Posted on 26 October 2006 by Gary H
There’s an AAUW book sale in Jamestown, ND on Friday and Saturday and this afternoon at 5:30 they sold early buyers privileges for $2. I left home at 2:00 and made the 147 mile trip via back roads so I could stop at a couple of small antiques shops along the way.
I’ve been going to this annual sale for the last five years. Some years I don’t bring home enough books to pay for the gas, but other years it’s a small gold mine. The trip this year wasn’t anything special but the purchase of 27 quality religion related books that should sell on Amazon for prices ranging from $15 to $40 will pay for the gas and a small profit. In addition to those 27 books I purchased a few items that will go on eBay.
The visits to the two antique shops produced four stereoview cards and nothing else.
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Posted on 25 October 2006 by Gary H
eBay announced a $.20 cent listing promotion for today and since I’m pretty sure that the day of the free listing and the $.10 listing promotions are long-gone, I took advantage of it and listed 107 items that were in my “special promotion” folder on MarketWorks.
These are all items didn’t sell after being listed two or three times, and which weren’t appropriate for the eBay store. The opening bids for all of them were decreased and hopefully 30 to 50 of them will sell at these lower prices. Whatever doesn’t sell will be destined for a garage sale next spring and after that will be donated to a local thrift shop.
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Posted on 25 October 2006 by Gary H
Yaro Starak blogging at Entrepreneur’s Journey makes a good argument for why you must take payments through PayPal in his post “Why Paypal Is A ‘Must Have’ Payment Option For Your E-Business“.
One of his primary reasons is one that I’ve always thought lent to higher final selling prices at times.
“People leave money in their Paypal account so they can use it to buy things online. That’s why they treat it as “play money”. It’s great psychology - since the money doesn’t show up in a bank account or on a credit card bill once you spend it online it feels like you are not spending real money. “
Yaro offers other compelling reasons to offer PayPal as one of the payment methods for your buyers.
Personally, buyers regularly use PayPal to pay for between 85% and 90% of my auctions. I wouldn’t even think of doing business on eBay without it.
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Posted on 23 October 2006 by Gary H
Sunday evening 47 seven-day auctions began. With the exception of the “Mask Of God” set ob books, which is a relist of a sold item that was never paid for, these auctions consist entirely of books and material I purchased last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday during my trip to Bismarck and at the two book sales in Grand Forks. The majority of the items are books that came from the FOL sale in Bismarck and the AAUW and FOL sales here in Grand Forks.
The items that have the most potential are probably Reminiscences, Memoirs, and Lectures, Reminiscences, Memoirs, and Conferences, Cocker Champions, and A Century Of Spaniels. At the same time, they may not even receive a bid.
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Posted on 22 October 2006 by Gary H
Is eBay going to the dogs?
Earlier today I was reading some recent posts on a forum I visit regularly and started following some eBay related links. I ended up on the web site of someone who offered their own “how to succeed on eBay” product. The site also included some articles they had written and I read an article about attracting huge numbers of potential bidders to your auctions.
The entire thrust of the article was to make sure you used eBay’s Gallery feature, but with a twist.
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Posted on 20 October 2006 by Gary H
Is this just happening in North Dakota, or are book sale organizers becoming weird in other parts of the country?
Yesterday at the Bismarck FOL sale I bought books by the pound.
This morning, at the Grand Forks AAUW sale prices were determined by age, cover type, and thickness. I didn’t bring a copy of their price sheet home with me, but it looked something like this…..
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Posted on 19 October 2006 by Gary H
My purchases at the Bismarck FOL library sale this morning weighed 137 1/2 pounds. 80 pounds of hardcovers and 57 1/2 pounds of soft covers for a total investment of $97.50.
The Bismarck antique shops were a big disappointment. One of the malls was having a going out of business sale with everything 75% off. Unfortunately, the sale had been going on for more than a month and there was very little merchandise remaining. I hate to see this mall close because they had four dealers who always had a lot of paper items and I used to buy quite a few items whenever I visited. My only purchase there was a bound volume containing all the weekly issues of a weekly newspaper titled Railroad Data from the year 1926 for $10.25.
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Posted on 18 October 2006 by Gary H
Every once in a while the question pops up an one of the book selling forums. “How far would you travel for a book sale?” While the responses always vary, I’m always a little surprised that, for most people, 100 miles seems to represent some kind of magic barrier.
Living in what some might describe as “the middle of nowhere” driving 100 miles or more to be able to attend a library sale is pretty common for me. I left Grand Forks around 9:30 this morning and drove 277 miles to Bismarck for a library sale that starts at 7:00 am tomorrow morning.
Along the way I stopped at three antique shops and an antique mall in Valley City and Jamestown. The pickings were pretty slim but I did buy a few things.
- Two issues of Wheel Talk magazine from 1896. This is a small magazine published by Morgan & Wright Tire Co. for bicyclists who used their bicycle tires. I paid $3 apiece for them.
- Two early booklets from Carl Zeiss promoting a new camera lens they had just released. They aren’t dated, but probably from the 1920 area. I paid $2.50 for each of them.
- A program for a regional Son’s Of Norway convention held in Hillsboro, ND in June of 1924. It’s entirely in Norwegian and I paid $10 for it. That may be too much, but I liked it and I have four or five people who buy a lot of old Norwegian paper items from me.
- A 1958 dinner menu from the Desert Inn in Las Vegas along with a small brochure advertising a show Jimmy Durante did at the Desert Inn in February 1958. Many of the early casino menus do quite well on eBay. This one has a few problems, but I figured for $3 for both items it was worth seeing what it might bring.
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Posted on 17 October 2006 by Gary H
It’s been three months since my last post to The Auction Rebel.
There’s an old saying that bad things come in threes. During the last three months I’ve discovered that isn’t actually true. They seem to come by the dozens and in direct relation to how many friends and family members you have.
During that time one of my son’s kept one segment of my eBay business going by listing several items that were stored in the garage each week but, beyond that, nearly everything associated with eBay pretty much ground to a complete halt.
Things have now returned to some semblance of sanity now and the eBay related stuff will slowly begin to get back to normal.
If you are a Magazine Gold subscriber, you will be receiving an email within the next week discussing my plans for the newsletter and offering you some options regarding your subscription.
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