2016 is off to a great start thanks in large part to the sale of a luxurious find from my previous post. If I were to average the amount I made these past two weeks over the whole year I’d crack 30k in profit! Obviously, things are likely to slow down a bit but it’s nice to hit the ground running to start the new year.
1. Double pro fighter (Nintendo game duplicator): On eBay for 75$. This sold for a tidy profit despite the fact that it was untested and probably didn’t work. Thanks goodness for collectors! Found early December in Cote St-Luc.
2. Cebe mountaineering sunglasses: On eBay for 55$. These went to some guy in the Czech Republic. I don’t normally sell overseas because of the exorbitant price one has to pay to get any kind of tracking number (40$ minimum it seems) but I don’t mind gambling with low value or niche items. These sunglasses would have sold for more if not for the fact that the lenses were prescription. Found early December in TMR.
3. Christian Dior oversized sunglasses: On eBay for 120$. These went to a buyer in France. I had to revise the price a few times but they still sold for a very pleasant amount. Found March 2015 in Hampstead.
4. Sony PSPs and Gameboy: On eBay for 64$. I didn’t find the power cables for the PSPs so I sold them as is. The Gameboy worked but had a very dark screen. It’s quite possible the buyer got a very good deal here, but I’m happy just to get them out of the house. Found early December in TMR but not mentioned on the blog.
5. Hai Karate Oriental Lime aftershave: On eBay for 47$. This was the second of the two Hai Karate scents I found two summers ago in the Plateau.
6. Ray Bans for repair: On eBay for 30$. I think I found these in TMR.
7. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure DVD box set: On eBay for 175$. I found a huge collection of anime DVDs while out on a walk with my sister back in October. I mostly forgot about them until recently, when I brought them inside from the shed and started researching prices. Some of the DVDs, particularly the box sets ended up being worth a fair bit of money. I think they are relatively hard to find printings or something like that – I don’t really know anything about anime. Regardless, I’m very happy with the return, and look forward to getting the rest of the discs listed. Found in the Plateau.
8. Kamichu DVD box set: On eBay for 70$. Another title from that giant anime collection.
9. Parker pen and mechanical pencil: On eBay for 50$. Found in Hampstead back in July.
10. Vintage Mexican silver and abalone letter opener: On eBay for 46$. Someone messaged me a “best offer” and I went for it. Found December 2015 in TMR.
11. Vintage 1940s Omega automatic timepiece, 18k gold case: On eBay for 490$. What an adventure this sale was. It sold within five minutes the first time it was listed. The “buyer” then messaged me to say that he couldn’t proceed with the transaction. It’s pretty clear that he bought it hoping he was the first to see a crazy deal, and then backed out when he actually read my condition notes.
It was annoying that he took two days to officially cancel the transaction, but whatever. I list it again, this time setting it so that whoever buys it has to pay immediately. I figured this would encourage people not to “buy” before reading the condition notes. However, the watch again sold within five minutes to someone who emailed me not long later to cancel.
When I list “as is” type items on eBay I usually start the description with a short statement encouraging people to actually read the listing. In this case it the title was “See condition notes: 1940s 18k Solid Gold Omega Automatic watch, ~3.2mm diameter”. After two failed buyers I figured I needed to make this more obvious, so I changed the lowercase “see condition notes” to an all caps “SEE CONDITION NOTES”. This seemed to work, as the next buyer (who came around 30 minutes after I relisted it) was legitimate. I emailed them to make sure they knew of the issues and they replied that they did indeed understand its flaws. I sent out the watch this Monday and received positive feedback yesterday.
I wonder if I could have gotten more for the watch given how quickly it sold, but I think I had it priced more or less correctly. It was a beautiful watch but realistically it was going to be a project for any serious collector, particularly due to the missing “9” but also the non genuine crown and the engraving on the back of the case. Regardless, it nearly single-handedly paid my rent for the month and is an early candidate for my best of 2016 list. Found a few weeks ago in TMR.
[For the record, I listed the watch for 500$ but underestimated the shipping costs, lowering the total gross profit (before eBay fees) to about 490$.]
Total: 1222$, 1370$ since the new year.
I should note too that I recently honored my first return in quite some time. It was the “as is” Raymond Weil watch from my last sales post. Buddy thought the facial imperfections of the watch were caused by corrosion from some kind of lubricant and wasn’t too happy. I guess I could have described it differently, indicating that I had no real idea what caused the wear to the watch face. Anyways, I refunded him his money and let him keep the item because it wasn’t really worth the time or effort to try to sell again. The watch sold for 25$, and I lost an extra 9$ on the shipping. I think of it as a inexpensive lesson learned. I should subtract the money from my 2015 totals, but it’s such an insignificant amount that I don’t think I’ll bother.
After the demand on the Omega and 2 failed, yet quick sales, I would have let that one go to auction. That is an item which might get a bidding war going. Do you list all your items as “BEST OFFER”? I’ve been told you’ll get more views if you do.
Maybe, though bidding wars are less common than eBay would like us to imagine. I’m happy to get what I got, given its issues.
I don’t do best offer listings generally. I set my price and lower it if the item sits around for too long. To each their own, but I tend to think the best offer compromises the “integrity” of the price. It’s like telling people that the item isn’t worth as much as it’s listed for. And I think a lot of people too don’t want to get into the haggling, and will just buy another of the same product that has a set price.
That being said some people love the best offer. Jay and Ryanne from scavengerlife.com seem to do well by it. But I prefer my way, and once in a while I’ll get a message from someone proposing a “best offer” of sorts that I will accept.
Do you have several eBay accounts?! I looked for the Double Pro Fighter and the anime DVDs on your eBay sales ever since you blogged about finding them, but never saw them show up!
Nope just the one. I don’t know why they wouldn’t have shown up.
All my listings should be here: http://www.ebay.ca/sch/yuhaiwing/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=
Alright, I figured it out. I should have thought about it, because it previously blocked me from finding interesting stuff on eBay: if your web browser is set to another language than English (mine is set to French), for some reason eBay hides some listings from you.
In French I see can see 84 of your current listings. 104 in English. It’s even more noticeable when looking at your completed listings: I see 27 in French but 60 in English! Including the Double Pro Fighter.
Oh well. I probably wouldn’t have bought it anyway 😉
That’s odd. Regardless, I currently have about 165 listings on eBay, so you’re not seeing all of them. My theory is that you’re from somewhere other than Canada and the US, because I exclude most of the world from buying my things due to higher risk and shipping prices
You’re right, I’m in France. But it’s weirder than just that. From my French IP address, browser set to French, I can see some of your listings that you have excluded from worldwide shipping (for example http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Appleseed-DVD-2001-/291667865756 ). If I were to buy it, eBay would not let me choose a non Canadian or American shipping address (but it would let me buy it for some weird reason, it happened to me before, realizing during checkout that eBay tells me the item can’t be shipped to my country o_o)
I (finally) did some more testing tonight, here’s what I see at the moment :
Canadian (Montreal) IP address, browser content language English: 178 listings
Canadian (Montreal) IP address, browser content language French (Canadian): 178 listings
Canadian (Montreal) IP address, browser content language French (France): 92 listings
France (Bordeaux) IP address, browser content language English: 102 listings
France (Bordeaux) IP address, browser content language French (Canadian): 102 listings
France (Bordeaux) IP address, browser content language French (France): 92 listings
(on ebay.ca every time, just refreshing this page http://www.ebay.ca/sch/yuhaiwing/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from= , in private browsing to be sure not to be influenced by my eBay account)
This makes just no sense to me at all, as I said I’ve bumped into this eBay peculiarity before, and as a buyer I just shrugged it off and accepted the fact that I won’t see everything that is for sale ; but as a seller you might want to dig into this to be sure that your listings can be seen by the most people.
That’s odd, I’m not sure why that would be the case. Maybe I’ll look into it.
In the meantime, if you did want to buy any of those DVDs let me know and I can take off the “no international shipping” setting. I do that mostly because the whole lack of tracking thing is a bit awkward, but I wouldn’t worry about that as much as you’re a reader of the blog. It would probably cost around 10$ to ship a regular DVD, and a bit more for the sets. On the other hand these are likely all region 1 DVDs so you might not be able to play them anyways.
Oh no don’t worry about me for the DVDs. I’m too indecisive and besides I already have way too much anime DVDs! If I change my mind I’ll contact you.
Maybe sort by “newly listed” to make seeing what’s new easier. I just added a few anime DVD listings today.
Wonderful sales! Congrats!
Excellent work, impressed.
Well, we are all so different. I couldn’t believe anyone would actually want to wear those Christian Dior glasses let alone pay money for them. lol. Certainly, your year is off to a great start.
Haha. Well it’s all about the brand I think sometimes, though I personally thought they were pretty cool.
Great start to the new year! (I really enjoyed working with you this week.)