Ebay Sales Improving – Is it an indication the economy is doing better?

I started selling on Ebay several years ago. When I started selling on Ebay the economy was thriving. (Anyone vaguely remember those days?) I started first selling some of my children’s outgrown clothes and toys. When I had sold all of our unwanted extras I started going to yard sales looking for good finds to put on Ebay. I had really good luck with vintage toys. Vintage is a very loose term on Ebay, often it is referred to items from the 1970s and 1980s. I came across a box of metal Transformers being sold for $10.00 at a yard sale. I went on to sell the Transformers in individual lots on Ebay and made a profit of several hundred dollars. I also had really good luck with older board games. As long as the board was in really good shape and all the pieces were there many of the older board games (again 1970s and 1980s) sold really well.

I was doing really well on Ebay until about two to three years ago. With cash being really tight in most households things have not been selling like they use to. When I initially started selling on Ebay I would often start my auctions at .99 cents and see them jump up very high within a few days. Now I start an auction at .99 cents and often the auction sells at .99 cents. The worst feeling in the world to put all your time in auction, take a chance, and lose money. After several discouraging auctions on Ebay I decided to hold off and wait to sell again when the economy picked up. Luckily for me I don’t have much money in the inventory I have on hand (most of it is stuff I bought at yard sales) and I have the storage to put it away for several years.

Last weekend I decided to test the waters to see if the Ebay auctions were improving in overall value and bidders. I placed five different auctions on Ebay, all ending on Sunday, in my opinion the best time to close a sale on Ebay. All of the auctions were vintage toys and they all started at .99 cents. The items that I was selling were from a larger lot of toys that I had bought several years ago. I had sold several of the toys and already made back my original money on the toys. So the items I was selling were all for pure profit. One of the auctions didn’t sell but several of them did and for more than the original starting price: .99 cents. The item that did the best was a Super Marios Nintendo Wallet the auction started at .99 cents and sold for $15.00. I was ecstatic to sell for $15.00! I know that it doesn’t seem like much but to have the type of interest I did; several people bidding on the one item, could mean people are starting to have a discretionary income to buy the little extras? I sure hope so. I will continue to test the waters and increase my overall number of auctions on Ebay. I am not confident enough to break out some of the bigger items I have been holding onto for two years, but I am hopefully that sooner rather than later Ebay will start to pick-up again.

Do you sell on Ebay? Do you have any observations to share about the changes over the last several years with selling and buying on Ebay?