No, that clicking sound is not my knees ...

Ebay sales are plummeting.  I know from my Ebug friends, that it is the same all over the world right now.   We have started a "clicking" campaign - where we form groups and click on items in each others stores because it has been rumoured that this will somehow push you up in the search listings and boost your sales.    So far - still crickets for me.  


Having said that, I love looking at my fellow groups items and seeing what they are selling.  I wish I could find the range of awesome items they have (and get the prices they are asking).   I hope that my clicking helps their sales.  I think it's awesome that we can help each other out in this way.   I think the jury is still out on this one, but it costs nothing to try, right?


These are my sales for the past week:


May 1st - Tuesday - $25.98
May 2nd - Wednesday - $28
May 3rd - Thursday - $14
May 4th - Friday - $35.22
May 5th - Saturday - $3.79  -    woohoo!
May 6th - Sunday - $17
May 7th - Monday $7.12


Giving a grand weekly total of $131.11


My weekly goal for sales is $300 - with this I barely scrape through - and some of the utilities bills get put on the credit card.


For a while there, a couple of months ago - I was up to $500 a week which allowed me to eat/drink and pay my bills.

Now that my ONLY income is getting sucked into the great Grimpen Mire - I need to find more sources of income.     Much as I'd like to join the fetish club and sell items of my used underwear and socks on fetish web-sites, I think I'll hold off on that for the moment. 

I have not yet given up on the idea of selling a fart in a nicely wrapped jar.  The cost of outlay is minimal, but I'm just not sure what ebay category to put it under.

I have 2 other sites where I sell items.  I use the word *sell* loosely.   On one of the websites I only had a few items up and it has sold one thing in the last year.     This is Quicksales.com.au - a site similar to Bonanza in the US.    No fees to put the items ups - low final sellings fees, but not many sales.   I have spent the last week copying and pasting like an insane beast on one day, and then taking photographs the next.  I managed to copy over my board games (about 20), and also my bulk lots of books (about 30).   Next, I hope to start adding my videos.   Whilst I'm doing this, I'm not managing to put much new stuff on Ebay - but considering I now have 1,000 items and am making diddly-squat, I'm really not that fussed right now.  I'm just relisting items that end.

I'm interested to see if Quicksales lives up to their name, now that I've got more items up, but I think in my mind I'm already calling it Pissweaksales.    I keep plodding along and adding more stuff up - once it's there it can sit there for ages, so the effort is worth it (I hope).   I'll let you know if anything happens.


The other website is Fishpond.com.au.      They used to sell mainly books, and then added an option where you could sell your second hand books through the web-site.   Since then they've added DVDs, CDs, Video Games and many other things.  A couple of years ago just before my marriage went tits-up, I was making $600 a month on this web-site.  I had so many book sales, I couldn't keep up with posting them.    Of course, then everybody else jumped on the bandwagon, and now my sales on there are ---- WAIT FOR IT .....   $6 a month.    Yep, that sucks big time.     Especially when it takes them about 3 weeks to pay you for the sale.


Then the other day I got an email about their new thing called "Smartsell" - where you send them a box of books/DVDs/CDs/Computer Games.  They store it in their warehouse, put the items up and take care of posting them out for you when they sell.  The good news is they pay you in 2 days (after taking their cut of course).    


I dithered over this.   You had to pay $15 per box of goods to get them sent to their warehouse.   I sent a message to them asking what the limit was on the box size.


The reply I received was "just a normal-sized box."

I considered that one for a while, and wondered what they'd think if my idea of a normal-sized box was one that a new refrigerator came in.   I stamped down on my snarky inner voice, and considered my options.    


The boxes I had (whoops, are they are all ones that have held bottles of wine, how interesting), were quite small.   I couldn't imagine fitting much in them.   I finally bit the bullet and got a decent-sized box, but I had to BUY the darn thing at the post office for $4.50.


I couldn't fit many books in it still.  I needed to maximise the amount of items I could squeeze in to justify the $15 postage.    I looked at the CDs and DVDs and computer games that I still hadn't put up on Ebay (and my own that I didn't want).  I could fit a lot of these in the box.   So I stuffed it full - and managed to fit 78 items in the box.  It bulged at the edges, so I taped it to within an inch of its life.

The courier picked it up yesterday.   So they're winging their way off to Sydney and should get there tomorrow.  Fishpond should have the items uploaded on their website by early next week.    All I need to do is check that they aren't giving the items away at way too low prices, and sit and wait and see if this will generate me any money.   


I have my fingers, toes, and eyes crossed.


In my last blog, I mentioned the two prints that I was selling for a friend.  These two auctions ended over a week ago.


They didn't go for the high price that we had hoped, going on past sales, but I needed the money at the time, so we can't be too greedy.  (or can we ???)  - *hint: I certainly can*


These are very collectable, so keep an eye out for these by J H Lynch.

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).

Some Sales For the Week + More on Videos

I had a mish-mash of sales this week from every category, which was nice.


I sold this bulk lot of Girls Size 1 clothing (30 items) for $49.99.  The buyer paid straight away, and it costed them $20 in postage to get it there.   Yay, some more space in my wardrobe to fill with more kiddies clothing:

 <<<<<< WARNING : Whine of the Week >>>>>>>>>


Then there was this second lot of clothing - Girls Size 6 Clothes (29 Items) - this actually sold on the 31st of January for $49.99.    I was very happy with this sale in an otherwise terrible sales week.

 The buyer contacted me one minute after buying it and said "Can I pay on pickup - I only live in (somewhere less than 10 minutes from me).   I replied yes, and told her I'd be home that day until 5pm.  

Nothing.   Then on the 3rd, she phoned and said "Can I pick it up on Wednesday 9th?  I'll be there at 9am."  I thought that was a bit long to wait, but I agreed.


Waited home on Wednesday.  Nothing - no email, no phone call, no twit customer.    On Thursday I sent a "Where were you, if you no longer want these please let me know so I can cancel it."   
It's now Sunday morning and still nothing.  I HATE that I have to wait 5 days until I can relist these.  I hate that the seller gets punished for having a twit customer.  I hate that if she does ever get back to me, it will be with some sob story about her grandfather dying or her husband getting assassinated by a ninja.  


I got rid of the pickup option on all my items except the clothing , but I will be removing it them as well, as the inter-state customers pay quickly and are no trouble at all. 


<<<<<<<  Hic!  That was a nice glassfull ! >>>>>.


I have a friend from years ago when I had a bookshop - she would trawl garage sales and op shops for books during the week, and I would buy them off her.   It worked well for both of us.


Fast forward six years or so, and she still visits me every couple of months at home to bring me more things to sell - we have branched out from books with other things as well.   We go halvies on these items.   These three books sold within a day of me putting them up.


Military History always sells well.   I try to buy any military history books I see - especially ones that are related to a  certain platoon/unit/etc.     This book was signed by the author and a couple of members of the AWWC.  I got $25 for this one.    

I nearly kept this one just to identify the contents of my back garden.   I got $45 for this book on Weeds.  Who would have thought?

I always laugh at this book, because it was the one I used when I was forced delighted to do the Home Economics class in high school.  Everybody wants this book (except me).  It's a nice quick buck or two.   I got $25 for this one.   The older editions can go for up to $80.

And now on to videos.   Do you remember my blog from last week about the video haul I got?


I've already sold 3 videos from this lot.   These only costed me 10 cents each.


Gary Busey and his teeth score!   $10.00 for this trashy beauty!

This one was in pretty bad nick and was an ex-rental.  It played well, and I debated whether to list it and put it up for $8.   I forgot about the allure of a fugly man on the front cover!   Yes!  He sold within a couple of days.  I must remember that fugly sells (as my friend Tina always says.  ;-)    So remember to add Fugly to your Video BOLO list.   Fugly + Rated R = Irresistible.

And this one links to my next Video BOLOs :


Ah, Denise Austin.  I remember trying to do these videos years ago, my parrots watching me from their perches with something bordering on disgust.    Yes I "squeezed my buttocks" with the best of them.  Lovely Denise never mentioned that it would make my butt bigger.    What's the deal with that???


This is a very early one - probably the first she ever made.  It's so old, it should be a silent movie and I wish it was.  As I tested the movie, I winced listening to her perky voice rabbiting on about hips, thigggghsssssss & buttocks!!!!!    I got $10 for this one.

Exercise Videos - although they make me break into a sweat before I've even taken the video out of the cover, they are big sellers where I am.  Of course only certain ones sell.


You can get anything from $10 to $20 for these.    My BOLO List for Videos are:


~ Any Denise Austin
~ Any Jane Fonda
~ Any Cher   *bwwwwwahahahahahhahaaa*  sorry, I nearly choked then.
~ Any Richard Simmons
~ Any super-model workout (eg. Rachel Hunter, Elle MacPherson)
~ Any ex-actress/singer workout  (eg. Jennie Garth, etc ...)
~ I also pick up any Aussie Fit series


~ Any Billy Blanks / Tae Bo videos - I did these for a while.  They're fun because you pretend you can kick someone's butt.   However I kept getting distracted by the very dishy Mr. Blanks lovely *ahem* package.   Sometimes lycra is a *good thing*.   

  Sometimes it isn't.  :-(    (hint:  Richard Simmons)


Have you had any success with selling exercise videos?  Do you have any others you can add to the BOLO list?