I know that some of you, my trusted shopper brethren, also know a thing or two about ebay. My sister has this idea that she is going to go into business selling kid's clothes that she would buy at a garage sale on ebay. She read in a book that it is a good business.

Does this sound viable to you? Also, does anyone know of a forum similar to this one for ebay sellers that I can consult?

Thank you.

Pony, I sold collectibles aggressively on Ebay for a year or so but I never sold clothing. When I wanted to know if an item would sell and how much it would bring, I researched it on Ebay. They have a feature that you can look at recent sales of a like item and find out the selling price. I don't remember the details of how to access that, but it was there and I found it very useful.

My thinking on selling kid's clothing is that nobody is going to buy one garment and pay shipping. It would probably have to be a "lot" to be successful, meaning several like items, for example a lot of Size 4 boys clothing. I would recommend she not jump in before taking a careful look at kids' clothing sales. A few days of research and watching auctions and sales on the site would be well spent.

My daughter sells children's clothing on Ebay. She started out by selling her own kids' clothes as they outgrew them. Then she started buying lots of baby and toddler clothing from yard sales and selling them on Ebay. But it got to be a pain for her to run around to yard sales on Saturday mornings so she started buying lots of kids' clothing from online liquidators and re-selling them.

She sells quite a bit of "pre-owned" kids' clothing in lots of at least 20+ pieces. She will sell clothing individually if it's a name brand item or special occasion/holiday outfit. She limits her inventory to clothing for the 5-and-under age group. She has quite a number of repeat customers on Ebay.

She did quite a bit of research before she plunged into this as a full-time business. She joined a community forum on Ebay that focused primarily on selling clothing. She read books, paid attention to kids' clothing trends, watched what sold and what didn't on Ebay. She continues to do all these things to keep her online business fresh and profitable.

One last thing - My daughter was the one who actually started me on mystery shopping but she stopped doing it when she realized that she didn't like all the driving in the city that she had to do. She much prefers selling on Ebay. Hope this helps your sister in some way.

Thank you for the responses. I told my sister that I thought going to garage sales would get real old real fast. I will pass on this info to her.

I sold many of my younger sister's outfits on ebay. I just sold them by the outfit, not lots. I sold at least half of what I posted, if not a little more.

However, there's one odd difference about my sisters' clothes...

My younger sister was *much* younger, and she was profoundly disabled. She stayed very, very small all of her 25 years. Also, her size changed very slowly throughout her lifetime. Therefore, we often bought her higher-end clothes, because she'd wear them for a very long time. Plus, because of her disability, they got extremely little wear. (She was non-ambulatory on her own.) So, unless she spit up on them or something, or unless it was something we really liked her in so she wore it a lot and therefore actually *did* wear it out, or unless there was accidental damage; the clothes remained like-new. Unlike most kids' clothes.

But anyway, I was rather surprised that I actually *did* sell so many of them so easily. I still have some that I'll be trying again with when the appropriate season rolls around.

But, I don't know that I'd go out garage sale-ing for clothes to ebay.

I've long thought about doing Mary's idea, though. Would you mind telling us how successful you were with that, Mary?

The other thing is, we have TONS of old stuff in our house. Because we're on the third generation of people who don't throw very many things away. Also, as I've mentioned before, this house is haunted. I've heard you can sometimes get more for items from a haunted house. Hee!

When I sold some of the stuff from our house before, I was so surprised at the things that sold, and what people paid for them. Just for the heck of it, I posted some old architectural catalogs from the 1970's. (Dad was a draftsman.) I sold them to different people, for the price of $10 (+/-) each! I got after Dad yet again about forgetting his cardboard apple-crate of old ham radio magazines out in the carport, where they got water-damaged, after we'd had them out at a yard sale. *sigh*

I used to sell on Ebay. Brand names can sell pretty well, such as:

Gymboree, Hanna Andersson, Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, Abercrombie & Fitch, Aeropostale, Hollister, UnderArmour, etc.

It's a lot of work, though, and sometimes not worth it. Good luck!

I used to buy a lot on eBay. I broke my habit a few years ago.

StormCloud Wrote:
>
> I've long thought about doing Mary's idea, though.
> Would you mind telling us how successful you were
> with that, Mary?
>

Storm, I sold very successfully. However, I found the time required to search out "treasure" was too much for me. Also, I don't like to pack and ship. I'd suggest you think about whether you want to handle that much paper work, posting up auctions, and packing and shipping. It takes a LOT of time to do that. If you already have what you want to sell, you're ahead of the game. I had a lot of things to sell but I ran through them in a hurry and then it was search and hope to find. I bought aggressively on line and at Goodwill and garage sales and estate sales and I finally threw in the towel on the whole deal. I had a bunch of collectible linens etc. left over and I gave them away rather than list them. One niece and a sis in law got a bunch of vintage tablecloths and another niece got a BIG bunch of collectible kitchen towels and Franciscan ware dishes. Also gave away a bunch of Revere Ware I collected for myself on line and then decided WTH is this stuff for, I don't cook anymore. I still have a lot of things to get rid of and I've been taking them to Manna which is a church charity in town. I have a lot of things still I could sell but I can make more money for my time with mystery shopping/auditing. Tell you anything?

Amen! Writing up good descriptions and taking clear pictures, packing and shipping. Incredibly time consuming. I have an entire attic full of Halloween stuff that I need to clear out. Buildings, people, etc. I will just put them on eBay in lots. Grab a box and what ever fits in it, is a lot. I need to think about getting the attic empty, so will just dump the stuff. I already donated the really big buildings to the library for their October silent auction, so got rid of about 20 pieces that way. Shipping would have been astronomical. Craigslist is out, don't want some creep showing up at the door.
When I put some collectable Halloween items on eBay before, it would take an entire afternoon to do the entire listing process for 4 items. I have been watching the sold listings and the items I have to sell are on average bringing anywhere from .10 to .50 on the dollar. Got to get rid of them though.

cindy,
You may want to see if your area has a Freecycle system. Just do a search on "freecycle" and the name of your city.

This is an online, local, system where neighbors offer items for free to neighbors, ususally having the items just picked up from the porch.

I do Freecycle. Got rid of a ton of planting pots and books last year. Now it just seems to be predominantly people wanting very high priced items for free. Like a car, working big screen TV, matching refrigerator and stove. I would like to make a few $$ out of the attic though. I'm home anyway, work is slow and it's too miserable to go outside. So I'll be taking pictures and listing. I can always donate the stuff to the D56 club for their door prizes if I don't sell it.

I used Freecycle extensively in NJ when I had to rid myself of a ton of stuff quickly b/c I sold my house (by owner!) and the buyers wanted a quick close. It was a wonderful experience. I met tons of nice people. I met two recent divorcees (like myself) who needed to furnish their new places. One I am still friends with on LinkedIn.
When I moved here to Illinois I was amazed at the difference in the freecyle clientele. In my (admittedly affluent) area in NJ it was almost all people giving but here it is mostly people wanting big ticket items. Hmmm, if only there were a way to match them up.
I haven't been on it recently so you may want to check the rules but you used to announce a "curb alert" and put stuff at your curb and people would come and get it.

there are computer programs that help you sell on ebay... its not an automated thing but it formats all the pictures and information for you

I have my own website of selling lolly gifts online. The clothing sale can be a good idea to use it as a business. But you have to ad your business properly. Otherwise it can be headache for you.

I am researching my sister's designer clothes and looking for the best outlet and found ebay sells brand labels like Chanel, Armani, etc. for the lowest price, then you have to ship them, not a fraction of what their worth.....I won't be using them any time soon. I'd rather keep them.