SecondMoonshot

How do I Price listings? First I have to admit that there is not really a specific strategy that applies to everything. Factors which play into it: Condition Presence of original packaging / box and its condition How much the shipping will be (I don’t do free shipping) Is it an exceptional listing that represents the brand? Emotional value (to me or Zabrina), do we want it for display in our house for a while? Rarity or saturation Past experience with item or category Comps Sales history (myself and other sellers) How many similar items like it do I have? First off, let me say that, the more I do this, the more that I am improving and find I can do more pricing with minimal or no lookup. Once I a price an item, it absolutely is not set in stone but fluid based on number of watchers over time; the cost I paid (which really only influences higher value pricing) is rarely an influencing factor as I look at the cost of a whole lot and not single items. So some items might just get my cost

I thought I would walk through an example of the numbers of an actual eBay sale which covers all fees and see what the actual profit was. In this example, it was a Vintage 1950s Smith Corona Sterling Typewriter . It sold for $126 and buyer paid a total of $156.81. An item I got at OMT Auction in wonderful condition, provenance, and buyer got a very fair deal. So lets look at the numbers: Buyer paid:                    $156.81       (Item $126.00, Shipping $20.55, Tax $10.26) eBay Fees:                     - $21.65      (Final value fee $16.94, insertion fee 0.30, and promotional fee $4.41) Actual shipping:          - $16.43 My cost:                         - $5.00         ( I got it for $5 or so at  auction) Shipping supplies:     - $2.00         (Ballpark, but bubble wrap, box, it was heavy item…roughly close) My time packing, etc.    (Priceless, so wont include that here as it will skew the numbers) Profit:                              $111.73 If it were an international order, there

I thought I would document what a typical week is like for me with SecondMoonshot. I’ll start with Monday and close with Sunday. This will be a live blog post and will update as I progress through the week of May 16th to 22nd, 2022. Monday Monday through Thursday are mostly days filled with posting new listing from purchases acquired over the weekend. I start the week with creating new listings on my iPad. I normally will have all the items filtered in the great room downstairs an sort between garbage, donate/yard sale and resale by Monday morning. Garbage goes in garbage, donate/yard sale goes in attic waiting for the next neighborhood yard sale, and resale goes into the office for new listings. Zabrina hates when I have the piles in the living room for too long so have to have everything moved by Sunday night.  Purchases will have come from One Man’s Treasure Auctions primarily, consignments I picked up the prior week, with an occasional estate sale or thrift store thrown in. I usual

I have a method for packing books which has served me well and also retains a cost effective aspect. It is more than simply taking the book and putting it into a bubble mailer, although that is certainly part of it. Boxes are expensive yet they provide maximum protection with the cardboard. I have come up with my method which combined a poly bubble mailer along with a cardboard front and back backing board as noted below. To date, I have had zero issues with this method and have shipped hundreds of books this way. International order will usually go ahead and go into a box as well as large format or books that will get insured. Anyway, here it is: 1. Wrap the book in a new sheet of wrapping paper. 2. Get 2 pieces of cardboard, the size of which will exceed the book edges on all size by approximately 1/2”.  3. Get my standard insert and put that on top of one of the cardboard backing boards 4. Place the wrapped book on the board centered and affix it to the board with a piece of tape on

Updated with a YouTube video of the process (refined a bit). One of the things I like to sell is original art and signed / numbered prints or any interesting print for that matter. I find that I can sometimes acquire them at a reasonable price as many resellers will shy away from these types of items as they require sometimes complex and careful packaging to ship and considered risky. I personally find that to be an opportunity and have gotten to a solid level of experience shipping pictures as large as 36” x 48” or even larger.  There are a couple things that I feel are key, first is that in order to keep the glass from breaking, you need to package the picture such that it has minimal flex in the final box. Second, layers are essential and normal medium to large pictures will have 4 layers of bubble wrap and cardboard on all sides. Of course, it is a good practice to always use corner protectors which are very easy to make yourself and I picked that up through YouTube.  My process is