The turn £100.00 into £10.000.00+ by the end of 2010 official thread

Eyesparky

Is it just me or have all the charity shops seen the Mary Portas programme on TV and only taken the bit about increasing prices on board ... not the improve merchandise quality, store layout, design, window displays, staff moral and training etc? ... been to 8 shops today and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to some of the pricing considering the merchandise in question. One book that you can pick up for £5 brand new in a shop was listed up at £16.50 ... when I questioned the price (ie is this meant to say £1.65) I was told curtly that it was a business book and they can afford it ... beggars belief . Anyway, all interesting research along the way ... I have a much better idea where my charity donations will be going in future.

Not sure what it is like in other areas (be interesting to hear) but the quality of clothing at all of the shops I visited was really low. It is understandable that there will be less really good quality clothes hitting charity shops due to the recession and everyone being short of a bob or two and holding onto clothes longer ... but the vast majority I bumped into today, I would be embarrassed to give to a charity shop. They would have been cut up for rags or sent to recycling. Again the pricing was mad ... really poor quality men's work shirts beyond useful life (destroyed collars etc) priced at £15 when they would have been 3 for £15 brand new . I feel like I have been wandering around a different planet all morning.

Anyway, onwards and upwards ... there was one charity shop where they were very friendly, had a good selection of books for reading (not for selling on) so they will be getting my readable but unsalable books from now on. .

Amber_Sunshine

drinkupretty wrote: »

Me thinks maybe on or two are posting on here whilst at work! (I have never done this, honest! )

What, work? :rotfl:

mambury

spartan59 wrote: »

£38 back from BB, so £8 profit in the pot, also 5 out of 6 items selling on ebay £19.48 so far a couple of days still to push.

With the money back from BB still got £90 left from the £100.

Keep thinking of ideas but not sure they will make much return.

However heres a question, when starting an internet business where do you get your stock from and store it etc??? By this I mean if you need to offer a wide product range and also if it branded items. Rather than buying 1000 beer mats from china for example.

spartan,

Im looking to do the same. I have decided on roughly what I want to sell and then googled, and googled and googled.....
I have decided on some of my lines to start with and a few others that I would like to introduce at a later date.
I think the product range depends on what you are selling, for example, if you want to sell bath taps then yes you would need a large storage area for stock and offer quite a wide range of styles, however, if you were stocking certain types of car parts then you might not need so much space as some of the items would be special order.

I think the best advice I can give you at the moment is research.

JoeyGrey

Well I've had a very productive morning photographing 3 boxes of ebay stuff. Now to get it all listed ready to upload tonight. I've only sold 3 or 4 things in total on ebay before - I have 14 on there at the moment. I honestly would never ever have got round to this had it not been for this thread! I have 2 items that will sell tomorrow night, £4.95 so far but lots of watchers on one of them, so hoping it will increase.

Struggling a bit with postage, don't want to rip people off but worried I'll end up out of pocket. I keep thinking about what I look for when I'm buying things and that's helping me a bit, but it's a learning curve for sure.

I had another win at BB the other night, about 10 minutes after I posted on here saying I'd just realised I'd won a couple of nights previous to that! I hadn't won anything on there before and was seriously starting to wonder if everyone on here was having me on about their wins So anyone who hasn't won anything yet, keep plugging away, it'll happen!

Love this thread, like someone else said, it's the first thing I do when I get in from work - catch up on the 15 or so pages since the day before It really has helped me get my bum out of the chair and doing something positive, and it's starting to change my outlook on other things too. That's the power of group support!! Keep it up everyone.

copperjar

Eyesparky wrote: »

Is it just me or have all the charity shops seen the Mary Portas programme on TV and only taken the bit about increasing prices on board ... not the improve merchandise quality, store layout, design, window displays, staff moral and training etc? ... been to 8 shops today and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to some of the pricing considering the merchandise in question. One book that you can pick up for £5 brand new in a shop was listed up at £16.50 ... when I questioned the price (ie is this meant to say £1.65) I was told curtly that it was a business book and they can afford it ... beggars belief . Anyway, all interesting research along the way ... I have a much better idea where my charity donations will be going in future.

Not sure what it is like in other areas (be interesting to hear) but the quality of clothing at all of the shops I visited was really low. It is understandable that there will be less really good quality clothes hitting charity shops due to the recession and everyone being short of a bob or two and holding onto clothes longer ... but the vast majority I bumped into today, I would be embarrassed to give to a charity shop. They would have been cut up for rags or sent to recycling. Again the pricing was mad ... really poor quality men's work shirts beyond useful life (destroyed collars etc) priced at £15 when they would have been 3 for £15 brand new . I feel like I have been wandering around a different planet all morning.

Anyway, onwards and upwards ... there was one charity shop where they were very friendly, had a good selection of books for reading (not for selling on) so they will be getting my readable but unsalable books from now on. .

I was just about to post something similar. I've been round 5 charity shops today and I have to say, the prices are ridiculous! Anything that looks remotely saleable is behind a class cabinet - again big prices. I saw an 80s camera that looked pretty tatty on sale for £75! Crazy.

Its my first time round the charity shops. Had my lightbulb moment last night after weeks of research and have decided on my niche market :j So I trotted out to the charity shops and was very disappointed.

I did pick up a huge selection of lego though (not what I was looking for but it seemed too good to miss) - but on return to my house, have discovered that only about 1/3 of it is real lego - the rest unbranded. So I might be lucky to make my money back. Grrrrr

Eyesparky

copperjar wrote: »

I was just about to post something similar. I've been round 5 charity shops today and I have to say, the prices are ridiculous! Anything that looks remotely saleable is behind a class cabinet - again big prices. I saw an 80s camera that looked pretty tatty on sale for £75! Crazy.

Its my first time round the charity shops. Had my lightbulb moment last night after weeks of research and have decided on my niche market :j So I trotted out to the charity shops and was very disappointed.

I did pick up a huge selection of lego though (not what I was looking for but it seemed too good to miss) - but on return to my house, have discovered that only about 1/3 of it is real lego - the rest unbranded. So I might be lucky to make my money back. Grrrrr

Worth noting that stock does rotate a lot, so maybe next time there will be the odd thing to pick up.Pricing today had no connection to reality for me though. I often take books to charity shops and pick up some to read ... books do the rounds and the shop picks up £1 - £2 a time (they likely make multiples of the cover price over time ) and everyone is happy ... a bit like a library that earns the charity some money and has a better selection of more recent books than the local library seems to have. Most of the shops I went to have jumped their readable paperbacks up to £4 and £5 and rising ... undermines the whole rotation system. Many of them are to be had from Amazon retail at that price (let alone marketplace prices). Anyway, not a total write off as I improved my ice skating skills no end

skintbint_2

for those looking for the possibility of doing more paid work this site (found elsewhere of MSE) has nationwide opportunities,- National centre for Social Research
http://www.natcen.ac.uk/job-opportunities

hope helps somebody

Eyesparky

Bumped into this poem again, always makes me think ...

"I bargained with Life for a penny,
And life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store.
"For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why you must bear the task.
"I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid."

Keep on keeping on

moneymakestheworldgoround

Sounds like everyone is having a great morning ! If you can find your niche then great ! Halfway there.However if you cant find one, then dont worry too much. Sell your tat, sorry treasures, and see what sells well and which you get the most watchers for and most questions for etc...

car spares, ashtrays, wipers, wings, indicator stalks etc.. If you know people who are scrapping cars then go and raid it of all you can grab. I know many a person who has started selling cars on ebay and ended up selling spares as it was more lucrative. If you like cars you could consider spares, accessories, magazines, cleaning products, mats, novelty items etc

clothes - start selling yours and if you have the knack of writing a good listing and taking a good photo, then you can ask around and get clothes from friends and freecycle and jumble sales etc.. Obvious brands like Monsoon and Next sell all day long.

books - I sold a box set of Tom Sharpe books for £50 on amazon. It cost £2 from a charity shop. Total fluke, but I was selling all my old books at the time and just happened to buy some more as I loved not having to take photos and write the descriptions - lazy seller !!

brooches, jewellery - the old antique stuff sells well (even broken stuff -ask your charity shops to keep the stuff they wont sell) as does costume jewellery. I have someone locally who buys all my long necklaces from me, someone else buys all kiddie jewellery from me and someone else buys a coloured theme each month. If you can do a deal, you will get regular customers. My friend makes wooden items, used to go to car boots and sell them, but one guy kept buying, and then asked for info on what was coming next week, then asked for bespoke stuff, and now he buys 100% of what he makes.

Another friend buys old bikes from the tip and does them up
I made jewellery until I found I made more money buying beads and findings in bulk and then splitting them up into smaller lots.

games - as someone says old and new games are great sellers

All obvious stuff really. But my point is go with your passion. If you have kids and have old clothes to sell then you will happily answer questions on washability, ironing, true sizing etc... and you may find you are rather good at it. I love biographies and can sell them all day long at a boot fair because I can talk to customers about them. Dont worry too much about the highest profit margins because if you find some profit making items within your passion and knowledge, you will develop and expand the range and still be doing it a year later.

victoriaplum1

Well I made a start today as am a footie widow, and wow! I put a Bumbo seat on ebay with a BIT now price of £12 and sold it within hours (cost me £5 and my little one has used it for a while) and then I put my spare sofa in local paper via their online advertising for £60 and again sold and collected within 2 hours...also got £17.00 back via quidco for an unpaid dispute with AA that I had followed up so all in all pretty productive for not even leaving the house...thanks for this forum, think is the motivation I need! Btw totally agree re charity shops some are just plain greedy with the price, little independant ones are often cheapest wheras some of the chains (no names mentioned) charge stupid prices, £4.00 for a paperback for example....how can that be justified when you can get them 5 ofor £1 at a bootie, or for about £3 sometimes brand new from ASDA, all for giving to charity but if they keep overpricing they will price themselves out of market and doors will shut, esp as you can get new clothes so cheap elsewhere - Asda, Primark, Tesco etc, albeit not great quality but I think some of the charity shop managers either forget they are running a charity shop or have no idea about pricing.