croquetRecently I was preparing to pay for my one find at a yard sale, when another couple appeared onto the driveway. The husband asked the yard sale lady, “Do you have any croquet balls?”

She did not. I am not sure how common a question that is at yard sales. I do know that the National Croquet Center is located in my neck of the woods. So this could be asked more frequently here.

What ensued was a discussion about the inability to find only a few croquet balls without having to buy an entire croquet set. But it was the next turn in the conversation that really attracted my attention.

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love thriftI knew this thrifting trip was going to be good. I decided to go to the Goodwill store that is a few miles to the south of our house and very close to the beach. As I parked and headed into the store, I used my phone to checkin on Foursquare. As the app logged my checkin, it announced that I was now the “mayor” of the store. That makes two Goodwills that have me as mayor.

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A Rousing Weekend

May 20, 2013 — 3 Comments

Wow! Saturday and Sunday sales were fantastic. We have not had that kind of activity in a long, long time. From the time I awoke on Saturday morning until the final cha-ching of my phone when I went to bed on Sunday, we had 32 sales for a nice chunk of change.

This flurry ended on a bang. The same customer purchased two t-shirts for a total price of $70. I fell asleep with visions of sugarplums…wait, that’s another story. I did sleep well.

Why the increase? Certainly some of it is simply the right people saw my listings for what they wanted. On top of that a few other factors came into play.

1. Better Purchasing

I remember reading one ebayer’s blog (if I could remember who, I would give credit) a while back. They had taken a good look at their store and determined that they were running a dollar store online.

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Gone Thrifting #18

May 14, 2013 — 8 Comments

love thriftOn Saturday I finally made it to our nearby thrift store. Already on a tight time schedule, I was distracted by a few yard sales on the route I was taking. I’m glad I continued on the path to the thrift store. About thirty five minutes of shopping found some nice items. Below is a list of most of what I picked up.

With this post, I’m trying a new feature in my software. At the bottom of the article will be a picture gallery featuring one picture of an item from each of the major categories. I’m not sure if I will like it or not. Let me know what you think.

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24 hr thrift store

Yard Sale Adventure #1

May 11, 2013 — 1 Comment

yardsaleYard sales have not been the best sourcing places for us in the past. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good yard sale. When we lived in other parts of the country, we found great stuff on a regular basis at yard sales. South Florida is a little different.

Because our weather is warm year round, there is no yard sale season. That means that the same people have them over and over again. They continue trying to sell the same stuff that didn’t sell each month for the past eleven months.

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Our recent article on Storybook Knits was a hit. Thanks to The eBay Life Blog and Late Night Coffee for mentioning that article and sending folks this way.

It so happens that another line of women’s clothing has also proving to be profitable for us. Not as much as the Storybook Knits, but still our PayPal account grows. That brand is Quacker Factory. They have to get some credit just for the name. Some of their sweaters rival the Storybook Knits. They probably appeal to the same demographic. We have sold several of their items over the past month.

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no-shippingAccording to the website for the US Postal Service, there are restrictions for shipping items outside of the United States. I began looking at the list of prohibited items for some countries. I found the usual suspects of explosives, chemicals, animals, plants and human organs. No surprises there.

But I was surprised at some items that countries ban from being imported via the mail. Did you know that at least five European countries restrict the shipment of playing cards?  I would never have guessed that.  I’m not sure if that is due to some sort of casino influence or pinochle clubs that want only cards from their nations.

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The other night we braved a torrential rain to journey to an auction house for a weekly auction. On our way we were hoping that the rain would keep away those who might compete with us for what we wanted. But as the festivities began, it was standing room only. Oh, well.

We arrived early so that we could inspect the items we might want. In truth, we planned to go over one item only. There were other nice things, but I knew that I might have to spend most of our budget on that one item. We were after a set of Fitz and Floyd china. This set of about 70 pieces was from the Renaissance Peach line. They made the Renaissance line in more than 20 different colors. This set was made in 1975.

Fitz and Floyd Renaissance Peach China

Fitz and Floyd Renaissance Peach China

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Arabella

Arabella

Last week we shipped out a beautiful figurine which we had taken in to list for somebody else. As is our custom, we get half when an item sells for somebody else. So imagine our joy when we heard the cha-ching sound less than 24 hours after listing this figurine.

When I first examined this figurine, I was excited because it was such a nice piece. It was a Franklin Mint product and marked as a 75th Anniversary item. Both of those things pleased me.

As I researched the item, my excitement dwindled. The piece is named Arabella. That being the name of the first character in the first novel by Georgette Heyer. That sounded great but then I learned that Heyer was a romance novelist.

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