Month: May 2015

Sunday Funday

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Happy Sunday ya’ll!  I normally “sleep in” until around 9 am on Sundays, but today I woke up at 7 and decided to scout some yard sales with Steven.  We started off in Ocean Pines, where there are community yard sales every weekend, but we didn’t see a single sign, so we darted over to the flea market in Salisbury.  I was very surprised to see just as many vendors on a Sunday as there are on a Saturday.  I was able to score a pair of Miss Me jeans for $5, 2 pairs of Levi’s for $1 each and one pair of Levi’s with the tags still attached for only $2.  I figure just these 4 yard sale finds will bring in over $100 for me.  Not bad for doing something I love!  Yard sales are awesome! And they are not just for Saturdays!  Soaking up sunshine, shopping, and making money all at the same time, how could you not love yard sale-ing?!
After yard sale-ing, we went and caught some clams!  So much fun and free food, too!  We were able to fill a 5 gallon bucket to the top with clams, should make for some good clam strips tonight.  After clamming, I was pretty tired, but still set on going to goodwill.  Yesterday there was a 50% off sale at goodwill.  While I do love a good sale day, the best day is the day after a sale, when they put out all the new stuff they’ve been keeping off the floors until the sale ended.  I was able to score not one, but two Lilly Pulitzer dresses!  I was also able to find some high profit jeans and some items from Anthropologie.  I always look for items from Anthropologie when I’m at goodwill, they seem to always bring in decent profits from around $10 to $20.  
Here are a few of the items (not all) I scored today:
Oh, and here’s all the free food we “caught” today:
Sunday Funday

Recent Flips & Thoughts

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Hey guys!  I am finally finished my last college class!  Preparing for the semester to end brought my sales down to about $1,500 this month, but now that I’m finally free, my sales should see a boost!  
Remember those KEEN sandals I bought at a yard?  Well, I sold them for over $60!  I made a profit of over $45 (this is after all the fees and shipping).  I’m so glad it’s yard sale season!
Here are some of my other yard sale flips from the other week:
Hollister Jeans
Paid: $1
Profit: $17.06
American Rag Top
Paid: $1
Profit: $6.27
These items I would never pay more than yard sale prices for, maybe $1 or $2.  I’m actually surprised at how much profit the Hollister jeans brought in.  Distressed denim is one of the things you should always keep your eye out for.  Isn’t it funny how people will pay more for jeans that are all ripped up?
This week, I increased my average profit per item from $15 to about $17, not much, but still something.  I’m hoping to bring in at least $200 profit by the end of the month, which means selling about 12 more items.  Right now, I have 107 items listed which is way under my goal.  I really haven’t brought in much this month because I haven’t bought much.  It goes to show, you get out what you put in.  My busy schedule brought my shopping to a bit of a halt, but thankfully it’s starting to pick back up again!   June comes with no excuses!  I no longer have to worry about class and can fully focus on eBay.  With this freedom, I plan on taking at least one trip to a goodwill outlet center in June. 
I’ve been talking to Steven (the boyfriend) about writing an eBook lately.  I’m not much of a writer, but he is amazing with words!  There are a lot of tips and secrets that I would be more willing to share in an eBook, including a list of very common brands that always resell.  There are about 3 brands of jeans that I find at goodwill every single time and can buy for full price ($7) and make about $15 profit.  
My profit per item isn’t very high, this makes me have to shop a lot more than other sellers.  My sell-through rate is about 50%.  This means if I want to make a $600 profit in a week I would need to list somewhere in the ballpark of 80 items per week, 100 to be safe.  For reference, today I broke a personal record and listed 25 items (go me!), and really it didn’t take too long, so this is very doable. 
Steven and I are also looking into relocating to sunny southern paradise, Florida, sometime in the near future.  We are not fans of the winter!  One factor in our search is the proximity to a goodwill outlet store, and the beach of course!  At these stores, clothing is sold by the pound so the average article of clothing is between $1 and $2, this is a lot less then the $7 average I’m paying.  This would allow much higher profit margins on individual items.  So, I’d be making more money (and would never have to brave the winter again)! 
Until next time!

Recent Flips & Thoughts

Saturdays are for Yard Sales

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It’s finally that time of year, the best time of the year, yard sale season!  I love finding items to resell on eBay (and for myself!) because they are normally a lot cheaper than the local thrift stores.  Most of the time I can get clothing items for around $1, and today I even scored a like-new pair of KEEN sandals for $1!  For those of you who don’t know about KEEN footwear, you should definitely keep an eye out for them, a used pair in good condition can easily fetch you $50 on eBay.

These are the KEEN shoes I picked up!

When I am sourcing yard sales I will normally pick up things I wouldn’t ever bat an eye at at the goodwill, but because I can get a pair of Hollister jeans for $1, I figure I can make some kind of profit from them, and if not I didn’t invest too much.

Some of the yard sales today, each item was $1, and a lot was from American Eagle!

For those of you who don’t know, I just started living off my eBay income this year.  I quit both my part time jobs and started focusing more on eBay.  I haven’t been able to make as much as I wanted because I still had a class to finish.  Class is ending in less than a week (yay!), so I no longer have that excuse.  It’s finally time for me to turn my second bedroom into an eBay room and start working towards my goal of making $1000/week.  With all of this income I have been receiving with eBay, I must start tracking my profits better.  I am looking into purchasing the Easy Auctions Tracker spreadsheet so I will know exactly how much I make and will be able to track mileage.  This spreadsheet extracts everything from eBay and lets you know your profit or loss (but, hopefully not) using all the fees and shipping costs.  I currently use an Excel sheet that I made, it seems that each item is off by a little, never more than a dollar, but I would like to be as accurate as possible when tax time comes around.  I’m new to being a business owner and am looking forward to getting some tips from the small business center in Salisbury.

Saturdays are for Yard Sales