Remember me .... ?

Remember me?

It's been a long time since my last blog.   Naughty, naughty me.    Have I been getting up to mischief and shenanigans, seeing as I have been too busy to even write my blog for nearly three months?

Umm ...  no.

You know that saying "When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going."

That absolutely, positively and definitely does NOT describe me.


I have been going through a boo-hoo, oh-woe-is-me, what's-the-use couple of months.

My new attempts at increasing my sales on the internet had seemed so good at the time.  I was vibrating with enthusiasm and chock-full of zealousness   

Instead of increasing my sales, all that ended up getting me was a strange feeling in my colon.


My 3 selling venues:

1)    Aaah Quicksales -  Quicksales, aka PissWeakSales.   I had been working madly, copying my listings over.   I was SO proud of myself.    The number there is now approaching 400 items.   Total sales in the last 10 weeks = 1 board game @ $9.99 and one book that ended up being a non-payer.


2)   Fishpond - the Amazon-wannabe online store where I sent in 3 huge boxes of books/DVDs.    The postage cost was nearly $20 a box, making a total of nearly $60.   This would be taken from the initial sales - so no cash outlay was necessary.   Sounded great, right?   They weren't sitting in my house, and I didn't have to worry about sending them.

They entered the items I'd send, and then from my end, I changed the prices to what I wanted for each item.

Well, at some point they decided to change the pricing structure to "generate quicker sales and cash for customers like me".     This was done without any communication to me.    This change meant that all the prices that I had put in on my items were replaced with a different price, guaranteed to move the item quickly.

You bet they moved quickly - faster than a zombie with an empty tummy - confronted with a member of Mensa.

 Here are some examples of the prices I got for items before I cottoned on to their new "pricing structure".

Serenity DVD   -   83 cents
Happy Elf DVD  -   65 cents
Battlestar Galactica Season 1 Box set   -  78 cents
Bridget Jones Diary DVD  -  79 cents
The Net DVD  -  79 cents
V for Vendetta DVD -   99 cents

Can you see why they were flying off the shelves!!!!   A lot of those were my own DVDs that I had very reluctantly parted with in an effort to try and get some more money to pay bills.  They were in Like New condition.

I WAS SO MAD!!!!    A lot of my items have sold, but my sales have only just paid off the postage and a whole $10 has been paid to me so far after nearly 3 months.    Can you hear the steam spurting from my ears????

They have a new policy now, where if any more items are sent in "you cannot ask your own price, Fishpond will set the price for you to move your stock quickly."    Did I mention that they get 17% commission for each sale - and take that out of the postage as well as the item.   So they don't really care if it sells for .99 cents.    I will no longer be sending anything there.   I had hopes for this selling venue, so I am very disappointed.

3)  eBay.  Sales still plummeting.   Then I got an email telling me that the cost of my store was rising from $29.95/month to $49.95 a month.   The email noted that eBay wanted to (in my own words) - "weed out the little man, and encourage the larger sellers" - hence the rise in fees.  The email suggested that I take a Webinar to increase my store's exposure to make it stand out from the '1000's of other stores on eBay."    Bah humbug!

I am gradually going through this video on Youtube, that was mentioned by Rachel on Ebay Underground.   This has some great tips - and I'm only about 20 minutes in so far.  It tells you how to Optimise and Market Your Ebay Store.   There are some other Ebay videos on there that look  helpful too.

I have given up on the adult clothing idea.  Didn't do so well there.    Lots of the clothing ended up having something wrong, such as a stain or tear, or pant legs that had been cunningly shortened in such a neat way that it wasn't easy to tell in the shop.    I am anal about clothing being perfect.  I was getting seriously stressed and out of my comfort zone.  So I got those clothes and took them back.   If I can't see them, I can't feel guilty.

On a lighter note.   As you know, my Mum is the clothing cleaner / ironing specialist.   When I gave her this pair of men's/youth's shorts, she cleaned and ironed them very nicely.

When I picked them up, she pointed out the tear on one leg with a shocked look on her face.

And mentioned what a shoddy job somebody had done of sewing it up.   She said she was going to have a go at doing it herself, but decided it was too hard.

Bwahahahahahaa!    I told her it was meant to look like that.

Her face was a sight to behold.


Sooo, lower sales = lower cash to spend on stock.  So my next blog will talk about what cheaper items I am picking up to stock my shop.

Until them, I am head down, bum up - listing, listing, listing !!

Wandering out of my comfort zone ...

After much contemplation of my navel (bellybutton lint up for sale soon!), and advice from other sellers, I took my first scary step into the world of adult clothing.  And when I say adult, I don't mean bras with tassles on the nipples.

Whoops, now where did he saunter in from?  


I followed some advice from my awesome new mentor, Ms Maggie and chose a non-scary item to start with - men's jeans.


I did the search for completed and found the top $ sellers in "used" men's jeans in Australia are:


True Religion
RM Williams
G Star
Nudie
Tsubi Ksubi Dee Dee  (try saying that when you're drunk)
Diesel


Following along in the decent sale range were:


Levi
Lee
Billabong
Quiksilver




Looking at sizing - some were rarer than others  - for example a lot less of Size 44 was up for sale - when I looked at the completeds for them - of the 31 listed - 26 of them had sold.   Interesting.


So I trotted off to my local Op Shop with $5 in my moth-infested purse.   This is a community-run op shop rather than a big name charity.   One plastic bag of clothing is $5.   I thought this was a good place to learn without having the fork out the huge amounts of the prices at the big name op shops such as Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul or Brotherhood of St Laurence.


It made it easier focussing on just one item.    I shuffled through the jeans with the list above in mind.   There was an awful lot of boring generic jeans (probably 80%) such as  Target and Kmart jeans which I rejected.  And some that looked like the owner had been fired out of a cannon whilst wearing them.    It was simple for my tiny brain because I was not over-whelmed with too many things to look through.  


I got a few pairs of jeans and then had a quick look at the shorts and a shuffle through the shirts (don't know anything about men's shirts yet!).


On the way home I drove past the local Salvos store with my nose in the air (it could have been my finger - sorry!)  Then the local St Vinnies had a red sign in the window saying "Sale" - so I thought I'd have a quick peek.


I sneered at their high-priced jeans muttering about highway robbery like a grumpy old bag.   Then I saw the sign above the books section.   Any 2 books for $1.   I hyperventilated.   I grabbed a salesperson, and they said - yes, any book - hardback, large or small.    I probably gave a moan of pain, because a woman peeked out from behind the crockery and stared at me.


I dug in my purse - empty.  I dug around in my handbag - empty.   I stuck a couple of fingers in my jeans pocket - and came out with $2.   Score!    I trotted out the door with 4 books in a bag.


I'm never going to be able to keep away from books.


This is what was in the bag of clothes that I got for $5.

First was the only pair of Levis on the rack - these are Levi Strauss 508.  Are these red-tab because of the label on the pocket?  These are in nice condition - and don't show any wear at all, except on the label on the back.   I'm confused by the sizing which is 78 - possibly this is American sizing?  I must rustle myself up a sizing comparison chart between different countries.

Looking these up when I got home, they don't look high on the wish-lists.  Not many for sale - and seem to sell rarely.  Going price between $10 - 20.  


These are Target brand longer shorts - but then I noticed the Tony Hawk on the label.  He's a famous skateboarder, so I assume these are skate-shorts.  These are in nice condition.  The colour is more a grey denim.

There are NO men's Tony Hawk shorts on ebay, only Boys, so I might have a chance with these.


These are Industrie brand.  I don't know why I picked these up, I just "thought" the brand sounded popular?   These are in nice condition except for wear on the bottom of the cuffs.

Looking up the Industrie web-site, their jeans go for $100.  But these don't have the right label.  Perhaps an older pair.  These are very normal looking jeans, with nothing to make them stand out.  There are no completeds on these - they are all the newer tagged ones.  These are probably a different Industrie label altogether.  


These are Saltwater long shorts.  I've never heard of this brand, but these were funky-looking shorts, with pre-made slashes, and a cool decal label on one leg.  These show a very small amount of wear.

Looking at Completeds only shows some very boring Saltwater brand jeans that are not even selling for $2.  Interesting.


Wrangler wasn't on my list either, but it seemed to ring a bell so I picked up these brown pants.   These have no size tag on them.  Made in Mexico of US fabric.  These are brown pants - not denim, but a heavy fabric with a bit of a weave on it.  Chinos?

All it has is this weird half-missing tattoo inside and this label that I can't figure out.   Can anybody help with the sizing from this tag, or is it useless?

My final item, was the only top that I could recognize.  This top is actually grey.  It's an XL size - but I think it might be a boy's shirt, as it's really not *that* big to me.   This says its a Majestic Dodgers Major Baseball League Genuine Merchandise.  It has no marks or wear.

There is nothing to compare this with on Ebay Australia - either sold or currently for sale.  Maybe a good pickup.


Now I have to wash these clothing, and hope that my iron still works.  It hasn't been used in a few years!!!


These are my books that I got.    

The two Terry Brooks are brand new.   Juicing books are very popular at the moment, as are self-sufficiency books.  I've already listed all these and hope to get $38 in total after sales.


So that was my baby-steps in jeans.   I can't see that I found any sure-fire winners, but at least I tried, right?


I might need a stiff drink (or 3 or 4) to recover.

Goodbye books :-(

I have had to come to a painful decision this week.


My ebay shop is approximately 85% books.   I worked hard to get 1,000 items in my store.  For the past few months I have been slogging away, keeping my stock at above 1,000.   I was very proud of myself.


Now I look at my sales figures and realise the harsh reality - books don't sell.    My sales are actually decreasing.  I thought having a magic big number of items in my store would bring the buyers.   My items are very reasonably priced compared to other sellers.


But now there's too much competition - from many fellow ebay.au sellers selling the same books as me, to overseas sellers - mainly from ebay.uk - flooding the Aussie market with cheap second hand books - to cheap brand new imported books from the US.     Don't even get me started on e-books.


It breaks my heart.   I love books.   Since I was a child, I spent all my time reading - I was (and still are) very much a loner, and an introvert, and prefer to spend time with a book than a human being.  Books have always been my companions, and they can take you to places you can only dream about, or you can learn about new things.  

So I've gone through my books in stock - I have about 2,000.    I have culled many that I am sick of the sight of - they got taken to the op shop.    I have now sent about 300 off to the Fishpond warehouse to sit there and hopefully sell.  At least I won't have to look at them anymore.


What I have left, I will either send to Fishpond next month, put up on the free Quicksales website or sell as bulk lots.  Only the rare and very popular shall stay.


My bookshelves are looking emptier now.   I have more space, but I don't know what to fill it with.   My ebay store is now hovering around 900.   Once I cull more books and send more off to Fishpond, it will get even lower.


In the past year I was looking for more cheap items to stock my store with.   I found board games - and the good ones I bought have sold, but I still have ones sitting around for over a year - and far too many of them that have parts missing.  I'm getting better at picking which ones to buy - but they are not filling much of a $ void.


Then I discovered VHS Videos - and they have added some much-needed extra income.  They are hard work - they need testing and cleaning.    Then my 2 favourite local op-shops that were the source for most of my cheap videos - THREW ALL THEIR VIDEOS IN THE BIN.  They no longer sell them.   I have very few places to pick them up cheap anymore.  Bang goes another source of stock.


I tried selling bulk lots of children clothes - and they seemed to sell in the beginning.   I thought they were going to save me - but now the sales have dried up, and I have lost the drive to keep buying more clothes just to have them fill my closet.


I feel like I am going backwards now.   I look around my unit which has stock lining the walls, and all I can see is money & effort spent for nothing.

I have had some sales with my other selling venues.


Fishpond.com.au -  When my 3 parcels of books that were picked up today reach them - they will have 300 of my items in their warehouse.   This is great because they take care of the shipping, emails, etc. to customers, and they pay pretty quick.   I have even noticed (obviously they get a good deal on shipping) that sometimes I also get a little extra from $1-2 extra which is a refund from the set postage of $4.99 that the customer pays.  Pretty good.  These items don't sell for much, because you have to undercut all the others selling the same item - but it is money in the bank.


So far this month I have made : $59.


Quicksales have also given me some sales.   I have been madly cutting and pasting across from ebay, and so far I have 320 items on their website.


In the past month and a bit, I have sold:


1 x video  $8
3 lots of Mills & Boons   $33
bulk lot of Clive Cussler books   $15
2 x board games    $20


So at a total of $73 - that's not too shabby.   The fees from all those sales have been less than a dollar in total.   I will definitely work harder on Quicksales.


I thought that I might try magazine lots - they're fairly cheap at only 20 cents, but we shall see.
I also try to pick up any vintage knitting pattern booklets.


Does anybody have any idea on some other items I could branch out into, that are low in cost ?????


I have no idea about clothes.
I will not even touch a pair of used shoes.


I'm in serious need of some ideas.   I'm finding it hard to get past not selling books.


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Now I'll put down my tiny little violin of pity that I'm playing and show you some sales I got this week:


These 2 x Diet Books only took a few days to sell:


Sold For:   $29.99
Paid:     50 cents

I always pick up horse/pony children's books when they're cheap and sell them as a bulk lot.  It's school holidays here, so I hoped these would sell.    There are 17 books in this lot.


Sold For:  $21.99
Paid:  about $3.50

I picked these books up on a whim to fill a bag of books for $5.   I have never heard of them before, and they were published in 1985 - so a bit vintage.  I had 3 and put them up separately.  They sold the next day to the same buyer.


Sold For:   $15
Paid:   50 cents

I've had these up for a couple of months.  I always pick up Tae Bo videos.


Sold For :   $18.99
Paid:    $1.00 (probably less)

These took a while to sell, but I was happy to wait because Linda Howard is a popular author.


Sold For :    $18.99
Paid:    $1.00

Due to my dwindling income, I am now on a vicious hunt to cut my expenses - both business and household.   I'll share some of my tips with you next time!

I am drowning in clothing ....

I am drowning in clothing .....   Children's clothing - and I have no children.

In my last post, you saw how I had snaffled a large amount of clothing for a good price.
I've gone through them all, and given them the sniff test and the eyeball test.    Then I have a very small pile of clothes to clean - only about 8 items.   Normally, only about 25% (at the very most) of the clothes I get from op shops need cleaning.  Most people (like me) always clean their clothes before donating.  It saves me a lot of time and effort.

I have a secret to preparing the clothes for sale.    They end up white where they're supposed to be ...  and stain-free, smelling nice, and ironed so flat you could skate on them.  They're like something from a laundry detergent ad.

This here, is my iron.

And here is my clothes line...

Oops, I forgot to mention, I don't have an iron, or an ironing board - and I've never used my clothesline, because I would have to battle weeds and ant nests to get to it.

But I have a secret to getting my clothes especially clean and ironed - that require me NOT needing these things.  

Here is my big secret:

Yep - that's my Mum.  She is a freak about ironing!  When I was a kid she ironed all day.  I'm one of four children so there was lots of clothing to keep her going - she even ironed socks and undies and would have ironed me if I had sat still long enough.

I have lunch with Mum & Dad every Saturday. One of the questions my Mum always asks is "Do you have any clothes for me?"  She grabs that bag of clothes with glee.   She craves it - she is salivating for those dirty clothes.  The bigger the stain, the better - she wants them to be nasty so she can battle them.  The next week she shows me the spotless item and talks about how she soaked it in napisan and did some voodoo stuff on it, then ironed the crap out of it and - there they are - the magical clean clothes.    What would I do without her?  She's awesome.  :-)

Yes, I did think for many years as a child that I had been adopted, and this is only one of the many many reasons why.


This is the bottom of my wardrobe.   This is all kids clothes for Ebay, and this is only one side of my robe:

I have them all in plastic bags sorted by Size and Boy/Girl clothes:

Yep, I've definitely got enough Size 1 Girl's clothes to put a Bulk Lot on ebay - must pull my finger out.   I would love to store the clothes in plastic containers, but basically they are either so large they won't fit in the wardrobe, or so small they don't hold enough of the clothes to separate the sizes.

I am gradually moving to these cute little stripey bags with the zipper on the top:

To keep a track of all these little people clothes that have invaded my house, I keep a notebook with tabs for size and Boy/Girl.  I add the new clothes as they come in, and note any marks or things that need to be mentioned in the listing.

I use Auctiva for my listings, and I keep an updated draft for each size boy/girl clothing listing and update them every week.     Then when there's a lot ready to go, all I need to do is take the photos and we're done.

Here's one of my current listings :
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120844030162&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT


This clothing stuff is all new to me.   I got interested in branching out into other things by my lovely, friendly, and very helpful mates on Ebay Underground.    They were buying interesting clothes (and other things) at low prices, and selling them for a good profit.       I got interested - I started looking at clothes in my op shops.     I wanted to get some clothes and have them sit in my store for 5 cents a pop until someone snaffled them up for a great price.

Then I hit a brick wall.  I realised that though the dream was great,  Ebay Australia is a completely different animal to Ebay USA or Canada.

I have a basic store - I pay $19.95 a month.

For this I can list books, CDs, Videos and DVDs for 5 cents each.  These are my specialties - these are my bread and butter.   For clothes or anything else I would have to pay a whopping  40 cents per Buy It now Listing.

Whoaahhhhh!  That's a big sucking hole in my profits there.   What if I upgraded my store to the next level up - for a mere $99.95  for a Featured Store.  What savings will I make now in fees?  Lots surely???

Bwahahahahahhahahahhhhaaaa!!!  Sorry, I just choked a bit then.

Wow - then I only have to pay 30 cents per listing.   Ummm - no thanks.

But I mean - what the hell?  Are those fees an incentive to pay nearly $100 per month just to have a store.  Really?   Are there monkeys running Ebay Australia?   (Actually monkeys would probably do a better job - cudos to those monkeys).

That throws the clothing range sold as single items out of my ball park.   I truly never see anything special that I can buy at a decent price here - and certainly never anything new with tag.   My cash for ebay stock is dismally small.   With all I'm learning at Ebay Underground, I'm getting better, but I'm still doing baby-steps.

As long as my local op shop sells the cheap kiddies clothes - I'll stick with my bulk lots.  (Their adult clothes are a bit ho hum - not worth selling on their own - and I really don't want to suck up those big listing fees).  It's a lot of work to do bulk lots, but it's fun to fill a bag of clothes and make my little numbered bags sorted by size (oh dear, I'm sounding a bit anal now ...) ,    and the sale when it happens is a nice amount in my otherwise lowly-priced items.

I said in my last blog I would talk about my videos that I got on my last op shop trip and give some pointers on selling them - this will have to wait until tomorrow now, I got carried away here.   :-)

The monkeys made me do it.

This is my first step into the cyber-world of blogging, please hold my hand as I waddle with baby-steps and let you see into my unsocial world.

Today, I went to my local op-shop (thrift shop to my overseas friends).  It is not affiliated with just one charity, but all proceeds goes to my local community & charities (Fire Brigade, State Emergency Services, local Animal Shelters and more).  Not only is this shop mega-cheap and clean - the ladies who work there are super-nice and work very hard.  I go there every week and they know me well.

The op-shop is located in a small house and the rooms are tiny.   Each room holds different clothing types - men's, women's, babies, children and larger-size women's clothing.    You fill a plastic bag with clothes for $5.   If you roll them up - you can fit a lot of clothes in one bag.  If there is one other person in the room it can become quite a wrestle with lots of "excuse me's" and quite astonishing feats of contortionism.  I also find it helpful to sharpen my elbows to ward off the grabbers - those ones that sidle up to you, and grab something from the rack right in front of your face!

I was innocently perusing the ladies nighties rack, when I noticed this shady character lurking in the corner.   I call him "Shane", after that great nob - Shane Warne.

Yes, there he was with his pants around his ankles - there were some nice silky nighties there, but there is no need for that kind of behaviour sir!

I kept one beady eye on him as I went through the racks.  I even found a few tops for myself - usually they are all too tiny or too large.   I haven't tried them on yet, but try them on later and hope that they'll fit me just fine and won't gape between my boobs to let the fresh air in, or lovingly strangulate my love handles.

I crept out the room - but as I did - Shane (pervy guy) "winked" at me.   Ewww.  I hope he made use of the small toilet and washed his hands later, the filthy thing.

Then I hit the children's room - filled with clothes for babies and younger kiddies.    It's a small room - with one rack low and one rack high up.   Now I'm vertically challenged, so I find having to reach up about 10cm above my head to shuffle through clothing is quite an effort.  I am sure in a few more months I will have one over-muscley shoulder and RSI in one arm.

I scored big with the kids stuff. There was lots of ultra-cute clothes - especially for girls.  Apart from the 4 tops for me - I filled 2 plastic bags with kiddies clothes.   That costed me a total of $10 - for what turned out to be 40 items of clothing - that's 25 cents an item.  Not bad, aye?

Here is a look at the pile of kids clothes I got:

Amongst them were these cute little skirts:

And these cute little dresses ...

I wish I could fit into the denim dress here :-) :

So, what happens now - I have a great honking pile of children's clothes, and nowhere to put them (certainly there are no children to put them on) ????

Did I mention that I also have bags of kids clothes in my closet?   There is no room for my own clothes, my clothes are of secondary importance as the *don't make me any money* !!

How do I sort through these cute (and sometimes very grotty) items of clothing, and what's the next step in getting these)  organised and clean enough to sell on Ebay.   What's my secret for getting these clothes clean and ironed??

Stay tuned.  I will answer this question and also talk about the video-stravaganza I found in the bric-a-brac section of the same op-shop.



Coming up, I will ponder life's great mysteries, such as:

~ Who the hell voted for Matt Damon as sexiest man in the world?

~ Are red-heads really going to be extinct - and should I feel guilty for not breeding and keeping them out of zoos?

~ How come men go all child-like in their old age and their bums disappear?   And how come women's bums triple in size, and they learn the delight of growing a beard/moustache combo?   I'd better start looking at some facial hair styling that will suit my face shape.  That old Big M is looming !!!