"You need to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, know when to run"

Kenny Rogers, this one goes out to you.

A week ago I decided that I needed to clear out some space in my ebay room.  This was the first attempt at clearing my inventory of items that have not been moving or haven't had much interest (not to mention my wife is sick of looking at some of them).

This is a hard thing for me to do. I work really hard to try to find items that are valuable and/or are of interest to other people.  Therefore, having to admit that some of my items (all of which I also think are cool) may not ever sell, is humbling to me, to my bank account, and to my commitment my customers.

Whether I like it or not, however, this is a good move for FamousTurtle2010, my customers, and my storage space. So, like a great man once said,  "You've got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em...". Well the auctions are ending tomorrow. (if you're interested, you can check on them HERE). Right now its not looking too good for these items.   I know sometimes you have to cut your loses, learn from your decisions, and move on. Failure is a part of life, a part of selling on ebay, a part of everything, and handling it gracefully and with intelligence (and a great soundtrack) is, I think, a good way to go about things.

I'll report back later on the success (or failure) of my auctions once they close. Till then "...what every gambler knows, the secret to survival, is knowing what to throw away, knowing what to keep..."

A few recent sales

Well I finally finished my Final Evaluation Period at work.  We passed with flying colors, which is to be expected.  Its been a very long week, and I have not had much sleep.  

I reached 2 big milestones in the past couple weeks!   

I am now a SILVER powerseller!  

Not too shabby for only being on ebay for 7 months, and doing it part time.  :)

My next milestone I reached was a feedback score of 200, with 100% positive feedback.  

Ok enough about that lets check out some of the things that I have sold recently

Recent sale #1

I have been selling a lot of Pendleton wool recently.

I didn't quite understand why Pendleton wool was selling for so much until I started finding pieces at the thrift stores.  Whatever they do over at Pendleton, they do it very well.  Pendleton lasts a LONG time if you take care of it properly.

Here are some of my sales:

Pendleton high grade western wear  - These are my favorite.  I don't wear western wear stuff, but the pearl snaps are pretty cool.   Paid $4.99

Pendleton shadow wool loop collar flap shirt - So far these are the best sellers.    These shirts are from the 70s, they have a loop by the collar, and the flaps on the pockets are buttonless.   Paid $4.99

Another loop flap - As far as the loop flap shirts go I generally am willing to pay up to $14.00, but only if they are in excellent condition.

The big thing want to check for on these shirts are the obvious ones, rips, tears, stains, and smells but you also want to look for moth holes.  The best way to do this is to raise the shirt towards a light and see if there are holes.    

I have sold shirts with holes, but you need to make sure you describe the holes in your listing.

I like selling clothing because it's easy to ship.    Oh and for all you sellers out there that want to cut down shipping prices for clothing, you should to get some of these poly bags, you won't regret it.

100 (One Hundred S5 (Dimension 12" X 15 1/2") Poly Mailers) Tear-proof, Water-resistant and Postage-saving Lightweight Self-seal Poly Mailers/ Shipping Bags.

When  purchased these poly shipping bags, I was a little bit worried how they were going to work, and how fast I was going to go through them, but I soon learned I had made the right descision.

 I only have about 30 left, so I am going to have to put in another order soon.


Recent sale #2


Vintage woolrich wool shirts and coats.

I sell the shirts for about $20-30 each, and the some of the coats can bring over $100.00

I usually pay about $5.00 for a shirt, and spend less than $20.00 per coat.

To the left are some examples of woolrich.  You need to do some research to see what the vintage woorich labels look like.


Recent sale #3

My next sale that I am going to tell you about is one of my best performers, BUT I don't find them very often.

Dorothy Thorpe roly poly glasses

Most thrift stores do not know who Dorothy Thorpe is, or how much these glasses are worth.

I usually pay about .45 cents per glass for these bad boys, and as you can see this set sold within 3 days for $79.99.


Recent sale #4

Mid century modern teak wafer art

A couple months ago, I sold a set similar to these for $59.99.

These were cats, and being a cat person, I know cat people go gaga for cat stuff.  I figured there must be at least one mid century modernist who liked cats, so I put $99.99 on the sale price.   3 days later it sold.

Well thats all for now, I am going to do some shopping tomorrow so hopefully I will find some goodies!

Good hunting day today

I got out of work early today, as I normally do on Fridays.   I decided to go hit my normal thrift store loop, of course when I started to head towards my first thrift store I realized that my phone was dead as a doornail.  Well when your on call for ied response, having your phone dead is a big no no.  SOOOOO  I decided to head home to look for my charger, and drop off a few packages at the post office.  Once I found my charger and dropped of my package, I was off to my first thrift store.

Goodwill #1 

 1950s hollywood regency mad men goose neck cone desk lamp to go along

 with another one I found on my previous 150 mile road trip.

 ( Now I have two of them to clean)

1950s industrial goose neck desk lamp, it says something about a writers lamp or
some thing like that on it.

A vintage woolrich hunting jacket which is NICE!  Should be worth some money.

By the time I found these  items my hands were full.    Call me superstitious, but I never grab a cart when I first walk into a thrift store.  If I do that I won't find a darn thing!    I try to rifle through stuff with my hands full, but decide its safer for my lamps, and other customers, if I go find a cart.

I grab my cart, and of course shoot through the store without finding anything else.  I pay for my finds, throw them in the car, and head to the next goodwill.

Goodwill #2

Vintage Duchin compote with a sterling silver base.  Score!
                     

Gorgeous syroco gold gilt filigree sunburst 8 day clock.  I love syroco stuff so this made                    

me very happy.   I think I may need this book

I took a look around the rest of the store, and didn't find anything else worth reporting.

Jacob's thrift store - Nothing to report.

Value Village

Donkey Kong Country SNES video game                        

Kirby Super Star SNES - Which is actually worth some money

Krusty's Funhouse SNES                         

Super Nintendo, which turned out to be broken, but I can still sell it no problem.                         

Super Mario World, which ALSO turned out to be broken, but I can take it back                       

Weighted PEWTER candlestick, which I thought was weighted STERLING until I got                       

home.  I will be taking this back too!

St. Vincent De Paul #1 - Big fat skunk

St. Vincent De Paul #2 - Bigger fat skunk...  God hates me...

Goodwill #3 - Biggest skunk, time to go home...

Well before I started off for home, I stopped over at a local new and used store, and did some research.    I found some stuff that I COULD have turned a profit on, but didn't have my reach backs so I didn't buy them.  They had some really nice hollywood regency lamps there, only $30.00 for the pair.  I am thinking I should have bought them.  The only problem is that they were huge.  I hate shipping big stuff.   UGH I may have to go back and pick them up though.

Anyways I did pretty well today over all.  I still have a TON of stuff to list this weekend.

Famous Turtle OUT!

Creating free flash listing ebay templates

So I have been using wix to create all of my listing for about the past 3 months,  since I started using these templates in my listings I have noticed a drastic change in my sales.  


I have received a lot of questions about how I create my listings so I am going to show everyone the step by step process which will get you on your way to creating great flash ebay templates.


But before I do lets check out a few of the percs of using wix for your ebay templates.


You upload your listing pictures to wix - No more photo bucket.
Easy to use editor - You will be up and running in no time.
Loads of templates to choose from if you don't want to create one from scratch.
Its completely free.
It looks way better than HTML
Galleries, contact forms, multiple pages, mini pages, and much much more.

You will really just have to check it out for yourself.

I use it for all of my listings, and I created my ebay store with it.

See my store

Well here are the steps to get you going!


Step #1 Start your free wix account


The basic package is free, and when I mean free I mean free.  They do not require a credit card or anything like that which is awesome.


First of all you need a wix account which you can find right here. 

Once you follow the link click on the start creating link shown to the left.

Step #2 Create the ebay template you want to use on all of your listings.

This was the hardest step for me.   There are templates you can choose from to get you started OR you can create one from scratch.  

Just remember if you use a template you will have to change your width do fit your ebay listings.

I would recommend going with a 800 width and a 1200 height which you can change under settings.

Step #3 After you have designed your template.

Once you have designed the basic layout of your template, and you feel like you are ready to use your template add all of the information for your first item.

Pictures, descriptions, policies ect.  

When you have added all of the information for your first item it should look something like this.

MY CURRENT EBAY LISTING TEMPLATE

Step #4  "SAVE AS"

This is probably the most important step, save your template as ebaylisting.   Under File go to "SAVE AS" to save your template.

Step #5 Publish 

When you are ready to publish your listing, and add it to an ebay listing click on the publish button, which looks like the one of the left.

It will do its thing, and them come up with a screen that looks similar to this.

Step #6  Get the code


Click on the " Embed " button shown above, and it will come up with code similar to this.

This code is what you will be copying into the main body of your ebay listing.

Step #7 Create your listing on ebay

If you are planning on making multiple ebay listings leave your template open.

Fill out your ebay listing like you normally would, but paste your new code into the listings.  Post your listing like you normally would.  

Go back to your wix listing, and use the "SAVE AS" button to save your template as your NEXT item.

Failing to do so will save over your previous template, AND change the ebay listing itself, that's right you can edit your listing from wix without even going to ebay.

So basically thats it in a nutshell.    Its pretty easy once you do a couple of them.  

I hope this helps, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

The crazy month is winding down

Well this month has been the craziest month in my short ebay career.

 I managed to set a record in sales, and sheer amount of packages sent out.  Its almost like I have another JOB!  It has been great thought.

So now that I have had some down time I have been spending some time on this website called game duell.

They have a TON of different games and they are all multiplayer so you are playing against other people which is always fun.   Card games, bar games, tetris style games, action adventure games and a whole lot of other ones.  My personal favorite is the pirate ship game!  

Anyways I setup a free account.    Apparently you can even play against people for money.   I think I am going to keep my hard earned ebay money in my wallet, besides I am not that good at online games.

Its still alot of fun so check it out below!