Estate Sale Haul of the weekend - Board Games and oher randoms.

I only stopped at one sale this weekend, and even though I usually like to shop on Sundays when deals are better, I only had time on Saturday to shop, and only time to stop at one sale.  Even though I was only out an hour, I found some fantastic stuff. Today, I'll show off the games that I was able to find.

First up - A full Monopoly Deluxe Edition set.  The box is a little beat up, but all the pieces are there!  I was recently quite surprised at the resale value of board games, it's not something I ever thought to look at before.  It currently sells for about $15, bought it for $2!

Next was an even cooler find, a semi-rare 1965 30th Anniversary Monopoly Set, found at the same sale.   Also $2, but can't find much history on sales price.  Once I clean up the box I'll have to list and roll the dice.

Also at $2, A Trivial Pursuit Master Game Genus Edition.  A little more common, and only resells for about $15.

This one is slightly game related, it's a 1978 1st Edition Scrabble Dictionary. $1 to buy, and it has no current listings. 

Trying it out at $15 to see of anyone has interest. 

Two random CD pickups, but both new in package.  $1 apiece.  Yanni sells for $8, and The Disney "It's a Small World" CD sell for $18 new.

Cinderella VHS new - paid $1, sells for $10.  (which is actually it's price tag price!)

VHS Tapes!  15 new tapes in one box, paid $1. Even with a best up outside wrapper, I'll be selling for $24.

I also grabbed a couple records for $1 to keep, all in all a pretty good trip for one estate sale.

Goodwill Outlet - Tips for Treasure Hunting

I just had my first experience with a Goodwill Outlet, and it's like no other store I've shopped at.

I've passed this sign many times before, but have never stopped in.  I had a little free time so I thought I'd go inside, with no knowledge of how the store worked.

Basically, the entire place is a giant warehouse, and almost everything is sold by the pound.

Workers were constantly bringing out pallets of new items, and people were lined up to dig through the contents.

Almost everything that was being brought out was clothes.  I asked a worker if there were any books or movies, and he said they bring out whatever the managers say, and today was all clothes.

 Even with that in mind, I still dug for 15 minutes and found some treasures.

First up, a Spongebob Squarepants Operation Game.  I've never really thought about hunting for board games much, besides older vintage ones.  It turns out that there's a decent sized market for older games, and there's currently one of these listed on Amazon for $50.  This one is a little ragged and taped shut, so we'll have to see if all of the pieces are there.

The only other finds were two unopened Disney VHS tapes, Peter Pan and The Jungle Book.  

You want to be careful when buying things that look new, but for these, the top label stickers are still secured.  The still sell new for around $10-$15.
 2 pounds of merchandise set me back $3.  No bad for a potential $60-$80 profit!  I was only in the store for 15 minutes, and from doing a little online research, it seems that the longer you stay in, the more product there is to hunt through.  Looking forward to checking it out again.

Weekend Haul Update - NOTHING!

I was out of town this weekend, and was only able to hit up one Garage Sale in Milwaukee.  It was probably the smallest Garage Sale I've ever shown up to, but it was a spot on the side of the road, so not too much time wasted!  Tonight is shipping night, two of my Amazon books sold, as well as one Super 8 film that I had listed on Etsy.  At least there was some activity over the weekend, just no new stock.

Goodwill, old books, and Amazon FBA

I'd never heard if Amazon FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) until this week, and it seems like an interesting way to diversify my selling. You're still selling through Amazon, but the neat part about it is you actually send your items to Amazon before they sell, and they store and ship them to the buyers for you. 

Remember these books from the garage sale? I used the Amazon Seller App to scan the barcodes and list them.  It took about 15 minutes in total to post 13 books.  These are now just listed on Amazon as regular listings.  If someone buys them, I print shipping labels and mail them like I would on an eBay sale.  The next step will be converting them to Amazon FBA orders.  I print out stickers for each one, and then ship one giant box to Amazon.  They then add them to their regular inventory, and handle the rest of the transaction.  The other great thing about using this method is that since the items are now in Amazon's warehouse, they can qualify for Prime shipping rates, and can also count towards a regular buyer's quota to get free shipping.  Are some of these items as fancy as other antiques and collectables I may find?  Not necessarily, but a lot of people have been using this program to streamline buying and selling cheaper things. 

I had set these starter books out at the garage sale to get rid of them for space reasons, at $1 a piece.  With the garage sale traffic, I was able to sell 2 whole books; not too great for the point of getting rid of them. 

In the time of posting the books last night to writing this, one of them has already sold for $29, not a bad start for 15 minutes of book scanning!  I think I'll test the waters with this by getting rid of things I don't need or want, like old books, CDs, and movies. 

With this new stuff in my brain, I was driving by a Goodwill with a little free time and stopped in.  Personally, I feel like Goodwill isn't the best place to find great deals, and they have a pretty streamlined process for taking expensive donations and marking them at what they're worth, or auctioning them on their own.  CDs were half price when I walked in, so I thought I'd test the new Amazon Selling app in the store and see if I could find anything quick that was worth money. 

First thing i found was an unopened audiobook of Mario Puzo's "The Family."  With a quick scan of the barcode I could see that a new copy sells for $25, and the cheapest used copy sells for $9.  I decided it was worth the $1 to buy!

The next odd thing I found in the CD section were three Pioneer CD Magazine Cartridges, mainly for a car where you could load 6 CDs inside, and then put the whole cartridge inside, having six CDs ready instead of one.  (yes kids, there were a lot of odd workarounds before music was on phones)
These were $1 each, and the cheapest they're selling on Amazon is $15.  It's the kind of thing that will never be produced again, and if you have a car that uses them (they were stock in BMW for a couple years) then you'll want a spare if they break.  Are any of these items going to be fast sellers?  Probably not, but the fact that I can buy them, post them, and get them out of my house is pretty cool.

From looking around online, the key to FBA success is to have a lot of merchandise posted. Some people will try to buy a bulk purchase of books or DVDs at a garage sale, and then scan them all and ship them, hoping to find a couple gems in the batch. Other use it to find clearance items in bulk at regular stores like Target and Walmart. Buying and selling new stuff doesn't appeal to me, but if this is successful, grabbing a large pile of books and sending them off may be worth trying, and letting the revenue trickle on as they're sold. 

Yard Sale dissapointments - When a Garage Sale is a bust.

July 4th weekend isn't known for great sales, and this one was no exception. I went to EstateSales.net (check it out if you haven't before) and found there were ZERO estate sales in the Metro Area. Not a single one!  I had two hours free on Sunday, and decided to head to craigslist for some end of day Garage Sale deals. Instead I found three sales that had already packed up before their end times. Each house I drove to was another sad waste of time. I finally made it to one sale that was open, but the items of interest were pretty sparse. It wa mostly car parts, but I did find two records that were decent.

At 50 cents apiece, you can't go wrong with a Disney Christmas record and "The Jazz Singer." 

The Disney record was in great shape, and was stored nicely, and looked like it hadn't even been played.

When I played it at home, I found out why: The songs are performed by Larry Groce, and doesn't contain a single Disney reference in the actual music. Nothing against Mr. Groce, but my daughter was bored 2 songs in. 

I'm surprised it's sold for anything, but when searching eBay's sold listings, it's sold between $2 and $10. I thought I was buying it to add to the Christmas collection, but it seems like I'll be posting it instead. 

I grabbed "The Jazz Singer" for the same reason as the Chrismtas album, I figured I'd add it to my own small record collection. As it turns out, this one is also worth some money, and in great shape. Also stored properly, and in Near Mint condition. 

I've never really sold records much before, mainly because I don't know much about them. 

It looks like this one sells for about $10-$25, which surprised me. I figured a lot of top selling albums wouldn't be worth much, and that the resale market would be flooded. It turns out that just like comics, condition is everything. 

Even though I spent 45 minutes driving between Yard Sales that didn't exist, I did walk away with 2 records. In total, I spent $1, with a potential profit of $12-$35. Still not the best day out shopping, but it could be worse.