Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Trash To Cash Wednesday!

What a great time to be selling on ebay. It seems everyone is ready for spring and is buying up their new wardrobes. Here's some of this weeks top sellers...
Women's Fresh Produce Size XL Purple/Blue Floral Dress sold for $14.36
Women's Eileen Fisher Size L Green Linen & Silk Skirt sold for $14.99
Even though this Women's Liz Lange Maternity Size M Graphic Dress is from target, it's a popular faux wrap style and a cute pattern. It sold for $15.50
I pulled this Women's Ralph Lauren Sport Size L Green Knit Dress out of my summer pile I've been accumulating and it sold for $16.06
Women's Gap Size 12 Long Black Career Pants $17.59
Another great wrap dress. This Women's Ann Taylor Loft Size 2 Black Wrap Dress sold for $19.55
Women's Fresh Produce Size XXL Purple/Blue Floral Dress sold for $20.99. My top seller of the week was a bit of a wild card as I paid $8.50 for it...
But my investment paid off when this Women's Anthropologie Maeve Size 4 Purple Cotton Dress sold for $32.00. I've been taking a few risks with spending a little more for clothing. If you visit the thrift stores on non-dollar days the shopping experience is a little calmer and you can look for those higher end labels. It's worth investing a little more if you know you'll get a big return. Here's how my week turned out...

Ebay Total:$496.93
Costs: 60.00(clothes), 65.65(ebay fees), 32.63(paypal fees)
Total Profit: $338.65

Not too bad ! I'll be putting this toward my trip to New York in a few weeks. I'm traveling with a friend of mine to go visit a past student who is starring in Jersey Boys on broadway! Can't wait to see the show. Have a great week. Love, Kelly

10 comments:

  1. I've been following you guys for a few weeks now. Love your blog. I never dabble much in clothing except childrens clothing. I've been trying to branch out to adult clothing as I think I have access to good brands for cheap. Just curious how you base your starting prices for clothes?

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  2. Did you teach Ryan Jesse? How fun to go to New York. Enjoy the show!
    Oh, and I'm total confused by the Fresh Produce brand. I think everything you show is so ugly and grandma and yet it sells like hotcakes for high prices. Fashion is so wierd.

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  3. Hi Kelly - When you are posting your profits and have your costs for clothes listed - Is that the costs of the actual clothes you sold or costs for new inventory?? Just curious! Thank you so much for sharing on your blog.

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  4. Hi Kelly and Laura - What are your thoughts on the new ebay policy that will be coming out in April. The new fees for final value and their attempt to get everyone to have a "store."

    I love your trash to cash Wednesdays!! Thanks

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  5. How fun to see a former student doing what YOU taught!!!! How proud you must be. And thanks for answering my question last week about Merono / Target clothes.

    Tiffany

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  6. Kim,
    We have a whole post dedicated to ebay pricing: visit here. http://mydeartrash.blogspot.com/2010/10/ebay-pricing.html

    Allyson, Ryan Jesse is my friend's former student- can't wait to him. Also, Fresh produce has a cult like following on ebay. These prices are actually a little low compared to what they normally go for on ebay- I'm probably just a little early- In June some of these dresses sell in the $30-$40 range.

    Momtoqts:
    The cost for clothes is all of my inventory. When I'm buying items to put away for the next season I include the costs the week I buy them- when I list them, it's like it's all free!

    Jenny,
    I need to look into the new policies, I've had a few people ask about this and I hate to say I'm completely uninformed about it- I'll get busy and study up.

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  7. Hi Kelly ... Thanks for the tip on Fresh Produce. It's because of your posts that I grabbed FP dresses, but like Allyson I too wondered about them. Recently, I've sold 3 FP dresses for a little over $50. Now I think I'll hold on to any that I find until June. I hope you don't mind my 2cents on the new eBay policies, the main one being they will charge fees on all postage and handling charges. So for every item that you charge $6.95 shipping, ebay will get about 53-cents. Clothing is easy to ship in the flat-rate envelopes and 53-cents is easily covered by the $6.95. But for heavier items, that cost $9-$10 to ship, you can see where this policy change would be a burden for many sellers. I have been so successful selling clothing, thanks to you, that I'm thinking of eliminating many of my other products due to this increase. So long as I can find good quality clothing at cheap prices, I can continue doing this. Thank you so much! My biggest gripe about the policy is more on principle that eBay would charge a fee for something that it does nothing for ...

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  8. Hi Kelly again! I just got to reading the comments from a couple of weeks ago and want to thank you for answering my questions. Just an FYI: the post office does not provide tracking info for international packages, except for EXPRESS Mail. The number on int'l priority mail is not for tracking purposes ... I learned that a couple years ago when a buyer from Mexico claimed they never got their package. I gave them a full refund; although the package never came back to me. Another question: how do you keep track of all your inventory, listing status, pictures, etc? Do you use a spreadsheet? How long do you keep the pictures? Do you keep copies of the invoice for your records? Thanks for all your help!

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  9. Rita,
    In answer to a few of your questions you may want to read my post on "The ebay room" you can find it here http://mydeartrash.blogspot.com/2010/10/ebay-room.html
    It talks about how I keep track of inventory and organize pictures. I do not keep a spreadsheet. I number each week and just write my totals for each week on a word document. Because of my 5 week rotation (again in the ebay room post) I dump photos at the end of that 5 weeks. I do not keep invoices for my records- I did for the first 4 months I sold on ebay and realized I never look at them. All of the invoices are available on ebay for at least 45 days. Hope that helps.

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  10. Great job last week on Ebay, Kelly! Wishing you more profits this week........

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