Here's the thing. I like the thrill of the hunt, digging through boxes at sales, scrounging through thrift stores, dusting off treasures at estate sales and finding a treasure at a garage sale.
I love the victories of found items being sold for much more than I paid for them. I found a tiny DAM troll doll with a tail at a church sale in a 10 cent box. I thought it was unique and, of course, it was cheap. I brought it home, did my research and it ended up selling for $142!
One time my husband, Jim, and I were at a garage sale where a guy was selling an early 80's HP computer. He talked about all the programs it came with, a modem (that was an actual handset!) and on and on and on. He went on about how he wrote programs, went on some more about the quality of the computer, on about this and on about that. He practically begged Jim to buy it for $15 and the curiosity was well worth the $15. Who wouldn't want to see this thing?
After our curiosity was met, I decided to eBay it. I was excited to see they were selling for around $100. I put it up for a week and slowly watched it climb and then sit for days around that price. I was happy with my return on investment. As the clocked counted down and the auction was almost over I had a huge thrill as a seller as two bidders were fighting for it with the countdown clock at 10 seconds. When the clock rolled to 00:00, the bid sat at $390!
Another time I was at a sale with two elderly women who were selling off all their mother's "old junk". They told me how they had lived with all these antiques their whole life and can't understand why anyone would want any of it. Nonetheless they were trying to sell it and I was happy to pay them a nice, shiny quarter for a Gucci scarf that was shipped to France for the selling price of $97.50 + shipping.
It's not like every item sells that way, though. People find out that you sell and want to give you 30% of the sale price if you sell their (insert random "valuable" here). They think you're throwing a picture online and raking in the dough. Other than my thrill of the hunt being gone as an item is dropped at my doorstep, they also want me to make a measly sum for what I do.
I don't do anything other than researching, taking pictures, uploading pictures, editing pictures, writing descriptions, packing items, weighing items, shipping items, communicating with potential buyers while the auction is running, communicating with buyers once the item is over, driving the package to the post office (granted it's .8 miles round trip for me...but still), getting out of my vehicle, taking it inside - you get the drift.
I'd rather make 100% profit (less eBay and PayPal fees, of course) on my 25 cent find than 30% of your grandma's pots and pans and your toddler's tennis shoes.
There are a few reasonable people I do sell for. These are the people that understand that I can't complete a listing in 3.7 seconds and that my time is actually worth something. Mostly, though, I will tell people "no" when they ask me to sell for them so don't ask, okay? Imagine me beaming with happiness and jumping around like Snoopy in his silly dance while I'm searching for things to sell. If that doesn't work, imagine me in tears sobbing over a box of your stuff. Put a picture bubble above my head with me among a pile of unshipped boxes, an elapsed time clock of 73 hours and me holding $14 worth of dollar bills. I bet you won't ask me to sell for you without taking into account what it takes for me to do my job now will you?
"Will I sell for you?", you ask. "Um....yeah, no."
No comments:
Post a Comment