New Year, New Sales

Happy new year! I had taken a break from reselling to focus on family over the holidays and I am just now getting back to posting things on eBay. Since I haven't been yard saling or thrifting for a while, most of the items I'm posting are things around me house that we no longer need.

I had a couple of sales before Christmas that really discouraged me. One was a mirror that we had sitting in a closet. I didn't weigh it before listing it and grossly underestimated how much it weighed. I also underestimated how large of a box I would end up needing for it. And, I took the first offer that I got on it since I was anxious to sell it and get it out of the house (we're trying to get baby's room in order and it's still a work in progress). Well, I think the buyer ended up paying $40 for the mirror including shipping and I ended up having to fork over $15 for a special picture box to ship it in and $20 just to ship it to California. So I made a whopping $5, although probably not even that when you take into account the eBay fees. Lesson learned - I'll be sure to box up and weigh large items before I even list them.

The other transaction was the sale of the Target Missoni sweater dress that I had found on clearance. Someone bought it within a couple days of listing it for $100 with free shipping. I think I paid $16 for it. Well, the buyer never paid and I had to open an unpaid items case. By the time the case closed, I had missed the Christmas shopping window so I gave up on relisting it. Fast forward to this week and I finally got around to relisting it. I lowered the buy it now price slightly and kept the free shipping. I always list my stuff that I will ship worldwide because it really isn't any more work to ship to another country than down the street. Well, one day after listing the dress I was pleasantly surprised to see it sell for my buy it now price plus shipping to Australia. I made about $75 profit on this dress after all was said and done. I've still got a Missoni blouse and romper to sell, but now I'm not as discouraged as I was before.

The other pick me up to get me back into the eBay game was my Pottery Barn girls bedding set Craigslist find. I've been looking for a nice twin bedding set for my daughter so that she can transition out of her toddler bed and into a twin bed before the baby comes. All the Pottery Barn bedding on CL is crazily overpriced (I guess because it's overpriced to begin with). I finally found a set for $30 close to home that included the quilt, sham, fitted sheet, flat sheet, dust ruffle, curtains, and two valances. It is the Michelle quilt with pink sheets and green gingham curtain/valances. The quilt and sham alone sold for $45 on eBay, so I'm quite happy with my $30 find. The icing on the cake is that I don't really need the curtain/valances. I'm still undecided on the valances, so I'm keeping those for now and might use them, but I'm definitely selling the curtain because it turns out it is actually a shower curtain with dimensions of 72"x72". I'm not sure how they used this as a window treatment, but I prefer the look of two curtains as opposed to one. This one sold recently for $42 plus shipping. I'd be happy with $30 to make my bedding set find for my daughter be free so we'll see how it goes.

After the dress and the curtain, I think I'm feeling a bit less discouraged now. I hope new year sales are up for everyone else too!

BOLO: Missoni in Target Clearance

While I was out shopping at Target last night (taking advantage of their spend $50, get $10 gift card promotion), I was perusing the clearance racks for maternity clothes and sweaters since I had coupons for those when I came across a couple of Missoni items. I had heard that these do well on eBay because of the fact that they were so limited and are now sold out.

So, I did a quick lookup of the particular sweater dress I found and there were completed listings that sold for around $100. The dress was marked down from $54.99 to $27.48, but when it rang up at the cash register it was an even better deal at $16.48.

I also picked up a blouse that was marked down from $34.99 to $11.48. I passed on a pair of XL shorts because I didn’t think they would do well given the completed listings for them (I can’t remember the price on these, but might go back and check). I’ve got these listed and am hoping to net a profit to cover my other purchases (diapers for new baby and a FurReal dog for my daughter for xmas for $30 instead of the regular $60 pricetag). Plus I still have $40 worth of gift cards to use still! I might check out other Targets for more Missoni treasures hiding amongst the clearance racks.