Month: February 2022

What are some places for you to get inventory to sell online?

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Inventory, Selling tips, Shopping tips, The Internet, Tips for the beginnerLeave a comment

When you start to sell items online, you will run across a question that could stump you—where can you go to find inventory?  Garage sales, estate sales and even auctions are popular ways to find inventory.  Here are some of the other places that you can go to find inventory:

Church sales are a good place to go because there will be a large amount for you to look at.  Not only that, but there will also be a wide variety of items that you will run across.  This type of sale is usually a fundraiser for something like a mission trip or do raise money to do something at the church, so there is a great chance that the price of the item will be low.

Goodwill is also a great place to go to find inventory.  Not only is there the regular store, but Goodwill also has outlet stores where you can buy it by the pound.  I can’t tell you how many deals I have bought there—it’s one of my favorite places to go.

Moving sales are a lot like going to a garage sale.  The main difference between the two is that a moving sale is where they are getting rid as much as possible so they can move and not take it with them.  There have been moving sales that I have attended where I have seen the seller even give items away.

Going out of business sales are probably overlooked by some.  I have bought everything from tools to sports jerseys and even home decorations at this type of sale, and I have also seen clothing racks, shelves and even light fixtures for sale.  Not only can you get items to sell online, but you can also get what you need to get organized while you sell.

This is a small sample of places that you can go to find inventory to sell online.  What are some of the places that you have gone too to find inventory?

What are a few tips for when you hold your own estate sale?

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn Estate Sales, Selling tipsLeave a comment

Whenever you start to buy vintage and collectible items at sales and antique malls, you will eventually come to the point where you will want to sell some of it off.  One of the ways that you can sell some of your items off is with an estate sale.  What are some things to remember when you hold one yourself?

Make sure that you have good traffic flow.  You will want the buyers that come out to look at their own pace, so keep items for sale to both the perimeter and the center of each room.  This way there will be enough room for a couple of people to stand and look at the items without holding up the rest of the shoppers.

Enlist some help.  Have several people at the sale so that they can help with everything from being the cashier to help load the heavy items.  I have seen people bring in some food for the people running the sale to go along with paying them a portion of the sales for them helping out.

Have a plan for the items that did not sell.  This could be donating the items to a local charity or secondhand store that takes donations.  Another thing that you could do is to set them off to the side and you can have items ready in case you have another sale down the road.

This is only a few of the tips for when you have your own estate sale.  What are some others that you have heard of?

How do you show an item’s size in photos when you are going to sell it online?

On By wisdomlaneantiquesIn PhotographyLeave a comment

When you start selling items online, you quickly realize how important a good description and good photos are.  Even though there are items that have standard sizes like trading cards or DVD’s, you will run across items that can have a deceiving size when you take photos of it.

When you come to list the item for sale online, you can go ahead and take some photos of items and hopefully not confuse people on how big the item is.  When taking photos, did you know that you can use other items in the photos to help show the true size of the item you are selling?

As you can see in the photo of the clock above, you would think the clock by New Haven would be pretty big.

With the next photo of the clock, you can get a better idea of how small the clock is when you include something like an apple.  When you see an apple, you automatically have a good reference to compare the clock to because of the fact that you automatically know about how big an apple is.

Another trick that you can do is to use a tape measure to show exactly how big an item is.  All you need to do is to show the tape measure next to the item—this will show exactly how tall the item is.

This is only a few tricks that you can use when you take photos of items that you are going to sell.  What tricks do you use?