Ebay: More Selling Stuff and Ideas

CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post

So here is another post about Ebay and selling there and just some related stuff I want to talk about.

In my earlier post about getting back into the swing of Ebay selling I probably should have made a brief mention that in my earlier height of Ebay selling at one time I had reached the milestone of having 100 items Up On Ebay in my store. Then a few days after that I think the highest I had was 110 or 115. I only kept track of the fact that I had broken the 100 item milestone and for the briefest of moments whatever my real max had been. I forget how long I was at that height before the sales knocked it back down below 100, but I haven't been there since and I want to make having 100 items in my store inventory my standard lowest inventory point. My goal for March is to have the total of 100 items listed in the store. From there I want to keep that the basement limit. Currently as of this posts publishing my store item count is 26 items. So  74 items more to list.

In general when selling on Ebay you have to list new items regularly to get your items noticed and viewed as the newer listings get priority in the searches. It takes somewhere between a dozen and 2 dozen items to start picking up views and making a sale or two. The more your list the more that your items get seen and more importantly the more sales you make. You don't have to list things that are huge ticket items, but if you only list a few things here and there that are only about a dollar you won't make much or will have to list a ton of items to start making good money.

To stress this point for many years my Ebay Store has been sitting with only 6 stale items in it. 1 item only is a multiple "copies" of that item. A collectible button, pinback or as the say in The UK a "badge" I think patches are also usually called badges so that is a little confusing just as using the term "button" here in the US is. Is that a shirt button, or one of those collectible things that has a funny saying on it? Every few months one of those buttons will sell. I mentioned in the previous post that I had gotten the particular design from a huge lot of buttons (100 count at least but less than 200) I had gotten from an Ebay auction, back in the days when Ebay was mostly auctions. I don't recall how much I paid for the batch or how many of each button there actually were. I do recall this specific button I had at least 50 of it maybe as many as 60. It is now down to a 10 count. Even though the other designs from that particular lot I sold long ago, I still have a boat load of buttons that I will eventually list and try to sell, including a bunch of buttons from my personal collection. I used to be pretty big in collecting buttons but not any more.  But I digress.

So long story shortish During the month of February I actively started listing more starting with listing 2 items one day, skipping the next day adding 2 more items and so on. I started with the 6 stale listings (I updated most of the photos/scans) dropped the price of the button from $1.50 to 99¢, then added those first 2 listings making the item count 8, then 10, then 16 items then jumped to 20, then 24 and then jumping up to 30 items total. When I was at about 14 or 15 items one of the earlier items I had listed sold. It was a listing of multiples and about half the multiples sold in one sale. It was a pack of football trading cards. So I continued to add listings. I got up to 30 listed items and for February made 5 sales. I can't stress enough how that simple act of regular listing of items increases both the views of your listed items but also increases the sales. Going many months without making any new listings I would sell maybe one or two items a year (mostly that same button). Making 24 new listings over about 3 weeks I made 5 sales. So far in March I have made one sale (one of the packs of football cards selling it out) but I haven't added any new listings  The number of items Up On Ebay is only 26 right now. I have some things set aside to list but I need to scan them. Yes right now I have been scanning the items mostly because I don't want to do the whole camera phone uploading thing. My other items are still being viewed but views have slowed down without any new listings.

So some might be wondering what Sold?
February 2020:

1. 5 card pack of 2016 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 (x5)
2. 5 card pack of 2018 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 (x5)
3. 1984 copy of Dune by Frank Herbert Berkley Books: $5.50
4. 5 card pack of 2018 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 (x6)
5. Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg 1971 paperback: $4.99 plus shipping

March 2020:

1. 5 card pack of 2016 Leaf Draft Football Trading cards: $1 

You can check out my series of "Up On Ebay" YouTube videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02 I know the quality of my cheap old webcam sucks. It also is a bit dark. Most everything I currently have listed has been mentioned and shown in those videos. I also mention what has sold. At the time I made the videos I think there were only a couple of sales. Video 2 might have been made before I got the second sale.

I think I mentioned that for many months I've been planning to get back into actively listing stuff on Ebay. Part of my motivation was from watching a bunch of YouTube Resellers such as Lonnie of Garage Flips/Shed Flips, Kevin the Commonwealth Picker/Flipper (with his wife Heather The Blue Ridge Mama), Matt "Part-Time Pickers", Jon Cincinnati Picker, and also Bobby TheCapGuy. There are a few others I've seen and followed but some of them are more recent discoveries and to be honest I found after my motivation was already in motion.

Eventually I would love to have the number of sales those people have. They tend to average 10 sales a day most days during the week. They also have a ton of stuff listed I think 500 items is the lowest number I've seen for some of these people, maybe one of them has between 300-500 but for the most part they have no less than 500 items and upwards of 2,000 items. Most seem to have over 1,000 items (and 2 or 3 Ebay Stores). My goal as I have said is to get to a minimum of 100 items and keep on building from there.

Some related links:
My Ebay Store: CaptKirk42s Federation Trading Post
My YouTube channel: klandersen42
Up On Ebay Videos: Episode 01 | Episode 02