SecondMoonshot

We went to the Gander & Gavel Auction Co. estate sale today in Wilson, NC. We got there a few minutes after 7:05am to get our number (13 and 14) for an 8am start, so a respectable attendance overall. Found a few items, although the Columbia Family Scale/60 lb was snatched pretty quick by the #1 person as the first item…one of the key items I was hoping to get. Got a few good items pictured which I will get listed this week on eBay. Got a large box of recent books, must have weighed 100 pounds and now hurt my back carrying it - buying it was shall we say…against my better judgement and donations should be for a portion of them. We’ll list some of them in smaller related lots and make a small (albeit painful) profit, but luckily it worked out…Zabrina was committed to make it work. Organization of the auction was OK, and Stephanie and Andrew, owners are very nice and accommodating people. If I’m not mistaken, retired Air Force….I met him early in the year doing an online auction durin...

Sometimes an estate sale falls into your lap, like the one yesterday. Turns out it was about 1000 feet behind my house on the street behind me. This was a Steve Minor estate sale and starting to do more of their sales. I’m usually an early riser, so I went over at 6:30 and got on the waiting list early for an 8am start and was #4 (Roy in the white hurst is usually #1 to whatever he goes to, but we have different interests, so not a competitive concern). Attendance was kind of low, so while not a lot of stuff, I liked most of what I picked. I’d call it better than average given the size. Zabrina has been begging me for a windmill to go into the yard, so happen to find this rustic 6’ tall vintage one for her. I found a set of Haviland The Valmont Pattern Limoges France set for a pretty good price and figured I would start to do more china replacement listings, so we will see how it goes. I should be able to sell these lower than any listings out there and still make a fair profit. Probab...

Last updated 8/3/2023 I am sitting at the car dealer getting some service done, so thought I would get another blog post done. I am at Porsche Southpoint in Durham, NC - great folks (hey Roy!). This is the only place I love coming to get car service done…other than paying the bill…but this is warranty work, so all good. For this blog post, I thought I would share some guidance or learnings related to shipping (primarily with eBay, but applies probably to all types of shipping). As I mentioned on the other post, still learning and I bet others (or you) have even more tips to share.  Note that I sell in a lot of categories so vintage anything, books, albums, China replacements, art and pictures, smalls, larges, etc. your category specialties may have different patterns. Let’s get started. 1. PirateShip.com When I can’t use eBay, I go to PirateShip.com. They don’t charge a subscription and just put in the size, weight and shipping info and it gets billed back to you. Pretty straight f...

Before I get started, it is best to qualify that I have only been doing eBay and online selling for a little over 7 months. So I am going to do a series on lessons learned / tips and tricks over that time and plans going forward. Every day I learn something new whether it is about eBay itself or learning about a new area of products. I will refer to this series as “What I Have Learned So Far”…for obvious reasons. Some of the things I learn are by mistake/error, some are unexpected buyer outcome/expectations and others by just having identified a new business need. This blog post will be specifically about the returns I have had over the last 7 months.  It is also worth noting that I am very gracious on returns, if someone doesn’t like it, for any reason whatsoever, I will offer them a full refund including shipping as well as pay for the return shipping should I want the item back. Normally, if an item is <$20 sale, then the return will just put more cost into the listing and I ...

Here are a few new moonshots taken by Zabrina during a nice waxing gibbous last night. 

Let me give out some history of how all this [SecondMoonshot] started, a small family business created by me and my partner, Zabrina. To begin with, from the age of 13 I have never not had a job, whether it be mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, short stint doing Sunday night DJ at a local radio station (well sorta, more an operator of pre-recorded content), pizzerias (more than a few), office supply and furniture clerk/manager/delivery, Family Dollar as assistant manager (while the manager blew coke in the office), sold Apple Macintosh’s at the Charleston Naval Station PX, and on and on. Much of this was to work my way through college, at which I was not a great student. It only took me 9 years to get my degree (with a probation and a couple DUIs thrown in). Once I graduated with a BS Computer Science degree, I did what we did back in the day, printed out 200 resume’s and sent them to every IT company in South Carolina and landed a job in the Healthcare IT space in 1990. Fast forward...

Welcome to the SecondMoonshot Blog and the first post. Over time I will be providing varying types of information such as eBay selling experiences, acquisitions for future postings, business plans, and general interests. Hopefully you will find this informative and occasionally entertaining. John