Buying Out a Yard Sale

It was stormy again last Friday, but there were thankfully a handful of yard sales on Saturday. One yard sale we went to had a ton of clothes that were exactly what I look for when I'm sourcing for resell. I wanted to buy everything, but each of the items were priced around $5 and up. I picked a few key pieces and paid $16 for them and asked the woman running the sale if she would be interested in doing a deal on whatever she had left at the end of the day. She told me to come back around 2 p.m. and we could work something out. I went to an ATM to reload and hit a couple more yard sales while I waited. When I went back, I was able to work out a deal to buy all of her clothing she had left for $150. There were a few really nice pieces that she didn't want to include in the deal, which was a little disappointing, but it still ended up being a great deal for me.

I brought all of the pieces home, and sorted through them. She had a lot of t-shirts that I was able to give to Mom for her projects, and I ended up with 84 great pieces for resell, including those I had purchased earlier for $16. This made each item $1.98. I also totaled up an estimated resell value for the haul based on what I thought each item would sell for. I was very conservative with this number because I wanted it to be realistic and know for sure if this had been a good move. I came to a value of $915, making this haul a $749 profit!

I'm always nervous when spending a ton of money on inventory, and yes, $150 is still a ton of money in my eyes! However, these are the moves that end up being my greatest successes. I could never have done anything like this a year ago, and it is so exciting that I've come so far in a year. I can't wait to see where my reselling journey takes me!

~*~ 

"If you don't love what you do, then you shouldn't do it." - Marcus Lemonis (The Profit)

~*~

Over and out. 

Rolling with the Punches

It has been a rough few weeks. I was rear-ended by a distracted driver at a red light when Mom and I were running errands a few weeks ago. We were both fine, but this was quite a shock to me. My car was totaled, but I was thankfully able to get a new (to me) one when I received money from my insurance company. I had a 2015 Ford Fiesta and was able to replace it with a 2017 Ford Fiesta with very low mileage. I like this car because it is compact and easy to drive. I often joke that driving my Mom's car is like driving a tank.

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In other news, my income from reselling nearly doubled in June. I've been putting a lot of effort into my Poshmark closet and I am definitely seeing results. I have also been exploring other sourcing opportunities as the weather has not allowed for many yard sales. It has been a very stormy summer! I discovered that the Salvation Army near me makes their color of the week $0.99 on Thursdays, so I have been making that my regular Thursday sourcing trip. I've been able to get about thirty more items each week this way.

One of my goals this summer was to get a routine down to amp up my productivity. This is what has been working for me lately...

Sunday = Take Photos
Monday = List
Tuesday = List
Wednesday = List
Thursday = Source Thrift Stores
Friday = Source Yard Sales (Weather permitting)
Saturday = Source Yard Sales (Weather permitting)
Sunday = It starts all over again with pictures!

My biggest hang up with reselling is taking pictures. I hate taking pictures, and I'm not ashamed to admit it! This is why I do all of my inventory for the week on Sunday. I make a day of it and get it all over with so I don't have to do again until the next week. I pick an audiobook to listen to, bring an exorbitant amount of drinks (water and tea), grab my tape measure and hide out in my room until all of the photos are finished. I include measurements in my photos because I find it easier than pulling the item to answer questions later.

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Speaking of audiobooks, I'm still enjoyed the app Scribd. As I mentioned in a previous post, the app has many bad reviews but I am still loving it. It's $8.99 a month and has unlimited books and audiobooks. The reason it has bad reviews is because it pauses your usage if it thinks you're reading too much. I have yet to hit that wall and am still very impressed with it, especially for the price. The only thing I don't like about it is the limited selection. This wouldn't even bother me that much, but it's annoying when they only have the first (or first few) books in a series and don't have the rest. Other than that it has five stars from me!

~*~

I read a comment on my Mom's blog, Frugal Workshop, this week that really bothered me. One of her readers commented that she was told that she was stealing from the government by using the library. As someone with aspirations to be a librarian and who genuinely loves the library, I would like to share this photo I found floating around Facebook.

This shows just a few reasons why libraries are still relevant today, and I wholeheartedly agree with all of them. I think libraries are also great for building communities, aiding college students, and fostering a love of reading in children. I often attend a monthly book club that is held at my local library and I've found that they offer many free resources such as coupon classes, computer classes, Zumba, resume building, etc.

~*~

"I'm in a tank, pal. Come and get me!" - Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls)

~*~

Over and out.

I Opened My Ebay Store!

I finally took the plunge! One of my goals for the summer is to really step up my Ebay game, so I finally signed up for an Ebay store subscription! Earlier this month, I dogsat for a good friend of mine while she was in Paris (Lucky!) for a little over a week, so I had to end all of my Ebay listings in favor of extending my handling time. This meant that when I returned home from dogsitting, I used up all of my free listings by reactivating the ones I ended. So...this was a good opportunity to go ahead and sign up for a store subscription and start getting a lot more listings each month. I chose the Premium store subscription because that is the level that I am trying to achieve this summer, and I didn't think that the Starter or Basic subscriptions would cover it.

I was still able to source while I was dogsitting. The sourcing was actually great because my friend lives in a a larger city than us and there were plenty of thrift stores and yard sales in the area. I've already gotten most of the clothing items listed, and my goal for this weekend and early next week is to get all of the hard goods listed. Some of my favorite finds included a large box of toys that I paid $10 for. This box included many action figures, and Disney Cars toys, etc. I also found my first Tory Burch item for $10! It was a pair of moccasins that were in very good condition, and they sold within less than an hour of listing them for $50!

My goal for June is to get my active listings up to 500, so I have been listing constantly for the past few days. I think as long as the yard sales are good to me, I should be able to meet this goal and I'm very excited about it! 

I watched a lot of YouTube videos while I was dogsitting, and I'm always inspired by other resellers' inventory systems, and they make me want to revamp my own. One thing that many of them do is put their items in plastic bags and write a SKU number on the bags. One seller mentioned that she buys 100ct. bread bags for less than $3 at Walmart and uses them. I think there would be several benefits in organizing my inventory this way, but I've ultimately decided that the cons outweigh the pros.

Pros: 

~I could fit more items in each bin.

~Shipping would be easier. 

Cons:

~TIME 

~It's just not necessary.

~The plastic bags are terrible for the environment. 

Ultimately, the first and last con really nixed the idea for me. Writing SKU numbers and putting my items in plastic bags would add too much time for each item. Also, the plastic bags are bad for the environment. I feel terrible when I leave my reusable grocery bags at home, I definitely don't want to be responsible for a ton of plastic bread bags floating around! In my current inventory system, I have a letter on each of my bins, and I put this letter at the end of the description in each listing. This system works well for me, and I really don't need to fix what isn't broken. 

Poshmark is still doing really well for me as I share my closet several times a day. It has quickly risen to be my second best platform, under Ebay. Mercari has been dead for me for a while. I've had about one sale a week on Mercari for the past couple months, whereas I was having a couple sales a day at one point. This is a total bummer, but I feel that Poshmark is picking up the slack, so I'm trying not to let it get me down. I've read other Mercari sellers' posts on Facebook mentioning slow sales, so perhaps it isn't just me. This is why I think it is so important to have my items cross posted and not rely on one platform for my business. 

~*~

Image Credit

I've been reading a really great series this month called Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire. It was recommend to me by my library friend who I dogsat for, and I can not stop listening to it. I really enjoy the writing style in this series, and it's been refreshing as I haven't been enjoying the books I've been reading lately. She recommended it to me because I enjoyed Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children so much, and I have to say that this series is actually better so far. 

~*~

Off to another week of listing! Fingers crossed that the yard sales aren't rained out this week!

~*~

“She was a story, not an epilogue.” ― Seanan McGuire (Every Heart a Doorway)

~*~ 

Over and out. 

St. John Yard Sale Weekend

It was a great yard sale weekend last weekend. As I mentioned in the last post, we hit a lot of duds the week before and I was feeling a little discouraged, but last week was much better! The very first yard sale we hit was very close to our home. I almost didn't go because it was so close to home and I wanted to hit the road and head into town. My mom convinced me to check it out, and I am super glad I did! I found seven St. John skirt suits! This is a brand I know about from watching States Place videos on YouTube. I paid $10 each for them, and I have them each listed on Ebay for $100 - $300 each depending on the quality. A couple of them were flawed, but I think I can still make a decent return on each of them.

The next yard sale we went to was a church yard sale. I love church yard sales because I always find really great stuff for awesome prices and this was no exception. One of the first things I found was a scanner! I've wanted one of these for a couple of years now, since I started Amazon FBA, but didn't want to pay a ton of money for one. I've already tested it, and it works great!

Some other finds from this yard sale included some clothing, a pair of shoes, a vintage Sesame Street Scrabble game, a Nintendo game, and some other odds and ends. Mom also picked up some things for her sewing projects. The best part is that we paid $14 for everything!! Church yard sales are the best!

~*~

Small reselling complaint: Mercari's shipping options haven't been working on Google Chrome this week, so cross posting has been a bit of a challenge. I know that Mercari's desktop version is new and that they are constantly updating and working on it, but I hope this glitch gets fixed soon!

In other news, I sold two bundles of three items each on Poshmark yesterday! I love these bundle sales because they are often filled with slow moving items that may not be worth the shipping by themselves unless the buyer really wants them. My sales were slow during the last week because I went without internet and didn't have any activity for a couple of days, but sales picked back up yesterday after having some activity in my store. It's amazing how inactivity can effect your sales. It doesn't seem to matter how many listings I have up. If I don't share or post new things every day, I don't get sales. Odd.

~*~

"Nice is different than good." -Into the Woods

~*~

Over and out.

Vintage Clothing Yard Sale Haul

I was able to go to yard sales on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the week before last. The weather was really nice and there were plenty of yard sales in my area. I wasn't expecting to find one on Thursday, but there was one open on my way home from class. I was able to pick up a couple of pieces of clothing and a steam cleaner for myself. We just purchased a steam cleaner for $100 at Lowe's because we really needed it, so of course I found this one for $5 right at the beginning of yard sale season. We always joke that whenever we purchase something for full price, we find a good coupon deal for it the next week, of course!

On Friday it seemed I was hitting many duds. Mom was working Friday, so I was only yard saling in our area. When she is off from work we usually venture out a little farther and find better stuff. I picked up a few pieces of clothing, including some jeans that I managed to get home, steam, photograph, and list, and it sold the next day! I've been trying to get my inventory photographed and listed the week (if not the day) I purchase it as not to build up a "death pile."

On Saturday, Mom and I went out to yard sales farther from home. We didn't have much better luck than I had the day before, but I was able to pick up a few things. We came upon a retirement home rummage sale and found several things. As we were browsing, two women came up to us and told us that all of the clothes were a quarter each and that when we got to the front we could make an offer and they would make a deal. They were very nice! We managed to find a few things and went up to the lady checking people out. As she was counting our items up, she was adding $2-$4 per item as she was counting. When we told her that the ladies on the floor told us the clothes were a quarter a piece, she was very skeptical and didn't believe us. After a little while of her miscalculating our purchases, I counted them out and paid. We ended up paying a little more for the items that we were comfortable with, but we were eager to get out of there. It's too bad one of the nice ladies on the floor wasn't checking people out!

The best yard sale we hit on Saturday had vintage clothing for $1 a piece. I picked up several coats, jackets, and some odd pieces I picked up to research later. I paid $10 for 8 items at this yard sale, one of the nicer coats was $2. I didn't research any of the brands while I was there, I decided that $1 wasn't too much of a risk, and if I sell one piece I will make my money back on the whole haul. I enjoy these unique pieces, and $1 was a great price. This is why I greatly prefer yard sales to thrift stores because I can often find interesting pieces for dirt cheap. These pieces would have been $10+ at a thrift store.

~*~

"Nice socks." - Neal Shusterman (Unwind)

~*~

Over and out.

Reselling Updates ~ Poshmark & Best Offer

A few days ago, I received an offer from Ebay for one hundred free auction-style listings. I always take advantage of these free listing offers from Ebay because I always use up my fifty listings every month. However, I receive this hundred free auctions offer every month and I have decided that I am not going to be using these anymore. The reason for this is that when my Ebay store is full of auctions,  I find that my daily sales drop significantly. Also, most auctions (at least in my experience) don't get any attention and rarely get bids. If they do get bids, it is usually just the one and it usually happens the first day of the auction so the buyer and seller have to wait until the end of the auction for the item to be purchased. I believe that most people shopping online do not want to wait for an auction to end to purchase their item. They also do not want to hit Buy It Now on auctions because the auction price is cheaper and they will feel like they overpaid. With this being said, I am only running auctions on particular items and not using these free auction offers.

Speaking of Ebay, I have also decided to take Best Offer off of my "bread and butter" items. As I've previously mentioned, I follow States Place on YouTube and Instagram and take most of her advise on how to run a successful Ebay store. Recently, she mentioned that she had taken Best Offer off of her listings and that it was one of the best things she had ever done for her store. I have been frustrated by the Best Offer feature on Ebay for a while now, so I have decided to give this a try as well. It has only been a couple of days, but I am pleased with the results so far. I will continue to update on this topic as I go.

States Place also has weekly webinars with a new topic each month. I purchased this month's batch of webinars because the topic is BOLO (Be on the look out!) brands, and I feel that more knowledge in this area is beneficial to me. So far, I have watched the dress and blouse webinars and I love watching them, however, I fear that the brands she is mentioning are not brands that I can find in my area. This makes sense though as she lives on the other side of the country. This information is still beneficial and if I ever do happen upon these brands, I will know that they are worth a grab!

~*~

Another YouTuber/Instagramer I have been following is Solange Mina. She focuses on Poshmark rather than Ebay and I have been able to gain some valuable information from watching her videos. From her I have learned the value of self-sharing on Poshmark rather than spending time sharing other people's closets. She tells her followers the importance of sharing your own closet constantly to gain sales. I have taken this advice to heart this week and have been using The Simple Posher to share my own closet multiple times a day especially at peak times (during parties). This has been working really well for me! I've had almost daily sales on Poshmark since I started aggressively sharing my own closet, and this is definitely something that I will continue and implement into my daily routine.

~*~

"If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle." - Lemony Snicket (The Bad Beginning)

~*~

Over and out.

Rainy Yard Sale Day

It was a very rainy weekend here. My class was canceled Friday, so I decided to go yard sale. Since I had a long essay to write for my Literature class, I wanted to hit all of the yard sales on Friday so I could focus on school work over the weekend. Several of the yard sales were canceled because of the rain, but I was still able to hit a few. (Of course I forgot my rain coat!)

The first yard sale I hit was a $5 fill a bag sale. The person holding the yard sale said that his grandmother had recently passed away and she was a collector/hoarder. There were a lot of vintage Disney items, and it was a really fun dig. I only picked up a few items because a lot of her stuff was really dirty and hadn't been stored properly. I did manage to pick up an Aladdin Micky Mouse lunch box, a Micky Mouse Etch-a-Sketch, a Sesame Street pillow case, a Raggedy Ann plate from the 60's, and a set of Star Wars cup lids. I paid $7 at this yard sale, $5 for a bag and $2 for the bag of Star Wars items. This wasn't anything super exciting, but it was a fun dig and I enjoy finding unique items like these.

At another yard sale, there was a large box of what I thought were sheets. As I was digging through them, the lady running the yard sale informed me that they were clown pants that her husband's father and grandfather used to go "clowning" in. I loved that she was using the word "clown" as a verb! They were all handmade with nice vintage fabric. There was a ton of fabric to each suit, and she only wanted a $1 a piece. I picked up three, that were not worn out, to recycle the fabric for Mom's sewing projects. This was a total win!

Part of the fun of yard sales is that I usually come out of each week with an interesting story. Even though I don't always find something awesome, going to yard sales is always an adventure.

~*~

"Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive not after he is dead" -F. Scot Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)

~*~

Over and out.

Tuesday Thrift Finds

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I don't have any classes on Tuesdays, so when Mom came home from work yesterday, we decided to go thrifting. At the first thrift store we went to, I found a coat for me that was half off at $2.50. I'm very picky about coats and jackets, so this was an exciting find for me. I also managed to pick up a couple of pairs of shoes. One pair was was $5 and the other was $3. I'm hoping to resell them for at least $30 each. We also found a couple of nice dish towels for Mom's sewing projects.

   

I found the next thrift store to be very picked over. We looked for a while, but only found a Mary Engelbreit bag that we wanted to add to our reusable shopping bag stash. I was going to check out with just the bag when I noticed a Louis Vuitton bag in the display shelf of the checkout counter. It had a $40 tag and was half off! So I paid $20 for my first Louis Vuitton find! Plus, the cashier looked at the Mary Engelbreit bag and said that an employee must have accidentally put it on the floor because they were using it to carry stuff around, and she gave it to us! This was a super thrift experience!

The last thrift store we went to was very crowded! I picked up another $5 pair of shoes similar to those in the first thrift store. I also picked up a Columbia purse, some fabric for Mom's sewing projects, and a Yankee Candle topper. Mom found this vintage Playskool Mail Box toy. As I've mentioned before, I am on a vintage toy kick right now and have been on the lookout for them. As she was shopping with the toy in her cart, she had TWO people try to get it from her. One was a man who followed her and was saying things like, "We shouldn't be buying all of this stuff. We should just put it all back." The other guy was trying to tell her that it was damaged and had parts missing. This thrift store was very crowded and the other shoppers were vulture-like!

~*~

I read a hack on Instagram that you can clean up a piece of clothing that has deodorant stains by scrubbing it with an inside out sock. I tried it on this prom dress and was very pleased with the results.

Before

After

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RIP Big Kitty
2006 - 2018

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"I have a masters degree in American literature. There's nothing I can't handle." - Ezra Fitz (Pretty Little Liars)

~*~

Over and out.

A $5 iPad & Cat Carrier Adventures

It’s been a fantastic week. I had my biggest flip yet, and I am super excited about it. I found these Tom Baker Doctor Who DVD’s at my area’s Salvation Army grand opening for $1-$2 a piece. I sold them all in a lot for $250 on Ebay! This is my biggest flip to date! I love sales like this because it excites me and gives me renewed vigor for reselling.

It’s warming up a little here. It was eighty degrees this weekend (despite it being February), and there were a couple of yard sales in my area. I went to one on Friday and found some great clothes and an iPad Mini for $5! The screen is shattered, but I ordered a $12 screen protector from Mercari to protect my hands while using it. When I got it charged up, it was activation locked. I was so glad it was Friday and I was able to go back to the yard sale on Saturday and ask the lady to unlock it. She was very nice about it and even helped make sure I could log into it and it would have no further problems. She also had brought more clothes out and I was able to pick up some more pieces.

This was a great find and I am so lucky to have gotten it. I’ve been wanting to try out an iPad for cross-posting and Poshmark sharing for a while to see if it is easier/faster, but haven’t yet been willing to drop a ton of money on it. This way, I’ll be able to try it and see if I like it and if I do, I can pay to have the screen replaced. If not, it doesn’t hurt to have a spare device around when a laptop or phone goes down. 

The clothes I got from this yard sale were really good also. She was charging only $1 a piece for them, and I was getting great brands, such as, LuLaRoe, Ann Taylor LOFT, and Lucky Brand. I’ve already sold three of the LuLaRoe pieces and pulled a profit on the entire haul, including the iPad! Many resellers on YouTube are saying that LuLaRoe is dying fast, and after some of the articles I’ve read about them I tend to agree, but these pieces were really good and $1 isn’t too much of a gamble. 

~*~

I finished The Great Gatsby for my Modern American Literature class. The ending was not at all what I was expecting. I knew a little bit about the characters from watching the movie in highschool, but I missed the second day of that, so I didn’t know everything that happened. I was sad by the fact that Daisy ended up not being a very good character. I thought she was one of the good guys, but I realized at the end that she was very shallow and this was disappointing. I’m glad to have it read though and all of the assignments on it are finished. My Lit class hasn’t even officially started yet, so I’m ahead of the game. 

~*~

I had to take my cats to the vet this week. We are fixing the boys so that they will stop tripling the population. I decided that it would be easier to take them on different days rather than trying to transport them together. So on Monday, I loaded up Polka Dot into a pet carrier that I either got at a yard sale or a thrift store, I don’t remember now. He was relatively calm as I was putting him in the car. Mom bought this calming spray on Amazon that I had doused the carrier in prior to putting him in it. About halfway out of my driveway (It’s about a half mile long), Polka Dot managed to UNZIP the carrier and climb out. The drive to the vet was about thirty minutes long, and I really didn’t want the cat to wander around my car in that time, so I was able to put the cat back in the carrier and make sure that he couldn’t unzip it again. I was talking to him and trying to keep him calm. It was evident at this point that the calming spray was doing nothing for him. 

About a third of the way to the vet, Polka Dot began ripping through the mesh on the side of the carrier. I was able to get him to stop this, but he quickly began doing it on the other side and broke free. I pulled over to the side of the road (I’m sure all the people behind me were very happy), and petted him to calm him down. I was going to go back home, afraid that he wouldn’t calm down and might run out of the car at the vet, but he was fine once he was out of the carrier and curled up in my passenger floor board (as far away from me as possible) (I told him I was sorry). Once I arrived at the vet, I went inside and asked for a carrier as my cat had Houdinied out of his and managed to get him inside. I was going to just carry him inside at this point, but there were large dogs barking all around the parking lot. 

Monday afternoon, I went to Petco to look at new cat carriers as the thrifted one was rendered useless by Houdini (Polka Dot’s official new nickname). As I still had to bring our other male cat, Dirty Nose (Mom named this bunch of cats), into the vet the next morning. I found this one for $35. It was the smallest they had which is perfect since we don’t cart our cats around very often, and I don’t want to have to store a large carrier. Plus it was pink! 

Tuesday morning, I put Dirty Nose in the new, hopefully Houdini proof, cat carrier. He was not happy, but this carrier was much sturdier and was able to withstand his abuse. I got him to the vet with little struggle. He did manage to destroy the table cloth I had placed under the cage in my passenger seat floor board by clawing it inside through the bars of the carrier. I had purchased the tablecloth this weekend, at the same yard sale with the iPad, for $1. I pick these up when I find them cheap enough for events such as this. I would much rather the cat destroy a $1 table cloth than the floorboard of my car. 

The moral of this story is to maybe not trust mesh cat carriers or at least ones from thrift stores. 

This week's victims:

RIP $5 Thrifted Cat Carrier

RIP $1 Yard Sale Table Cloth

~*~

I’m going to be spending the rest of this week and this weekend dog-sitting for a friend. She lives in a larger city than me, so I’m excited to thrift and yard sale in her area. I would normally have to drive an hour to get to her area on weekends to yard sale, so it’s nice to be that close for a change. 

Until next time. 

Over and Out.

Printer Struggles

Printy has failed me!

*sigh* My printer that has been struggling to print shipping labels for a few weeks now has finally thrown in the towel. It started with Poshmark labels. For some reason it seemed to struggle with them more that anything else, but now that the new semester has started it has become apparent to me that Printy wasn't going to print anything without a fight. I have a recycle bin filled with half printed labels and syllabuses to prove it.

After a quick google search for a cheap printer, I found Printy 2.0. It was $25, and I was able to pick it up at Walmart the same day. I don't pay a lot for printers because it seems that no matter how much I pay and how "nice" a printer is, they only seem to last a couple years at most. This one also has a scanner which I'm happy about. I wasn't looking for any frills, just something that would print labels and school assignments, but if it's included, why not?

So here's Printy 2.0....

R.I.P Printy

Over and out.

Exciting Poshmark Sale!

I had an exciting Poshmark sale this week. It was a bundle of six items! The bundle included several items that I'd had for a while including a Lilly Pulizer Coat and a Free People Dress. It's always nice to sell things that I've had a while. She also purchased several "bread and butter" pieces, and I was happy about that because it's almost better to sell these items in a bundle so that they are worth the shipping cost.

I've noticed a lot on Poshmark that buyers will bundle items and then send offers for half the price of the items, and it's easy to get discouraged by this. This sale really boosted my spirits on this matter. I have an automatic discount of 10% set on bundles, and I usually throw in a little extra discount for encouragement, and this buyer bought the whole six item bundle with no fuss over price. It was great!

In other news, Ebay sent me an offer for 50 free listing, so I've been working on getting those uploaded. I love Ebay's offers since I haven't purchased a store subscription yet. I can see doing that in the near future though.

Over and out.