Lynn’s eBay ezine Volume IV, issue number 33

Dear eBayers,

Teachers include Jay Berkowitz, Marsha Collier, Jason Guzman, Michael Lambert, myself and others. You can read more at their web site here. My ezine readers will receive $25 off your registration with the discount code: QUEEN. I hope to see you there!

‘On the Road with eBay’

by Lynn A. Dralle, ‘The Queen of Auctions’

I have been coming up to Bellingham for the summers for six years now. The first year we stayed here for two months and I did eBay full time from my mom’s beach house. Since then, I have figured out how to make eBaying from several different locations work better than ever. I wanted to share a few of my best tips with you in this week’s ezine.

1. Buy non breakables and small items

The best things to buy on the road are smalls and items that won’t break.

I buy a lot of flatware, wooden items, books, paper goods and metal pieces.

I got lucky this trip and found a Timmy Woods purse. I had never heard of Timmy Woods (a lady designer) before but the purse was in the shape of a Sharpei dog and was brand new with tags. The lady wanted $25.00 for it but it was the second day of her sale and she was ready to dicker.

And dicker she should. This lady had a tennis court full of items–plus a garage full and the sale had been going on for a full day already! She had collected all the items personally and obviously had good taste. I bought quite a few things from her and will actually use some of them as examples at Live Boot Camp next week!

I was able to get the Timmy Woods purse for $15.00. Check it out. It is adorable and should sell for quite a bit!

See the auction here.

As another example, on this trip I bought a set of fifteen Beatles pins/buttons for $15.00. I have ten of them listed at auction this week (five were duplicates so I will sell those later).

Here is a link to one of the auctions. It already has a bid!!!

In fact, two of them have bids so I have already recovered my initial investment.  This leads perfectly into my second tip.

2.     Try and recoup your investment ASAP

Since I had spent $500 over the past two weekends in Bellingham, my goal was to recoup that from a few choice items listed and shipped from Bellingham.

I listed all the large pottery pieces I had purchased (I know I just couldn’t help myself–nor did I take my own advice in step #1) but I couldn’t pass up a nesting bowl set of Le Creuset cookware or could I?

Nope! It was a beautiful blue color and priced at $35.00 for the three pieces. It was at an estate sale that my friend Teresa was hosting and it was a zoo! I grabbed for one of the bowls to turn it over at the exact same time as another lady. I should have kept my big mouth shut, but I said, “That is a good brand,” and walked away. I waited patiently (from afar) to see if she was going to buy it and this time I kept my mouth shut. Finally she walked away and I grabbed it. Then she decided she wanted one like it and followed me around throughout the sale saying, “Do they have another set like that?” Yikes!

Here is one of the bowls.

I had to do 3-day auctions to make sure I could get it listed, sold and shipped before leaving

You won’t believe what it sold for!

So, to recap what I sold and shipped from Bellingham:

Crèche (Nativity set) $20.50

Paperweight $91.00

Paperweight $13.26

5 Miscellaneous Items at $9.99 = $49.95

Fukagawa Bell $30.00

Le Creuset Bowl Set $92.00

Grand Total is $296.71 and I expect to get about $200 for the purse and I still have the Beatles pins, which are doing well. So I have recouped my initial investment and made a profit! And this leads me right to tip #3.

3.     Edit Before Leaving

Once you have recovered your initial investment, everything else is just gravy. You can now go through and figure out which items make sense to ship back home to list.

I do an initial run-through and look up everything quickly on the computer. If it is large and breakable and won’t sell for more than $9.99–it goes to my mom or sister Kiki as a gift to list. My sister especially needs stock since it is hard for her to go out and look now that she has two adorable children.

Here is one of the items that I gave to my mom

and she already has it listed. Go mom!

Once I have edited, I start packing. I don’t bubble wrap very much because I try and buy fabric items when I am out of town. Things like crazy quilts, saleable vintage dishtowels, tablecloths and other craft fabric. Then I use these to wrap most of my items.

During the packing process, more items get edited out if I don’t have the correct space for them in the boxes. But as you can see in the photo in the introduction to this ezine, I was still able to ship nine huge boxes full of saleable eBay items back home. A lot of these will be showing up at Live Boot Camp next week!

Finally, if there are some really neat larger items that I had listed but didn’t sell, I leave them with my sister. When they do sell, she gets half of the purchase price, plus the shipping fees and she will ship them for me. It works out well for both of us. I don’t have to pay to ship the item twice (to me in CA and then to the eventual buyer). And my sister and I both make money. It is a win win situation.

Here is one of those items that didn’t sell

and it is already listed in my eBay store!

4. Bring items with you or bring completed I Sell Sheets

If you can’t shop where you are going to be traveling or want to make it easier, you can also take small items with you. I don’t know if any of you remember, but last year, I brought a box of jewelry from my grandmother’s antique store up to Bellingham with me to list. I didn’t list one thing! I didn’t list anything because I was so busy shopping for more new stock. I think it is an illness (but a good one!)

So this year I promised myself that I would list a few of those items–since like a big dummy I brought the same shoe box up to Bellingham with me in my suitcase AGAIN. I wrote up and photographed (Don’t forget your camera) 20 of the items and here is one that is currently listed. Congrats to me!

Check out this auction here.

And the easiest way EVER to travel is to take completed I Sell sheets with you and just list from those. If any of you were on the call with Lisa Suttora a few months ago, you will remember that she was so impressed with the fact that at all times I have a book full of about 200 I Sell sheets ready to list. I do this so that I can travel at the drop of a hat.

If someone calls and says, “Lets go to Cabo tomorrow.” I can say, “Sure!” I have a week’s worth of auctions ready to list and I can list in the airport and on vacation. It is an awesome system! Check out more about I Sell here.

5. Recycle Boxes

Finally, the best part of this article is the dumpster-diving we did to get boxes. It was pouring down rain (something new for Washington) this past Sunday and I said to my mom, “I am going into town to buy some big boxes at Paper Zone to ship all my eBay-worthy items home.” But, I also told her that I was going to check with some local stores on the way into town to see if they had any useable boxes.

Well, she was all for that so decided to go with me. We went by the local mini-mart and found a ton of small boxes. Then we stopped behind the liquor store at the casino and found a bunch more but none were big enough for all my stuff. They would be fine to ship the individual items to the buyers but not the right size to ship everything back to CA.

So on our way to Paper Zone to actually purchase boxes (I probably would have spent $100), my mom thought we should try the dollar store. It was so crowded because of the rain (everyone was shopping) that the manager just told us we could go in the back and take whatever we wanted. Score!

Here is my rental truck being unloaded.

I got plenty of big boxes and we got a ton of other ones all for free. I think we saved ourselves hundreds of dollars. I am going to start doing this more in California also. Not only do you save money, but you help save the environment.

I hope this gives you some good ideas for doing eBay out of town or on your travels. The best part is that you can work from somewhere else and still make a good living. And your trip may be tax deductible! Talk to your accountant.