I sold my very first item on E-Bay today.
The book that I am reading on selling tactics mentions the simple rule. First sell the stuff in your house that you never believed would ever sell. Perhaps it’s crap you bought at a garage sale in a hungover stupor or something ill-fitting that your Aunt Behemoth gave you for your birthday. No matter what, take a crack at it…you never know.
I happened to have a bunch of old VHS tapes of some comedy and horror classics sitting around. They were very, very old tapes…bought during a liquidation sale at some video rental shop about ten years ago. However, the quality was still satisfactory, so I figured they didn’t deserve the trashheap quite yet. So, I took one of them, and put it up for auction starting at $1.00. 7 day auction. 6 days and 21 hours later, I had one bid…at $1.00. I figured, what the hell…at least I’d get practice in my shipping, even if there was no reward to be found (my Ebay charges were around a dollar so at the time I was just breaking even).
Then, I had a fussy baby to contend with…laid down on the couch with him and promptly fell asleep for three hours. When I got back up, I realized the auction would now be over, so time to see the damage….
WHAT THE??? $11.07!!!! A small, 7 person bidding war had occured within minutes of the auction closing, and they drove the price to what I consider to be a satisfactory first sale. Now, I’m getting more items ready…going through boxes and taking snaps.
They said in the book that it’s easy to get hooked…and I see why. I think I’m going to enjoy this!
May even do some garage sale hunting tomorrow……
Excellent! Plans towards world dommination are proceeding as planned!
That’s how it usually goes on E-bay, everyone waits ’till the last few minutes (sometimes seconds) to place their bid in the hopes that their sly habits will give them the edge.
Yeah, I’m been reading a lot about it, and watching other auctions…it’s interesting.
Sold a second item a couple days ago…once again for less than $10, but that’s ok. This time I’m shipping to a larger item so it’s good practice.
BTW…you can find my items up for sale here
It’s a motley collection of items, but this way I can see what sells better than others. I’ll have a separate post about my adventures in finding things to sell soon.
Oh you sold Hardware Wars! That’s a real find.