Lynn’s eBay E-zine Volume II, Issue Number 15

When purchasing items for myself to sell on eBay, I have changed my rules regarding not spending more than $5 unless I know something about the item. I have also changed my rule about everything needing to be worth 10 times what I pay. I have really learned that I make my living by selling $9.99 to $20.00 items and this is where I have been focusing.

My new rule of thumb when out shopping is this:

If an item is priced at less than $3, I ask myself, “Will it bring $9.99 on eBay?”

If so, I buy it.

If it is priced $3 to $5, I ask myself, “Will it bring $15 on eBay?”

If so, I buy it.

If it is priced $5 to $10, I ask myself, “Will it bring $20 on eBay?”

If so, I buy it.

If it is priced over $10–I ask myself, “Can double my money?”

I am not looking for ten times anymore and am taking some bigger risks on more expensive–higher-quality items. My cost of goods sold is averaging about 15%. It is working and I encourage you to do the same!

Back to the road to the Boot Camp….

We will be holding a faux garage sale on Saturday morning at the hotel. The Westin won’t know what hit them! Each student will have $50 play money to spend on real items. Then we will spend the day researching, photographing, and listing those items.

For those of you who have read my 100 Best books, you know that one of my favorite charity sales of all time is right around Halloween. It was this past weekend and once again I stocked up. The fun part was that I got to buy things for the faux garage sale. I didn’t research any of the items in this huge pile as I wouldn’t want to “cherry-pick” the best things and take away the delight and earning potential of my boot campers. Be sure to catch my next ezine to hear some of their success stories. I hope that there is a $1,000 item in that pile!

There may still be a spot left in the Boot Camp. For more information, email me asap!

 

The Power of One

It is funny, but I have had two assistants since moving to California in 2002. My first assistant, Mari, left after two years. And now, I am sad to say, Mo (Maureen) is leaving also after two years. The packing/shipping/listing/girl Friday job is a two-year tour. And our two years have come to an end.

Maureen is going to be focusing more on her own eBay business and I am proud of how well she has been doing! Mo sells as “MosThisnThat” so check out her auctions here. While I was on the teleseminar call last week with Kevin Nations, Mo handed me a piece of paper that said “Holy Moley, I just sold a plate for $152.33!!” It was a Mary Engelbreit Sakura dinner plate. I typically don’t do well with Sakura–but I am looking for Mary Engelbreit–believe you me! By the way, this is more money than I have EVER gotten for a dinner plate (my record is $110). I have taught her too well!

Whoa!!!

Mo has assured me that she will be available to help when I get in a bind and that she will join me in our booth at eBay Live in Boston next year! She has become one of my dear friends and I know that she will still be around quite a bit. So you have not heard the end of Maureen yet!

So, to discuss the power of one. Now that I am alone I started thinking about how I have been adjusting my business to deal with the higher eBay fees and one of my ways is to list items in 1’s instead of 2’s. Let me give you an example, and this ties directly into what happened with Mo’s one plate.

If I have a piece of china or flatware that lists for $19.99 or more on Replacements or if Replacements is out of stock, I put it up as a single for $9.99. Even if I have fourteen of them (as I do the Williams Sonoma bowls shown below), they all go up as individual auctions. I will NEVER do a dutch quantity auction and list the items all on one auction–I think it is just too confusing.

If they don’t sell, I will move them into my eBay store at a fixed price ($14.95 for the Wiliams Sonoma bowls) and I will DO a dutch quantity listing for store items. I will only do a dutch auction with quantity when the item is being sold as a single. I think that if you do it with an auction that says has 2 salad plates but you have six of those available you will confuse your buyers. So, I just change the quantity to 14 and I am only paying one store fee (6 cents) each month. This is saving me 78 cents each month in my store. Wow!

As an ending note, I do think it is better to show them all as individuals store items when you can. As an example, when someone is shopping in my store and they see the William Sonoma bowl there will only be one auction item so they may think that there are not multiples available. The only way that they will know that more are available is to click on the auction and see the actual “quantity” available. I have thought about ways to deal with this–like saying “multiples available” in the title–but that takes up a lot of my 55 characters. You don’t want to say 14 William Sonoma Soup Bowls because you will get a customer that gets very angry when they realize that the 14 bowls are actually $14.95 each. Since listing these bowls several months ago, I have sold one bowl (I originally had 15).