eBay seller

Blame it on the Sunshine!

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Once again, I’ve been MIA, but I can’t help but to be outside in this beautiful 70 degree weather!  One of the biggest perks of selling on eBay is that you can choose your own hours.  When you want to spend your days outside, just work at night.  If you want to go out for a night with the girls, just work during the day.

I have been doing bad.  Real bad.  I haven’t listed anything since March 16.  And it’s hurting, my sales have slowed down to about one a day.  It really goes to show you get out what you put in.

Also, I apologize about not posting my profit screenshots – my computer is temporarily disassembled while I try to replace the fan.  But here are a few of my recent sales:

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Lucky Brand Cargo Pants

Paid: $4

Sold: $29.99 + $6.35 S&H

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Lilly Pulitzer Dress

Paid: $6

Sold: $49.99

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Lucky Brand Jeans

Paid: $4

Sold: $39.99 + $6.35 S&H

For all the men out there – and all the women trying to convince their men to join them in thrifting – I am going to share with you some of my boyfriends recent flips in the next post (his flips are much larger than mine – and he sells some pretty cool manly things!)

Thanks for reading!

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Blame it on the Sunshine!

Feelin’ Lucky

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Happy St Patty’s Day!  I hope there is luck on your side today!  But, eBay selling has nothing to do with luck.  It is about your determination and your willingness to move pass the negative and to constantly learn from your mistakes.  The other day, I had a buyer open a return request for $30, which I have set to automatically accept.  She sent an item back – the wrong item, something that I have never had in my inventory.  I was furious.  I called eBay and complained, which only made the situation worse.  I threatened her with a police report.  I was fuming all day thinking about it.  Then it hit me, why was I going to let this one $30 sale ruin my day and make me consider quitting eBay.  Karma will take care of that person, I just need to let it go.  You cannot avoid the scam artists.  They are everywhere.  I hear so many stories of people giving up after one bad thing happening to them.  As a seller, you need to realize people will try to take advantage of you – but those people are far and few in-between.

Now, aside from the ability to let go, you must really have passion to become successful.  I love clothes and fashion and can often be found reading fashion blogs and magazines.  I sometimes go to fancy stores to look around at the brands they have to offer.  My boyfriend started off trying to sell clothes, but he found his passion in shoes.  We both put time in to research what’s trending and selling.  One of my favorite research platforms are blogs.  Unfortunately, my three favorite bloggers are no longer blogging.

Everyone has a different strategy when it comes to selling.  One of my favorite bloggers who no longer blogs (Maureen) buys things mainly from the Goodwill Outlet and sells them for about 20x what she paid for them, but the total sale is a lot less than what I’m used to (maybe around $20).  I, on the other hand, try to stay far away from the Goodwill Outlet – it can be a very scary place!  I buy mostly jeans, which are usually $6.99.  I started out buying ones that I could sell for at least $20, but now try to stick with ones I can sell for at least $40.  I dabble in shirts, dresses, shoes, purses, and things, but I love selling jeans.  I can crank out a jeans listing in 3 minutes.

As far as strategy goes, I’ve seen people having success having under 100 things listed, while some people have 1000 listing – it really depends on how much you are selling items for and your sell-through rate.  Personally, I am at my all time lowest with around 120 listings – hoping to get to 200 by the end of March.

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Feelin’ Lucky

February Profits

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Please don’t hate me!  I’m a little late (only like 16 days…) on updating you on my February profits – but here it is:

feb

In February, I made $1333.24.  For about a week or two in February, I consistently listed 5 items a day, but have since fallen way off track.  However, my profits are still outstanding for putting in around 20 hours of work for the month of February.  For those of you interested in the profit program I use – please refer back to my January profit report.

March has probably been one of the worst months of me getting things listed.  I listed 8 things today, and I think that’s probably all I’ve done this month.  That being said, I’ve still made over $500 profit in the first two weeks.  I’m going to really try to start listing 5 items a day again.  I hope that soon, I can get my eBay income to be greater than my employer paid income.

For those of you on the fence of starting eBay, just do it.  As you can see, I’m maybe putting in less than 5 hours a week and seeing a return of about $250/week!  Think of what you could do in 40 hours a week!

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February Profits

Updated Jan Profit + Sales + BOLO

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Totally knew this was going to happen….the second after I hit post on my January profit post – I sold another item!  That makes my January profit over $1000!  My goal in February is to list on average 5 items a day.  This goal may seem small to some, but this is my “side hustle” and I still would like to have some time for myself!

Now, we are only less than 3 days into February and I haven’t listed a single item yet (which means I’m going to have to catch up and list 10 today and 10 another day instead of the goal of 5) but I still have made a $90 profit.

 

I wanted to talk about something that I have only recently found to be true.  The quality of your listing < the quantity of your listings.  Now this is only to a certain extant.  I used to spend upwards of 15 minutes on a listing, but now that this is my side business, I try to spend the least amount of time possible (averaging about 6-7 minutes per listing).  I used to use a light set-up, white background, and a Canon Rebel.  I now use my ceiling fan light, hardwood floors, and cell phone.  And you know what?  My sell through rate remains at about 50-60%.  If anything, I now price my items higher because I’m not worried about them selling all that fast and I have went from a 1 day handling time to a 2 day handling time.

I really cannot believe that I spend half as much time on my listings and selling just as much (in proportion to how much I list).  I wish I had known this all along, but if someone told me that, I probably would not have believed them.

Here’s something I sold today (note the crappy cell phone picture):

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GAP Jeans

Paid: $6.67

Sold: $29.99 +$6.35 S&H

Check back for a weekly profit update!

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Updated Jan Profit + Sales + BOLO

End of January Profit Report

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T-2 Hours until February 2016!  The first month of the year flew right by!  I accomplished a lot of personal goals (joined the gym, lost 5 lbs, purged my closet) and had an awesome month reselling.  This month, I’ll be honest – I didn’t list much….at all.  I estimate less than 50 items the whole month.  Regardless of my lack of listing, I still made out!  Mind you, eBay is now my “side hustle” so I’m not solely relying on income generated from eBay.  I will tell you that my eBay income is the only money I use for food, gas, and entertainment.  So if I’m not making money reselling – I’ll be starving and riding a bike everywhere….

Without further adieu – here is my January profit (which could increase in the next 2 hours since its only 10pm!)

Jan Profit

$995.24…So close to $1000!  Also, this is before taxes, so I set aside about $300 to pay taxes down the road.

And if you are wondering about this nifty program I use it’s called easy auctions tracker.  It is the best program I have found so far – it links everything with eBay so you don’t have to do any importing or flipping from excel to eBay.  You can buy it here (this is an affiliate link, I do get $5 if you purchase through this link, but if you don’t wish for me to receive any bonus, I still recommend you buy the program, it’s awesome!  And if you do purchase through this link – thank you!)

Purchase easyauctionstracker -> here

Check back this week for recent sales!  Happy thrifting!

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End of January Profit Report

The Year of the Blog

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New year, new blog!  flippingthrifty.com finally became available and is now my blog!  I had been waiting for this domain to be available for some time now.

This year I am determined to revamp my eBay selling and my blog.  I’ve definitely neglected both towards the end of 2015.  My profits for 2015 are impressive considering I only went full time for a few months, I unfortunately had a very inaccurate profit calculator towards the beginning of the year, but later on, I discovered easy auction tracker and fell in love with it! It is such a great program to compute your monthly and yearly profits.  In 2015, I profited about $20,000.  Pretty awesome considering I went only about 6 months full time, and by full time I mean about 20 hours a week!

Already 2016 is off to a great start!  I have profited right around $700 for the first three weeks.  I probably would’ve done a lot better had I listed some things, but I’ve been rather lazy these first few weeks.  Starting February, my goal is to list at least 20 items a week -not a lot, but keep in mind I now have a full-time corporate job.  My goal with this blog is to encourage everyone that they can find the time to sell on eBay!  It is easy and not very time consuming.  For me, 20 items a week will compute to less than 2.5 hours of actual listing/picture taking and probably about 3 hours of thrift shopping (which, let’s be honest, isn’t really work!)

In February, I plan to have a more structured blog, with weekly profit breakdowns and sales.  What do you guys want to see more of?

 

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The Year of the Blog

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

Birkenstocks

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One of my better flips this week has been a pair of Birkenstocks.  These 60’s style hippie shoes are making a huge comeback.  New from the Birkenstock website these shoes cost over $100!  On eBay you can fetch close to that on some models, depending on how quick of a sale you’re looking for.
I bought these recently at a Goodwill in Delaware for $8 and sold them for $49.99 + $12.35!
It’s really important to know about current trends and hot brands.  For me, I learn through magazines and social media sites.  Another good idea to learn some brands and trends would be going to a fashion forward secondhand store, like Uptown Cheapskate.  Just browsing the racks will give you a good idea of what is popular now.  The prices are usually pretty similar to what I price my items on eBay, I probably price a little higher on most items (and some, I price way more, like that recent flip of the Kate Spade dress.)  It’s usually not a good place to source because of the close-to-none profit margin, but it is a great place to gain some brand knowledge!  
EBay seller blogs can also be a good way to catch up on brands.  Bloggers often use the term BOLO, meaning “be on the lookout for.”  These are brands that are usually hot sellers on eBay.  Of course, bloggers want to help you out, but we also don’t want to give away all of our secrets so there are some brands we keep to ourselves.  
For some people it’s easier to learn just by doing.  Steven is getting into the eBay scene and isn’t too keen on brands, so he started by looking at fabrics.  Things that are silk, wool, or cashmere seem to do well.  After finding things that are made of quality material he uses the eBay app on his phone to look up the “completed listings” for a similar item from the same brand.  He also keeps an eye out for current trends like herringbone and elbow patches.
Getting started with eBay will take lots of education.  You will need to know brands, trends, time management, and money management.  Money management is probably the toughest one.  You have to put in money to make money.  When I was starting off, I was definitely “in the hole” financially.  I had invested probably $500 in inventory and it took a while for me to recoup my investment.  It was definitely well worth it though.  Being an eBay seller means I get paid to do my favorite thing, shop!  It also gives me the freedom to make my own schedule and I love to see that the time I put in directly influences my earnings.  

Birkenstocks

Goal: 100 Listings!

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I’m still here!  I have been a little busy with school lately (and let’s be honest, enjoying the nice weather!), but I’m still eBaying – just not as much as the last couple months.  I have been averaging about $50 profit a day which is slightly under my goal.  That being said, I probably have been putting in less then five hours of work a week.  My goal is to put in at least 20 hours of work next week and list 100 items.   The most I’ve ever listed in a week was probably about 50 listings, so this is a big goal for me.
Here have been a few of my thrift flips from the past month:
Vintage Motorcycle Jacket
Profit: $28

Lucky Brand Jeans
Profit: $12.81

Ralph Lauren Blazer (Sold for $99 even with the terrible cell phone picture!)
Profit: $81.28

Minnetonka Sandals
Profit: $11.59

Pikolinos Sandals
Profit: $28.42
About 75% of my items I only profit around $10-$15.  It doesn’t seem like much, but those small profits add up fast.  And to think, each listing only takes about 15 minutes, at most, to post.  That’s like $1/minute!  I do get the occasional item where I profit over $100.  A couple weeks ago I sold the Kate Spade dress from a previous post for $200 and profited a nice $121.01!
I really have been slacking on posting and shopping this past month.  Hopefully, I will be back in action in the next few weeks and working on my goal of being able to make at least $50,000 a year!  

Goal: 100 Listings!