Monday, February 9, 2015

My Best Sales This Week

My last couple weeks of sales has been pretty good with my average sale price up (from $20 to $30) and total sales up. Why? Two reasons. First. I've been making myself list stuff that has been sitting around waiting for me to do the research. Let me explain. I get items that will sell for more but often they are going to take more work to research or prep. So I do all the quick and easy stuff first and the other doesn't get done. So I've been gettin' er done. As a result I've been listing and selling some higher dollar items (I'll show some below in a second).

The other thing that I think is making a difference is I've been putting higher prices on things. On the advice of other sellers mostly over at Jay and Ryannes I see that I need to ask more if I want to get more. I may be undervaluing my items. So I'm starting out higher when first listing something. And things are selling at the higher prices! It's amazing and yet a little scary. I have this fear that people are going to get their item and think they paid too much for it. So along with listing something almost every day I think these new habits are helping my sales.

So here are some of my best sales from the past week.

I bought this set of hand painted bird wall hangings as part of a $1 bag sale. I took a best offer of $40 for them plus shipping. I was asking 79.99 for them. What?! Part of my higher pricing strategy. They took just a couple of weeks to sell.


I paid a dollar for this vintage super bowl hat at an estate sale. Sold for $39.99 plus shipping to an overseas buyer. 



These vintage tv trays were free to me. A friends parent died and these were going to go to the thrift store as none of the kids wanted them. They sat around unlisted for about a year because I was nervous about packing and shipping them. They sold about 1 week after listing for $59.99 plus shipping. I used UPS for the first time to ship them as that was much more reasonable than USPS. Luckily I had a perfect box from a sink I purchased a couple of years ago and some sheets of styrofoam to pad them.  It wasn't the nightmare I envisioned. 


This last sale was a nice little surprise. It's a piece of vintage unfinished embroidery. There were threaded needles still in it. I got it at an estate sale for very little. This was something I bought more out of personal emotion than thinking it was a great find. I'm from the midwest and I just thought it was cool. I wasn't sure how to price it and couldn't find anything quite like it to compare so I priced it at $24.99 plus shipping which I thought was pretty high. It's not very big at only 16" long. It sold within a week! 


So my lesson learned was to push my prices a little higher than what my "instinct" says. And to quit avoiding my trickier inventory and just get it listed. It can't sell if it's sitting and waiting for me to make a 'perfect' listing. 

Do you undervalue your items? or avoid listing weird or hard to photograph or ship inventory? Tell me about it in the comments :)





12 comments:

  1. I think I overvalue my items now haha, but I always put best offer on higher items and accept a fair price.
    I have a bunch of piles of items I'm procrastinating on... like those that I have to clean, polish, remove sticky price tags, etc..

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    1. Yep. Dirty items tend to linger on my shelves unlisted. Especially shoes. I also have 3 unlisted sets of hot rollers cause I don't like cleaning those. At least that's kept me from buying more of um!

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  2. I have to thank you Nancy. You told me that you sold the soap dispenser to your sink for $15. I took a chance and listed mine for $24.99 or b/o because there were no others like mine listed. It sold for my full asking price! Thanks for that tip!

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  3. I keep trying to up my prices, and I am selling and upping my average amount of sale per item. Of course I still have a tendency to buy those items that only sell for $9.99, too, but I can't pass them up when I'm only paying pennies. Congrats on those great sales. Love those tv trays! :)

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    1. Thanks Kim. I went shopping today and bought a few items that will probably sell for less than $20. They were all smalls though. Vintage greeting cards are like mugs for me and I've started getting into vintage playing cards too. I bought a set of Kliban Thank You notes and a vintage set of playing cards for a total of 65 cents. Hah. And they are already listed cause they we're super easy so I guess that's the up side of that.

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  4. Sometimes I think I undervalue my stuff but I really do try to do research and hit a middle of the ground price. I love those bird plaques! You did really well on those! ~~Pam

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    1. I'm trying to go more for the high end of pricing than the middle. My instinct tends more towards the middle but I'm fighting it go more for the high end. We'll see how that goes.

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  5. The bird pieces and side tables are BEAUTIFUL :)

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    1. Thanks Van. I haven't commented lately but have been enjoying your recent posts.

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  6. Nancy, I love the little birdie wall hangings. They are so cool! It's definitely better to overvalue your items as opposed to undervaluing them. But you are right that sometimes the things that take a little more work sit around. Nice job!

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    1. The bird wall hangings were one of my 'I like those. Maybe I'll keep them' items that I had for oh, maybe two years. Not hanging on my wall even. Just sitting piled up on a shelf. Someone slap me upside the head LOL.

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