Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Scavenger Tips #5

Tip #1

Chicos is a higher end chain store that sells women's (sizes up to 22) clothing and accessories. I've had some pretty good success selling their items.  My tip of the day is to look for Chicos clothing in the plus size clothing section of thrift stores. Even the small sizes of Chicos clothes show up there. Chicos uses a sizing system of sizes 1, 2, 3 etc instead of 8, 10, 12 etc. The people who work at the thrift stores frequently put these items in the plus size section of the store because the size on the tag looks plus size. They assume 1 is a 1X instead of 8/10 that it actually is.

Are there any items you regularly find in the wrong department? Please share!

Tip #2

I love to use good soap without chemicals and artificial fragrance but I can't always afford to pay good soap prices. In the last couple of years I haven't had to pay retail prices for my soap because I often find it in thrift stores brand new! Last week I found four bars of Sunrise Showers Soap for $1.60 total. This would have been over $16 if purchased full retail. I saved $15 on soap.

I haven't tried this yet but it is a future project that I want to try. You can make your own soft soap out of bar soap. All you really need is soap and glycerin. I purchased the glycerin but need to get busy with the grating.



This way you can choose what goes into your soft soap. I'm going to use one of my bars of recently purchased Sunrise Showers Soap. Have you tried making your own soft soap?

In the world of reselling. Today I had a sale on Bonanza. I average about one sale a month there. The buyer sent me a message "I hope this is legit and you aren't going to screw me". Nice, hey. I'd like to just cancel the sale but it's $40. Would you respond to the message or just ignore it?


15 comments:

  1. Do we shop at the same thrift stores? I noticed a while ago that I found Chicos in the plus size. Of course I find women's coats in the men's coats all the time. I guess they don't look at the way they button and if it's something like a pea coat they just assume it's men's. Also I check the bins of silverware, for silverware of course, but they also throw anything in there that looks like it belongs in the kitchen. I have found vintage shoe button hooks, pipe smoking tools and crochet hooks in the silverware bin. Look everywhere!!

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    1. Are you from Wisconsin Annabel? Maybe we do :)

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    2. North Carolina, where it is hot and sticky, dog days of summer

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    3. hot and sticky here too. although the last couple of days have been perfect. high 60s. didn't have to run the air. awesome.

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  2. Replies
    1. seems like i have the best luck with Chicos items that have an exotic look to them

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  3. I'd honor the Bonanza sale. No problem. They probably never heard of Bonanza...(go figure, right? rofl) and were hoping they weren't just throwing money at some bogus site.
    Not the best or politest worded message...but I see what their intent was.

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    1. Yeah. I did honor it. Like you said not the politest way to put it. We all hope we're not going to get screwed when shopping on the internet.

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  4. No, I'm not going to screw you before you buy me dinner.

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  5. But we were talking about tips . . . I used to totally skip the "Free" boxes yard salers would have. I figured if they were giving it away, it REALLY must be junk. But another man's junk was a Minnie Mouse beanie baby, two Pyrex casserole covers for me just today. A few weeks ago I picked up a metal gray shelf and two gallons of Martha Stewart paint.

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    1. Wow. Those are some pretty great picks from the free pile and a good tip. I always check the free pile too and have picked up a couple of good items.

      The other day in the doctors office they had a collection of books free to take. Of course as I waited for my appointment I looked a few up on my phone to see if I could sell them. I know. I'm terrible.

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    2. It's so funny how our perspective changes as a reseller. I base my value of most items depending on its value on eBay at the time I look it up ha!

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  6. Bonanza has been picking up for me quite a bit lately. What a message. When I first read the message it upset me a bit. Maybe the guy is a jerk, maybe he's just had bad experience. $40 is a nice sale.

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    1. I'm glad Bonanza sales are picking up for you.

      I decided just not to reply to the person. They received their item two days ago and I haven't heard a peep so I guess I didn't screw them ;) If it had been ebay I'd have been afraid they were a potential trouble maker but on Bonanza since we don't have to worry about defects and such I figured what the heck.


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