Battling for the customer's disposable Dollars in Hard Times

Gas over $3.00 and heading for $4.00. Mortgage payments going up. Food and electric bills rising and soon you've got less money available after the bills are paid to spend on luxuries. So how does a collectibles dealer compete for the ever shrinking disposable income budget of the average American household to increase their sales or at least keep them from diving below last year's levels? For many sellers there isn't very much that you can do but brave it out and keep your costs down as much as possible. You need to spend more time and effort on marketing items you've already purchased and dig them out of boxes and put them up for sale. Down times are a good opportunity to hone your sales skills and be a more savvy seller.

If you have booths in an antique mall like I do, now would be a good time to rearrange your booths and move the merchandise around so that it looks like you've got new inventory in even to the customers who browse the antique mall on a regular basis. If your inventory is basically in the same position it has been for the past year regulars will often pass it by thinking there's nothing new to draw them in to browse even if you've added several new items recently.

Try adding some seasonal items that will have plenty of eye appeal for those shopping for items to decorate with for the holidays. Brightly colored items will attract attention to your booth. Items that are at eye-level have the best chance of selling on average so be sure to place your usual best sellers there and often if you have nice inventory that should be selling but isn't because you've got it in a high or low spot, get in there and move it closer to eye-level. It really boils down to taking the time to keep your booth looking fresh and you're actively managing it. If you don't take the time it will show in your sales.

Talking to several dealers in my area lately I'm hearing that sales are half of what they were last year in the off season. This is most likely worse than the national average because my area is now in a recession after having ridden a real estate boom that has since collapsed. Foreclosures and unemployment has pretty much dried up the cash from the general local buyers. For those customers I try to stock as much items of local interest such as postcards from this area and anything that might have a nostalgia pull to them. There are still customers here who have money in good times and bad and they are out and taking advantage of this buyer's market so I do my best to tease them with reduced prices on more expensive and higher margin items where I can afford to take less to keep the cash flowing.

We lost a lot of dealers that had to throw in the towel because they went several months with sales that didn't even come close to meeting their booth rent. I myself decided to downsize my booth space to cut overhead and made do with less shelf space. I didn't want to do this but if you've got very little customer traffic you'd have little chance of selling even the Mona Lisa for $2000 so I feel it didn't cost me in sales. It also made me take a good hard look at my inventory and evaluate areas that really didn't have much potential even in good times. It was good to be forced to take a hard look at my inventory and trim the "dead wood".

Now finally we are moving into the busy season when we have our northern residents moving down and sales are picking nicely so I feel fortunate that I was able to weather a really brutal off season without having a month that I couldn't meet my rent and even turning a decent though small profit.

How to improve your Ebay Auctions to increase Sales

I wanted to share some thoughts of mine on what I believe are ways to improve the sales on your Ebay auctions. It's not an easy task most of the time to put together an auction that has both good eye-appeal and a description that will attract as many potential bidders as you can get. For most Ebay buyers their first impression of your listing will make all the difference in whether your auction grabs their interest enough to make them a potential bidder. If you can't snag their attention from the get go they will quickly move on to another auction. So here's the areas I believe you need to focus on to help maximize sales.

• Learn as much about the item for sale as you can before you describe it.
• Take good pictures to ensure potential buyers have a clear visual view of what they are bidding on.
• Make sure to include as many relevant Keywords in your description to increase search traffic
• Clearly explain you return policy
• Promptly answer any e-mails you receive concerning an auction.

Before writing up your description for an auction do the best you can to learn as much as possible about the item as you can in a reasonable amount of time. Try to learn the general time period or age it was made, if it was designed by someone special which gives it added collector appeal and any kind of info that will help you with your choice of Keywords. Measure it accurately which helps assure the buyer it's the right piece in a pattern they are looking for. The size of a piece of crystal stemware or sterling flatware for example makes a difference in value many times especially when it comes to serving pieces. Be sure to accurately describe any flaws or repairs, chips, etc even if they were done by the manufacturer. Basically you goal should be to remove as much mystery about your auction item as you can for the buyer so they can bid with confidence. This often results in a higher bid price.

I can't stress enough how important the picture(s) you use in your listing are for giving a potential buyer their best visual impression of your auction item. Too many times I've looked at listings with pictures that are out of focus or too small that I feel like they hurt more than helped the auction's chances of selling. I'm sure most of them are by sellers who may only occasionally list items and aren't particularly experienced at taking close up pictures with a digital camera. But many times I see long time sellers that have poorly taken photos that are out of focus or badly lit and don't help sell the item. If you need to take a close up of a china or silver hallmark or just want to show the detail better be sure to learn how to use the macro focus option on your camera. Macro focus adjusts the lens to allow for close up shots of 18 inches to as close as a couple of inches. Make sure you have enough natural lighting if possible so that you can hopefully avoid using the flash. If you use your flash be sure you don't overexpose the picture. It takes time and practice to get the hang of it but you don't have to be an expert to get better picture. The next area to help your auction picture is to use an online hosting site to store your picture files. Since I use AOL I store them at My FTP SPACE. There are several online sites such as Flickr or Photobucket that are free which you can use to host your images. The reason I recommend this is I feel that Ebay's own photo hosting is not the best way to put good pictures in your listing. Also it can save you money using your own hosting site. If you are handy with any of the photo editing programs that are available your can combine several shots of your item and then arrange and combine them into a single jpg file and upload that for your listing. This is what I do and it allows for much larger views of your auction item. I take shots from different angles, the inside if it has one. All hallmarks and manufacturers labels that identify the piece and also any blemishes and flaws that the buyer needs to be aware of to help them have as best a visual impression of the item I'm selling. Once again your goal is to remove as much mystery and doubt from the buyer so they are won't be hesitant to bid higher for fear of a buying something that doesn't meet their expectations when it comes to condition. Collectors nearly always want items that are in great or near new looking condition and will often pay dearly for it.

Keywords play an important part in driving search traffic to your auction so be sure to include them in your description. Your choice of Keywords of course depends on what you're selling. As an example, my daughter recently listed a 1978 brochure for the Universal Studio's movie tour in California and called me because she was discouraged that no one seemed interested in it and she only had one bid for the starting price of .99 cents. I looked at her listing and noted she had a very basic description with little details. I told her to list the names of the movies that were featured on the tour and any star's name or other Keywords that would result in her listing showing up in a greater amount of searches. She ended up selling her brochure for $26 to a serious collector of Jaws the Movie memorabilia which was one of the movies featured on the tour. Buy adding that Keyword her auction then showed up on any search for Jaws plus any of the other movies on the tour and gave her auction a greater number of potential buyers. I don't have to tell you she was thrilled with the results of her sale. Now don't go overboard and have dozens of Keywords that clutter up your description and make it look obvious that you are baiting bidders. Just give it more thought when you write your description to add keywords that are relevant and blend in well.

Your return policy should be stated clearly to assure potential customers that they can bid with confidence that they may return an item in the event that it isn't correctly described or doesn't arrive in satisfactory condition. This helps you build up a group of repeat buyers in the long run you'll find. A clear return policy will also decrease the chances that a bidder will be reluctant to trust you and improves your chances of getting more bids. Accurate descriptions are essential to avoid buyers from abusing your return policy, so be as precise as you can when you write your description. A satisfied customer will often be back to check your auction listings because you made the buying experience so pleasant. Also be sure to pack fragile items carefully to avoid returns for breakage.

Promptly reply to e-mails sent concerning your auctions. I know from experience that the most common e-mails you will receive will be from people asking for an estimate of shipping charges so try to avoid that by either stating in your description the shipping weight or if you can include a link for a shipping calculator, the interested buyer can figure it out for themselves. The rest will be for some clarification or more specific details on your auction item and those need to be dealt with promptly. Always remember that your #1 goal is to remove as much mystery and resistance the bidder might have about what you are seller. The more confident the bidder the higher the sales price will be. Also the percentage of items listed that sell will increase due to you making a greater effort to remove as many doubts a potential bidder might have about your items for sale.

I hope you'll find these hints helpful and I always welcome input from you on ways you find improve your sales results.

Gold and Silver are Even HOTTER!!

Well Gold and Silver still continue their climb while the dollar sinks down the toilet. I'm not sure how high is too high but I do know from experience that too high too fast is a way to lose money if you're speculating short term on these metals. I'm going to bet that the silver I put in my booths at $16.50 an ounce are most likely gone if someone happens to notice it and has precious metals fever. The charts on these metals are not sustainable short term and I plan to sell even more of my silver since I think it has more appeal right now and if you want to put some money in precious metals you should start with silver anyways. Gold is king but you have to have a pretty big wallet right now to buy even a small amount of it. Besides Gold is in a buying panic right now and is overpriced short term in my opinion. Be patient and sit on the sidelines for a correction if you want to be a buyer. If you want to sell take advantage of the spike to make a healthy profit but long term I would hold on to gold that you already have since Washington and the powers that be apparently don't want to save the dollar.

I'm just glad I bought as much silver as I did when I could get it for $3.00 and sometimes less and ounce years ago. But I did have to wait quite a few years to take my profits on some of it didn't I? Anyway people who have some money to invest should buy silver even at these levels and set it aside in case the government sets off a hyperinflation bomb to help them cure that huge national debt that they will never stop piling up. Besides the Chinese are getting reluctant to hold as much US Treasury bonds as they now have and will be cutting their holdings of US denominated investments.

Gee when did I get so political and into macro-economics?

Oh yeah, I like to buy stuff cheap and sell it for more I guess is part of the reason. After all the lesson I learned from some old timers who had money when I was a kid was to buy it when everyone hates it and sell it when they love it. There are many variations on this saying but you get the picture. Markets overdue it on both ends. When it's out of favor they dump it as quick as they can and move on to the next "HOT" item and when it's hot they buy without much concern about the value involved. Now smart treasure hunters know that you buy for pennies or nickels on the dollar and sell it for a dollar and pocket the difference. That's what we're here for isn't it?.......hmmm. I Can't Hear You................Anyways it's all about the thrill of the hunt and the feeling you get when you sell it for a good price. Good luck with your treasure hunting this week.

The 500% Solution

When I first started buying items at yard sales and thrift stores I didn't have a good idea of how much was too much to pay for something that I intended to resell. Much of what I bought I sold on Ebay so the bidders pretty much determined what the sale price was unless I put a reserve on the auction to protect myself from getting too little for a high priced item. My original experience in retail I've mentioned is selling old US Postage stamps to collectors and the general markup rule there is you can expect to get 2-2.5 times what you pay for a stamp which makes the mark-up on average 125%. After my expenses I would net around 40% on every dollar I sold. I quickly found out that a 125% mark-up wasn't going to work for me if I wanted to sell other kinds of collectibles especially after I started selling most items at antique booths. I sat down with my scratch pad early and figured out my expenses and came up with the 500% solution. I determined that as a general rule I wasn't interested in buying something for resale unless I was pretty darn sure I could get at least 5 times what I paid for it retail. I do have some exceptions to this rule especially in the area of furniture and jewelry and some other high ticket items but for 90% of the items I purchase the 500% solution is the standard I work with.

Other dealers I talked with told me I was nuts for thinking I should expect to get so much for an item and warned me that I wouldn't be able to buy enough inventory if I hoped to buy stuff that cheap. Well I stuck to my guns and managed to buy enough inventory to stock 4 booths and 2 warehouses with inventory in the waiting with the 500% solution. One thing I'd learned after buying stamps for 30 years is how to walk away from a buy if the numbers don't add up to my advantage. I am patient and I don't panic while bidding at auctions and I don't fall in love with the merchandise. I fall in love with the numbers. Have I missed out on some deals that would have made me a fair and decent profit? Of course I have and have no regrets usually. I have often told a seller when they asked me to make them an offer on an item I'm eyeing that I will probably insult them but they want to hear anyways. I make my offer and you'd be surprised how many sellers will take that low ball bid. You have to remember a lot of sales involve either people who are moving soon and have a deadline to meet for clearing the house out, or they are liquidating an estate and are under similar pressure to make everything disappear or they just are tired of seeing it in their garage and don't want to haul it back in if it doesn't sell.

I often find that a good tactic for getting a low price especially at estate sales is to find a box and start loading it up with several items and then ask for a quantity discount or just ask for a price for everyting in the box. This works especially well on items from the garage such as tools, textiles and records or books. Getting to a sale later in the day of course helps you get a good price since the prices usually get dropped since the seller is fatigued and anxious to get the sale over with. Now I know getting there late reduces your chances of finding a set of Wedgwood China or any item that has a well known name and obvious premium value. But it's a good bet that those items were priced at a level that would have made it difficult to buy for resale anyway. I have purposely spent a lot of time learning about areas of collectibles that the average dealer doesn't know well so that no matter what time I arrive at a sale I still have a good shot at finding something worth buying with the 500% solution. I have studied Eames era and Danish modern items which you can still find a good deal of at an average sale or Italian and Scandinavian pottery and cookware such as Dansk, Krenit, Arabia of Finland, and many others that are many times ignored because let's face it a lot of it doesn't appeal to the average American. I currently have a Stelton Cylinda toast rack listed on Ebay which was designed by Arne Jacobsen. My oldest daughter scolded me for asking so much for a silly little toast rack and I had to explain to her that it was a designer piece and worth every bit of what I was asking as a starting bid. She laughed and said I'd never get it. Right now I'm having the laugh and it's still got more time to go higher.

Now my point here isn't to brag about how much I sell my items on Ebay or elsewhere for. It's actually quite the opposite. When you do this as a business or even as a profitable hobby you want to stack the odds on your side as much as you can. Booth rent isn't cheap and neither is gas and your other selling expenses. You have to factor in the time it takes to sell you inventory and if you have storage costs because you deal in larger items like furniture you need to have a sizable markup to end up with a decent net profit. You have to realize that the only areas that you have a major say in this business equation is how much you pay for your inventory and how much you will take for the final sale price. You don't want to be devoting all your time to this enterprise and find yourself just breaking even or squeaking out a small profit. I don't know about you but I don't want to do this just so Ebay or the owner of the Antique Mall makes the lion's share of the money.

GOLD and SILVER are HOT!!!

Well I went to stock my antique booths today and found that my Gold and Silver bullion coins are all sold out. I really wasn't all that surprised since bullion prices for GOLD are close to all time highs (not factoring in inflation) right now of course. Seems like people are finally figuring out that between the cost of the Iraq war and deficit spending and trade deficits the old greenback is on it's way to becoming the green halfback or even less. I'm telling you the idiots in Washington are playing with fire by letting the dollar sink so easily in value. They think a weak dollar will increase exports and help the trade deficit at the same time they bail out the big banks and hedge funds from losses due to foolish lending to low quality borrowers. Easy money always ends up being an expensive thing. So much for the political ramblings here but that's how I see it.

So while I'm delighted with the amount of sales I've decided to not restock any of the Gold and keep hold of it for myself for a while. The silver isn't on quite so wild a ride so I'll restock that but stagger the prices around a $1 between groups of 5 on the quantity of coins I put in this time. That will protect me in the advent that silver decides to spike in the near future. One of the owners of an antique mall I have a booth in said a man came in with a scale and asked them to open several cases that had sterling silver items in them and weighed them to see if any of the sellers hadn't adjusted the prices of silver items to take into account the rise in the price of bullion. They opened more than 30 cases and the guy didn't buy anything. He didn't make any friends either. LOL.

Sales where I live here on the east coast of Florida have really sagged at the booths since we're in a bit of a recession due to real estate prices dropping and the number of foreclosures is sky high. It was great on the way up but now people are hurting to even make ends meet so not much FUN MONEY to spend on collectibles. $3.00 a gallon gas doesn't help much either. On the upside I'm finding some better items to buy at sales and even from dealers booth who have decided to throw in the towel and quit since they can't even make the booth rent payment. We're all hoping that the snowbirds will get down here soon and bring money and ease this dry period. It's a shame to hear some of the stories. Sometimes when I'm buying from someone desperate I feel bad but I have to remind myself if it's not me buying, it will be someone else's money getting the goods. I just glad I always keep money set aside for slumps like this and can afford to ride them out and also take advantage of the bargains when they present themselves. Like the old saying goes: "It pays to keep some dry powder around".


Other areas I'm finding that are doing well in my booths are postcards and books. Dishes suck and patten glass is really hit and miss. I guess it really depends on who walks through the door and manages to find your booth so I have to keep them interesting looking. The holidays are coming up also so I will have to put more Christmas themed items in there too. I've also decided to bump up my Ebay auctions and save more money for buying inventory in the spring. I also want to pull together a long vacation to the Northeast or California this summer so I'm setting money aside from my sales to pay for that. After all that seems to be the reason I do this. It gives us another excuse and opportunity to travel and hunt for treasure.

So what are the rest of you folks finding that's selling good right now for you either on Ebay or your websites and antique booths?

Where should I sell my yard sale treasures?

You're out at a yard sale and you run across an item such as a nice set of dishes or perhaps some crystal stemware or maybe an attractive porcelain figurine. You know it's got value but what's the best way to try to sell it to get your highest return? This question is always a factor in any purchase I make since if it ends up going from their house and sitting in my house or storage building I'm not making any money and might as well just walk away from the item. How do you decide what is the best way to sell your purchase? Do you use Ebay? Would it do better in your antique booth? Should you sell it on your own website? In my opinion you should have a pretty good idea of what type of customer is most likely to purchase you item before you decide to purchase it. What I mean by that is, which marketplace is going to have the best chance of matching up your item for sale with customers that are most likely to buy it.

For example, take the duck figurine pictured at the start of this post. At first glance it looks like an ordinary ceramic figurine that you might find in any booth at an antique mall (which I did by the way) that you would likely see selling for $3-$8. It's attractive and was in mint condition with no flaws and would make a lovely addition to someones animal, bird or duck figurine collection. Now when I eyed this figurine I figured that it wasn't just a Japanese or Chinese export and picked it up to see what kind of mark if any it had on it. Well it turned out to be made by Richard Ginori of Italy which few dealers know is a maker of high quality dinnerware, porcelain figurines, lamps and other ceramic wares. The dealer selling obviously didn't know since the price was $5 when I bought it. After purchasing the item I could very easily have taken it over to my booth, made out a new tag and put it up for sale for $175 and it would have been a good deal for both me the seller and also the buyer since Ginori figurines are hard to come by and aren't cheap. Trouble was I knew that it likely would take a year or more for someone to walk into my booth and know anything about Richard Ginori figurines and buy the item. My booth just doesn't get that kind of customer browsing through it very often I figured. I knew that an item such as this needed to have the whole world as it's marketplace so Ebay was the place to sell it especially since the most likely buyer would be a European who was more familiar with the company and it's products. I listed it on Ebay and it sold for a handsome price and I had my money in less than 2 weeks. Ebay was the right marketplace to maximize my sale price and make a quick sale too.

Now if I had found a decent set of dishes with a mid range value in the $75-$200 they would have ended up in one of my booths. Most dishes are hard to get a good price for on Ebay due to the high cost of shipping involved and the customer really doesn't get the best opportunity to observe the condition of the whole set before bidding and there's always the added fear of breakage during shipping. With the exception of high end china or serving pieces that a buyer wants to add to their pattern I don't feel Ebay is the best place to sell dishes in quantity if you want to get the highest return. Ebay I feel is the best place to sell items that have a more limited group of potential buyers or you're selling an item such as sterling silverware or china or anything which is from a specific pattern and will be bought by someone who is actively searching for pieces in that pattern. Your goal is to place your item for sale where it will sell quickly and for a good price. You don't have to get the highest possible price as long as you're getting it fast enough. Velocity of sales is a an important factor in sales because inventory that isn't selling doesn't earn you anything and the expense of displaying or storing it cuts into your profit margin.

Items that I feel that are more suitable for antique booths are lower valued dishes, glassware, jewelry, coins, books, artwork, furniture, nostalgia type items, postcards, pottery, and generally bulky or heavy items that are expensive to ship. I hate to see someone pay $10 for a platter or planter or similar heavy item and then get hit with $15 for shipping. I know that with the cost of gas and the distance that some customers would have to travel to an antique mall or flea market it might make sense to go ahead and pay the high shipping for the item but as a general rule I won't sell an item that I feel the shipping will be higher than the sale price.

Items that I would sell on Ebay are more unique and rare and need to have a much larger area of potential buyers than those that drive through my town and love to browse antique malls as a way to pass the day or spend their weekends. Ebay gives you a whole world of possible buyers if they are currently in the market for what you are selling and take the time to search for it. Most experienced buyers know if they want to find specific items or out of the ordinary one's that it's easier to locate them on Ebay or on a website then hunting through an antique mall. Take advantage of that to maximize your sales potential.