Highlights From This Week's eBay Underground Discussions

As always, there's been a lot of activity on the Ebay Underground discussion boards this week.

I have to get my packages out in a few minutes and then head out for the day, so I don't have a lot of time to highlight all the most active threads, but here are a few that I think would be worth your time to stop by and read:

One of the most important topics going on right now is about Trademark Violations. Several members have spoken up about different things they've gotten in trouble for listing. That link goes to the general conversation about it, but there's another thread where we are compiling a list of items that people have gotten in trouble for. Be sure to read it as well to avoid getting yourself an eBay spanking.

If you've been away from eBay for awhile and are thinking about jumping back in, this is a good thread to read, all about starting over on eBay.

There has been a lot of speculation about what the new eBay Spring Seller Updates will involve. Sellers always dread these updates, because they're usually focused on making things better for the buyers, but not so much for the sellers. Hopefully this update will be different ...

I would be devastated if my one and only Goodwill went out of business, but it could be a great opportunity to stock up on clearanced inventory! Our member Ruth has a local thrift store going out of business. Read the discussion about that here.

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As always, if none of these topics interest you, there are many, many others that I didn't mention. Or you can always stop by and start a new topic that interests you. We welcome all kinds of conversation, as long as it's polite :)  Hope to see you there!

Highlights From This Week's eBay Underground Discussions

Lots of good conversation going on again this week on eBay Underground! We are up to 848 members and growing daily!!  Please keep spreading the word. Let's see if we can't hit a thousand pretty soon here!

Read all about some members' concerns and fears about making the leap to opening up an eBay store. (*Picture is not intended to poke fun - there are very valid concerns and fears involved with making that decision!)

They may not be the most attractive shoes in the world, but they sell well! Come join our discussion about selling SAS shoes.

I know nothing at all about selling silver, but there's some great conversation and tips on the board this week!

One member learned the importance of specifying the method of shipping when accepting a return for refund. She told her buyer she would reiumburse him for return shipping, and he shipped the item back via FedEx ... for $15! It's so important to be specific in our return policies!

Have you got your bookkeeping all caught up for tax time? Here is where you'll learn where to find your tax forms from Paypal.

And finally ... who knew there was such good money to be made from these ugly little things?? My 3-year-old has a whole bag full of them. I'm gradually trying to sneak them away from him one at a time. Shh! Don't tell him!

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As always, if none of these topics interest you, feel free to stop by the boards and start up a topic that you'd love to learn about or that you'd love to share your knowledge about!

Highlights From This Week's eBay Underground Discussions

Here's a feature I've gotten away from for some reason...

Our boards have been extremely active this week. It's so encouraging to see more and more new posters and lurkers coming out of hiding! We've covered some great topics this week. Many are ongoing, so if you have any thoughts or information you'd like to add, please stop by!

• Several of our members have experienced several drops in their sales now that the holidays are over. A lot of buyers overspent for Christmas and have just gotten their credit card bills. January and February are a slow time for a lot of sellers. Come and read some tips on how to deal with slow sales during these months.  

• eBay Top-Rated Seller evaluations just went through. Several of our members were excited to announce that they have joined the ranks of Top-Rated Sellers! Join us in congratulating them! (Tina has a great 10-part series on how to become a Top-Rated Seller in under a year. Check it out!)

• There has been some GREAT conversation about our top must-haves and do-wants for our businesses. What do you use that you couldn't live without? What do you WISH you had to make your job easier?

• When is the best time to list certain items? Find out when our members list seasonal items.

• There are so many different photo editing software programs available. We've been discussing the pros and cons of quite a few of them.

• The all-important BOLO (Be On the LookOut) list - how do you organize yours?

These are just the highlights. There have been lots and lots more topics going on this week. And as always, if you aren't interested in any of these topics, feel free to stop by and strike up a new conversation!

Change Is A-Comin'

I am in the process of reorganizing this blog. It has changed directions from where I want it to be. In the future, it will be more focused on our eBay Underground forums. I plan to leave the personal and teaching posts off of here. Don't worry - I will be transitioning all of that content to a new blog, which will be unveiled once I actually find some time to get it going. 

My tentative plan for this blog is to make it more focused on the forum. I would like to feature one thread twice a week, along with a brief summary of the thread and my thoughts on it as well. Once a week, I will do a Top 10 EBUG Threads post, where I will give a brief rundown on the most popular threads from the week. I used to do that awhile ago, but for some reason I got away from doing that.

I would also like to do a Featured EBUG Member post once every 2 weeks or so. I used to do that too, and would like to resurrect that feature. If you are interested in being interviewed for that feature (free advertising!), please contact me.

All of the Fabulous Finds, Top eBay Moments, and general teaching and chit-chat posts will be moved to a blog that's more personal to me. There will be a clear division between this blog (posts about the forum only) and my personal blog (my day-to-day eBay and thrifting activities).

I hope you're willing to stick around and follow me once I make my move. I enjoy hearing from all of you and reading your blogs, and I look forward to catching up with you after the move!

Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat

I love that title quote from Malcolm Forbes. I had a really crummy October. I've gotten negatives, neutrals, more returns than I can count. I've been feeling very defeated this week about selling on eBay in general. Because of that, the victory that I'm about to tell you about is extra sweet to me!
JulieJ asked on eBay Underground if having a sale in our eBay stores really works. I replied to that post saying that I've never had any luck with my week-long 10% off sales. I decided to go a little more drastic this weekend and see what happens. I put my entire store 25% off for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Then I realized that my friend's $4000 silver set was a part of that sale, and I panicked. So I deleted that storewide sale, breathed a sigh of relief, and started over again. I didn't do completely storewide the second time, but I ended up putting about 650 out of my 750 items on sale.

The very first sale that came in was for a listing I had just listed the night before. And it was free shipping. D'oh. The point of a sale is to clear out the OLD stuff, not the brand new listings. But that's ok - I decided I wasn't going to worry about the profit margin on each individual item. I was going to focus on quantity over quality this weekend. Generally speaking, I prefer to work smarter, not harder. I prefer to sell fewer items for higher prices. But for just 3 days, I was going to throw that rule out the window and take as many sales as I could get.

Well ... let me tell you, ladies and gents. It worked. It worked in an amazingly awesome way. During the 3 days of my sale, I sold 56 items! Yes, I said FIFTY-SIX! In THREE days! How insane is that?!

• Day One: Sold 14 items for $155.11
• Day Two: Sold 20 items for $176.46
• Day Three: Sold 22 items for $421.93

!!!!!

So I'm convinced. Next time I have a sales slump, I'm definitely doing a 2 or 3 day 25% off sale. I strongly urge you to give it a shot next time YOU are having a sales slump. I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised. I sure was!

Sure I'll Take That Back ... But It's Gonna Cost You ...

A couple months ago, I implemented a 20% restocking fee on returns. I had several reasons for doing this:

• Now that we are being charged Final Value Fees on our shipping, eBay wasn't going to refund that if we ended up refunding our buyer.
• Returns cost me time. I have to go through the motions of refunding the buyer, requesting a transaction cancellation, relisting the item, and putting it back into storage. Hopefully I won't have to re-polish shoes, or re-wash clothes, or anything else like that.
• Returns cost me money. As I just mentioned, I'm losing the Final Value Fee on the shipping. I also have to pay to relist the item. Yes, only a nickel, but nickels add up very quickly.
• My hope was that the restocking fee would discourage buyer's remorse returns.

I've had to enforce it a few times, with mixed results. I had a buyer who admitted that she didn't read the listing, and wanted to know if I would charge the restocking fee if she returned the Care Bear. Of course I will. YOU didn't read the listing. Why would I not charge that fee? Of course that's not how I worded it. But it still ruffled her feathers. She was annoyed with me right from the start. I stood my ground though. I also blocked her. Not for returning the item, but for giving me a hard time about my return policy. She found out I blocked her, and she gave me a negative. So ... not a real good outcome.

I had another buyer who insisted the size tag was wrong on a shirt I sold her. It was new with tags. The card tag and the silk tag both said the same thing. She wasn't too thrilled and felt that it was "unfair to charge a restocking fee when the shirt obviously isn't a size 7." But again, I stood my ground. She returned it, I promptly refunded, she agreed to cancel the transaction, and never left me feedback.

I had a third buyer who wrote me to let me know that the shoes were great and that my description was accurate, but that the heels are too high for her comfort. I reminded her of the restocking fee. She apparently changed her mind, because I never got the shoes back and she left me positive feedback. That is exactly what I was hoping for when I implemented the restocking fee. I hoped that it would make people think twice about returning for silly reasons.

This week, Cheryl on eBay Underground discovered that eBay is in fact refunding our FVFs on shipping. I double-checked my invoice and sure enough - they are! So now I'm rethinking my restocking fee. Here's what I've decided to do:

I'm going to leave the restocking fee wording in my listings. This will hopefully continue to deter the silly returns. I will waive the restocking fee on most of my returns. If the buyer comes right out of the gate being nasty (hello Care Bear lady), then I'll charge it (as long as it wasn't my mistake, of course). On the other hand, manners go a long way in my book. For example, I sold a pair of pants this week that didn't fit the buyer. Yes, I included measurements in the listing, so I could certainly charge the restocking fee since it wasn't my fault. But she was very nice and apologetic when she contacted me, so I don't mind waiving that fee at all.

I'll just have to decide on a case-by-case basis. I'll leave the wording, so I'll always have the option of charging it if I'm grumpy :)  But more often than not, I suspect I won't be charging it. That will make the buyers feel special!

What do you think? As a buyer, would you buy from a seller with a restocking fee? As a seller, would you charge a restocking fee?

This Week on eBay Underground

The boards have been HOPPING this week! We've got more than 600 members now, so there are new topics being started all the time! If you don't have time to keep up with them all, here are some highlights from this past week:

• We've started to compile a list of our quickest sellers. This is a great quick start guide for our new sellers. What have you sold that is a consistently FAST seller?
• We've been discussing some tips for running a successful sale in our eBay stores.
• More lamentations from the Black Hole and what to do about it once you've fallen in.
• Our October listing contest is wrapping up. How many items have you gotten listed this month??
• It's Pyrex Week! Tina wrote a great Pyrex article here on We Sell on eBay, and we're discussing it even more on the boards.
• Tanya found a crazy item this week, which has sparked some pretty amusing conversation.
• What to look for in woven trivets - what do you think, are they ugly or not?
• We've also had quite a few conversations about what to do when things don't go exactly as planned: delayed shipping at the buyer's request, item was refused and sent back - who pays shipping?, buyers who don't understand supply & demand when it comes to pricing, where is my item?, and so much more!

Stop by the boards and say hello! As always, if none of the current (zillions and zillions of) topics interest you, start a new one about something you'd love to talk about!

Make It Happen Monday

Wow. I had The. Worst. Sales. Week. last week. It was horrid. I just barely reached HALF of my goal for the week. And I wasn't alone. So many of our members on eBay Underground said they were also having their worst week this week. Can't really figure it out, but it stinks.

I spent MUCH of last week feeling really nasty and bitter toward eBay. It's extremely irritating to me that I am PAYING for a month of listing, I am PAYING for a month of store fees. And yet, all signs point to the fact that my listings are NOT showing up for that entire month. I was grumpy and moody most of the week. But you know what? I may not have reached the thousand that I was hoping for, but I do have $500 more than what I had a week ago. So why am I complaining?

We are very fortunate in that my eBay income isn't a requirement. Yes, since I've started selling, our quality of living has increased. I've gotten lazy with my coupon shopping (higher grocery bills). I've gotten lazy with cooking (higher restaurant spending). But we've also gotten to do some stuff we hadn't been able to before (taking the kids out for one-on-one evenings, redecorating bedrooms, etc). None of those things are necessities. I don't HAVE to make $1000 a week selling on eBay. I seriously need to keep things in perspective. We have a comfortable life. I need to learn to be grateful for the sales that I do have, and not be so grumpy when I don't reach my high, self-imposed goals.

Don't get me wrong - I'll still set high goals for myself, and I'll still strive to reach them. But I'm no longer going to let it get me down and make me snap at my family when I don't have a good sales day.

Someone hold me to that?

My Top eBay Moments This Week

I had 46 sales this week. Only 10 of those were shoes. I'm starting to feel a little bit panicky about the level of my shoe inventory. I am currently at about half of the most shoes I've ever had. I seriously need to get out for a road trip. One good road trip can get me anywhere from 30-70 pairs of shoes, depending on where I go. I didn't have ANY deadbeat buyers this week! I didn't have to open ANY unpaid item cases. What a breath of fresh air! I did have a woman buy a puzzle and pay for it, and then she immediately wrote me and said never mind, her son already has that one, so she needs to cancel. I also got notified of 3 pending returns. One was absolutely my fault. Turns out the "S" in a shoe size means "Slim" and isn't just part of the style number. Oops.

My favorite sales this week weren't necessarily high dollar amounts, but I'm happy about them for one reason or another:

This vest was my daughter's. She hardly ever wore it. It's really cute, so I'm not sure why we never put it on her. I would have stuck it in the yard sale for 50 cents or a dollar, but I thought I'd give it a shot on eBay. I wasn't sure how it would do, since it's not a brand name (I think it's Walmart, in fact). It sold for $8.99 with free shipping. Shipping was only $1.92, so I came out pretty far ahead of where I'd been by putting it in the yard sale.

Honestly, I couldn't care less about the sale of this game, but I wanted to share the backstory. This was part of a big lot of board games I bought at an auction for $3. There was absolutely nothing exciting in the box. Pictionary, Scrabble, HuskerDu, Yahtzee, blah blah blah. Run of the mill games, but for $3, I bought them. I have sold 6 of them for $54.96. That's why I wanted to write about this game. If you can get a box full of games for cheap, even if they are super-ordinary games, go for it. People will still buy them. I listed these low ($7.99 - $12.99) so that they would sell quickly. Because my investment was so ridiculously low, selling these games at rock bottom prices has still netted me a very nice profit. Oh, and the auction was in August, so they've almost all sold in a month and a half.

I'm sharing this sale as an idea of what NOT to buy. I paid a dollar for him. He's a Mt. Vernon George Washington bear. I thought for sure he would be a good seller, but no - not at all. I listed him for $9.99 + shipping and got VERY few hits. After the first couple months, I changed it to $12.99 f/s and he sold immediately. So I guess that's not terrible, but hardly worth the storage space.

Remember this yard sale? I paid $6 for this one and sold it for $26. Not quite as high as I wanted, but with all the stuff I bought at that sale, I'm going for a quick turnover, so I took the offer. I bought 6 NWT Jansport backpacks for a total of $31.75. I have sold 3 of them so far for a total of $90.99. So I've tripled my Jansport investment and still have half of them to sell!

Here's one of the other ones. Paid $7.50, sold for $30. Again, not fabulous, but good enough for me. The retail value on this one was $65, so I'm sure I could have held out for more, but they are bulky, and I quadrupled my money. Sometimes you just have to take the quick nickel instead of waiting for the slow dime.

The broken NES system that I mentioned here ended up being an unpaid item. I relisted it (accidentally at auction again) and had no bids. Then I remembered I could do a second chance offer since there was more than one buyer the first time it sold. I contacted that buyer and he said yes, he definitely still wants it, but he's out of the country right now and could he buy it on October 2nd? I told him yes, I will relist it on the 1st. He also told me he would pay $30 for it (the original winning bid was only $27, so naturally I was fine with $30). On October 1st, as promised, I relisted it, but I was skeptical, because it had been about 2 weeks since our conversation. But on October 2nd, also as promised, he bought and paid for it immediately! So I paid $15 for the whole Nintendo lot. I sold 3 Mario games for $23, the other 22 games for $51, and the broken console & accessories for $30. I got a total of $104 out of that $15 investment. Not bad :)

I was literally just wondering why these hadn't sold yet. Clairol Kindness is always a good seller. The Clairol Kindness Deluxe usually does better, but this one still should have sold. But I hadn't even gotten any offers on it. The day after I wondered why it hadn't sold, it sold. I paid $1.95 in May and they sold this week for my full asking price of $39.99!

I was very excited about this sale! This is a set of 22 Help Me Be Good books by Joy Berry. It's not a complete set. The complete set has 29 books, so I wasn't able to get top dollar for them. I bought 21 of them for $5.99 and then found another one a couple weeks later for 50 cents. So altogether I paid $6.88 (tax) for them in June and sold them this week for $45. I had free shipping on them, but media mail shipping was only $5.06, so I still did well!

And this!! I didn't even look this up on my phone before I bought it. It was only $2.99, so I figured I could make at least some sort of profit. Imagine my excitement when I saw the current listings! When I just got that link, I see that there are some listed for higher than mine that weren't there when I listed mine. No matter! I listed mine for $69.99 or best offer. I took an offer this week for $59.99 plus shipping. It's going to New Zealand, to a mother who is "desperate to find this" for her daughter's first birthday. Oh, and it was listed for 3 days!

How'd you do this week?

Have you visited eBay Underground this week?
And have you heard all about our new EBUG Classifieds? It's pretty bare-looking now. Come and post a few things for sale so we can get that filled up and exciting-looking.

Listing Contest on eBay Underground!

Who needs a kick in the pants?! I DO! I DO!

eBay Underground is having a month-long listing contest, starting this Monday, October 3rd! To keep the playing field level, the contestants will be split into two categories: part-timers and full-timers. The goal is simple - be the contestant in your category who lists the highest number of new listings during the month of October.

The prizes haven't been decided yet. We are taking donations (see our fanpage for information on how to donate to our group Paypal account) and hope to build up a huge kitty for an awesome prize or two! There is no fee to enter, and a donation is not required to enter. But the more donations we get, the cooler the prizes.

So come on over - sign up - get your rear in gear and let's bombard eBay with a zillion new listings during October!

Oh - and thank Adrienne for running the contest!

Make It Happen Monday!

Well drat. I missed my goal by $14 this week. Can't win 'em all, I guess. But no matter - I'm still quite happy with the number I did reach, so I'll celebrate that, and make a new goal for this week!

You know, there's a lot more to goals than just dollar amounts. Yes, of course, that's the main point of selling on eBay, but I don't want us to get so focused on that that we get disappointed and discouraged when we don't reach those goals. I didn't reach my goal this week, but I got a lot of listing done!

Here are some other goals to consider:

• List a certain number of items each week
• Get your eBay area organized
• Take stock of all your shipping supplies, and order whatever you're short on
• Buy a certain number of items each week

And don't forget personal goals as well:

• Drink a certain number of glasses of water each week
• Exercise a certain number of days each week
• Spend a certain amount of time on a non-eBay related hobby (I am SO far behind on my pleasure reading!)
• Spend an afternoon out of the house (stroll through the park, go for ice cream with the kids, sit on a bench by the river ... clear your mind of eBay for the afternoon)
• Be in bed by a certain time each night
• Wake up by a certain time each morning

There's so much more to focus on than just sales dollars! This week, I want you to go ahead and choose a sales amount goal, but also choose 1 or 2 other non-dollar eBay goals, as well as 1 or 2 non-eBay goals.

Come join us on eBay Underground and let us know what you're working toward this week!

Highlights From This Week's eBay Underground Discussions

Have you joined us at our eBay Underground Proboards discussion group yet? If you haven't, here's what you've been missing this week:





We've been discussing, making, and meeting our sales goals again this week!

The Halloween buying season is here, so we've been discussing what the costume home runs (and duds) are this season.

Did you know you can use your Paypal debit card to pay your eBay fees? You'll get 1% cash back!

We've been talking about the pros and cons of eBay's free auction promotion last week. How are your auctions doing?

We've also been weighing the pros and cons of opening a store outside of eBay.

How do you keep your inventory organized? Come and share your tips with us.






Don't see anything in that list that catches your eye? Don't worry - that's just the highlights. We've got many MANY more conversations going on ALL the time! And if none of THOSE interest you either, well then come start a thread about something that DOES interest you. We'd LOVE to hear from you!

Make It Happen Monday!

On eBay Underground, we've been setting goals for ourselves ... and reaching them!! It has been so encouraging to watch our members increase their goals week after week after week after week after week!

Week 1, I set a modest goal for myself of $100 per day. I had been doing that most days for a couple week, but I wanted it to be completely consistent - $700 that week. I reached it, but just barely - $700.92!

Week 2, since I only barely reached my week 1 goal, I was going to keep it the same. But Joann encouraged me to bump it up. I went with $750 and blew that away with a $818.09 week!!

Already, I could see that pushing yourself to reach high goals can really make a difference!

For Week 3, I decided to go crazy and aim for $850. I didn't quite make it, but I'm not going to complain about the $803.75 I did reach.

During Week 4, I kept my goal the same since I didn't reach it during week 3. Goal: $850. Reached: $847.65. Aggghh! I was $2.35 short of my goal. And what made it even worse was I had a $9.99 sale 20 minutes after the end of the day. SOOO close.

For Week 5, I decided to push it again. Since I was SO close to my Week 4 goal, I figured I'd give it a shot and aim for $875. Well... I had a record week! $985.82!!

So we have just begun Week 6, and I am reaching for the stars this week. My goal is to hit $1000 in sales this week. To me, that just sounds crazy! But I have seen a pattern over the last 5 weeks. Push, push, push, and you'll probably get closer to your goal than you think you will!

I'm not telling you these numbers to brag or to make you feel bad if your numbers are lower. I'm telling you these numbers so you can see how my sales increased week after week, simply because I said I wanted them to. I stated a goal, and I listed and worked hard for it!

So today, I want you to come on over to our Week 6 thread and state your goals for the week. I also want you to push yourself just a little bit. Set your goal just a bit higher than what you think you can reach. And then stretch for it! Add just 1 extra listing per day (above what you usually do). If you don't have a regular listing schedule, make one. Try to list 3 items per day. Stretch. Push. Work hard for your goals. You will feel an amazing sense of satisfaction when you reach your goal. And then you can stretch harder, push further, and work harder to reach an even higher goal next week. And before you know it, you'll be reaching for $1000!

Highlights From This Week's eBay Underground Discussions

I haven't talked about our discussion group, eBay Underground, for awhile. That's the whole point of this blog, so I thought I'd highlight what you've been missing if you haven't visited us recently.

We are rapidly closing in on 500 members, and the boards are hopping! Today, we're learning a little more about each other, and talking about what we call our eBay friends when we talk about them to our real life friends.

We're setting our sales goals higher and higher, and for the most part, we are reaching them!

We are sharing the sadness and devastation of our friends that are affected by the storms and flooding.

We are discussing what we've recently found, as well as what we've recently sold.

We're debating the pros and cons of whether to accept returns or not.

And now is the perfect time to get those Halloween costumes listed. Come check out our Halloween thread to see which ones are the hot ones this year!

Hope to see you there - we hate for you to miss out on all the good conversation!

Meltonian Now Available for Immediate Shipment

Whew! After a gazillion troubles with my listing service, I have finally got all my Meltonian listed in my eBay store. Everything you see listed there is available for immediate shipment. I have a few other shoe care products that I will be listing tomorrow (they will show up in that same link once they are listed). If you would like any of the colors you see in that listing, go ahead and order through eBay. If you need a color or some other shoe care product that I don't currently have listed, then come on over to our eBay Underground thread and let me know what you need. Or feel free to contact me through the Contact Us link at the top of this page or by leaving a comment on this post.

I'll be placing my order on Wednesday, August 31.

Shoe Care Orders

I just announced yesterday that I've temporarily done away with my Addoway store until I can get my shoe products into my eBay store. I think I am ready to stock up again. I will be placing a large custom order with my supplier on Wednesday, August 31. That's one week away. Is there anything you need to complete your shoe repair arsenal?

Here's what I can get:

Meltonian Shoe Cream in a wide variety of colors ($2.25 each)
Sole & Heel edge dressing in black or brown ($4.00 each)
Barge Cement for repairing torn leather flaps ($4.25 each)
Suede and Nubuck eraser for the shiny spots on suede shoes ($7.00 each)
Kiwi Parade Gloss in black ($4.50) or brown ($4.25)
Suede and Nubuck aerosol cleaner ($4.25)
Suede Brush ($3.00)
Shoe Shine Buffing Brush ($6.00 each)
1/4" edge brush for use with edge dressing ($3.25 each)
1/2" edge brush ($4.50 each)


***I also have a variety of starter kits if you're unsure of what you need to get started:

Prices for these include shipping.

Kit #1 - Full Kit $35.95:

• 6 creams (black, neutral, 4 shades of brown)
• 2 sole & edge dressings (1 each black & brown)
• 1 large buffing brush
• 2 small edge brushes (for applying edge dressing)

Kit #2 - Creams & Buffing Brush $21.45

• 6 creams (black, neutral, 4 shades of brown)
• 1 large buffing brush

Kit #3 - Edge Dressings & Brushes $19.45

• 2 edge dressings (1 each black & brown)
• 2 small edge brushes

Kit #4 - Suede Starter Kit $18.25

• suede eraser
• suede cleaner
• suede brush

Shipping:

1 item $3.95
2 items $4.95
3 - 12 items $5.95
13+ items: contact me for shipping quote

Edge brushes ship free with anything else. If you order an edge dressing and an edge brush, shipping would be the $3.95 for just 1 item.

So if you are interested in any of this stuff, now's the time to let me know. You can contact me through the "Contact Us" link at the top of this blog, or you can leave a comment on this post, or you can come join us on Proboards for the latest group order discussion.

Shoe Week at eBay Underground

Recently, we had a very in depth discussion about shoes here. This week on eBay Underground, our theme Topic of the Week is SHOES! If your niche is shoes and you have more to add to the topic, or if you would like to sell shoes but need more information, please stop by this week and add to our discussion. Our goal is to get as much participation as possible this week so we can compile all our information into an ebook, which will be available FREE to our members. Come join the conversation!

5 Tips for Selling Hot Rollers on eBay

When you first think of hot rollers, you probably think they are outdated, and no one uses them anymore, right? Wrong! There is a huge segment of eBay buyers who buy them - and pay crazy high prices for some of them. Who are these people??

That's right. Pageant moms! That is a world that I know nothing about, so I am only speculating here, but I suspect vintage hot rollers are in high demand in the pageant world because they get hotter more quickly, and when you're rushing around backstage, you need super-hot rollers, and you need them super-fast!

Here are my top 5 tips for selling hot rollers on eBay:

1. Focus on vintage. Vintage rollers get a lot hotter than the rollers that are on the market today. They are also made better, made to last. I think a lot of today's appliances are pretty much designed to be disposable. Vintage rollers (and other vintage appliances) are high-quality.
2. Don't worry if they are incomplete or they don't work. As long as you don't pay more than a couple dollars for them, you'll still make a profit. I made almost $30 by parting a set out for replacement parts. I sold the rollers themselves in sets of 2 or 3, and I sold the clips separately.
3. Know the true gems. Always be on the lookout for Remington Tight Curls, vintage Lady Schick rollers, and Helene Curtis Unicurls.
4. Learn about wax cores. I have had several people ask me if my hot rollers have wax cores. I didn't know what that meant for the longest time. Some of these older rollers have wax cores, so once they are heated, the wax melts. I think this makes the rollers stay hotter longer. You can find out if your set has wax cores by heating them in their unit. Once they are good and hot, shake them close to your ear. If it sounds like water sloshing around, then they've got wax cores. Be sure to note this in your listing.
5. Don't list at auction. Hot rollers generally need just the right buyer. Please -- stay away from auctions and list these in your store. You'll have to be patient and wait for that perfect buyer to come along.
6. Bonus Tip: If you are in the middle of cleaning hot rollers to list them, and you're a really bad procrastinator, take a break and write a blog post about selling hot rollers. It'll make you feel productive.

If you've got more questions about selling hot rollers, feel free to leave a comment here, or come on over to our discussion board and start a new thread!

Dealing with the "eBay Police"

We've all gotten them. Those helpful folks that want to let you know something is wrong with your item, or it is priced too high. I woke up yesterday morning and saw that I had a new eBay message. As long as it's not a username I recognize from a recent sale, I get excited about eBay messages. This one was no different ... until I opened it.

"Do you honestly think someone would want to put their foot inside of this shoe? And you are asking $35.99 for them?? It almost seems against the board of health to present/sell a shoe so dirty."

How do I respond to that? So many options flitted through my head. Let's consider them:

1. "No, I'm actually asking $39.99 for them. They just happen to be 10% off at the moment."
2. "See that little Make Offer button? If $34.99 is too much, feel free to let me know how much YOU would like to buy them for."
3. "Considering I have made a rather successful business of selling pre-owned shoes on eBay, people must not mind it too much."
4. "Have you looked at the Birkenstocks that sell on eBay for high money?"

When we get smart remarks like this (and "I can buy this new for the same price!"), it is so tempting to reply with something equally smart. So how did I respond in this case?

Why waste my time? I have better things to do - like shipping all these "used" items that other people bought over the weekend. I refuse to give these people the satisfaction of being disturbed. It's not their business how I run my business.

There will always be people who are critical of our business practices, but I've put a lot of time and effort into building my store. Guess what? For the most part, I've figured out what I'm doing. So what if I have one pair of shoes that looks dirtier than most of my other ones? Either they'll sell eventually, or I'll knock them down to half off and get rid of them that way.

Don't let these self-proclaimed eBay police intidimate you. YOU run your business the way YOU want to run it. That's the beauty of being our own bosses. We don't have to do things the way other people tell us to.

Come join us on eBay Underground, where we're discussing our best finds and time management tips this week!

How to Create a Logo for your Store - Live Class 7/13

Would you like to learn how to create a personalized logo for your store, your emails, your blog posts, whatever? Then come join us on eBay Underground tomorrow night, Wednesday, July 13 at 10pm EST. Lisa Blasdell will be teaching how to do this in a live class! There will be discussion boards, screenshots, and live chat! Stop by and learn. It's free! No software downloads necessary. The class and the logo designing will all be done on websites. Sign up here!