organizing eBay

This is where it starts! This is just part of the “wall of eBay” items I have ready to list. Most of these are auction items. I have a separate area where I organize my clothing items because I have an assistant who does all the photos and measurements for me. (my daughter- in law!)

When the items are listed, they move to my basement. I have a large basement! This is the room where I store my smaller store items . This is about one third of the picture.

I also do all my shipping from this same room. Boxes are stored in a closet nearby. TV helps pass the time since I spend at least an hour a day on shipping! I go from shipping to listing almost ever day until noon or so. Then it’s off to shopping or organizing or other tasks and errands. I also sell at flea markets, an antique mall, and am part owner of  Douglas Diamonds jewelry store.

I use a larger part of my basement to store all the clothing I sell on eBay. This is a small portion of the space.

All the jeans and skirts and  shorts are alphabetized by brand. I label all the sizes.

So far, I don’t have to alphabetize the shirts and dresses; just hang them up until I sell them!

My store is on “vacation” until Feb. 5 so visit me at everythingvintagesteph.com after that! Thanks!

Somewhere in the hills of Nevada, off, off, off, off road! My daughter Leanne is at the bottom of a mine shaft. This is one of the 7 that we purchased through our jewelry store. This was quite an adventurous trip!

 This is a nice big nodule of turquoise found inside this particular mine. There was plenty of turquoise just lying outside the mine too. I plan on selling some of it on eBay soon!

MY JOURNAL:

Day 1: Fly from Philly to Phoenix, get ride to hotel, stay overnight in nice hotel

Day 2: Get ride to storage unit to pick up 2 vehicles and all the supplies we have stored, drive to Sunflower mine, ride in on extremely rocky roads (scary!), hike mountain for hours, find 4 new adits, drive out, get stopped by AZ police who thought we were growing marijuana (NOT!), drive to my brother’s house and pick him up, drive through the AZ mountains for 30 miles in a blinding snowstorm, stop at Kingman AZ for the night–finally!

Day 3: Nice hotel breakfast, drive past Las Vegas, drive 4+ more hours to Tonopah, Nevada, only passing about 3 towns on the way. Get supplies, talk to local people (very nice!), buy groceries, stay overnight in warm hotel.

Day 4: Wake up to a snow storm, drive south for a few miles and no snow–sun is out! Drive off road for an hour, off off off road for another 30 minutes or so to reach a high and very remote mountain where we set up camp. Drive across to another mountain, blow a tire, fix it, reach the turqouise mine, go inside, come back in the dark, make steaks on the fire, go to bed. The wind started picking up and was so bad I could not sleep the entire night. Sleet and snow were hitting the tent. So glad for a tent heater!

Day 5: Wake up to 30 mile per hour winds, 30 degrees, snow showers, and no sun. Made breakfast anyway and froze the entire day. Scott made an attempt to go down a 150 foot shaft. At least it was warm down there! Explored a short adit a few feet down the mountain. Went to bed at 6PM and the wind finally died down! Slept much better.

Day 6: Wake up to beautiful sunrise and no wind! It is barely 20 degrees but we hardly feel it with all of our layers on. Make french toast and bacon over the fire and start packing up all the tents and equipment. Drive across to the turqouise mine again, stay there 2 hours, get lots of rocks, drive off the mountain, stop for about an hour at another old gold mine to explore but the claims are all taken. Drive about an hour to get to the main highway. Tire is losing air and our “slime” is frozen. We warm it up in front of the truck heater and the tire makes it another 60 miles to the nearest town. We drive 4 more hours in the dark, losing our bucket toilet in the process (it flew off the back of the truck and we didn’t care!) Pass Las Vegas and end up at Kingman, AZ again, about 10 PM.

Day 7: Nice hotel room but when we wake up, the tire is flat. The last spare is also flat but civilization is nearby and we get a used tire to complete the journey. Now we don’t have time to drop off my brother at his home so his wife has to meet us enroute. A few hours later, we end up near Phoenix, return the vehicles and supplies to the storage unit and get picked up to get to the airport — in plenty of time! Just 4 1/2 hours on a plane and I’m finally home!

hiking in AZ —  Scott and I

I’ve never been so happy for a warm house! I kind of wanted to go outside to use the bathroom though — not!

                                                                                                                                   Brief dust storm after our first hike.

 I think this is the one where a few bats were on the ceiling.

Visit my eBay store at everythingvintagesteph.com! I find lots of local treasures to put in there!

hiking boots NOT

Leaving soon for my trip to the Nevada desert. We are working a silver and turquoise mine — gold too. (read my last post!) So I needed some hiking boots. We might be hiking a few miles and there will be lots of rocks and climbing for sure. So I went to my usual place to find stuff–the Goodwill store. I found these boots for 1.50. Bargain! Maybe not. My son in law told me NO GOOD. “You gotta have lots of ankle support, leather in case there’s a rattlesnake or something else that might bite you, warmth for the cold.” It’s going to be in the 40′s by day and 20′s by night.

So, we went to Cabelo’s and I bought this pair of hiking boots for 99.00. They better be worth it! They threw my bargain bone out of whack. Ouch!

Cabelo’s also had some nice thermal “base layers” (can you say long underwear?) for 55.00 a piece. Not a pair, a PIECE. I shopped at Kohl’s instead and got both top and bottom for 22.00 after my discounts. (they would have been 25.00 each at regular price). I HOPE I’m not cold. I HATE the cold. We do have heaters in our tents at night though. I should be OK with the Kohl’s stuff if I wear lots of layers.

I’ve got plenty of other stuff to keep warm. Also bought a folding knife for the “wilderness” and we already have tents, blankets, sleeping mats, picks, and everything needed to cook in the middle of nowhere for 3 days. Bathroom is a tent with a hold in the ground. We’ll be using it a lot because we have to drink bottles of water everyday (and night) due to the high dry altitude. Hope I don’t get altitude sickness either.

I also bought a pair of SMART wool socks. 14.00. I’m trying them out today. They better be REALLY smart. Follow me on twitter and facebook as I will try to update those through my phone if I can’t update this blog.

just search for everything vintage steph or everythingvintagesteph.com or click on the links on this page. Thanks for reading!

vintage trifari pin

I don’t think I mentioned in my blog before that I am part owner of a jewelry store. Well, I am but I don’t do much there. My son in law does all the work and his mom also works full time at the store now. I just go in once a week to keep up with the finances and other minor details. Speaking of minor, that is MINER…. I am going to become a MINER next week.

We at the jewelry store, decided to buy a few mines out west and see if we can find any of our own gold and silver instead of just scrapping other people’s gold and silver. This is very interesting. I don’t understand it all yet but I am going to try to blog about it.

sexy lady Halloween costume

Right now I have 53 Halloween costume items listed on eBay. I must have done about half of those this weekend since I just went to an auction on Thursday and found piles more! I sold the Fred Flintstone and doctor lab coat within hours after listing them!

I don’t even know what this is! Does anyone know? It is a dress, with a hood, with bloody ribs. Beats me why a girl would want to wear this or why a boy would want to wear a dress. I’ll let you know if I sell it!

Then I got pieces of costumes like this orange furry vest. What is that??

garage sale

I had a garage sale a few weeks ago. Was it successful? NO! But my garage sales usually are very successful! There were some factors beyond my control. The main reason this one was not successful was because the local newspaper failed to run my ad. It does pay to advertise! Sometimes there are factors out of your control such as this, and of course, the weather. So what makes a good garage sale?

1. BE ORGANIZED

Be as organized as possible. This photo is about 3 of the 15 or more boxes of books I had for sale (it was a multi-family garage sale). They are all organized in boxes. Turn them sideways so everyone can read the titles. Don’t just throw books on a pile!
Keep like things together. Baby items in one section, kitchen items in another, clothing together, sorted by size. Even mark all the sizes on the clothing or at least have a sign for each pile as to the size. The more organized, the easier it is for your customer. Think of how the department stores organize their items. It’s all for more sales!

2. PRICE EVERYTHING
Don’t be lazy, price everything! Would you like to go into a grocery store and have to ask the price of everything? It’s more work, but it is worth it! I hate going to a garage sale and having to ask for prices. I walked past the basketball at my neighbor’s yard sale because it wasn’t priced. My husband asked and they said 25 cents so of course we bought it then! It really helps at check out time too, especially if you have more than one family represented at your sale. You have to keep everything separate.

3. DISPLAY DISPLAY DISPLAY!
It’s all about display. Why is Bath and Body Works so successful? After all, it’s only soap! Their displays are fabulous. You can see every item. Nothing is hidden. Make this your goal as well. As long as you have the space, spread everything out so the customer can see each item. Spreading it out on the lawn is better than piling it up on a table. Digging through a box is OK but don’t put too many things in the box–make sure it’s easy to look through. If you can hang up your clothing rather than having it on piles, so much the better.

a few more points:
1. be prepared — have lots of bags, a paper to record sales and figure prices, lots of change
2. get up early– your customers will!
3. advertise anywhere you can — newspapers, craig’s list, flyers, facebook, good signs
4. know your area — the best time of the day to have one, the best time of the year, reasonable prices

I have a garage sale once a year in the summer. It’s how I get rid of my own junk plus the items that don’t sell on eBay. I’m not afraid to put out my antiques either but I price them to sell. Then I donate much of the leftovers to Goodwill. I claim the deduction. It helps keep my eBay business from getting out of hand! Visit my eBay store at everythingvintagesteph.com Have a great sale!

local estate auction

Where do you find all the stuff you sell? I get asked that question a lot. I love my junk. I love to buy junk and sell junk. I keep a little bit of junk around the house to decorate with but I’m NOT a hoarder. I’m addicted to selling junk, not keeping it. I went a lot of places in the last 2 weeks and found SO much junk, I can’t wait until I’m finished writing about it so I can get more listings done! I have about 450 items in my eBay store right now but my new goal is 500.

These first 2 photos were from the same local estate auction I attended last thursday. This guy has an auction every other week. You can see the great variety! I bought a table full of shoes for a few dollars. The green depression glass will go to the Kutztown extravaganza at renningers.com later this month. Miss Piggy and the stuffed anmals will go to merchantssquaremall.com for the monthly garage sale. Some of the  shoes will go on ebay at everythingvintagesteph.com. I also have a booth at an antique mall zionsvilleantiques.com.

Another day I went to Liberty Thrift shop. Their special this week was shoes and linens 50% off and all yellow tag clothing 1.00 each. I bought a bag full of yellow tag clothing. Gap, Express, Liz Claiborne, Old Navy, and more!

Also made my bi-weekly trip to the Goodwill CLEARANCE store. Everything is 85 cents a piece but you have to DIG through the bins that they change every day. Spent over 60$ so I got a LOT of great stuff. Again brand names like Bill Blass, Tommy Bahama, Larry Levine, LA Blues, etc.

I’m not ashamed to buy new stuff either! Got a box in the mail this week with 40 bathing suits. Unbelieveable price from topper liquidaters. I can make such a good profit from these that I’m afraid to say what they cost! Just check it out at everythingvintagesteph.com.

Here’s a few more items from the local estate auction!

snow storm

The day after the 16 inch snow storm. First we had 6 inches. I shoveled the driveway myself so Lee could get the car in when he got home from work. We had an afternoon reprieve of no snow. And then it really started. About 2 inches an hour for most of the night. Luckily the storm moved through quickly or we would have gotten twice that amount!

So today we shoveled out. I still got all my packages mailed for my eBay customers! Lee and I were shoveling the driveway when the mailman came. We noticed that he couldn’t stop at everyone’s box because their mailboxes were still plowed shut from the street plows. So was ours but we shoveled it out. I handed all my packages to the mailman today. Off they go! All 7 of them. Somewhat of a slow day. Leaves more time for shoveling.

Newly listed in my store at everythingvintagesteph.com. Dreaming of Hawaii!

vintage keys on auction until Dec. 21

When most people think of free shipping, they think of getting the same item at the same price but the shipping just happens to be free on a certain day or week. For example, if you are looking for a toy on eBay and the price is 10.00 from one seller plus 4.00 shipping and 10.00 from another seller with free shipping, it’s a no-brainer which one you will buy. However, it doesn’t really work the same way with items that weigh over a pound.

Here’s what happens when I sell a pair of jeans (most jeans weigh between 1 and 2 pounds).  I want to get at least 5.00 for the pair of jeans. If I sell them for 5.00 with free shipping, obviously I won’t make any profit so I can’t do that.

If I want to offer free shipping I have to build the price of shipping into the fixed price. That’s where the problem is. I live in the east coast. If I ship to the east coast, the cost for 2 pounds is about 5.00. If I ship to the middle of the country the cost will be about 7.00 for shipping. However, if I ship to the west coast the cost can be as much as 9.55 postage. Therefore, in order to offer free shipping, I have to add about 10.00 to the price of EVERY pair of jeans to cover my costs to the west coast. The buyers on the east coast are much better off if I DON’T offer free shipping. I’m sure this scenario is the same for anyone on the west coast shipping east as well.

Would you rather pay 5.00 plus actual shipping for a pair of jeans or 15.00 with free shipping? If I want to give my customers the best price, I offer actual shipping, not “free” shipping.

So is there really such a thing as free shipping? Probably not with the small sellers on eBay. We can’t just take a loss in order to offer free shipping, and the customer actually pays less without free shipping such as in the example above. Free shipping might really be free with Toys R Us or Land’s End or other big companies but for people like me (and maybe you). Free isn’t really free!

Lots of jeans. Lots of sizes. Great prices! at everythingvintagesteph.com