Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Recent Sales and a Sale!

image courtesy of pixabay


Last week after listening to the interview with Amazing Taste on Scavenger Life I was inspired to do an experiment and try a big sale. I put about half of my inventory on sale at 50% off. Now I normally do run sales every now and then but usually I do 5% ….once in a while 25% just hoping to stimulate some buying. It never made much difference. The 50% off sale however doubled my total sales that week!!! I was cha chinging left and right. So it was a successful experiment.

Although I agree with the Scavenger Life philosophies of list it and forget it and price high you can always come down I don't think it was working for me to get me the numbers I need. Here is why. First, I do not have the inventory that J and R have. I've got about half as much. I'm a one person operation so I can't list as much each week. You need a really big inventory to let things sit a couple of years. Likewise you need a lot of storage space. I've outgrown my current storage space at 1100 items in my inventory. I need to move merchandise.

So I think I will continue experimenting with big sales to get BIG SALES. As long as I'm making a respectable profit on something I can't complain even if it is half of what I originally hoped to get. It's going to help me reach my financial goals. So here are some of the things I've sold this past week in my sale.

This cool vintage carved wood panel. This thing is big. About 40" in height. I've had it about a year. It sold at 40% off for $110.

I've had this hard to find big plush Molly doll for a couple of years. She finally sold at half off for $40. 


This cool vintage dress/skort. Made in Sweden. Sold for half off at $14.99. 


So I could have gotten more for these items by waiting for the right person to come along but these sales all went towards doubling my sales for the week. 

I think it's good to always be redefining your business. Making it work for you. I am so grateful that I can do this and be able to take time a couple of days a week to visit my parents in assisted living 30 miles away. I have time to work in my yard. I can appreciate and enjoy a beautiful sunny day even if it isn't the weekend! 

And I appreciate our community and how everyone shares how they do things. We all learn from each other and can try out other peoples' styles of selling. If it works we can adopt it, if it doesn't we can change again. There is always more to learn. It's all good. 

What have you learned from other sellers? 



6 comments:

  1. I absolutely LOVE that dress! It's super retro/cute!
    ~Nandry

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  2. I agree with your assessment on running sales with a smaller inventory, we tried this too and we had probably our best month ever but we sold all our good stuff so now sales are slow again, lol.. I think we need to just lower our prices on the stuff that's sitting in stasis and move it on out so we can make room for better merchandise.

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    1. The good stuff does move out quickly. I'm hoping I can keep it replenished though with unlisted inventory and rummage sale season.

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  3. One of the things that I really like using GTC is that it will show you when an item was listed. I think sales are a great idea and I plan on using them to clear out some old inventory. So glad to hear the experiment was successful!

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    1. Hi Margaret. I totally agree with the GTC. I just started using it in the last few months and I do like knowing how long an item has been listed.

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