Local Buying Trips are FUN

Houston and Ian at Dodger Stadium

I can’t imagine how it was for the boys. I wasn’t even on the field and I was a nervous wreck.

After lunch, I dropped the boys back at the baseball field and with an hour to kill, I headed into downtown Hemet to shop the thrift stores before the championship game.

There is a fantastic site for finding thrift stores when you are out of town, TheThriftshopper.com. I think Victoria from Bakersfield told me about it at a live eBay Boot Camp. Here is what came in when I put in Hemet.

I ended up in the Goodwill for about an hour. I spent $34.00 and got two boxes full of dinnerware, etc. There were two awesome Tabletops Unlimited patterns (once called H20 and one called Barcelona), some Wedgwood and an iced tea set that said “Big K” brewed tea.

Mo got a lot of it listed for me on Monday and Tuesday. She refused to list the “Big K” tea set when we found out it stood for “Kroger.” (Just kidding).

All kidding aside, apparently I will be listing that one myself.

Here is one of the listings for the Barcelona plates.

I also got some Pfaltzgraff Rooster Luncheon plates. I have been having great luck lately with Pfaltzgraff and these were darling and half price. I got four of them for $2.50.

See the listing here.

Remember that buying trip I took to San Diego back in February? The stuff I got on that trip is still selling for top dollar! It is seriously amazing.

I was at a Salvation Army in San Diego in a really bad part of town. I was almost afraid to go inside alone. I am so glad I did! It was 12:30 pm and I overheard someone saying that at 1 pm on Monday (yes it was a Monday) that everything goes for half price. I thought it was insane that people were buying things before 1:00 pm but the registers were humming.

At 1:00 pm exactly, I took my things up to the register. At that point, I noticed a set of dishes marked $45.00 in the showcase. I asked to see one and couldn’t believe it when they were Wedgwood! I said “I will take that set” and to my complete astonishment a lusterware coffee pot, creamer and sugar also came with it. You can see that if I sell everything in my recap below, I will make over $900. Buying trips out of town can be fun and profitable!

Here is a little recap I did for a presentation at LOL.

I have sold almost all of the Wedgwood in just two months! Here is what I have left in the set.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when you are lucky enough to be in another town and have some time to go out and source.

1.    It doesn’t matter why you are in a different town. You could be there for your “real” job, vacation, an errand or a child’s sporting event. MAKE TIME to CHECK OUT the local Thrift Stores. Keep a Sourcing Mindset (Lisa Suttora!)

2.    Use TheThriftshopper.com or another similar site to find all the thrift stores in your new area.

3.    Once in your first thrift store talk to the regulars and salespeople and ask them which thrift stores are their favorites. This will help get you to the best ones the quickest.

4.    Ask what colored tags or items are on sale. It amazed me how many things I got last Sunday in Hemet that were red tag (1/2 price) that had been just sitting there for months! Don’t forget that you are a new set of eyes in that thrift store.

5.    Take your time and poke around. Look high and low. My grandmother always taught me that if I couldn’t find what I was looking for in her antique store/house to look up and down. Many times things were hidden from my usual line of vision.

I did this just last week here at home in one of my usual thrift stores. There was nothing on the dinnerware shelves, so I bent down and sat on the ground and started pulling out serving pieces. They all looked boring but I thought, why not? The second one I pulled out was the Mexico pattern by Bing & Grondahl. TOTAL SCORE! I got it for $5.99 and I have it priced super high at auction right now. I don’t care if it doesn’t sell. I will raise the price and move it into my eBay store.

See this listing here.

One of the beautiful things about selling on eBay is that we can take our job with us. We can list from anywhere and we can source anywhere. Have fun with it! Like my grandmother always told me, “If you follow your passion, the money will follow.”