E-bay fun

Earlier this summer, I found a bunch of the old-fashioned type of Little People at a yard sale. I remember very fondly playing with them when I was a kid, and the kind they sell today just don’t hold the same appeal to me. Thankfully mom & dad kept the ones we played with as kids, and so my kids can play with them whenever they visit Grandma & Grandpa. Bug-a-Boo has plenty of toys right now, so I decided to pick up the ones at the yard sale to try my hand at E-bay. I have sold a couple things on E-bay before, and one of the auctions turned out to be quite a debacle trying to please a buyer who I thought was being rather unreasonable. In the end though, we were able to find a conclusion with which we were both satisfied and able to leave positive feedback. Since then I hadn’t tried selling much on E-bay, but these Little People inspired me to give it another go. Everything I bought cost around $9. I grouped the items into smaller sets, and listed the one I considered the most valuable. It sold for $18, so I immediately doubled my money. The others have been sitting in a basket by my computer waiting for me to find time to list them.


Last week I got a notice via e-mail that E-bay was having a "free" listing day. I put free in quotes, because only one of a couple normal charges was actually dropped, but still the initial listing fees for quite a number of auctions totaled under $5. That was just the inspiration that I needed, and by the end of the "free" listing day, I had 14 auctions including the Little People and a couple other things that have been kicking around our house gathering dust for way too long. Today those auctions are closing, and I am having so much fun watching them! The best is that I sold the SLR film camera I had purchased for a photography class in high school. I enjoyed using it for a season, but digital, automatic cameras definitely fit my stage of life better now. I had previously placed it in yard sales for $20 with no interest shown in it. Today on E-bay, it sold for $72!!! Whoo-who! I can’t wait to see what everything else closes out for, although I know that was the biggest ticket item.

Have I inspired you to check what you have gathering dust in your closet that you could convert to cash?

Update: All the Little People including those that were in pretty poor shape sold. My $9 initial garage sale investment turned into $80 plus money to cover shipping, packaging, and a bit more. Whoo-whoo!

FYI - E-bay must have had great success with their free listing day as they have made all of September a free listing month. You just have to include a gallery photo ($.35) and start the bidding below $10.