Halloween Decor - Gurley Candles SPOOKY

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

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!

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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.

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!

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!

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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 !

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!

Selling on eBay - Time to Get Ready for the Holidays

Good evening fellow blog readers! Tonight's post is about getting ready for the holidays and listing items that will be popular as people look for gifts to buy. At this time of the year , right up until Christmas, people look to buy gift quality items that are new in the box and still sealed and are ready for gift giving. We have been listing furiously lately increasing our items that can be purchased from about 800 to over 1300! Much of this increase is because we have some items that have quantities to them. For example a few hundreds yo-yos or a dozen puzzles etc. We listed lots of great stuff to our store just this evening! Here you will see pictured some of our cool new items. A Peter Max Puzzle, A really cool Animal Art print kit and some fortune telling cards for kids.

People will soon start their holiday shopping and it is good to get ready way in advance. This year, many retails stores started holiday sales early to get buyers in since they are worried about heating oil costs affecting last minute shopping when the weather gets colder.

SELLING- Dont throw out your fathers old tools!

Good morning Blog readers! This mornings first post is about vintage tools. Almost everyone has some old tools kicking around. Usually they weigh a lot, are not too attractive and take up space! Often times when people inherit items they throw these old tools away, thinking they are just junk! As is usually the case, many times items you do not think are worth money are! Vintage tools sell very well on eBay. Most have a name or what is called a "Maker's mark" on the item to let you know who manufactured the tool. This way you can easily look them up on eBay to see if they have any value! I have posted a few pics for you to take a look at an old vise I have posted in our listings that has already attracted bidders! You can check out this item and many , many more in our eBay store at http://www.OnceUponABid.com .

SELLING - Welcome back to the world of Cabbage Patch Dolls!

Remember the days when Coleco? was flying Cabbage Patch dolls over on 747's to get them to stores on time? People were tripping over other people to get the doll for the children. Past crazes that have had time to age like fine wine are also good areas to look into for selling on eBay. Recently Cabbage Patch kids dolls are making a comeback. They come in all different variations, white, black, boy , girl, even animals! I even heard the once hot Furbies are on the top ten list this year!

So why do these things make good items to sell on ebay? It turns out people long for their memories quite a bit. In a difficult world, warm memories of things they loved as kids often become the collectibles of the next few decades. Few items have created as much interest as Cabbage Patch dolls. While we have sold some "average" used Cabbage Patch dolls in the past, we had the opportunity to pick up a collection of them from someone moving. Most of the dolls are in near perfect never used condition with all their "adoption papers" and boxes in great shape. Any items in such good shape are a sellers dream! I have posted pictures of a few of our 40 some odd Cabbage patch dolls you can find in our store. We will also be posting some very rare European issue Cabbage Patch dolls, which are popular as they have larger freckles than their American counterparts.

We have some twins, both white and African-American dolls and premies, and some Koussas (Cabbage patch cats).

I still think that someday those people with piles of beanie babies will experience the same revival. Of course that might take some time!

You can find our cabbage patch dolls in our store at www.onceuponabid.com . You can just type Cabbage patch in the store search when you get there!

SELLING - Keep thinking Retro - Aluminum cups??

Hey blog readers! Its been a busy eBay week! Our Pepsi radio featured in the post below sold for over $135.00! The auction started at $9.99 ! Tonights post continues on with the retro collectible theme.

As I gain more experience as a seller, I pick up new things to look for. These aluminum cups (probably from the 1950s) are an item I picked up just because they looked too good not to get! After a while you get a feel for things! I have since researched them and they appear to be made in the 50s or 60s and usually sell for a pretty good amount. These particular cups come with a cool plastic holder made by Federal Tool Works in Chicago, which sets them apart from others offered. I have not listed them but will soon. I just received two new books in the mail on Retro collectibles from the 50s and will post more on this topic soon!