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eBay / Finally figured out the key to ebay selling...
« on: May 12, 2012, 11:41:05 AM »
Okay so I've had my own ebay account for years sold storage auction stuff as well as occasionally stuff I buy from police auctions, estate sales, going out of business sales, etc.
My problem A. I'm cheap and don't like losing money when customers are idiots and B. I have an ego and when I'm right I'm right and don't like to bend, espeically when people are trying to take advantage of ebay policies or do stupid things.
A while back I started selling on ebay with a partner. He's much more a businessman than I when it comes to customer service plus the money we make is our businesses money which essentially is mine but I don't think about it being mine in the same way as my personal ebay account.
I can kind of take a step back and look at things differently now that its our business and not my personal account. The key to selling on ebay is you have to A. Be willing to bend over and be raped by those pain in hte ass customers, they are few and far between but when it happens you just gotta bite the bullet and do whatever it takes to make them happy and B. you have to lose your ego and leave feedback for people even if htey wont leave it for you, work with people even if they are idiots, etc.
My attitude in the past was always well **** them I'll take a bad feedback I'm not losing money because this guy changed his mind about wanting to buy something or bid on something and never paid. You just have to do whatever to keep people happy and keep your DSR scores high and your feedback perfect otherwise your really just screwing yourself in the long run. You start getting lower DSR scores or bad feedback and you fall lower in your search ranking, have lower selling limits and get cut off before the month is over, etc.
My problem A. I'm cheap and don't like losing money when customers are idiots and B. I have an ego and when I'm right I'm right and don't like to bend, espeically when people are trying to take advantage of ebay policies or do stupid things.
A while back I started selling on ebay with a partner. He's much more a businessman than I when it comes to customer service plus the money we make is our businesses money which essentially is mine but I don't think about it being mine in the same way as my personal ebay account.
I can kind of take a step back and look at things differently now that its our business and not my personal account. The key to selling on ebay is you have to A. Be willing to bend over and be raped by those pain in hte ass customers, they are few and far between but when it happens you just gotta bite the bullet and do whatever it takes to make them happy and B. you have to lose your ego and leave feedback for people even if htey wont leave it for you, work with people even if they are idiots, etc.
My attitude in the past was always well **** them I'll take a bad feedback I'm not losing money because this guy changed his mind about wanting to buy something or bid on something and never paid. You just have to do whatever to keep people happy and keep your DSR scores high and your feedback perfect otherwise your really just screwing yourself in the long run. You start getting lower DSR scores or bad feedback and you fall lower in your search ranking, have lower selling limits and get cut off before the month is over, etc.
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eBay / Have they made it easier to be a power seller and top rated seller?
« on: May 11, 2012, 04:58:05 PM »
I just recently became a power seller and a top rated seller. I've had really high sales volumes the past month or two but total feedback score is still only like 160 or so i always thought of powersellers as being the guys with like 50000 transaactions.
i also noticed that right about teh time i became a power seller and top rated seller so did a ton of other people in my category all at the same time
i also noticed that right about teh time i became a power seller and top rated seller so did a ton of other people in my category all at the same time
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General Storage Auction Talk / Let's do some stereotyping...Who has the best units Asians, Gays, Albinos, etc?
« on: May 11, 2012, 04:07:14 PM »
Obviously we all have things we look for in units and we look for clues. Part of this is basically stereotyping units. Just thought it would be fun to say what the best units we have found or tend to find are.
Two of my top two categories of peoples units to buy have to be Phillipinos and Gays. Phillipinos units in my experience always have designer clothes TONS of expensive handbags, lots of good toys, etc.
Gay dudes tend to have nice clothes, nice home furnishings, electronics, chrome barwear type stuff just overal nice stuff.
Any other stereotypes that help you pick units?
Two of my top two categories of peoples units to buy have to be Phillipinos and Gays. Phillipinos units in my experience always have designer clothes TONS of expensive handbags, lots of good toys, etc.
Gay dudes tend to have nice clothes, nice home furnishings, electronics, chrome barwear type stuff just overal nice stuff.
Any other stereotypes that help you pick units?
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General Storage Auction Talk / Every man for himself or is there etiquet buy a half dozen go home?
« on: February 26, 2012, 05:20:31 PM »
Not sure if this topic has come up but someone had an intersting thread about do you care who wins a unit and talked about a "whale".
Anyhow, do you think there's an unspoken rule or etiquete about if someone's taken half the days units they should call it a day and go home or is it more this is business every man for himself and may the best man win?
I suppose this question is more suited towards the circuit type auctiosn where everyone is spending the day following one auctioneer around rather than just bouncing around to random auctions.
Part of me says yes extend a little courtesy to your fellow buyers but I can also see the argument if someone has the money and can get rid of that volume more power to them. If they suck they will run out of money soon enough and if they are that good they deserve to win and take all the units
I will say that when I see this on a circuit where everyone is following all day and everyone knows one particular guy has gotten 12 of the 15 units or something like that everyone groans when he bids and you start to see the whole auction following as a whole start running that person up.
Just curious your guys thoughts
Anyhow, do you think there's an unspoken rule or etiquete about if someone's taken half the days units they should call it a day and go home or is it more this is business every man for himself and may the best man win?
I suppose this question is more suited towards the circuit type auctiosn where everyone is spending the day following one auctioneer around rather than just bouncing around to random auctions.
Part of me says yes extend a little courtesy to your fellow buyers but I can also see the argument if someone has the money and can get rid of that volume more power to them. If they suck they will run out of money soon enough and if they are that good they deserve to win and take all the units
I will say that when I see this on a circuit where everyone is following all day and everyone knows one particular guy has gotten 12 of the 15 units or something like that everyone groans when he bids and you start to see the whole auction following as a whole start running that person up.
Just curious your guys thoughts
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Craigslist / Would You Ever Pay To Have Something Shipped Via Craigslist?
« on: February 26, 2012, 05:01:36 PM »
Was having a debate with a friend over this very topic the other day. Her father has a bunch of tools and antiques he wants to sell, knows I used to be very into resale, craigslist, ebay, bikes, cars, etc and asked for my help selling. He doesn't really want to deal with people comming to the house all the time, especially for smaller or cheaper items and wants to ship.
I told him all over craigslist in big bold letters it warns DONT SHIP ANYTHING MEET IN PERSON and basically said it wasn't worth my time even helping if this is how he wanted to do things as everyone will want to meet up. My friend insists things will sell.
The one saving grace is he is willing to accept paypal for all sales so eessentially the buyer is fully protected through the paypal protection but none the less I dont see many people going for this.
I'm pretty sure the answers here will agree with me but was hoping to see what others think and maybe show this thread as well.
I agree shipping is more convenient as well as more ecnominical in some situations. I'll occasionally get someone wanting to meet up over a $5 item and I'll offer to ship and they want to meet. I always want to tell the person you really your going to spend $15 in gas and waste an hour of both our time to meet up for this $5 item but cl seems all about the meetups. Ebay is obviously the place to ship though your paying a hefty commission.
I told him all over craigslist in big bold letters it warns DONT SHIP ANYTHING MEET IN PERSON and basically said it wasn't worth my time even helping if this is how he wanted to do things as everyone will want to meet up. My friend insists things will sell.
The one saving grace is he is willing to accept paypal for all sales so eessentially the buyer is fully protected through the paypal protection but none the less I dont see many people going for this.
I'm pretty sure the answers here will agree with me but was hoping to see what others think and maybe show this thread as well.
I agree shipping is more convenient as well as more ecnominical in some situations. I'll occasionally get someone wanting to meet up over a $5 item and I'll offer to ship and they want to meet. I always want to tell the person you really your going to spend $15 in gas and waste an hour of both our time to meet up for this $5 item but cl seems all about the meetups. Ebay is obviously the place to ship though your paying a hefty commission.
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Storage Auctions "In The News" / Why don't I ever find these units...
« on: December 29, 2011, 06:02:34 PM »
livinglakecountry.com/lakecountryreporter/news/132608593.html?sort=last+to+first
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General Storage Auction Talk / FreeStorageAuctionLists.Com Free Auctions All 50 States No Fees No Signup Nec
« on: November 20, 2011, 08:12:42 PM »
FreeStorageAuctionLists .Com
Free Storage Auction Lists For All 50 States
No Cost
No Sign-Up Needed
No Registration
No Fees
Just visit the site and check out aucitons, no signups, no fees, no nonsense.
Free Storage Auction Lists For All 50 States
No Cost
No Sign-Up Needed
No Registration
No Fees
Just visit the site and check out aucitons, no signups, no fees, no nonsense.
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Storage Auctions "In The News" / Hartford Connecticut Examiner Article On Storage Auctions
« on: August 28, 2011, 10:01:29 AM »
FreeStorageAuctionLists.Com was featured in an article in the Connecticut Examiner this past week. We just got a short snipet at the end of the article but still cool.
You can check out the article at the link below...
http://www.examiner.com/pop-culture-in-hartford/storage-wars-most-bizarre-find-yet-on-new-season
You can check out the article at the link below...
http://www.examiner.com/pop-culture-in-hartford/storage-wars-most-bizarre-find-yet-on-new-season
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General Storage Auction Talk / 3 items you cant bring yourself to sell at prices the market seems to offer?
« on: August 28, 2011, 09:32:12 AM »
If your anything like me you have some items you think of as valuable or you think could be big ticket items if you found the right buyer but keep getting no interest or low ball offers?
What are 3 items youve been holding onto waiting for the right buyer to come along? also whats an item or two youve held forever and finally sold for much less than you hoped for?
i had a few of these from my garage sale the other day.
What are 3 items youve been holding onto waiting for the right buyer to come along? also whats an item or two youve held forever and finally sold for much less than you hoped for?
i had a few of these from my garage sale the other day.
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Garage Sales / Garage Sale Went Fairly Well - Overall Not Worth The Time
« on: August 28, 2011, 09:15:39 AM »
Okay I had my garage sale this past Friday and Saturday. I decided not to spring for teh $35 ad in the paper. Advertised on a lot of online garage sale sites, some free local classifieds sites, and put some signs all over the place.
I said no early birds in all my ads but as expected had people showing up at a quarter after 7 for a garage sale that started at 9. I actually had a pretty good crowd probably over 30 people the first day another 20 the second, actually did better on Friday a weekday than I did on Saturday.
Man are people at garage sales cheap. There were certain items still brand new in packaging that at a flea market might get you $20 or more I'd tell people something like $2 and they would still try to haggle me down. I had lots of non english speaking mexicans at my garage sale whichw as good as they bought a lot but I had people literally buying 0.50 cent items and paying me with pennies.
I cleared out a lot of stuff and made a little money off stuff that otherwise would have just gone to goodwill so that was good but all the effort of sitting outside all day, getting organized and setting stuff out to make a relatively small amount of money wasn't really worth it I think I'll stick to flea markets.
You figure at 0.50 cent per clothing item you'd have to sell 100 items just to make $50 bucks. I basically woudl give people a garbabe bag and tell them to fill it up and give me like $5 or $10.
I pretty much got my good money off white soccer mom types and just let stuff go for pennies to everyone else as that's all I coudl get.
Overall not terrible probably made about $150 but that was also putting some ads on craigslist for a bathroom vanity, pot rack, etc so a lot of it was craigslist pickups during my garage sale as opposed to strictly garage sale profits.
I wound up not labeling things. I had planned on making a everything on this table $1 everything onthis table $2, etc but people showed up early I didn't have time to get organied and just started throwing stuff out on the driveway so didn't really have any labels. Not sure if that worked out better or worse. Had I had labels saying a buck maybe people wouldn't have bought it or woudln't even have tried to haggle however at the same time not having prices maybe people felt they could get me down to nothing.
Overall though happy with the turnout. My gf's friend had a garage sale last week and had one person show up so I was kind of worried I'd go to allthe effort for nothing so at least I had a decent crowd made a buck and cleared otu my garage.
I said no early birds in all my ads but as expected had people showing up at a quarter after 7 for a garage sale that started at 9. I actually had a pretty good crowd probably over 30 people the first day another 20 the second, actually did better on Friday a weekday than I did on Saturday.
Man are people at garage sales cheap. There were certain items still brand new in packaging that at a flea market might get you $20 or more I'd tell people something like $2 and they would still try to haggle me down. I had lots of non english speaking mexicans at my garage sale whichw as good as they bought a lot but I had people literally buying 0.50 cent items and paying me with pennies.
I cleared out a lot of stuff and made a little money off stuff that otherwise would have just gone to goodwill so that was good but all the effort of sitting outside all day, getting organized and setting stuff out to make a relatively small amount of money wasn't really worth it I think I'll stick to flea markets.
You figure at 0.50 cent per clothing item you'd have to sell 100 items just to make $50 bucks. I basically woudl give people a garbabe bag and tell them to fill it up and give me like $5 or $10.
I pretty much got my good money off white soccer mom types and just let stuff go for pennies to everyone else as that's all I coudl get.
Overall not terrible probably made about $150 but that was also putting some ads on craigslist for a bathroom vanity, pot rack, etc so a lot of it was craigslist pickups during my garage sale as opposed to strictly garage sale profits.
I wound up not labeling things. I had planned on making a everything on this table $1 everything onthis table $2, etc but people showed up early I didn't have time to get organied and just started throwing stuff out on the driveway so didn't really have any labels. Not sure if that worked out better or worse. Had I had labels saying a buck maybe people wouldn't have bought it or woudln't even have tried to haggle however at the same time not having prices maybe people felt they could get me down to nothing.
Overall though happy with the turnout. My gf's friend had a garage sale last week and had one person show up so I was kind of worried I'd go to allthe effort for nothing so at least I had a decent crowd made a buck and cleared otu my garage.
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Garage Sales / Do you guys spring for the classified ad in the paper?
« on: August 25, 2011, 08:05:13 AM »
Just curious if you guys spring for the classified ad in the paper or just advertise your garage sale on craigslist and those list your garage sale or yard sale sites?
In years past I've just used craiglist and it has been fine a friend recently had a garage sale she didn't list in the paper and had one person show up. I'm debating whether its worth the $35 to get an ad in the paper
In years past I've just used craiglist and it has been fine a friend recently had a garage sale she didn't list in the paper and had one person show up. I'm debating whether its worth the $35 to get an ad in the paper
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What's it Worth?? / What is this? And What's It Worth? 3D Picture/Scultpure Of Last Supper Porcelain
« on: August 24, 2011, 08:25:51 PM »
I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this? I'm curious about what it is as well as what it's worth.
I may have posted this a long time ago but seeing as how we have lots of new members figured maybe someone would know.
It's a 3D picture or sculpture of the last supper. Seems to be made out of porcelain or ceramic or something like that.
I may have posted this a long time ago but seeing as how we have lots of new members figured maybe someone would know.
It's a 3D picture or sculpture of the last supper. Seems to be made out of porcelain or ceramic or something like that.
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The Lounge / Vietnam Dong For Sale - Million Dong Lots $75 Free Shipping
« on: August 23, 2011, 10:40:35 PM »
I know you guys want my Dong lol. I got some Vietnam Dong for sale, selling million dong lots for $75 free shipping. If you buy 3 or more million I'll go down to $70 per million free shipping as well. Dong will be shipped First Class Mail with Signature Confirmation.
If you don't know about Dong your probably not interested but basically it's similar in logic and reasoning to why people are buying up Iraqi Dinars.
If you don't know about Dong your probably not interested but basically it's similar in logic and reasoning to why people are buying up Iraqi Dinars.
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Garage Sales / do you tag items at your garage sale?
« on: August 23, 2011, 09:45:32 AM »
I was just curious if you guys put tags on items at your garage sale? normally I do tags but was thinking about not doing tags and just saying make me an offer on what you like
I was thinking this for several reasons. A. maybe someone will offer me more money than I would have taken item 4. B. sheer laziness is save me the trouble of tagging. C. most people tend to haggle with you even if an item is tagged so why not skip the tags in just a go anyways.
I'm hoping to do a lot of bulk deals and bundling of items so thought this made more sense
just curious if anyone has had garage sales both ways in which worked out better
I was thinking this for several reasons. A. maybe someone will offer me more money than I would have taken item 4. B. sheer laziness is save me the trouble of tagging. C. most people tend to haggle with you even if an item is tagged so why not skip the tags in just a go anyways.
I'm hoping to do a lot of bulk deals and bundling of items so thought this made more sense
just curious if anyone has had garage sales both ways in which worked out better