While we also fell way short of our goal of $4,000, we enjoyed being part of the Challenge.  It kept us going from week to week, and we learned what we need to do to improve our sales.  We would enjoy being part of the Challenge again next year, Gary, if you choose to continue it.  Best wishes to all in your sales adventures!  Thank you, Gary, for all we learned from you!   Kathy and Larry

Some things we learned….
It’s easier to buy things than to get them listed. In short enthusiasm can’t make up for a basic lack of time! We still have unlisted inventory from the summer even though a family emergency essentially kept us from buying from mid August through September. Since we do this part time weekends are often the only time we have for both buying and listing.

Mileage is a huge expense at least in the small town rural environment where we live. Our mileage expense for the challenge was 23% of our total sales – we were stunned to learn this. We were pretty sloppy about recording and deducting mileage last year and it’s clear now this is a mistake. Needless to say we’re paying much more attention to it now.

Our instincts for what sells well are pretty good and getting better all the time.

We enjoy doing this and we enjoy doing this together (this cannot be understated since we’re not really making any money at it yet!).

It was fun “meeting” the other challenge participants and following along as you worked towards your goals. Best of luck to everyone going forward. Gary, thanks for organizing the challenge and thanks again for sharing so much of what you know at Auction Rebel. We hope you’ll do it again next year!

Here’s how the final results look.

With a net profit of $10,847.95 for the five months, I obviously fell well short of my goal of $15,000 net profit.

Even though my final figure is well short of my $15,000 goal, I hope that the last five months have demonstrated garage sales, thrift shops, and book sales be a source of inventory for someone wanting to sell on eBay.

I’d like to thank everyone who took part this year. I hope in one fashion or another, you were able to learn something that will make your endeavors on eBay more profitable in the future.

The number of garage sales in Grand Forks the last few weeks has declined significantly resulting in a decreased number of listings. This smaller number of items found has also led to smaller dollar amounts in sales.

Because of this, last Saturday I chose to get up early and drive to Barnesville, Minnesota for their annual City Wide Garage Sale Extravaganza. It will likely turn out to be a good decision. I went to 54 garage sales in Barnesville. Those sales resulted in 40 new items that are currently listed on eBay.

If I had stayed in Grand Forks I would have gone to 14 fresh sales on Saturday. While it’s impossible to know what I might have bought, no regulars that I’ve talked to reported buying anything of any significance, so it’s unlikely I would have either.

All that said, here’s how things look at the end of week 20. You will notice that my mileage expense for last week was up significantly. That is due to the 220 mile round trip I made to Barnesville.

There are forty-one qualifying items listed on eBay this week. One is a re-list two people have asked me to list again. The other forty are all new items, most of which were purchased in Barnesville on Saturday. Here’s what they are:

• Audubon Society Birds Of North America videos – a re-list
• 2 vintage opaque lamp shades – paid $.50
• 5 Taste Of Home Recipe Annuals – paid $3.75
• Nyal Lullit aspirin tin – paid $3.00
• 7 California Raisin figures – paid $1.75
• Mark Of The Lion 3 volume set books – paid $1.50
• Newpointe 911 5 volume set books – paid $2.50
• 290 plastic canvas patterns in 3 ring binder – paid $5.00
• 88 plastic canvas magazines – paid $2.00
• 22 Decorative Crochet magazines – paid $5.50
• 1975 Reader’s Digest songbook – paid $1.00
• Neilsville Minnesota Centennial Book – paid $1.00
• 12 volume set 1949 Childcraft books – paid $20.00
• 15 Heritage Press books (each listed individually) – paid $40.00
• Tales Told In Holland – paid $1.00
• Little Pictures From Japan – paid $1.00
• Nursery Friends From France – paid $1.00
• Plastic canvas fashion doll living room furniture booklet – paid $.10
• Sunbonnet Sue All Through The Year – paid $.50
• Make A Quilt In A Day Log Cabin Pattern book – paid $.50
• Set of Royal Albert flower of the month cups and saucers – paid $20.00
• Aladdin alacite lamp – paid $1.00
• Creative Knitting Magazines – paid $2.50
• Knit ‘N Style magazines – paid $1.25
• Knitter’s magazines – paid $2.25
• Interweave Knits magazine – paid $.25

In addition, I purchased the following books for Amazon during the last week.

• Foundations For Healing – Paperback – paid $.50
• Foundations For Healing – hardcover – paid $.50
• Detoxification – paid $.25
• Occupation: Nazi Hunter – paid $.25
• Women’s Health – paid $.50
• Rapid Interpretation Of EKG’s – paid $.50
• Doyle Brunson’s Super System: A Course In Power Poker – paid $1.00
• Kids (cookbook) – paid $.50
• The Image Of God – Gender Models In Judaeo-Christian Tradition – paid $1.00
• Basic Infection Control For Health Care Providers – paid $.50
• Marketing And Selling Your Homemade Jewelry – paid $.50

 We wish everyone the best as we wrap up the 2008 Garage Sale Challenge.  Larry and Kathy

Due to my hospital stay I didn’t list anything until just recently. Although I did have a few sales from my ebay store, they were not challange related and don’t count. I will post new stats next week.  The challange is almost over, but I hope Gary does this again next year. I didn’t do very well with this challange, but I have learned so much and would like the opportunity to try again.  I will definately do somethings differently!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Rita

The seventeenth week of the Challenge saw an upswing in the number of garage sales in Grand Forks (probably due to summer winding down) which resulted in a dramatic increase in purchases and the number of listings for week 18. I had 42 qualifying items listed and they resulted in sales of $914.03. In addition, Amazon also did quite well bringing in $273.19 in book sales.

There were very few garages sales during week 18 because of the long Labor Day weekend and people wanting to get out of town. I did have a fair amount of luck at the thrift stores however, and between the thrift stores and a few garage sales I picked up 20 qualifying items that ended Sunday evening. Seventeen of the twenty items sold bringing in $451.78. Amazon sales for the week were a dismal $55.46. This was a result of my having to be gone most of the week and having to put Amazon on vacation for the majority of the week.

The figures for both weeks are shown below.

Although there were, once again, quite a few garage sales in town last week, I was gone for most of them so most of the items listed this week came from one auction sale I was able to attend. Between my auction purchases and a few thrift store finds there are currently 22 qualifying items listed this week on eBay. These won’t actually be live until later tonight, but here’s what they are:

• Seven 1930s Cosmopolitan magazines listed individually – I paid $2.00 each
• A 1953 Tournament of Roses Program – I paid $1.00 for this
• 1952 Tournament of Roses Review – I paid $1.00 for this
• A 1942 Delta Gamma song book – I paid $.25 for this
• October 1926 Kappa Sigma magazine – I paid $.25 for this
• 1922 University Of Illinois yearbook – I paid $2.00 for this
• 1919 Sterling Homes kit catalog – This was inside the 1922 yearbook – no cost
• Understanding the Human Body DVD set – I paid $5.00 for this
• 2 different Nyal aspirin tins – these were part of a group of 7 aspirin tins I paid a total of $2.00 for
• Velvetina face powder box – I paid $2.00 for this
• A Rosemeade mouse figurine – I paid $.25 for this
• World Of Warcraft strategy guide – I paid $.50 for this
• Boxed set of The Chronicles Of Narnia – I paid $5.00 for this (likely too much)
• Betty Crocker Dinner For Two cook book – I paid $.50
• 125 issues of The Civil War Times Illustrated – I paid $12.50 for these

In addition I bought the following books that were put on Amazon:

• Physiology Of Behavior – I paid $2.00
• Children Moving – I paid $2.00
• Geosystems – I paid $.50
• World Politics In The 21st Century – I paid $2.00