Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Selling Items in Lots

I love to "lot" items together and sell them in one big group.  A few posts ago I talked about selling blank audio cassettes in lots, but there are many other items that turn a great profit when selling like items in one group.

Take DVDs for instance; during yard sale season (which is limited here in Southeastern PA) I can find children's DVDs for .50 to $1.00 each.  Last fall I found a woman selling her son's Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs. She had 5 of them at $1 each.  The next day I found another 4 Thomas the Tank DVDs for $4.  I listed all of them in one lot on eBay and quickly sold them for $49.99.  Nice profit for a $9 investment and an easy item to ship too!

Toys are one of my favorite things to sell, and I sell many toys in lots. Most recently I found a Madeline doll case that included 2 dolls and a bunch of clothing for $5. I considered breaking up the pieces and selling them separately; but honestly that's a lot of work.  So I decided to just sell everything together.  In 12 hours the lot sold for $69.99.  Hmm, maybe I should have priced it higher, but I was happy to get a great profit so quickly!

Here's the Madeline lot:

Dollhouse furniture is a really great item to sell in lots. It doesn't have to be Barbie or vintage.  This month I sold a huge lot of Dora the Explorer dollhouse furniture. Here's the listing.  It sold for $69.99; I bought the Dora Talking Dollhouse and all the furniture for $20. I still have the house, which I will sell on Craigslist; I also have another lot of furniture that was duplicates so I'll list that on eBay this week. 

Dollhouse furniture is easy to ship and usually a quick flip.  I look for Fisher Price Loving Family, Madeline, Calico Critters, Barbie, Dora the Explorer, vintage Little People and Little Tikes, which are fairly easy to find.  If you're at a live auction or an estate sale, try to find Strombecker, Tomy, Marx, Idea, Tootsie, Renwal, in addition to well made wooden or metal furniture.

Clothing items can bring great profits when sold in lots.  I sell my sons slim jeans once he outgrows them. This past fall I was able to get $50 for 4 pairs of Gap jeans that he had worn the previous school year. You can often find jeans at thrift stores or yard sales for low prices. Look for current styles in great condition and put them in a lot; just be sure they are all the same size to maximize your profit.

I've also sold a few lots of Littonware cookware. Littonware is made of a hard plastic that can be used in the conventional oven, convection oven or microwave. It's no longer made and has a big following. Here are 3 pieces that I sold for $58.99:


Selling in lots is lots of fun and can bring lots of profits.  Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Happy selling,
Jackie

3 comments:

  1. I am really liking your blog - you're doing a great job with it. Keep up the good work!

    ReplyDelete
  2. HI Linda, these are some great tips! I have often wondered about selling items in lots. I have a lot of 3 tops that are new with tags up now. We'll see how they do. Enjoying reading your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great article!! Sometimes I get stuck on trying to decided if I should list things individually or in lots. I think you're right on lots... it's less stress to just sell it all at once and so much easier!

    ReplyDelete