eBay was Dead
On Monday, March 18, 2019, eBay was a complete goose egg and was crickets other than one low offer that I sent a reasonable counter to and haven’t heard anything back on.
This is the SIXTH day in March that eBay hasn’t had any sales (we have over 1,200 unique listings between three store accounts). I’ve been selling on eBay for 20 years and I’m well aware of the ups and downs, but this slow sales stretch that started at the end of January is starting to concern me. We’ve seen flickers of life the past two weeks, so hopefully, everyone was just hungover from St. Patrick’s Day. We shall see.
The Antique Mall Saves The Day!
The antique mall saved the day with one sale. A necklace for $12 that was part of a 20% off sale that I’m running through the end of the month. While not a huge sale by any means, it saves the day and assures that I’ll be getting a check from the Antique Mall this month. The Winnie The Pooh snow globe also sold earlier in the month (BOLO).
Overall I’m not really thrilled with how the Antique Mall is performing either, but it’s something I at least wanted to try. To be fair I’ll probably give it through the summer to see how an entire year shapes up.
As far as the necklace goes, I think it was the weird metal one (they didn’t get all of the stock number entered in). I frequently buy costume jewelry lots at the auction and decided to see how the necklaces do at the antique mall. In almost 2 months that’s the first one to sell. I may need to reevaluate that, but I’ll wait until it’s warmer and people are actually getting out more.
What’s Selling?
What did you sell yesterday and on what platforms? How are your sales going?
I share a booth with a friend of mine and summers are definitely better for us anyway.. I am pretty much on the verge of dropping it. We pay 200.00/month ($100 each) and even the busiest month we had neither one of us made the 100.00. I am slowly just letting my side run out and letting him take over some of my side, It is hard to keep all the platforms running and also filling up the booth with product. Last year I had the benefit of boxlot auctions every single week, this year it seems my auction house is running straight auctions. So, I am hoping the garage sales and tag sales are in abundance this year.. one of the reason I am afraid to go FT with reselling.
Well, Thanks for sharing this with us.. IF it does not come up, I am on the group run by Garage flips and Cincinnati picker with you.
Steve,
Thanks for stopping by and letting me know what you’re seeing. That’s very similar to what I’ve heard from others and am seeing myself. I pay $65 a month for a showcase (4′ wide x 6′ tall I think) and March will be the first time they’ll cut me a check out of our 7 months there. But honestly, I’m not focusing on that as much as I should.
Our auction house runs a MASSIVE box lot ring every single week in addition to 4 other rings going on. And our antique mall backs up to the auction house (part of the reason that I chose the location). And we have 4 of the Goodwill Outlet locations around town too. So I’m lucky in regards to sourcing. But most garage sales around here aren’t that great.
I love John & Lonnie’s group. It’s probably my favorite one as there’s none of the nonsense you see elsewhere.
Brian