The Incredible World Of eBay

Rozane Ware Pottery (Roseville, Ohio)

2012-01-08T14:24:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! Im now in the 6th year of this ebay blog!

At times you find things that are just so good looking you want to keep them! Of course you know those are the ones that will sell LOL. I didnt know what Rozane Ware was but found this candle holder. It was made in the early 1900s and is pretty rare. It sold for almost $100 , 40x what I paid for it. The finish was so shiny, the relief on the flower/plants so real looking. I have to say it is one of the best pieces of pottery I have ever seen. So if you see something with ROZANE on the bottom, pick it up, if its cheap enough :)

Vintage Reel to Reel Tapes, Super 8mm movies, hot now on Ebay!

2011-09-05T12:55:00.004-04:00

After saving some lots of movies and reel to reel tapes I had for a while, I decided to check out pricing by researching them on Ebay. I was surprised to see there seemed to be more interest lately so I listed two huge lots. One lot of reel to reel 4 track tapes, another of Super 8mm movies. There is early and active bidding. You can check them out and my other items at
http://stores.ebay.com/Once-Upon-A-Bid

Just some listing hints. I have always found the best way to get active bids is to list HUGE LOTS . This attracts big collectors and even resellers . It also saves on listing costs and usually gets the sale done quickly. In my Super 8 movie lot I have Marilyn Monroe in Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Born Free and Wizard of Oz. I confirmed most of the movies by holding the film leader up to the light where you will see an etching of the movie name (in most cases). The reel to reel tapes are appreciated by vintage movie lovers and I am also selling a HUGE LOT of those. Always be on the lookout for vintage film items. 8mm , Super 8 and even slide collections from peoples personal photos. On Music items, look for quadraphonic tapes (look like 8tracks) and reel to reel tapes.

Vintage Paint by Number Paintings Almost always sell!

2011-07-14T08:39:00.003-04:00

One item I almost always have good luck with are Vintage Paint by Number paintings. I am not sure why people collect them but they do. These are the paintings you might have done as a kid with numbers for what color to paint in. Painted ones sell best (those completed). I just recently sold the two featured in pictures here for a 10x profit over what I paid. Generally you want to pick these up for 3 to 4 dollars or less with sales prices from 15-30 dollars. Those featuring animals (horses, dogs etc) are usually more worthwhile listing.

Leather Folio Given by Shah of Iran's Wife -Flea Market Find

2011-07-13T21:17:00.002-04:00

I have to admit, I loved this item from the minute I found it at a local flea market. It appeared to be just a leather folder, folio whatever you call it! LOL But it had some cool designs on it. I didnt really look it over well enough to see the inscription inside that said it was given by the Shabanou (Shah of Iran's Wife) and Empress of Iran. It might have been a gift given to visitors or something developed for sale there during their reign in the 70s. I paid about 3.00 for it and sold it for $50!! You really never know what you will find when you are out hunting. Keep in mind some basic things... If its unusual , different looking.. has some age to it (usually pre 1980) and especially if you have never seen anything like it or heard of it before, it is usually worth buying (for a low price , keep aquisition costs low less risk of loss on items). This item was old looking, a little dusty perhaps and needed care. I dont often touch items but had some Kenneth Cole Leather cleaner around and it worked wonderfully! I highly recommend it! IT looks like suntan lotion and I just used a little and cleaned it up safely! Take a look at the pics!

Defunct Sports Teams.. Especially hockey teams. AHL

2011-07-01T02:01:00.002-04:00

People always think that the more popular a sports team is the more valuable an item might be. For example lots of people love the Yankee or the Red Sox or for that matter in hockey the New York Rangers. However usually big name teams have TONS and I mean TONS of merchandise available from many sources. Its in chain stores, its in sports stores, its at games, its everywhere! The best sports items to sell are often items from now defunct (no longer in business) sports teams, especially hockey teams which seem to have developed a rabid following in their day. AHL (American Hockey League) teams are especially good since the AHL served as the proving ground for many NHL players. The fans were very loyal. In New Haven , CT we had a team called the New Haven Nighthawks and there are some crazy collectors and even though they havent been around for many years people still buy their stuff. I just listed a pair of unused season tickets from 1981 which already have a bid (pictured here). I still miss going to the games myself. I have some the most highly sought after New Haven Nighthawk items including one of the only sets of all the programs from when they played the Russian Red Army team before the fall of the Soviet Union. So think SPORTS, think DEFUNCT, think AHL and especially New Haven!

Sometimes you just dont know what you are selling! 1800s Mold Greek? Roman? Religious?

2011-05-30T22:07:00.002-04:00

Well here is an unusual item I just listed for sale. It is from the 1800s and it appears to be a mold of some kind. What was it used for? Was it just a decor item? I used Ebay's new LIKE button for facebook and popped it onto my facebook page. Some people felt it was Greek in origin others thought it looked like St Francis. I just dont know but it looks interesting so I listed it for sale. When you dont know what something is, ask around Ebay forums or groups or post it to Facebook and have your friends take a look. Cant hurt! And often times they bid on it! LOL

Selling Vintage Paperweights on Ebay- Sulfide paperweight

2011-05-30T22:02:00.003-04:00

It has been a while since I posted here, but Im back to ramping up the sales again! I recently listed for sale a vintage sulfide paperweight. These are fairly collectible and sometimes can bring really good prices on Ebay. Usually they depict a coin, medal or person in the center. In my case it looks like it is some colonial gentleman (see pic). Paperweights in general have their following on Ebay and some sell in the hundreds of dollars. Be sure to take many pictures , especially of the top and bottom of the paperweight and describe it as best you can. Many times there wont be a makers mark so search completed listings to see if you see anything similar to help with your description.

Dr. Shrink Vintage software - Early Psychology Software

2010-08-19T10:19:00.001-04:00

I mentioned an early psychological analysis program in my previous post but couldnt find that I posted a picture of it on my blog so I found it for you to document this for you. Early psychological analysis programs were very popular in the first generation internet user crowds and you should keep an eye out for them for reselling on ebay! I love this one! check out the pic!

Vintage Software Look for realy RPG (role playing games)...

2010-08-19T10:10:00.003-04:00

I added a few auctions this past week. While bidding in general seems to be down from the economy vintage role playing game software packages seem to still attract bidders. I was at the local flea market, hunting through boxes of "2 for a dollar" items and came across a complete program with box called Wizardry 1 (see the pic). Its an early 80s software game which was an early pioneer in the role playing game market. Ive seen this particular game sell for good money in the past and I already have a bid and numerous watchers on it. While I was there I passed on another partial software package including some early guides for a game called Ultima 3. It would have been only 50cents but it wasnt complete. However I came home and researched it and it appears people still collect these guides so I went back the next week to the flea market and amazingly it was still there burried deep in a box! I have added a picture of this one also. Generally speaking anything with Wizards, Dragons and from the 80s should do well and you should keep an eye out for this type stuff. I think in another section of my blog I posted about an early psychology program called Dr Shrink or something. Look for those too.

Changing your mind about selling things

2010-08-19T10:04:00.003-04:00

I think it happens to most people who sell on ebay. They wind up selling some things they wish they held on to or perhaps change their mind when they see how nice something is after taking pictures. Recently this happened to me. I posted a y2k gold pendant Ive had for a while. It was 2.5 grams of fine gold (.999) and I figured it would get some active bidding and net me a cool hundred bucks. When I posted it, after a few days of not hits at all to the auction at 99 cents, I decided I wanted to keep the item and took it down. It is not really a good thing to do often and Ebay frowns on it. In reading the description I left out an important detail I should have added so I chose the selection "error in listing" when I pulled it down. While the hits probably would have pickde up and it might have sold for a good price, I just decided it was an unusual piece that I wanted to keep and wear since I really dont have any necklaces. Now to hunt for chain! Here are some pics of this cool item.

Selling Old Banknotes on Ebay

2010-08-08T00:39:00.002-04:00

I was reading a post on one of the Ebay boards this evening regarding paper currency and remembered I sold these Bank of New England Banknotes a while back. I live in Connecticut and these were aquired when someone was hired to clean out an old bank vault or bank storage area in he Haddam/East Haddam area. They are from the late 1800s. Please excuse the poor picture quality. These were taken early on in our Ebay career before we really did a good job with pictures. Most older banknotes do well. People look for what is called vignettes (illustrations) on the notes as well as looking for quality and or banks/places of interest.

How to post Vintage Playing cards for Sale on Ebay

2010-08-03T23:06:00.002-04:00

In a recent collectibles board post , someone was asking about selling playing cards on Ebay. Ive sold quite a few decks of cards (and purchased some too). Collectors want to see scans of better decks of cards with enough detail to get a look at condition, pictures and graphics on the cards etc. Here you will see some examples from a deck of older playing cards from Canada. Even though the scans are good, I did mess up here! I didnt post a nice close up of the ACE OF SPADES. The Ace of Spades usually has identifying information that collectors look for , so always post a picture of it!

Back to the Past - Selling Playing Cards on Ebay

2010-04-11T14:00:00.001-04:00

I was reviewing some old pictures and was astonished at the time I had years ago to scan in and sell playing cards on Ebay. I love older or unique playing card sets. They sell fairly well on Ebay and can often be picked up at tag sales and flea markets in bunches of decks. Just a few tips. Try to take good pictures. What worked best for me is a scan of the top of a card and a scan of the Ace of Spades as that usually has the descriptive in that card collectors are use to. Also make sure to count and see if the deck is complete and talk about condition etc. Ive sold some amazing playing cards on Ebay and even bought some. Good luck hunting!

Just a gorgeous Limoges Set Ive had from a Goodwill find..

2010-01-30T00:00:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to put these pictures up here before I lost track of them . Every once in a while an item you find is too nice to sell (or too much work to pack and ship or both LOL). I found this set at Goodwill really cheap Ive never used it but absolutely love it! I was scrolling through some old pictures and said just looking at it makes me happy so I figured id post it to the blog here . It was one of those 1 in 1000 day finds while out. I do plan on using soon as a friend asked me about it and said you should have a nice New England dinner on that set!
Happy hunting! More ebay news soon!

Limoges dinner set -Pictures continued

2010-01-29T23:57:00.003-05:00

Limoges continued

2010-01-29T23:53:00.003-05:00

Selling Scrap Gold on Ebay - An active marketplace for Precious metal

2009-12-19T09:39:00.002-05:00

This is a two minute intro to selling gold on Ebay.

You will need a scale as shown in this picture. You can buy one on Ebay for about 20 bucks I think. You will need to show the marking of the Kt weight of the gold as in this pic and the scale reading. Gold is worth over 1,000 an ounce now and well everyone has some kicking around. The Ebay market for Gold scrap is very active and competative. Roughly speaking the price you get varies and you can research this on Ebay but if you take 14kt gold the calculation might be 14/24kt (14kt over pure gold at 24kt) then multiply the amount of grams you have divided by the number of grams in an ounce.

27.2 grams of 14kt gold as show in the picture would be 14/24 x 27.1/28.3495231 (grams per ounce) x a price of 1,000 per ounce of gold comes out to about $557 market value.

You wont get that though as the person buying it needs a profit so they usually offer 70-90% of that amount depending on how reliable you look as a seller and how eager they are to have more to melt down.

There was also a great guy that posted an ebook on this subject which I loved but Ebay banned ebooks so look on the net for Selling Scrap Gold on Ebay, maybe he is still kicking around! Good luck!

Gorgeous Vintage Print Woman on Bicycle

2009-12-19T09:34:00.002-05:00

Again in looking through my old picture folders for interesting items I sold I came across this one that I used as an example of the prints found in some old magazines or newspapers I had for sale. I just always loved this one. Beautiful colors, nice bike, big hat. Perfect! I sold these as a lot but just love the style and attention to detail that were present in older pictures before the days of computer generated garbage ;)

The Superman Rolex Watch That Never Existed But still sold! LOL

2009-12-19T09:28:00.002-05:00

I was strollin through my picture directories and came across these Superman Watch I had picked up at a flea market and sold on Ebay. Of course it seemed to be a "Rolex" but wasnt as Rolex never made a superman watch. So I knew I couldnt mention the name Rolex in the listing. I was hesistant to even sell it at all as who would want this? However it just looked so cool to me. My pictures do not do it justice as those rhinestones would sparkle like crazy and in using a flash I got a copper hue to the silver tone which makes it look aged when it wasnt. But I just loved this item. I believe it sold the first time around.

Finding things to Sell on Ebay through Keywords and Usefulnees of the Item

2009-10-19T09:11:00.002-04:00

Finding items to sell on Ebay based on Keyword sets & Utility of the item.

First as to keywords.. KEYWORDS -APPEALING TO MORE THAN ONE SEARCHER If you could find items appealing to two sets of keyword searches they were good. If you found items that appealed to three you had an almost sure winner.

Example. Glow in the dark Dragon jigsaw puzzles (sold out). This appealed to people that search for glow in the dark decor (which I never knew people did til I sold here), to people that love Dragon stuff (which there is a huge dragon fan base on Ebay) and of course to jigsaw puzzle people. I bought every one a few stores had (hundreds) and sold every one here profitably.

Also as many of you know some very popular keywords help sales by bringing in people due to their popularity. We sold Sesame street items, disney items, cabbage patch items, strawberry shortcake (did you see the mug that someone just sold for $200?), etc etc. People that find one of those usually might be interested in others. Words like FAIRY , MAGIC, etc are huge as well.

Then there are odd cases where a new item matches a collectible item from the past in a keyword. One such item is FAIRYKINS . The original was nothing short of amazing (by Marx I believe). Years ago they lived in this book like house. Highly collectiblle on Ebay, few on the site at any time. However, the newly issued Fairykins by Lanard( hope I spelled that right) were little cute winged fairies where a kid can press the belly and the wings flapped. We sold every one of these and would load up carriages wherever we would find them before they were pretty much gone from stores.

Another example. A toy store chain closed near us years and years ago. Some guy wound up with a trailer from this store (1980s I think) loaded with small stuff. We bought every single Colorforms travel pack he had for 50 cents or less each sold them all for 6-8 bucks. They were Sesame Street, Mickey Mouse and Barbie. They appealed to colorform collectors and to people that searched for those names and who wanted something for their kids to play with. These benefited from the search for the vintage items. Then of course you can change titles to utilize important keywords on Ebay. We had DC Comics Superheroes Iron on Transfer books. They dont make them anymore and I bought 354 of them at 40 cents each and sold them from 7-10 bucks each. They started to sell better when I changed the title to add Superman Batman but also HUGE LOT since there were 200 or more transfers in the book. This item also fits in well below because it had superhero items but had a useful purpose of making shirts.

USEFUL PURPOSE OTHER THAN JUST LOOKING GOOD

So what do I mean by utility? I guess that might not be a good word but it refers to "quality or state of being useful". Serves a useful purpose other than to look at. Collectibles or new items are great, but if you find something that also has a use for something, it serves a double purpose and can be a successful item.

For example. Newspaper log rollers are being made again but can be found lots of places for a buck or two at tag sales/flea markets. Some people collect them but some people sought them to use since heating oil costs went up. For those that dont know these roll newspapers tightly to burn like wood. Kids and even adults like things like animals. Often times a child might love dogs, cats, even monkeys. And the parents seem to have this in their head when they buy gifts. If you find an item that has some useful purpose and has one of these animals you usually have a winner.

Some examples.. We sold out of these cute little pet radios that were fluffy animals that looked stuffed but also were radios with soft bud earpieces. They were dogs, cats, monkeys and I think bears. Just the other day I looked up one of my favorite items I ever sold. It was a nail dryer that looked like a small monkey that really worked to dry young girls (and assuming some adults , nails). Someone is selling something similar now, but not as cute as our monkey was LOL. People loved these so much we got messages for a long time after we stopped selling them (we only had what we found in a store)

other examples.... A parent might just be searching for a radio and come across them and see what a perfect gift! Another popular items is the Snoopy Sno-cone Maker (use snow and sno as keywords along with snoopy. People love snoopy, and usually they are older like us and buying for someone and well his dog house sits atop a sno cone maker parents can use with their kids. So you have the cute character but an activity to do. Another example comes from a line of items we carried called Funny friends. They had a cult following since some stars had them in their rooms etc but they faded out and when the company closed we were a few minutes drive and wound up with more stock than most everyone. Completely sold out, and we got things for the most part 90% off wholesale at prices cheap enough to resell, though we did pay more for some items. The items that sold the best were Wall decals for baby rooms with dragonflies and butterflies or fish etc. They had cute searchable items (butterfly, dragonfly etc) but were also decor and in some cases we had mobiles (those were really hot). So they had utility as well.

There are fans of ladybugs, VW Bugs, and even Pigs!! We had small collectible staplers made years ago from a store that found them in the back somewhere. Sold out of all of them. Someone might just be thinking they like ladybugs and come across it. VW bug fans might be looking for something for a car and buy one for their spouse as a gift. The pig ones did surprise me though. I guess people said the pig was cute LOL

Another area that was always good was the area of Science kits , educational items. Parents love this for kids as 1- something they can teach with and 2- an activity that kids can do to keep them busy (and out of their hair for a few minutes if need be LOL). Keywords like Science kit, educational , etc work and we had some really cool ones Make your own Volcano (which you probably all have seen or remember from high school) Build your own Bridges (use architecture, kit etc as keywords) Make your own earthquake ( about as cool as you can get, had to do one myself!). So as oppose to a book on earthquakes, a kit which involved a project seems to sell better at times.

BOOKS

Another topic is books. Plenty of people way better at picking used/new books for sale (i know some that post here) but we did very well with them and I credit all my success to a bookseller here who spent tons of time with me on the phone til I could look at a bookshelf and pull books without even seeing the titles sometimes. The way I learned (which might not be as good as many others of course) was to chuck most things. Getting by the junk helps you focus. I wouldnt even consider most that were post 1980 except books about FAIRIES, MAGIC or MAGIC TRICKS, CHESS, GNOMES, etc (never had a chess book that didnt sell), or any books with more than one copyright date in them. I also quickly learned that most fiction was a non-starter here so I stuck with non-fiction (just me your mileage might vary on that). That gets you by most things. In time you find you can just look at the shelf and see the books not to look at from the side.

BOOKS ABOUT PLACES -

people associate with places they have been. Small islands, places you never heard about are usually the best but older books , especially with illustrations about places are usually good sellers.

WELL ILLUSTRATED OLDER CHILDRENS BOOKS

Usually pre-1980, WOW did they make some wonderful books. Ill have to post pictures sometime. Usually always sold if things you were familiar with like Little Red Riding Hood, Strawberry shortcake etc. The only exception to the rule I found (and there might be many) is things which strike you as unusual and edgy. Like I sold a bunch of Russian fairy tale books (I was fascinated by the darker fairy tales and illustrations in them) and these were all newer but sold. Books Like Naughty Naughty Keifer and Hedley poked my eye out (also new)inspired some teen dolls and they were weird and bought them and sold every one of them. (forgot to mention purchase prices usually no more than 2.00) in most cases 1.00 or less. Better when "fill a box for 5 bucks LOL")

FIRST EDITIONS-

I have to admit I am NOT an expert on this. But my friend is perhaps one of the best in the book business and helped me get some basics down. First rule is to eliminate multiple copyright date books. (weeds out most). Then you might think its a first but you need to check what they consider the points of the first edition. How you know it is one. This you do in reverse by looking up the title in Abebooks and seeing what booksellers list as the description of why its a first edition. These things could be the dustjacket, a typo on page 121, or whatever. Other stuff.... Sometimes you are in the field with no access to a computer and if cheap enough you give it a shot ,but research before you list. As I mentioned here before my best book was a gut instinct book. A 1880s red leather bound Dante's Inferno illustrated by Gustav Dore. I should have never sold this book LOL It was amazing. Bidding war between yale professor and someone in China. Got the "will you ship it to my friend" in VA line from the China winner and guess what, it all worked out! LOL (hard to believe would have never done that these days).

BOOKS BY SMALL PUBLISHING HOUSES-
Hard to explain this one but most university presses have smaller runs than major book houses and you just get to know these places by finding and selling books. I once sold a set by Riverside Press to a college library that was looking for a set for years. There are many smaller , well collected publishers. Wish I could go through this better for you.

************************************************************** So with all this selling. What things did I not sell. What things couldnt I part with? Ill give you my top two. I started selling on Ebay years ago by selling hockey collectibles from my own collection. In the 1970s before Russian hockey players were in the NHL they played for the Russian Red Army team (and other Russian teams). They came over and played against teams in the NHL and usually kicked the snot out of them LOL Well, in the early 1970s they only played against a handful of AHL (lower league) teams and one of them was our very own New Haven Nighthawks. There were letters from Russia to our mayor , from the parent team the Minnesota North Stars to the team manager etc and there were hockey programs for these games with all this info, sold out games and I was there as a kid with my dad. I had 3 out of the 4 or maybe 4 out of 5 programs for these games. The last one came up on Ebay and I missed it . Luckily my secretary at the time emailed the guy in Russia that won it and told him she would pay him double for it and got it for me! I now have what I believe it the only complete set and because of the memory being there with my dad where we actually beat the Russians 4-3 on a shot by a guy that probably never scored another goal in his career (along with the help of the russians backhanding one into their own net slightly before that). I still remember that goal barely squeeking across the goal line (we were behind that net) and the crowd being nuts. Now thats a cool item! In any case the second one also has a good story. I was at a bookstore and picked up 9 of the 10 volumes of the Library of Inspiration and Achievement. It is a great set from the early 1900s. I didnt pay that much for it, but it was mean to talk about people who could inspire you to be a scientist, athlete etc. A year or so after I bought this set I get a call from the bookstore owner saying you will never believe it, I found a 10th volume and got it for you. She gave it to me for free! She said she believed I might have the only set of 10 around and she wanted me to have it. Right now if you search you will find just a volume or two of some of the volumes anywhere online. I bet the people that do have sets wont part with them like me! So hope this all helps some! Marty

Selling 45 RPM records and LPS on Ebay -They're BACK!

2009-09-10T09:47:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone! Im popping up a few pictures of a nice lot of records I am selling on Ebay. Records are not always easy to sell online. Many records have little or no value, but some have an active market and it seems as though that market is currently on the upswing. I am selling this lot of over 60 45 rpm records together with a neat case. There are records by the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Herman's Hermits, the Monkees and more! Its a fun lot , and it already has lots of watchers. If you find this post before the auction ends search for 45 lot beatles stones case and you should see it! I dont post auction links or numbers here because by the time people find these posts they are usually dead links :( . In any case what you want to do with your records is research them if you have time. You can check completed listings on Ebay or use a site like popsike at http://www.popsike.com/index.html . Look for Northern Soul records!! IF you dont know what Northern Soul is, look it up on Google, as I had no clue ;) But those records are in high demand now , as are records by Elvis and other special presses even by groups like the Sex Pistols. Here is another useful link for you http://www.collectorsweekly.com/records/overview

On that site you can see the hot records that are selling on ebay! Hope you enjoy the links. Thanks for stopping in! - Marty

Dont Smoke Tobacco, Sell Tobacco collectibles on Ebay!

2009-08-26T10:06:00.002-04:00

Sorry folks! Its been a while since I posted on this blog! Thanks to a nice reminder from a friend starting her own blog I decided to add a post today :) . Tobacco items sell very well on Ebay. Be sure they are empty! No smokes on Ebay, or your account could go up in smoke! As you know Tobacco companies have a ton of history and almost anything can sell on Ebay. From wrappers to old cigar boxes to what are called tobacco flags (look them up). So keep your eyes out for Vintage tobacco items. The item you see pictured here is a very old White Owl brand cigar box I sold on Ebay. So remember the only thing smoking should be your auction if you find the right item!

Vintage/Antique Photo Albums

2009-05-21T21:27:00.003-04:00

I reecently listed an awesome older photo album on Ebay and the bidding heated up quick. I started it at 99 cents and as of this post its a few days into the auction and up to $41.00 already.

In any case what to look for? A nice old album itself is desirable (that holds the photos) and people like when they are identified ones. So if you see some older photos and you know who the people are (from the front or back of photos) those usually do better. Older photos like those shown in this blog post are what to look for. This is the Seymour family album some pictures which date back to the 1800s!

Sell an Oil Well on Ebay - Oil industry collectibles

2009-05-21T21:20:00.004-04:00

Well ,its not exactly a real oil well but a vintage 1972 decanter of Jim Beam Whiskey (empty of course) made for an Oil show that took place in Odessa, Texas. I just listed it for sale on Ebay.

Keep your eyes open for oil field memorabilia as oil prices climb, there is a lot of oil wealth around and people pick up things on Ebay. Look for anything will older oil wells on it, old oil stocks, old oil lottery information etc. I think this piece is a cool one!

Vintage Savin Rock Postcard (West Haven, CT)

2009-01-23T06:57:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to post this picture here as I recently sold a wonderful collection of postcards for someone and it included this card. While I was a kid when Savin Rock Park was being torn down I have seen how nice it was from the many postcards I have sold showing the park. The one in this blog post was one I had not seen before, and is a natural picture maybe even before the amusement park part was built! Enjoy!

Selling the Odd Coins - ECUs what are they?

2009-01-23T06:44:00.002-05:00

Well I am far from an expert in coins, especially worldwide coins. However no matter what type of coin you have or find you might see they do fairly well on Ebay. As I have stated before, many times when researching items you learn about things you never new before. I had never heard of a place called the ISLE OF WIGHT. As it turns out its an island off of the UK, the Beatles played there years ago. In any case they had a tourist shop and before the EURO was developed there were coins called ECUs. These were sort of a pre-euro currency "european currency units". The tourist shop on the ISLE OF WIGHT has some of their own for use on the Island mainly . When the shop closed the contents were sold on Ebay, I was up late one evening and grabbed a lot of really wonderful items including these coins you see pictured. I sold off many of the coins and just received an inquiry for the rest of the lot from someone in Germany today. So do not forget to look into coins for sale on Ebay!

Selling Items to Get Holiday Cash - A note on Consignment Pal

2008-11-15T07:22:00.002-05:00

Why not sell your unused items for cash using the Consignment Pal Resale Directory?SAN ANTONIO, TX (November 14, 2008) – With the holidays approaching, how are you going to pay for Christmas gifts? Instead of piling up credit card debt, why not sell unused items around the house? It’s simple. Gather your items to sell and the professional sellers do the rest. But how do you find a seller? Finding local sellers to market or buy your items for cash just got easier thanks to the national Consignment Pal Resale Directory at consignmentpal.com. The Consignment Pal community includes antique shops, business liquidators, consignment shops, eBay stores, eBay Trading Assistants, non profit stores, resale shops, etc. Depending on the seller, you can consign or receive cash on the spot for your items. “There’s not one best way to sell everything,” says Linda Miller, founder of the Consignment Pal Resale Directory. “To get top dollar, you have to pick and choose the right types of sellers.” Finding the perfect consignment seller, eBay store, or resale shop is easy because the directory includes store descriptions, specialties, maps, zip code searches, and eBay listings.What can you sell this holiday season? Almost anything! The key is using a seller who specializes in your items. You will make the most money with a professional who understands the marketing details and pricing strategies unique to your item. This is especially true on eBay, where seeing and touching the item is replaced with a detailed description and pictures. What about selling fees? Commissions vary based on the type of seller, quantity of items, location, and services required, though they generally run from 25% to 60%. For more on selling your items, see “How to Sell Items” at http://consignmentpal.com/How-to-Sell-Items. If you want to sell your items online on eBay, please see How to Sell Your Items on eBay at http://consignmentpal.com/How-to-Sell-Your-Items-on-eBay During this Thanksgiving and Christmas season, remember the non profit stores which are also listed in the Consignment Pal Resale Directory. With relatives coming for the holidays, clean out your clutter. Share your unwanted items with your favorite charities and enjoy tax advantages come April. The PayPal 2008 Holiday Survey found that “73% of online shoppers intend to give to charity this season.” Why don’t you join them? Ready to begin? Picture Christmas gifts for more than just your loved ones. Gather the items to sell. Find a local Consignment Pal at consignmentpal.com. You are well on your way to a happy holiday!About Consignment PalThe Consignment Pal Resale Directory at consignmentpal.com helps you find resale related shops and businesses where you can shop, sell items for cash, sell items on consignment, trade, or donate items. Consignment Pal community members include collectors, resale shops, shops, consignment shops, eBay Trading Assistants, eBay Drop Off Stores, non profit stores, art galleries, business liquidators, etc. Consignment Pal launched at the eBay Live Conference in San Jose, CA in June 2005.

Ebay Creates 30 day Fixed Price listings for 35 cents (sometimes less)..

2008-09-26T22:06:00.002-04:00

Recently Ebay has made some substantial changes to its fee system. Now sellers can list items in fixed price format for 35 cents and the listings stay up for 30 days. This represents a significant up front listing discount (insertion fee discount) especially on higher priced items.

Ebay is using its "Best Match" technology to sort items in searches. So far, we have determined that the following things are important in getting good placement.

1- Having a listing that has sold before and continues to sell . This is the "self fulfilling prophecy" secret as they will promote what is selling.

2- Having "FREE SHIPPING" on your item (if possible) . Ebay seems to also be promoting this in search.

3- Having a multiple quantity in your listing (more than 1 to sell). I currently have a listing of 10 items which has sold 6 in its first week on FP 30 format! Ill see If I can pull up the yoyo picture for you (that is the item).

While it remains to be seen how this new format works out over the coming months, there are even more breaks when it comes to media items like books , cds etc. They have a new rate of 15 cents but a special sale rate of 5 cents per 30 days.

I strongly recommend trying out this new format as more changes will come in January from what people are speculating and Ebay stores might wind up being a discount plan for this format of listings .

Great Ebay Event Coming to Kansas in October!

2008-08-29T09:14:00.002-04:00

If you missed Ebay Live this year in in Chicago or even if you didnt you should check out this great even being planned .. the Kansas Jubilee Ebay Convention to be hold October 3,4th 2008 which includes some great teachers, eBay and paypal representatives and which looks like an all around great time! Per their website posted below..

"3 years of planning brings exceptional talent to Kansas. We have brought experts in eBay Selling, Buying, eCommerce, Mission Fish (charity selling), eBay Stores, eBay Motors, Marketing, Catalog photography, and much more from all corners of the United States to present workshops, seminars, and panels in a two day learning and networking opportunity"

Please check out this link and consider attending!

http://www.yabie.com/

Almost anything with Horses in it has a good market on Ebay !

2008-07-23T21:29:00.004-04:00

I just had to post these photos to the blog. It is not a secret that horse items sell well on Ebay. People who love horses , really love to collect horse items, horse racing items and read books about horses. Pretty much anything with a horse in it is a decent thing to sell on Ebay! I found some older horse photos and really loved them. I particularly love the one I blew up with the woman all around a watering hole on horses set some time ago. While I might never own a horse I can certainly enjoy all the nice horse items passing my way for ebay sales. Horse owners tend to be wonderfully educated, caring people as well, they make excellent buyers ;)

Keep those Vintage Puzzles coming!

2008-05-28T10:39:00.002-04:00

Recently we found another 20 year old sealed puzzle that just looked like an excellent Ebay item. It is of the Palace Gardens in Williamsburg and it is a two-sided puzzle! Brand new in package! When looking for puzzles that might sell well on Ebay, keep in mind some very basic hunting points. 1- Buyers like sealed puzzles so they know for sure (in most cases) the item is in great condition. 2- If the puzzle is not sealed, assemble it to show them it is complete 3- Does the puzzle image interest you? If so it might interest buyers 4- Look for odd puzzles like different shapes, two sided puzzles, glow in the dark aspects etc. Good luck hunting. Here is a picture of our recent two sided Eaton Puzzle from the 1980s we are currently selling.

Vintage Cofee Maker (Samovar) Forman Manufacturing Brooklyn NY

2008-04-24T17:03:00.003-04:00

Here is an item I will be putting up for sale on Ebay soon. It is three piece set of an electric Samovar made by Forman Mftg in Brooklyn NY and is in great condition. It comes with the sugar bowl an creamer and has all the parts inside (percolator type parts) all in great condition, cord included as well.A while back a comparable listing was put up by an auction house (Ebay Live auction). I do not believe it sold, it was missing a part or two and they had some crazy price on it of about $1200 estimated value. Sometimes it is hard to price items. Generally speaking I would like to use the auction format so I dont undershoot a good price. However, given the current softness everywhere in retail sales and on Ebay I was thinking maybe Id try out using Fixed price with Best offer and start high and let people make offers. I will keep you posted on this item! It certainly looks great and might wind up serving coffee here in the house if I do not get a great price for it :)

Why Ebay might need Local Trading more than they know..

2008-04-21T08:23:00.004-04:00

Once again to me its common sense. Gas prices are high, and shipping costs are way up over what they were just a few years ago. Since I first mentioned Local pick-up trading its become one of the most successful and fastest growing internet models first with sites like Craigslist but also more recently with brick 'n' mortar stores offering online sale with local pickup

While not every Ebay seller could offer this service, I think Ebay would have a leg up over Amazon. Combine this with revenue share on content and auto-affiliate for stores (for new sign ups and cross promos with other seller items) and Ebay would have the model that noone could touch . Here are some clips from the news...

Wal-Mart's Online Pickup Program Proving Successful by Todd Sullivan July 12, 2007 Wal-Mart's (WMT) buy-online-pickup-in-store strategy has reduced customer shipping costs by $5 million while sharply increasing new customer acquisitions and in-store sales, the world's largest retailer reported Tuesday. In announcing that it is extending the program to more than 3,300 stores in the U.S., Wal-Mart released statistics to show the strategy is working. Wal-Mart's approach is different than the traditional approach at retailers like Target (TGT) and JC Penny (JCP) which use the Web to help move in-store merchandise. Walmart.com promotes "tens of thousands of products" that are not available in stores and ships them free to a local Wal-Mart, where customers can pick them up. Since the launch, about one-third of all Walmart.com sales have been placed through Site-to-Store and "more than half-a-million total units have been shipped through Site-to-Store, saving customers more than $5 million in shipping fees." Great, but is it growing sales? Wal-Mart said that "more than 50 percent of Site-to-Store orders [came] from new customers who make their first purchase at Walmart.com using the service." The chain also reported a 20 percent increase in the number of Site-to-Store "customers who spend an additional $60 on purchases in the store when picking up their orders." Bingo. Wal-Mart also claimed the $345 billion chain reported a weekly gasoline savings of 1,000 gallons and a monthly box reduction of 20,000 "as a result of transportation and packaging efficiencies." Increased sales and decreases expenses . . . very nice indeed.

Also from the article "Online sales Lose Steam" "But Ms. Koehn and others say that online shopping is running into practical problems, too. For one, Ms. Koehn noted, online sellers have been steadily raising their shipping fees to bolster profits or make up for their low prices. In response, a so-called clicks-and-bricks hybrid model is emerging, said Dan Whaley, the founder of GetThere, which became one of the largest Internet travel businesses after it was acquired by Sabre Holdings. The bookseller Borders, for example, recently revamped its Web site to allow users to reserve books online and pick them up in the store. Similar services were started by companies like Best Buy and Sears. Other retailers are working to follow suit. “You don’t realize how powerful of a phenomenon this new strategy has become,” Mr. Whaley said. “Nearly every big box retailer is opening it up.”Barnes & Noble recently upgraded its site to include online book clubs, reader forums and interviews with authors. The company hopes the changes will make the online world feel more like the offline one, said Marie J. Toulantis, the chief executive of BarnesandNoble.com. “We emulate the in-store experience by having a book club online,” she said. The retailers that have started in-store pickup programs, like Sears and REI, have found that customers who choose the hybrid model are more likely to buy additional products when they pick up their items, said Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst at Jupiter Research.

And this article from February...

The online/in-store answer for retailersEcommerce hubs are working hard to improve their websites to increase user engagement and revenue. But the best solution could be as simple as in-store pick-up. Some indicators point to pick-up being the key for future online shopping.by Kristina Knight Rather than waiting for an item ordered online to be shipped, many online shoppers prefer the in-store pick-up option. Many of these shoppers will actually visit several etailers to find in-store availability so that they can have the item as soon as possible. When in-store pick-up isn't available, for instance with online-only retailers, a new service from Shopatron can be used. The Shopatron platform helps etailers connect with brick-and-mortar stores in the consumer's area so that practically any item ordered online can be picked up within a few hours or a day.

Selling Craft kits on Ebay

2008-04-08T21:31:00.002-04:00

Craft and project kits are very popular on Ebay! I will be honest , I never even heard of some of the things that sell well on eBay but since selling them I am always on the lookout for them. Pictured here is a latch hook rug kit. Actually if you look, its the image of the rug that will be created. Rather than show a broader photo of the box and a small image of what the kit makes, I always choose to crop the kit showing the great looking image of what the final product will show, with a picture of the box as the second photo in the listing. Rug kits of all kinds tend to sell well as do supplies. Also be on the lookout for vintage weaving (loom) type items as well -more soon - Marty

Unusual Coca-Cola (COKE) item with Christie's tags

2007-12-30T09:14:00.000-05:00

Recently while out hunting for items I found this one pictured here! It is a 27x20 in. image under glass modern artwork of some kind. Its not a poster, or a lithograph but the image seems to be attached to the back of the glass. It is very nicely done. On the back there are Christie's (the auction house) tags! I paid $5.00 for this , and I am pretty sure it is not a super high dollar value item but I am trying my sources to see what I can learn about it. I posted the item on the collectibles and art boards on Ebay but did not have much luck from others. I tried Christie's website where you can search for past auctions but the search didnt seem to come up with any meaningful results. I tried calling but they are closed until Jan 3rd.

On this item I would be looking to find out the artist and more about the piece if possible. It could sell on its own without that information as just a cool piece, but it always helps! Ill post back when I learn more! If you have any info do write in!

Selling Graphic Novels from the 1980s/90s on Ebay

2007-11-21T23:55:00.000-05:00

Another area that sometimes runs extremely HOT on Ebay is that of Graphic novels. Basically book sized Comics down with super fine graphic and captivating stories. I have always done well with them. I try to find ones that are from the 1980s or so and most sell fairly well on ebay. You can usually tell just by looking at the covers that you have something interesting. Here are a few examples..

Selling Vintage Newspapers On Ebay

2007-11-21T23:52:00.000-05:00

One area that is both interesting and rewarding is that of Vintage Newspapers. They are fun to read and then re-sell on eBay. If you have a good source for pre 1940 newspapers, they make for excellent reading material and usually always get at least 1 bid.

I just finished a batch of 1933 Depression Era Newspapers from North Dakata and sold them on Ebay. Reading them gave me a better perspective on that era than I learned in school and in books. I highly recommend buyer a few papers to check them out!
I got started after reading a scrapbook I will be selling. A woman put news clipping from about the same era in and it was just amazing stuff!

Selling Monopoly Games - Local Style

2007-11-21T23:45:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! Sorry its been a while since I last posted :( Lots to report though.
Here is something new for you. As you know lots of people grew up with mononopoly games being a staple of family life! Well many local versions of the game were made for towns/cities even colleges. Whether officially licensed games or just used as fund raisers these games do well on Ebay! I sold a New Haven game recently and already have a big on one for Oxford ,CT . Keep in mind items with state or town or city collectibility generally do well on Ebay. Here are some pictures for you!

New Ebay Stores Awareness Campaign!

2007-10-07T15:36:00.000-04:00

A homegrown effort by Ebay Store owners has lead to the creation of a campaign to promote awareness of Ebay stores ! High praise to Sandy (Ebay seller: sandrarn83) for thinking of this and also following it through to completion. Thanks Sandy!

Behind the Red Door you'll find millions of items never found in regular searches. We, the proud eBay Store owners, want you to have the best shopping experience available on eBay! Click on the logo above to visit my Store or click on this link to see the millions of items from all the other fine eBay Store owners.

Aliens , UFOS, Always interesting to buy and Sell on Ebay!

2007-09-10T09:36:00.001-04:00

I just had to show your these pictures! As you know Holograms are very hard to take pictures of . Selling this Alien card set with a silver looking foil picture would just not do it justice!

So in this blog post I will tell you how to take a picture of an Alien Hologram to get this affect!

First you need to be outside without a flash! You need to have some sunlight, and something to lean the picture and or holographic card against. You need to angle the items slowly left to right to get the right affect then be sure to hold the camera to get the most of the holographic image in color as you can.

It makes your Aliens sell better and when they sell better they are known to not use their ray guns as much ;)

Check out this guy! This set I am selling (still some left), has real artist depictions of aliens seen in real events with dates and the story on the back. Done for charity, these were some extra packs I purchased to benefit the charity and of course sell to you!

Selling Art On Ebay - Notes from a non-artist type..

2007-09-10T09:28:00.000-04:00

Recently I have been fascinated by Art. I am not sure if it is an escape from reality thing or just an appreciate that grows as we age. In any case, I have always had some luck selling unusual pieces of art which I find out and about on my Ebay searchese of flea markets , tag sales etc.

Recently I came across an oversized poster booklet (in quantity) and and Artist named Christo that did the banners/flags of an orange/salmon looking color in Central park recently. I loved the posters and picked these items up cheaply. The images are of art done on a grand scale. From islands and bridges being wrapped to umbrellas set across miles of hill or in raging rivers. Ebay has developed an interesting art market. It is not just the antique pieces or pieces by lesser known masters but markets its developing all by itself . For now ill leave you with some pictures of the posters in the large posterbook by Christo, but my next blog installment will be on the ACEO artist trading cards! Thanks for reading my blog! :) -Marty

Flashback to An Important Moment in Time

2007-08-14T09:20:00.000-04:00

As we all know Ebay is just as much a community as a place to shop. I thought I would let you in on a very special moment for me a number of years ago when my daughter was younger. After running and playing at a friend's house all day my friend took this picture of us. It stuck in my mind because at that time I had a lot of worries on my mind, my mom was very ill, work was tough, but it was that friend who captured the moment and created a memory that would last a long time for me that made the day special for my daughter and I. Now my daughter, Jaime, is just as much an Ebay shopper and web community member as anyone. Just a little personal story to place a photo in the timeline of an Ebayer.

Our Mosaic Down Syndrome Puzzle Master

2007-07-17T08:14:00.000-04:00

I just found an old photo poster that our house puzzle master Tina Harduby (my wifes mosaic down syndrome sister) did with a Nascar Driver years ago!

Tina, who is now in her mid 20s is a master of putting together Springbok puzzles to make sure all the pieces are there for our customers! I saw this cute picture of her and since she is a star in this household I wanted to share it with you! You can see an update of her in our family picture here taken a few years ago!

Thanks Tina for all the puzzles you assemble! WE LOVE YOU! You too Jaime! (my daugher shown with the Cheesy smile LOL)

Ebay Live Boston 2007 Received Community Hall of Fame Award

2007-06-26T08:13:00.000-04:00

Exciting news! I could not tell you about it until the event was over! I received one of 5 Community Hall of Fame Awards given out by Ebay this year! The award is for being a good member of the Ebay community, helping others , and names are suggested by former winners and Ebay employees from what I understand. It was a great award to win! I received the honor of directing a $2500 donation to Solar Youth Inc from Ebay. Solar Youth is an organization that teaches inner city kids about the environment through all kinds of great activities. When I saw a video of the kids climbing a local hill and their faces I said you bet this is the one! I also received a wonderful plaque and a crystal award of stars that fit into a plaque, a part of which is to be placed in Ebays corporate HQ. I could not have won this without all my friends at Ebay and my fellow eBay seller friends that pulled this part of me out into the open. I realize I want to do as much as possible to help other people and I was very honored to receive this award which will mark an important time in my life when I realized I need to spend more time helping others. Here are a few pictures for you! -Marty

PS - If anyone from ebay reads this blog post.. Thank you ! So much please thank Meg and Bill for me! :)

Ebay LIVE Boston - Pre Conference Report 6/9/07

2007-06-09T20:32:00.000-04:00

Well , it is almost time for Ebay Live 2007 in Boston, Mass! The conference runs June 14-16th but already there are some hints of some important things going on. One interesting thing is that Seth Godin the Squidoo visionary will be speaking. The guy is a guru for sure. I only wish I had more time to digest all he has writen. I will be attending his class at eBay Live and Squidoo will have a presence there.

There are some interesting classes in the schedule for Live. There is one on eBays new media market. It has been a struggle for eBay but it might be an area where local radio commercials become available for bidding fairly soon. I also heard (non-eBay related) that Cable now has the ability to pinpoint ads to your neighborhood. If this is every offered in an eBay like marketplace I can see huge potential for local business.

Speaking of Local business I am curious about the the class offered called "Ebay Local" and wondering if that is an expansion of their home page "Map It" feature or something new, different and Craigslist like? I am in that class!

I will be reporting here LIVE from LIVE so to speak. There are some other areas we are curious about including Rent.com (an Ebay company) since my wife is also a real estate agent.

If you have ideas/comments about live feel free to post! -Marty

(picture if of a Plush DICE radio we have in our store!)

Update on Wall Street Cigarettes - Library Research

2007-05-11T11:34:00.000-04:00

I just had to post an update here to praise Librarians!!! My good friend Loretta is a librarian and she had me email some libraries for info regarding my 1920s cigarette label item as shown in the picture ! This information below was the result of my question and subsequence answers from the library regarding this item. I highly recommend contacting librarians who love to dig through these resources! With this information I can now list my item!

In short the item is from Wall Street Tobacco Co. formed in 1926, out of business (it appears in 1927) and the directors signature is on the side of the pack!

From the paper Polk's & Co. (Trow's) 1926 NYC Directory:

Wall Street Tobacco Co. Inc. (N.Y.)
L L Mosquera Pres, Wm P (might be an F) Raab, V-P, Jas Carruthers Sec,
D E Greene, Treas.
Dir: L L Mosquera, Wm F (might be a P), Jas Carruthers, D E Greene
79 Wall, R 304

There was no listing for a Wall Street Tobacco in the paper directories
of 1921-22, 1929, 1930, and 1936-37.

JP

New York State Library
Reference Services
CEC, ESP
Albany, NY 12230
(518)474-5355
www.nysl.nysed.gov/refserv.htm

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:35:46 -0400
From: "NYSL REFSERV"
To:
Subject: Re: 44 Wall Street Company/Building information
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

To: Martin Adamo

You have reached the New York State Library (NYSL) in Albany, New York.

Your e-bay posting was very interesting and gave you some good
searching suggestions, such as contacting a business librarian at the
New York Public Library in Manhattan. http://www.nypl.org/

The New York City Municipal Archives may also be of help. You can
leave an e-mail comment with the City Hall Library (see link under
Contact Records).
http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/about/archives.shtml

FYI...
In the NYSL's Marvyn Scudder Manual of Extinct or Obsolite Companies ,
Vol. III, for 1930, the following information is listed for a Wall
Street Tobacco Corp.: Delaware charter proclaimed repealed for non
payment of two years' taxes January 24, 1927. In Vol. IV of the same
title, which shows companies that have reorganized, merged, liquidated,
or dissolved and companies that have changed names or forfeited their
charters, this information is listed: Wall Street Tobacco Co. Inc. N.Y.
1929. No other information is mentioned. No addresses are given.
Neither company was mentioned in the 1938 volume. There was no
information that these two companies were connected in any way or if
they were totally independant of each other.

No Wall Street Tobacco Company or Corporation was listed in the
International Directory of Company Histories.

The NYSL has the NYC Business and City Directory and Telephone
Directories on microfilm for the following years: 1924/25, 1931,
1933/34 (among many others). We do not own the microfilm for 1926 -
1930. I will check to see if we have any paper directories for the time
frame you request.

JP

New York State Library
Reference Services
CEC, ESP
Albany, NY 12230
(518)474-5355
www.nysl.nysed.gov/refserv.htm

>>> 4/23/2007 11:48 AM >>>
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by
(clhct1@aol.com) on Monday, April 23, 2007 at 11:48:32
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Martin Adamo

City: Wallingford

State: CT

Request: I am researching an item from a company that had a listed
address of 44 Wall Street NY. The company was called Wall Street Tobacco
Co. Inc and it is a cigarette wrapper. It appears to have been pre 1940
but I cannot really tell the date). I am trying to find out if this
company existed at that address and what was located at 44 Wall Street
before the current building was put up. I found out the building
presently located there was built around 1926-7. I have a picture I of
the item which shows the Wall Street view on the wrapper at the time but
cannot send with this info form can reply and attach to email.

In short looking for any history of the existence of Wall Street
Tobacco Co. Inc located at 44 Wall Street.

Other hints from the label. It mentions they were made at Factory #23
2nd District NY. I did find a reference to a Cigarette item made at that
factory in the 1890s but not by Wall Street Tobacco Co. Inc. That
reference was a Baseball collectible item that looked like a milk cap
with a baseball players photo on it. It was a promo item made by another
company but did reference that same factory.

Sending you the picture might be helpful to you.

Thanks for any help or resources you can provide.

Martin Adamo

SourcesConsulted: I have searched all online resources I could find. I
searched Google, Yahoo, Google Book search, histories of 44 Wall Street,
Cigarette information. Online marketplaces such as ebay and others and
can come up with no information on the item or the company.

Submit: Submit

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Most Amazing Puzzles on Ebay at Galaxy Puzzles!!!

2007-05-03T09:19:00.000-04:00

A very popular item to sell (and buy) on eBay is jigsaw puzzles. There are puzzles and then there are great puzzles with amazing scenese. My good friend Janice has a store on eBay called Galaxy Puzzles and sells the most amazing looking puzzles.

Her new jigsaw puzzles are by Educa, Sunsout, Ceaco, and Paper House Productions.

Here store link is here

http://stores.ebay.com/Galaxy-Puzzles&refid=store

Here is one example of a a puzzle I really love in her store!

Use Poshpoints to Promote your Ebay Store and Listings!!!!!

2007-05-03T09:07:00.000-04:00

This is so cool! I cannot take full credit for it I have to mention my friend Janice directed me here! (I will grab her store URL and promote her here as a thank you ) I checked out this site called Poshpoints a while back but never signed up. As usual, I figured I didnt have enough time to poke around yet another site. However, Janice came back to my seller group mentioning that on this site you can now promote your eBay listings for FREE~~~~~!!!!!

You cannot beat that. The site is growing fast and here is the "skinny" as they say...

Its a site where you load up some stuff to "sell" but get points instead of money. You then trade these points for stuff by buying stuff. Your only out of pocket cost is shipping and there are no fees! Great for those items you need to clean out that might not be right for eBay, but you do not want to throw away. Also a great way to promote you eBay items at no cost while doing so.

So check out this site by clicking below and get started its free plus you get some free points while their offer lasts!! -Marty

Check out Togo.ebay.com - Sample Widget NEW from eBay!!!

2007-05-01T01:03:00.000-04:00

Taking a look at Stumbleupon.com to help market your store

2007-04-23T22:36:00.000-04:00

Recent news reports have eBay in talks to aquire Stumbleupon.com. I read the news release and checked out the site which was very interesting. I first noticed this site when reviewing my traffic reports (these are reports ebay store owners can view to show how traffic (customers) come into the store and from what sources). I determined that a seller friend has given a thumbs up to my store and that was leading a handful of people over .

As I checked out the site I realized it had real potential as a review site for pages we are trying to promote in this Ebay effort. I highly recommend checking out the site located at http://stumbleupon.com and signing up.

Basically this site gets an idea of what you like based on which sites you rate and then feeds you more of the same when you click the "stumble" button.

I believe what eBay might be getting at with a possible aquisition here is a socially rated web search for products but that is just speculation at this point.

I feel there is an advantage to signing up and at least rating your own content sites and then moving your way through some random sites to build up a knowledge of how this tool works.

Lately it seems eBay is moving in the right direction with their efforts and I like this site.
If you happen to check it out and sign up, please comment to this blog and list your site and we can exchange ratings if you like! -Marty

Researching the Unusual Find Wall Street Tobacco Co. 1930s?

2007-04-01T19:52:00.000-04:00

I felt it might be helpful to talk about the research process when it comes to items that are unusual in nature. One thing we hope to find is that we pick up an item that is not common and not already listed on eBay by numerous sellers. Recently at an estate clearout I picked up an inexpensive piece which appears to be a framed Cigarette wrapper of some kind. As best I can tell it looks 1930s perhaps 1940s. In reading all the wording on the paper its hard to find much online. There is nothing listed in Google and other searc engines for the Wall Street Tobacco Co. located at 44 Wall Street (at the time). I looked up the building and found it was built in 1926-7 so that made the item have to be made after that time. I also searchd a phrase on the side of the pack label that states "Made at Factory No 23 2nd District NY" . I found one reference oddly enough to another Cigarette item which was a button promotion of a baseball player but from the 1890s. Seeing that nothing was immediately available except these few clues I took the step of posting the picture to my seller group for input and ideas. This is something that is very useful that you should consider doing as well. I will probably post this same info to a collectibles forum to get some idea. This appears to be a rare and special item which I will not sell at a low start bid without a reserve. Of course having as much info as possible is always helpful. You will see a quick picture of this item as it is (framed) with this post - Marty

Using Tag (Keyword) Clouds For Visual Sales and Information Directories

2007-03-29T07:37:00.000-04:00

I have been working on an interesting way of displaying content by word density called Tag Clouds. They have been around a while but Im slow to catch on. Of course I do think of new ways to use them. LOL

Ok now just so you know what I am talking about you will need to look over to the left hand side of my blog <-----over there and scroll down.

There are two tag clouds there. The first one is for the blog, people can click on anything and find those posts. The second is for my eBay store. People can click on a word and find matching items.

Both these "clouds" as they are called are put together using a formula which makes fonts bigger for higher mentions of words and phrases etc. They both will update automatically as well as items come and go (supposedly).

It is running off the eBay RSS feed (which up until tonight was pumping out only the word "Wednesday" which is why I couldnt get it to work LOL)

Keep in mind I do need to refine this some I can adjust colors and size and also exclude words etc. But give the basic store visualization would you agree that it might give you a very quick idea of what is in the store if you were a new buyer or someone just looking at that list from a blog?

I felt that this was true, but I wanted your thoughts -Please post your comments!!

One seller on eBay posts about making lists and posting them everywhere. I know it sounds basic but I have heard about this very basic game plan working but thought the list was good but not good enough as it was hard to navigate. A clickable tag cloud however might be appealing in this sense that they suggested to broadcast.

Here are some advantages I see here.

1- It adds tons of clickables to blogs (couldnt get it to work on the Squid lens yet still working on that)

2- I can use Vflyer.com (check them out) to create a flier that is free and can go to all the free classifieds sites.

3- The list is always updated so wherever it is, there it will change.

4-It appears Zoom renders their own pre-page before the customer gets to the eBay page which nicely lists all the items that match the click.

I am working on ways to bring people in that dont involve them having to know what they are searching for.

I wanted to integrate it on a custom page in the store but dont think it will work there due to the scripting but there are plenty of places to use it.

So how did I come across this? Well first I noticed Squidoo had a tag cloud, but more importantly I saw a site where people listed what they would like to do with their lives and I learned almost everyone wanted See the Northern Lights and of course lose weight , quit smoking etc etc. It was interesting to see the density of the thoughts of 900,000 people all interested in many of the same things.

In any case please offer your thoughts.

How being a Trading Assistant Can help Your eBay Store Sales..

2007-03-27T01:03:00.000-04:00

A Trading Assistant is the term eBay uses to describe people that sell for others on a commission basis. How could this make sense for you? Well first it is a source of income for which you do not have to come up with money for inventory. Next , the items you list to auction for you clients you are selling for will promote your own store items for free! The clients pay the costs of auctioning their items, but any items out on auction promote your store items! So you get some free promotion. Also some slower moving client items can be put in your eBay store where you can charge more than eBay charges you! (rent). Lots of good ways to make money in the trading assistant program. We will be writing more about this in coming posts.

I am a Trading Assistant - I can sell items for you!

Grow your eBay Store Squidoo Lens hits #1 In Business #2 overall!!!!

2007-03-22T17:41:00.000-04:00

Big news to report tonight! Our Squidoo lens located here

http://www.squidoo.com/growyourebaystoresales

Has soared to the #1 position in the Business category! It is also an astounding #2 overall out of over 90,000 lenses! Squidoo is like a socially rated website content area. I could not have moved up without the help of many great eBay store sellers. Plus who doesnt want to make money on eBay these days?

In any case I am really excited about it and hope that if there are any Squidooers out there they can stop by and say hello on my lens and vote for me! I will keep providing the very best eBay information !

Marty

Train & Railroad Collectibles/ Items are always good to sell on eBay!

2007-03-20T22:34:00.000-04:00

One theme that seems to never go out of style is peoples love of Trains! There are so many train and railway collectors out there! . People collect everything! From model trains to the real trains themselves! They collect bells from train stations, read books on trains, kids read books on trains, and almost everything with a train them is usually better than something without it! After selling out of nearly every train related item we had in our first year of selling we finally have a few more listed. Just to give you an idea of the variety of items . We have train belt buckles and books listed now so Ill post a few pictures -Marty

Huge Star Trek LOT /Outer Limits - What to do about titles for Cool Auctions

2007-03-18T23:48:00.000-04:00

Well we have a cool auction running. Its for a huge lot of Star Trek Spaceships and a few other items.

Recently we had some Outer Limit cards with Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner episodes so we decided to toss in a few cards into the lot. Thus we were able to use the following keywords in the title

Star Trek

Huge Lot

Outer Limits

Klingon

Borg

Having multiple reasons a searcher can find your item always helps. This should be an interesting auction! Star Trek items were very popular in the early days of eBay, and the best items will always get some good prices. However , in years since those days Star Wars has been more popular at times and represents one of the biggest markets on eBay. Some support for Star Trek items can be found in Japan where great collectors just cannot get enough items!

-Marty

Using your Squidoo Lens to Earn Ebay Affiliate Dollars & Increase Your Sales

2007-03-15T09:33:00.000-04:00

On Ebay, I post often to a discussion board where other store owner (Sellers) gather. I just posted this information which I felt was important enough to add to the blog here.. I invite all comments and or ideas on this.

A week or so ago (its hard to remember as during tax time I lose track of time) I mentioned that eBay had opened up the affiliate end to eBay sellers. What this means if you can make money driving business to your own listings AND if someone signs up for an account to buy one of your items. Have you noticed the big announcement? Of course not! It came out but not everyone got the "memo". In any case there are many affiliates out there making lots of money bringing people to eBay listings to bid, buy and sign up for accounts but now its your turn.Ok so basically people set up these websites (you have seen them) where your listings are all over the web and look like big collections of eBay listings, some even look like their own search engines or stores. This is how people make money doing this.They have some web space and do the coded endings to the listings using tools eBay gives you that do it automatically. Some people make 1 million bucks a month (no lie).In any case, this program was not open to sellers bringing traffic to their own listings before. You could bring traffic to others listings and make money but now things are way more interesting because you double benefit! (sales and $$ for bringing them in ).In any case it all sounds good, but like anything else who has endless time right? Well being the rocket scientist I am (actually stumbled into it LOL) , I figured Id check on something.As most of you know from tinkering with the Squidoo lenses they have a nice system for adding an RSS feed module easily (basically if you can cut and paste a URL and type your done!). Moreover its FREE (their webspace and their dime no hosting costs no cost whatsoever to you).PLUS they pay you if someone clicks on an ad etc from your Squid pages (nice but no real money yet).In any case the affiliate program eBay has will create an affiliate coded feed of your items to post in RSS modules on Squidoo and you can post away and post your friends items (especially if related they might help your sales too) and do it all for free. Any business coming in with these codes earns you money under the affiliate program . Here is a link to the payout page (you can click around to get more on the program)http://affiliates.ebay.com/odcs/custom.htm?template=Payout

With the Squidoo network we have , combined with the blogs and myspace pages etc , we have a web of content in place that will make these affiliate feeds more valuable.People can make money doing affiliate deals without content but we just created a huge web of content and can add lenses or modules to add RSS affiliate feeds.Lets take an example. I am not a home craft person but always like stuff that others do here.Many of these people have Squidoos and blogs now. They set up lenses with RSS affiliate coded feeds and earn money off any business coming to them AND off any new active user that signs up because of their feeds.Say Home craft person #1 is more motivated then person 2 and 3, she can put everyones stuff she likes up and earn money on all of it while her friend benefit from the sales in their store with no work.To the best of my knowledge there are few great content areas with affiliate set ups and for the most part while web space is cheap its not free. So this is my idea.Basically there are a few downsides. First I think like anything else new , eBay can always change it or take it out, and second, I worked with Commission Junction before and didnt like how they operated but it could have been just my experience. Commission Junction is running this for eBay.Also , while this isnt important to everyone when you have a business DSL or Cable package it often comes with this huge amount of space on their servers. I have some crazy amount at my office. Many of you have the same. I assume that can also be used to set up RSS feeds for no cost but Im not an expert in doing that.Anyone with any ideas? read through that section and let me know.Downsides are limited plus no costs. Upside could be some extra money.

Here are some thoughts from an affiliate blogger on the ebay change..http://www.geekbooks.com/ebay_changes_affiliate_terms_for_the_better_530.html

Selling and Old Favorite Educational/Science Kits

2007-03-13T23:46:00.000-04:00

I am not sure if its because I would like to play with these or because people really want them but I buy a lot of educational/science kits to re-sell on ebay. As it turns out they sell really well. While many kids are plugged into their video games there are still people that enjoy these kits much like I did when I was a young teen 30 years ago. This weeks find? Prehistoric Animals locked in sand that you can escavate and paint yourself! I sold one within hours of posting them for sale! Always a great item! :)

Our Squidoo Lens hits #1 in Business #17 Overall! - Social Media Marketing

2007-03-12T09:01:00.000-04:00

Within the short span of less than a week our Squidoo project jumped up to the #1 slot in the Business category and #17 overall out of 97,000 plus Squidoo lenses on the internet! For those of you that do not know what a Squidoo lens is, and for those that are hoping its just another way of looking at (or eating Calamari) LOL then let me give you a brief description of it. Its basically "Your take on a subject" . You post information , gather articles and or products and produce a lens or "your read" on a subject. Its a very cool site. You can see our lens here at

http://squidoo.com/growyourebaystoresales/

We did our lens on Growing your eBay Store! This is what our goal will be. We are there to grow our eBay store and will post ideas and strategies that we have to do just that. By creating a lens we also invite others to comment and add content and we grow a source of knowledge that helps everyone! We also have increased our sales as onlookers see our items in a soft sell environment of who were are and what we are about.

We plan on many more social media marketing strategies but the Squidoo lens is very well set up and the eBay store discussion board jumped right on the project propelling many eBay stores to the top ranks of the Squidoo especially in the Shopping and Crafts areas!

Definately check out Squidoo! Ill be back with more info! -Marty

Fairies, Mermaids, Fairykins and Mystical Creatures

2007-03-09T10:16:00.000-05:00

One important thing we learned when selling is that the mystical and magical sells well online. People love fairies, they love mermaids they love dragons, unicorns, you name it! A while back we came across some nice items that were no longer manufactured in a closeout called Fairykins. Like many of our items we have small lots of these not an endless supply but they have been really popular. There were even Fairy Mermaid Kins but we sold out of them! Always keep the magical in mind when buying or seeking new products to sell. The fairkin pictured flaps her wings when you push her belly! I just love these things! -Marty

Using Squidoo To Tie Together your Ebay Content

2007-03-05T15:56:00.000-05:00

Hey Everyone! Its still tax time for us CPAs but I did manage to get some work done ! I started our Squidoo lens here http://www.squidoo.com/growyourebaystoresales/ . It is just a start but it will tie together all our related eBay content. We have this blog, our store and myspace sites linked there. We have book recommendations, and hope to have our ebay listing feeds up and running to show our items for sale but I do not see it coming up as of yet. The goal here is to have a place to tie together all the content sites we are working on now. Squidoo is very highly ranked. One of my friends Sallie , worked hard on her lens and had a top 100 Squidoo lens for a while, she is my encouragement to do this project as well as my good friend Maggie the artisan who just stated I had to do it! LOL. So no challenge left undone! Its up and I hope you enjoy it. Please vote for me there if you like! I have lots of great content coming to all my sites so stay tuned! Sales are cranking for us and will be for you soon! Keep in mind always that we offer training, consulting and even tax help over the phone or even in person if you live close by where we are here in Connecticut!

Start your own Squidoo lens about your eBay Store or any topic you like by accepting this invitation http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/referral/OnceUponaBid !!!!

-Marty

Dream Pets - From being Stuffed in Train sets in the 50s to now...

2007-02-22T22:44:00.000-05:00

One thing about eBay, is that you learn something new pretty much every day. A while back , trusting my 16 year old daughters instinct we purchased some "Dream Pets" to sell . You can see one in this post . The interesting story behind these little animals is that in the 1950s the Japanese use to stuff to them in between toy electric train sets to protect them during shipment. The cute little stuffed things became a hit. Many years later they re-issued them in limited quantities. Due to an absolute freaky streak of luck once they were done sending small quantities to distributors the rest showed up somewhere where we found them. We had some of each of the many pets but just last night a buyer from the UK purchased 13 of the Pink Poodles you see on the left , cleaning us out! While these will never make the Beanie Baby hysteria level , they are extremely cute and retro looking , and that is a look which is definately in now! Unfortunately I have not gotten around to listing all the animals we have but we did get some of them up! - Marty

Ebay Express Heating Up? Time to Opt in?

2007-02-17T21:32:00.000-05:00

Most people familiar with eBay know that eBay Express has not been quite the hit they thought it would be. It seemed to literally die in terms of traffic to the site and people pretty much gave up on it . Sellers, given an option to OPT OUT of eBay Express (have their items not appear there) were doing so (myself included) because of the strong evidence that sales were lower for store sellers when remaining opted in due to indexing and or other issues which were never really clearly determined. However.... Every dog has his day! Ebay Express seems to be pickign up lately. When I saw a sale from Express I did not think too much until we had 4 in one week. More than we had in months ! I then went to Alexa.com and noticed traffic perked up and was triple what it was just a few months earlier. The spike was somewhat short-lived but given that its make or break time for Express now I would consider opting in to Express. You can see our items here http://search.express.ebay.com/merchant/clact . Take a look to see how clean Express looks. The items we have been selling on Express seem to represent a different type of buyer. If you have any comments please post them! Thanks for reading this blog by the way soon we will have some cool new stuff here to show you! -Marty

Update on Traffic Program -Driving Business to Your Ebay Store

2007-02-10T21:07:00.000-05:00

I am currently in the 3rd month of our traffic program trials. So far I have been happy, but want to update you a little on how things are going.

December and January were both great months for us. In February things started slow, but have been picking up some. I noticed my hits having been coming in slower from the traffic program. I am also not working as much with the store as I usually do. I have found that in order to good sales I need to target traffic of 1200 visitors a day for about 600 items in the store. I am going by the Omniture Traffic reports given to store owners free of charge in the store description. It seems to me when traffic spikes to those level things start happening.
What I mean is that small increases in traffic do not seem to show results I need to get to that level which I did in February, and in December and also in March 2006 when stores were in eBa's core search. So bringing in traffic more slowly is not helping proportionately it has to hit critical levels. I am working on that now. Below is a banner for the traffic program.

Lots of people are emailing me or messaging me for help with accounting for their eBay business. I want to mention that if you scroll down a bit you will see a banner that will take you to my friend Rogers software for eBay sellers . It is inexpensive and handles your eBay business, we use it! There is also a program for selling on ebay for consignment. IF you are lazy and dont want to see his banner his site is located at http://auctionsellersolutions.com

So far on the hit program we have had solid store sales every month. February ended with our lowest fee bill in two years and we sold over 100 store items!

I still need to do more testing (seems like a never ending job), and also sample out some international traffic from other sources!

Marty

Using GivingWorks at Ebay to Increase your Sales & Help Charities

2007-02-10T21:01:00.000-05:00

Here are few links concerning using eBay's GivingWorks to do good, and increase your sales!

This first one is how to use the charity section to potentially get better pricing on your items by using the extra attention the charity section brings in . This has worked for me very well in the past. I highly recommend printing these out and reading through them a few times.http://www.tastefulgraphics.com/_CauseMarketingforSellerseBayLive2006_eBayLive2006_FINAL.pdf

The second one is if you were considering being a trading assistant to help nonprofits, also loaded with good info!

http://www.tastefulgraphics.com/eBayGivingWorks_TradingAssistants_final__eBayLive2006.pdf

The classes were dont by the Givingworks team at eBay were great! You can tell they loved what they did. When I mentioned the info was great they emailed it to me so I can share it with people (this was a while ago) .

The type of people that visit charity listings are the type of buyers you want. You have to trust me on that one! They are often people doing the charity listings themselves checking out others, and people more inclined to buy something if a portion goes to charity (makes them feel good).The Givingworks people fought hard to get a $5.00 minimum donation instead of the old $10.00 one so that makes things more affordable to do. Now, at the end of the year... they even send you a report of all the donations you made!When you read the report you will see that many times (but not always) finally prices are higher by MORE THAN THE AMOUNT YOU DONATED!!!!!. So you get a better price, the charity gets some money etc.Also, many charities monitor listings and send you thank you notes.

Overall, I think as part of the big plan running a charity listing or two per week if you have the right items will bring in more traffic and aid sales.I hope some of you find this info helpful. My thanks to the people at Givingworks that you never really hear from that behind the scenes set up eBay to raise millions of dollars for charities.Occasionally there will be a challenge to the eBay community and there remains and anonymous donor who sponsors a large charity. That donor sometimes comes forth and adds to your dollars you raise for the charity!I think its Warren Buffet, but it could be Gates... Maybe its you?? LOLMarty

Save on Ebay Purchases with Paypal Coupon!

2007-02-09T08:50:00.000-05:00

Just a quickie update for now!

*** If you received a promotional email from Paypal dont ignore it, you could get some free money! You need to have received the email to use this coupon! *****

How these work is Paypal occasionally does stuff like that to encourage you to buy something and pay with Paypal! You must have a paypal account (or set one up then use the link I suppose if you dont have one), and then buy an item that meets the criteria which I think is $30 or more between Feb 8th and March 31st.

https://paypal.promotionexpert.com/greatshopping/signup/200702/misc_s.html?route=misc.s

They give you a $15 rebate! That is darn good hey?????

Now that you might have some FREE DOUGH I strongly suggest you check out my store, and perhaps me eBay ME page where I list some of my friends ebay stores!

You can get to some awesome eBay shopping here..

http://Onceuponabid.com

Marty

Using FilmLoop To Help sell items from your Ebay store!

2007-02-05T20:51:00.000-05:00

A picture is worth a thousand words! I figured I should show you why you should check out filmloop.com . At filmloop you can create and eBay slideshow you can post all over the web! I have this slideshow running on our Myspace and now on the blog here! It only shows about 30 items or so but automatically updates over time! It is a great sales tool! Customers can click right from the picture to the item itself as listed on eBay! Let me know what you think! - Marty

Increasing Your sales for your eBay Store UPDATE

2007-01-31T08:32:00.000-05:00

Hey! This is one of the first times I have been excited in a while. We are having an excellent sales month and in sharing a lot of details with other sellers I have learned even more things to pass along. So if you are strolling in for the first time or just checking please keep checking back over the next few days at least so I can feed you some useful info.

If you have been reading you will know by now I have been using a traffic program that I started trying out in December. This month so far I have had 106 store sales and 29 CORE sales on eBay off a base of less than 600 items. That is probably the best eBay store item sales number I have had and our fees are running very low this month (ebay fee bill). Now I am doing a bunch of things, so Ill go over them all here...

1- I am opting in / out of Ebay Express every 7 days
2- I am bringing in 25k in hits a month using a traffic program. Allocated cost to this month $61.00
3- I have been using search engine submission sites and manually submitting this blog, my ebay store, my ebay store domain and my myspace to all of them I can find.
4- I cut back core auctions to 10 or less items a week and have had a decent sell through on those as well

That is the basic plan I am following. During the course of my research, I had the idea to try out some foreign traffic programs for the next month . I have not done so yet and will not mention any providers until I can get some info as I have not decided on which one to use yet and they are different than the first one I am using for US traffic. I asked a few questions and found out we , as eBay store owners have stores on other eBay sites if we sell to those countries! I never knew this! Let me give you links to our UK store and our Australia store...

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Once-Upon-A-Bid

http://stores.ebay.com.au/Once-Upon-A-Bid

This is something that I did not know, and which could be of value. I stumbled across this after asking some questions and figured we could list items on these other sites and point people to our stores in their country! As you know eBay policy makes it so you have to be clear on the location of your item as being in the US (if you are a US seller) and you should note any special concerns for those countries in terms of what you can ship there. Generally the UK and Australia are pretty easy , its other countries which are more difficult in this regard.

So I am actually going to look to not only promote my US url but the foreign ones as well and build up some knowledge of my store on these sites.

I started using the traffic program mentioned a few posts below on December 18th. I ran one program from Dec 12-Jan 12 and then another started Jan 18 and will run til Feb 18th. Some other people have started trying it out as well and I will report how things worked out for them . So far out of 3 other people I am familiar with 2 others (besides me) were fairly happy with it so far. One person directed the traffic to an off eBay website and had a poor result. As a result of her analysis of this I would not recommend the program for this purpose. My reasoning on this is that it is redirected traffic. This means people come to you after they looked for something else similar to what you sell. The eBay name gives these strangers to you a slight amount of thought that they are somewhere familiar or that they can rely on. So while 95% of your traffic will just click away I believe it helps turn a little more of whats left into buyers.
Another issue is that the seller who had a poor result sellers primarily a single product line. As such I would not recommend this for a single product. Remember the odds. 25,000 visitors maybe only 1000 will take a peek maybe only 30-50 will become buyers maybe less. If you sell a variety of items I feel you are more likely to do well with it. Also if you have a small store and not much in it yet, I would hold off on much traffic and search engine stuff until you stock up some. A larger store provides some if its own traffic as it gets indexed. You need this traffic to work with other sources to make things work. I am only offering these cautions as the best info I can offer , it could be be that your experience would be different.

I will be giving a full report when the month ends which is later tonight, so probably by some time tomorrow.

I will be reporting more on promoting the foreign URLs for our stores and I am going to start recommending some other resources that I have used like books I have read etc, in case people like those things. Right now I have a few in my store, the cheapest and most ebay related is the Grilled Cheese Madonna book whic talks about all the crazy eBay auctions and might give you some marketing ideas. I have a few other market specific books listed on the Tween market and Creating Ever- Cool how companies create brands that live on. Those are more general.

The comment section is open for others recomendations as well.

Another project I will be working on is creating a Squidoo lens for all our content and some new ideas . A good friend of mine (Sallie) who is featured way way down the blog (She sells some nice jewelry) has been working with Squidoo and doing and excellent job. Its time for me to get moving on it!

More sooon...

Marty

Use FREE Search Engine Submissions to Help Sell your EBAY items!

2007-01-24T21:36:00.000-05:00

It does seem like lately, it has been all business and no fun pictures huh? LOL In any case another good marketing strategy today. This one costs ZERO! Many years ago before Google was huge and everyone thought about how they showed up in Google in the rankings, people worked hard on submitting their sites to as many search engines as possible. I have found this strategy still works today. There are more search engines than ever and even though the top ones still throw around the bulk of the traffic there are many small niche search engines that people stumble upon and can find your business in! Basically this will take you some time. So stop wasting time and have some tea, a cold drink or whatever you need and get to work! You need to go to Google, then to Yahoo and type in "free search engine submission" . You will be happy when you get a ton of results hey? Well , its not that easy. Many of these are just covers for charging you money so you have to dig through a little bit. Over the course of a few nights I found I could get coverage in 100 or more search engines then paid 5 bucks to pick up another 300 or so then I kept submitting anywhere that would take me. I noticed my small hits from odd domains increasing in my traffic reports.

While everyone looks for the "home run". Its often a matter of building a "web" of your business all around the web. For example. Right now you are reading my blog, I submitted that as well to search engines. I also submitted my myspace page. Submit anything you have that talks about you, especially if its rich in content. Remember the more you can talk the better!

To get you started here is a site which on the right side of the page you can start by submitting to 40 search engines free! http://www.submitexpress.com/ !! Keep in mind that you will receive some emails from this process. So if you do not want to clutter your box create a hotmail email or another email addy just to click on the confirmation notes etc. With 40 search engines its really not too bad but if you blast out there then it will get to be a bunch of mail!

Good luck and I promise some fun stuff is coming up! -

Just as a reminder. here are my sites

http://Onceuponabid.com <----Ebay store

http://Myspace.com/Onceuponabid <----Our Myspace with music and a slideshow that you can creat for your business as well!

http://www.worldofebay.blogspot.com <--- This blog that you are reading now. Save them all these are great places for great info

Also keep in mind the Accounting Software to get you ready for the Tax man by Roger in the banner below and also the hit program I am sampling out also shown a few posts below.

Coming up on the blog will be some information on something new I found ! International traffic! Time to grab some Europeans! Ill be back with more info! :)

Marty

Using Myspace as an eBay Tool

2007-01-21T22:55:00.000-05:00

Just a short post here to direct you to take a look at our Myspace for our eBay business. We have developed a basic site and used a filmloop to show a slideshow of our items and hook up with other eBayers. I highly recommend giving this a try as you can connect with other ebayers there and get some hits and sales. We are just in the initial stages of this project but wanted to show you the possibilities. Also , on Myspace you have "friends" if you click on some of mine you will see some more advanced possibilities as many people have done a great job with their sites. Here is a link to our myspace .... http://myspace.com/onceuponabid
Let us know what you think! -Marty

Accounting, Record-keeping , Tax help for your eBay business!

2007-01-21T22:23:00.000-05:00

Many eBayers have asked how the heck do we keep track of things we are selling on ebay? How do you know what you are making on your items and how to accumulate information for filing your taxes and figuring out if you are making money?

Well a good friend Roger has developed this program that you can get to from clicking the banner below. His solution which is always being updated takes you from soup to nuts through the process of accounting for your business. If you have been looking around for something that looks good, has the right feel and isnt overly expensive and does not charge a monthly fee this software might be right for you. He currently has two main programs one for accounting for your auctions business and one if you work selling items on consignment from others on eBay. We work with both programs and Roger will be stopping in her to the blog to talk more about them. You can take a peek at tons of screenshots to see how these work below! One great thing about these is if you do not have Microsoft Excel he has an open office version . OPen office is a free spreadsheet out there and Roger has a link to it on his site! So take a look at these programs , even if to just get a feel for what you might need to gather to get you info in order! They are also very inexpensive ! He is working on even more auctions solutions and will be posting here about them. Make sure to comment to let me know what you think! ... More soon!

Update on Driving Traffic to our eBay Store

2007-01-19T22:37:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in some prior posts we are using a traffic program to build some off ebay traffic flow to our ebay store. Our first program ran from December 12th until Jan 12th and delivered 25,000 targeted hits choosing the main category of "Gifts" to our store.

We felt sales benefited from the program, we saw the traffic saw some click through and visits, but its hard to tell in the holiday season and while running a lot of core auctions how everything interplayed. We decided to try another program in January and overall since Jan 1 we changed our style to run LESS Core auctions , a lot less since they cost a lot of money to gain exposure. For those who do not know what core means. This is running fixed price or auction style listings at fees ranging from 70 cents on up to a few dollars or so for a weeks exposure on eBay. Store listings cost 6-10 cents a month by comparison.

In any case by running less core auction in January ( and average of less than 10 per week) we had HUGE store sales with just the traffic program running to Jan 12th, then a pause before starting the new program which took a few days then more sales since. We lucked out this month as the traffic selection we made was on a 50% off special. You can check here as this sale is going on til the end of the month I believe..

Now some people have written and heard that these programs are "rip offs" . It seems to me that a good chunk of these targeted hits are click in click outs. These are people searching for gifts and getting redirected because someones domain expired. However, we are getting a small percentage of people poking around in our store and buying. Sometimes the orders are better. Most of the time something catches their eye in these cases. Our store carries something for everyone so if it was just say a hunting fishing store, there might be less success unless of course you had targeted hits for that area.

Another thing I wonder about is when you bring hits in, does that change how search engines look at you? It seems as though other things improve as well.

Overall I think in the price range of the current sale of 25k in hits for 49 bucks its worth a try. I will be reporting more on the second program as we go along here as well.

Coming up in future posts I have some great info for you!

1- Tons of places to submit your site free across the net

2- How to use Myspace to generate some eBay traffic

3- Some great software to keep track of eBay sales and even Consignement eBay sales when selling for others!

So stay tuned for more!

Marty

Bringing in Traffic & Sales to your your eBay store

2006-12-30T07:02:00.000-05:00

Some people have contacted me with concerns or requests for more info on how the traffic program is going. I wanted to update everyone. If you read the post right below this one you will get a basic overview. The answer so far is.. I am still testing this out! On December 12th I began a 30 day period of 25k in purchased hits. I am getting traffic, visitors (longer stays) and sales. eBay doesnt have the easiest system for drilling down for information on this but if you are really familiar with their advanced traffic reports for featured stores and familiar with your buying patterns and graphs you can narrow this down. The last time I checked I was only 13k through a 25k program of targeted hits. The total cost of my initial hit generating program here is 99 dollars. So Im about halfway through. Some people have had concerns about these type of companies with this traffic. So far my statistics and those provided by the hit company have seemed to match though there is a delay at times in my traffic reporting (it seems) through eBay. I am going to try to post a picture here to show you what happened to my traffic since December 12th when I started this. Also the graph you will see is what is called "VISITORS" these are longer stays, longer than just a click in and out apparently. My research has shown that there are a few good companies with this type of traffic but that there are many other "scams" . My personal opinion is that when eBay ended their keywords program the replacement program was something I couldnt even understand let alone try and has not worked for us. We are branching out to try a few new things and it might take a month or two of testing (so keep checking back) to really give an official opinion on this. I have a few different things I can try. First, I can try to run a lot less auctions and just bring this type of traffic in for January and run a few TA (Trading assistant) auctions where the customers pay the fees, and a few collectible auctions. The other thing I can try is the 7 day burst they offer where I bunch this all up in 7 instead of 30 days to see if I see a surge in sales. If you are curious and cautious dont try this until you get some more info from my trials :)

Increasing your Sales on eBay with Off Ebay Traffic

2006-12-20T09:03:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! I have some interesting information for you. Recently eBay has had it share of issues. The growth of sites like Youtube,Myspace and others has led to a decline in traffic on some sites such as eBay. As a result we are always working on ways to build traffic. When I was researching eBays traffic decline on Alexa.com I came across a company that redirects traffic from dead domain names to your site. I thought the concept was interesting. From what I gather someone can search for something like TomsGiftshop dot com and if Toms is closed they get taken over to you if you are a gift seller etc. So far I am 20-25% into my hit campaign and seeing very good results. It is not expensive to try and seems to work when adding off ebay hits to the existing eBay traffic. I will be posting additional info and graphs as I study this. Here is a banner below so you can check it out.

Huge Star Wars PEZ - The Value of Multiple Keywords in Selling

2006-12-12T09:53:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! It has been so long since I have posted to the blog here, my apologies! I have been busy selling and handling matters for my aunt's estate. Today I am going to review an important concept . That is the value of having items which contain multiple keywords of value when buyers are searching. For example.... You will see pictured here a set of Star Wars PEZ containers. This is a HUGE 12 inch high one! These items have "Star Wars" and "Pez" as two very valuable keywords. "Star Wars" has recently been listed as THE top keyword in collectibles! "Pez" is very high up there as well. These items thus can appeal to both star wars and pez collectors! We have other large PEZ items as well like Kermit Sesame Street Muppets PEZ and Big Bird Sesame Street PEZ , see how this works? All these by the way are MUSICAL PEZ containers and when you open them they play music! They dole out huge packs of PEZ not just individual candies! You can find these items in our store at http://Onceuponabid.com . We sometimes like to look for items with a "functional use" as well as popular keywords. For example, we sold out of another PEZ item recently. It was a "glow in the dark" "PEZ" " Freezer MUG" . It had a good use, was collectible for PEZ people, and then others like glow in the dark items. So look for multiple reasons people would want an item and that should help your ability to sell them! So far Miss Piggy PEZ has sold out.. lets us see who is next! Until later.....

What are Vintage Video games and why do they sell well?

2006-11-01T23:22:00.000-05:00

It is hard to believe but enough years have past where we now have what are called Vintage Video games or even vintage computer software! Both categories sell fairly well on eBay though you might want to put the older software titles in the ebay store until the right buyer comes along. Vintage video games are sometimes called first generation games and are basically games that came out with some of the first gaming systems. Generally you would want items from 1990 or earlier to get any interest but there are some exceptions. Recently I picked up a bunch of vintage nintendo games from the late 80s for only $2.50 in total! I have shown you an example in the picture with this post. There are lots of great books out there on vintage video games, video game history and even some price guides. It is a great area to go into! Vintage computer software also sells well. Apparently some people still have the old pcs and like to buy items from time to time or they collect these now collectible software titles! You can see our listings at our eBay store at http://Onceuponabid.com

Halloween - the underrated holiday -Items to sell on ebay

2006-09-24T09:06:00.000-04:00

Here you will see a few items we listed for Halloween sales on eBay. We have a animated Witch doll that is very cute, some stencils used to carve critters out of Pumpkins (like owls, cats, rabbits etc) and of course a spooky house. Halloween is one of those holidays that is growing rapidly in terms of retail sales and should not be ignored as a seller. You can find these items and many more in our eBay store at http://Onceuponabid.com

One Small Treasure Headed for A Castle -eBay

2006-09-21T20:35:00.000-04:00

Well finally a nice story to share with you! This little lady you see pictured here was a framed print I picked up at one of those 1.00 a box auctions along with a lot of other stuff. I just thought it was the most awesome little find. She has character! She was painted by Velásquez and this piece was framed in Spain. What a nice little find for an old box of odd stuff! Well at first noone wanted her, and she didnt sell but on a second listing a bidding war broke out and she is now on her way to a house built like a castle and the buyer is so excited to see her. I had to share this with you! Keep your eyes out for anything with character, that stands out as different to you..

Selling From eBay Stores- Recent Fee Increases and News

2006-09-21T20:19:00.000-04:00

Well the news is abuzz of some recent changes eBay has made to their fee structure. While fee increases are never popular this one seemed to arrive at a time when many ebay sellers were already struggling. eBay raised its monthly listing fees fairly dramatically and this caused many store sellers to close their stores or downsize them. While I was not sure what to make of the changes and how sales would be , I do see some positives amidst the haze here and I wanted to point them out to those still interested in selling successfully on the site. It clearly seems that those who stuck it out might be at an advantage as store inventory across the seller base has declined dramatically. Also eBay seems to be pushing what they call "Core" listings (listing in auction and fixed price format). We have been having very good results listing in fixed price format (where there is no bidding a buyer just pays a fixed price for an item) and our store sales have been fairly good lately and improving. My advice to those concerned about the changes would be to stick it out through the busy holiday selling season and look at mixing up your strategy some for better sales. I have a feeling with falling gas and fuel prices , interest rates leveling and starting to fall that the consumer will be spending in sort of snap back fashion and this holiday season might surprise people. Some retail stores are already boosting estimates! Hang tight, some good tips to come.... http://www.onceuponabid.com

Selling Items on eBay Noone Else Has - Christmas Decor

2006-08-04T09:32:00.000-04:00

This morning's post is a reminder of one of the major themes an eBay seller wants to keep in mind. Whenever possible it is always good to have an odd item that noone else seems to be selling at the current time. I will show you one such item here. This is a Climbing Elves Kit from Better Homes & Gardens in the late 80s. Noone else has one for sale now. It appeals to a few different selling themes. First, Christmas themed decor, second kits where people create something are always popular, and of course one of kind on eBay type things. Despite the millions of items up on eBay at any given time there are many times when we have the only one of an item up for sale. It greatly increases the chances of selling that item since you do not have people competing with you AND because some people ask for too little for clearly collectible items!

Halloween Decor - Gurley Candles SPOOKY

2006-07-31T08:53:00.000-04:00

Just a short post today on something I found while out at a tag sale this weekend. These are some spooky vintage candles that people love to collect. They are made by Gurley Candles and come in various freakish characters! I have them listed now on auction on eBay so let us see how they do. They usually sell fairly well! Halloween is second in spending to Christmas and becoming more and more popular every year. We have even more cool Halloween themed items going up in our store and they are probably a good bet for you to have in your store also! People buy things a few months ahead of time on eBay so start selling your spooky stash now! As always you can find our eBay store at http://www.OnceUponaBid.com .

(Google photo add is down now I will add a picture as soon as it comes back up!)

Selling on eBay - Vintage Playing Cards

2006-07-23T13:13:00.000-04:00

One great thing to sell on eBay are vintage playing cards. There are tons of collectors for nice older cards and they especially like sealed packs. This week I added some great older cards. These are some of the nicest I have sold on eBay. One set has a Wedgwood Medallion pictured on the cards and both decks are sealed. Another card set is made by Clemente Jacques in Mexico and these are collectible also! Take a look at the picture of the Wedgwood deck (from 1946).

Retro 1980's MOD Hip Jacket Best ever sold on eBay!

2006-07-09T11:30:00.000-04:00

Well this is a cool item! I have not listed it yet, but it will be listed soon. It is a retro JouJou 1987 jacket with cool designs and wording on it. I picked it up a Church thrift shop where for some reason I was able to get some amazing items really cheap this week. I will be listing this item soon on eBay. You can always find our store located at http://www.OnceUponaBid.com . This jacket fits the theme of unusual items you do not normally find anywhere! I have not found one jacket even remotely looking like this one!

If you are interested in this jacket send me an email at clhct1@aol.com for a special bidding coupon just for reading my blog! :)

Selling the Unusual -Stanhope , Space Station Kit , Religious items

2006-07-08T09:19:00.000-04:00

Hey Blog readers! Today's post is about selling the unusual items on eBay. Often times people think in terms of competion on eBay. I feel whenever possible its a good idea to have little to no competition by finding oddball items and marketing them in creative ways. Recently I decided to persue this strategy a little more and listed 3 new items , 2 had bids within hours! I listed a vintage Space Station Kite, a carved bone rosary bead with a stanhope cross with a picture of the baby Jesus in it, and a carved wood (driftwood I think) sculpture of a Morada, a building used by a secret Catholic Society in New Mexico called the Penitente Morada. I will add some pics for you as soon as Google's pic manager starts working again LOL. I plan to offer more items in my new store category called Strange and Unusual! So stay tuned for that! Some people have asked me "what the heck is a Stanhope?" Well I did not know the term either until a friend told me about it. A stanhope is a term used to describe a small peep hole type window in an item that shows an image similar to a tiny piece of microfilm inside a viewing chamber. They really are amazing. You can do a quick search on the term stanhope on Google and get loads of info! You can see these items and many more at www.Onceuponabid.com (our eBay store). If you are interested in learning more about selling on eBay, my wife is an Educational Specialist for eBay and can be reached at Onceuponabid@hotmail.com . We offer tax consultations for eBay sellers in our eBay store (link shown above). If you really want to learn to sell on eBay and do it successfully we are definately the right people to talk to ! We are powersellers, trading assistants (sell items for others for commission), have an eBay store and a wide range of contacts across eBay seller groups .

Selling Vintage Belt Buckles

2006-06-22T23:48:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the simple things work well. One area we have had continuous luck in since we started selling is with Vintage Belt Buckles. There are many collectors out there. It is a good idea to use supersize pictures and to show both the front and back of the buckle in your listings. We were told this by a few collectors back when we first started selling them. Here you will see a few buckles from the 1970s that are really cool to look at. Hopefully the buyers will like them also :) You can find them in our ebay store at http://www.Onceuponabid.com

June Update - Ebay Live! & Giving Twice with Charity

2006-06-22T01:06:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! I am sorry it has been a while since I have posted to the blog here! I have lots to tell you though ;) First, we attended eBay annual LIVE! Convention in Las Vegas , Nevada last week. I bought along the whole family and it was an excellent time. In addition to some courses and meeting vendors selling various tools to help you with your eBay business, we had some private get togethers with friends that were just awesome! I highly recommend eBay LIVE! for ebayers , so make sure you get to the next one in Boston. It will be in mid June of 2007 ( I believe Jun14-16th ) at the new Boston Convention and Expo center! While at eBay live we learned more about Givingworks on eBay. This is where you can specify a portion fo the proceeds from your listings on ebay to go to charity. It also brings more traffic into your listings! Here are some links to learn more about the service and some pictures of things we will have c in our listings running now! http://givingworks.ebay.com/sell/ Our store can always be found at http://www.onceuponabid.com (which takes you right to our eBay store!)

Selling Retro Vintage 50s Always Hot!

2006-05-18T01:53:00.000-04:00

I just listed these Fish lamps from the 1950s. Colors of pinks & blues are often found on this type of decor which remains fairly popular on eBay. These were made in Italy and in really nice condition. They were too cute now to pick up when I saw them!

Incredible Sales but no Blog Posts? LOL

2006-04-03T22:41:00.000-04:00

Well I guess it is a good problem to have. In February , eBay instituted a change to include store items in its main search on ebay.com. Since that time , sales have soared for almost everyone! March of 2006 turned out to beat our all time high sales month by over $1000! Normally the highest months of the year are leading up to Christmas when everyone buys holiday gifts. Sales have gone bonkers! That is a good problem to have , but the bad news is that eBay didnt like the way things were looking for some buyers and perhaps had some revenue worries due to things changing so they are changing this back!!

So in any case we have been doing some business in costume jewelry for first time. I dont have all that many pictures available yet, but costume jewelry is really hot on eBay and we plan to list a lot more since we just finished sorting thousands of pieces! In the pictures above you will see a Red Claro Vintage Beach*Star Watch. A lady in the tub pin and another pin that I just love (of course the one I love is the only one of the three that didnt sell ;) LOL

I hope to be posting more often here now that Tax season for us accountants is almost over so please continue to stop in!

Selling - Older Puzzles Think Round ! Springbok

2006-02-25T08:01:00.000-05:00

Hey Everyone! I am sorry its been a while since I posted to the blog. Its tax season for us accountants and we have been swamped ! I wanted to post another in our series of cool items to sell on eBay. This time we can talk about Jigsaw puzzles. One of the best names to look for is Springbok. These puzzles seem to have developed a nice following and the older ones can sell for good money on eBay! I am working through a pile of older Springbok puzzles I picked up at a tag sale last year. The better ones are the older ones that are circular or octagon in shape. These tend to fetch the most dollars! If you have time or a nice relative that likes to assemble puzzles it is good to put them together to see if they are complete (have all the pieces) as this definately adds to the price you might get! Here are some pictures. We usually show a picture of both the box and the assembled puzzle! Ill check in with you all soon!

Selling on eBay - Getting Better Pictures to sell more items

2006-01-23T23:27:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! I wanted to talk a little about taking better pictures for eBay listings. Good pictures help sell items, but even with the great new digital cameras that are being sold, taking good pictures is often difficult. My wife and I are certainly no picture taking experts, so we searched for a tool to help us. We purchased what is called a photo deflector on eBay. This is a briefcase like item that opens up and reveals some reflective white paper on the inside that allows you to place you item in it and then take the picture with the flash. With a little photo editing you can get some really great pictures that make your items appear to float in space! Here are some examples below! Photo deflectors run about $100 and the eBay seller Sharpics was selling them last I checked.

Please remember to check out our cool items in our ebay store located at http://www.OnceUponAbid.com

Selling - Older neat Vintage Toys on eBay.

2006-01-15T08:45:00.000-05:00

One thing I love about eBay is finding a lot of very cool things to sell. Things that I never knew existed. I learn about the items as I research them and wonder why we dont have such wonderful things made today. I am one of those people that think we lost a little something as everything became mass produced and made from cheaper materials. Here are a few neat things I picked up over the last week or so that I have listed in my store. One is a set of Russian made building blocks that go back a while. They assemble a neat looking tower which has a four clock face at the top representing a real building in Moscow. The other pictures are of a 60s era spinning top made by Sidney A. Tarrson Co. (also branded "Tarco Toy"). Arent those little figure the cutest things you have ever seen? They are in a balloon flying in their little spinning world! I love it! Thanks for checking out my blog, please stop back again soon for some excellent new information!

Trading Assistant Business Made page 1 of Newspaper!

2006-01-15T08:40:00.000-05:00

Hello fellow readers! We have some big news to share. We were contacted by a local reporter for the Meriden Record-Journal which serves Meriden and Wallingford , CT and we were featured in a story that ran on page 1 at the top of the newspaper along with a huge color picture of my wife! This story concerned selling things you might have received for Christmas that you might have doubles of or do not want etc. It also discussed our trading assistant business and it has already resulted in some good calls. Although we were contacted in this case, do not hesitate to contact your local reporters about your business as they like to do stories about eBay!

Here is picture for you!

Happy New Year!

2006-01-02T01:25:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! We went out of 2005 with a record month (December) ! We sold more $$ of items in December 2005 than any month since we started selling. With the new year comes a heckuva lot of new goals which I will be discussing here with you.

We had some awesome stuff to sell and one of my favorites was this German Cabbage Patch doll that you see pictured here. The German Cabbage patch dolls are beloved for their larger freckles!

I also picked up an awesome set of Limoges serving and dinner plates which I have a picture of also here.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!

People on eBay - Paying it Forward ...to help others.

2005-12-16T11:58:00.000-05:00

This will be a little different than most of my posts here. Just a few days ago I had an idea for people to help out other people on eBay that were having a hard time , either with their sales or with finances etc. I started a Pay it Forward thread based on the idea that I saw in the movie of the same name. An outpouring of help occured that has left many people in shock at the generosity of the eBay community. Some people had families making gift baskets for them, others helped out with money or links to sites to help with fuel assistance. Others bought things from the stores of the sellers that were having a tough time. Many people were helped a lot of new friends were made, and many people are still helping as this has taken on a life of its own.

While growing sales is important, there are also times when giving back is what we should focus on. Working with this project led me back to the times when in private school we did community service projects that just gave you a warm feeling inside.

People that receive help often turn around and help others and remember the kindness showed to them. This is the concept behind Pay it Forward and I am glad we were able to work with this idea on eBay!

Selling Items based on Cartoon Characters

2005-12-07T09:47:00.001-05:00

Hello fellow blog readers! Im sorry I have not posted much over the last few weeks , we had our busiest (and most successful) month since we started selling on eBay! We sold over $3450 in merchandise for the month of November! You can do that and more, just poke around our blog for ideas and contact us if you need some help getting started. My wife is an educational specialist but we also offer consulting as needed to people not in our area! Her email is cadamoct@aol.com (Cheryl).

Today's post is on items based on Cartoon characters. These are always popular and if you find ones that are from the 1980s or earlier you usually have a great item to sell! Here are some pictures of Pitiful Pearl ! Now I had not heard of Pitiful Pearl, but from the minute I saw her, I knew she would be a hit. She is based on a cartoon character of the same name and is just the cutest thing. Started at just 99 cents she is already up to $75 or so and might be headed higher.

So keep your eyes out for products inspired by Cartoon characters. From Looney Tunes, to Voltron and Transformer robots , to early Cartoons like Popeye!

UPDATE - This item was purchased by someone with an amazing story to tell! She had been poor when in her younger years and use to make her older brother walk her by the store window where Pearl was. All these years she wanted one, but they always were beyond her grasp. Even in bidding on a few on Ebay , she could never get the top price until now! Finally her doll is hers 30 plus years later!

HUGE SAVINGS BLOWOUT SPECIALS FOR BLOG READERS!

2005-11-27T13:47:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! It is time to get ready for the biggest online sales day of the year! When is it you ask?

Tomorrow! Yes, the Monday after Thanksgiving is the largest online shopping day of the year.

Guess what? If you found this post on the blog you are lucky! We f0und something good to pass along to you and want you to save some money on your holiday purchases! Here is the fine print on the coupon codes which you fill in when paying with paypal. There is a screen in the payment process that says if you have coupons put in the coupon codes!

FINE PRINTGood for one item only and the discount applies to the item price only, not including shipping, handling, or taxes. Offer valid only when you pat with and seller accepts paypal. Limit one coupon code per registered Paypl User.Valid until 11:59pm Pacific Time November 30, 2005

$5 off $50+ orders with Paypal Expires: 11/30/2005 eBay Coupon Code: C2-Holiday2005

$15 off $100+ orders with Paypal Expires: 11/30/2005 eBay Coupon Code: C3-Holiday2005

10% off order with Paypal Expires: 11/30/2005 eBay Coupon Code: C1-Holiday2005

$5 off $19.99+ orders purchased with Paypal Expires: 12/4/2005 eBay Coupon Code: CLUA5Q45S

I have used one of the coupons myself and it worked great! I heard you can only use each one one time, but someone found this fine print below that seems to imply you can only use one coupon. But try them out it cannot hurt! We saved money on our purchase!

FINE PRINTGood for one item only and the discount applies to the item price only, not including shipping, handling, or taxes. Offer valid only when you pat with and seller accepts paypal. Limit one coupon code per registered Paypl User.Valid until 11:59pm Pacific Time November 30, 2005

Keep in mind these are paypal coupons , but if you want to visit our store we will give you an additional 10% off any item or items you buy PLUS we combine shipping to save you money on additional orders!

Our store is located at http://www.onceuponabid.com

Rare Gems,Vintage ads,Mosaics, Sexy Clothes- Friends New Blogs about their eBay Stores

2005-11-17T23:28:00.000-05:00

I wanted to post a few interesting links for you tonight. Some of my friends from the eBay selling group that I am in have ventured into blogging and I took a peek tonight and really liked what I saw.

One of my friends just started a blog on Vintage Advertisements, and I really think you will find it interesting, especially the part about Art Cards Editions and Originals Her blog can be found at http://ad-venturess.blogspot.com/

Another friend sells beads, and lately has moved into selling some really cool items. One type of stone is called Larimar and is only found in one place in the world. You can find out more about it and find some for sale here http://creativebeadz.blogspot.com/

Also jumping on the blog scene is my good friend Mel that was kind enough to help me design a nice ME page. She has a neat blog on Mosaics , and some wicked cool looking pictures and products . Her blog can be found at http://amazingmosaics.blogspot.com/

If you are looking for something a little Sexier in the blog world try out this cool blog http://dressvoodoo.blogspot.com/ for some tips to enchant and some very sexy clothes!

Congratulations to all my friends above that have started their new blogs, they all have some great new products and are excellent sellers!

I will be adding more blog links and blogging tips over the next few weeks so stay tuned!

Selling - Voltron Defender of the Universe

2005-11-14T21:19:00.000-05:00

We managed to get another fun auction listed on eBay recently. The auction is for a collection of Voltron items. Voltron (Defender of the Universe) was an early 1980s robot type guy that has suddenly become pretty popular and is very collectible on eBay. I heard that he preceded the "Transformers" , and is collected by people who like those toys.

The auction was started at 99 cents and at the time I post this is already up to over $50! Voltron hits upon a few different themes that seem to work on eBay. One is early 80s toys, and the other is Robots. People love both! To have two in one usually means it has a chance to do well on eBay.

You can always find things we have for sale in our eBay store at http://www.onceuponabid.com

Buying Art on eBay - Art By Hiromi

2005-11-07T07:09:00.000-05:00

The following is from a guest speaker on the blog, an artist who creates the amazing works you see pictured here.

Love original art but intimidated by galleries? Hate gallery prices? Northern California artist Hiromi welcomes direct interaction with her private and corporate clients. She hand paints all of her own designs, mostly modern art abstract paintings but also landscapes, florals, zen and asian-inspired pieces, paintings with texture, mixed media and acrylics.

Whether due to early exposure to Japanese aesthetics or simply a reaction to her Mother's propensity towards dressing her in frilly pink outfits at a very young age, Hiromi's pieces generally tend toward simplistic elegance and earthy neutrals or colors reminiscent of blood or black and blue. However, from time to time, she follows her artistic whims into colorful territory albeit still preferring relatively clean lines.

"I create continually, mostly because I lean heavily towards obsession, passion, whatever you want to call it, tempered by an attention-span of a 2-year old. Yes, I tend towards hyperbole too. Probably in large part due to this slightly obsessive inclination, my sleeping problems started young. I think someone finally attributed my sleep-walking and sleep-talking to an overactive imagination which now provides the bases for my art."

Hiromi's originals are versatile, complementing a wide array of dicor, appropriate for home or office. Most pieces go equally well with:

contemporary or mid-century styled furnishings such as Eames era (styled) and the clean lines of Danish modern design (Scandanavian) furnishings
more traditional pieces such as those produced by Pottery Barn or Crate and Barrel
wood furnishings
black lacquer
glass
chrome (stainless)
Asian-influenced settings

Go ahead and add color to your life and submit your best offer for Hiromi's original paintings. Each one is waiting to join your life and bring a smile to your face.

Hiromi has also put together a guide to buying original art that you might find interesting , it is located here : http://reviews.ebay.com/Buying-Original-Art-Online-101-Paintings-On-eBay-1_W0QQugidZ10000000000001541

Holiday Selling on eBay Update !

2005-11-06T21:45:00.000-05:00

Well it seems like the holidays are soon approaching and the holiday selling has already begun. Apparently it was kick-started fairly early this year by retailer promotions that are normally reserved for later in the month. With heating oil prices so high , brick and mortar retailers starting offering discounts to get people buying before their fuel bills came in !

So what are some key tips to successful holiday selling online?

1) Get as much merchandise up and available for purchase as possible. Demand is very strong this time of year!

2) Offer priority and even express shipping to customers. They want their stuff, and want it right away! Often it is not just for Christmas Eve or Christmas day. Many people have office gift exchanges or family meeting well before Christmas so keep this in mind!

3) Offer combined shipping savings and allow people to make a huge box of stuff they need to fill shopping lists and have it come from you!

4) Sell right up to the end! Many sellers stop shipping a few days before Christmas and last minute people are willing to pay big money to fill those holiday gift needs that they have not filled yet!

5) Think new in box, plastic wrapped gifts at this time of year, people want good stuff to give to others!

6) Get all your holiday celebration stuff up! From Christmas glasses to plates to ornaments list it all , people want to be in the mood to celebrate.

7) Perhaps different than in other years, think UPSCALE whenever possible. The middle class is struggling lately yet the wealthier people are spending like there is no tomorrow. If you have more pricey items list them!

8) Perhaps the biggest tip for selling on eBay this time of year is to sell into the drop off in listings that happens as Christmas hits. People list a lot less and often wait for a listing promotion. Often listings are at 1/2 their normal levels. If you see this happen, LIST LIKE CRAZY!

Best wishes for a great selling season! There are many more blog entries coming so stay tuned!