eBay Seller Chat with Kelsey in Kansas: $1,500 Sale, Don’t be Afraid to Spend Big Money on Quality Goods 💰

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Transcript

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Hello, hello, resellers. This is episode number 248 of eBay the right way. Today's date is December 17. 2025 My guest today is Kelsey in Kansas. No announcements. So away we go. Hey everybody, welcome back. I have Kelsey with us today. And how are you doing this crazy busy Monday, I am doing well. Thank you for asking. Is everybody well in your house? Now, didn't you have some sick ones. Yes, I did have some sick ones. You know, tis the season for everything when you have kids in school. So I had two out of my three who are sick, and they're doing much better now. So okay, everybody's at school today. Okay, and where are you located? So I am from Kansas, Courtland, Kansas, to be exact. It's a small town of less than 300 people. Oh, that is small, yes, okay, well, it doesn't seem to be affecting your ability to find things to sell. No, I've, I've been doing eBay since 2016 and I do sell on other platforms as well, but eBay is the longest one. And living rurally you you're used to traveling, so any opportunity that we travel is also an opportunity to to find items. So great, good. I'm going to start off by asking you about the Christmas tree. Sure. Where did you find that treasure? Oh, okay, so I found it at an auction, and it was in October. Yes, October, and it's about this auction house is about 40 minutes from my home and I traveled to several throughout the month, depending on what they have and what they're selling. And of course, a lot of them put pictures up on websites or Facebook anymore, and I've sold a couple aluminum trees before, but I saw the picture of that one, and it was just in the box, and it was just the picture of the box. And I told my husband, I said, I want to go see what it is. And we got there, and I saw it. And if you know about the aluminum Christmas trees, it all depends on what they are, how many branches they have, how tall they are, and they do come in different colors. The most sought after ones are gold. The most common is the silver. This was a silver one, and it was all in the box. And the box was kind of messed up, but I started counting the limbs inside the box, and I thought, oh boy, I knew I had hit jackpot. So I got it at an auction, and a little funny story, I looked at it, and I went back to where my husband was standing, and I told him, I said, don't panic when I start bidding. I promise I know what I'm doing. So I paid$270 for it, and as you saw, I sold it for just under 1500 Excellent, very good. I knew it was, I knew it was a good tree because of the height that was on the box, and it had over 100 branches. The more branches you have, the more valuable they are. And it was a whole process of my husband and my daughter and I putting this tree up to make sure everything was there, to take the pictures, get the lighting right, and of course, it had the color wheel, and that color wheel actually didn't come with the tree. I already had that from in storage, from a year ago, probably in my death pile, and I knew if I was. Going to sell this tree. It should have color wheel with it, and so I put them together, you know, took the pictures, made sure it looked fantastic, organized all the limbs by size, so when they got to the customer, you know, it was easy for them to put together. And it was so hard to sell that tree. I love to keep it, yes, and I wanted to keep it. And it was just a really great to find, and a really great sale. So, yeah, very good. I mean, it wasn't easy, though. You had to figure out all the branches and and set it up and not be afraid to bid on it. Yes, it takes a lot of work, you know, and I've spent well, I've been doing this since 2016 and I've been on your Facebook page, actually, probably since about 2017 2018 Yeah, you've been on there a while, uh huh. And when I just started dipping my toes back into eBay after my divorce, I really just watched everybody else in all their commentary and all their suggestions and the research people put into items. And the only reason I knew about aluminum Christmas trees is because another seller had shared, you know, years ago. And yeah, it does take some dedication. I think the whole process of my family and I organizing the lens, putting the trunk and everything together, and taking them out one by one out of those, the limb sleeves, doing pictures, organizing them all back. I think it took us an hour and a half and was with three of us, and it's just because I wanted really good quality pictures, because I knew it was going to be a quality sale. So the child that helped you, did they get a little bonus? She doesn't know yet, but it's coming. She doesn't know it's sold. I would know she did know it's all the kids know that it's sold, and they know what I sold it for, but she she doesn't know what part of the gift of helping is. We're saving it for Christmas. Oh, that's great. Okay, good. Yeah, 100 branches. That's quite a project. This one, I believe, had 156 Yeah, it was a lot reef. That's, I don't even want to think about putting that together. So was it shipped, or local pickup? It was shipped. So I shipped it from Kansas to Alabama. I put the box all together with all the parts inside of it. I made sure I I label all the parts and put them in separate bags so they can't get lost inside of a box. And then I put the box of the tree and of the color light end to end. I wrapped both boxes in foam sheeting, and then I wrapped them in a contractor bag, the really heavy duty contractor bags, because it's like basically a really big poly mailer, right? And taped it up. Accurate measurements, as always, are really important, so that the the buyer pays accurate shipping doesn't delay in the shipping process. And I dropped it off at my local post office, and away went. Was this auction or buy it now? Buy it now? Yeah, I very rarely do auction. I just find it easier to do buy it now, that's just my personal preference, right, right? Okay, so it was full asking price, not a best offer, correct? Yes, very good. Well, that was amazing when I saw that. I'm like, good for you. Thank you. We kind of skipped over the part in my excitement of hearing about this Christmas tree. We skipped over the part about what, what got you into eBay? What got you started? Sure. So my mom has always been a reseller of a different form. She when I was a kid, my mom would go to garage sales and to auctions and buy a bunch of stuff. And then once or twice a year, she would run out the local school gymnasium and have a massive just sale. And everybody in our small community would come because they knew how big her sales would be. So later on in my life, right after high school, my mom started a brick and mortar business, and she had things in there. And when you live small town, sometimes you just don't have a lot of foot traffic in. And I'd say, Mom, I you know, online is kicking off. You should put some of the stuff online. You should try selling it. She didn't want to mess with it. You know. Did, don't tell her. Said this, but older generation doesn't like, you know, necessarily, this has always worked. I'm just going to keep doing it. Yeah, I know some, some don't embrace technology or new ways. It's just this works, and it can be overwhelming all the online stuff. Yeah, my mom does not care for technology, so I said, You know what? I'm going to try it. So actually wrote down on my notes, the first sale I ever made on eBay was a pair of Americana salt and pepper shakers, and I think she had $8 on them in the store, and I put them on eBay for $24 and they sold within seven days. I was hooked, so I dabbled in it for a year, had a baby, and then was going through some life changes, and needed a way to make money and raise my child. So I started buying a little bit more what I could afford and selling it on eBay, and did that on the side some while trying to keep a full time job and raise, you know, my child, and fast forward a couple years, I got divorced, and I went from being a stay at home who did eBay minutely to being a full time mom who needed an income, Mm, hmm, and so I just dove head first into eBay and didn't look back. EBay put me through college. I went back to school. Good for you. Thank you. And for a trade, I went back to college for a trade. And eBay took care of me the whole way, took care of me and my two boys, and, you know, gave me the flexibility to raise my kids. And in there somewhere, I took a break for about nine months after college, because I, you know, was just under a lot of stress and weight and but that's the one good thing about eBay. It's waiting for you when you come back, right? It's going to be there, yep. So. And then after college, I did a business under my trade for a couple of years, and I got remarried and added a child to the family. So we're a blended family of five, and my husband's work takes a lot of dedication and consumes a lot of time, so that left me to take care of the kids mostly full time. So I closed my other business for my trade and said, We're going back to eBay, and we're doing it full time. I haven't seen any financial dip in the transition. Oh, good for you. Yeah. Thank you so well, I guess selling, you know, buying things for 300 and selling them for 1500 is, yes, is a great thing. It does. It does help. And I didn't, I wasn't that, you know, that was something I learned along the way. And I, I'm not sure if it was in your eBay, Facebook, Facebook group or another one. But I had another sale that I was looking at buying something, and I posted in the group and said, What do you guys, you know? What do the other members think? I can't remember what his name is, but he was really prominent in the group, and he commented on it and said, Don't be afraid to spend big money on quality goods. You've done your research. You know this item is going to sell. You know you're going to have a great return. Don't be afraid to spend the money that item actually happened to be my biggest sale I've ever had on eBay, and it was for $3,000 what was the item? It was an electric line thrashing machine. So it I didn't know what it was, either. And actually, it was on an auction, an online auction, and I, I like to have really good relationships with my auctioneers, with businesses that I, you know, go to to find items. And the auctioneer reached out to me and said, Hey, I think you need to take a look at this. It's worth some money. And he sent me a picture of this metal tube looking thing. And I was like, What in the heck? So I did some Google research, and was like, What the heck it is a it's a type of mechanism that helps them string the telephone line cables. Hmm. And people buy them used. They cost 10s of 1000s of dollars to buy them new. I bought it on the auction for 200 bucks and sold it for 3000 Yep. How long did it take to sell? I believe that sold in less than a month. It's been a couple years since I sold it. That happened right after my divorce, so what a nice gift from the universe. Yeah, it was. It was a really big blessing. Yeah, you in, like, at that time, right after my life change, you know, I I didn't have any money. I was broke as a joke, as they say. And, you know, $200 was a lot to me. That was difference between paying my electric bill, you know, or, you know, am I going to sit on this item? But I had done my research, and I was confident that this would sell, and it did, and so I was very happy with that. I love those stories. It's just it works out for you. Yeah, very good. Well, I don't have a $3,000 sale in my history. Well, I do want to say, too, you don't always focus on the big things when you got bills to pay and kids to feed, the $20 sales add up just as well, and you're full for those. You know those big stories when they come along? Because I was able to put that money in savings, and it was part of what got me through college. But I'm thankful for every 1020,$50 item that I sell. It allows me to be able to stay at home with my kids, and I don't have to worry about calling in sick or snow days, because in Kansas, we do get snow. Yeah, you do. You had a big one come through there recently, didn't you? Yeah, we had about five inches, and which doesn't seem like very much, but it it closed school for a day, and I'm sat on my couch with my kids working on Ebay. I love it. Yeah, that's one perk I enjoyed when my kids were little. It was, get up in the morning, get them off to school, work on my eBay, do housework, laundry, whatever. You know, they come home from school, do their activities. They're in bed by 830 I got three more hours I can work on my store, and that was when I was only doing the reselling. I wasn't doing all the other stuff I do. But you can, you can pick it up several times during the day, you know, even 30 minutes, just to list a couple things. You know, you have your to be photograph pile. You have your stuff that has been photographed, and you just figure out how to work it in, in between everything, yeah, and that was very convenient. You can't do that with a job outside the home, where you've got to go and be there and be away from your kids and figure out daycare babysitting. And by the time you pay for the daycare or the babysitting, it's like, whatever you earned is used up. Yes, that was a huge reason why I was a stay at home the first time I was married, is because a lot of people chuckle at me saying, daycare then cost $500 a month, and that's about the same it is here now, but we live as rurally as we do, that's a lot of money. And so if I went to work, you know, eight years ago, that was my whole paycheck, you know. So now it's as easy as we're going to a ball game for my junior high kid this afternoon, my husband will drive and I'll work on eBay on the way I I've taken pictures I'm ready to list on my phone. We just appreciate that I'm able to take it with me anywhere. Yeah, it's very portable that way. There's always something you can be doing on your phone when you are sitting in the waiting room at the dentist's office, and, oh my gosh, the orthodontist, I feel like, feel like I lived there. Kids had braces, like, back to back, so, oh man, about four years of appointments all the time, and just, you know, there's always something you can be doing on your phone, whether it's researching or just get on the group and look at what people are selling. Yes, you know, because sometimes you don't want to just sit there and zone out in the the waiting room. You know you can be doing something. Yep, use it to your advantage, right? So do you get most of your items from these local auctions? I. I would say Auctions is probably only about a quarter of where I get my items. Local thrift stores are a huge way that I get items. And I I have a calendar of who's open, what days and what times, and I'm making my rounds through the week if I have an appointment, and I'm going to that town, my kids know we're going to the thrift store well, and that's, that's a good point as far as coordinating, because you can't just assume, like all the stores are open from nine to nine, you know, right? These little stores that are independently owned. We had one near us was a church store, and they had some good things in there. I know I mentioned this all the time, but the church stores, they just kind of, the ladies in there just like to have something to do. And they don't really look up the prices. They just, wells put $5 on it, whatever. So we would like to go there a lot. My daughter and I, and I think one time she went, and she came right back home and she's like, well, they were closed. And I'm like, why? Well, there was a note on the door that Steve had a dentist appointment to close the store. So you just never know, like, get up there, you know, Joe's gone fishing close. I love it. I mean, that's probably what you're running into, yeah, you know there, there's four that are within 30 minutes of me and what you know, one of them is ran by the community. It's actually multiple churches, and each church takes a weekend, so they're only open Friday, Saturdays, and it's one, a different church group every weekend that helps maintain that one. There's one in a little town that might have 100 people, and it's one little elder lady who runs that one, and they have volunteers who come in every once in a while. The one in the decent sized town close to me is owned by an individual, and she's just amazing. I, you know, something I want to share about is I'm not naturally an extrovert, but just to always be kind, you know, to people that you're buying from. And while I don't advertise, you know, openly what I do, you know, as a as a stay at home, also, they know what I do, and so I always just try to be kind and considerate of, you know, they want to make their money. I want to make my money, because we're all in this together, you know. But I'm not against a good bargain either. So well, and I love what you said about just be kind to people you don't know what's happened to them in their life. I saw a graphic on Facebook the other day, and it was all these people sitting in traffic, and you know, the one guy who's got the road rage and he's all mad, and then all the people around him, they had little thought bubbles above their heads, and it was like, you know, this guy's his dog died today. This Captain just found out she has cancer. Or, you know, whatever it was that you don't know what's going on with people. And you know, maybe sometimes they're rude or sometimes they're short with you. But I always go back to that, like I've had bad days like that, where I've gotten terrible news, and it's it's just nice when strangers are kind to you, that's right, and we and it's free. It's just be kind to people, and not even that. It's going to come back to you, just you don't know what they've been through that day or that week. Yes, it's just take a second and you know, remember that you don't know what somebody else is living. I tell my kids as they run out the door to the bus every morning, be kind to someone today. Take a second and be kind and generous if you're able to you know when I'm at the thrift store or or even out just sourcing anywhere. The one in the town closest to me, um, it is. She's older than me. She's about my mother's age, and it's just her and another elder lady and work in that store. If I see somebody pull up with the truckload, I'm helping her unload it, I'll say, Nice. Do you want help? And she'll say, if you don't mind, I'm helping her, I want those really good relationships with people that I buy from. So that's a huge source to me, is that, and then during during the garage sale season, is what I call it, we live like i. Rather rurally, so the bigger cities to us are two hours away, and I'll go up with a truck and trailer for the weekend. Oh, good. And that's one way I source is to stay with friends or get a cheap motel or an Airbnb. Or how do you do that? I've done both hotels and Airbnbs. Don't have too many friends in the cities that we go to. It also depends on how much we go through in a day. You know, if we've got a truck full, we're coming back the first day because there's we don't have any place to keep it, you know, if we want to go a second day, and you make your trip count, when you live out like that, if you're I've lived rurally several times in my life, and it's like you figure out, okay, all the things you need to do. Gonna drop by here and get this thing and get an oil change and and while you're out. So you have to make all these trips club while we're there. Yeah, exactly. Like, if you're two hours away, then you're gonna, you know, okay, we gotta stay overnight. We didn't get enough stuff. We gotta hit it again tomorrow. Yep, and that's on my bucket list, is trips like that. Now I'm in a different place, you know? I'm closer to Virginia. Now, I could go up into Virginia, and some of those, who is it, it's Carlos, the mailman in a very affluent area of Virginia. I'm gonna go visit Carlos. Or, you know, Janine Joyce, she lives in Virginia, and I've had a lot of invitations to to come see people. And at some point I'm gonna put it all together and make road trips and make like, a big circle, you know, and and have a van or something like that. I do a lot of smalls, you know, people even do that and ship the stuff back to themselves. So if they don't have a huge vehicle, they can pack up some boxes and go to the UPS store or the post office and just mail it back. Mm hmm. You posted a few things on the group last week that were just outstanding, yeah. Mm hmm, yeah. So I, I've done the starburst mid century, yes, the clock, yes. Oh, people had eBay envy on that one. Like, where'd she find it? How'd she pack it? Why didn't you keep it? Yeah, like a $500 sale it was, yeah, it was just under 600 and I another situation of my husband helped me. I've I've sold one before, a couple, you know, several years ago, and I've gotten wiser and smarter since then, the starburst clocks come apart. And yes, you can take the tines off of them and take them apart. And my husband helped me do that. We bought it, and it was all together at at an auction. And it was another situation of, plug your ears while I'm bidding. Please don't panic. It's like, Jesus, take the wheel on this. It's going to be okay. Yep. And I gave think it was $130 for that, and I sold it for five, 600 and as soon as it sells, when I buy big stuff like that, or high dollar items. I hand it to my husband and say, Please go put it in the truck and lock it. And he and we had all three of our children with us that day. And he said, Well, how are we going to get it home? And I said, you're going to take it apart. And he goes, Oh, great. So he was out there in the parking lot taking the screws off the back and and took it apart, and then we got it home, and I said, Okay, now you get to put it back together so that we can take pictures of it, right? Yeah, you gotta do what you gotta do to make what $400 profit on that? Yeah. And I think in transit from when we bought it and he took it apart, then to bringing it home, we lost one of the screws, the back bolt part, not the bolt, the nuts. We lost the nut for the screw. Okay, and so my husband had to go in the lumber yard store, you know, to find just the right size, because it was small. And he helps me a lot. So that was a memorable sale. And it's one of those things where another piece of advice I would have is, you see what other. People sell things for and it might not be the exact same style, because there's a lot of different style of Starburst clocks out there, and some of them have the actual Sun flame. Some of them have metal. Some are just wood. This was a really well known brand. It was a it was an Elgin clock, uh huh, and it wasn't as common because it had metal and wood for the tines of the starburst, and it had a really good face on it. The clock hands were in really great shape. So I had seen some other cell and they were in the lesser two to 300 range. And I thought, You know what? I'm going to put my hook out there and see if I can get a big fish. Because I knew what I had. I've done the research. I've sold one before. They're not making those anymore, so. And you know, people who have money spend money, and so just because I wouldn't spend five,$600 on a clock doesn't mean that somebody else won't. So that is our customer. That's right. Just as a side note for the listeners, when you have these beautiful vintage, rare items that have survived all these years, and they look great, and you get so you you probably had, what, 600 on it for the buy it now, and, you know, you get $100 offer. Don't be insulted. Yeah, this is not your customer. You want the person in the New York apartment that owns half the block and decorates their home with rare, beautiful items that they love. Yes, that's our customer. That's right. So, I mean, I just, I fight this all the time, and people, oh, you're a low ball off. Or, how could they do that? How could they because that's their way of life, that's, that's how they do things. And they're doing it to everybody, not just you, yeah, that's true. That's the one I wait for. What did I sell? The other day, I sold a little baby doll, like a Carter's with a rattle in it. It was just, I got a for a quarter, and I'd had it in my store for over two years. It's a little, a little doll, like my first doll or something. And this lady, she offered $10 for it. And she's like, Oh, my daughter had this one. She's grown now, and we don't know what happened to it. And I would love to give her this for Christmas, and she wanted to ship to a different address, or something. Was a lot of things going on. And, okay,$10 sale. Big whoop. But you know what? She left me the greatest feedback. The seller worked with me on this. I'm so happy to have found this. You know, it made two people happy, and that's the people I want to work with. So you get those. You probably got some low ball offers on that clock. I did. I think I had one come in at like, 201 on just under three. And I really love the vintage look. I love good quality items. So if I don't sell it for what, what I'm asking for it, I'm just going to keep it. Yeah, I did. I did have that one boxed up as because as soon as I took the pictures, you know, I packaged it and got it ready to ship out, because I knew it was going to I do that too. It's like, I'm gonna go ahead and pack this up, because when it sells, I don't want to have to deal with it. It's, it's and it's safe. It's put away in a safe place. You know, the box falls off the shelf. It's packed. Well, it's not going to break, yeah, my toddler is not going to find those, those nuts that my husband had to go so I did that, talking about working with customers. I have this one memorable sale, and I don't know the name of it, but it's, it's stone, and it's these jewelry boxes that have very Victorian scenes on them. It's usually like blue stone, and it has the scene in white. Okay, kind of looks like marble, but it's not. And I had this, I had this jewelry box listed for probably $100 and I'd had it for a while, and I had a lady message me and say I bought one of these from somebody else, and they did not package it well broke in shipping. And she said, would you take 75 and guarantee that this item's going to get to it was somewhere on the East Coast, Pennsylvania, probably, I think. And I said, Sure, I can absolutely do that. I do need to adjust the shipping a little bit more, though, because since we want to absolutely guarantee, I'm going to wrap this like it's going to go through a bomb, right, right? Going to add weight to this item, you know? And she didn't mind. She just appreciated that I even responded to her number one, right, two, that I was willing. To work with her. And so I wrapped it with the best care that I absolutely could, boxed it two or three times, and away it went. And she got it, and she gave me the best review, and she was sent me a message saying that, you know, she just really appreciated that I would go above and beyond for those are the ones that just, you know, make it worth continuing to do eBay. I've had, I've sold an oil lamp, you know, the oil rain lamps, oh, yes, from the ceiling, I found one new in the box at an estate sale couple years ago. And of course, that was a higher dollar item too. Well, and, you know, I didn't even know what those were, until somebody put it on a group. I want to say it was Bill hunt, but I don't know. He sells a lot of lamps. I can't recall. It was a guy, and it was like, had these Greek goddesses on it and and the the rain part, does it move with the light, or is it just reflective of the light? No, it it actually moves. So there is a motor in the bottom of the basin. So each the top and bottom have a cone shape, you know. And in the bottom of the basin, of the bottom cone is where the oil goes, and you put it in there, and the motor sucks it up through the side tube, right? Yeah, the spindle, and it dropped, the oil drops down, and it drops down in that rain effect on the fishing line. So I found one new in the box. I did not test it. I've sold others before, and I had the stuff to test them to make sure that they work. But since this one was new, in box with original packaging. The the goddess wasn't even out of her plastic. Oh, gosh. And the plastic that was actually around the lamp itself had disintegrated. It was so old. And so, you know, I had to clean the box out and vacuum that all out and everything. But I took really good pictures, you know, showing that it was unused. Goddess was still in her original plastic. So was the greenery. And I had a woman message me, asking if I would take a little less, because I think I had it listed for 500 and she asked if I do like 425 because her grandmother had had the same exact thing, and they wanted to get it for their mother for Christmas, and all the kids were going in on it. Mm, hmm. And, and another, can you ship it really well? And it's a yes, yes, I will. And so it went out. Got a great feedback, and just love that story of making somebody's moment and memory, and my mailman appreciates it too. That's something else I wanted to share was, since I live rurally, I don't live in town, I live in the country actually, and I use USPS a lot, and I put things at my mailbox and put the flag up, and he picks them up. He is the best mailman on the planet. I just appreciate him a lot, because he has never once complained about my packages. In fact, a couple months ago, we thought we might be moving into town, and he said you can't move into town. You have to stay on the rural route, because they operate by how many packages they have on the route. You know that, or compensated, or, you know their their pay, and stuff like that with the government service. So he said you can't take your packages off of the route, because, yeah. And a curious thing about the mail carriers, because when I lived in my house for 16 years, we had Lamar, who was the nicest mailman. And you know, I would put my stuff out at the mailbox so he didn't have to come all the way up to the door or anything. And, you know, some days I would have a lot, and I was like, Oh, I'm sorry, it's so much. And he's like, No, this is job security. Yes, this, this, this is job security, you know. And it wouldn't, would rain. I would raise the garage door and put the packages in there. You could just back the truck up. And then some of these carriers in the apartment complexes, well, the routes are shared. You have different people all the time. You never know what time they're coming. And it was, it's they wouldn't even come up to my third floor apartment and get my stuff. Sometimes they would just skip me. And so I called the postmaster, and I was like, I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, that these packages aren't getting picked up. And he says, It's not you, it's the carrier. She just doesn't like to climb stairs. I said, Well, how can, how can that work when you have a pickup? Because that's something the Post Office provides. Yeah, you guys for it. You got, you got to stand by what you're doing. I think she eventually got five. Tired because she's doing that too much. Can't be lazy and be a male, male carrier. Yeah. And then I got a new person on that third floor apartment and try it again, but my package is out there. Picks them up, no problem. And and he would bring me anything I was having shipped to me instead of putting it out at the mail center, wow, where I have to go out there and get it. And so I thanked him for that one day. I'm like, thank you for bringing my stuff up here. That really, I really appreciate that. And he says, why wouldn't I? I said, well, because none of the people before you did it. And he goes, he goes, we get paid extra to do that. I guess the lazy one just didn't care about the money. She just wasn't well. Then don't put her on a route where she has to do that. Yeah, put her in a neighborhood where it's all flat. You don't have to go up and down stairs, but yeah, it's always an interesting situation when you move to a new place, like, how's the mail carrier going to be? What happened here? But yeah, the rural ones are very nice, yeah, so you're lucky on that. Yeah, we've been very blessed with him, and I've lived at this house for 10 years, on and off, and he, he's always been the same guy. He had a health crisis about a month and a half ago. And the only reason i i figured out what had happened is because I noticed it was a different mail carrier. And of course, we know everybody around here, so I stopped to him and said, hey, where? Where's the mailman? And he goes, Well, this is what happened. And I was like, Oh my gosh. I mean, he, he had a severe heart issue. And so actually, my mail man's birthday was yesterday. I commented on the Facebook post and said, We are so glad that you're still with us to serve us every day, and he he's just the best. He always pets my dog when they when he does the route, if he's out, and sometimes, if we have snow or rain, I can, I'll text him and say, hey, you know, I've got several and I'll wait for him and take him out when he gets here, when it when it snowed, I had him in the van, just open the back hatch. They're right there, absolutely. That's a great solution. Yeah, he's, he's really great. So always being thankful for them, you know, because they, they help eBay go round, absolutely, and that's, that's part of the fun of this job is, yeah, we work at home. We're self employed, but we get to interact with with all kinds of people that are involved in the business, whether it's the thrift store ladies or your mail carrier or guy at the hardware store. Hey, I need to fix this broken thing. I need a thing. I'm a bob. You have one? Yeah, I've had to do that. You know, when I, when I first started, I was really hesitant to tell people what I did, especially being in a small, rural area, some people don't like, you know, resellers, and don't appreciate, you know that I can buy it for five and sell it for 50. But as I've grown in the business, I've learned that those relationships are good to have, and most people in your area aren't your customer. My people from my small town aren't my ideal customer, not that I don't love and appreciate them, because I do sell in other ways. I do love and appreciate my community, but they aren't my customers. So I'm out here doing doing me doing Ebay. I had somebody one time I shared something on Facebook and they commented saying, you know, eBay sellers don't pay taxes, and I was like, responsible ones do. And, you know, I might be a stay at home who's reselling, but I'm contributing to county taxes and state taxes, you know, on my tax forms, so you have to report the income. If you're going to take the write offs, you can't, you can't do it one and not the other. That's right. Show the income, and then, you know, all your home business deductions and stuff. So which, there are plenty of sellers out there that don't, that don't report it. But you know, look at your whole financial picture and all the stuff you can write off to keep that Adjusted Gross Income lower on your taxes. But then if you want to go get a loan or a mortgage or something, you got to plan ahead to make your income like maybe don't take all the deductions. Their income is a little higher, right? Qualified, you know, it's a, it's a two way street on that. But get your really good CPA, I love that people assume that eBay sellers don't pay taxes. On a rant, you're going to hear that. And then I had a I had another lady say eBay still exists. And I'm like, Yeah, it really does, you know, it's, I mean, yeah, it just cracked me up. She, I mean, it's a household word. It's in movies, it's on TV shows. I mean, come on, you been Yeah, it will. It used to be, you know, on on TV, back when I was a kid, you know, shop eBay and, you know, the whole internet craze of when you'd send a check, you know, in the mail, and now it's more automated. And I guess, you know, everybody just knows Amazon. And I was like, Yeah, eBay exists, and it's actually really great. You should check it out. And so I just advocate for it a lot more than I used to and tell people, even locally, check out what I've got if you like what you see great. If you don't just keep scrolling, maybe you'll find somebody else's store that you like better. And you mentioned being hesitant to tell people what you did when you started. I was too, and it was because I didn't want other people getting into selling around me. I thought, Oh, my, this is the greatest thing in the world. I can't let people know. They're all going to want to do it. Yeah, they're all going to be out there getting all the stuff. And no, that was totally not it when I started helping people, because at first they criticize you like, why would you want to do that? Why do you want to go in these dirty thrift stores and buy all this stuff? And I'm like, because I can, I don't have to put on, you know, work clothes and go to work for somebody else. I can do this for myself and and then there, a couple years later, they're like, So tell me more about that thing you do with eBay, and that's why I got into the mentoring side, is because everyone was asking me, yeah, and then they find out how much work it is, and now you don't get paid immediately. My three siblings no interest in this. They're like, yeah, I just like going to work and getting a paycheck, and it's, it's, I mean, this is sort of like the thrill of gambling, but it's, it's legal, yeah, you know, like, it takes a lot of guts to walk in there and pay 300 bucks for something knowing that you can flip it for five times that much. I mean, that is a gutsy move to people who aren't involved in reselling and just don't get it, yeah, my, my, my best friend. Love her. She's a stay at home mom also, and she's eight years older than me, and, you know, I'll tell her about my eBay victories, and she'll be like, you know, maybe I need to get into it, you know, maybe I need to do it. And I go, you know, that's a really personal choice. If you want to get into this, I can give you some tips and some tricks and some advice, but you got to do the work. It's, I think a lot of people get discouraged when they realize how much work it is, especially if you do it right. Part of why I joined your Facebook group is eBay the right way, yay. Because there, there is a right and a wrong way to ship things we should not be shipping in stouffers food boxes. Oh, I saw a group the other day. The somebody received something that was in a cereal box and and one person's like, Well, okay, I get that they could at least turn it inside out. So you didn't know it was a cereal box until it was opened. But, yeah, there's, there's a lot of wrong ways out there and and not that I haven't done some of those wrong ways. When I first started, I did some wrong ways. I did, you know, wasn't shipping like I should have been. Like, a lot of it's based on ignorance. They just don't know any bad you know people, I think people are inherently good, and yeah, you have that small percentage of bad apples that just are going to manipulate the system, and that's the minority. I just think people kind of jump in and they just don't know, yeah, and when you said that, you know, not everybody, you were worried about everybody and their neighbor wanting to do eBay and that there's there might not be enough for us all to go around. There's enough. There is there. There's enough with the with the amount of consume. You know that the just the United States has every year, you know, we are a consumer society. And so there is enough to go around. There's enough grandmas and a state. And that's the thing is, the baby boomers were the generation of consumption. And shopping, and that's where it all got started, right after the war, and we were all prosperous again. Well, I wasn't born yet, so I shouldn't say we, but we Americans and but speaking to the being afraid of people encroaching on your territory, I was new and naive. I didn't know. I was like, this is, this is the greatest thing in the world, this shiny new thing where you can make you can work as much as you want, and, you know, the income is unlimited. And I just thought, oh, all these people are going to want to do this. But even now, when, like, I go to senior day, when I when I can, and it's the stores are full because that's their social event and but they're not buying the same stuff I'm buying, right? They're buying all the little knick knacky things and the the cute I mean, you could tell their their baskets full of, sorry, their shopping cart is full of, you know, artificial flowers and tablecloths and just stuff in their house. You know, they're not looking for what I'm looking for. Yep, and and not everybody. Your Niche isn't going to be the same as everybody else's right? Was when I first got started, I bought anything and everything. I thought I can make $1 on. I mean, I was buying glassware. It makes me shudder thinking about it. People who do glassware, I love you. I appreciate you. You go get them. It's not Kelsey. That's what I say on senior day. Y'all take all that glass. I'm not interested in doing that. I mean, because you might, you might find a really nice Murano something in there that right flipped through and, you know, I look because also, people put things down in the wrong place. They don't put it back where they got it. Yeah. So I find some good treasures, like somebody had this in their cart and now they don't want it. So you gotta look at everything. My bucket list item. One of them is a glassy baby. Yeah, and out in the middle of nowhere Kansas, hoping for a glass baby. But you know, other people's niche isn't going to be the same as yours. When I go to auctions, I know who's there for comic, I know who's there for army. I know who's there for history. I'm the girl who does Vintage Decor. You know, I sell in other ways. So I'll buy bigger items, even furniture to, you know, gain some revenue that way. Not everybody's niche is yours. Let them have it if they're after it. If it's not in your lane, be kind and just, you know, think of others too. One thing I have delved into is somebody on the on the money making Monday for 100 or $100 sales, shared about books and a book set that they sold. And I have found that that is a niche I do enjoy. And I'm dipping my toes, my pinky toe in it just a little bit, because I'm not a professional by any means, but I have found some really good return on books too. That's just a growth area for me. Of you know, now I know if I see certain sets or certain authors, there's a little bit of money in that. You know, it's just continually a growing process. And that is a great tip to end on, is you constantly evolve in this business. Yes. So I like your advice about Don't be or whoever's advice it was about, don't be afraid to spend some big money on things that you can flip for way big money, right? And that comes with time, because you have to build up your confidence that, okay, I know this. I know I can flip it for this. And after a while, it just, it's not scary anymore. It's just like desensitizing yourself against something you're afraid of. You just, you just you just keep doing it a little bit more and a little bit more, and pretty soon you're not afraid anymore, like Kevin and home alone. Do you hear me? I'm not afraid anymore. This is I when people ask about what they if pricing something is too much, and I'll research it and look real quick. And usually my response is, you can't get catch a big fish if you don't use big bait, right, right? You gotta, you gotta put yourself out there. And I mean worst case scenario, you can sell it for what you bought it for, right? At least, you know, you maybe won't make hundreds or$1,000 but that's, that's my go to in my head when I'm like, oh, gosh, this is a little expensive, but you know what, I'm going to try it and I can least sell it for what I bought it for, and learn that lesson and move on. Yeah, that's right, yeah. Well, um. Um, you said you've got a sports event this afternoon to go to. I do. Yes, my daughter has basketball, basketball, okay, well, at least that's indoors. Yes, it is. What's your weather like there today? Today, I think we have a high of 34 with winds around 15 miles an hour, so it probably feels in the 20s. Well, it's cold. You're going inside, yes, okay, well, thanks for taking the time out of your busy mom schedule to talk with us. And I really enjoyed hearing about your business, and especially those Christmas trees. I gotta thank you for those now. I keep seeing them pop up and they sell all year. Yeah, Christmas sells all year long. There's another tip for you, yeah, okay, well, thanks again. It was great to meet you, and I wish you all the best in your business. Thank you, Suzanne. I appreciate it so much. Sure. Bye, bye, bye. Next week, my guest is Kathy, who is a repeat offender and was last on the podcast in April of 2022 she and her husband are retired and do eBay on the side, and they also travel in their RV and work eBay sourcing into their trips. We had a fun time catching up, so make sure you tune in to hear from Kathy. Thank you all for listening. Make it a great week on eBay, and don't forget to take some time for yourself, if possible, during this busy and maybe stressful time of year, talk to you next week. Bye, everybody you.