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Messages - TN_Hunter

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The Treasure Chest / Re: Finally a good one

« on: July 24, 2012, 04:43:15 AM »

Been a long time and a lot of work but finally got rid of 95% of this unit. Most of the sales were generated through eBay, a little more through the auction house and an even smaller amount through the Flea Market. I sent a great deal of the larger sized items through the auction house but just wasn't generating the $. I am sure this was due to the quality of the auction house and their customer base but it was a good way to get rid of the product in mass so I stuck with them. With so much activity going on trying to sell this units products and discovering my new love of vending at the Flea Market, I pretty much lost track of the sales on this unit. So, I can safely say on the low end estimate that I sold approx $2500 out of this unit to-date. Still have a few remaining nice items but am considering this unit done. So, I went back out to the auction scene with the intent to buy. Went back to the same facility this unit came from over the weekend. Was supposed to be weekend prior but when I called the owner said it really isn't until next week (RED FLAG but I missed it). So, I went last Saturday and there was somewhere between 40-50 units being sold. Noticed something strange about this facility in that they were allowing tenants to run garage sales out of their units. Must have been about 4-5 different Garage Sales going on during the auction. Then started to notice a lot of the units had price stickers all over the items in them. All but about 3 of the units were very picked through and trashy. The only good 3 units were still trashy but didn't appear to be picked through. The owner and his helpers were constantly talking the units up and announcing what was in them. One of the helpers even announced that a unit had a play station 3 in it and it worked just fine when he plugged it in. The owner kept walking into the units and moving stuff around to show us the contents and even brought items out to let the bidders get a closer look and handle the item. One unit had a mattress blocking the view so they removed it. It was a real disappointment and a huge waste of time. I can say that this facility is now on my do not attend list.

General Storage Auction Talk / Re: How bouta sum inspiration..whats the best thing uve found lately

« on: July 12, 2012, 06:03:05 AM »

Recent wins (Last 6 months) :

Sold a 6 foot grandfather clock all made out of match sticks for $1000 retrieved from a storage unit.

Sold about $400 worth of oil paints retrieved from same unit as the match stick clock.

Sold about $70 worth of old keepsake ornaments retrieved from same unit as the match stick clock. Got lots (30+) of those left and cannot wait for XMas selling season.

Went to auction house and bid on an item for $3 that no-one could figure out what it was. Just had to find out so I bid. Ended up being an XMods Radio Control Starters Kit new in the box plastic wrapping still intact. Sold on eBay for $100.

Went to same auction house and bid $5 for a signed Johnny Cash framed picture. Turned out to be a real signature, sold on eBay for $50.

Went to different auction house and bid $10 on an old engineering tool still in the box. Sold on eBay for $50.

Stories about Storage Auctions / Re: Auction Scene #6...June, 2012

« on: June 16, 2012, 06:46:30 PM »

Finally ventured out the last couple of days and attended one auction yesterday and one today.

Yesterdays had 6 units (1 was a managers special). Small crowd of approx 10, no regulars just newbies. All the units were pure trash and were bid up for way more than they should have. The pricess were ranging around $40 - $240.

Todays had 4 units and a crowd of about 15. Just one regular and the rest newbies. Three of the units were pure trash and 1 was just trash. Again the prices were far higher than they should have been. The just trashy unit went for $250.

General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Dwindling interest in auctions and in talking about them ?

« on: June 10, 2012, 10:36:11 AM »

I can only answer the 2nd question regarding interest on my own personal behalf. I suspect that there may be others out there with the same experiences. I am still a little green at this and landed my first big locker back in Jan 2012. My sales channels and experiences were not and continue to not be as strong as they need to be to efficiently dispose of the items at a profit. All my time is vested in expanding these sales channels and like an A.D.D. riddled kid, new and shiney opportunities expose themselves that are easy to get sucked into. For example, forever caring for and feeding the eBay and Craigslist beasts, going to antique auctions with the intent of selling but ending up buying as a new source for eBay selling. Going to the Flea Markets as a vendor and catching the "bug". It is an absolute blast being a vendor if your intent is to focus on building it up and engaging with the customers. Then you discover a lot of that stuff from the locker doesn't sell as well as the stuff you find at yard sales, antique auctions and other sources. And on the story goes........

So, in summary, I do still participate as a lurker on this forum and am siliently cheering on the successes of those posting their experiences. But, I am personally investing the majority of my time building up the sales side of the equation and avoiding the storage locker accumulation side of the equation for the time being. Just doesn't make sense to me to be out there taking lockers from others when I haven't properly disposed of the contents of those lockers that I have already obtained.

Hope this helps.

The Treasure Chest / Re: Finally a good one

« on: March 27, 2012, 06:34:56 AM »

First the bad news, the Auction folks that I was banking on selling off this units worth of product flaked out with me. After giving me a great sounding story, when I actually showed up the deal changed for the worse and I hit the road. Attended the Flea Market 4 times to-date, granted this particular Flea Market is only open on Sundays and the Customers and Vendors pretty much disappear around 1pm so the selling window is small. Been supplementing my storage unit product with deep discounted products from the local stores. Been finding the store bought product has been selling great with a handful of storage unit items selling each week. Over-all, the Flea Market has been turning out to be a profitable experience. Especially when you consider it only takes up 1/2 of day / week to deal with. Been selling a few of the items here and there on eBay also. The big news is that the Match Stick Clock sold over the weekend for $1000 so that was very helpful and it went to a new home with folks that will really appreciate it. The best news is that I found an Antique shop that is will to consign all of the product for only a 30% cut. So, I plan on keeping the remaining product that I can get a better deal on eBay and send the rest to the Antique shop.

To-Date (fees not taken into account) :

Unit Purchased : $535
Gas : $325
------------------------------
$860
Sold : $1,676
------------------------------
195%

Summary / Lessons Learned :
---------------------------------------
Buying is easy but until you have your sales side of the business built up your going to end up with a full garage for a long time. So, lets hope we all have understanding spouses in the interim

The Treasure Chest / Re: Finally a good one

« on: February 26, 2012, 04:29:13 PM »

Attended my first Flea Market as a Vendor today !!!!! A very good experience all around and have a lot of confidence that I will do even better the next time around. Sold a little from the latest unit and updated the stats below accordingly but mostly sold items from units purchased prior. The primary lessons learned is ... watch out for those little scum bags that are making a deal for certain items they pull out and then suddenly change the deal to include other items. Me personally, I told him to get the heck out of my booth. Granted he came back and bought a lot more once the ground rules where established

Regardless, it was one heck of a day of dealing with folks that want something for nothing and convincing them to pay up anyways.

In Summary, my previous unit returns are looking a whole lot better for doing this and the big unit is getting better as shown below... got a deal with a local auction house to sell the majority of the big unit in 3 weeks for a 20% cut so will update you all then on the results... wish me luck.

To-Date (fees not taken into account) :

Unit Purchased : $535
Gas : $325
------------------------------
$860
Sold : $482
------------------------------
56%

The Treasure Chest / Re: Finally a good one

« on: February 20, 2012, 12:49:12 PM »

I really don't mind saying that the storage facility was in Centerville, TN. After all... I am in a Noobie status and already know the following moons have to come into alignment to find a special unit :

1) Do I have time to go to the auction ?
2) Do I have the $ to buy a unit ?
3) Do I have the space to store the inventory ?
4) Do I have time to process and sell the inventory ?
5) What is the weather the day of the auction ?
6) How many units are left by the time the auction starts ?
7) How many bidders are there and how many selfish people are present ?

Are there any decent units up for auction ?
9) Can I see anything from the door that justifies a bid let alone a high enough bid to win it ?
10) How far is it from my home and what does that equate to in gas $ ?
11) Do I have the ability to clean out the unit in the allotted time ?
etc..............

What are the chances that Centerville, TN is going to have another unit like this next time around ? For me personally, I won't go there again as questions # 10 and 11 were not well thought out on my part let along the do I have enough time to deal with the processing and sales.

Good luck Cobia.... I hope you do go to the next auction and you do score a fantastic unit.

The Treasure Chest / Re: Finally a good one

« on: February 18, 2012, 04:05:10 PM »

For those of us in our mid 40's here are some pictures from our childhood retrieved from this unit :

The Treasure Chest / Re: Finally a good one

« on: February 18, 2012, 09:45:34 AM »

Movieman and Money4Nothing... thank you very much for all of the picture posting tips and Money4Nothing... thanks for catching my math error... My spreadsheet doesn't account for gas (yet) so I was running the numbers on the fly. So, the bad news is that I am not a math genius but the good news is that you made my percentage better

I don't have a place on the Web establish to dump my pictures yet so I am opting for the attachment technique for now. Attached are some of the larger sized items we found in the unit. If folks out there continue to be interested in the additional items then as I update the stats then I'll continue to add a few pictures... if not then I'll just periodically update the stats if anyone continues to be interested (don't want to wear out my welcome).

So, I did manage to stumble across a rather easy technique for taking pictures that are too large to attach and quickly shrink them down in size. If you open up a file browser such as (My Computer) then right click on the file and click on the send to -> email an option to compress the size of the picture appears... then an email will be generated with the smaller sized picture attached. Just save that smaller sized picture to your hard drive and cancel the email.

To-Date (fees not taken into account) :

Unit Purchased : $535
Gas : $325
------------------------------
$860
Sold : $425
------------------------------
49%

The Treasure Chest / Finally a good one

« on: February 17, 2012, 10:13:30 PM »

Been at this since Sept 2011 and have been a rather consistent lurker of this message board.
I have been gaining a lot of inspiration from everyone's stories and hope to contribute with my most recent find.
So let's start with my stats : 11 units total to-date and am still down by 12% of my original investment.
Been primarily using Craigslist and eBay to sell my product so once I include all those fees and gas my true return to-date is much worse.
Going to be doing my first Flea Market in a couple weeks so am hoping to improve my percentages soon.
This has certainly been a learning experience and a super tough thing to do in my "spare" time.
With the exception of the most recently purchased unit, all of the rest of the units have been rather uneventful and nothing really great to mention.

So, on with the story....

I Went to a very small town in the middle of TN about 1 month ago. My first time to this facility and there were 35+ units up for auction
and about 40 folks in attendance. I was not able to recognize any of them as being regulars from the Nashville area. They all looked to be locals from the area.
All of the units were going very cheap where most of them went between $50 - $200. There were a few getting more than that including the one that I got.
I managed to score a unit that appeared to me to be about a 20x20 packed full for $535. This was my first big unit and was very excited to get one but
realize now just how much work and planning you need to do ahead of time to buy one properly. There was a ton of items visible from the enterance to justify
the price and to continue the gamble there was more to be discovered. It took me 6 trips with my van and 2 trips with my brother-in-laws trailer to get it
all cleaned out. It took me 3 very long weeks of inventorying, researching and taking pictures. The entire contents of this unit was like walking
back into the 1960 - 1970. There were so many Fisher Price and Playskool toys in great shape
and stored in their original boxes that I lost count. There was even more without the boxes. I must have 7 totes fully packed with nothing but
collectable crystal items. I have 2 full totes of nothing but old Halmark Ornaments. I have 6 totes full of nothing but old sewing fabrics.
3 totes of old sewing patterns. 2 old doll houses with lots of furniture. An old metal toy stove and fridge.
Lots of odds and ends type house hold items from various countries. 1 tote of old oil paints and brushes still new
in the box and packages. 1 tote of old action figures. 3 totes of old dolls. A six foot grandfather clock with an castle shaped top all made of match sticks.
An old coca cola carrier along with 3 trays. 7 Silver plated trays, copper plated pots and pans, etc.......

My inventory spreadsheet for this unit is already over 400 items that I would classify as better than Flea Market pieces.
If and of course this is always the big "If" statement... If I can actually get it all sold for the
prices that I have researched to-date than this unit should come in around $7,000 to $10,000. I will be happy with $5,000 and do feel that this
will be more than attainable but will realistically take me until around mid summer to unload it all. I just don't have the time to attend to the sales
side of the business as it properly requires but heck... I don't mind the slow turn-over.

I have just barely gotten started listing some of the higher end pieces on eBay and have managed to bring in $425 before fees. I cannot wait to get the next couple
of months under my belt with this inventory along with a few Flea Market trips.

I realize to some of you out there that your not buying this story without proof. The only proof that I can provide are the pictures of the items as I inventoried them along with a few pictures of the items as they stood in the unit while we were cleaning it out. My only issue with providing pictures is that I have no idea how to do so using this message board. If someone out there can message me throughout it then I will update this post with some of the picts.

So, it is my intentions to periodically revisit this post to keep my sales-to-date figure updated and slip some pictures of the items in.

To-Date (fees not taken into account) :

Unit Purchased : $535
Gas : $325
------------------------------
$960
Sold : $425
------------------------------
44%

Wish me luck as I am out of the buying side of this business for a good long while I try to sell it.

Stories about Storage Auctions / Newbie with some stories

« on: October 30, 2011, 07:56:43 AM »

Been at this for only 2 months and having a blast. At the first auction (didn't purchase anything but had fun bidding), got to see a unit with a 5 piece Coca Cola dining set. It appeared to be 60's-70's version and in mint condition. Some dude picked it up for around $500. Yesterdays auction was my first silent bid auction and again I didn't purchase anything. I really don't like the silent bid process as everyone was way over-paying. However, they did open up a unit that had someones full recording studio equipment in full view. Drums, keyboard, guitar, mixer and a handful of those nice equipment cases. Some dude got it for about $900. Got to watch him open up some of the cases to make sure the equipment was all there and it was. One of the cases had 4 or 5 brand new microphones. It was a pretty cool unit but the equipment did not appear to be high end. Last week, I did manage to purchase a unit that was packed with tots and boxes. Everything was well organized and very dusty. There were about 30 tots and around 20 boxes along with some misc furniture in the back. Bad news was... most of the tots were full of clothes and worthless odds and ends. The boxes turned out to be disappointing as well. We did manage to pull out a Barbie Doll collection (all still in the box), 2 sets of china and a bunch of crystal glassware. With some luck we will get it all sold and come out a little ahead. I have to admit... it was a lot of fun digging through those tots and boxes.

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