Clovis that link isn't taking me to the item, directly. :(

Here it is again:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-TRIC...item4d24d0ec21

I sold the Trico display today, and I don't think it lasted 15 minutes in the FM.

The guy that bought the Trico bought even more stuff off my truck...stuff that I hadn't even marked yet.

Sometimes, like today, I believe that God sends blessings to us, and today's events were just too weird not to know that, without exception...God sent that buyer to me today.

You see, our plan was to go early this morning, get our stuff unloaded, marked and put into the booths, and then meet up with another homesteader that posts here on HT before noon. But late last night, my little one got sick, and we were pretty certain that it was a flu bug. Long story short, we didn't leave for the FM until after noon, and totally had to miss seeing our HT friend.

During the whole trip over to the FM, I was feeling down about a lot of stuff, and had convinced myself that taking the Trico to this market was 100% the wrong place to take it. I had also convinced myself that all of my recent 'picks' were wrong...and that I had brought along too much junk. I was also not happy that we were leaving home 7 hours later than I hoped.

All morning long, my wife and I debated whether we should even go to the FM, and I almost did not load the Trico onto the truck before we left.

After to talking to the buyer, he wasn't even supposed to be in this town today, but due to a couple of events, he was, and wound up having time to kill at the FM, after his wife encouraged him to go.

He said he saw the Trico in the back of my truck, and had convinced himself that I too was a gas and oil collector, and not a vendor, and thought about leaving the FM. My wife and I were pulling the last bit of junk out of the truck before we were going to leave...and here he comes across the parking lot, complementing my Trico display.

I know you might be sitting a home scratching yer head about my story, but I am certain that God put us together today, and allowed this Trico and another large Anco wiper display be a blessing to me.

I also might be able to sell the same buyer a horse drawn plow...time will tell...but I am thankful for the blessing that was laid in our lap.

Hi all! I don't have a booth that I sell from. I have a garage sale twice a year.
I have one in the beginning of May and then one in Oct each year.
My next one is in 2 weeks.
I spend the 6 months in between going to estate sales, auctions, clearance sales, and the like gathering products to sell. I also craft items to sell during the year too. I store it in 1 room of my house and it's really FULL right now. LOL

Clovis that is FANTASTIC! I've had things like that happen as well! So glad all worked out and I hope your little one is feeling better!



And Flowergurl I know someone that does that as well. She used to do it monthly (in her basement) but now she does it 2 or 3 times a year. Hope your next one in 2 weeks is profitable!

Clovis that's so awesome!! What a blessing! :-)

Flowergurl welcome!!

flowergurl, we have had a flea market booth for several years, and now are trying to get by with just selling out of a store and online, but I have never once in my life had a yardsale, how weird is that?! We do plan to have one this Sunday, but in the parking lot of the store, so I guess it will be a "parking lot sale"?! I need to get rid of some of this stuff that's piled up!

This is kinda adding to Clovis's tip from the last 2 weeks, but remember, before you toss things out that you think aren't worth selling, carefully survey the parts to make sure they're not worth selling off.

An example would be: We recently wholesaled a ton of video games since they weren't selling individually. To ship them cheapest, we put the discs in paper sleeves and sold them as "disc only". That was great, but we were left with almost 1,500 empty cases! I couldn't bear the thought of throwing them away, but we didn't need them, either, so knowing that new cases cost .25-.50 each, I offered them to a local movie store at 8 cents each (after pulling out the ones we DID want to keep for replacements), so ended up getting $100 for what was essentially garbage! I did recycle all of the covers and manuals, but I suppose if you live in a place where they pay for scrapping paper, you could do that. So, say if you had a table that you ruined while working on it or something, you could maybe sell the legs off as a set, that type of thing. Truly, one man's trash is another man's treasure!

Clovis, I am so happy you had a good flea market day! I think we all have days where we doubt ourselves on what we pick and what we sell, but isn't it great when you can say "I am GOOD at this!"!? The days where you get to talk to fun, nice customers are great, also, so it sounds like it turned into an all around good day for you.
I hope your little one gets over her bug soon, sick younguns are heartbreaking :(

Tuesday Tip, if anyone cares....

I am going to recycle this tip from a while back, but with a new twist.

Make sure you are rearranging items in your booth on a regular basis. We've had stuff sit for months in one spot, let's say in a back corner, or on a shelf, but the very day that we move it to a different location, it sells.

A few weeks ago, I happened to strike up a conversation with a woman looking at some vintage bottles in our booth. She happens to own an antique mall in a touristy town, not too far from here. We chatted about business, antiques, and having booths, but one simple thing she said was a brilliant idea!

She strongly encourages her booth renters to take a picture of their booth once a month, and refer back to that picture on the first of every month. She says that when booth renters do completely reset their booth, "I sit and watch their sales grow and grow. It really is phenomenal."

While we are constantly trying to reset our own booths, I realize that this is one of our greatest shortcomings. I got to thinking about the vintage beer cans we have on a shelf, and a set of Time-Life WWII books that sit above them. The cans have been slowly selling, and I keep replenishing the WWII books when I find them, but they have been sitting in the exact same spot for months.

We have already pulled a ton of items from one mall, and have 'flipped' it so it looks different. Tomorrow, we are going to our other mall, and my hope is to completely 'flip' that as well.

We are already taking pictures, which is a snap using our iPhone.

BTW, thank you so much for the kind and encouraging words on our Trico display!!

Very good tip! We try to do this often. But with the layout of our booth (only have 2 walls, we are on a corner) it makes it hard to do.

I have a question.

We post a lot of our items that we have refinished on Facebook (not just on our page, but also on the yardsale sites for our area). We have noticed a HUGE influx of people doing the same thing as us. But their prices are SO CHEAP (not to mention the job is super crappy). But to the "normal" person they might not notice skill and quality over price. Know what I mean?

How do I compete with that?

IMO, it is always going to be hard to compete with low quality and low priced stuff. It is the business story of the ages.

Your only hope is that those refinishers get to a point that they realize that they are working for $1.12 an hour, and quit the business.

Aside from that, I would add descriptive words to your listing title, and also a blurb at the end of your ad.

Your title might read "Solid oak 5 drawer, curved front dresser~Beautiful Quality~Professionally refinished"

The blurb at the end of your ad might read:

"We have 10 years in the restoration and refinishing business, using only the finest materials. Have an item that you would like professionally refinished? Let us know! Our workmanship and attention to detail is second to none, and..."

The possibilities are endless. I am not the most creative writer, but maybe this will help get the ideas going.

As a side note, I learned a long time ago to say what I want when writing ads. I just put it out there. For instance, on ebay, I will say "If you are looking for a vintage Diamond Duluth wrench in near-pristine condition, here it is." Of course, when I say stuff like that, I really, really mean it. I also never bad mouth my competition.

Hope this helps.

I mentioned a thing or two about scrap in one of my recent posts, and had bought a boxes containing scrap. I estimated that it might bring $13 or so. I wasn't too far off; the scrap ticket came to $13.70!

Scrap won't make you rich, but it does add to the bottom line.

Awesome! That is very good advice! Thank you!

I am proud of my son. He bought a pair of high end sneakers at a thrift store for $5.
They sold on eBay for $80!
It has been a long time since I have had a turn around like that.

That is fantastic!!!

I bought a used textbook in near-new condition this summer for $3 at a garage sale, and sold it on Amazon for $110. Total profit after fees and shipping was about $75.

:thumb:

I'm excited for you all with your picks and big profits!!!

My mom found a softback book about tools this past summer for 25 cents, and I took a best offer of $100 for it.

I found a small stack of recent text books for high school, and sold 4 of them for $98 each, plus shipping.

I found an older 1990's era wool coat for about $5 at a thrift store, and flipped it for $100 on ebay last January.

Who else wants to share some of their flips?

I work retail and I get to bring home any empty shippers i want.
I am making this one over to hold some of my crafts. Here's a couple pics.

Attachment 37255

I didn't like the plain card board showing so I covered it with some yellow paper.
I have TONS of crafting supplies from auctions and yard sales. I get them for a song, so I rarely have to spend anything on decorating materials.

Attachment 37256

I made this sign for the bottom of the shipper.

I have next to nothing in the materials for these crafts either.
I know people think I am crazy at auctions for buying all the craft stuff, but I use and sell a bunch of it.

Here is the shipper now that I am done with it.

Attachment 37258

That's awesome flowergurl! I like the shippers. Those work great for display!

Our booth did really great in September. Just got our printout on Saturday when I took a load up! Hopefully October will be as profitable!

Tuesday Tip, if anyone cares:

Labels:

For the first several years that we were in the reselling business, we bought small packages of self-adhesive labels at W@lmart, Meijer and Target. For small quantities, those labels should work fine for you, and they are fairly inexpensive.

As our business grew, we needed more labels. I was spending a fortune in white labels in little plastic containers. On a whim, at an auction, I was able to score a good sized box of white labels on rolls, for a mere $5.

At first, I didn't think we would like the labels on a roll, but since then, I prefer the rolls over cut sheets.

The labels that I bought at the auction are called "Z-labels", made to run through a Zebra brand label printer. You can find them on ebay, and they can be cheap if you watch for them, especially from the sellers just wanting to dump surplus stock.

We like a 1" X 2" white label. I do not use removable labels. I want the labels to stick as much as they can, much to the dismay of many buyers. A label that is difficult to remove or is destroyed when peeled vastly reduces our chances of having thieves switch price tags. This limits our losses tremendously. I have found that the Z-labels brand sticks very well.

I just bought another batch of labels in June. I bought about 18,500 labels for less than $46, delivered to our door.

Hope this helps!!!!

Great tip Clovis. After my initial purchase of tie-on tags ran out, I've just been using cut up scrap paper and scotch tape. I guess those are easy to remove but I write a description on the tag so I don't think the "thieves" could do much with changing tags.

Labels have been a topic in our home lately. Thankfully we haven't had any issues with people switching tags. I do use the little hanging tags. But I've been wanting to get some logo branded tags. I don't really fear of people switching tags because the girl that rings everyone up at our mall is VERY good about knowing the items and prices. She has a CRAZY memory. If she questions ANYTHING she calls me. Which is great. One day my husband wrote some tags (I usually do it), when he made a trip there and she called me thinking the customer had written their own tag. LOL So now, to stop confusion I'm the only tag writer.

I know as a consumer I HATED the sticky tags. Because they were hard to get off and at times have ruined some pieces I've gotten from the auction. So with my painted items I would HATE for it to mess up the finish on an item.

But I'm wondering where I could get tags with our logo? Maybe it would be cheaper to get a stamp made with our logo. I would still handwrite the price, description and item number. But it would be prettier with the logo stamped. I guess I'll do some searching today!

Danyell, there's a lady I follow on Instagram that makes custom stamps! I will tag you on her page :-)

YAY! Thank you! Is that what you use?

First day of my sale wasn't so hot, literally. The high was like 53 with periods of rain, mist, and cloudy all day. I only had $200.00 worth of sales today.
No rain forecast for tomorrow, so let's hope it's a better day!

Ever been to a garage sale where they used DUCT TAPE (yes, the gray stuff) for price tags? Bet they wondered why nothing sold.

If you ever need to remove sticky labels or tape from something, we've had success using a hair dryer. The trick is to let it warm up first, and then gently start removing the label.

My other favorite is Zippo lighter fluid. I use lighter fluid on items where the fluid won't bother the item, like a shovel or wrench. I'm telling ya, that stuff works wonders!

FWIW, I'll be sitting on a beach or next to a pool for the next week or so. Looking forward to coming back to read all of your replies to this thread!

Just be aware that the zebra labels are for a thermal printer. If you expose them to sufficient heat, they'll turn black. In Arizona, "sufficient heat" includes leaving them in a hot car, a storage building, or direct sunlight ... your mileage may vary, but it's something to keep in mind. LOL.

BTW, I use a thermal printer now for shipping labels. Bought a dymo 4xl (made by rubbermaid) direct from the dymo.com website. They're on sale right now and IMHO well worth the money. It's cheaper to operate than an ink jet printer (no ink costs at all!), it's lightning fast (I printed 40 shipping labels in under 2 minutes), and it's reliable as can be. And the labels are cheaper per label than ink jet labels.

I don't yet, but I do have plans to ordera custom one from her, for now I use a cute "reduce/reuse/recycle" stamp I got at hobby lobby and write my business name on the front with that, then all the pricing and regular tag info on the back!

Well this month has been horrible slow.... I don't think we've sold $30 worth in the past 12 days :-//. After not getting much new furniture done the last 2 weeks I have some new items to take in today. Hopefully those and some rearranging will drum up some sales for us

Well, our first yard sale was horrible! But it was our own fault, no real signage and I waited till Friday to post the Craigslist ad, so we ended up on the 2nd page. Also, DH decided to take stuff to put in the store that morning, so it left limited space for yard sale items in the truck. We had 3 tables of stuff...it was sad! So I took the $12 we made and decided to be happy with that since our preparation was terrible! We did, however, drum up some business for the store (which is closed on Sundays, when we were having the yard sale in the parking lot there), so DH got a repair job out of it, and I got some cards and flyers handed out. And instead of just sitting at the tables, we spent most of the time inside organizing the store, and getting a lot of things out on the shelves, so it was not wasted time. So, next time we will advertise ahead and put out some signs and more merchandise, and hopefully it will do better. DH pointed out that if we had gone to our regular flea market booth, we would have had to pay $18 for a table to make that $12!

Clovis, I hope you enjoy your beach/pool time, and come back restored as we all get ready for the holiday selling time!

Well I finished up my fall sale this afternoon. I only made $400.00 in 3 days, which sounds good but I usually have about a thousand in sales on a weekend.
The next town over rents out spaces in the parking lot of an antique market on Saturdays.
So there are MANY yard sales that set up over there. I'm sure that drew a lot of my business this time.
I have my spring sale during my city wide yard sale, so I get lots of traffic then.
I think in the fall I will have my sale at my house on Thur and Friday and take what's left and set up in the antique mall on Sat. It's only $20.00 to sell there.
You have to have customers to look at your things, so I'll go where there will be a bunch of them at once.
I have a couple pieces of nice furniture that didn't sell at my yard sale this time and I got online and posted them in FaceBook yard sale groups and sold them real quick.

I have a booth at a place that's not really an antique mall, since they allow things other than antiques (like crafts, homemade things, and newer items), but pretty much the same concept. It's not very high traffic of a store, but enough to be worth sticking around. I sell in it my hickory syrups, my former ebay and amazon inventory (since both banned me around the same time), and some homemade stuff like laundry and dish soaps.

Aw that's a cute idea. But at our mall we can't write on the back. Only can write on the front :( So I have to squeeze everything on there without it looking messy. LOL

That sounds great. I love making laundry soap. Been on the same homemade batch now for over 6 months and it cost right around $16 to make! Awesome!

It has been dead in here without Clovis. LOL

How was everyone's weekend?

Our booth has been doing quite well. Which is great. Our sells via FB have slowed down a bit. So I guess it balances out. LOL

We actually were told that our booth will be moving at the beginning of the year. They are moving to a busier location. But I'm not sure how an antique mall will do there. They are moving to an old Walmart so it's a big location. But to be honest, I'm kind of sad to be leaving such a historic location to an old Walmart. The charm will be completely gone. I think thats what makes our location so awesome is that it is in an old Cotton Mill and the floors are all original. It's so beautiful. But maybe we will be busier. We aren't sure if we are going yet because I know the rent will be a good bit more. We will find out the new prices on Nov. 1 and they are planning the move on Jan. 1. They want us to move with them, but it will be almost an hour away from us. Now they are only about 15-20 mins away. So we aren't sure. I guess we will just have to see what the new booth rent will be.

Anyway....how is everyone else doing?

That's awesome your booth sales have picked up Daneyell!! We had the worst beginning of the month to date this month, BUT we did a complete turn around in this last week! So very thankful. We even got a couple great pieces at the flea market yesterday and I was already able to refinish it yesterday evening.

Our mall is renovating a back portion of our huge building and is planning on making it an auction space. I am really excited! I would assume that would really help increase sales and increase knowledge of our location.

The baby is finally sleeping again (thank you Lord :-) ) so I am back in the swing of things! Have a custom order I'm working on currently, a mid century modern style secretary and then I'm going to tackle a few coffee tables.

That is awesome about the auction house. Ours has one as well. But the changed the dates they do them. And we have the kids every weekend they have the auctions now. LOL So that makes it difficult.

I have a few coffee tables I need to work on too. I've had them for a while. Just trying to think of how to do them. I always do cream. LOL I want to do something different.

Hello, everyone!

I've missed you all!

We had an awesome vacation, and we are already back at it.

Yesterday, I went to a restaurant equipment auction, hoping to pick up some smalls and unusual items. I was disappointed in the quality. It may have been a huge auction, but generally speaking, the stuff was heaving worn and dirty.

I love going to auctions. I really do. It was a thrill to walk into that auction and hear three outstanding auctioneers calling in three different rings. But as I mentioned, the stuff was too dirty for me, and prices were high. FWIW, I've done well at these auctions. I'm not a buyer of restaurant equipment, but sometimes the odds and ends are great for reselling.

I stayed about 15 minutes, and bailed. I went to one of my favorite places, a thrift.

I was able to pick up quite a few things, including an arm load of fabric, some fishing equipment, a reel mower, a Coleman camp stove, an arctic lined Carhartt coat, some sewing patterns, and some quilting magazines.

FWIW, one of my fun finds was a JC Penny gift card. I knew that when I found it, that it was probably worthless, but when I called the 1-800 number on the back, I found that it has $35 loaded on it. While I should make better money on some of the items I found for ebay, the gift card is the most fun of them all.

Our sales have been slow this month, which is disappointing, especially seeing them after we got home on vacation. It is kinda depressing!

Our ebay sales have been a blessing though...we've sold quite a few things that have been lingering for months. I am thankful!!!!

I wish that I knew how to turn the FM sales around. I have an urge to go on a buying spree. New merchandise always creates interest, especially if it is a good deal...but I need to watch our burn rate and cash flow.