well, I would never suggest a CPAP thing, but this CGM was interesting because I did see sold. And so I'm like, Okay, I'll try it. And then I was like, Great, I'm stuck with this thing. But then I found that company that I was a little like, Oh, are they going to scam me? But no, they paid me and I sent it, and I had to go through all these steps. But I don't know if they take them overseas to, like, on a mission trip or something. But,

Suzanne Wells:

well, I think that's good information. I'm not going to cut that out, because there are becoming other ways to re home or sell these medical products that perfectly good. It's just eBay's rule of if it requires prescription, you know, and it depends on what the device is for, and could it cause damage or harm if not used correctly, and all that kind of stuff. So I encourage the listeners to look for other ways to sell or re home these devices, because, you know, it is wasteful. It's all going to end up in the landfill. You only used it for a week, and you're healing and you don't need it anymore, and it's perfectly good. And, yeah, maybe your insurance paid for it, but you still don't want to just throw it away, right? Yeah, okay, well, um, here we are almost finished with this episode. Do you have any final words for the listeners? Yeah,

Unknown:

I just think that it's important to look at what your goals are and when sales are slow, don't panic. I think that that's what I wish somebody had told me, because I was always like, Oh, no. I you know, I only had three sales today. That's the end of my eBay business, or it's going to

Suzanne Wells:

be that too. Still, is eBay over? Is all this over? No, it'll come back.

Unknown:

And even, I mean, it's like, I think I've only had three sales in the last couple days, but I also didn't list anything for a week because of the wedding. And it's like, it is true, if you at least are showing activity, you get more activity. And I think,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, send those offers, end and restart things that have been out there a while. You know? I think even shipping is considered an activity, you know, do something on your store, go in and jiggle prices. If you don't want to end the listings, raise the prices, if you have a bunch of watchers, all those things that you can do that are considered, I say, touching your store, just every day, a little something. And I, same thing happened to me. I took a little vacation the first of this month, and I did not even open my laptop. It was, it was, I've never done that. And I just was like, You know what I I gotta remember all the work I have done, and it's okay to step away. That's why we do this, so that we can step away for big life events and not miss them, right?

Unknown:

It's the freedom that this business gives that to me has been the biggest blessing, really.

Suzanne Wells:

That's wonderful, good. Okay. Well, what are you up to this afternoon,

Unknown:

I'm headed into the shop to ship and manufacture. So, okay,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, alright. Well, thank you again for making time, and you're very busy schedule. Yeah, you're welcome. I appreciate you working me in, and we'll look for some more of your sales on the group. Okay,

Unknown:

thanks so much. Suzanne, thanks. Bye, bye.

Suzanne Wells:

Today's parting words are about the issue we mentioned. When you buy something, for example, at a garage sale or an estate sale. It belongs to you, and you can do whatever you want to with it. I had to look up the name, and it's called the first sale doctrine, which is a key provision of copyright law grants the owner of a lawfully made copy of a copyrighted work, the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that specific copy without the copyright holder's permission. So that is very legalese. Basically, the first sale doctrine states that once a copyright holder sells a copy of their work, their rights to control the distribution of that particular copy are exhausted. So the copyright is what these companies and corporations are trying to protect by not wanting their products on eBay, always check the Vero list, V, E, R O, which is verified rights ownership. If that item is allowed on eBay, some brands are on that list and they don't want their items on eBay, and if they're on the list, then you have to abide by that, but the first sale doctrine allows the owner of an item to do what they want to do with it. Okay? So now you know that next week, my guest is Becky, who has sold some very cool i. Items, some rare bolos, and even surprised herself on some sales. I hope you will join us again next week. Thank you so much for supporting this podcast and listening every week, and I hope you have an outstanding week on eBay. Bye, everybody you.