October 15th, 2012
Volume VIII, Issue 9

It is finally Fall in the Coachella Valley which means that the temperatures have dipped below the 100 degree mark. Thank goodness! When I used to drive out to Palm Desert with my brother, Lee from Los Angeles 10 years ago, he used to say to me, “Once the temperature gauge hits 110 degrees we will be in the Desert.” Pretty funny and pretty right on for about five months of the year. Well, those terribly hot five months are OVER.

While writing this I realized that Houston, Indy and I have lived here for exactly ten years this month. Wow! We still love it and the kids are very grateful that they got to grow up in such a wonderful place.

It is really hitting home for me that Hous and Indy will be gone soon. I attended a meeting at the high school for college admissions, scholarships, etc. last night. Then Houston and I sat down and made a list of his top eight schools. 1. USC (University of Southern California) 2. ASU (Arizona State University) 3. CSUF (Cal State University Fullerton) 4. UW (University of Washington) 5. TCU (Texas Christian University) 6. UO (University of Oregon) 7. Stanford and 8. Harvard.

If any of you have any contacts at these eight schools, we would welcome any help that we can get. Thanks!

One thing about my kids, they dream big as I have always taught them to do. Go big or go home! Interesting side note, when I applied to colleges, I chose three schools. Three of them are on Houston’s list. USC, UW and Stanford. I did NOT get into Stanford. Apparently, that still bothers me .

But back to happier things, its time to enjoy the beautiful cooler weather and continue to attack the pile of boxes in my Alps. It was just too hot for most of the summer to even attempt it. Remember that shuffleboard set that I shared with you in the last ezine? It didn’t sell at auction for $49.99, so Mo listed it in my eBay store for $99.99. I immediately got an offer of $55.00. I turned it down.

Then I received this note with a $60.00 offer. "Come on, you just had it listed for a week at $49.99. 350 lookers, no takers." I had to laugh.

Here is that HUGE item from my "Alps". You can see if I did accept his offer or not by clickinghere.

The Alps are slowly but surely melting. Check out this photo. You can actually see the floor. Miracle of miracles!

I have been very focused on listing the LARGEST items I can find. That strategy is working. Here is another item that I sold last week from that pile. Yay! The only downside to all of this is that I HAVE to SHIP those items. I have been getting very creative with my shipping skills.

See this auction here.

In that pile of stuff that is now miraculously gone from the floor and most of it listed, I found my grandmother’s best friends (Martha’s) doll trunk and all her antique doll clothes. It was bittersweet. My grandmother cherished that trunk full of clothes. Oh, well, it is time to list and sell! I have vowed to NEVER leave my kids with the mess of stuff that my family and I all went through at my sister’s.

Here is the trunk full of clothes.

I started all the doll clothes at $24.99 each and the trunk at $99.99. Here is the doll outfit that sold for the most money. REMEMBER, never pass up any kind of doll clothing, doll house furniture or other doll house miniatures.

See this listing here.

Speaking of doll house items, I found a box full of plastic doll house furniture at a garage sale that Indy and I went to last Saturday. It was priced at $30.00 for the box. I asked her if she would take less. She said $20.00 and we had a deal!

I already have a bid on this darling piano.

Now that we are on the subject of eBay auctions, they are hotter than ever. Before I forget, I wanted to comment on the new eBay logo. I LOVE IT. It is clean and yet still looks like it should. But back to auctions, we have been getting so many bids on auction items, it is CRAZY! When I hear complaints from students that their sales are down, I always ask, how many items do you currently have up for auction? More often than not, the answer is “Well, I haven’t been listing very much at auction because...insert list of excuses.”

Auctions drive sales to your ebay store. NO QUESTION. Mo and I are shooting for 200 auctions a week. That is a lot of stuff! But it is paying off big time. When I was in Washington over the summer I bought a set of Johnson Brothers china. I only paid $10 for it and couldn’t find the pattern name in my research, so was either going to leave it for my mom or ship it back home if I had room. Needless to say, I didn’t pack it very well. Kind of just threw it in with the kid’s school clothes. The joke around here (well it’s Mo teasing me, Houston and Indy) is be careful when you try on those new clothes, there may be shards of broken glass and china in them. Ha Ha.

Mo listed it last week without a pattern name. Apparently, that just didn’t matter. We got bids on every single listing except for one. I wish I would have packed it better. DARN! Just goes to show you that you just never know and that is why you should try EVERYTHING at auction first before setting a fixed price.

Here is one of those auctions. And, we have had multiple bidders. CRAZY but soooooo fun!

See this listing here.

As I write this newsletter, my mom is on her way down for a two week visit! Thank goodness. This means that she is going to write up a TON of stuff for me. Her favorite part of the entire eBay process is the writing up. She doesn’t enjoy anything as much as she likes to write up on my i Sell sheets. SCORE! Keeping 200 items a week listed at auction is going to be a breeze with her and Mo’s help.

Oh my gosh! I just got a phone call from Indiana. She was just selected as Yearbook Editor at the Middle School. What a huge honor! Go Indy!!!! She also just received a fantastic expensive camera as an early Christmas/Birthday gift from me, my mom, my dad and her uncle Lee. She pitched in $200 of her own money that she earned helping me ship at Headquarters. We all figured why shouldn’t she be enjoying it now instead of waiting for Christmas?

More great news, the flatware eBook Volume Four is finished! If you have already ordered it, you should have received Volume Four by email. If you have NOT ordered it, you can still grab a copy here before the price goes up. And the price will be going up as soon as Volume Five is finished. This eBook has turned out to be such a labor of love. Volume Four is over 120 pages long. We expect Volume Five to be at least that long. Lee jokes that it may even take a Volume Six and Seven. This eBook is going to probably end up with over 600 pages of useful and profitable information. Add this profit center to your eBay business this week! Order yours here.

As you know, I have been focused on just listing LARGE items. I have put the paper goods, jewelry and flatware aside to list later. Even without listing any new flatware, we sold over $1,600 in flatware in the past 90 days. You do NOT want to miss getting this valuable resource.

• $1,104.26 in stainless flatware
• $441.81 in silverplate flatware and hollowware
• $105.98 in sterling flatware

That is $1,652.05. No serious eBay seller should leave $550 per month of easy to buy, easy to sell and even easier to ship flatware out of their business plan.

Here is some flatware that I recently sold. One order of this flatware from nine different listings sold for over $116.00 without s/h/i. Amazing isn’t it?

See this listing here.

Last month, we had the best two teleseminars EVER with Cindy Shebley. These teleseminars taught about SEO for eBay titles and getting your listings ready for MOBILE---which will be $10 billion this year in sales on eBay. She is a wealth of knowledge and so willing to share. They were the August and September gifts for The Queen's Court. Here are a few of the comments after the first one...

From Sherri Mertle (a member of the Queen's Court).

And then this from Diva Dawn.

I believe it was our best teleseminar EVER. AND Cindy did come back for teleseminar #2. It was just as impressive, if not more so, than #1. If you are a Queen's Court member these were your gifts, if not you may purchase both from this link for a super low price.

Here is a photo of Cindy and I with eBay president John Donahoe at eBay on Location in Chicago.

But there is even better news yet to come... Because Cindy has finished her eBook and it is available for immediate download, she has agreed to extend the special offer from last month. Thanks Cindy! So, if you purchase Cindy's SEO and Mobile eBay Teleseminars before the week’s end (10/20) you will get this amazing bonus eBook! (Or you can purchase if you are a Queen's Court member.)

This email is from the desk of Cindy Shebley on September 15th, 2012...

Once again, thank you to Cindy for sharing her knowledge with us all. She is such an amazing resource. Thank you Cindy!

OK, back to life with teenagers. Since my kids are almost out of the house, and Indiana begging for a dog for the past ten years, we decided to get one Yes, I said it…. DOG (is that a 4 letter word?). We tried to adopt a Havanese rescue puppy last week. He was soooooo cute but since we don’t have a fenced yard we were turned down. Broke our hearts. We are still looking but probably can’t get a rescue because of the strict requirements. We have our hearts set on a Havanese puppy mix with black around his eyes.

Here is a photo of a dog that Indy loves. Most of the dogs we like are in the Midwest and we would rather find one locally so that we can go and pick him out personally and make sure he is a personable little guy. Wish us luck.

So cute!

And because we have decided to get a DOG, Indy gave me back a Pug Needlepoint that was hanging in her room. You will NOT believe what this sold for! YAY!

See this auction here.

Here is a great new announcement from my friend and Queen’s Court member Chris Taylor at Page Mage. I encourage you all to try out this new FR.E.E eBay application. Thanks Chris!

OK, I can’t end this ezine without one last recent score. Do you all remember those neck ties that I bought with cash borrowed from Kabbage? Well, I paid $9 each. Pretty steep, but my mom told me to do it, so I listened to her (for once).

One just sold today for a whole lot of money out of my eBay store. YAY! Auctions (with neckties) drive buyers to your fixed price listings. Please do not forget that lesson from this ezine.

See this listing here.

I hope you are all having great sales this fall season and let’s all get prepared for an even better holiday season!

I sold $2,273 the past seven days on eBay. It is the season to be pushing for more and more auction listings to drive your sales to higher levels. I know you can do it. Think big!

Happy eBaying!

Lynn