eBay the Right Way

eBay Seller Chat with Marlene the Horse Lady: Resilient in eBay and Life - She’s One Tough Cookie 🍪

• Suzanne A. Wells • Episode 228

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Suzanne Wells:

I Hello everyone out there in podcast land. This is episode number 228 of eBay the right way. Today's date is July 30. 2025 My guest today is Marlene, who I affectionately call the horse lady. No announcements this week, so let's hear from Marlene. Hello, listeners, welcome back. I have a repeat offender with us today, and we kind of have a joke going back and forth. Marlene is the horse lady, but I've become the horse ribbon lady. It's so nice to have you back. How are you doing this morning?

Unknown:

Thank you, Suzanne. I'm doing great. I want to say to you that this is the second episode being aired live from the Warren ranch in southern Oklahoma, which is located in Overbrook. You know, our first episode was March 15, 20. Let's see 2023,

Suzanne Wells:

right? It's been two years.

Unknown:

It has been two years. And so I told you a lot about how we ended up here at the ranch and whatnot. And one thing I didn't get to tell you is how we came up with saying that it's the home of the Flying W brand and sagebrush Wiz and I told you about sagebrush in the last episode, but I didn't get a chance to tell you about how we came up with creating the flying W brand. Okay? And most ranchers, they have stories that go with it. So we came up with the idea to honor and and have in memory of Jim's dad, who was a pilot for United Airlines back in the 50s. Oh, and he was killed in a mid air collision crash, tragically, when an Air Force fighter jet doing ascending and descending flight patterns clipped the wing of the aircraft, so the craft went down, and all crew and passengers were lost. So Jim's mom was a widow. At that time, she was left with four children. Jim was the youngest. He was nine. So fast forward, Jim's career was in it information technology, and he basically built the sales team for different companies that he was with, and the last was the company out of Silicon Valley that allowed us to retire 25 years ago, before we were 50. But he traveled every day of the year, and he flew out of Atlanta, Hartsville airport, and he flew delta a lot, so delta honored him with a reward, an award called the Flying Colonel. They don't give it away anymore, but it's for customers that are loyal and frequently flying. Basically, Jim would fly out on Monday morning, come back on Friday, and he did that for over 20 years. Oh, so he would be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and then our vacation, but that would be it. So we said, let's do something about flying when we decided we needed a brand, so we developed the flying W brand. So that's how that came to

Suzanne Wells:

be. Well, isn't that a great story? Yeah,

Unknown:

so we use that on our letterhead and on business cards, and it's over our gate too. So okay, great. But I was going to tell you that we've been here now since 2020 2014 full time. You know, we left coming in 2014 after 38 years in Georgia. So for those that didn't listen to that first podcast, we brought with us our life treasures, right? And I've been there 50 years this year, and then I brought my parents stuff and his family stuff. So we have lots of totes here with stuff in it, and that's how I do my thrifting. Okay? Until I got highly influenced by Suzanne explore online auctions. Okay, that's the 2023 podcast. I have bid in 12 different auctions, okay? And I've had fun and did well, but I've got to stop, because I'm not reducing my inventory in those totes, and that was the whole point of me doing eBay, you know. So I started eBay in 2017 August of 2017 once we got out here and got settled in and realized we had so much stuff that followed us through our life, we had to do something to downsize and get rid of it. You know, we really. Realize we have more miles in our rear view mirror than we do in our windshield. So they say, and we have no children, we have no family, so it's best if we do what we can to re home what we've got. So that's the whole focus right now. Is okay? You had fun with online auctions. Marlene, now get back to get rid of our stuff, and I still have lots of things that I purchased in online auctions that I haven't listed yet and that I haven't sold. So

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, there's no shortage of stuff to be had, that's for sure. And I feel like, one day you're just going to say, you know, Suzanne, I just, I'm overwhelmed. I'm never going to get through all this. Why don't you just come on out here and get a U haul and just shop in my barn and and I will be on the next slide out.

Unknown:

I would love it, not there yet. I'd love to, I know,

Suzanne Wells:

and meet your horses. And, yeah, yeah, just come to the ward ranch. That's on my bucket list, even if I don't get you'll want to, want to come there

Unknown:

and come and we can go swimming. We'll, we'll do what we we put in a pool so we can do it.

Suzanne Wells:

Oh, well, that's even better. And so you also had some back trouble this year that kept you, I don't want to say disabled, but you were convalescing with that, and not able to do your regular work. Yes, I think we talked about that a little bit and how to focus on what you could do, which was not a whole lot of sitting. But how did you work through that? Well,

Unknown:

the one thing I realized I could do, I could take pictures for a little while. You know, it hurt. It did hurt to stand. So I did a lot of photography, thinking that eventually, when I feel like I can sit down and do the listings, I'll have an inventory of photos. But also, the one thing I had to figure out is what to do physically to get better. And it's basically pulled down to doing morning stretches. I'm 72 so you don't your body doesn't get any more flexible the older you get, right? So I do about 20 minutes of exercises every morning. Good for you that are focused well, you sent me some of what they told you to do, and I've incorporated one of those into my routine. The others came from a physical therapist that I was going to, and she helped me more than anything, just giving more like a massage therapist, I should say, okay, she helped me get back on track, physically, to get my flexibility back, and whatnot. But the other thing was getting, although it was a little bit too late in the year, but the pool has really helped me this year to get in the pool and move about. And do, you know, just do some little water exercises that keep you flexible. So, yeah, I it's, it's something. As you age, you just realize that you're not, you know, I have more pieces and parts that don't work.

Suzanne Wells:

Now, did you put the pool in specifically for your health issues? Or was No?

Unknown:

No, Jim was? Jim was a competitive swimmer, okay, so as a kid, and so he was a very good swimmer. And so we had one in coming. And it's just always been part of our life. We've enjoyed the activity, go ride a horse and get real good, hot and sweaty and then jump in the swimming pool. So that's kind of it. And here it's gorgeous because we have no trees around it, and it's just out. We have nothing but a pasture that looks out from the pool. And so it's a gorgeous view. And the sunsets are beautiful. There a lot of times I don't even get in the pool till late in the afternoon, about the time that the sun is setting, but at least that's my

Suzanne Wells:

favorite time too. Is just you've you've done your day, you're unwinding. It's peaceful. I enjoy that time of day too, and also for any injury or or even not just the being in the water and no gravity is, yes, helpful, just for your body in general. So yeah, and listeners, she does not look 72 she looks about 50. So whatever you're doing is working. Well. Why don't you catch us up on some things that you've sold or have happened in your eBay business since the last time you were on Okay, the

Unknown:

one thing I'll tell you is I've been focusing on doing eBay better, and so I mentioned to you that I've built. Some new Excel spreadsheets, because for so long, my items had no I didn't have a cost of goods sold, so to speak, because it came out of a trunk that I didn't really pay anything for, right? But when I began doing the online auctions, I realized how important it is to factor in the buyer's premium, the taxes and the shipping. And so I have quite a few things that I got for $1 nobody else bid on the item. I bid $1 but it cost me$30 to have

Suzanne Wells:

it shipped. I know, yeah, that is definitely a factor.

Unknown:

So I I create an Excel spreadsheet with now, every auction that I go to, I drop in what those items are. I include the buyer's premium, the taxes and the shipping. And then if there's more than one item in that lot, I divide that amongst all the items in that lot. So I know, you know, if this item's got to sell for $2 in order to recover what I what I've spent, if it's one item, then that one item has to sell for the total. So I did that earlier this year. And then secondly, I created another Excel spreadsheet because I was bad about offering a heck of a price on an item. And at month then when I do my Excel spreadsheet to see how well I did that month, I've always done that every month since I started eBay, and it's just a running total of each month showing every item, what it sold for postage and eBay fees, whatnot, and then my profit. So in this case, I would be doing my month in and sometimes I would have made so little money, I thought, Why did I even make that offer? And so I realized that I needed an Excel spreadsheet that let me go in and quickly plug in. What if I discounted this 30% versus 20, or 20 versus 50 or whatever. And maybe that's just common sense for you and other more seasoned sellers, but for me, I just needed to see that and see what I was doing. So that's on my my first screen when I turn on my computer. I've got that Excel spreadsheet there so I can quickly go there. And if I'm fixing to offer someone something, I can plug in how much I'm offering it for what I've got in it, and just figure out is it worthy of Me offering it that. And sometimes it tells me I need to go out there and up the price a little bit because I'm not making enough money.

Suzanne Wells:

It's still helpful to look at like the overall month and what you're making? Because, you know, I get$10 offers on things, and if I've had it for two years and I paid $1 for it, okay, yes, come to my store and make me some offers, because I like to keep things moving. And I did a little spreadsheet. I don't wanna call it, I did some math about $20 items. So if you have a $20 day every day on eBay, and that's all you you profit is $20 you know, that's over $7,000 a year. So I look at that too for cash flow and the algorithm and keeping things moving. And I'm with you on the online auctions. I do experiments. Sometimes I buy something knowing I'm really not going to make much money on it, but I want to work with that product. I want to learn about it. So the latest thing I bought was called a buttocks basket. Have you heard of these? No, it's, it's an old timey like egg basket or whatever. You know it's, it's woven wicker, but it has two bigger ends on it, so the middle is is narrow and the ends are round, so it looks like buttocks. Wow. And I got into online auction, and I kept getting outbid. I'm like, Okay, there's something to this. You know, people are paying $100 for them, and so I'm like, okay, so I did win one for about $30 I probably won't be able to sell it for a whole lot more than that, but it gives me a chance to put in my store. Do the research, get any questions about it, learn about the product, so the next time I see it, I'll know that this is a thing, and I do that a good bit with the online auctions, because there's so many things that you're never going to see in a thrift store or at a garage sale there. These are things that have been sitting in people's homes for lifetimes. So you. So don't beat yourself up. Too bad if you're not making money on every single item. Look at it over the month, and that's good to know. Like some sellers want a goal of a certain number of amount of sales every day, like $100 in sales every day, and those little ones, they add up.

Unknown:

Well, I did something along what you're saying, with the online auction. I, um, my husband was looking at online auction that ended up being out of the town we moved from in Georgia, which I thought was interesting, who's hosting this thing. So he was looking at it. They had an enormous amount of firearms for sale they were auctioning off. So he said, Look, this auction house is in Georgia. You might want to check it out. So I did. And the auction was live at that time with not the firearms, but other things. And I've just scrolled through to see what they had. And they had a Chick fil A, bucks car train. And I just, I love Chick fil A, and, you know, they're Kathy true. It is from Atlanta,

Suzanne Wells:

right? Kathy is his name, yes, yeah. And there was a, um, a restaurant called True. It's and actually, when I was at Georgia State, I did a paper. What do they call that when you analyze a business? Anyway, it was, it was on Chick fil A, yeah? And this was back in, I don't know, late 80s, yeah. You remember

Unknown:

his first place was the dwarf house?

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, the dwarf house? Uh huh, yeah. So

Unknown:

I've always admired him. And when I was in in responsible for marketing at Heritage bank, we focused on corporations that ran their business real well to help kind of build a, and what would you say, like a profile of what you want to be like? So we all we looked at Delta, because delta was such a premium type company back then. This is the 80s, and we looked at Chick fil A. So anyways, I said, I want to buy this box car. So I quickly looked on eBay, and saw they were going for greater than 120 bucks. So I started bidding, and I bid up to 75 and I want it Okay, so it was shipped to me by this company out of Georgia, and I get it, and I noticed that the weight on it was 30 pounds. I thought, This is crazy. This thing doesn't weigh 30 pounds. And I set it on my scale, and it was less than five. So I called the auction house, and I said, I'm new to this auction world. And I said, I bid on an item and I want it. And I said, but I've got a question for you. Do you always up charge your shipment to make additional monies? And I said, I just want to know for future bidding purposes. And he said, Oh no, ma'am, we don't. And I said, Well, here's what I got. So I told him. He says, I don't know how that happened. And they use a third party called pirate shipping, okay, and they're pretty good. I've not had any problem dealing with them. So he says, I don't know how the mistake was made. And I said, okay, so he said, but by the way, he said, You're in Oklahoma. Why in the world would you want a Chick fil A box? I said, Well, they're out here. He said, I didn't know that. He didn't know that they're that they were this far west. So it began a conversation about that I lived in the town he was in, and my career there and all that, and he and I just kind of struck up a good conversation. So that was that. Well, another option came up about three weeks later, and he sent me an email to say, you might want to check this auction out. So there were quite a few things that I wanted to try, but one of them was a mahogany case that had gold flatware in it, and it was just beautiful gold flatware. And I could see what they were going for on eBay, but I thought that thing's going to be heavy. Okay, I'll absorb the cost of that, and I probably can make it up when I sell it. So in addition to that, I bought a whole lot of vintage toys, and I have found a niche I love. Oh, good. I love that. So these vintage toys, and then there was vintage cards of different thing. There were have cut over 100 baseball cards now, oh boy, all sorts of weird things to do with the Desert Storm and cards like that, and then some sewing stuff. So I won all these different lots. I thought, Oh, I better get ready for the price of the shipping. So when I get the I never got an invoice for shipping. So I sent him a message saying I haven't been billed yet for the shipping. He said, No. Worry it's on us. Oh, nice to you before,

Suzanne Wells:

and I should have bought some more heavy stuff then.

Unknown:

So when I put everything together in my spreadsheet, I didn't have any shipping with that one, so that was cool. So that particular mahogany set that I ended I bid$25 for it, and with the buyer's premium and the tax, it cost me 30 I flipped that for $75 within two weeks. Oh, good, plus shipping of $25 so the the vintage toys, I have to kind of go to my notes to help me get through that, because I made notes on it. But the vintage toys is pretty cool. There were so many in the law that I've ended up only having $1.55 for each item. Okay, break it out. And so, so far, I have sold the Merlin the wizard and I paid, do you remember Merlin the wizard at all? Uh huh. I sold him for$58 and I actually had $1.55 invested in him. And then I sold the melody madness, which is a 1980 toy. The the Merlin wizard is a 1963 toy, okay? And the the melody madness is a 1980 toy, and I pay, I paid $1.55 for it, and I sold it for 18 plus 13 in shipping, okay? And then in that lot were some Jurassic Park watches that were given away by Burger King back in, I don't know, the 80s. I believe it was, and I had

Suzanne Wells:

four graphics part came out in the early 90s.

Unknown:

Okay, be 90s, yeah, and I sold a lot for $22 so, yeah. So anyways, I, I I have explored the different online auctions. And probably the one that is the weirdest one of all is it was back again with this, this auction house. And the one criticism I have of them, and you'll start seeing this in the things you get, is how these auctioneers package stuff. Okay, there's a lot of difference.

Suzanne Wells:

You mean, set up the lots, or actually package it to send it to you. Package to send it to you. Oh, to ship it. Oh, yeah, they're so different. I received one a few weeks ago, and it was I wrote them a praise email. I was like, whoever is doing your shipping, they need a raise, because they had everything, like an individual, it wasn't shrink wrap. It was like the What's that ceiling machine that sucks the air out, and it was in, in that kind of, everything was separate. Everything was clean. They had the breakable stuff, like rolled up in the blankets and pillows like to make it so they didn't have to use packing material. They were smart about that. But I've also gotten boxes where it looks like, I don't know, maybe somebody was hung over, and they just went through the warehouse and dumped it all in a box and didn't even put any packing material in it. And it was, I have a spreadsheet too, and it's like, don't buy from them again. Their packing is terrible.

Unknown:

Yeah. So I've kind of, I'm not going to probably buy any more online auctions period, because I've got to focus on our stuff. But this Georgia Auction House has fallen low on my list because there's one out of Oklahoma that I have bought from, and they're like the example you said, where you wrote a letter of praise to them. I did the same thing because it was phenomenal. The box actually had the auctions company name on it. The tape had the auction company's name on it. The content was pristine, and I had lots of breakable things in that nothing arrived broken the way they had packed it. And he replied, we pack it like like we're buying it. He said, We want our customers to be happy. So this Georgia online auction that I won, I had, or I had won, some quilts and some Afghans and some other knitted things and some pillows, and I bid on a Barbie lot, and I bid$5 in one. And so I'm looking at the picture thinking I'm getting two Barbie dolls and some accessories. I did not know I'm a baby boomer, and in 19 I was born in 1952 and I had a Barbie doll, a chat of Kathy and a walking doll. I had no earthly idea that the kids today have that many dolls that they play with of different names and stuff and things that are so tiny. My mother would have never let me play with those. She would have, oh, sticking in my ear or eat them. You know, I know it's crazy. So I open up, I open up this box that is include, that includes the Barbie lot that I had bid on, and my Afghans and my pillows are there. And I start seeing in all the little Afghan knitted spots, little teeny, tiny baby bottles, no bigger than my finger, little tiny rattlers this and that he had taken that Barbie lot and dumped it down in the box. Didn't put it in a container, didn't put it in a Ziploc bag. I have picked and picked and picked stuff out there, but the bottom line is, I have so many accessories for Barbie that now I have a special feature on my face on my eBay page that is doll house accessories and furniture good. So I have, I have pulled out of that lot. Finally, all the big items, and I've got 99 cents invested in them. And these aren't going to sell for probably more than $10 a piece, but if I sell all of them that I've got, it's going to be two to $300 worth of stuff. It's crazy. So one of the things that was in that Lot was the Avon Special Edition Barbie. Oh, beautiful. She's got platinum hair and a beautiful blue gown, and she's, I think she was a 1980 1995 she's called the winter velvet edition. So I got ready to photograph her. She was new in box, and so I photographed her, and I started looking at something's wrong with her hands, I looked at her fingers had been cut off.

Suzanne Wells:

Oh no.

Unknown:

Oh, my God.

Suzanne Wells:

Some other girls should have been a chef instead of playing with dolls, I guess. Yeah, let's hope that's all it was.

Unknown:

So I listed it in an auction and put it that it was, that it was a defect, but it was unique, but everything else was there. She had all the other jewelry on. She had the shoes and the brush. A lot of people didn't have the shoes in the brush, so she had all the other little pieces in that. And nothing happened with the auction, so I listed it for like a week, and I got to thinking, I'm gonna put it on another auction. So I went back and redid my numbers. I had 99 cents tied up in her okay. So I did an auction and started the bids at 99 cents. I thought, if somebody bought for 99 paid postage, I'll make a little money on postage. Well, the last day, like the last minute of the bid, somebody bid 99 cents and got her okay, I had already decided what I should have done is taken her clothes off and sold it by clothes, just the clothes. But, you know, live and learn. Yeah, live and learn exactly.

Suzanne Wells:

And that finger issue, that sounds like a brother thing, you know, like a way a brother can torture a sister, like, if you don't, if you don't do this, I'm going to cut your Barbie's fingers off. I mean, I can, I can see

Unknown:

that happening? Well, I found the fingers in the box, so they were in there. So I taped them together and told the buyer,

Suzanne Wells:

so maybe she was like amputee Barbie, or, you know,

Unknown:

I wish she was missing the big diamond ring because the fingers were gone. So somebody took a little diamond ring so but Suzanne, as I've gone through all these little items I found, here's some names, and maybe everybody knows these, but I didn't in addition to Barbie, you have Chelsea, which I guess is her cousin, because I don't talk about Skipper

Suzanne Wells:

anymore. I don't see anything. Skipper was my favorite. Skipper and Dawn. I loved those two.

Unknown:

My dad would never let me have a Ken doll. He said there was something wrong that

Suzanne Wells:

we use my brother's GI Joe.

Unknown:

But I have LOL, surprise, a lot of accessories, a Polly Pocket. Oh, that's good. A Disney Sophia, My Little Pony. Oh, yeah, play mobile. Those are odd ones. They look a lot like that family that you bought stuff. Oh.

Suzanne Wells:

The Fisher Price loving family,

Unknown:

yeah, yeah. And then there's something called Shopkins. Yes, they're terrible looking. And then, oh, gee, our generation, yep, which I think includes the American doll. Well,

Suzanne Wells:

it's, it's a, I don't want to say a copy, but it's similar to American Girl dolls, and like, they can wear the same clothes, they're the same 18 inch height. And so it's, it's kind of in that group, or, I don't think they're as expensive, but they're still can be good sellers, okay?

Unknown:

And so I'm going through all these little things, doing a Google image to figure out what they are, because I I don't have kids, I would have no way of knowing, no one to ask. And so it's been a real journey to educate myself on the different toys, doll toys, so but one of the other things that I did buy from that Georgia auction that has really paid off is I bought a lot of Kirk pewter flatware. Kirk, it's called Kirk styff, okay, apparently that is brand for pewter, and he makes a gorgeous set of flatware called Annapolis. And I saw how expensive it was, so I bid up to$95 for a big set of that stuff, and I've already sold $100 worth of the flatware. So at that time, when I bid on that and got that, I kind of started thinking I wanted to do a lot of silverware. So I have amassed a lot of flatware. Oneida, mainly, is what I've got. And they are not fast sellers for me, so, and they're hard to film, hard to photograph, right the lighting and all that, but I've had fun with it, and I've got to hang in there with it and just keep trying to list and put it out there. So

Suzanne Wells:

I see some really interesting and beautiful groupings of flatware, like on the group. When people are posting their sales, they get very artistic with how they lay it out, yeah, make it just look different than all the other listings. But you're right, especially spoons are are hard to photograph without the reflection and the Yeah, yeah, that's a little more difficult,

Unknown:

maybe. And I bought a light box, thinking that would help me. And I enjoy the light box. It's good for jewelry, but I have found that natural light is the best way to film, and so I've got a large window seal in the room that I'll do all my photographing in, and I'll just raise the blind and lay a background piece, actually, from my light box, one of those sheets that you could put in it and photograph from there. So, but I'll keep listing that, but I'm not going to buy anymore. Okay, that is good. So in this last since January, I lost my top rated selling status because I had sold enough dollar volume, but I hadn't sold enough quantity, the 100. You got to do 100 every rolling month. I believe it is okay. So, I lost. I lost being top rated. Oh, and I think that mattered more to me than anybody else, because I don't think buyers really understand. No, so I wanted to figure out how to get the volume back. So just by happen chance, I have a friend and coming who's a very trendy woman, and she stays on top of all the latest trends and what's going on. And I don't, you know, I stay in the ranch world. And so she sent me a text that there was going to be a Kate Spade joint venture with target where they were going to do a massive drop of items on April the 12th, at 2am in the morning. Okay, well, I just now looked at her text and moved on. I thought she was talking about Kate Spade pocket books, and I don't want to buy any purses, house them and do all that. So for some reason, I she mentioned it to me again. I said, Well, I'll go back out and look at what you sent me. It was something from Good Morning America. She had seen where they were talking about it. Well, come to find out, it was charms. Kate Spade does a lot of charms that you attach to your purse, right? So I thought, wells that's kind of small, no big deal. And my my friend, is the one friend I have that enjoys hearing about eBay. You know, a lot of people don't get it. She does, and she's the kind that when I go to the rummage sale at the church or wherever, she'll say, FaceTime me, let me see what you've got. So I enjoy the time with her, because she and I, you know, we're kindred souls when it comes to this whole eBay. Thing. She doesn't sell on eBay. She just loves hearing what I've done. Okay? So she said, look, look at the text again. So I did okay. It was charms. It's okay. I'll go for it. So I budgeted $100 set my alarm, woke up at two o'clock on a Saturday morning, because that's when you could do it. And I started filling my shopping cart, and I bought 10 charms, and they were shipped free. And I got a set on Wednesday, and then some on Tuesday and Wednesday. So it was a fast shipping Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I listed them, and Friday, my cash register went crazy. Oh, wow, yes. So I tripled my visits to my eBay store during the Kate Spade thing. I had three times, not necessarily product views, but page views that you see on your dashboard when you go to advertising and all that. So I knew I was getting a lot of lot of people that I'd never seen before looking at my stuff. I mean, it went up three times what it had been before. So bottom line is, I sold all those charms by Sunday. With the exception of two. I made $60 on the adventure, but the adventure brought more people to me, right? Not only that, it it those people that bought gave feedback. Almost 100% of those Kate Spade buyers gave me feedback. So it, I would have never done that had not been for my friend who said, You need to look at this so that,

Suzanne Wells:

if you had waited longer and let everybody else's sell out, since it's a limited edition thing, if you could have gotten more. Did you think about that?

Unknown:

Well, no, I didn't. And because, sorry, that's okay. It looked like most people, the people that were contacting me were telling me stories about I was at Target, and when I apparently they just sold out this stuff. It went like hot packs. People could not get it. I have two left that I still haven't sold. So I kind of think it's that kind of item that was hot. Then it's not hot now. Well, you don't know because, because you can go to Target now and buy most of them. Oh, they're they're fully stocked. Well, no, no, no, no, some some of them, not, not all of them, but some of you can find in Target today. So what happened is, there was that window that they didn't know if they were going to, that they will not restock those. They're called limited edition, and they're one and done. So anybody that had any inventory left over, I think the excitement is gone well, and I think sold those other

Suzanne Wells:

two. I actually know for a fact that some of those people were buying them because they're limited edition, and they're going to hold on to them and they're going to sell them later. Because don't know if you were in the eBay world twice, I remember this happening once was with the brand Missoni. M, i, s, s o, n, i, that is a luxury Italian brand. It's got the zigzaggy Chevron design on it, and they did a collaboration with target. Might have been around 2011 I'll check that and put it in at the end. Um, same thing happened. People just went in there and bought up all this stuff and held it and some of those pieces are worth a lot today, because it was like the limited edition target collaboration. I actually found a sweater couple years ago, and I was like, this is part of that collaboration, and it sold for about $50 and then they did it again with Lily Pulitzer that might have been around 2014 same thing, um, people, soon as the doors open, people went in there and bought up the stuff. I don't even think it was online, and I don't think they limited how much you could buy. So, you know, people just had carts mounded up full of this Lily Pulitzer for target collaboration stuff. And since then, the retail stores Target, Walmart, wherever, limit how much you can buy of these special edition things, because they know the resellers are all over it, and they they want to get these items that are, you know, limited edition, because they're going to go up in value.

Unknown:

So I should have called you and talked to you before.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, you had no way to know. Well,

Unknown:

it accomplished what I wanted to do. I got

Suzanne Wells:

absolutely did, yeah, and you're not gonna, don't feel bad. Like, oh, did somebody? Buy that because they're going to hold it and resell it later. That could happen with anything you list. Yeah, no way to know. You just need to be happy with what you get and move on the next thing, because there will always be next things. Yeah, well, I

Unknown:

wanted to tell you something that we you and I talked about in 2023 and we didn't close out on that. So I'll tell you that rummage sale that I went to and found the coffee pot that I sold for $275 right? If you recall, I had bought the entire china set, and I paid $5 for it. So what I ended up doing because I had not listed all these items when we had our podcast in 2023 but I did list it later, I ended up selling the platter. Well, yeah, I sold the platter for 25 the serving bowl for 45 four dinner plates for 50. So the $5 investment turned out to be $395 that I made, all from that little church rummage

Suzanne Wells:

sale. Well, that makes that for everything else good for you. It does so

Unknown:

I went back to that church rummage sale the next year, and my big win there was I paid $10 for Chanel Number Five Fontes. And I don't pronounce that correctly, I'm sure, uh, dummy perfume bottle. Okay, that they set behind right, like in Macy's or play right for display, and it was empty. I paid $10 for it and sold it for$200

Suzanne Wells:

I bet. Wow,

Unknown:

yeah. So also, we talked about the Clorox pins when we were on the podcast last and you had written about that in the 2022 bolo book, and you had mentioned it on a podcast some year or year earlier, I think. But I found five of those. I paid $2 a piece, and I turned $10 into $129 in two weeks with those excellent you had advised me in 2023 don't wait to list those. Marlene, get them listed. And I did. I had them listed, and they were all sold within two weeks because we still don't know

Suzanne Wells:

if they're ever coming back. That's right. So you're in that, that zone where it's like, okay, it's not in the stores, yep, and we don't know if it's discontinued forever, or if it's just that store it's not selling in, or what's what's happening, because merchandising is so competitive, you know, these these companies get, you know, this much shelf space for their stuff. And you like cereal aisle, you know, Kellogg's gets this much, Nabisco gets this much. And so they're always trying to figure out what sells the best. And so they they remove things and put something they're new and improved, or their new thing there to see how that's going to work. And as consumers, we don't know, is that other thing coming back? So

Unknown:

still look for em on the shelves.

Suzanne Wells:

You know, either way. You know, some things are discontinued forever, like, you know, like those fun 80s products, the tickle deodorant with the round top and the the shampoo, the green shampoo that essences and all that stuff that, you know, body on tap, shampoo that supposedly had beer in it. And, you know, people just want the containers. And you know, they're not bringing any of that back, probably, because anything made in those decades is toxic and can kill you, yeah. So back to your rummage sale. So for the listeners, Marlene told me that it was coming up again this year, and so she sent me a whole bunch of pictures of, I guess, from their Facebook page or something. And it was completely overwhelming. I was like, Yeah, I don't I. I have no idea what to tell you here. You know, if I was there in person, I would feel overwhelmed. So I was trying to zoom in on the pictures and see but what did you end up with from that sale? Did you buy anything this year?

Unknown:

Yes, I focused on things that were could be stored easily and mailed easily. So I ended up my friend LaQuita, who is the court creator of the museum and the county love County. She's the one that always shows me what to go after. So I said to her, I said, What? What should I go look at? She said, we got a big donation from one of our church members that traveled extensively all over the Orient, Africa, whatnot, and so she has given us all of her silk fabric, still on a bolt that she's never done anything with. So I quit. Quickly looked up fabric, 100% silk, made in time. It's crazy. What that goes for? Wow. So all of it I bought every so the first there were only two or three laying on a table. Well, liquid. His daughter came up to me and said, You need to go look at the trunk underneath the table. Ah. So she helped me pull it out, and there was unbelievable. So I I feel like I scored pretty good there. I've got silk. And then she did a lot of travel. This church person did a lot of traveling, and she collected the menus from their international flights, like when they flew in first class, oh, you showed me those, yeah, they're large, and they're beautiful. On the front, you know, they have fruit or whatever, and then on the inside is an unbelievable menu with the Swiss Air was, there was the name of the airline, their logo in it. And so she also had done some stuff in Kenya, and I got some handmade stuff from there. So I haven't listed any of that, but it was a very overwhelming thing, because that particular rummage sale is just people just come in and dump stuff, you know? But one thing I did get, all their books are free, and VCRs anything. So I got a 1966 Betty Crocker cookbook and sold it for $40

Suzanne Wells:

is that the red one with the pie on the front?

Unknown:

Yes? No, is it? Has it? Have the pie?

Suzanne Wells:

Well, it's like a a pie shape. It may be different pictures in each

Unknown:

No, no, no, it's not that one. No, okay, I've seen that one's

Suzanne Wells:

worth more that one, yeah, that's in my bolo book. Yeah, that's on my radar,

Unknown:

yeah. And it's in, I think it comes in a three wing binder. Yes, it's a binder, exactly. Yeah, this is not that one I've sent. And I, I went back and looked at your bolo book, all of them before I went to the rum and so good for you. And which, by the way, your 2022 bolo I have them all, all your bolo books, has a beautiful black afghan. And I think it's 2021 or is it 2022 the granny square? Yes, uh huh, yeah. I found one on the online auction and I bought it. Oh, good for you. I've got it listed at $50 but Afghans aren't as hot as they used to be,

Suzanne Wells:

no, and I think people are making them so they're not really vintage. And, yeah, it's the Afghan that's on the back of roseanne couch. The Roseanne so that became very popular, but those used to sell for over 100 and I know depends on what it's made of. Is it wool, which you can do a little test, a burn test, to see how it burns. Just cut a little string off, or how big it is, you know, is it a lap blanket? Is it a king size? All that factors in, but it's just still a good seller.

Unknown:

I hope so. I actually got four in this online auction, including that one, so I've got them all listed now. Okay, so we'll see what happens. Go over to CJ treasures and buy one. Suzanne,

Suzanne Wells:

yes, and listeners, you go look at them and buy one too.

Unknown:

So I'll tell you one last thing that I think is pretty interesting that I sold, and I may have told you something about this when you were looking for, I think it was an anniversary thing you were gathering up about people who were calling in to congratulate you on. Okay, right, a little, right. Okay, yeah. So I opened up one of our totes, and there was a pair of hang 10 surfing trunks that was my were my husband's, and he was considered the original surfer in the panhandle of Florida. Back in the 60s, those trunks had followed us all the way to Oklahoma, and I've sold those things for $60 to a surfer in California. He wrote me a little letter and said he couldn't wait to wear those. But can you believe that Suzanne, they they hang 10, had the little feet with the toes and it embroidered. And see, today they don't embroidery it a lot of times it's just hot stamped. So it made it pretty unique. I just thought that was pretty cool to be able to sell.

Suzanne Wells:

I know You just never know what people are looking for. And you probably thought those, those board shorts, oh gosh, they're so old. Always want those. You know, I've been looking at. My whole married life to you, and nobody's going to and then there you go, how wrong I was. And so you re homed it, and now somebody can love it, and when they're done, they can pass it on to somebody else, hopefully,

Unknown:

yeah, thank goodness they made things in a really good quality back then, right? Versus

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah. So hey, well, would you believe our time is up? Yes, it is. So you've been again, a wealth of information, and thanks for sharing all the things you've done and learned now. What are you working on today?

Unknown:

Mending fences,

Suzanne Wells:

like literally, or like with your neighbor,

Unknown:

we have smooth wire fencing where one of our horses is and it has broken, and we've had so much rain lately, we haven't been able to get out and do any kind of repair. So Jim is out doing some bush hogging right now and then I'll go out and help him stretch the wire and get all that taken care of, because we aren't able to put the horse in that pasture till we get that right. So that'll be my afternoon project.

Suzanne Wells:

What kind of weather are you having out there in Oklahoma,

Unknown:

we've had lots of rain. All that rain you saw in Texas is like has hung over us here, but it finally moved out day before yesterday, and our grass is as tall as corn. It's unbelievable. So your temperature, it's in the 90s right now. Let's see today we're supposed to get up to I think it's, let me check for you real quick.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, I'll just interject. In South Carolina right now it is 94 but the heat index is 100 so I will be inside in the air conditioning, working on eBay listings, so that when it is nice enough to go out, I won't feel guilty about it. I will have done

Unknown:

my work. There you go. Well, you're about like us. It's 100 degrees here. Uh, it feels like 100 degrees. It's actually 89 oh, but it's very, very humid. So, and

Suzanne Wells:

if he is, it's only 41% it was 67% yesterday. And just like, oh. So we will just keep trolling the online auctions. Well, you're not allowed to. You need to work

Unknown:

on stuff. Yes,

Suzanne Wells:

I'm putting you on what they call inventory lockdown. Okay, can't buy anything I don't know. Set a goal for yourself, like I'm going to list 50 things I already have, and then I will treat myself to some online

Unknown:

auctions. That's a good idea. In fact, I'll say this all

Suzanne Wells:

or

Unknown:

nothing. When I was on with you in 2023 I had 225 items listed, and today I've got 412 Well, you've been talking. I've been working on I had eight followers back then, and today I've got 45

Suzanne Wells:

followers for you, and you'll probably have more after this podcast, because we said your store name and people can we do

Unknown:

at it? Yeah. And I had 281 feedbacks back then, and today, I have 480

Suzanne Wells:

you're doing well, you're so 518

Unknown:

items back then, and today, I've sold 941

Suzanne Wells:

good for you. Now slow progress is still progress. Yes, um, people just don't leave feedback anymore. They really don't. They don't. So you were lucky on those Kate Spade charms that you know, feedback.

Unknown:

So, yes, yeah, okay, well,

Suzanne Wells:

I guess you'll be going out to do your outside work and then jump in the pool later today.

Unknown:

Sounds good? Yes,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, well, so great to catch up with you again and for sales on the group.

Unknown:

Thank you and listen, I appreciate your premium library so much. Okay, and I thank you for your excellent prompt response when I call out for help. You have definitely been a lifeline to me. And I thank you for that.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, I appreciate you, but sometimes, before I can even answer, you've already figured it out.

Unknown:

I said one good thing about eBay, it keeps a 72 year old woman's mind challenged

Suzanne Wells:

Absolutely, and the rules changing and different things to sell it is. It has a lot of moving parts, as we say. So I commend you on everything you're doing and just keep doing it.

Unknown:

Thank you. Okay, good to see you. Bye, bye.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay. My parting words today are a follow up on the target collaborations. I did go back and check the dates on when those happened, and I was pretty close. So 20. 11 target unveiled their partnership with Italian fashion house Missoni, their shelves quickly emptied and their website crashed. All before noon, regular Fashionistas and fervent shoppers were finally able to get their hands on luxury goods without taking out a loan to do so. So this collaboration is the iconic looking zigzag, multi colored chevron pattern. These items are still out there. As I mentioned, I found a sweater like a hoodie with a zip up front a few years ago and sold that for about $50 so if you're not sure what this looks like, do a quick Google search for target Miss Sony collaboration, they made everything from clothing to luggage, boots, coffee mugs, anything you could imagine. But it was a limited edition thing. So if there's any out there, you might find them at thrift stores, garage sales, maybe consignment stores, that type of thing. Okay? And then the other one was the Lily Pulitzer collaboration, which was in April of 2015 I said 2014 in the podcast, so I stand corrected. And this article that I found in the Hollywood Reporter. The title is, target sells out of Lily Pulitzer collection. Capitalist consumers resell pieces for profit. So we are in 2025 This was 10 years ago, and a lot has changed in the world of retail collaborations, as far as limiting how much one person can buy, and limiting that both in person and online and resellers are all over this kind of stuff, so it's very competitive. I remember this, and it was just pandemonium in the stores, people trying to get this Lilly Pulitzer stuff that was a limited edition collaboration with target, again, clothing, bedding, Home Goods, anything you could imagine. So this is still out there, and you would want to check eBay research to see what these pieces are worth, because the values do go up and down. So just wanted to clarify those collaboration and I don't want to say this doesn't work anymore, because it just depends, but the amount is definitely limited per person. Also, the return policy may be different than on regular items, because, you know, targets on to us. They know that we go in there to buy these things that are limited edition. And if it doesn't work online, people go and return them at the store. So you may only be able to get, you know, less than five or one or two. I don't know what the limits are, but just keep that in mind that sometimes things that work in the reselling world don't work forever. Okay, next week, the amazing Bill returns, and he will regale us with many tales of his eBay escapades. It has been about a year and a half since his last appearance on the podcast, but if you are in my Facebook group, you see his sales every week, so you don't want to miss that one. Keep working hard, try to stay cool, and I will see you next week. Happy. Selling everybody. Bye. You