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

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)..

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!

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 !

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!

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

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..

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.

More soon on this topic..

(picture is of Ebay's 1999 look of Ebay Local -Seattle)

Selling Craft kits on Ebay

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