eBay the Right Way

eBay Seller Chat with Marla in CA: Estate Jewelry Buyer and Dealer - Reselling is a Skill 💍

• Suzanne A. Wells • Episode 242

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Suzanne Wells:

Hey there eBay friends, welcome to episode number 242 of eBay the right way. Today's date is November 5. 2025 my guest is Marla, who specializes in estate jewelry. Quick announcement about my bolo books. Since I have been getting questions about this. Yes, there will be more. Earlier this year, I made the decision to switch to offering the bolo books in ebook, digital, downloadable format. For several reasons, the printing costs are just off the charts, and that, coupled with eBay fees, it's just not cost effective to have them printed anymore. There are a few printed copies in my eBay store, and this is a great time of year to purchase those for holiday gifts. Once those are gone, they won't be replenished. Also, I can produce an ebook format faster. There's no proofs, no waiting for them to be printed, no upfront costs, and I can charge less because the cost to produce a digital work is so much lower. Sellers can keep the ebook on multiple devices. Once you purchase it, it is yours to do with what you want forever. I can also update the information regularly and quickly. Unlike a printed copy, the first and second edition e book versions are available in the premium library. You don't have to be a member to purchase. The link is below this podcast. I am working on the third and fourth editions, and once I have all those versions converted to digital format, I will start on the next book, trust me, I have been gathering information all along behind the scenes, so there will be future editions. This year, kind of threw me off track, so I am reorganizing and moving forward with this project. I live by the motto, slow progress is still progress. Okay, end of announcement. Let's move on to the conversation with Marla. Hello, listeners. I have Marla On this episode, and she reached out to me to be a guest, which I love, and you are three hours behind me, so it's still morning. There for you, right?

Unknown:

Yes, it is. It definitely is morning. It's our chaotic time with all the kids and different groups of ages running around. So yeah,

Suzanne Wells:

okay, okay, so I'm glad we could sync up on the time and make this work. So let's start off with you mentioned kids, how many, and are they at school or home schooled, or

Unknown:

what's going on with that? So I have four kids. My oldest is a little over 20, then my next is about to turn 18, and then I have two little ones. One is about to turn five, and the other one is going to be three. Yeah, it's a crazy house right now. We've got the two littles going out and the two bigs doing coming back and forth between college and the last year of high school. Okay, living at home.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay? So, yeah, you've got a full house, but that's also a steady stream of inventory as everybody outgrows stuff and toys and clothes and video games and all the things, definitely.

Unknown:

I mean, my oldest are are and were competitive cheerleaders forever. We traveled and did all of the hand me downs, and they were all girls. And then my last two is a girl, boy duo. So I'm still not sure what's going to happen there with in, like, with everything so many hand me downs for so long, by that time, there wasn't really anything to, in my opinion, quality to, like, completely resell, right? They really worked them hard.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, well, good for you for buying them used, yeah,

Unknown:

but all that cheer stuff was able to get put online at one point, and all the bows that they didn't want to keep, and all that we went through that phase for a while, kind of not, I would say, not before. It was like a true business for me, but more just kind of purging. And what do I do with this stuff after you write on it?

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, okay, well, we can get into that more. So you sent me a very. Detailed email about how you got into eBay and your experience with it. So why don't you go over that for the listeners?

Unknown:

Okay, so a little bit about me is I actually by trade and an estate buyer. I buy jewelry, I buy coins, I buy silverware sets. I buy from people who don't know what to do with their estate, but not in a typical garage sale setting. So it's more like a I come to your home, or I have word of mouth, and I help you with your estate buys, right? So jewelry is pretty much the majority of what I buy, but I do buy a lot. So what I do from there is I concierge out like work with other dealers and buyers and families to help liquidate their estate, and then some of it ends up on eBay. Quite frankly, I get too much of certain things, and I then have to find somewhere to put it after you've gotten rid of it, right? And eBay becomes one of my avenues. And wish I could do eBay more, like permanently, I would say, but like more as my full time part of the job, but it's really just on again, off again portion of my job, if that makes sense.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, so what is your quote? Regular job.

Unknown:

My regular job by title, is an estate jewelry buyer and dealer. Okay, so I deal with jewelry like high end jewelry. Costume is not really my area, but I acquire it, and then it usually ends up on eBay because there's a lot of wonderful like eBay costume collectors there, right? Yeah, I also am, I guess I do. I manage an eBay store for somebody? Okay,

Suzanne Wells:

that was my next question. Yeah. So that business, or are you working for somebody else?

Unknown:

I do both. So I actually, for 10 years, have managed an eBay store, top rated store, worked with eBay seller hub. They've reached out to us to work and pair with them over a training course. I don't know if anyone's ever had that opportunity, but those emails that come from eBay don't ignore them. Sometimes they lead to really cool opportunities. Like, okay, hey, we've noticed you're a top rated seller, or you're in this really cool category. We'd love to to work with you. And we actually answered one of those emails and been like, is this real or is this not real? And it turned out that while I'm managing this store, I worked and trained with somebody getting some really cool back of the house like information, mostly based on my categories, which is like the jewelry, vintage, estate, watch, collectibles, coins, but that's a huge area of eBay, and I thought it was really cool. So while I manage for this last 10 years, this store, my husband and my friends and my family are like, Why don't you just continue with your do your stuff on the side? And I'm like, I'm so busy. But like everybody else, covid hit, and we weren't sure how we wanted to manage that store, so we kind of push pause. And I was like, Well, I'm gonna start my stuff up. And it's very parallels that so

Suzanne Wells:

well, can you share what kinds of things they taught you or suggested during these special eBay meetings?

Unknown:

I can go over a little bit about it. So for my category, they gave me some really cool insights of, like, how many photos I should aim for. So when I click into eBay and I go to list something, I don't know if it's every category, because I have been wondering why it's not consistent, but there's these little tiles that say, like, front, back, side, right?

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah. So that's on more and more products, just prompting you to put photos that eBay thinks buyers want to see.

Unknown:

So when I was working with them, they hadn't had those little squares yet. So they were telling me try to aim for I think it was like, at one point was like seven to eight photos per item. Like as you're like magic, like number, because of my category, I think a different category was, like, try to aim for six. They didn't want one or two pictures of something, so they're really trying to push give a lot of good quality pictures. They don't have to be perfectly edited. But now they've added that guide so people can try to so try to stick with that guide as the best as you can if you can get those types of photos.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, and they did say that at eBay open in August of this year, six to eight photos is optimal, and you. We have to remember they're doing all this research behind the scenes to see which listings are clicked on the most and how long people stay on the listing. Times they come back and look at the listing, and are they watching it, and all those little nuances that indicate an interest in the item. So I think it is important to listen to what they say. We don't have the capability of researching that. They get all that, as you say, back in the house, information. So I love that you're talking about the number of photos, because it is important for SEO to have what they suggest.

Unknown:

I agree. And I also asked them, like, does it matter if you use a video versus a photo? Because that was something in my category with jewelry. Like, sometimes you want to see the sparkle, sometimes you just know what it is. With watches you want to see if it's ticking, is it moving? Is this not it's hard to to do that in a still, right? And they the person I was working with at the time, which was several months ago. I maybe they made some changes since then. They said, the video is great. It just they would, they think it's a great closer for you to have a video like, here are your six, five to seven photos, and then you have this video, which helps. Not everybody needs a video of something, but if yours has a moving part, has something quirky and maybe wrong with it, and you can put a video, it just helps you at the end, if somebody is trying to say item not as described or a return, you've got that already in the listing, in that video, right? So that was a big deal. Me asking, like, is it important? Because I see there's a video portion on there now. So with my jewelry stuff, we do take a video, like a 360 of stuff, if we can, mostly to show like The underneath or behind something that's not as easy, and it just helps the the buyer at the end go, Oh, now I can see what it looks like all the way around instead of

Suzanne Wells:

and jewelry is not easy to photograph. Lord, I'm sure you have a very specialized setup for your business, because that is your main product line. But I've delved into it, and it it's hard to photograph and and get all the the different views and the light reflects, and it's just, you probably need a black background. Maybe not. Depends on the item, I guess. But I can see where a 360 video would be very helpful, because a still is going to it may have the light on it differently, and you can really see the whole piece better. I mean that, yeah, that doesn't apply for everything, like every sweater and every jacket and every toy. You don't need that, but you're right, if it has moving parts, make sound or something you want to explain. I did some camera with letters from, I think they were from the 40s, and I had them all laid out on a table. And I did a quick, you know, it's only one minute. You only get one minute, right? Did a quick overview of, you know, here they are. They're all in order. They start on this date, they end on this date. You can see the handwriting is, is beautiful, and I just thought it added something, but you don't, yeah, you don't need it on every single item, that's for sure.

Unknown:

And you don't need a fancy video. Let me preface with the fact that we do have a very fancy machine now, because this is what we do. But we didn't start that way. We only got it about a year ago. It's this, like fancy box. It's like aI ish in a sense, where, like, it gives you a better macro lens and for us to zoom in on these, like, quirky little details of a piece of jewelry, right? And a spin table on online, you can get one, put a piece and it does like a little spin. You don't need a big expense. Any cell phone can do a little quick video of something. If you want it to do a turntable, you can buy a little one. We do have more sophisticated jewelry, but I don't have sophisticated patients when it comes to when it comes to editing and photoshopping, and so I try to use that to cut out the extra steps for myself, because that's a very cumbersome process. Which leads me to my little benefit is I do have the high school kid, and they have friends looking for a little money here and there. So I employ some high school interns to help me with my photos when they have some free time, and they good are usually getting their first job experience. So it kind of means My patience is a little bit different. Than working with somebody who's been in the field. But I used to be a teacher way before this, and I absolutely love giving those young, you know, minds an opportunity to try something. And I've got a couple interns that come through, and they help me a couple hours a week, and we learn on the like, learn how to do the photos of that stuff, and it helps me, because, again, I like my main job, I travel, which I don't, I think I told you, I travel most of the time for acquisitions, for my jewelry. Oh, I

Suzanne Wells:

didn't ask you about your location. Where exactly are you as as exact as you want to be. Oh,

Unknown:

I am in Carlsbad, California. Okay, yeah, so I am in Carlsbad right now. My husband and I, we are originally were from like the Ventura County area, and I moved down here about 10 years ago to work and start over because my older kids are with somebody else, and this is just like a great place. My mom was already out here at the time, and now our second oldest is going through finishing up high school, and we're not sure where that's going to take us. We are maybe exiting California. Oh, really, it's a possibility. It's it's not something I'm smiling about it because I'm like, it's taken me a long time to swallow the fact that there's so much out there and so many other things, and we don't know what we're going to do with this economy in life, and everybody's moving. You've moved so many times. I was just

Suzanne Wells:

going to say, Yeah, I'm still recovering from that. It's just I was the most mobile of my siblings to be able to pick up and and be here to support my sister and so no spouse, apartment living. And, you know, I got out of there fast. So if you have a house to sell and lots of stuff in it and kids, you know, is quite, quite the task to pack up and move. However, if you're moving to a better situation where either cost of living is lower or there's more opportunities, or whatever it might be, then that's a different vibe. You're motivated, like you can't wait to get there, and you just do it.

Unknown:

It's bittersweet for us, because what I do, like I said, I travel everywhere, so I can go from any state and travel to wherever I need to go to do a state buying, right? And eBay can follow me wherever I go. And that's why we love it so much. That's why I call it like my on again, off again spot is because if I'm in a really busy season with the kids, and I can't focus 100% on one part of my my work, right, eBay can come and go, and I can add to it, put things on as I need to you, list items, and it moves with me. And I also move with where I'm buying my estate stuff. So I'm already moving my husband, on the other hand, he's a commercial plumber in the Union, and that's a little bit trickier, like he staying in the union. You got to go where the union opportunities are, right? Right? That's kind of the discussion right now. But we know that for our family, eBay is going to follow us. So no matter which way we go, if I slow down on my estate buying, I'm going to move to the eBay side of it.

Suzanne Wells:

So how does that work with when you, like, get a job and you have to go and evaluate the jewelry the company you work for, I'm guessing their clients contact them and say, Hey, I've got this. And how does that? Yes and no.

Unknown:

Like, we're a small, small, like, kind of like, family company, right? So I you could, let's say you could contact me directly, and I just take care of it, and then I discuss it with, you know, everybody, like, Okay, this is what I'm buying. Your specialty is coins. Can you help me? I'm not a coin person. I mean, I could buy coins, but I'm not the coin person. So I would call, I would call Jeff and be like, Hey, Jeff, I need to know more about these coins. Let's, let's talk about it. So like, for example, I did sell coins in the store that was managing for Jeff. We sold one for over$5,000 Oh my gosh. So imagine what the person probably got. I wasn't the one that purchased it, but I helped move it along right to eBay. Actually, it is one of my eBay on that store. It was over $5,000 but it was graded. It already had information, and it was helpful, because that's what he does. I'm more on the jewelry side, so if I'd be getting the jewelry, they'd maybe lean more on me and ask me, like, hey, how do you think we want to do that?

Suzanne Wells:

So with such expensive items, are there hoops that the store owner has to jump through to be approved to do business at that level?

Unknown:

So yeah, well, if you want to talk about for eBay's business, they will think you are doing something not so so good. I. Okay, so, like, we've gotten lots of stops and in the beginning, and you have to have all of your, you know, your actual business licenses, all of those things for the high level of what we're doing. I think it's not just with our like, our commodities, but in general, if you're moving tons and tons of money on eBay, they're going to wonder, is this laundering? Is this legal? What's happening? So they do ask for all kinds of stuff. We've even had our at the time when it was very linked with PayPal. We've even had our PayPal accounts frozen. We've had to go through hoops with all of our licenses and acquisitions and provide all of that to eBay to get released and staying in there, and they do spot check us still and and make sure we have our receipts or our, you know, our lines all nicely done, and we don't do anything around it. We just do it all the way you're supposed to business licenses. What is it like? Department of Justice licenses for secondhand dealers. We've got to acquire that. But that's only because that's what we already have. So we provide it to eBay to show we're not trafficking anything or

Suzanne Wells:

right, and we can see your history and what you've sold. And this is one thing I caution newer sellers about, is if, okay, first of all, don't start off with the most expensive things. Start off with the lower dollar, low risk items, the non fraudulent type items, like don't do all the designer handbags and don't do the autographed things, because, you know, when people get into eBay, they want to jump in with the most expensive stuff because they want to make money. I totally understand that, but you have to ease into it and set a pattern of, yes, I ship on time. The customers are happy. The items are described correctly. And even if you have been a seller for a while, 235, years, and you normally sell things under $50 and then you jump in with an $8,000 coin that's going to kick out the the algorithm is going to catch that, and your listing is going to be looked at, because that's unusual for you. Whoever that seller is, they're

Unknown:

going to freeze your account. They're going to freeze it until they figure it out. And if you're waiting for that money to come in, to come in to feed your family, and you triggered something, it can take 45 days, I think, for them to figure it out. It's not a quick thing,

Suzanne Wells:

right? And so even if, but don't scare yourself

Unknown:

with that, that's not, I'm not a typical seller, right? With that part of our business, yes, my personal business. I don't sell things more than three, $400 a time, because I don't have the manpower and time to do two business, two eBay,

Suzanne Wells:

and you got all these people in your house to take care of, and

Unknown:

I'm very blessed with I do have a babysitter who is what helps me, because if I can't travel without her so,

Suzanne Wells:

but still, you're a household manager, yes, so there's a lot going on there, but the point I wanted to make to the listeners is, when these super high dollar items come across your path, it might be wise to seek out Someone like you who has a track record of selling very expensive items and, you know, pay you a commission, or whatever it is, and not have that on your account and not take the risk of the item kicking out and and being examined. I mean, they put these expensive things under the microscope, if it's not in your normal selling pattern,

Unknown:

yeah, and we've done that for some some people, like, I have some friends who are like, Hey, can you do this for me? I know. I'm going to put it on my store. I'm going to have a problem. It's going

Suzanne Wells:

to get flagged and looked at. And a lot can happen. The listing can be pulled, which is the least of your worries. They can put your account the freeze your account for a certain number of days, or they can shut you down completely. It's it's happened to me in the past over dumb things that weren't really that expensive. It was just on the Vero list, or it was like, I didn't know you couldn't sell that item, that type of thing. But when you're dealing with these very high dollar jewelry and coins, that scares me. And I've been doing this since 2003 I was like, nope. People ask me. And I'm like, Nope. I'm not putting that on my account. Nope, nope. You gotta find somebody else, right?

Unknown:

And I feel that when I was working with the concierge person getting a chance to pick their brain about things like that, I also feel that that is part of what they do when they reach out to you, is they also go through your list. Habits your they vet how your quality of listings are. If there's any improve, they look at your store and they give you suggestions and improvements. And one of the things I was asking is, like, is this normal to get calls like this? Like, they're like, it is to to from small when they want to see some somebody is a little smaller in their beginning of their store, and they want to build them up, and they see that their their potential is there. Like they're listing, they're getting sales. They have, although hitting all those really good qualities, shipping on time, good. You know, feedback, to me, doesn't count, because nobody ever leaves feedback. Then they see you grow, and if you can get in on it, when you're a smaller person in the eBay game, you'll get an opportunity to talk to like a real eBay person in and I did, like, Zoom calls with them. And we do like once a month, and we would go through my store and make suggestions and do those kinds of things. But it made they also got to see that I had real stuff. I was another kind of is on your story, if you're starting to trigger some some questions. I don't know if that was official, what they were doing, but I felt like, Hey, you're seeing it in real time. You're seeing me. List them. You're seeing it.

Suzanne Wells:

Probably the average listener out there isn't going to get this email

Unknown:

let us know. I mean, but I, I don't know, because I could just be the category I'm in. I have to hit a certain number. You can have a very different category, and it does our like, price point to unit ratio is very different than selling a book. Okay, you an average book? Well, I'm not a book seller, but I dabbled in it a little bit. An average book is probably, you know, you make 10 to $30 right, based on the price of gold or silver for the day that ring that I'm selling last year probably could have sold, let's say, even numbers, $100 last year, but that's to make sure one of my kids goes to school, But someone's taking care. So let's say it was $100 this year, the price of gold is so much higher that $100 could be $500 so that the ratio on my is doesn't make sense. That number isn't accurate for right?

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, it's all based on the value. So when did the value of gold go up so much.

Unknown:

Oh my gosh. It's been crazy. This last month, I pulled currently, I went, just before we got on to look at what the prices were. And I think when I started, I think even down to a couple months ago, we were, we were like in the three 3000 per ounce. Now we're in the 4000s almost per ounce. But I wanted to give the your community, our community here, that we've got such a great community, a little bit of a tip on what they see when they see jewelry, and why things speaking about why the numbers are so different. So currently silver, based on the time I pulled it, is about $1.56 a gram. So we have a troy ounce is not going to be in grams, like a cooking gram. It's going to be a different way. So if you look one ounce versus like how many ounces is in a gram, it's going to be different. You're looking for troy ounce. So troy ounce is a 31.1 grams on average. So when you think about it, if you have a kitchen scale and you go to weigh something, it's not going to convert exactly, so there's some number changes there. So you want to get, like, a tiny, little, little scale, if you're looking to see you're in a thrift store or something says it's silver. And you want to, like, know how much it it weighs, then you can go online and see how much is a gram of silver today worth? Okay? And that's when you're going to start to see why some people sell things for such ridiculous numbers versus so little numbers. Is because the price that day might be higher than before. Why did it sell? Did that piece of jewelry sell six months ago for $50 but then you see today, it sold for $70 it not, might not be that it's more desirable. It just could be that the dealers and buyers on there know that there's the silver prices went up.

Suzanne Wells:

Or do you go back and and reprice things? When this happens, when the value

Unknown:

I go back and I have to reprice it, if there's a shift more than my margins that I want, I will go in and bulk edit, and I'll use the percent change button, and I'll add a percent change. Do it in two seconds, and I'm out the door.

Suzanne Wells:

Very good. Okay, so I wonder if the jewelry sellers out there do that reprice based on what the market's doing.

Unknown:

I mean, I would, if you're in the business side that I'm in, you're doing that, or you're doing that, the thought of let it go and see what happens and put things right. Shame.

Suzanne Wells:

I mean, I guess you could always price it high and have best offer and and see where it goes, but that's a very good point. If you're in that market, and there's a lot of casual jewelry sellers, they may not have even thought of this. Oh, I should go back and reprice that and maybe take the best offer off and just price it higher.

Unknown:

It's possible. I just thought that a lot of people that I buy from go, Well, I thought it was this heavy. And I said, Did you use your kitchen scale? Were you looking looking at your chicken scale? Like these numbers are the same. Unit sounds gram ounce, but one's an ounce, one's a troy ounce and so educating that if you're looking for your higher end pieces, it's something to think about with pricing. That's all it is. It doesn't mean there's collectors factors that are involved in in pieces as well. But I was looking at some of my sales going, Oh, I only sold it for that. Oh yeah, Silver was only worth x this time. That was good for that because they had a collector's entity to it. I made more than melting it, in a sense,

Suzanne Wells:

right? So I know that gold is a very specific market. Do you have any commentary on what caused the price to go up recently?

Unknown:

That is the one area I suck at. Why does things happen? I have to always do

Suzanne Wells:

that's a hard No. I do not have it a hard No.

Unknown:

Obviously I could say that political climate has added to it, the the US dollar strength. I think it's it's all of that. I am not a very good politic person like that's just not my area, but I can tell you that it is why I am currently not selling as much of that on my eBay store. I pulled a lot of my inventory out because of the prices for me and what I sell, the jewelry air, the jewelry esque nature of the piece that I'm selling is no longer outweighing the cost. I can melt it for I don't melt collector like antique like pieces I'm talking about, like, basic right?

Suzanne Wells:

The gold chains and the gold ring, yeah, not the family heirlooms

Unknown:

and the No, no, no, no. We don't do that, not in any of my businesses. Like, that's not what we do. But I'm saying the scrap that comes in the like, the regular bracelets people are wearing that it's outweighed the benefit because of the price of gold, nobody's buying it for jewelry, and will pay a premium on it being a piece of jewelry now, and that's what I'm finding on my store. So I've had to pull back a lot of that inventory and replace it with my collectibles. I named my store so Cal rebels because I didn't want to sell one thing, uh huh, I wanted to sell anything that I wanted to sell, and I didn't want anybody to tell me I could, I could only do one thing. So I'm like, well, this isn't working right now. In this current economic climate for my business model, I'm going to start adding my collectibles slightly in, or my other things that I've just tabled, because at the time, I didn't have energy or need to do it, and now I'm pulling from that inventory.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, well, and just back to the the gold price for the listeners, this is why people buy dental What do you call them?

Unknown:

Apparatus, like the Dental Crown, like

Suzanne Wells:

Bren, the the bridges, the the gold teeth, all of that, oh, those grills that has, well, like the old timey stuff they used to make the bridges and the the caps on the teeth, there was gold in them. And before they advanced dental processes and do it differently now, but that's why you see these on eBay, because on the group, sometimes people will be like, Yeah, I got these, this old bridge and these gold teeth at an estate sale, and I they sold it on eBay, and maybe the person who bought it is going to go have it melted down, or they, you know, maybe they're going to go have it melted down. But that's why is I buy those. It's, well, yeah, well, it's not like

Unknown:

a I'm like, oh, every time I buy

Suzanne Wells:

would you want somebody's old, yucky stuff that's been in their mouth? Because there's gold in it, they're gold Exactly.

Unknown:

Every time I bought it, I go, Okay, thank you. I will buy this from you. Here's your money.

Suzanne Wells:

And it looks gross, but it's gold in it, and that's why, exactly.

Unknown:

And a lot of families pass down like little charms, or they give them to you on your birthday, or the is like the Chinese gold coins and things like that. So and then by the time it got down to whoever in the generation has it, they didn't buy it. It's now gone up in such value that they're like, look at all the this that I've had, and here's the tooth that my uncle gave me too, right?

Suzanne Wells:

And estate sale companies know this. They know to put those items out with a price on them, because there's gold in there, and they test it and see. And, I mean, if it's old enough, it's gonna have gold in it. So I

Unknown:

didn't know you could sell, can you sell those teeth on eBay? Yes, I never noticed. I never paid attention to

Suzanne Wells:

that. Oh, you know, vintage replacement gold tooth, or the bridges, or, you know, all the different apparatus, I guess you call them that they used to put gold in. So, yeah, you

Unknown:

absolutely can. I know you could sell that because I thought it was like part of a human body. Well,

Suzanne Wells:

it would be under the medical and dental and if it doesn't require a prescription, fair time, it's okay, recheck that. But, yeah,

Unknown:

fair loophole.

Suzanne Wells:

I guess there are, but I've seen that my entire career on eBay, and just like, really, I even put some of those in my my books I write about, you know, things to look for, like educating people that this sells.

Unknown:

I know I thought that always gives me the heebie jeebies, but I get it again.

Suzanne Wells:

I need to do a book on the creepy side of eBay and all I weirdo stuff. That would

Unknown:

be cool. That'd be really fun to see. People just

Suzanne Wells:

don't really, really, somebody will buy that. They'll give you money. I'm

Unknown:

like, yes, yeah, I buy it all the time, but I never once thought in my head it would go on eBay, just because I thought coming from, like, your mouth, like it, like that. I just

Suzanne Wells:

can just drop it in some polydent and clean it up and get the human germs off of it. But eBay is not for germaphobes.

Unknown:

Oh, that's nor is thrifting, yeah, exactly.

Suzanne Wells:

So, Okay, moving on from the gold teeth. Okay. So one thing I wanted to ask was, what was maybe some of the higher selling items that you've dealt with, do the jewelry, the coins? Maybe not so much because that's such a specific market, but it is,

Unknown:

and it helps when they're already graded, yes, so then you don't have to think, you just throw it on there and hope for the best. So some things I wanted to talk about, so we've got this. I do a lot of I work with a lot of Native American jewelry by chance this last season, like maybe last couple quarters, I've had a lot more come through and worked with it, and that's a lot of silver and turquoise. And I have sold a couple pieces in this era called Fred Harvey era, and one I sold for 247 Oh, it's a cuff bracelet they have. Typically, you'll see it with like, Thunderbirds or lightning bolts on them. And I think I ended up thrifting it for like, $2 Oh, excellent. No. That was really cool for me. I liked that. That was the fun one. Have you heard? You've heard of George Jensen? I'm assuming, right. Okay, so there's a lot of silver in there. A lot of he does jewelry as well. And I sold a George Jensen Denmark ring for 356 and some change. That was pretty cool. The stone in there, I called it a green stone. And I'm going to preface this, when you're listing jewelry, if you don't actually know the name of the stone, do not guess. Do not guess, because speaking with the eBay back office people and the authentication process, because I go through a lot of authentications that I am not always happy with the results, because my pieces of jewelry are so old that things are not exactly carroted, like exactly 14, exactly 18. They might be mixed because of the age. They told me Don't say the stone color or anything that if you because it's better to not say it, then get it not pass authentication, because you said it was one type, and then it was like a derivative or not exact. So I called it a green stone instead of the because I wasn't 100% sure if it was a chrysophase or what it was. So that helped. It passed, did all this stuff, and I didn't have an issue.

Suzanne Wells:

But, well, I'm glad you brought up that point, because that rule applies to anything. If you don't know it's totally fine to list it, just don't assume it's something and don't you. Say, you know, we think it's this. Just describe it. Put your pictures and let the buyer decide what they think it is.

Unknown:

And I do put in the body, like, I'm not sure what the name of this stone is. It is a green color. You're buying this without, with no like, You got to decide yourself, like, I'll try to put some notes like that in there, because I've had things come back, because every other piece was correct, but one was a it was I like it was emerald, but it was a glass. So I should have wrote emeralds colored glass, but I wrote green. You know? I didn't, I didn't write the whole like I didn't write the word glass. Okay, so I just don't unless I know. So with that, if your users, or friends and all of us over here want to have something, it's a little pricey, but this little guy here, it's called a presidium gem tester too. Yes, it's not exact, but it helps you navigate different parts of a spectrum, and it'll give you a better like, green. You know, if you're like, it's green. So could it be this, this or this? It'll give you a help, a guide. It'll tell you if it's something is in the Ruby, Sapphire range or in the Topaz range. So if you're on the fence, and you're pretty close to being like, I think it's an emerald, but I could be a Peridot if you're one of the and you can use this to help you sometimes, taking a picture of this in your listing with the item can help. Just say, I this is what the tester saying.

Suzanne Wells:

That's my birthstone. Is a Peridot, and mine too. Mine too. Oh, really, what's your birthday? August, eight. Okay, I'm 15th, so yeah, people have never heard of it. And so it's just, I know it's like a green it's like a green stone. That's what it is, but not an emerald, yeah,

Unknown:

so that's I didn't even bother with that one. When I sold it for 356, I was just like Greenstone. I didn't want to have a problem. And the George Jensen followers and the people of that era, they know, uh huh, they know what they're buying, but I don't have to worry about it passing anything through authentication or because I wasn't sure. So that was that one.

Suzanne Wells:

Do you use a specific jewelry authenticator, eBay? Oh, just do it through eBay. Okay, eBay

Unknown:

randomly selects some of my items based on prices. Sometimes guests buyers can select that they want the item to be sent to authentication and pay a fee.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, so the buyer pays that you don't do it before you list it, nope.

Unknown:

I mean, I we in our jewelry business, right? We do have our own stuff that we, you know, we work with. We send things out to Gia. I actually live really close to it, so I can go and come and pick it up if I need to. We can get things started that route. We have people we work with who can do that, but as a average person who doesn't have access to that in their normal daily routine, like I do, eBay offers an authentication option, and I never had to do it prior. I've always just had it sent on the and I don't even know what's going to happen until I go to to ship it. It'll say, just for those of you, it'll say like Carlsbad, like the address, and it wherever it goes to because we're jewelry, so it'll go to that hub if we're on this side of the coast, I don't know if there's a GIA a couple places.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, so you ship it to the eBay authentication place,

Unknown:

and then they handle it, and then they ship it out to the buyer once it's past the authentication process and I don't see it again. The only time I'll see it is if it doesn't pass for some reason, and then it'll tell me yours did not pass. I think I've only had to not pass, and it was that stupid color. I didn't write glass versus stone, right? Okay, and then it'll come back to me and the sale won't be complete,

Suzanne Wells:

okay? Well, I have heard of the authentication service, but never used it, and didn't realize I thought the seller had to send it there before it could be listed.

Unknown:

So I don't know how other categories were, but for us, I don't send it anywhere unless eBay sends me a in the label, it says, send it. And I just happen to know, coincidentally, how can this address come up six different times with five different it's not a normal like international seller hub thing, right? Those

Suzanne Wells:

really high dollar items, they scare me. As long as I've been doing this, I just Well I sold an autograph book one time, and we went for$1,000 that did not scare me, because what are the chances that's going to be fake? It's not like a pair of, you know, Air Jordans that, or whatever, Nikes. So much of that stuff is fake. And I didn't worry about it because it was so unique. I just don't really gravitate towards the high dollar stuff because it is riskier. Unless. You do it all the time,

Unknown:

yeah. And with that being said, when I started on eBay, they didn't have that option. And you had so many people trying to pass things that were authentic as not authentic, to get their money back or to, like, kind of do a switcheroo. Not so much in my jewelry area, but I've had friends who sold sneakers or who've sold other things, and they just they stopped for a little bit because they were getting frustrated, and then the authentication came in, and for them, they thought it was a better option. For me, gets a little frustrating, because of what I do are they're getting better based on talking with them in person. The authentication process is getting more thorough for the estate jewelry category, because things are so old, like I had mentioned under carroting, meaning it it might be stamped 14, but it could be like 13 point something, and we would bounce back as not 14 carat.

Suzanne Wells:

Okay, so one heavy question I wanted to ask was about research. I'm pretty sure you don't just use eBay, no switching your prices. What? What sites for the listeners? Who might Yeah, yeah, of course. What do you trust and what do you use?

Unknown:

So I use eBay first, because I want to see what this platform offers and what it brings, right? So I'm going to do my little research on eBay. I'm going to do that I do a lot of Google lens to see what I'm thinking. If it's what it the the market is saying it is like first SEO words to help my listings. But what I noticed is that when I do that Google reverse search, I can then see where these websites are coming from, and other auction houses other businesses. There's a lot of private auctioneers, right, that host their own websites, and I'm trying to see what other places are getting for the same items, and from there, I make those decisions, what I find to be a little harder is, if you don't have memberships to all those, like, worth points and stuff, you don't really, in my opinion, need it that much because Google lens does a lot of the filtering, and then you can see, like, on the corner, like it went or they're asking this much money, right? So that's one way I like to go around it. I also, since I was talking about the Native American stuff, I'll go look at different Native American stores and see what their websites are selling these items for, just to cross reference, and see where I'm at. So that's one thing. And then as far as research for like the fine jewelry in the auction houses, if I know the designer's name, let's say David yearman. And there's a David yearman piece. I'll go directly to David German's website. I will see what he is selling it for, if he's selling this piece brand new, for $5,000 and then I go to eBay, and I'm like, well, not one person has bought this for$5,000 that's not going to go up for $5,000 right? I will usually go, Okay, did it sell on another platform and did it sell anywhere near his requested price for his stuff? Yes or no. So I kind of do that, like circular going around others places to check, and then I end up making my own, like, what's the price of gold? What's the price of silver? Do I want to sell it? Do I think it's going to be worth more that route? And then I usually just go with my gut. Most of my stuff starts at$99 and I go, fingers crossed, or they go as a buy it now and take an offer.

Suzanne Wells:

And this might be too invasive, and if you don't answer, that's fine. So as far as you working for this company and running their store, is this a commission based job, or, like a salary job?

Unknown:

So because I work for the job normally and travel for them, I get a commission based on my travel. And I used to start I started off just salary for the store. My original position was only on their eBay store, okay, and processing well. And then I started going on the road. So that took away from how much I could do on the eBay store. And since we're really small, we don't employ many, many people, so it kind of became, well, this current climate, it's better for me to be on the road than it is to focus on eBay. And then when I get back, we'll read WE GO ON OFF, ON OFF. So now, now it's commission based for me, okay? I just do commission and I take, like, consignment pieces and sell them.

Suzanne Wells:

Yeah, that makes sense if you're not working 100% of the time, right, right? When you work

Unknown:

kind of thing, right? So I and I do everything with it. So I don't just do the data entry like I do all the descriptions, the photos. I completely manage it as if it's my own store. So that's why, when it's off, I can focus on my store a little bit heavier, and then when it's on, I kind of have to split. My My time is

Suzanne Wells:

hard to do Tuesday, so when you're not working for this company, you are doing your own stuff on eBay. And I think that's a great skill to have. For the listeners, most resellers don't realize this is a skill. This isn't just like, Oh, I'm retired and I flip stuff or, you know, I do this when my kids are at school. No, the average person has no clue how to sell things on eBay and talk to your friends and ask them talk to your family. They don't know. So this is a valuable skill. In fact, at one point, I put in my premium library, my school, a sample resume of how to describe what you do on eBay, the shipping you have that figured out, the marketing, understanding the platform, all of that is something that you learned. There's no school for it. There's no degree for it, you just figured it out. And so I wonder how many estate sale companies or, you know, whatever the situation might be, I've gotten calls people asking me to run their eBay store. And I'm like, I hardly have time to do my own but you know, one was a high end clothing seller that had a boutique shop, and they they wanted to start putting their stuff on eBay, and they were clueless. They I probably could have named my price and and done it. This is encouragement for the listeners. If you ever want to look for a job where you are doing eBay for someone you have the skills to do it. It's like Dorothy and the and the ruby slippers, like you have had the power all along. You just didn't know it.

Unknown:

I know that it. I didn't realize it was such a skill because so I got onto eBay. I think it was 2004 because my oldest was born in 2005 so I think I had, like, a random item I wanted to sell, and I'd heard about it, and I got a screen name, and I did it, but I didn't really do anything with it for a while. And over the years, I would just kind of play around with trying to sell one random thing here and there. And over time, it just became, you know, family and industry and connections, and it's like, Hey, do you want to help me with this while I'm traveling? And I'm like, I guess I've sold stuff before, and it's now. It's like, this is a business, like, I just thought it was me getting rid of some little tchotchke stuff that might they had in my house. I'm like, I never thought of this as a business, right mindset, until I was approached with it as an avenue to offset other things that they didn't move in a normal market for them. And I'm like, okay, so it was started off as like a per piece, I got paid per listing, and then when it became significant that I was going to be needing to do this more. It just turned into a salary based job. And that was great. I worked from, I think it was like nine to two, Monday through Friday, my kids got my older kids went to school, I went to work, got to go come back home. It was done, and then the next day, I go ship whatever we sold, and I took care of it all like like that, until I moved into the other position of doing buying and all the others, and now that eBay is just whenever I get to it well.

Suzanne Wells:

And I think as our world continues to evolve with technology, selling online is going to be desired by more and more small businesses or large businesses that need people that know how to do this, because there's no training for it. You would just go to the job and the person before you would show you what they had been doing. I was contacted by some company that sold an incredibly boring hardware item. It was some kind of water filter thing. And I was like, Well, you could hire me by contract, and I can teach you how to do it, but I would fall asleep selling this product like it is. I like to work with things that are beautiful and that people love, and they're colorful, and it has to be interesting to you so. But I was like, why are they putting this on eBay anyway? Who's going to buy it there? But you Google it, or you Google lens it, eBay is always at the top, so they want a piece of that pie. Yeah,

Unknown:

yeah. And I had to learn, like, all the little quirky things and the back doors and, like, click every button and try everything go. What does this do? And, Oh, oops, let's kick that off. Or, oh, okay, that's what that does. But when I was talking with the eBay reps, they did one of the things they did with me, which is something anyone can do when you don't need them to do this. Is go through every tab, because that's what we pretty much did, and to make sure I understood or if I had questions on what every tab was and if I had everything done. So they taught me how to do a campaign, but what I already knew how to do that, because one day I was like, what does this do? Let me figure it out, but they what I liked that I did not know is that there's a banner that pops up randomly on stores. Now it's popped up on my little, tiny, little, little, little store of mine that doesn't do nearly what the other store does, where it offers me discounts on doing a campaign, or offers me opportunities to advertise. You can click those. They are real, and they will help you. You just have to remember to turn them off, right if you don't want to keep going. That's the part that I can't help you with. But if it says, you know, try advertising this for you know, it'll push it to the top of a Google search on from you know, you can try. It doesn't hurt you to try. It will take a little bit of your profit. But would you maybe not had profit for a while. That's something

Suzanne Wells:

accepting a lower offer, you know, if you think about the percentage you're doing, okay, how much is this going to cost me if someone does buy it on promoted listings? And would I have $100 item? And let's say you have it promoted it 5% it's going to cost you $5 if they like, on their but would you have taken $95 for it? Exactly? Yeah. So you have to look at it that way,

Unknown:

and that helped our business tremendously. When I put implemented the promoted listings and I don't use she told me, like, you don't have to use their suggested. You know your stuff. You know what you want to sell it for. I only did, like, three or 5% and we tested it, and we sold so much more in promoted listings, even my own sales on my little store I just went in to double check before we jumped on almost I'd say more than half of my sales in the last month were from promoted listing, right? They would have they had been sitting there for a while before. Now, what does the eBay gods want to do for me this week, and shoot me a bunch of things my way, maybe, maybe not, because I feel like sometimes I get really heavy weeks, and sometimes I don't. Well, everybody does, yeah, right, yeah. But promoted listing I'm looking and I'm like, I only spent like 60 bucks, yeah?

Suzanne Wells:

And if you look at your statement at the end of the month, it'll show you how much. It's called other fees. It doesn't say promoted listings. You can go to the campaign and you can see what you spent, and you can look at your monthly statement, what did I spend on promoted listings this month? And a lot of it depends on other people in that category. Are they promoting? And it's like a battle of I just think that the higher promoters are going to be at the top, because eBay is going to make the most money on those and but it's all like, what's it worth to you to get it moved out of there? And if you do the math and figure out, well, what I have taken an offer for? X, yeah, then don't be afraid of it. You can always turn it off whenever you want. And you're not committed to, you know, any time length when you do a campaign,

Unknown:

no, and I have it auto set, so every time I list something, it's automatically promoted, right? But I can tell you, not everything is paid like not all my sales are promoted, but a good half of them are. So if every single one of mine gets a promoted listing at like 5% but only half are actually being used or found or sold through it. That's a really good thing for me. It helps move my stuff. And I'm like, oh, okay, you know, 60 bucks this month on promoted listings for half. Okay, if maybe it wouldn't have even sold this month, right?

Suzanne Wells:

And that's the unknown. Would it have sold without the promoted campaign. No way to know, no way to know. But if you are an aggressive seller and you want to experiment, that's the only way you're going to find out is, is experiment with it. So anyway, well, we have covered a lot of material today. What does your day look like from here on out.

Unknown:

Well, I am going to set up an intern today to teach them how to work on some of my photographs, because we've been working on some of that. So I'm going to get about two hours of intern time while I go in and do my shipping for both work. And then I'm going to hang out with my kids when they get out of school tonight, my senior has a senior dinner for her cheer. She's a senior cheerleader, and it's a mother, daughter, Dad dinner, family dinner. So we're going to get ready, get all dolled up for that, and have some time with one kid, one and do okay.

Suzanne Wells:

Well, I have. Ask you, since you said, how do you pay your helpers? Is it hourly, or buy the item, or what?

Unknown:

Okay, so with my interns, some of them need work experience, so I help them put it onto their resume. And that's not much paid labor, right? I am like, Okay, you work with me for, you know, 50 hours throughout your school year, or your, you know, semester you come on your free time, and then I'll help you with a

Suzanne Wells:

resume. So you just say it's an internship. So it helps them on their resume.

Unknown:

And then sometimes I pay them per unit, if they are going to be with me longer, like it's not like a temporary thing. I usually pay them per per item they photograph. But if they, if I have to have them go back and fix it, they don't get paid. So it's like you're doing it now, but if you go too fast, you gotta go back and

Suzanne Wells:

fix it. Yeah, I get this question all the time, if I want to help her, how do I pay them? And don't ever pay them by the hour? No, don't pay them by the piece. Yes, you figure out what's fair so and how fast are they working, and how many mistakes are they making that either you or they have to go back and correct. But yeah, I had somebody come take photos for me. I tried to leverage that, and I just couldn't get anybody to do it to my satisfaction.

Unknown:

I'm struggling with that. But again, I remind myself, they're high school kids learning,

Suzanne Wells:

but yeah, you pay them by the piece, and they can work as slow as they want, they can take as many breaks as they want, or they can hit it hard and get that stuff done and make$20 an hour. Then, you know, it's all up, up to the the person.

Unknown:

And I'm really flexible, because I work from home during that time. So they come in, you know, they're usually kids that are connected to my kids somehow. It's not like I would never write a random kid come in, their parent expect them to come into my home to a stranger house, to them and sit there. I wouldn't want my kid going there, right? So it's usually connected to my to my circle, so my kid knows somebody from school, or it's my friend's niece or nephew coming in, right? And then they're getting some job experience. I'm getting some help.

Suzanne Wells:

And I love how you approach that. That's excellent. So okay, well, I will not take any more of your time. You have a busy day ahead. So thanks again for reaching out and sharing all of your jewelry and other knowledge. Was great. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, have a good day. You too. Bye guys. And Marla mentioned the eBay authenticity program. I have never used it. But let me give you the details, just so you'll know, and this comes from ebay.com How authenticity guarantee works. If your item is eligible for authenticity guarantee, it will be automatically added to the program free of charge. There is no opt in or opt out option. Items included in the authenticity guarantee program display a blue authenticity guarantee check mark. Buyers will see the check mark in the search results page, the view item page, the checkout page, and their purchase history page. So basically, that little blue check mark is all over the place for the buyer to see. When you make a sale, you have to send the item to the authenticators address provided by eBay. Once the authenticator receives the item, the inspection is generally processed within two business days. Once the authenticator confirms the item is consistent with the listing, title, description and images, they perform a physical authentication inspection. If the inspector cannot determine that the product is authentic, or if the product is not as described as in the listing, the item won't be sent on to the buyer, and they will receive their money back. Where an item is unable to be authenticated, you'll cooperate in removing it from marketplace circulation. If the item passes inspection, it will be shipped to the buyer with two day secure delivery. If the item passes inspection and is a trading card, it will be shipped to the buyer with four day secure delivery. Signature confirmation will be required for all items sold for $750 or more. So yeah, that was a lot of dry and boring information, but just know that the authenticity guarantee program is there. And if you ever have any questions, just Google. All that, it'll take you right to eBay's page, and you'll understand how it works. And I've never used it, because I just don't sell high dollar items that need to be authenticated, so I've just never had that experience. Okay, next week, my guest is Jason, who popped up on Facebook reels. He has a healthy reselling business with about 2000 items in his inventory. So make sure you tune in for that, and thank you for spending the last hour with us and make it a great week on eBay. Bye, everybody. You you.