The auctions purchased during the eighth week of the 2008 Garage Sale Challenge ended Sunday evening with 26 items selling for a total of $701.34 and a sell-through rate of 79%. Amazon sales accounted for another $139.91.

The highest priced item for the week was Alice Starmore’s Pacific Coast Highway (280239098308) which brought $103.50. This was one of three knitting books I had on eBay this week. The other two also sold - “Knitting In The Nordic Tradition” (280239098502) selling for $40.20 and “…And A Time To Knit Stockings” (280239098700) selling for $16.49.

The surprise of the week was a book titled “American Bottles And Flasks & Their Ancestry” (280239098293) that sold for $63.56. This was between two and three times what other examples of the same book had brought on eBay over the last three months.

Here’s how things look after last week’s auctions ended.

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The auctions for the remainder of the items items purchased during the fifth week of the 2008 Garage Sale Challenged ended on Sunday evening.

I had just nine qualifying auctions running this last week. These were items I’d purchased before leaving for Canada but hadn’t had time to list before I left. Of the nine items, eight sold for a total of $215.92. The sell-through rate was 89%. Amazon accounted for another $241.08 in sales during the last week.

The highlight of the week was the Getzen trumpet that I paid $10 for that sold for $102.50.

Here’s how things look after last Sunday’s auctions ended:

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The auctions for items purchased during the fifth week of the 2008 Garage Sale Challenged ended on Sunday evening after I returned from Canada.

I had a total of thirty-three qualifying auctions running while I was gone. Of the thirty-three, twenty two sold for a total of $518.38. The sell-through rate was 67%. Not the greatest, but still well above eBay’s average. My Amazon store was placed on “Vacation” status while I was gone, but before leaving, Amazon did account for an additional $57.34 in sales.

The highlights of the week were two Creative Memories sticker binders with protectors I paid $5 each for. They sold for $76.25 and $73.00 respectively.

Here’s how things look after the seventh week of the Challenge:

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The auctions for items purchased during the fourth week of the 2008 Garage Sale Challenged ended on Sunday evening.

Of the eighteen qualifying items listed last week, fourteen sold for a total of $348.10 with a sell-through rate of 78%. Included in the $348.10 of the duplicate of History Of Olga ND & Sacred Heart Church which was sold to the under bidder via a second chance offer. In addition, seven books sold on Amazon for a total of $174.30.

The highlight of this weeks sales was a Twin City typewriter ribbon tin that I paid $13.50 for at a small antique mall that sold for $331.62. While it doesn’t qualify for the Challenge because I’m only using items purchased at garage sales, thrift shops, and auctions, it does show there is still a market for hard to find tins in nice condition.

Here’s how things look after the fifth week of the Challenge:

As the table shows, I don’t have any auctions running this week. I’m leaving on Saturday for a week of walleye fishing in Canada so won’t be home next weekend when they would normally end.

I did purchase several Challenge items last week. These items, along with anything I buy between now and Friday will be scheduled to launch on June 8 and end on June 15 after I get back from Canada.

Photograph by emdot.

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Monday evening saw the end of the auctions for the items purchased during the third week of The 2008 Garage Sale Challenge.

This week saw eighteen items sell for a total of $589.03 with a rather disappointing sell-through rate of only 56%. However, eight of the thirty-two items listed last week were re-lists and if I subtract those the sell-through rate for the new items was 71% which is more in line with where I hope to be consistently. In addition, nine books sold on Amazon for a total of $298.12.

The most disappointing item this week was the Fisher Price Toy Wagon pull-toy which brought only $27.99. I’d felt that, as a minimum, this would have ended somewhere between $50 and $75.

Over the course of the week, I received several emails from interested buyers concerning the postage for this item along with one of the other listings that make me wonder if buyers are suddenly paying a lot more attention to what actual shipping costs are for things they are considering bidding on. I’ll be writing a post about this, and how it may affect sellers, tomorrow.

Here’s how things look after then end of the fourth week of the Challenge:

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The auctions for the items purchased during the second week of The 2008 Garage Sale Challenge ended Sunday evening with much better results than the previous week.

Of the thirty items listed, 26 sold for $923.70 with a sell-through rate of 87%. In addition there were sales of $247.40 through Amazon for books purchased as part of the Challenge. The total qualifying sales came to $$1171.10.

Buy far the best sellers for the week were the three pieces of UND School Of Mines pottery and thirteen VHS tapes about the Iditarod sled dog race held each year in Alaska. The results from these VHS tapes were surprising to me. I’d originally bought them thinking they would all go into one lot. Then when I got home a did a little checking I decided it would likely be more profitable to list them individually, but my expectations were nowhere near what they ended up bringing.

After the second week of the Challenge, here’s how things stand.

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1. Get out of bed in the morning

2. When you don’t feel like getting out of bed in the morning - get out of bed

3. Get an early start

4. When you don’t feel like getting an early start - get in the car and get an early start

5. Go to every garage sale that opened that day

6. When you don’t feel like going to every sale - go to them anyway

7. Sit down at the computer and list what you bought

8. When you are sick and tired of listing - list some more

9. On days when you buy lots of good inventory - repeat steps 1 through 8 the next day

10. On days when you don’t find anything - repeat steps 1 through 8 the next day

Photograph by Tatiana Sapateiro.

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The 2008 Garage Sale Challenge launches one week from today, with May 1 being the first day participants can begin buying qualifying inventory. If you had thought about participating, but don’t live in an area with a lot of garage sales, there have been some changes made regarding inventory sources, so you may want to reconsider taking part.

Several readers have already registered. Their personal goals for the Challenge range anywhere from $1000 to $12,000, so don’t miss the chance to take part just because you don’t think you can produce a huge amount of sales.

Last year my goal for the Challenge was a net profit of $10,000 from items purchased at garage sales and sold on eBay. Because of the changes made to qualifying inventory sources and the addition of Amazon and Half.com as sales venues, I’m going to increase my goal for this year.
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The 2008 Garage Sale Challenge blog is now live. The blog will be used by participants in The 2008 Garage Sale Challenge to share updates of their progress.

If you have registered to participate in the Challenge, you will need to register there as soon as possible so that I can set up your ability to post to the blog. Within the next three days there will be tutorials posted there to make posting your updates as easy as possible.

I’ve also decided to make one change to the rules for the Challenge. One regular reader had asked if auction sales could be included since there were very few garage sales in his area.

Since there have only been three or four reader who have expressed interest in taking part, I’m going to include auctions as a source of Challenge inventory because I’d like to have as many readers as possible participate.

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