eBay the Right Way

eBay Seller Chat with Amy in Florida: Reseller Extraordinaire, Estate Sales at The Villages, Roadside Finds 🚘

• Suzanne A. Wells • Episode 225

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Suzanne Wells:

Suzanne, hi everybody out there in podcast land. I'm Suzanne, and this is episode number 225 of eBay the right way. Today's date is July 9, 2025 and my guest is Amy of Amy's epic stuff, and she herself is pretty epic, too. Announcements. This isn't really an announcement, but more of a concept to think about. We talk about bread and butter items in reselling. I want to speak to this because some resellers may not really know what this means or where this term came from, and is this a good or bad thing. So in a business context, bread and butter item refers to the products or services that are the core source of income and profit for a company. These are the items that consistently sell well and provide the main financial stability for the business, often representing the basics or essentials of the operation. So a little business lesson, core revenue, bread and butter. Items are the foundation of a business's revenue stream. They are the products or services that customers frequently purchase generating a steady flow of income profitability, while some bread and butter items might not have the highest profit margins individually, Their consistent sales volume contributes significantly to overall profitability. Reliability. These items are typically reliable and predictable in terms of sales, making them a stable part of the business model. So for a restaurant, it could be a popular dish that is always in demand for a clothing retailer, it might be a specific style of jeans or a particular brand that is always popular for me, it's swimwear that is a consistent seller for me, albeit not my highest profit items, but it is consistent and dependable. So yes, in my opinion, these matter. Obviously you have to watch your time investment on any item you list. So let me throw some math at you, if you profit $20 a day on eBay, consistently, that adds up to$140 a week, $600 a month,$7,300 a year, $14,600 $14,600 over two years. And for those who don't want student debt,$29,200 over four years. So yes, it is significant when you look at it over a period of time. Bottom line, keep listing those bread and butter items, and of course, the big scores too. Okay, now on to the chat with Amy. Hello resellers, and welcome back. I have Amy with us today and tell us where you are located.

Unknown:

I am in West Florida, so in the middle about 45 minutes, I guess from Ocala, okay, okay, in about 30 minutes north of Newport, Richie area,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, okay. And how's your weather? Today? Hot?

Unknown:

Been very hot.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, I'm in South Carolina, and I think it was Monday, it was like 88 with 80% humidity, and it was sunny, but it was just.

Unknown:

Feel Yeah, it's been like 86 but it's feel like is 90 plus, right? Yeah. So my husband works out in the heat, working for the city. He does maintenance and stuff with mowing and all that. So he's, oh yeah, he's in it all day long. So yeah, I feel bad for him. A lot.

Suzanne Wells:

Kudos for him. Do y'all go to the beach much? No, not really, not close enough, or just don't care for it.

Unknown:

Um, it's just something that's been around for a long time, so not really something that we really do. Okay, yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, all right. Well, let's talk about something that you do do, which is eBay and other reselling stuff. What brought you to eBay? And when was that?

Unknown:

So I believe that I actually started on eBay for selling around 2019 or 2020 but actually started reselling and 2017 and at the time, I was working for Sears, everybody remembers that, oh yeah, they started giving us gift cards for when we would do our warranties, for bonuses, where they would give us money. Mm, hmm. And so I was like, Okay, well, how the heck am I going to turn gift card into money I can actually use, Mm hmm. So I actually decided to get clearance jewelry from Sears with gift card, mm hmm, and turn around and resell it. And one Christmas, I made like, $500 with basically one man for selling clearance jewelry. And that was like, wow, that was crazy. Okay, so then I decided that I was going to resell jewelry. At the time. I wasn't doing anything with online, it was just local. And then I sold my first item on Poshmark, because eBay at the time, was very intimidating to me, and I wasn't sure anything about it. I had bought on eBay for a very long time, um, even, you know, back to when my daughter was probably born, or before that, my daughter was born in 97 Okay, so, but I didn't know about is selling it. So I started with posh, and I ended up selling, um, a watch I got from a garage sale for like$75 and that was, like, a huge thing. It was like, Oh my God. I didn't even think that was possible. I picked it up for like $1 so I did posh for probably a year. And then I decided, okay, well, I've done this. Let me go ahead and try eBay. So in 2019 2020, I went ahead and started eBay and got started with that. And it was, it was a big learning curve, as a lot of people talk about. The first thing I learned really quickly is that I went to do an auction, because then it was talked about auctions was like, the big thing, it's not like, buy it now, you know, like it is right? So I did my first auction. I had found a little mini tea set on the side of the road in a box, and it had little it looked like Pooh bear on it. And I was like, Oh, this is really cute. And it was probably like, a, I don't know, like, seven piece little set or something, just a mini tea set. So I was like, Okay, well, let me try this. I'll do an auction. I think I put it maybe $14 for the item. But at the time, I didn't know any better, so I did free shipping. Uh huh. Well, long story short, I ended up selling the item, but it ended up costing me because I had to make sure it was, you know, was securely packed, and I had to cover shipping cost. So by the time everything was said and done, I probably either lost money or made so little, it was crazy. And then fast forward, probably two or three years later, after I knew a little bit more of what I was doing, I saw that set sell with another reseller for over $50

Suzanne Wells:

Oh yeah, rookie mistake. I'm like,

Unknown:

oh so I was like, I remember selling that on an auction for $14 and free shipping. I was like, wow. So, so that was my very first kind of major thing, I guess, with eBay, was that was that, and then that kind of made it to where I didn't want to do auctions. I stayed clear of auctions even now I've thought about doing some auctions, because I do have a store with eBay, and I know that you get free listings for certain categories on eBay, but I can never recall which ones they are to make it to where I want to do it. Yeah.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, well, and I do auctions for stuff I want to get rid of,

Unknown:

like, is it like certain categories, though? Well, yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

you, you do get charged. It'll say at the bottom, when you're before you submit, if you're being charged. And it, it's usually 25 cents, and it's, it's too many categories to try to memorize it. I just Okay, I just do the listing. And okay, this one I'm going to get charged for, but it's usually stuff that was an experiment, or I've just had it a really long time, and I'm just sick of it. It's no no attention. It doesn't come up in my send offer. People don't ask questions. They don't send offers. It's just a dead item. Like, okay, I'm just going to get rid of this for what I paid, plus a little bit to cover the fees and move on. So yeah,

Unknown:

I wanted to try it because I know that some resellers will do it for testing the market too. So like, put it for like, the amount you'd be okay getting. I know better now, right? So you know, I wouldn't do the tea set. Obviously, if I had something like that, I would probably start it at 4999 plus shipping, and I would do, I don't know, five to seven day auction, and see how it goes, and then if it doesn't sell, then I know, okay, maybe either one the price is a little too high, or maybe I need to bump up the price and just do it as a buy it now and see if I can get it sold that way. Mm, hmm. So I've thought about doing it, but I still go back to the very first time I had the issue with the one auction, and I talked myself out of it, so I have not done any auctions since then.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, I mean, I don't know. We'll see. Now, you'll have to just sort of test the waters. I like five day auctions. I have tested it with five and seven and 10. And 10 is way too long. I think people just forget about it. Yeah, I would think so. I think five days, well, for me, I get more sales when I do it on a five day auction. I just think that is like the sweet spot for for me, okay, you know, and it's, it's faster turnover. You

Unknown:

don't have to wait. I think it's a good way to get traction in your store too, because if you have an auction going on, you've got people going in there, maybe they're not making a bid, maybe they are. But I figured that traction, because I know that any kind of activity in your store is activity, right? I find that over the

Suzanne Wells:

years, yeah, I've started doing a few auctions a week just on stale inventory. And I think that is good for the algorithm. It's, it's just kind of like, Oh, I'm going to get my money back on that item, and we're going to move on. So exactly, maybe test that out yourself, definitely doing the math first and figuring out which paid for it. You know, a lot of people listening to this, they don't pay more than a couple of dollars, but I've been experimenting with estate sales and online auctions with more expensive items, right wing that okay, if this doesn't go for what I what the research says, then I can at least get my money back and move on true. I look at it, you know, just kind of liquidating, and I just like things to turn over faster. I don't. I don't want things to sit there for two and three years.

Unknown:

Yeah, and I have a ton of stuff that's like that. I mean, since I've started, I mean, but you know, there's also that caveat that, you know, you got it a lot of inventory I get for free, so that's great. Um, when I first started, that was really great, but then it wasn't so great, because you learn very quickly. And one of my tips for newer resellers is, just because it free does not mean it's for me, because you end up with a Death Mountain pile everywhere, because you've gotten so much stuff, and there's only so many hours in a day that you can do stuff. So now I have a house full. I have a garage full. Long story short, my daughter had to move in when she was pregnant with my grandson, and so I had to merge two rooms together. So when I finally did get my shed the way I wanted it, I had to pile everything back in there. So it was, it's a very long process, and then I want to save everything. So then I try to find people that do garage sales and stuff, and they don't care about selling it for 10 cents, for $1 and I give them stuff all the time. And then the caveat is, is that if I go to their sale and I want something, they just give it to me, because I've literally brought them tons of stuff. Just, oh, okay, that's. A good way to so I've done that multiple times to do that,

Suzanne Wells:

and I think that is a very important point for people who are getting a lot of inventory or getting it free, you have to figure out your storage before you start taking all this on. Absolutely it could just pile up in a week. It goes quick, yeah, get a bunch of calls and go get the stuff. And you really have to figure out your storage, your organization does it differently, but you know how you the most compact way to store your items and still be able to find them when you have to pull them to ship them, that's that's another problem is,

Unknown:

if you early on in my career, I found that out the hard way as well, because when you have 100 items, maybe you can remember where things are, but after that 100 items, you start going, hmm, I thought This was here. But it's not because you realize that halfway through while you were doing something, you got distracted by something else, squirrel mode, and you went to do something else, you never actually finished doing what you thought you did with that item. So I ended up having to do the what a lot of resellers do is put the location in the SKU right and, you know, and do it that way. And that that became, that became a huge thing, until years ago, eBay decided that the SKU just disappeared and you couldn't find it, and then it was putting it into the description just because you needed to have a spot for it. So then I ended up doing a cross listing platform, which was huge, because I ended up being able to put that skew that might get lost in eBay's world in another location. And now I have over 1000 listings. So, you know, I have to know where those items are. Now I keep track of, you know, where did I get it from? How much did I pay? What day did I list it? You know, all that is in the skew. So that way, when it sells, I'm able to look at it and know all that information for the backstory as well.

Suzanne Wells:

And I think you need to know how your mind works, because I'm very visual. I have all clear bins. I want to see what's what's in there. I i reorganize my inventory about once a month, like, Okay, this bin is too full. I'm going to move some of this over here. And, like, I organize things by color, and that's just the way my mind works. Other people, they fill up in as they list things, and it's just all mixed together, whatever. And it goes by the skew. And some people like those cardboard banker boxes that you can't even see inside, but they're not that expensive, and you can stack them pretty high, right? I always look at saving time when it's time to ship the item. Find it quickly. I want to find it in 30 seconds. And if it's anything that requires, you know significant time to package, like a framed art or something big. I go ahead and box it up because I didn't used to do that, but I'm doing that now. Yeah, and it just, it makes it so much faster. You just pull the item when it when it sells, and you don't have to do the packaging. And I do my shipping in the morning. So I'm not quite 100% in go mode yet, right? So if, like, my energetic time of day where I can do physical things is like late afternoon. I do all my thinking stuff in the morning, and then physical stuff, housework, laundry in the afternoon, and that's when I'll pick something like, Okay, I'm going to go ahead and package this, because that's going to take maybe 30 minutes and just have it ready. And that's working for me. My mail pickup is between 11 and 12, so Okay, spend all morning packaging something I don't have to, right? Yeah, I think you got to know how your mind works, how your energy flow works during the day. Some people are morning people, and they can just get on up and tackle anything that's not me. So for,

Unknown:

yeah, I hear you. There are some things that I have done pre packaging for that is been more or less like you said it. It's going to take time to do it. Um, one of the things that I have started dabbling in is footstools. Oh, yeah. Yeah, selling old vintage foot stools. And so that's something that has to go into a particular box height a certain width, you know. So that's one of those ones that if I can get it, and I can get the box for it and have it pre packaged, and when it sells, I don't have to go, oh my god, I have this thing and I have no idea how I'm going

Suzanne Wells:

to pack it. I hate that feeling of scrambling, like, do I have the free box and and how, how am I going to do this? And I don't like that under pressure, feeling like, you gotta figure it out in an hour, right? I can do a lot of things, and I can juggle a lot of things, but I am not good under pressure. It gives me a stomach ache.

Unknown:

Yeah, yeah. I get very anxious that way too. So I'm going through, you know, 10 boxes, because, you know, hubby likes to say, Oh, well, it can't be that hard to pack that. I don't know what the problem is. And then when I'm going through a bunch of boxes, and I'm like, Okay, so just so you know, this is box number six, and it's still not working. And he's like, Well, I don't know what the problem is. You just got to get it in a box, right? I'm like, Yes, but if it's too tall, it's too short, it's right? You know, there's all these other caveats that are not counted for. So somebody that hasn't physically done shipping, it's one of those things. You can say it's something very easy, but unless you've actually physically done it multiple times, it's not as easy to say that, hey, that shouldn't be that hard to pack,

Suzanne Wells:

even, like to have the box before they list the item, like, figure that out before you list it, because it could sell in five minutes. And that's happened. That's happened to me a few times, so especially if it's something I got like at an estate sale, and it's very unique, and maybe people have an alert set up for it, and it's going to sell. I saw something yesterday. It was a jams world. You probably know that brand down there in Florida, jam jams world. It started off, I think, in the 80s as board shorts out in California. They're very literally watercolor patterns. They're very funky, and they were very popular in the 80s. But they make dresses and men's shirts, like Hawaiian shirts. It's just bold, Funky.

Unknown:

I'm not big on clothing selling Suzanne. Oh, okay, but I don't know that one too much.

Suzanne Wells:

So I bought that at an estate sale and about a month ago, and finally got it listed yesterday, and it sold in two hours. And I, I, I priced it right? Yeah, they priced it at$40 which was the going rate for that pattern that sleeveless, you know, I did the comps and sold right away. So, of course, that was very easy to ship. But other rights that that might, that tea cup I bought that sold for 150 I went ahead and boxed that up as soon as I listed it, because there weren't any online replacements.com. Didn't have any. I was like, this is probably going to sell pretty fast. So Right. Anyway, that was going on about shipping. So let's, let's move on to a more exciting topic for the listeners. You said you do other reselling besides eBay. Do you want to tell us about that?

Unknown:

So a couple of things. I do some lawn mower flipping with my husband, really. I was at Sears for so long, my main thing was selling lawn and garden. So I know my way around push mowers and riders. So we will get those generally for free. And he checks them out, and then I do a video, I do the pictures I listed on Facebook marketplace, and then I sell those him, and I split profit on that. That's a great deal, yeah, and that that's come around pretty much this year. November 1, I did something I've never done. I got into an antique mall, okay? And started off with a bookshelf, book case, bookshelf that had like five shelves on it. At the time, it was $85 a month, plus they take 10% commission, which is my first time ever doing it. So got my foot in the door with that, and worked my way up. And now today, I have a 10 by 10 booth that I split with somebody that pays half the rent, but they usually don't have very much of their stuff in the booth, so it's pretty much just mine. So I pay half the rent, they pay half the rent. The mall takes that out of each one of our accounts, and that's been doing very well. And then I have other people that I help. Uh, and I'm able to make some money that way as well with doing stuff. So so it's opened up a lot of different avenues on that, and it gets to where I have to go, Okay, do I want to put this at the mall first and see if I can sell it? Or do I want to put it online and now I can look at different stuff that might be, you know, more fragile, and different stuff like that, and go, Oh, well, I wouldn't want to ship that, but I could definitely put it in the mall

Suzanne Wells:

right exactly back to your lawn mower flipping. You were in the perfect place for that, with year round landscaping

Unknown:

being in Florida. Yes, that business

Suzanne Wells:

model would not work in Minnesota or Wisconsin or North Dakota, they only have summer, like, what, five months out of the year, they only have no snow on the ground, something like that. But that, yeah,

Unknown:

because at Sears, I was able to sell a mower, you know, in October, November and up north, that doesn't happen. They're, you know, they're doing snow plows and, you know, selling those type of things that are for snow and stuff, right? Snow blowers and all that stuff, right? So we still have that market to be able to sell to.

Suzanne Wells:

That is, that's a genius idea, with all the landscaping going on down there, whether it's the the kid next door that needs a new mower or, you know, a company that wants to buy something used. Gosh, we have so many landscaping companies down here

Unknown:

in and I've sold mowers over $200

Suzanne Wells:

yeah. So how are you getting?

Unknown:

Um, basically, people contact my husband. He's got a thing that we do a little bit of marketing, and say, you know, if you have any mowers that are out in your yard you want to get rid of that are eyesores, you know, let him know, and he'll come pick him up. So he was in the for free, and brings him home.

Suzanne Wells:

Does he work for the county, doing landscaping stuff? He

Unknown:

works for the city, one of the cities, and he does maintenance and stuff with mowing and, you know, doing rounds work and stuff like that.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, that is just that's very resourceful for y'all to be together.

Unknown:

So since I'm the salesman person and he's, you know that one, it kind of works together with that. He gets some he makes sure you know that they're okay, and then once he knows that they're okay, he'll clean them up for me. I'll go out take pictures, he'll get on the rider, and I'll take a video and put the video on there, showing that it works, showing that the blades turn on. And then I posted on Facebook, and then let it sit until it sells.

Suzanne Wells:

Very good. So you're doing eBay, your antique booth, Facebook for various items. Mm, hmm, yeah, anything else? Um,

Unknown:

I've helped a couple of people as far as how to set up things for marketing and different stuff. Um, I had some hits when it came to a couple of places that wanted me to do their marketing at the early part of it, because they were wanting me to do all this work for very little money, and then complaining when I was doing it the way I was doing it, I learned very quickly that, you know, that was their bad, not mine. Mm, hmm. So now I pick and choose. I have, I have helped a nurse practitioner set up a Facebook page and talk to her about marketing, and she paid me to help her do that. Mm, hmm. And I helped a gentleman to get into the mall and helped him. And so for a little bit, a little time, I was selling some stuff in his section as his payment for me helping him.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, so trade, yeah, that's good. Yeah,

Unknown:

exactly. So it's been because I always wanted to do it for free, but free cost money because you're taking it away from something else. So you know, you have to value your time, just like you do when you're selling something. You know what is cost of goods? Well, in the case of marketing and stuff like that, what is the cost of time, right? You know, I could, I had one person that I was literally doing a a marketing post every single day, multiple times a day, even during Hurricane time, and putting out videos, putting it out on 20 different groups, doing all of this stuff for like, $200 a month, and she was complaining she was paying me more than what I could be doing, or what that she should be paying me. And then once all of that ended, I found out from a couple of um. Uh, family members that have been doing marketing longer and knew how to market it and how to pay for it and stuff. And they're like, No, it should be $30 one post, you do one post, it's $30 you want a video, it's this amount. You want to add it for three days now it's this amount. You don't give all that stuff for free. I'm like, Really, I was going in doing lives for their entire for the entire store. I would walk around showing all the items in the store, promoting the store, putting items up on Facebook to help to sell it. I was doing all of that, and the person basically ended up wanting to let me go, because they're like, I think that I can get this done and it'll be cheaper, and I'm paying you too much to do it. And I'm like, seriously. And then later, when I had found out the discovery of what it was worth, I'm like, okay, yeah, all the stuff I was doing for that person, there was nowhere near what they were paying me, because I was doing it all the time,

Suzanne Wells:

right? And that's the thing about time is when you're doing one thing, it means you're not doing these other things over here exactly. So you have to pick what you're going to do with your time, and just because you can make a buck doing something doesn't mean that is the best use of your time. Value your time. Nobody else will either absolutely when you you learned, and I did too. You know, if I'm going to do this for you, this is what

Unknown:

I'm worth exactly, and you don't want to pay that, that's fine. Go get somebody else. Totally fine.

Suzanne Wells:

Um, but that's what it is. You have so many ways to make money. You've got to pick which one is going to make you the most, and that's where your time should

Unknown:

go. Yep, exactly. And I think,

Suzanne Wells:

I think people get caught up in just being busy, like, maybe they don't, they don't like math, and they're not keeping their numbers, and so they don't really know how much time they're putting into things. I helped this guy one time, and he sold these little vacuum cleaner lights, you know, like you would replace in the front of the vacuum cleaner. Yeah, he had been a vacuum repair guy for a long time, so he he knew the value of those lights, and so that's what he wanted to sell on eBay, but they only sold for about $5 a piece. And he Oh, wow. And that was before fees, and so I had the hardest time convincing him that maybe you need to, not even maybe you need to look at other items to sell that's worth your time, because you're basically, you're working for free, yeah, and this is actually costing you money to do this business. And he was about to be retired, and all this kind of stuff, but he just couldn't see it, because he's like, Well, this is all I know. And I'm like, Well, you can learn. You can other things, and that's what everybody has to do. Absolutely gotta push yourself out of your comfort zone. But I know a lot of sellers are just like, part time, and they enjoy it as a hobby, but I still encourage everyone to keep your numbers in some way. You'll know where your time is going and how much you're being paid for it, because if you do the numbers and you look at it, you're like, wow, I spent X hours on this this week, and I only made $40 yeah, maybe I need to change a few things, right? You want to talk about some items that you've sold. Sure,

Unknown:

the one I just put on your money making Mondays, which, by the way, I think is only my second time ever putting something up there. Um, was the 75 inch red banana blow up. And that just sold after about a year of having it listed. Very good hubby found that in the middle of the road, he finds all kinds of stuff all the time, those weird things that he brings me home and goes, I don't know what you want to do with it, but as always, you can keep it. You can sell it. You can find something to do with it. You can throw it away. Okay, so he basically got it blown up for me, and I took pictures. And I love using the AI to do pictures and stuff. So the picture that I sent on your thing was the blow up of it looking like it's sitting on a couch, okay? And it actually, I think, went to West Virginia, somebody bought it for 107 $3.02 Oh, yeah. Plus shipping. Okay, this girl does not do free shipping after that, you know, to bas school with the fright. I'm on board

Suzanne Wells:

with that too. Yeah.

Unknown:

But yeah. So that was, that was an interesting one. It was one of those. I was like, Okay, I have no idea if this will sell. I started it off. I think I probably started it somewhere around 249, 99 because I had no idea the value. It was huge. Of course, there wasn't, you know where I comp it, because I couldn't find anything like it. I mean, it's a red banana. First off, you look up bananas, you find yellow ones, right? And then, you know, as big as it was, so I have no idea what the buyer was going to do with it, if it was going to be for a prop, if it was going to be, you know, I was picturing, like, maybe, like an ice cream thing or something, or, you know, something out there that would be interesting, you know, to use something like that, but I have no idea. I wanted to message the buyer and ask them what they did with it. But I haven't done that.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, I usually wait till they leave feedback before I, you know, ask them what they're asking that question, because if there is an issue or any, I just don't want to poke the Sleeping Bear.

Unknown:

Yeah, I get that, yep. So that was the most recent one that I did. Was the 75 inch blow up banana, red banana. Another fun one was a baby Morgan blanket. Okay, I know you've talked about um, I think before I heard you talking about the baby Morgan, is when this happened, because we went to a garage sale, yard sale, and we bought a whole bunch of stuff for like, $45 in this whole bunch of stuff, we got a bunch of baby stuff and some of it was new and packaged, and some of it was pre owned. So we got that along with some vintage sheets that were new and packaged, and just a bunch of other stuff, tons of stuff. Well, in this lot of stuff was a baby Morgan in a package, but I think it was like a receiving blanket. Well, I remember I I listed that. Had no idea what I was doing because I had, I didn't know anything about baby Morgan at the time, so I listed that. And I think it sold very quickly. And it sold for like 20 or $25 Okay, well, because it's so so quickly, it made me go, Hmm, what the heck is baby Morgan? And then, what am I not knowing? Then I went down the rabbit hole, because I do like research. And so I went researching it, and found out the baby Morgan was one of those that was a bolo, Mm, hmm. And it turned out that we had actually got the the bolo, the waffle weave balloons blanket, right from the sale that was pre owned, and so I had listed it probably around two, 249, 99 let's say or something like that. And an offer come in for$220 plus the shipping. And my husband went ahead and accepted it, which he doesn't do that very often, but he knew I would accept that, so he went ahead and accepted so we were ecstatic, because had no idea that it was going to be worth that. So paying $45 for all that stuff from the yard sale and just that item sold for 220 plus shipping. So that was so that was an incredible find, and definitely something you know that I now tell the story about another one that comes to mind. There was a lotus yellow flower lamp, and I picked it up two two houses down, there was a couple that was moving out of state, and they had told hubby and I that once they were gone, there was going to be a bunch of stuff left. We could come in and get whatever we wanted for free, and that the person that was going to be taken over. The House wouldn't be taking it over until the following week. So we went in there looking, and there was, there was a bunch of stuff. A lot of it was trash stuff, but there was some good stuff. But one thing that stuck out to me was this Lotus yellow flower. And I don't remember it having an actual brand name, but it was just really unique and really cool. And I was like, Oh, wow, this is awesome. I gotta have this so I wanted to keep it. So at first I was just going to keep it myself, but then I decided, alright, I'll go ahead and I'll list it and I'll enjoy it for a little while until it sells. Well, I didn't know it was going to sell. Like. Week, week and a half, and I didn't have it very long. Did so for$75 the hardest thing I would say about that is it had some, um, unique, um, I don't know if it had to have been plastic of some sort, but it was very difficult to make sure that I packaged it very well and ended up going in a really oversized box. I contacted the buyer to see if I could change shipping from the priority to, I think ups, because with my over packing, which is what my husband said, but I wanted to make sure it arrived okay. It ended up being like this huge deal for that, but because I had got it free, I still probably made over $30 in profit, even after all the extra expenses I did for shipping, right? So it was still well worth it. And it was a really, it was a really neat, you know, meet flower lamp or whatever you want to call it. That's not something that, you know, gets seen very often. So, right. So I like that. That was pretty neat. This is one that I think I put on your money making Mondays or something. But it was a while, probably a year or better ago, so I can't remember, but it was nativity, okay, dog nativity. Oh, so they were actual dog figurines for nativity. So a community sale, and we got an entire set of this nativity that were called Dog nativity or something like that. And I don't remember if they had a brand. I just remember the dog nativity part, but I believe it was the entire set. And I decided I was going to list them individually, because I didn't want to ship all of them all at once. Wasn't sure about how I felt about that, so I was like, Well, if I put them in individually, it'll take time, but it'll trickle in different sales at different times. Okay, so I think I priced him probably somewhere between, I don't know, 20 and $30 a piece, each one. Well, I sold the first one, and I was really excited about that. And then right after the buyer got that one, they turned around and they bought another one, the same buyer. So I went ahead and I reached out to the buyer, and I said, Hey, appreciate the support. I just wanted to let you know I do have more of these. If you're interested, let me know. So she comes back, and she goes, Do you have the entire set? And I said, Yes, I believe so. And she said, Well, would you figure out how much it would be if I got the rest of the set, plus what I've already got, um, and how much it would be total. And then let me know. I was like, okay, so I came up with a, I came up with, I think it was, it was like, around $100 plus shipping for all that was left. And she's like, sold. I'll take them. I was like, okay, so she went ahead and I made her a special listing. And she went and she bought that listing. So she ended up buying the entire set. So between the two she had already bought plus the rest that was left. I probably did somewhere between 135 to $145 plus shipping, okay on the $7 investment.

Suzanne Wells:

So were they all different dog breeds? They

Unknown:

they were probably all different dog breeds, but they were all in the Nativity thing. So, like you had wise men, but they were in a dog figuring angel. She was in a dog, you know, a dog figuring of some sort. But what happened is that the lady, I believe she said she was in New York, and that she was collecting them, and they were hard to find, and she already had them, but she had a couple that was broken that she wanted to replace, and that's what she was doing, at first, is replacing them, but when She found out I had the rest of them, she decided she was going to go ahead and get more, even though she already had them in her collection. Okay, so that's how, apparently, it's something that she, you know, has gotten over a certain amount of time, and she looks for him once in a while, and she just decided she was going to replace a couple of broken ones, and it ended up being that she got my entire set. So, oh yeah, she was the perfect buyer for that. I was the exactly that was a perfect buyer, and it was a good thing. I reached out and said, Hey, I have more of these if you're interested, because I don't always do that when I have quantities of certain things. Yeah. And for that person, I actually did do that, and she reached out, and she was very interested. So

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, it never hurts to say that. And you're going to make them a I

Unknown:

want to say it was probably eight pieces,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, so if you're going to make them a special listing, that's totally eBay legal. I've had people contact me about the horse ribbons I'm selling, and they only want certain colors because they're making a craft with it. So they'll say, can you sell me just the pink ones? And I said, Well, I can do better than that. Tell me what you're looking for, and I'll send you pictures of what I have, and then I can make you a special listing and exactly what you want. Yep, I haven't had anybody take me up on that yet. They just never know. But they might, you know I was like that helps me as a seller, to know exactly what you're looking for, exactly, oh, I'm going to make a wreath for a baby's room, and I wanted to be pink and white because it's a girl or whatever, you know, tell me what you want, and then I can try to make that happen for you exactly, and I don't

Unknown:

change that. That's good research for later. So you know what people are looking for,

Suzanne Wells:

right? And how to put the lots together if certain colors or color groups are what they're looking for. So yeah, but you can't try to please everybody. You kind of just got to throw it out there and see what happens. But I know that individual dog breed things very well, like those Danbury mint trees with the certain dog breed on them, yep, or the golden or the collie.

Unknown:

I've seen videos for that, but I haven't actually seen any of those in the wild yet.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, yet, yet, right? So do you do most of your sourcing at garage sales?

Unknown:

I would say most of the sourcing these days, if probably estate sales, the last day is generally the day when they're wanting to get rid of stuff, so they're more willing and dealing will go on, you know, Saturday, when it's probably their first day, but for the most part, it's always better on the last day, especially for the ones that Will they now have the caveat where they'll put, you know, no haggling, if anything is $20 or less. Oh, but then, on the last day, they end up changing, you know that, right? Because now they're up against the clock, and now they're wanting to get rid of stuff, right? We've gone to estate sales where things have been all the way down to 10 cents, and it makes it very easy to get death piles, because you don't want to leave behind this good stuff for this really cheap prices,

Suzanne Wells:

right? Exactly. That's the hardest part. Are you near the villages? So we are not very

Unknown:

far from the villages. We just actually went to the villages. It's funny. You brought that up. That's funny. Weekend

Suzanne Wells:

I was thinking, and for the listeners, the villages is like the world's largest retirement community. Is it new Orlando?

Unknown:

So the villages stretch a very good amount of of Florida, not just Orlando, but all the way over to where I'm at, over in Ocala. Okay, I thought it was near

Suzanne Wells:

Orlando, Ocala area in between there, but I was like, oh, thinking the other day, I wonder what estate sales are like at the villages, because it's a retirement community, and it's huge, and they're probably having them all the time. So what happened when you went? So

Unknown:

we went, and they actually had two estate sales that were 60% off, that were literally 15 to 20 minutes down the road. Mm, hmm, and one estate sale that we went to that was 75% off. And so that was very interesting, because we had never done estate sales over in the villages. I had went to the villages one other time with a friend of mine that I had met, and we did a community yard sale. And it was where they were having, like, 40 something houses. And we probably went to, I don't know half of them. And that was an amazing day going and discovering like the nice thing is, is that you can get things for cheap prices, but at quality, right? That's the big difference. Is when you're shopping in the villages, is that you're getting really good, decent stuff. Now, you may pay up for some stuff, but again, you're paying for the quality. And you know that with that quality, you're going to be able to get that higher, you know, hopefully get that higher profit, right, which is what every reseller is trying to do. That's, you know, the name of the. Of mostly

Suzanne Wells:

baby boomers that are in those retirement communities. So that's the they call the accumulation generation as all the stuff that their kids don't want, exactly, you know, they just accumulate it, and they just, you know, it's just there when they pass on and gotta do something with it. Mm, hmm, yeah,

Unknown:

that's true. But yeah, the villages is something that we're gonna start looking into a little bit more, because it's not very far from us. It's maybe, I think where we went, we probably drove an hour and 10 minutes. That's not bad. There's parts of the villages that is literally maybe 30 minutes away from us. Uh huh. So villages stretch, like I was saying, so far to both sides that you could go to the villages and not even see the same area.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, has, right. It's the world's largest retirement community. Lots of opportunity there. Houses

Unknown:

are very close together. Streets are very close together. You do have to be very cautious when you're going to estate sales, because of this reason, you can't park on the grass. So you've got, you know, vehicles are technically in the road, because you can't park on the grass. Where else are you going to be, so you have to be a little bit more cautious and stuff with that kind of thing. But, but it's, it's a good experience, and it's something like I said that we're going to start looking into a little bit, um, more often when we go to, you, you know, to yard sales and thrift stores and stuff like that. We're going to actually go to the villages and check it out a little bit

Suzanne Wells:

more. I wonder if they have Facebook pages. I'm sure they do. Yes, you could find, you know, advertisements for upcoming estate sales

Unknown:

at estate sale.net, yeah, there's that is got your your villages ones too. So I did notice that some of them did not pop up until we were closer to the area. I don't know if that's because of the way that estate sale.net is is put in, or how that works, but when we got actually in the area, that's when the other two or three that we went to ended up popping up in there.

Suzanne Wells:

So that was not everything shows up on estate sales.net so sometimes it's just word of mouth through Facebook groups,

Unknown:

correct? I like the yard sale treasure map. Are you familiar with that? I'm sure. Yes. Uh huh, yes. Use that. Yeah. And then, of course, years ago, that used to be with Craigslist. So anytime a sale would pop up, it would automatically, I guess it was aI back then, um, would automatically put that sale in. But nowadays, when they broke up, just like eBay with PayPal, when they broke up with Craigslist, now it's up to sellers and resellers and people having yard sales that know about it to actually use yard sale treasure map. So one of my things that I do for just free, is, when I go to yard sales, my first question it's a good sale. I'm like, do you have an on yard sale treasure map? And if they have no idea what I'm talking about? Right? Them through how to do it, and I tell them what to do and stuff like that. And then I tell them, you know, when people like myself are looking for yard sales, this is the one of the first places they go, and if they can find your sale, it's going to get you more traffic, right? And it's free, as long as you're not, you know, you can do the subscription. Obviously, everything has a subscription these days, but you do have the free version that makes it work too. So

Suzanne Wells:

Excellent. Well, that our time has gone by quickly. It usually does, right? So, yeah, it sure does. So what's on your schedule for today?

Unknown:

I've been doing a little bit of looking, um, I use vendu as a cross Lister, and I also use it for the booth and different stuff like that. So I've been just looking on there and doing some work on there, and then also getting some stuff ready to do listings for eBay as well.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, great. Well, today is June 18, so we get a postal holiday tomorrow of Juneteenth.

Unknown:

Oh, yeah, that's right, yeah, I forgot. And

Suzanne Wells:

I just, I sold a couple things after my mail got picked up. And I was like, Oh, but wait, we don't have mail pick up again till Friday. So, ah, that's true. We don't have we're not under pressure to ship things today,

Unknown:

right? Okay, yeah, I know I have mine for one business day, but generally, if it sells and I'm available, I'm going to get it shipped out to my buyer as quick as I can. Yeah, I do too. I if

Suzanne Wells:

it sells and the mail hasn't been picked up yet, I go ahead and ship it. I get it out just. Just as a courtesy, I like shipped right away. So I know my buyers do too. I don't like things to sit there. And usually within an hour of when something sells, I go ahead and print the label whether my mail has been picked up or not, because then it's just, it's just ready, you know, right? Yeah, and they get the notification that it's been shipped, and they can be very happy about that. So Well, thank you for making the time to come on the podcast, and I encourage you to post more of your epic stuff on group so we can see what you're having success with.

Unknown:

I will work on getting getting better at putting those on there. Like I said, I know myself

Suzanne Wells:

out of it a lot. It's, it's time again. It's that time thing. But right? It's fun to post, and then people can comment on it or be like, Oh, I had one just like that when I was a kid. Whatever it is, there's, there's good conversations too. So exactly, it's great to meet you, and I wish you all the best.

Unknown:

Well, I appreciate it. And I do have your your library thing that I do once in a while too. I turn it off and turn it on and turn it back off at different times. So yes, I've

Suzanne Wells:

seen your your questions come through. So yes,

Unknown:

and I appreciate you having the price like you have, and you've you've never changed it. So with all the crazy subscriptions everywhere, yours is one. You know, when I can turn it back on, I know that, hey, turn it back on, see what's going on. Pay for it for that month, you'll be able to afford

Suzanne Wells:

it. That's perfectly fine to come and go. I designed it that way, and I appreciate that subscription price. Um, that really is a pet peeve of mine. When it's somebody like Netflix and they're like, using it $5 and I'm like, Okay, you're doing that for 10 million people. That's just a cash grab. You're just doing it because you can, like, there's no way your expenses have gone up millions and millions of dollars to justify that. So, oh,

Unknown:

I have one quick question for you on your book. I have all your books all the way up until your newest one? Yes, I know you're going to be going to ebooks. Yes. My question to you is, will there be an option to be able to get books I've already got on ebooks so I can have them in both absolutely and

Suzanne Wells:

I am as I'm creating these, I'm updating them, so it will say on both the sales page and on the ebook itself. This data is current as of, in this case, May of 2025 so I don't know what the schedule is going to be for updating. It won't be longer than two years, but I am going back through to make sure that this is still a thing, or what is the price now, because some things have increased in value, others have decreased in value, others fizzled out completely. It's not anymore. So yes, because

Unknown:

I like the idea of having the handheld one, just because you know it's going to go away, right? The idea of having the ebook that is easier to go to because it's right on my phone, I can go to it at any time I need to,

Suzanne Wells:

absolutely and that's, that's how I'm designing them, is knowing that people will be looking at these on multiple devices. So if you buy it and it goes to your computer, you can put it on your phone, you know, AirDrop it, or however you want to do that, so you put it on all your devices. Gotcha, the key is that there will be a fifth edition coming. I'm got that in the works. I don't know when, but I'm going to keep doing them, because I like to do them for myself so I can remember all this stuff. And, you know, it's an outline, it's the pictures. And I just, like I said, I'm visual, and I can remember things better when I see a picture of it. So yes, ma'am, I agree. They are all going to be updated and available. So thank you so much for supporting me on that. Oh,

Unknown:

absolutely. Yeah. I can't wait to, you know, to be able to get that. So that way, I'll have, you know, that second way of doing it, because I don't always go grab the book, you know, but on my phone, it'll be with me, which, you know, is another reason that you said that it's a good thing about that.

Suzanne Wells:

So yes, ma'am, okay, well, it's great to meet you, and we'll see you on the group, hopefully.

Unknown:

All right, sounds good. Thanks. Suzanne, bye.

Suzanne Wells:

Next week, my guest is Nick who is a visual merchandiser at IKEA and has a unique eBay journey. Make sure you tune in for that, and if you would like to be a guest on this podcast, let me know, and let's discuss it. Thanks for spending the last hour with us. Keep working hard. Stay committed to your business, but remember to take some time to nurture yourself. See you next week. Bye, everybody. You.