eBay the Right Way

eBay Seller Chat with Sharyn in PA: Collectibles, Discontinued Items, Frankenboxing, International Sales - All the eBay Things 👏

• Suzanne A. Wells • Episode 232

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Suzanne Wells:

You Hey, eBay sellers, you have landed on episode 232 of eBay the right way. Today's date is August, 27 2025 and my guest is Sharon in Pennsylvania. No announcements this week, so let's dive in. Hello again. Listeners, welcome back. I have Sharon with us today. And how are you doing this morning? I'm

Unknown:

doing great. Thanks, good. And where are you located? I am located on the Mason Dixon Line below York, Pennsylvania, so about 30 minutes below York.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, so you consider yourself a northerner or a southerner?

Unknown:

I am a Northerner. Okay, I grew up in State College, right in the middle of the state where Penn, state main campus is at, okay. I grew up so, okay, so another Pennsylvanian, yes, you've had a couple on your recent

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, with with great thrifting and garage sales and estate sales and all that. So we will get into that in a minute. So I like to start off with a little bit about you and how you got into eBay and when that happened.

Unknown:

Okay, I got into eBay around 2013 the the good bad story was I used to be a smoker, and I quit smoking in 2013 I had a friend that did eBay, and I knew and I smoked in parts of my house, so I knew the stuff I wanted to sell, but it was smoky, so I had to get rid of that and quit smoking, and then I was able to buy things and then resell them without that smoky smell. Now that I'm now that I'm years away from cigarettes, I can tell a smoky smelling something in the thrift store yard sale or whatever else, but that's how I started. I've always been a Thrifter, or I couldn't say always. My mother in law got me into yard sales when I had two boys back to back, 15 months apart. Oh, and I was a stay at home. Mom couldn't afford clothes, and she said, You need to go out to yard sales. So I would take the boys out, and that's what I started, and then I would have my own yard sale and resell the things that they grew out of each year, and that gave me money then to buy new stuff. So I was really excited when eBay came into my picture, because it gave me a different avenue for reselling stuff, right? Well,

Suzanne Wells:

two comments. One is, I've heard that ex

Unknown:

smokers

Suzanne Wells:

are like the worst, like anti smoking people. And you know, they have a more refined sense of smell, right? They can. They can pick that up faster, so

Unknown:

I can. I still enjoy this smell of somebody lighting a cigarette, and then I go like, nope, not for me. So

Suzanne Wells:

that's kind of your superpower now it is. And then as far as selling your kids stuff, that's how a lot of people got into it, was just selling what they've outgrown, what they don't play with anymore, and using that money to buy the next size up, or the next level of toys, or whatever it is, and it's just a constant revolving door. And that's really smart,

Unknown:

yeah, so I was in retail management before I got married. Okay? So it was, I loved retail. I love selling. I love the art of selling, closing the deal, whatever. So this has just been just a continuation of that. So I'm was it like a regular retail store? Um, they it was small retail. So one was a hose restore called Park Lane hosary, you're kidding store and and then the other one was a jewelry store in the middle of the mall, a kiosk. It was called jewelers, but it was part of a larger corporation Spencer gifts. So anyhow, it has Spencer gifts,

Suzanne Wells:

yes, the black light and the um

Unknown:

things going on in the back, the adult stuff, yes,

Suzanne Wells:

like our parents, I was a teenager in the 80s, and so, you know, they were like, don't go in that store, right? You're doing drugs in the back. Don't do that. So I was a gymnast as a teenager, and we used to go to the mall and go to Parkland hosiery and try on leotards and save our babysitting money for leotards. And that was like it was. Like a geeky thing, like, I didn't care about the regular stores. I just wanted to go

Unknown:

shopping. Oh yeah, gymnasts and cheerleaders and ice skaters, skaters, yeah, yeah, stuff,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah. I loved that store. Oh, wow. That really takes me back. Thanks for the memory. So you have that in your history? Yes, and then you became a stay at home mom and live that life, and which is not easy, it is not easy stretching the dollar as far as it will go,

Unknown:

Yeah, my husband worked an hour away, so he works in Baltimore, down at Johns Hopkins, so that commute is not reliable. It's not like I could get a part time job at night. I tried, like, selling Pampered Chef and doing different things, but it just wasn't viable enough to go out, you know, multiple nights a week when he couldn't promise to be home at six o'clock. Then I'd have to get a sitter. Then I'm paying,

Suzanne Wells:

right? You know, then you're paying more than you're making, right? Yeah, and I went through that too as a single stay at home mom, um, just I tried the, the MLMs, you know, the direct marketing stuff. And it was just, it was a convenience thing, because I could do eBay all day, and I was back and forth with it all day. Get the kids off to school. I've got my time there until they come home, then we do activities and homework and dinner, and then they go to bed, and then I've got two or three more hours. And it was really difficult to coordinate a direct sales thing where you had to have these parties, right? So my sister was big in Pampered Chef, but she only had one child, and her, her child was older than mine, so they made it work. But, yeah, but now all those Pampered Chef things are worth money. They are those original when it first came out, and my, my brother's wife, is into it, and she's way up in in the pyramid, you know, way on top. But she was telling me, like certain things that they have reintroduced, and they're not made as well as the old ones, like the mandolin slicer and the bread knife, and certain things that are the older ones are made better, so people will pay up for those.

Unknown:

I haven't sold I've sold a couple of stoneware pieces, smaller pieces, but I and I've sell more Tupperware than I do pampered,

Suzanne Wells:

right? Well, that stoneware is heavy to ship, yeah, and you're always concerned if it's going to break.

Unknown:

So I've shipped enough glass I think that I've have the break it breakable. Packing down. Pretty good.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, good. Well, that's kind of our next topic is, what kind of things do you sell and where do you get

Unknown:

them? So I started selling mainly clothes and shoes back in the day when I was following you. Dan skin shoes were big. Oh, dance goes right, yes, dansco. And I remember selling a lot of dansco shoes, and I remember packing them in a padded priority mail package or envelope, so it was only $7 to ship, so I could either put that in for free shipping or added on, and somebody thought they were getting a great deal right, I was able to jam them into those priority mail package and I missed that part. But anyhow, I sold a lot of shoes and clothes. I still do some now I'm pickier about what I get and but I sold a lot of glassware from time to time. Now I'm looking for lightweight things to ship, easy things to ship. Just put them in a mailer. Books. I'm into Eileen that you've done on the podcast, the book lady from both Oh, Eileen Cole, yes. Eileen Cole, I've gotten a lot of tips from listening to her and looking what she sells, and it just, it's very interesting to see what other people sell, and then how I can fit that into my business. Yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

she's close to you kind of she's, yeah, she's Annapolis. Annapolis, right? Yeah, uh huh. So she's not far away. Is Chesapeake Bay traders. Mm, hmm, yeah. So I just, I just outed you Eileen, but I don't think when you're selling books, I don't know how competitive it is, because there's so many that were, you know, first edition or autographed or out of print, or she sells a lot of sets, right? You probably don't have a whole lot of competition when you have the whole set, or most of the set,

Unknown:

right? So yeah, and it and I have sold a lot of sets. I've sold Bibles. Is another thing that I look for. Often. Big Family Bibles are great. Those are 30 to $40 and up. Uh, to sell. Some people think it's weird to sell a Bible, but there's people that need Bibles. They, you know, this is cheaper than going to the store and getting them. So when you're not in the one price

Suzanne Wells:

with the family name, that could be people doing genealogy, or maybe that's just their last name, right? Collect them, yeah. So that's

Unknown:

been my thing. Some of the like I said, Tupperware I just had. I didn't get them on yesterday's Making Money Monday, but I did. I just sold some Tupperware. So I sold some mini hourglass salt and pepper shakers in a little holder. And they were brand new. The late, the lady I bought from was just a collector. She did Tupperware parties. She never sold, but she always bought at someone's party. And I bought well over 40 pieces of Tupperware for $40 and these little salt and pepper shakers were in there. And I sold each set for 4999 plus shipping, yes, and I was so excited. And they sold within two days, full price, and I promoted at 8% and so I still made $38 on each set. I was very happy with the outcome of that. And what did they look like? They're, you know, the hourglass salt and pepper shakers. Oh, no. Okay, right, yeah. So these are miniature ones. These were, like, four inches tall. So they're the white hourglass shape with the gold, and they have a little holder that holds

Suzanne Wells:

them. Okay, yes, that I know exactly what you're talking about. Um,

Unknown:

let me see if it'll show up here. Anyhow, it's that was just, I've always sold the hourglass when I could find them. I don't know if you can see that.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, so okay,

Unknown:

but I have a front room full of Tupperware that I need to get listed. I just have been a very busy gal. So yes, now

Suzanne Wells:

you posted on the$100 sales the black pepper, yes, can you tell us about that? Do you know anything about those?

Unknown:

I do know a little bit about it. It was a McCormick black pepper. It was all porcelain. So the whole thing was porcelain. It was a little trinket box, and it was given out McCormick, their main, one of their main, I don't know if it is their main, is in Hunt Valley, Maryland, which is about a half hour south of me. And so that's their, I think, their corporate office, and where they make a lot of their spices. And so this, I think, was given out as a company gift, like a gift to employees, or it was available for purchase at their company store, and it was all porcelain. I had it in a lot of little animal planters that I had purchased. And I paid between one and $5 for this little porcelain thing. And other ones had sold for 250 other people had them for 150 and I thought, well, go high and take an offer. And I ended up sending out an offer for like, 15% off, and it sold for, I think, $217 from 250 and it just was amazing. But I looked off of eBay too, for sale. So sometimes if you look at auction houses or things like that, you can find, if you keep scrolling past Google right now a couple pages back, you can find that items sell other places. The highest I found, I think, was like $160 and I and I'm not afraid to price high and wait for that buyer. There is a buyer out there that wants that. There isn't a buyer. There is a buyer that thinks that, because it's more money they're getting, it's like a, I don't know, the golden deal, or something like it's a little better than the $150 one. It's the exact same thing. But they just think, because it's higher price, that it must have been the original price or something. I don't know, but

Suzanne Wells:

well, and when I put that on the $100 video, I didn't realize I that it's a special promotion thing. I just thought, oh, there must be spice holders out there that are made of porcelain. Who would know that? And I was corrected. They were like, no, these were promotional items that were made only during a certain time, which makes them more collectible, because there's not very many of them, right? It's not something you're going to find in the spice cabinet, really, maybe, I don't know, but it really

Unknown:

just had, like a little it was maybe one inch deep by two inches long and an inch wide on the inside. So it really was a trinket box. You would put something in there, maybe your ring while you were washing dishes, you could have it on your. Or counter, something like that, that you would, you know, if you were going to keep it in the kitchen, or it was just for visual. It just was for display in your in your

Suzanne Wells:

kitchen, right, right? And I just, I should have asked you first, and I was like, Wow, this spice container sold for over $200 we need to be looking for these. And I

Unknown:

don't, I honestly didn't research a lot more to see if there was a paprika one or, you know, I mean, if they made other ones, I don't know. I did not research it. I just researched this particular one, but none other, no other ones came up. So I think,

Suzanne Wells:

I mean, I guess you could find it in the kitchen at an estate sale, but right now, we know that these things are out there, and your title was something like McCormick porcelain hinged spice container or something like that. And you really can't tell it's porcelain unless you look really closely, because the hinges are like gold tone, yeah, they're brass. Yeah. Okay, brass, right? Yeah. I'm just thrilled to find out things like that, because it seems like how many people have passed over these because they just thought it was like a regular spice container, right?

Unknown:

So I will keep looking for them. That's absolutely now,

Suzanne Wells:

you know, right? Yes, well, do you have some other sales you

Unknown:

want to talk about? Um, sure. Um, one of my favorite of all time sales was early on. It was in 2017 it was a pair of black jack python snake skin boots. Oh, and I picked them up at Halloween time our goodwill. Would put, like, different shoes and boots out and then with their costumes. So this was in the costume section, like a cowboy boot. So you would be a cowboy for Halloween. And I picked them up, and I just recognized the quality right away. They were $25 I did not even like research them in the store. I just bought them. I knew that they were something good. I knew I could get probably at least 100 bucks for them. And I researched them, and they were $800 boots, and I started selling them. I had them at $300 and it took a year and a half to sell. And I took a best offer of $269 for these. But they were, they were custom made for whoever bought them, and then they didn't wear them. There was no marks on the soul. There was they were gorgeous, and they were tan with this white python skin on the top of them. And that was my favorite sale. And I was in a group and shared my eBay sales at that time, people would say, like, Oh, what did you buy? What did you sell? And they would always ask about the boots. Did you sell those? Yet? I said, No. I said, I had people offer me $50 or $60 and I wasn't selling them for that. I was waiting for that buyer that knew what they had or knew what I had. And so that's what I did. But that was a favorite sale of mine. Another one was I picked up off the curb a free it was a Chrysler Sebring convertible, and it was the convertible top that folded, and that was early on in eBay, that was like maybe the first year, and it was just free. And I thought, well, I can figure this out. And they sold normally for a couple $100 but I would just it was free, so I thought, I'll put 60 $80 on it. And it didn't sell for quite a few months. And then I ended up putting it $60 and somebody in Canada bought it, and it was my first international ship, uh huh. And I used the large priority mailboxes. And I, they call it Frankenstein boxing, right? Frankenboxing? Right? In boxing? Yeah, so you, I took five of those to make it tall and to ship it out. And that was, that was just fun. That was like, I love freebies at the curb.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah. I did a vacuum cleaner like that. It was an Oric. It was a floor polisher. Okay? It was tall. So I just made a column out of those 12 by eight, or whatever. The

Unknown:

12 by eight kept, just kept

Suzanne Wells:

putting them on and making a column. And it really didn't take that long to do you didn't have to cut boxes apart or anything. I just, I just made one tall column of boxes taped together, and I think it was maybe three or four boxes. But, yeah, use what you have if you can. But now we're all ground advantage, so Right? And sometimes priority isn't that much more, if you have the priority supplies and you want to use those, but, yeah, you can

Unknown:

maybe coastal. So maybe we're both on the east coast. So if I was shipping to you, maybe priority would only be a couple, if it's in the same region, maybe, right? Yeah. But if I'm shipping to California, it's 30 or 40.

Suzanne Wells:

Sometimes it's just like 50 cents more, right? But now. Ground advantage changed all that with you can only use your own supplies to get that lower rate, which it's not hard with Amazon these days. You save those boxes,

Unknown:

right? Save those boxes and I and I use my I have an eBay store. I have 580 items, and so I get the $25 discount. And I pick the size boxes. I usually buy boxes. They're a little bit I have to pay a little bit more, but it gets it to the house. I don't have to search another site for the same size.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, and you're using that coupon, right? There's a big discussion about that on the Facebook group, like, what do you get with your coupon? And you know, what's the best, best deal? And honestly, I just get whatever I'm running out of, right? Like, if it's poly mailers or tape or I just check my supply level and, like, what do I need so I don't have to buy it.

Unknown:

So yeah, that coupons coming up the end of September, I have forgotten to buy stuff. I put a reminder that comes on every 29th of the month or 28th February. We're still good, but I put a reminder on my phone to use that $25 coupon, and I still have missed it. Yeah, because, you know, you get busy with life and you do other things, and yeah, it

Suzanne Wells:

doesn't roll forward. Do you have to lose it? And I used to, like, as soon as it came out, the first of the quarter, I would, I would use it and get my stuff. But now I'm more waiting see, like, what am I going to run out of? What am I going to need? Because

Unknown:

once you have a place to store your boxes,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, I had, at one point, like 30 rolls of tape. Okay, I got enough tape. I need to use this for something else. But you know us, we Bayers, we can never have enough tape.

Unknown:

Right now, trying to think one of the other great things I got. I do a lot. I used to do a lot of shopping at my goodwill, and it used to be the best Honey Hole in southern York County. They had great prices. It was nice and neat and organized. Up until about two years ago, Goodwill changed all their racks and different things, and now it just to me. I walk in and and it gives me the heebie jeebies. It just everything feels like it's closed in on me. But I used to go in there and I could find at least one thing, if you know, I don't, didn't spend I could spend hours in there. Some days I did, but often I had 1015 minutes and go in and I could find one thing for under $5 to flip for at least 20 plus, right? So that used to be my best place. Now it's yard sales. I like flea markets. I don't and I do some estate sales, but I'm not rushing. Even when you see pictures up front, there's somebody else that wants it worse than I do, and I don't want to get up at 5am or 4am in the morning to be first in line. It's just probably that was more important five years ago, you know, thinking that that was what I needed to do. But I can't do that. I can't do auctions, because I'm the person that would bring home the dollar auction box for one thing, and then have to figure out what I'm doing with the rest of it. Certainly, I could sell this, and then it sits there and I don't. So, yeah, it's

Suzanne Wells:

too much overflow. I've been playing around with ephemera and, you know, selling letters and batches of things, and I keep putting it aside because it's so time consuming to list. Even if you don't read through it and see what it is, you still have to lay it all out and make sure you're getting a good picture of everything in the lot. And I enjoy it because I enjoy the history of it, but it's just not fast to list. I've still got letters that I bought three months ago that just keep getting put aside. I'll do that tomorrow. I'll let me list this, because I can list this in 10 minutes, you know, right? You know, it's just one thing, a coat or a pair of gloves or something. And so you really do have to factor in your time, whether it's when you're out treasure hunting, like the estate sales, if you're going to have to stand in line, that's, it's still time,

Unknown:

right?

Suzanne Wells:

And it's, it's valued differently by everybody. Like, you know, some people, they're just going to do that because that is their thing. They love it. They love getting up early and going to those estate sales and being at the front of the line. And other people are like, Nah, I'm retired. I'm going to sleep in.

Unknown:

I just don't have to beat somebody there. It's not there's always something else around the corner that you can find to resell, and especially if you're an everything seller. Now, if you were only clothes or shoes, obviously you're not going to hit the estate sale, maybe till the last day, unless you see some. Been in the pictures. You know, you want that as the cheapest as you can. But, you know, jewelry people, I get, but when you're paying full price that first day in an estate sale, it makes sense to go the second or third day, when it's, you know, a third off or half off, or something like that. Yard sales. I do love um, that's, that's from Pennsylvania, is like April 1. It usually starts and it goes till late October, maybe even into November, if we have good weekends. This year was horrible for yard sales. It rained every Saturday, I think from April to June or something really, okay, yeah, it was real, really rainy. But they do them around here, Thursdays and Fridays too. So often there's other days that you can go out and get them.

Suzanne Wells:

Did you have any of that horrible heat?

Unknown:

Yes, we've had 100 degree days feeling like 110 115 with the humidity just out of this world. So

Suzanne Wells:

Right? So that that put a damper on a lot of sales. I think just the people having them, they're like, I don't want to be out there. And like, nobody's going to come because it's too hot.

Unknown:

We have a, I want to say it's like a three mile long yard sale. It's called a Riley yard sale, and it's the little town of Riley, and it is the fourth Saturday in July. So sometimes there's five Saturdays in July, right? It is. There's homes. It's up a a rural highway that you might go 3540, through this area, and the people will let other friends or or rent it out, rent out their front yard to people to sell their wares. The church does it in their parking lot and and homes all over the place. And this year, I was supposed to sell there, and ended up going down to Virginia with my son, so I wasn't able to to get there and sell. I sold last year, and in two days, Friday and Saturday, I sold like$800 worth of just stuff that I wanted to get rid of. But this year I went and bought, no, I only, I think I only spent like$80 in two days, um, walking up and forth. And there's new people out every day. So I look forward to that every year, but it's always 100 degrees, like, it's always hot as hot can be, and you just have to be prepared. That

Suzanne Wells:

makes the goodwill more attractive, because it's air conditioned, right,

Unknown:

absolutely. And I've seen those mile like, through Kentucky or Tennessee. There's like, 100 mile yard sales. And I think like, Oh, I'd like to do that. And I think like, I don't know that I could. I don't know that I would have a van big enough to bring it all home and just days and days of heat, because it's always

Suzanne Wells:

I think, yeah, for something like that, you need two people and parking if you have to. And, like, if I go garage saleing, I like someone to go with me and be the driver. And like, they don't want to get out at every stop, but I do, you know, the neighborhood garage sales, so I try to find somebody who is kind of interested, but like, oh, you could be the driver, and then I'll take you out to lunch when we're done, you know, because you know parking and then you gotta walk up the hill or whatever. And it's logistics you gotta think about all that, you know, and then you gotta carry all your stuff back to your car, because just to have a chauffeur, Uber, needs to come up with a a thing for that, a product for us garage saleers Like, you know, Saturday morning from nine to 12, it's only $30 or whatever.

Unknown:

Well, we're on the outskirts of Lancaster. Pa is, is Amish country, so we're on the outskirts of that, and we have a lot of Amish and Mennonite families that don't drive. And oh, so there is drivers. They come to these yard

Suzanne Wells:

sales. That's what Cheryl hinderhan does. Yeah, yes. Okay, yeah. So they,

Unknown:

they drive the Amish around, and they go and that driver waits and has either a trailer or something on the back of his van, and they pack em in. There's probably 1012, women in a van, and then they have, and they bring backpacks, or they buy, buy backpacks and big bags to carry their stuff in and pack it in the car. So there is a need for that. Yeah, and I guess

Suzanne Wells:

if you're, if you're really creative, you could, you know, identify as an Amish to get in on that transportation system.

Unknown:

Yeah. Well, I think there's, I think, with, maybe not Lyft and Uber, but I think, you know, there's local people that do ride service, you know, would take you to the airport or whatever, and not using the Uber name just by reputation. So, right, absolutely there.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, I'm thinking of, um. Ways to do things like, you know, how can we make that easier and, and you're giving somebody a job at the same time, you know? So what else do you have on your

Unknown:

list? I sold a I picked this up at this Rhineland yard sale, um, probably five years ago. It was a Vitamix blender, and it was a old one with a metal blender top. So the blender, the cup itself was metal, and then it had a plastic dome on the top of it. And it came with two of these metal things, and I listed it on eBay, like for $125 and I only paid$35 for the whole set. And someone messaged me a Vitamix enthusiast or collector, whatever, and said the one metal container I had didn't have a spout on it, so it was just a blender cup itself. And said, that is a collector's item. You need to list that as an auction and put a reserve on it and started like at $150 and put a reserve. Well, I was pretty green about auctions. I didn't do a lot of auctions. I didn't know I had to pay that reserve fee. So I put it on for a week. Now, I don't think they, I think they still may do the reserve fee, but so I paid $15 to put this on reserve, and it didn't sell the first week. And when I got charged that $15 I'm going like, Heck, no. So I put it on buy it now for $300 for this, just for the cup itself, and it's so I sold on an offer for 250 and then I sold the other blender, the actual blender itself and the other metal cup with this or metal blender part with the spout on it for $125 Mm, hmm. So it was an amazing sale, and that person had had parts break on him, and so he told me that buyer messaged me and said, Please pack it carefully, wrap this extra much, watch the handles. And I said, Well, can I take the handles off? Oh, sure, go ahead and do that. It has, you know, a certain wire in it. But sometimes those customers are great. So I got great information, and I got information on how to pack it for this guy in California. Other times I get customers that message me wanting to know about the product, and then they want a low ball offer, or why I should sell it to them cheaper, or why I should Why are you asking $200 for this? I said, because it's sold. Well, eBay is showing me that you know it should sell for $35 and I said, Well, I said, That's not what it has sold in my area for. And they turn around and buy it. They're just looking for, you know, reasoning like, why I'm selling mine for so much more. I had a Ralph Lauren blanket that I sold for, like, $200 and I did the research on it and it they were selling in the high 180 something like that. And this person ended up giving me an offer for like, 180 but they wanted it for $35 Well, it wasn't anything close to what eBay was selling. EBay will show comparisons, but it's not the same size or color or condition, and that all you have to take into consideration,

Suzanne Wells:

right? When they give you that suggested price, they're just pulling a few keywords from your title, right? So you really need to go beyond that, unless it's something that you sell all the time, like land bathing suits or, you know, something that you're familiar with. Yeah, I sell this enough to know this is the price, but, yeah, that suggested price. I don't always go by that. I do. I pay attention to it, but it's not if it's a unique item or vintage. It's not pulling all the information into that calculation. And you know, speaking of people low balling, so I've had, well, one was a question. I've got that, God bless our pad, cruel piece that's from the 70s, and it sells for $300 and it's been out there. It's been on my look for list for 15 years. I finally found one. So I had a buyer message me and say, you know, I have this very same thing I got from, I don't know, Urban Outfitters or somewhere like that, and I got it for, you know, $25 like 20 years ago. Why are you putting this high price on it. And I said, because that's what they sell for now, and you can look at the sold listings and see the prices, and it's a unique item. And I don't know if what she had was exactly the same, because this is handmade, and maybe they had some kind of I. More generic looking machine made thing. And maybe it wasn't even cruel, maybe it was just something else. But so she was like, Oh, I had no idea. So I don't know if she has one she's going to sell to but, and then the other day, I had I got a message from a buyer, I have a bunch of St John pieces that I bought at an estate sale, and they they give me this sob story about, oh, we are a higher end Fundraising Company, and we're going to do a fundraiser auctioning on luxury clothing, and we'd like to buy all of your st John for $20 a piece to put in our fundraiser for blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, but that's your thing, fundraising, right? That's not my thing,

Unknown:

right? That's not, you know, not why I'm selling i

Suzanne Wells:

i didn't explain all this. I just said, No, thank you. But like, you know, I had to find it, I had to buy it. I had to make it presentable for listing and list it and take all the risk. And these, I sold one yesterday for $100 one of the ones that she asked about, it sold for $100 so I know what I have, and I know what it's worth. And I just get a kick out of these people. You know, they're not ashamed. They'll ask for anything. And you know, maybe if I'd had it two years and they were ugly colors or something, but no,

Unknown:

right, it's, that's a that's

Suzanne Wells:

a rare find for me to find, st, John, I think John, yeah, six pieces. And, you know, I just don't find that in the wild where I am. It's got to be an estate sale or something. But, yeah, people, they have no shame. They'll ask for anything. You know, we're deal hunters too. I've been in thrift stores and saw where a retail store donated a bunch of things and, like, there's multiples of the same exact thing. And I love to find that, because you just have to list it one time with a quantity of 10, right? And I'll go ask the manager, hey, can you make me a deal if I buy all of these? And it just depends on how much authority that manager has and what the corporation is, the one location, little church, thrift stores. Those are the best because they want to get that stuff out of there, because they it's space. So they, they will always do a deal if I want to buy a large amount negotiators, too, so you don't ask. Forget,

Unknown:

I love multiple quantities. One of the things I think I got, I'm sure it was your sales, or somebody on the Making Money Monday, was the small bottles of not the hotel shampoos, but like the sample size, right? So I bought, oh, what is it? Thermo silk. It was a brand that hasn't been at you know, this wasn't for sale. Now it's been discontinued. It was a little thermos silk shampoo bottle. And I had a set of five of or I bought a set of 48 of them for 499, at a goodwill on my way home from my mom's house, and I broke them down into groups of five for $20 and so I had nine or eight, nine sets, plus a set of three, which I ended up selling individually. But I sold one of the best offer for 17 and all the rest, it took about a year to sell. But all the rest, I didn't have to do anything. I listed it one time with multiple quantities and just watch them sell. And I'd laugh every time, because I made my money back with the first sale, so plus some, and then I$20 every time the next eight sold, and I'm going, like, that's just cash in my pocket. I was just, I get so excited with that,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, because it's just so easy, and you just ride the wave until you run out

Unknown:

right small things like Dove soap, like little like, Walmart has that section where you buy the travel stuff to go on a vacation. Those little, you know, people buy those and then they never use them on their vacation, and then they send them to Goodwill, or they put them out at a yard sale. And I'll buy those in a heartbeat, you know, little one ounce bars that would cost you two or $3 at Walmart. I'm selling 10 of them for $40 on eBay, right? And, you know, it makes a nice sale. And my husband looks at me and goes like, What did you buy and how much did you sell it for? And and he really is amazed sometimes what things sell for

Suzanne Wells:

that's for so and hotels are getting away from the bar soaps. I have a bunch of hotel soaps. Pardon me. End up using a lot of them, but they're heavy to ship in large quantities. But, yeah, they're going to the the liquid that's mounted on the wall, right? And of course, the workaround for that is people bring a little container and just pump, pump, pump up their container. I mean, people are going to steal. If they're going to steal, back in the day, you'd have the hotel cart with the little bar soaps and the small shampoos and body washes and all that stuff, and people would just grab a handful on their way out. But that's not out there anymore. And with all these tiny living and, you know, Tiny House, living in an RV, living in a boat, everything you do is smaller. So those smaller soaps are wanted by the tiny living people. Yeah, you don't have a huge closet full of soap and giant shampoos if you're living on a boat, right? And that's interesting. I know an eBay or that does her business from a boat. Okay? She does free shipping on everything. She only does smalls, but she does free shipping. So you'll have to figure that out. And then when things sell, she just ships them from the next stop, okay? Or if they're, if they're, you know, anchored somewhere. But yeah, you can do this from anywhere, any

Unknown:

I guess. Yeah, I guess you'd have to change your zip code right from where you're at. I'm not

Suzanne Wells:

exactly sure how that works. If she does that when she when they land somewhere and stay for a little while and but I also know people that do it from an RV. And if you do smalls, you can make that work,

Unknown:

right? Yeah, just eat a little bit of shipping, or you gain a little bit of shipping to pair. Yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

I'm not sure exactly how that. I've been trying to get somebody on here the podcast, who does that, who can talk about how that works, because so many people are interested. How can I keep selling while I'm traveling, if my inventory is small enough to bring with me, how would that work? Because, you know, a lot of pre retirees, retirees, they're traveling, right? They're renting an RV, buying an RV, that kind of thing. So other than just shopping and treasure hunting on their trip. They want to be able to sell and make money too. So for you are a thrift store and garage sale, yard sale addict, is that right? That'll work. That would work. I know it's like, I gotta get my my thrifting fix in sometimes it's just like, I don't want to sit this computer today. I want to go get

Unknown:

stuff right? Yeah, I'm on a hiatus right now buying, trying not to buy new stuff in and get a lot of stuff listed. I've been off and on all summer, a lot of little two or three day trips, and so when you come back, it's hard to jump back into eBay and do whatever. So I started promoting just for that reason, just because it's being seen a little bit more. And then I just, I just keep my regular price and I take best offer off. So and that's working. It's not great, but it's, it's working for my time period right now. But I do have a eBay story. I saved my eBay money. I had a lifelong dream of going to the beach and being oceanfront and staying more than a week and in 2020 that was my goal, until covid happened. Okay, covid happened. We had a lot of family issues. I ended up breaking my tibia, but I was planning on going for a month. I had researched and found different places that I could go for a month, and I'd save $10,000 and that was my goal, was to go do that, and I thought I would invite friends or do whatever else, but my trip didn't happen till 2021 and when I finally set my date to go, of course, everybody wanted to tag along. And I said, Well, I'm not having people for a whole week unless it's my immediate family, my boys or my husband. I said, if you'd like to come down for a long weekend, or, you know, four or five days. Well, it was eight hours away from Pennsylvania, so it was on Holden Beach, North Carolina. And so I ended up going for a month. I had a girlfriend come that was lived in Myrtle Beach come up for lunch one day. And I had my best friend from high school lives in Charlotte, or close to Charlotte, and she came up for a long weekend, and then my husband flew down and drove home with me, and he was there for five days. But I had my bucket list dream of being beachfront, and I was there almost all by myself. And it was just it was very spiritual, it was very introspective, and. And I just put my store on vacation, and I did have, I only had maybe four or five sales during that month, because people didn't want to wait, right? That was okay. It didn't close down my store, which was great. I didn't have to relist everything. But I guess I really just kind of wanted to let your listeners know that you can eBay helped me save up for that dream trip, and I'm getting ready to go again for two weeks in October, I decided this year, but the same the same place, and it just is, the beach is my happy place living in Pennsylvania. Jersey beaches in Maryland are like, three hours away. But to get oceanfront, I would be spending six, $7,000 a week, and I can get under $2,000 a week down in North Carolina. So

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, there's some pretty beaches Emerald Isle, and I can't think of all. They're all right there, close together. Yes, Surf City, really pretty, pretty places on the North Carolina coast.

Unknown:

And so anyhow, that's my big eBay story. As far as saving your money, it is possible, and it is possible to make decent money on Ebay. I don't know how many years. I say probably two or three years. I am a part time seller. I'm not full time and I and I think that's where I will stay. I'd like to be more active, but family comes first, and so if family calls, I'm running and I'll go away for a week or three or four days, and or if church, you know, somebody from church needs help. That's where I'm at, so I need to learn to say no, but

Suzanne Wells:

you're retired, right? I I

Unknown:

retired from a stay at home mom. I have a 24 year old that lives Okay, and my husband's looking to retire in three years, so we're hoping to, I'm hoping, actually, to downsize eBay in three years to something a little bit more manageable than 500 items so well,

Suzanne Wells:

and it depends on what they are. Yeah, you know, because I've, I've been transitioning for a while, and gloves and fun beamy hats and stuff like that. That doesn't take up much room, but I'll sell gloves for 25 to 30, and I get them for $3 or less. And you know, they're nice, leather lined. Some are vintage. Some are like, dressy for wedding or tea party or whatever. So it's not all just like, how many items? But what are they? You know, you don't want 500 VCRs.

Unknown:

No,

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, but I don't know. Just be conscious of of what you're buying. And that's always my first question is, do I want to ship this? So it is depends, like, if it's a really valuable item and a complicated thing to ship, I'll do it right. Worth The Money, though?

Unknown:

Yeah, it has to be worth the money. And I think, I think we've learned that over the years of doing it now, you've been doing it for 20 some years, but Right, yeah, since 2003 Okay, so, yeah. So in my 12 years, I've learned a lot of things that I don't like to ship. Mm, hmm, I'll still ship a Pyrex bowl because I know I can get it there safely. Or coffee mugs are wonderful to ship. They're very easy. You can bubble wrap them, and people will pay $20 for a coffee mug. So, you know that that's a fun thing to for me to ship anyhow,

Suzanne Wells:

well, and I love the eBay international shipping program, because you never get a return if there's a problem, if it does happen to break, you just get, you know, they just refund the customer, right? Like, you never know anything happened. So I didn't realize that till a few months ago, because I had something that the person said that it was counterfeit. It was a lotion. Oh, okay. They're like, this isn't in the same container. This is counterfeit. And I'm like, No, think so. I think they changed their packaging. So, yeah, she opened a case, and they just refunded her. It was$100 item. Oh, wow. I was like, whoo, dodged a bullet on that. I'm so glad you're in New Zealand. I

Unknown:

glory, yeah, yeah. I had somebody that sold shoes to boots to Australia, and they didn't fit her. And I said, Well, open up a return. And she opened it up, it would have cost her more money to ship it back. I'm not sure if they really have to ship it back. I guess if it was an item not described, eBay would just pay them or whatever. But

Suzanne Wells:

yeah, if it's if they open a return, and it's through the eBay international shipping program, they eBay just refunds them and that's it. It's over. So they could open a return without even asking you, and they just going to automatically get a refund out of eBay's pocket. So for the listeners, if you're not doing the eBay international shipping, that is the big reasons to do it, and you just print your label. It goes to a hub, and once it hits that hub, it's eBay's responsibility if anything happens to it. So I hate to see people say, Oh, I'm not going to ship International. It's too scary. I don't know what to do. Is so easy.

Unknown:

Well, compared to shipping first class International, it is. It is so easy. And I think the international customers are used to now paying, you know, paying for that through eBay versus the first class, you know, I mean, they're, you're, they're used to, because they get a guarantee, like we do, you know, something's not right. They get protected on their end as well. So for them, the extra amount of dollars that it would cost, I think, is worth it on their end as well.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, well, we have made it to the end. Finally, I know, go by quickly. Do you have any last words for the listeners?

Unknown:

Probably just, you know, if Family Matters come up, or things that come up in your life. Don't be afraid to put your store on vacation. And, you know, go away for three days, or walk away your your customers are still going to be there. It usually only takes a couple days to pick back up and get your sales rolling again. That's probably my biggest thing, and just to be open to watch you know your listen to your podcasts and watch your money making Monday, look at those things and see what people are selling. That has been the most helpful things in following you and a couple other YouTube people that just it's, you don't think about it till you till it's in your vision. And then you go to the store, and there it is. It's right there on the shelf. And I know that on Suzanne's whatever, and you go like or it's in your book. I bought a couple of your books. Yes, thank you. And but it's there. I think I was even in one of your books, the little Lisa Frank pumpkin.

Suzanne Wells:

Oh, that was you. Okay, yeah, I go out on eBay and find pictures of the actual thing, which can be challenging if it's a vintage item, because sometimes the items are kind of in rough condition, but that's vintage. It's going to be like that. So okay, well, I'm glad that. Yeah, those are still a thing. The Lisa Frank pumpkin buckets, I'd like to find another one. Yeah, a lot of her older stuff is is pretty valuable. So okay, well, what are you up to this afternoon?

Unknown:

I am I don't know. I really have no plans. I set aside the day for this. I made sure that my son was quiet upstairs and and I will probably do some Ebay. I need to take some pictures. I haven't listed in a couple of days, so I need to take some pictures, get some listings ready to go. And

Suzanne Wells:

that's about it. Whatever the spirit moves you to do. I'm kind of like that too. What do I what I feel like doing today? What do I want to do that will make me happy? And

Unknown:

halfway through a book so I may read today, but I've taken two days off. I've time to get back to it, huh? Time to get back to work. Yeah, profit pile, depth file, whatever you want to call it, it's quite large, so I really need to get to that.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, great. Well, thanks for taking the time to come on and talk with us, and we'll look for some more of your sales on the group.

Unknown:

All right, thanks so much. Thanks.

Suzanne Wells:

Have a good Nice to meet you. You too. Bye. We briefly touched on doing eBay while you travel. If your inventory is small enough to bring it with you, such as on a boat or an RV, I would love to hear from you, if you are one of those kinds of sellers, because many people are interested in learning how that business model works. So if you have mastered it and are willing to share, please contact me, and let's get you on the podcast to share your strength. Strategies. Next week, my guest is Suzanne keen, who you will know from the Facebook group. She is a frequent poster and often answers member questions, and she's just a valuable asset to the group. She was first on the podcast in 2021 and then again in 2023 as part of the estate sale episode. So she is back to catch us up on what she's been doing, as well as give us a recap of eBay open. So you won't want to miss that episode. Thanks so much for supporting this podcast, and I will talk with you next week. Bye, everybody. You.