Hey you! Yeah you, the one with the soon to be death pile if you don’t keep a handle on things! That was me, before it got overwhelming. Thinking I had it all under control and what not. (Lol, speaking of Whatnot, that was NOT a winner for us!) Anyway, ebay death piles in the reselling world can be beneficial or detrimental. They can be a backlog of inventory for tougher times when you can’t go sourcing, or they can begin to overtake your entire space when you take a quarterly break from selling online…(I may or may not be talking about myself here). So today, I’d like to enlighten my internet friends on how I am beginning to lessen the load of this death pile by using local auctions to offload some of the dead weight. Legooooo!
How I Got The Idea to Use Local Auctions to Reduce My ebay Death Piles
My in-laws turned me onto local auctions (and online auctions, which I didn’t even know were a thing!) years ago. I would scoop up all the sweet vintage deals to decorate my home with before I even knew reselling existed as a job option. Then, some time after that when I did begin reselling, I used them for finding hidden gems at great deals to flip on eBay or other online platforms.
Over time, I began collecting things not just for myself but also to sell. The pile grew but I was able to let more and more go once I discovered what value some of the items I’d picked up went for. It was a refreshing sense to find things for such awesome prices and the bidding war was always a fun thing to look forward to as well.
I never even thought about selling through them though, until my father-in-law mentioned that he takes stuff there on a regular basis when they clean out their home during decluttering days. A lightbulb went off and I was super stoked to have another way out of one of these current ebay death piles.
Auctions are funny. If you’ve ever watched any in person or online, it’s always the most random things that fetch better prices, so you never really know what to expect out of what’s on the table. But this comes down again to expanding your knowledge, because the more you know about reselling, the more you can purchase to flip for a profit.
Check Out: Think Fast and Make Your Reselling Career Last
Once I watched a handful of them online and looked back at previous sales to gain an understanding of what sold well there, I raided my hard goods area and packed up a bunch of boxes to take to them for the upcoming sales.
I included items that may sell good for the area as well (it is more rural than where I’m located), so things like vintage car parts or vintage farmhouse decor pieces. And also little things like extra vacuum parts or a pile of sticky notes that I know would be more difficult to sell on eBay with little profit, but may be an extra item for someone to add even for a dollar or two at the auction.
How Auctions Work
You see on eBay, those things will eventually sell to the right person, but after fees and shipping and all of the things that eBay likes to charge you for come out, the only benefit would be that it’s an extra sale even though the profit would likely be pennies.
At the auction, people can bid on multiple different lots, therefore placing small bids on a bunch of different things instead of just one piece. Then, whatever of our items sell, the auction house takes 25% and pays out in cash. I have no complaints!
They will send back to you whatever doesn’t sell, but from our experience thus far, we’ve only had about 5 items come back that we will relist online or donate as a loss. A lot of people may scoff at the higher percentage, since eBay takes around 13.5%. But that doesn’t include promotions or sale events or discounted shipping rates or expenses of shipping and packing materials, etc. etc. etc…
Some Positives of Local Auctions
Plus, the auction house takes care of the sale after you drop off the items initially. That means no picturing, no labeling, no packing or shipping or worrying about items breaking along their journey to the buyer. Auctions have an in-person pickup policy so the buyer comes straight there to load up their wins. Meaning we can simply drop off our items, wait for them to sell, and pickup the remaining non-sold items along with our cash. It’s a win, win if you ask me!
From the last two auctions alone, we’ve managed to accrue an extra $681 after fees. Mind you, this took place over one months time, from items that were stagnant in our eBay store or needed a refreshed listing. So instead of spending time and effort re-picturing, relisting, re-storing all of these things, we were able to let them go for a decent sized profit all at once with minimal effort!
Check Out Local Auctions Online to Reduce Those ebay Death Piles
If you haven’t checked out your local auctions in person or online, I highly suggest trying them out for snagging great pieces to flip or especially to reduce some of the ebay death piles you’re probably building up. As a reseller of all things, it’s hard not to build that quickly, as we do clean outs and removals and have a roster of people that call us for pickups now.
So, since the items are coming in faster, we need to continuously find ways to get them moved out faster as well, and local auction houses have been a huge help in that lately.
If you want to learn more about how offering a removal service can amp up your reselling game, check out this post on how we have now made reselling full circle in our lives. We found a way to offer pickups, donate or scrap what isn’t needed, and flip the rest. This allows us to keep our inventory expenses low while profiting some on the pickups as well.
Happy hunting! Remember to try not to hang onto items that are sitting stale in your store. It’s hard at times since it’s easy to get attached to a number you may want for something or if you really like a piece you’re trying to sell. Just remember that we are in the selling game and not the storage business! The faster you make flips, the more you have space to allow for new and improved inventory. Yay for sourcing!
Thank You For Reading How I’m Using Local Auctions To Mitigate My ebay Death Piles
I want to thank everyone who read today’s post about how to attack ebay death piles. Have you run into this issue before? Let me know in the comments.
