Sell What You Have

I used to just clean out my closet and donate stuff to a charity and/or a thrift shop. Now, unless something is really worn out or I'm pretty sure it won't sell, I go ahead and photograph it to list on eBay.

As an example, I had this t-shirt for years because I liked the design a lot, but it was always a bit too long for me, so I only ever wore it a couple times. Finally, I went ahead and sold it for $11.50. Not a huge amount of money, but I don't sneer at $10 here and there! And honestly, I make my way on eBay with a series of small sales; it's rare that I have one item that is a big earner for me.

When I read advice to new eBay sellers, one of the most common pieces of advice I see is to start out by selling some stuff you have around at home and no longer need/want. I think it's great advice. You have nothing to lose as long as you make sure that your starting price/shipping price covers what it will cost you to mail the item.

A lot of people seem to shy away from selling clothing, but I think as long as you have clear photos and detailed descriptions and measurements in your listings, clothing can be a good thing to start out with selling. If your kids are outgrowing their clothes, what about selling some children's clothing? Kids' clothes can sell well, especially in lots as a lot of buyers want to stock up on a particular size. Toys are another good seller.

If you have DVD sets, they can sell well, too; people love to buy full seasons of their favorite TV shows. Household items can also do well: I know that Suzanne has sold a number of picture frames, and I have sold a number of small display easels. There are people who collect Corelle dishes and all sorts of things that you might never think twice about giving away. You just never know.

Just Call Me Your Personal Thrift Shopper

I'm not fashion-conscious enough to ever be a personal shopper, but sometimes I feel like I'm a personal thrift shopper for the people who buy items from me on eBay. I enjoyed thrifting for many years before I ever started selling anything on eBay, but of course my purchases were limited by the scope of what I personally could use or stuff that I knew my family and friends might enjoy. With selling stuff on eBay, I can always find something at the thrift store that I know will just be perfect for somebody out there, even though I don't really know who that somebody is...

Well, sometimes I buy things that the right somebody doesn't happen to see for quite a long time, but such is life. This week I was glad to sell this retro-style t-shirt. I have a weakness for tees with lettering that reminds me of the old-school iron-on lettering from the t-shirts of my youth. And I figured someone would get a kick out of the reference to MySpace.

The shirt was listed for months and months; I listed it sometime last summer, and it just sold now in February. But the cool thing was that the guy who bought it said he was glad to find it as he was going to be able to use it in a photo shoot. It just seemed cool to me that months later, this tee I found at the thrift shop was going to be in a photo shoot.

I think it's fair to say that I'm one of those people who love the simple pleasures in life. Thrift shopping and eBay sometimes have a way of brightening my day.

Planning for Seasonal Sales

Honestly, I have not done very well at all in getting seasonal items listed for sale on eBay. Well, I did sell a Mrs. Santa Claus Build-a-Bear dress this past Christmas, but otherwise I didn't plan for Christmas-related items. The reason I'm doing this post is to report that I did, in fact, get it together to list a fun item with a Valentine's Day link. It just sold this morning.

The first time I listed this item, I didn't even think to use Valentine's Day as a keyword. Then when I was renewing the listing, I realized I was missing an opportunity. I bought the t-shirt because, let's face it, you just don't see very many unique and fun politically (or a-politcally?) themed tees out there, and I thought this was a great one.

For me, the moral of the story is: it's OK to think about holidays in offbeat ways, and always think creatively when it comes to the keywords for your listings.

Love Those Crazy Shirts

With the holidays and then a new quarter starting (my day job is teaching), I haven't had much time to post to this blog, even though it is close to my heart! Well, I decided I had better post this week because I wanted to mention a great brand of t-shirts to sell on eBay: Crazy Shirts.

You can recognize the brand by the logo, which is generally on the sleeve and always on the tag inside the collar. It's a brand of tee sold in Hawaii. I think people love it because it reminds them of relaxing on vacation... Also, a lot of the tees have funny designs. If you ever find any of the Crazy Shirts with cats drawn by an artist named Kliban, you definitely want to buy them as they are especially popular.

Another cool thing this brand does is make specialty-dyed tees. I have seen Crazy Shirts dyed with Kona coffee and others dyed with lavender. Generally I find Crazy Shirts in the men's department, but the lavender dyed tees are sold in women's sizes.

You will find all sorts of fun designs from this label, including beer-themed tees which are a popular seller in general. I actually stumbled onto the brand through a beer-themed tee I happened to find at the Goodwill one day. Of course I enjoy a good beer-themed tee, and I really love a tee with a cat on it, but so far, the tee below is my favorite of the Crazy Shirts I've found.

I would say that these tees sell for an average of around $20, and you can often find them for just a dollar or two. The Kliban cat ones can go for more. If you have any Crazy Shirts tips to share, we'd love to hear from you in the comments!

Go Beyond Your Personal Taste

Much of my thrifting and online selling is centered around stuff I like. It's easier to have an interest in searching through racks and shelves of things I enjoy, and I don't even mind getting organized around storing things when it's stuff I get a kick out of looking at, like unique books and clever t-shirts. A lot of times I just buy stuff that I like and have a feeling that other people will like.

But of course you have to learn to expand your scope a bit as a seller. I mean, I'm no arbiter of taste, right? People like all sorts of stuff that I wouldn't necessarily want to buy. It's always a bit of a pleasure for me when I buy something a bit outside of my personal tastes which ends up selling right away--then I tell myself, hey, my instincts are pretty good about what sells!

I listed this Ronald Reagan tee this past Saturday, and it sold on Sunday. I knew when I saw it at Goodwill that just because I might not wear a Reagan tee doesn't mean that someone else wouldn't love it!

I guess you could say the Gipper won one for me.

Sometimes Slowly Sometimes Quickly

I was just writing a post in my blog about View-Master reels and remarking how you never know what will sell on eBay. I love selling View-Master sets; they tend to sell pretty slowly, and they aren't big money-makers, but I just love them. As with anything else, with the reels, I never really know which ones will sell and which ones will hang around in my eBay listings for weeks (or months) on end.

Same with t-shirts. Sometimes I get a feeling that a shirt will sell quickly, and sometimes I'm right, but other times, I buy something and think it will be a quick sale, and it's not. Luckily, I'm pretty patient. I try to think of it like putting pennies in a piggy bank; eventually a buyer comes along, and it was worth it to spend the time thrifting, photographing, listing, etc.

A good example of this is a t-shirt I bought with the logo for Zildjian cymbals; I knew the logo right away when I saw it at the thrift store as I recognized it from my days of taking guitar lessons as a kid. It's a black tee, and it looks brand new. I figured a drummer was going to snap the shirt up right away. But there are a lot of similar shirts out there, and no one has bought mine yet. I've tried it at auction; I've tried it at fixed price. I think it will sell eventually!

How Many Items Should I List on eBay?

Well, school has started back up (my day job is working as a college English teacher), so I haven't had as much time to focus on eBay. I'd built up my number of listings to 130 total, as I'd taken advantage of a couple of promotions from eBay which allowed free listings. Many of those listings have expired--and some have sold!--and my number of listings is below 50 again.

My goal this weekend is to finish some schoolwork and then get my number of listings built back up. I think getting to 75 is a reasonable goal. I do have a lot of expired items that I could relist, which is easy enough, but I also want to get some new listings posted as I have some new "inventory" that I want to try posting. Suzanne and I went to a great rummage sale last weekend, and I have some t-shirts to list from that as well as some really cute vintage Playmobil toys which include several little skateboarder figures and their tiny skateboards. I also have three silk neckties, a cap from a beer company, and (of course) my usual pile of thrifted tees that I haven't gotten around to listing yet.

As a side note, I've noticed that the few hats I've listed have been good sellers. I've sold a Guinness beer driving cap, a University of Washington Huskies baseball cap, and most recently a Tyrol hat. Trish found the Tyrol hat at a garage sale a few weeks ago, and we made sure to list it right away, to catch the Oktoberfest crowd. Here's a photo.

I think the only hat that hasn't sold so far is the Indiana Jones hat Trish and I found at the Goodwill Outlet this summer. We're still hoping that someone will want it for a costume and that it sells before Halloween!

How many items do you try to keep listed on eBay? I'd love to reach 100 listings again. I know other people have even higher goals in terms of items listed, sometimes into the thousands!

T Shirts with Great Keywords

I picked up a couple of t-shirts at the Goodwill recently for 99 cents each (well, actually I picked up more than a couple, but I'm just going to mention two in this post!), and while they seem pretty different on the surface, I think the reason they both sold quickly (and for decent prices) is that they both brought to mind good keywords I could put in the listings.

The first shirt was for the band Chicago, and bands always give you great keywords to use: band, tour, rock, etc. This wasn't a tour shirt, but it had a quote from a song lyric, which made it stand out from other shirts, I think.

Let me say here that I seldom pass up a t-shirt from a tour--people love to buy tour t-shirts, and by nature the shirts are limited edition. Mostly I've had a pretty quick turnover with the tour shirts I've bought, but I've had a couple that I probably shouldn't have bought. (But maybe someone will come along and buy the Taylor Hicks Soul Patrol tour shirt I've had listed for a few months now, which will make me eat my words!)

Anyway, I think part of what helped the Chicago shirt sell was that it was easy to come up with a title filled with words that somebody who wanted a retro rock tee would use in their search. Likewise, the other tee from that same shopping trip that sold this week was this one for the Christian Motorcyclists Association.

I remember reading that one sign of a great eBay item is having some crossover in terms of keywords so that people who would search for different things might find it. When I saw this on the rack, I felt that Christian + motorcycles would give the listing some excellent crossover potential. I also shared the link to this listing on Twitter a few times because #motorcycle is a popular hashtag, and I thought some of the people who saw it might have a particular interest in a Christian-themed motorcycle shirt.

Although I've been doing a lot of fixed price listings lately, I listed both of these as auctions, and both received multiple bids, so I was happy with the results. I feel like it's probably best in the long run to make sure to do a combo of auction and fixed price listings. There's something fun in the auctions that you miss when you just do fixed price. Having two of my auctions inspire mini bidding wars added a little thrill to my week!

Football Season and Collegiate Tees

When I find t-shirts with college logos for 99 cents or less, I definitely pick them up. This is one of the latest tees I've bought along this line, for the Ole Miss Rebels. Well, they have a lot of fans because this listing has racked up lots of views and a couple of watchers. It's an older tee, but it's a cool classic logo.

Hopefully it will sell soon. Here's a link to the listing itself.

I often find cool tees for universities in Washington state, and I think a lot of out of state alums pick these up. So even if there are a zillion local college/uni tees in your local thrift shop and you think nobody wants them, somebody out there probably does!

T-shirt Trivia

 Since Mandy mostly sells t-shirts on eBay I'd like to share a little trivia.

The t-shirt was first invented in 1913 as a light undershirt for the navy men. It replaced wool shirts.

This year was the t-shirts' 100th anniversary!

When the t-shirt first came out it cost $.25.

The word "t-shirt" did not become official until 1920 when it was published in the Merriam Webster dictionary.

It is called a t-shirt because when laid out it looks like a "T".

In 1951 it made it debut in A Street Car Named Desire with Marlon Brando. It becomes a teenage must have. Sales total $180 million.

Slogan's began appearing on tees in the 1950's.

The first print images on t-shirts were Mickey Mouse and his friends.

The first screen printing machine was patented in 1969 by Andy Warhol. 

According to a study by Jerzees 62% of the US population owns 10 or more t-shirts.

In 2012 the first t-shirt with a LCD screen arrives. It can post FB statuses, tweets and Instagram snaps.

And that is probably more than you will ever want to know about t-shirts.

Any other interesting t-shirt trivia out there?