Welcome Autumn !!!

Welcome awesome autumn!!  I love you!   Moderate sunny days, foggy cold mornings.    Lots of excuses for me to sit around in my jim jams and drink tea and eat hot crumpets, and start to hide myself inside layers of clothing and read lots of books.  Then on to welcome wonderful winter.     
Goodbye sucky summer - I hate you with a vengeance. 


Last week was GREAT for sales - I ended up making over $500 - which was my initial goal to make each week to actually survive on my eBay shop.


Remember, the two exciting radio books I mentioned in my last blog, that I had up for auction?  I had crazy men circling me making offers of $30.   I sensed something must be special so I fobbed them off with my special "crazy-old-farts-bat" and waited it out.    It was 1 minute to go, and one book was at $9.99, and the other at $30.99.   I was disappointed and then whammo, the price jumped up to $91 on one of them at the last second.   I was very happy with that.   $100 for the 2 books is pretty good (even sharing half with my friend Sue who found them).


The thing that tipped my sales, is the bulk lots of children clothing that I am now putting up.    They are saving my bacon, and I was actually able to pay all my bills for this month because of these.


I sold a couple of bulk lots of girls clothes - size 000.   One lot sat there for about 2 months and I was getting bored with them when a lady jumped in and bought them.  It turned out that she had been expecting a boy, and when the baby popped out, well the plumbing was all wrong :-).  She'd prepared for baby boy, so she was desperate for those girl's clothes !!     These sold for $49.99


I put another lot of Size 000 up and they sold within an hour.  There was lots of pretty dresses in this lot so I probably should have upped the price.   These sold for $49.99.


Then these two lots sold on the same day.  I nearly swallowed my tongue.


This lot of Size 2 Girls Clothing:

Then one hour later, this lot of Size 5 Girls Clothing sold:

I probably should have asked more for these.  I'm still testing the waters as to what price each Size will go for.   I'll be nudging the prices up for the bigger sizes.   At the moment I'm just happy to have the money to pay bills.


I eyeballed my games yesterday, and decided that I would get rid of the ones that are incomplete.   They make me feel down and overwhelmed when I look at them so they have to go.   It felt good to clear some space.


I sold a few board games this week:


~ A set of 4 wooden Scrabble tile holders -  $15  (I paid $2 for the game. There are tiles too, but they are incomplete.  I got my money back just on the tile-holders)


~ The Game of Life  - $16.    I bought this from the usual over-priced Salvos for $5.  I *thought* it was worth a lot more, but when I got home.  Bah!   Glad to get rid of it.


~ Glenn Baker's Rock Academy - $17.   I was SO glad to see this game go.  I've had it for a year.   Goodbye !!!


~  Witch : Nightmare 3 video board game  ~ $19.99.   I paid about $2 for this.   I LOVE the Nightmare games they are good cash-earners.


~ Zombie : Nightmare 2 video board game ~ $18.   I think I paid $1 for this one.


~ Media Magnate Board Game - $7.50.   This was one of 3 games I'd had for more than a year.  I wanted them to go, so I put them at auction with a starting price of $7.50.  This was the only one that sold.


Videos:
This is my new secret seller.  I saw them at my local junk shop (Asian $2 store) for $2.95 and bought it for myself.  Then I got home and looked them up on eBay.  Someone was selling them for $11.99.
Should I try it?   I did.

It's not a great profit, but there is one other seller out there that has it at this price too.  I have now sold 10 of these @ $11.99 for a total of $119.90.  They costed me $29.50 - so a total profit of $90.40 is not to be sneered at.   My problem now, is that I have cleaned out my local junk shop of these, and need to go on the hunt for some more.


I sold this video a couple of days ago.  It was one of those *trashy* videos that was being thrown out at my local Op Shop (mentioned in an earlier blog).  It needs a mention, all on it's own.

This piece of cinema gold is going to a delighted man in Germany, who is paying $21 for Airmail postage.  Thank you !!!


Not many video sales this week:


~ Little Mermaid 1 & 2  -  $11.99
~  An Evening with Max Boyce - $9.99


Books I will talk about in my next blog.  I have some new BOLOs that I have found.


Oh, also the upcoming changes to eBay Australia that are coming in March.   They are updating eBay Australia?   Really, that old dinosaur?   It's about bloody time !!!!


How will the changes affect me?  Am I weeing myself with glee over the huge savings I will make with the changes, am I angry over yet another load of crap forced on the little eBay shop owner, or am I wondering what all the fuss is about.   (hint:  only 2 of the above).

Board Games + Growing Up with Them & Selling Them

Board games!   I loved them as a kid and as an adult.  Many happy memories on our summer holidays of playing UNO and Tri-Ominoes and How to Be a Complete Bastard (whoops!!).


Some board games bring back memories of my early childhood - especially the ones with the same boxes - Masterpiece, Cluedo and Scrabble.  Getting blisters on my finger playing Ants in Pants.     Ah, happy memories of my lovely little brother grabbing the game board and throwing the entire thing in the air when he knew he wasn't going to win.   Then doing a fantastic imitation of a fly-sprayed blow-fly on the floor.     Happy days.


I still have my packet of Dukes of Hazzard UNO that I bought as a teenager.   Boy I thought those two men were hot in that show!!!!    My teenage heart *yearned* for them.

Bwahahahah!  You didn't think I meant limp Bo & Luke!   Hah!   I have better, more refined, singular taste in men, even at that age.   Imagine my dismay when I found that instead of putting Enos on the UNO cards, they had that putz Cletus.  Those cards went back in the box, and I never used them again.     They're in a little box with the other things I'm secretly a little embarrassed about but absolutely will not part with.

Australia has some great old board games - many of them revolved around horse-racing, drinking, gambling and driving cars in the outback.  Because apparently that's all we do here.   I remember one game we used to play had a little foam esky that the game came in, instead of a box.   Classy as.

I love Trivial Pursuit and I love word games like Scrabble and Boggle.   I have a built-in spell-checker.  I anally spell-check menus, road signs and anything else I can slap my peepers onto.   

I hate games like Monopoly and Chess that you have to think ahead and plan.  My tiny brain lives in the right now (or even ten minutes ago) - not five, ten or fifteen minutes into the future.

Board games was my new venture on Ebay after selling only books.   It was a new subject to learn about.

This is all the games I have listed on Ebay:

Yes, they're nearly up to the ceiling.  Some of these I've had for over a year.  At 40 cents a month on Feebay to keep them up, they have to sell quick or they become a little money vacuum hidden inside a lovely box.      I have found a non-Ebay selling site, Quicksales.com.au  where I can park these lazy little squatters and get them moved on with no listing fee.  I need to do that this week.  This site is probably similar to Bonanza, in that you don't get many sales, but when you do, the fees are very low.

This is one of my piles of "To Be Checked" board games.     

The other pile is in my family room.    The other problem with board games is you can't be sure all the items are in the box.  I spend a lot of time holding boxes above my head and squinting at the Contents list,  sneakily slicing through boxes that are sticky-taped up so I can peruse the contents.

I hate the sight of an "AS IS" sticker on a game box.  Either it is all there - or it isn't.  Please let me know, so I don't have to arse around on the op shop floor with people tripping over me.

Having said that I love it when you get to push the lid back on the box and it does a loud farting sound. Very very satisfying.  Please excuse my game sir, I have no control over it.

And here one of my piles of games that don't have all the contents, but I think could sell as parts - these are just the ones where I have kept the box.  I also have a box full of miscellaneous game parts from different games.  I will be using Quicksales to put these pieces up to.   I still have to do that.   Must pull my finger out.

Remember that Scrabble game I talked about last week that I left behind and then found the price was good.  I beetled back there first thing Monday morning, and found the game was still there.  Yay!   I forked over $5, hurried home and put it up on Ebay.

One hour later, I got this: 

This customer paid nearly $20 to get it posted to them.  Hmm, think I under-priced it.  Live and learn.

Remember the other Scrabble game I mentioned last week?  The Sydney 2000 Olympics one.  There were others up at $8 that weren't selling, so I didn't price mine too high.   I put it up, and then one day later:

I have given my sister my BOLO list for board games as she is also a keen op-shopper.   Yesterday she found me this one for $1.  This is always a sure-fire seller in Australia.

I put it up when I got home.  Then one hour later:

She also found me Nightmare III for $2 which I have put up, and also Cluedo (which sadly was missing all the murder implements). 

I wish all the sales were nice and quick like the above-mentioned, but as you can see by my photos I have lots of games that are taking up space and not paying rent.  A lot are ones I bought early when I didn't know what to look out for, or I didn't check to see if all the contents were there.   

Others are just bombs that nobody would bother using even to start a bonfire with.

The only thing that will move these now is my free-to-list website.   Sometimes I want to take them back, but I can't find myself willing to part with them - after all that time I spent photographing them and counting all the blasted cards.  I guess I'll give them a free holiday on Quicksales for 6 months or so and then give them their marching orders.

I've enjoyed branching out into games, they have added some much-needed income - but like anything else, they are hard work.

Do you sell many games?   What games are your sure-fire winners?

This Week's Finds

I have been slack with my blogging this week - but now it's Saturday which I consider my day off.   I have had lunch with the parents, and Mum has some new tiny people clothing to de-stain.   :-)


This week has been a good one in sales - but I'll talk about them tomorrow.    I have found a few interesting things.  I have gone out of my comfort zone and bought some children's toys.  Not little ones - but great big honking ones that run on batteries.  I don't even want to think about packing them for postage, and I haven't even tested these to see if they work, and I certainly haven't looked at the completed's for these.  They sit in the corner mocking me, but I am determined to get through my mountains of unlisted Videos and Books that have been there for anywhere up to 6 months.


Here they are.  These ones costed me $1 each.

This little thing costed me 50 cents.   No books with it unfortunately.

I pounced on this.  It screamed retro-80s at me.  It costed me $3.  When I did some research, I realised that there is supposed to be a booklet that it comes with that actually allows you to *use* the blasted thing.   It just beeps and flashes and me when I press the buttons and I'm beginning to wonder if it would fit down the loo.  Not sure if it's worth putting up on its own.

I saw this and it was New in the Box, so I forked out $3.    When I got home and pressed the "Try Me" button all I heard was the sound of crickets, and some choice swear words.  I've never heard of this show.   I don't want to take it out of the packaging to test it.    I will probably regret buying this one.

Yay, yay!  I snapped this one up.  The Nightmare game is a good seller, and even though I forked out $4, I know I can get at least $20 for this.   This one is in very good condition, so maybe more.

At $2 I couldn't go past the 2000 Sydney Olympics Edition Scrabble.    This is also in nice condition.

When I was at my Salvos this morning, I saw this game and passed it by - because it was $5.   All their games are $5 or more and they are NEVER half price.   *grumble grumble*.     I thought I'd go home and research it first - my purse has been on a severe diet lately!     Well, then I found these in the completeds:

Aarrgghh!  That's what I get for being a tight-wad.   And you know I will be scuttling back there on Monday morning when they re-open.  Did I place that game at the bottom of the pile, and put others games on top to hide it?   *looking shifty*   Maybe I did ... Maybe I didn't.     (Hint:  I did   ;-))


I found this little iron trivet  - 50 cents - isn't he just gorgeous!!  This one is not leaving the house.  He will look nice sitting up against the wall on the kitchen bench.  I will NOT be placing hot things on his little birdy face.

Those were the only interesting things I got apart from more books and videos.  I had some interesting sales, and I will share them with you tomorrow - with perhaps some more information on what videos to look for.   I love videos now, they are boosting my sales figures.  I'm not sure if kids toys will be my forte, but I am dipping my toe in the pond.  It's a little tepid.   :-p