how much would you pay for... (ebay)

[LadyFaile]

i'm thinking about starting to sell and buy things on ebay. it seems that a lot of people make a fair bit of extra money on ebay and find really good deals on things there also.

one thing is... my cat adores this one particular type of cat toy... plain felt mice. just felt and stuffing and a little tail, that's it. i've been buying them for years, he goes through them in a month or two so i was buying them in packages of 5 or 10 cause it's cheaper than individually, they're normally a buck a piece. problem is nobody sells them anymore! i can't find them anywhere. the only mice i can find have real fur or feathers (bleh!!) or else have fine strings or bells or something on them that he'd eat, or are made from other fabrics that just don't do it for him. felt is great cause they're super squishy so he can pick them up in his teeth and carry them around (he plays fetch), they're lighter than other fabric so he can throw them (he's got a good throw!) etc etc.
so i figure i can make some pretty cheap myself. then i realized hey if i can't find them neither can other people right so why don't i make a bunch and sell them on ebay? huzzah!
what would you guys pay for a pack of 5 or 10 plus shipping?


the other thing is... at work we got a really awesome deal on hot wheels (dinky cars) and we're selling them for 99 cents a piece (packaged). now i've had customers tell me "wow this one's rare i think it's worth $5/$10/a lot" or "i can never find this one for my collection" etc.
so what would you toy collectors pay for hot wheels, and are there particular ones that are worth a lot?
i know department stores are selling them for 3 or 4 bucks each these days so i was thinking i could buy a few rare ones and auction them off.
i don't think i could sell a whole bunch cause my boss'd freak if i were making profit off his merchandise but if i just picked out a few rare ones i'm sure he wouldn't care much

[Katt Fink]

I really couldn't tell you personally, but whenever I want to sell something I think I could get a few bucks for, I search all through and find an average price of what it's going for.. then I set my starting price a little lower so people will want to bid bid! If it's something that you couldn't find already on eBay to compare prices, then I am useless, lol. Good luck, I'm sure someone here will know.

[LadyFaile]

i don't even have an ebay account yet but i guess i can still do a product search without an account :dunce:
ah well this way if anyone posts i can at least figure out if enough people would be interested in even bidding before spending the money. i don't want to be stuck with a dozen hot wheels lol

[spehlbaund]

Well I'm not a hot wheels collector so I can't really say about that..

but I do have a cat so I would love to buy cat toys for her but I'm pretty frugal and on quite a low budget i guess compared to most people around here so I would probably pay no more than about $2.50 total price for 5 cat toys and $4 for 10... which is why i end up usually making/using cat toys from stuff gathered from around the house... um i guess this wasn't very helpful :P

[anthony11]

Do an advanced search and you can see what people have paid in the past. Also be careful to factor in ebay's listing and final value feeds, and the cut they take for paypal payments, too.

[spud]

my cat's favourite toy is a paper ball. It's made out of tissue paper and is really used for making pompoms or something crafty. Unfortunately they cost 75p each and he destroys it after a few hours and all that's left is a heap of shredded tissue. I save the balls out of roll on deoderants, and the widgets from tinned beer, but it's the tissue balls he really wants. Wish I could make them...

[PortableKitten]

I do ebay for a large part of my income and it is also alot of fun. The biggest pain is packing and shipping, but well worth it.

When you search for an item and the list comes up, look on the left side of the page and click on "completed items" for a good look at what similar items sold for.

The best thing you can do as far as the hot wheels go is google them and check several sites for the value of the particular car.
My son does star wars figures, micronauts and that sort of thing and makes a ton of money. His best sale was a micronaut in it's package that he got at a garage sale. He put it up on ebay after checking it out and got almost sixteen hundred dollars for it. It was some kind of one of a kind type thingie or something. He paid forty bucks for it!!

You will also find that if you do sell the mice, they may do good this month and not so good next month and then do great again another time. Just try putting them up at different times.

[anthony11]

I see pet stores selling painted paper towel cores as rodent chew toys for $10 -- what a racket!

[LadyFaile]

wow that's crazy :eek:

well thanks for all the tips folks. i have a day off coming up i think i'll cruise around ebay for a while and maybe set up my account and possibly go shopping for materials.

[anthony11]

Be sure to factor in their substantial cut of the proceeds, and the cost of listing items that don't sell. I've had good luck with Buy It Now as a seller, but in different categories people might not so readily pay a premium for that

[Tofu-N-Sprouts]

I sell my kids clothes and make a pretty fair bit of change doing that, even AFTER the crappy charges they keep adding and adding on...

I buy horse tack and equipment because it's cheaper and easier than driving all over creation looking for something as simple as a 5 3/4 broken snaffle bit... aggghhh :wall:

[anthony11]

I tried selling some clothes without much luck -- probably different with kids. I saw broken snaffle bits in Snohomish

[Tofu-N-Sprouts]

Cute little size 5 toddler girls Easter dresses with a matching hat? Hot sellers... Big Bucks name brand leather (sorry - leather) boots in teeny tiny baby sizes? Major Bucks...

It all depends what you have to sell...

I'd rather pay shipping than drive to Snohomish for one piece of a bridle, and last I knew they had no/limited Pony sizes anyway...

[LadyFaile]

hey i found out from someone at work that a customer got $13 for one of the hot wheels that are considered rare. nice eh?