Back To The Swing Of Ebay Selling

Lately I've been getting back into the swing of listing and selling on Ebay. I have been a member of Ebay for both buying and selling since their early days (my profile start date is marked as 30 April 1998) when they were just an online auction house. For the first 6 months or so I was just sort of idle. I had signed up and checked out what they were and then had temporarily forgotten about them. I forget what my first winning auction bid was for. I know some of the early bids I made were for of all things Beanie Babies. Some theatre acquaintances of mine were into buying Beanie Babies on Ebay that is how I discovered the site. I Never won any of those back then I didn't know you were supposed to bid your max bid and my max bid was usually under $20 when those things were selling for at least $25 every time. Eventually I would get into buying trading card stuff. Now I get all sorts of stuff from there. I try to avoid big or heavy items though due to the shipping expenses. I don't dare sell anything that is too huge to ship normally.

Probably about a year after I had first signed-up I started trying to sell. I started with some books some VHS video tapes, trading cards, and pinback buttons. I always would have to relist stuff. At the time as I said Ebay was just auction listings the basic time was 7 days there were 3 day listings and 10 day listings. I think the 3 day listings were more expensive to list, but could be profitable. The auctions would end and I'd have to "relist" them, of course Ebay charged a relisting fee (having an Ebay store got rid of the relisting fees) I think the first thing I sold has also been one of the biggest sales I have ever had. It was $20 or $25 for a lot 4 (I think it was 4 maybe it was 2 or 3) VHS tapes of the Animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cartoon TV show. The bidder was getting them for their grandkids. Eventually I sold some other stuff some trading cards here and there, some books, buttons (pinback collector type not shirt type) and an occasional odd and end. $25 is the most I have listed one individual item for. Once I sold a package of some lanyards I had gotten from Staples that I didn't recall actually buying. I think they had been left on the counter by someone else and my pile of stuff had mixed up with those things. It was a pack of 5 that I sold for $10 max.

I have been paying for an Ebay store for many years. I forget when I first started it, but it was at the time when selling stuff at a "Buy It Now" fixed price was fairly new at Ebay. Having a store saves on the individual "listing" fees for making a single listing. In order to have it actually pay off however you need to have a minimum of 15-20 items for your items to get seen fairly regularly. Of course you actually need to get your items to sell for it to really pay off. You really need to be regularly "listing" items to keep your items at the top of the search lists. Back in the early days of Ebay stores you had to have at least one active Auction listing for your "In Store" fixed price items to be seen. Since at the time Ebay had no way to search for the fixed price items. That was many years ago and now most Ebay sellers and resellers rarely list any auctions. They list fixed price with "Best Offer" options. The more you list the more you sell. It isn't just a saying it is a cold fact. When I rarely listed anything I would rarely have anything sell. Only the occasional button, the supply of which I had gotten from a big lot of buttons that were about  7 different designs with multiples of each design, some only 5 or 6 buttons but most being about 12 buttons with the Express Start buttons being about 50 I think. I have 10 left of those but sold the other designs individually years ago.

For many months and a couple of years I have been meaning to add more listings and get back into actively selling on Ebay but kept putting it off. Partly due to the whole Photobucket changing the conditions on their free memberships and how much memory your albums can take up. It used to be at Ebay you needed an outside website for photo hosting, now you don't need an outside storage site unless you want to have more than 12 photos and use html for your listings.

At the beginning of February 2020 my store was at it's stale 6 items that I have had there for a few years. I then started adding some newer listings and I started getting more views on my previous items for sale. I added 2 listings then a couple days later 2 more listings then 4 or 5 listings and then I get a sale or two. Over 2 weeks I had gone from 6 items listed w/ very few sales per month. To 30 listings and now 5 sales during the month. As of this posting I have had those 5 sales in Feb (2 books, 3 orders of single packs of trading cards 16 packs total) and now have 27 items listed in my store. The Express Start pinback buttons (10 count), Some trading cards: a oouple of individual card lots, some packs and a few individual card lisitngs.

On YouTube I have started a series of videos called "Up On Ebay" where I mention recently listed items and try to show them as well. I also mention recent sales. I need to make some more listings before I do a new video and I will have to mention the last 4 sales all of which have shipped out now.

Related Links:
"Weird Al" Yankovic - The Ebay Song (fan made video there is no "official" video)
A version with a Boy Band acting the song out.

My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42's Federation Trading Post
My YouTube Channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02