We have spent the majority of March (and April so far) focusing on some other projects, so we have had to change the way that we do eBay a little bit. We are ever so slowly continuing to push our average sale price closer to $100. We’re just shy of $50 at the moment, but we are still clearing out our store of tons of items under $15. Our goal has been to net $100,000 this year while listing and shipping as few items as possible. Because of this, on our sourcing days we might go to three or four different thrift stores and only pick up 15 items total. However the higher and price per item fits well in our goal to list at least $500 of product per day. This leaves us way more time than we used to have for focusing on other income projects and spending time together as a family. We are not to the point of actually having free time yet, but we’re on our way!
This is the type of find you will rarely get your hands on if you thrift only at big box type thrift stores. The competition is too fierce, and the pricing is too high. Finds like these are much more common at mom & pop thrift stores and yard sales. We recognized the brand, felt the quality, and looked them up. We paid the $10 they asked and they sold within a week! Notice, our first picture is not meant to give the buyer a good view of the product. That’s what the other 11 pictures are for. The purpose of you main picture is to get a potential buyer to click on your listing, so make that picture appealing! Do not, I repeat, DO NOT be one of those people who thinks they are warding off returns and angry customers by putting a picture of a flaw as the main picture. These headphones had a loose wire which was pictured later and described in detail in the description.
This bag didn’t exactly fit in with our $100 sales price goal. But it only cost us a dollar and we knew it would sell fast, so we couldn’t resist. Any vintage items for a specific college or sports team, especially those with large logos and bright colors such as this one, tend to do very well. This one took about two weeks to sell.
This was the third pair of LandRoller skates that we have sold in the past year. Two from yard sales and one from a thrift store. Hopefully if you see something that’s unusual, you will automatically be looking it up!
I sell a lot of vintage electronics that I’m unsure about what they actually do. While this does made it hard to test them, it does open me up to lots of possibilities while sourcing! This one powered on just fine in the thrift store, so I was willing to risk $5 on it. When I got home, I found a manual online and ran through the functions as best I could. When everything checked out, onto eBay it went!
People who list shorts year-round always quip, “It’s summer somewhere!” While that may be true, I’m not sure the same can be said of Christmas items. No matter where you are, Christmas comes but once a year. Why, then, do people buy Christmas items throughout the year? It kind of baffles me. This Ferris Wheel actually had several lights out (or it would have sold for $180+), but still sold within a couple days of listing.
Interesting fact: The person who bought this didn’t even buy it to use as a keyboard. For some reason, people want the “switches” out of these old mechanical keyboards. What they do with them doesn’t really matter to me as long as they keep paying me for them! Most mechanical keyboards sell in the $30-40, range but Leading Edge Products keyboards such as this one can sell for $400 or more if you have a desirable model.
Whenever I hear someone tell a thrift store employee that “they’ll be back” to buy something, I always make sure to check it out! While I don’t want to snipe something out from under them – if you want something at a thrift store, you better buy it when you see it, because it probably won’t be there next time! This was in the collectibles case at a local thrift store and I heard a man say he would be back for it tomorrow. I was checking out at the time and forget to look at it, but when I checked back in a week later it was still there and I scooped it up for $50!
Discontinued kitchen appliances (especially any that are desirable by preppers or DIY health nuts) always bring good money. This was the cheaper of two grain mills that we found and sold this month…scroll down for the next one… *drumrooooollll*
What can I say, I was in the right place at the right time. They wheeled out a new cart and I jumped on this before anyone else could even get close. Vintage appliance made with “real materials” (wood, steel, etc.) command a premium price from the previous generation. This one sold a week later to an older gentlemen who already had a similar one, but for some reason, liked the motor on this one better. The credit goes to our new camera for this smashing picture as well. Goodbye phone pictures…I don’t miss you.
Our local Deseret Industries routinely gets inventory donations from local businesses that are either dumping old stuff or just going out of business. This time, it was an entire pallet of these dies that were marked at 10 cents apiece. Kirstie and I asked some employees for rubber bands and then spent over an hour making sets with one of each die. We ended up making 14 sets and this was the third one to sell! (Two on eBay, one on Mercari)
Noone else bought any of the dies and they ended up throwing the rest of the pallet away (sad day) before we could make them an offer on the whole thing. There were plenty of other resellers around, but no one thought these were worth selling since they only go for a couple dollars apiece. Innovate and conquer!
Luckily enough for me, Kirstie is a sewing machine magician and can test the machines I bring home (usually a couple a week…). If I had to, I think I could legitimately make a living selling only sewing machines on eBay. We have sourced dozens of machines off of Craigslist as well, and have paid up to $200 for machines that have sold for over $500!
This was a good example of “If you don’t know what it is, how do you know if it’s valuable?” It felt quality, it had a high-end craft name on the handle, so we bought it and took it home to figure it out. Actually…I took it home and failed to figure it out. The handle with the brand name was actually a replacement and they didn’t make anything like this little machine. It wasn’t until I sent a picture of it to my Dad that I was able to identify it and get it listed! It turned out it “skives” leather, meaning you can trim two edge pieces and lay them together into one flat piece. The more you know!
If you are into selling car parts, do not underestimate the power of Facebook Marketplace & Craigslist (or KSL if you live near us…). It super common for people to sell either unopened or new, open-box items that they bought and found out didn’t fit their car. Car-specific parts are extremely hard to sell locally since the market simply isn’t large enough, so we usually give it a couple weeks and then shoot them an offer that will leave us with a tidy profit. We picked these up for $50 and were able to score several other parts from the same guy as well. Always ask what else they have for sale because, since you’re already there with cash, people are almost always willing to deal!
Having ridden motocross for most of my teen years I can tell you…gear is expensive. Especially when you can only work for 2 hours after school at a warehouse job your dad got you…
Keep an eye open for helmets, chest protectors, neck braces, and boots. Motocross clothing (pants and jerseys) sell well, but you really need to find the pair to get a decent price (riders like to match), and thrift stores almost always mark up any sort of riding clothing.
This trash can…almost got re-donated about 10 times. I originally paid $10 for it, simply because it was awesome and I planned to sell it locally. When I got no bites, I stuck it on eBay and waited…and waited..and waited. I rejected a couple of low-ball offers (mainly because I didn’t want to ship it), and thought it would never sell for a decent price. It stuck with us through two apartment moves (and two corresponding moves of our storage unit) and finally sold…after almost two years. The buyers are definitely there if you want to wait, but going back, I probably would have spent my money of something smaller and easier to pack/store.
High-end knives are one of my favorite things to sell. The reason being: they are never really returned for being defective! Learn a few brands (Spyderco, Zero Tolerance, and Benchmade are some good ones to start with) and peruse your local ads for deals. While you’re rarely find expensive or custom knives at thrift stores, we have picked up a couple from pawn shops. Be aware though, before you go look at any knife, look up the signs of a fake. The knife market is just as full of fakes as the clothing market, and the type of collectors who will be buying from you on eBay are a savvy bunch. We paid $80 for this knife and it sold 3 days later. While we typically look for a higher ROI, I prefer fast nickels over slow dimes!