A few months ago a good friend of my wife visited for the first time.
She, like my wife, is a stay at home mom.
After a few minutes of small talk she mentioned that she makes extra money by selling stuff on eBay that she buys at garage sales.
She said she makes a few hundred dollars a week doing this.
Seeing as how my wife was looking for something to do, my interest was piqued.
I had to find out if this was something that could be done as easily as she said it could be.
I had no clue what to look for but I had a very powerful friend...
my iPhone.
Armed with the eBay app for the iphone I hit the trail of garage sales that weekend.
That first weekend was slow going because it was new to me and I didn't really know what to look for even with my eBay app.
Even though I had no clue what to look for, I bought a few items that ended up netting me about $200 in profit.
How I search for items at garage sales By far the easiest way to search for items is using the eBay selling app on the iPhone.
However, the same can be completed by simply searching the completed items using any phone that has access to eBay.
What I do is look for is the name of the manufacturer and the model number of anything I find at a garage sale.
For instance, that first weekend I found an Abbeon Hydrometer that had the model number on it.
I did a quick search on completed items for 'Abbeon Hydrometer HBAT1433' and I found that two had sold in the past month for $39 and $75.
The person selling the item wanted $5.
I bought it and sold it 7 days later for $44.
After all my fees I ended up netting about $37.
Not bad for about 1/2 hours worth of work (5 minutes at garage sale, 5 minutes for photos, 10 minutes to create the listing and another 10 minutes packing and shipping it) The other way to search if you don't have a model number is by searching for what the item is.
For instance, I found a Waterford crystal dog at a garage sale.
A quick search for 'Waterford crystal dog' on eBay revealed that the actual name of the item was 'Waterford crystal retriever'.
I did a quick searched completed listing for 'Waterford crystal retriever' in which I found a few of the retrievers sold in the last few weeks for at least $50.
I ended up buying it for $20 and resold it for $56.
Another $30+ profit.
While those profits are nice, it's not uncommon for us to find items for $5-10 dollars that net us around or over $100.
A few of those items were a new set of Rosetta stone software (bought for $5, sold for $100), embroidery machine (bought for $10, sold for $120), Olympia led globe (bought for $5, sold for $107).
Almost every weekend we find an item that we clear nearly $100 dollar on it.
Not that my wife has taken over this as her 'job', she find items where she can at least make $15-$20 per item.
We have found that anything less than $15 is really not worth the trouble of listing it.
Do the math...
$15 - $20 x 10 items per week = $150 - $200 minimum per week.
It's pretty easy to get there.
Tips for items to buy Anything that has the original box will sell better than items that don't have the original box.
If an item does have a box, make sure the item that's in the box is that actual item.
I learned this the hard way.
Verify any electronic items work before buying.
Stay away from stuffed animals.
Don't buy really big things.
They're very hard to ship (e.
g.
guitars) Books don't sell very well (most can be bought now for $.
99 on amazon or eBay).
Only in rare cases is it worth it to buy them.
Look over items VERY carefully.
Small chips, scratches, etc can kill the value of an item.
Most people these days have a phone with web access that can easily be used to search on eBay before buying an item at a garage sale.
It's really simple to do and there is virtually zero competition.
Unless you count retired folks who like to hoard stuff at their house 'competition'.