Two Weeks Worth of Toys... Mostly

Toys toys toys. I am drowning in them! The last two weekends sales were very very good!

I score loads of toys and for very very very cheap.

Lots of My Little Pony, including many International exclusives (sold two already for 25$ and 32$ which cover around 75% of what I spend during these two weekends).

Lots of Littlest Pet Shop (I do not buy unless there are dirt cheap now. I use to buy whatever I find, but now the market is saturated and filled with fakes from China selling for 1 cent... They still sell, but instead of selling a few per days, I sell a few per weeks. It's a shame that eBay help China ruin the market). The houses I will sell locally. I paid 18$ for the house, the car and all the Petshops and accessories shown in photo #2. Most of it will be covered by the sale of the empty house and car.

I also bought some nice Playmobil including some with the box. I may sell them in set or break them and sell by pieces, depending on what they are worth sometime it is better to sell piece by piece.

The nice tin box with cats and dogs should sell well too.

I bought some more vintage Disney bed sheets and duvet cover. I haven't finish listing the others I found a few weeks ago, but the one I listed sold for 58$ (from that sale, the one with the classic Dinsey characters: http://www.myyardsalefinds.com/2016/09/treasure-hunting-with-kids.html)

Luckily the kids are off school for the 2 weeks fall holidays and they are visiting mom in law for at least a week so I can focus on listing all these babies!

Toys toys and toys

More Toys for Ebay

I attend only one sale this weekend, for a local school. As expected, lots of toys and ok prices. Got a big lot of playmobil for 15$, many LPS and accessories for about 13$ and some very neat old wooden silk spools that will look great in someone's home. Also a couple of epiphany "feves" (Found in King's cake during the epiphany in France). No big deal like the bed sheets I found last week, but still all of this will be profitable.

Toys toys toys

Feves (French epiphany figures) for a nativity scene

Old silk spools

Big Toys Haul This Week End

Perfect for the up coming Christmas! I found loads of toys this weekend. Dirt cheap too. The Playmobil sets are pretty nice and should sell easily. Fairies are cute and will make a nice gift for a little girl. I still buy the Littlest Pet Shop when they are cheap enough, the market is slowly dying thanks to the Chinese seller loading eBay with cheap knockoffs (http://www.myyardsalefinds.com/2014/11/fake-littlest-pet-shop-sold-on-ebay-by.html).

I bought many My Little Pony too, they don't move very fast for the most part but they were so cheap that it doesn't matter. Also some Pokemon finger puppets (10 cents each), some Polly Pockets, Pinypon and Disney stuff.

My favorite find is a nice French porcelain bathroom set with soap box, wall hanger, toothbrush holder and a pair of door plates. This set will most likely go on Etsy.

I also like the Naf Naf fox pajamas! Very cute but not my size. Whimsical enough to sell ok.

Oh and I love that little pink bag with horses, should do well too, very cute!

Toys From yard Sales

Treasure Hunting With The Kids

Hubby was away for the weekend so I did bring my kids "treasure hunting" (like they say) with me in Grenoble. We had a blast, except for my youngest one who kept telling "are you going to sell that mommy" despite me having explain not to say that. At least she didn't do it in front of people I was buying from. And it was not as bad as what my son did last year when he told a lady "my mom is going to sell that for a lot of profit"!!

Otherwise they were very nice and didn't ask for anything, nor did they complain!

I didn't find a lot of stuff and once I factor in the train the tram and the food for the 3 of us, profit will be hurting a bit (although the Disney bed sheets may save the day).

Total fees for the day were 50 euros (about 58$) + the price of what I bought. The LPS alone  covers everything and more (transportation, food, purchases and ebay /paypal fees).

Vintage Snow White Bed Sheet, Vintage Disney Bed Sheet, LPS, Wicket Basket.. oh my!!

 My favorite find was the beautiful wicker basket! I am tempted to keep it, but I know it will sell well (I will most likely sell it locally). I paid less then 3$ for it! I also love my big glass jam jar. Will most likely keep it.

I am also looking forward to sell those vintage Disney bed sheets. Most likely from the 70's maybe even a bit earlier. One is Snow White and the other shows various Disney's character (Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Pluto etc) These will probably change my day from just ok profit to very very awesome!! And the "Around the World with Willy Fog" sheet? Pretty awesome and most likely rare but I am not sure if this show has a lot of fans. We shall see soon.

Around the World with Willy Fog bed sheet

Not Much Luck This Weekend At The Yard Sales

Worst ever yard sales I have ever come across. I'm not even sure I'll break even with the train/tram fees!

I went to 2 community sales yesterday. The first one was bad. Lots of cheap broken stuff. It was in a not so nice neighborhood, but still I was expecting at least a few decent toys.... nothing really unless broken sinks and faucets are your thing.

The second was not much better. Lots of clothes and baby stuff, but this is something I usually don't sell and a quick glance didn't make me want to buy. No good/fancy brands. lots of dirty stuff (seriously if you sell clothes at yard sale, wash them!!!)

At this time I was ready to come home empty handed and lighter of about 18$ in train/tram fees. It's part of the game, over the years I have always managed to come home with profit (most of the time a very nice one) or at least with enough to break even. Not this time, until I spotted the Playmobil carry away house. At the price (18$) any other day I would have pass, but this time I did not. I won't make much on it, but enough to at least cover a small % of my transportation fees. And the kids are allowed to play with it until I am ready to sell.

I plan to sell the empty house locally (I did sell one last year easily) and will list the parts and figures on eBay. I sold the last one for 10 euros (12$) and I should be able to get at least 20$ for the parts (selling them as replacement parts). Maybe a bit more.

Frankly not a good weekend, but it happens. I have enjoyed getting lost twice in Grenoble trying to find the right places! And I walk quite a bit, too bad I don't have a fitbit to keep track......

Playmobil saved the day...almost!

Back to School Season Means More Yard Sales

After a very very slow summer, with very few chances to hit yard sales, I was more than happy for the back to school season. It means weekends after weekends of community sales, school fund rising sales and other charity events.

My eBay Haul

This weekend wasn't the best but I did manage to find a few good things to resell. And all very cheap. 5 Euros (about 6$) for the near mint pink leather timberland boots, 4$ for the purple The Art Company sandals. Both brands usually sell well for me. The are among my favorite brands to resell. See my favorite shoe brands to sell on eBay here (we all have our own favorites, these are mine and they have always sell well for me).

I also found more Pinypon dolls/figurines (the lot came with Polly Pocket cats that I will list separately). They sell like hotcakes so I buy them anytime I find some (if the price is good). A set of 4 Australia Birds porcelain mugs. One sold immediately after I listed it and paid for the lot and more. The other 3 are pure profit. They don't go for much and will take time to sell but that's ok.

I cannot believe my luck, at the second yard sale I manage to find that absolutely gorgeous French Moustier porcelain salt box for only 6$. It's a nice one too with pastel colored birds butterflies and flowers. Very shabby chic. This one will most likely go on Etsy, although I may put it on eBay first and see how it goes. I also found a 70's Italian porcelain espresso set with big blue and yellow flowers on it.The large flower shop planter and the old French lemonade bottle were bought last year but I don't remember having posted about them. I also treated myself to a beautiful blue porcelain soap dish from Prague ceramic.

Moustier salt box

 Happy thrifting everyone!

Favorite Brands of Shoes to Sell on eBay but don't call these BOLO Please

Personally I don't often buy shoes to flip BUT I never pass on these brands:

El Naturalista: an eco friendly shoes company from Spain, with made in Spain products
The Art Company: another Spain company with made in Spain shoes (from Italian leather)
Birkenstock : famous German brand, made in Germany
Arcus : high quality French brand with some made in France models
Timberland: quality sport/outdoor shoes and boots


These are high quality brands, showing great craftsmanship and made to last. They are not "fad" brands. They are pretty expensive to buy new and they'll fetch good prices pre-owned on eBay.

Shoes are not that easy to sell mainly because you have an extra component to the basic sale of a product: the size! These brands sell very well, but you need to be patient. Some I have sold within a few days a posting, some took up to 2/3 months. But all have sold.


Always make sure they are in good clean condition before buying them at yard sales. I always use buy now on them, and sometime I add best offer. The El Naturalista have always sold for my buy now (depending on the models, between 40$ and 75$. You need patience!), the Birkenstock, anywhere from 25$ to 50$.

I have no experience with other brands, these are the only one I currently buy to flip.

I know BOLO are popular, but I won't call them that. Different size and colors and models can't really be called BOLO. Unlike the rest of these so call "Be on the look out for" products, there is very little risk of saturating the market and have the price drop so low on them that it's not even worth bothering.

I know there are other good brands out there that sell well, but these are currently the one I have success with.

Here's a gallery of some shoes I sold over the last few years:

El Naturalista Ballet Flats

El Naturalista Rana Tharu

El Naturalista Duna

And some Birkenstock:

 

What is your favorite brand of shoes to flip online?

2 of my Latest Yard Sale Hauls

May 22 haul includes a cheap Playmobil mix lot, a nice Champagne ice bucket, an old French Hot Water Bottle Bras, some jewelry (mainly vintage, nothing real hot, but so cheap that whatever it sells for it's going to be profit). Also found a rock climbing metal sculpture made by HINZ & KUNST. The cute plate and wine rack were bought online for resell.

May 22 haul

Jewelry, need to be research a bit

May 28 finds: toys and more toys! Pet Shop, Playmobil, Pinypon, Brio trains, Frozen etc.... I have good success selling toys so whenever the price is right I buy.

toys to flip!

May 21st 2016 eBay Haul

Gorgeous day today, so I went early and hit 2 yard sales in Grenoble. Both were pretty big and one of them was located in a nice park.

I ended up buying a lot of Littlest Pet Shop and way way cheaper then what I usually pay. Also got a huge (and I mean huge) lot of LPS accessories for dirt cheap (7$ for all the Littlest Pet Shop accessories you see in the picture below).

May 2016 eBay Haul

Sales of Littlest Pet Shop on eBay are not as good as they used to be. They still sell but not as fast as before. I blame this on two things:

1- lots of sellers now look for them because they are money makers.
2- But mostly,  the China sellers on eBay have flood the site with cheap knockoffs/fakes and buyers either don't come back to ebay because they feel they were scammed (they receive a cheap knockoff instead of a real Pet Shop) or they see cheap price so they think they get a deal.... so instead of buying the real thing they buy a fake.

But still what I got will sell, for less money then a year ago for sure, and they will move more slowly, but I'll still make decent money. And the accessories sell well (and the Chinese sellers don't produce fake accessories so they are not killing the market for these).

I also bought some cute necklaces, from South America. One is made from Tagua and the 2 others are made from paxiuba beads. I might keep them if they don't sell, I love them!

South American Fair Trade Necklaces

Also found a lovely cookie tin depicting a Victorian (horses and noble people):

Vintage tin

More yard sales tomorrow if weather is good. I also need to list some of today's finds!

Brocante Finds and an eBay Cassini Search Rant

Here's some of my recent brocante finds that will eventually end up on either Etsy or eBay!
Yard sales haven't been good lately so I rely on brocante (both online and offline).

In this lot: a very large cast iron rooster in a wonderful green paint (a door stopper most likely), a cute, whimsical little chick (ceramic), an old wood bench, a zinc florist vase, a fleur de lis zinc frieze, an old jam jar filled with marbles (I'll need to research marbles a bit, I know they sell well, but I know nothing about them. Might just make a big lot with best offer option)

Brocante finds

Otherwise, yard sales have been slow lately (luckily I have a lot of inventory not listed yet). I'll post about what I found later this week, nothing much thrilling tho.

Sales on eBay right now are very uneven, it's either a flood or a dry spell, something I have never experienced before. Something is very strange and I do hope it's only a temporary situation, not a taste of things to come... When buyers tell you "I have been looking for this for months on eBay" and your item has been listed for months, you know something is wrong. We all know Cassini search is not very good, but I feel that goes beyond that. Traffic seems off, it's like my store is visible then invisible. Of course the flood of cheap Chinese crap on eBay doesn't help anyone: buyers get burn and don't return, buyers cannot find what they want because the Chinese sellers are known to manipulate search so they go elsewhere....

What do I do then? I keep listing but no longer exclusively on ebay!

Mermaids: a Fun Theme that is Collectible

Among the things I look for when I am thrifting, yard sailing or browsing online sales for things to flip, is mermaids. Popular collectible, mermaids come in all sort of shape and forms. I look for whimsical items or unusual enough to pique curiosity. Mainly vintage or antique (although you may have success with modern decor pieces as long as it is original/unusual enough and not mass produced in China).

Here are a few of my finds that have sold:

Vintage tin box with mermaids

Mermaid hand held mirror

Signed cast iron trivet by Deville

These were all bought online to flip and they were all successful flips.

Never Accept a Buy Now Offer On An Ebay Auction

I have been selling on eBay since 1998 under various "niche" accounts and stores.

I sold anything from:  

Vintage clothing: This was a very hot niche for me in the late 90's to the mid 2000. I did especially well in the "EMO" style niche. But when I moved to France I pretty much dropped that niche because at the time the French postal service were not offering any cheap small packet rates. Now that they have been fined a couple of millions euros by the European Union for this aberration, and are now offering small airmail packet rates I guess could go back selling vintage clothes. But for what I see the market is not as strong as it use to be. So I still offer the occasional vintage t-shirt or French designer piece, but that's pretty much it.  

Collectibles: all sorts of collectibles and small antiques. Stamps, coins and paper money as well.  

Magazines and books: especially French magazines and rare French books

Now back to the "never accept a buy now offer on an Ebay auction" AKA "you know you got a winner item when....": If you list an item up on auction and within a few hours you got messages asking if you would sell for a fix price, it pretty much mean you hit the jackpot.

Never accept any offer for a buy now. Even if it sounds attractive. It just mean the buyer KNOWS it will go high and he tries to get a deal. Even if the offer sounds attractive (like 10 times or 20 times your starting price).

 I had this happen often: One time it was a vintage Iron Maiden t-shirt. Within a few hours I got 3 offers ranging from 50$ to 125$. I refused them all and the t-shirt sold for over 300$ to a Japanese buyer.

 Another time it was a very "ugly" advertising display for some sort of drinks. Some plastic sculpture of a guy holding a tray of said drink and the display would be illuminated by a light bulb. Ugly. I paid 2$ at a garage sale (I mean for 2 bucks, the risk of loosing money is almost nil). Same, got a bunch of offers, turned them all down and end up selling the thing for 500$ to someone who's dad had a bar in the 50's with the same ad. He wanted it as a tribute/souvenir of his father.

So if you don't know what it's worth, let the auction run its course. On eBay or elsewhere!

My eBay Hauls: Very Little Finds so Far This Year

It's such a slow start of the year that I haven't posted much yet (but that is going to change soon.... lots of huge community sales coming in the next few weeks, so fingers cross).

I went this morning to a medium size community sale and didn't find much. Some Littlest Pet Shop, a pair of My Little Pony G3 and 2 interesting necklace that should sell ok ( paid less then 4$ for the pair).

Easter eBay haul

The elephant necklace carved in bone might be an hassle to list on ebay because elephant and bone in the title will probably get me in trouble (even though that is not elephant ivory, eBay is very very trigger happy. I had one pulled a few years back. I'll need to get creative and avoid triggering the filters.)

Pretty elephant necklace carved in bone

The other necklace is very pretty and signed Ikita Paris.

I am looking forward to April. Next weekend I have 5 large sales to attend, and then the next two weekends I'll be in Paris and it looks like I'll need a real planning if I want to max out my time (lots of sales are already advertised, all over Paris)

Good Online Finds To Flip on eBay

January is usually a pretty dead month for yard sales, charity sales and community sales, especially here where it's cold. So I have been sourcing online, including on ebay. And I did find some nice profit making toys.

Among my purchase is a MIP My Little Pony Midnight in Canterlot set for 25$ (yes not cheap but it's going to be an easy flip). I plan on listing it on eBay eventually. They go for over 80$ on Amazon, so I am pretty confident I can make a decent profit.

Also I did source a lot of MLP and Littlest Pet Shop for cheap. Including some Mint in Package (such as a LPS advent Calendar). I bought many lots as well, with decent LPS pets and ponies and a lot of accessories. Even when I factor in the shipping on these lot, there is a good profit to be made. I do check ebay and other online marketplace daily to find the good lots and so far I am doing really well and I don't plan stopping when the yard sale season start!

2016 on eBay: Yard Sales Branching Out and the Eggs in the Same Basket Thing

I've been wanting to do my first post of 2016 for a little while, but honestly I have been quite busy after New Year. On eBay my focus was to update listings with the new shipping costs, as well as changing most of my  delivery options to avoid the new defects coming up in February (I will do a post, here or another blog about what I think of the new defect system, but not today). I also have been busy listing new stuff.

On the yard sale front, it's dead right now, but it will pickup starting next weekend. So hopefully I'll manage to hit one sale a week from now on. If not, I am browsing local ads, local online sites and my local eBay site to find inventory. I have a rather decent success with that (more about my January finds in another post later this week).

I am very slowly adding clothing to my online store. I used to be very successful with that in the early to mid 2000. But eventually stopped selling clothes (for no particular reasons). But recently I have started looking for them at church sales and other charity shops around where I live and I am finding decent brands often in close to new condition, so why not. One of my first try was highly successful so I am taking the plunge. I will mainly focus on like-new or very very good condition known brands and high quality clothes. Nothing too complicated to list either.

Here's the lovely wool knit sweater I sold for $70 (paid less than $8 for it). It's an high end brand made in France called Saint James. They specialized in Mariniere (French knit wool sweater, usually with stripes) and other  nautical garments. Very high quality, made in France.

Saint James Wool Sweater

Now the basket thing. Although eBay is making good changes to the defect system put in place by the much hated ex-SEO "JD", I still think it should be on everyone's agenda to start listing elsewhere. Stay on ebay, but don't keep all your eggs there. Personally I am on other sites since many years (as far as 2002) and I will keep exploring new avenues including my own store (Shopify comes to mind, but I am not set yet).

I wish everyone a profitable year 2016! Stay tuned for this year eBay hauls!

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to all of you! I hope 2016 brings you lots of good and positive things in your life.

I also hope eBay will keep with the changes they have started to implement, thanks to the new team lead by Devin Wenig. It's refreshing to see a team that finally gets it and is doing changes to protect its seller base. It's a big change for all of us, and hopefully, although the new changes will have some unexpected consequences, it will mostly be a positive turns for sellers.

My only eBay related wish this year is to put a stop to China/Hong Kong sellers who are flooding the eBay marketplace with fakes of all sorts. Rule of thumb: if you are buying ANY brand name and the seller is located in China or Hong Kong you will receive a counterfeit product. And in some categories it can even be dangerous.

I guess this is why the most popular post of 2015 on my blog was this one: Fake Littlest Pet Shop Sold on eBay by Chinese Sellers!

See you in 2016!

 

Exploding champagne bottle poster by prophoto