Come in and stay awhile! Woof!

I have to admit that when I first saw the Disney "Club Penguin" merchandise at our local Toys R Us store, I didn't have a clue what it was! Turns out it's a virtual snow-covered world where kids can play online as a penguin. They can play games, chat with online friends (with safety features) and even learn a little bit along the way. There's also pet Puffles, which is one of the first items I saw in Toys R Us and thought "what the heck are those???"

So I began buying a few stuffed Puffles or characters here and there, and before I knew it my closet floor was crammed with this stuff! Time to get it on eBay and see if anyone needed them for their collection. I had accumulated all 7 colors of Puffles, and about a dozen or so of the plush characters. I also had several of the  mix 'n' match playsets and a few books. Yes, I went a little penguin crazy!

Just for fun, I actually created my own penguin on Club Penguin but I haven't played with it yet. It's bad enough that my daughter got me hooked on Toontown--I don't need another game (or as I call it, a guilty pleasure!)

Apparently Gary the Gadget guy is the hard one to find--if only I had known that when I first saw these! I might have been able to find one somewhere!

Spring--time for flowers, green grass, cleaning the garage (ugh!) and allergies. But things seem to be picking up a tiny, itsy-bitsy bit on eBay. Maybe it's the time change. Or tax refunds. Or hope for the future of the economy. Or too much allergy medicine...

I'm trying to get rid of the clutter that's been sitting on, under and around my desk for six months. Noritake dishes--I buy them up at estate sales and thrift stores for a song, and then they sit collecting dust until I have the time to list them. It takes a lot of time to do those types of listings. Same with clothes. It's easy when you are selling a brand-new item that you can find the precise info about on the internet. But when you are selling collectibles, or clothing, or antiques, etc, you have to take the time to describe every little detail, measurement, flaw...and then there's the extra time it takes to carefully pack the fragile items so that they won't be damaged during shipping. I double-box my dishes, even though it adds a lot of weight and thus, a higher shipping cost. But it's better to spend a few extra dollars to make sure something is protected than to have to go through an insurance claim and have an unhappy buyer. It's worth it in the long run.

Speaking of packing, I have been getting tons of packing materials for free lately. Retailers are putting out their Spring merchandise, and with that comes bags and bags of discarded bubble wrap, foam packing peanuts and boxes in every size. My favorite place to find these materials is our local craft stores (JoAnn's and Michaels) as well as Pier 1 Imports and World Market (great smelling boxes from candles and soaps!) Sometimes I have to find the store manager to ask permission to peek in their dumpsters--other stores just leave the materials outside the dumpsters for people like to me take and re-use. The only thing I have to buy anymore is clear packing tape and bubble mailers. And that saves a lot of money!

After months and months of anticipation, Auctiva Commerce Storefronts are finally here!

Well, they're not ALL here just yet, but given the enormous size of this project, it goes without saying that we're handling the roll-out with extra care.

It pains me to see so many Auctiva users having to wait for their invite to open a store. Hopefully they will appreciate the reason for the limited release, and that it will be a big plus in the long-run. If everyone who wanted a store was allowed to sign up on Day 1, the risk of having a site-wide crash would be huge. That's a risk that just couldn't be taken. Even though we've been trying out the software and working to fix bugs and glitches for months and months, there just isn't any way to know what would happen if 10,000 people tried to open their store at the same time. Better safe than sorry.

I've been a PowerSeller on eBay for 6+ years now (on my 10th year of selling,) and I am anxious to get away from their control and sell on other sites.

becki-test-store.auctivacommerce.com/default.aspx 

Call me crazy, but Black Friday is my most anticipated day of the year. I eagerly wait for the ads to get leaked online so that I can get a sneak peak at the awesome deals that will be available. Patience was never one of my strong points--at Christmas time, my brother and I would routinely search our house, sheds, our grandparent's house next door and their sheds, just to try and find gifts stashed away for X-mas...

Our parent's warned us to try not to ruin Christmas by finding the presents. I never felt like anything was ruined when we did find those Star Wars Light Sabers or my one and only Barbie doll. Acting has always been pretty easy for me, and I could act like I was seeing the Barbie for the very first time.

Now that I am a parent, I take extra measures to keep my daughter's gifts safe and secure until the big day (just in case she inherited my itch to snoop!)

See ya at 5am on Black Friday! HAPPY SHOPPING!

Add me to your Favorite Sellers

This is by far the most exciting time of the year for me! Stores are slashing prices and desperate for my $$! In this economy, though, I am not sure how well my items will do this holiday season. Previously, I could buy up tons and tons of discounted winter clothes, housewares, NFL/NBA merchandise, etc at a cost of about 75-90% off their original prices. Then I would store the items to resell in November and December and make quite a nice profit... this year is much different and people are not spending as much as they used to (probably because they don't have as much money these days!)

I've been trying to find all of my Halloween items that I purchased last year and was planning on selling on eBay this year. But, after moving this summer and still having half of my stuff in storage, it's proving to be pretty difficult to find everything! I hate moving! ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

Now it's out of my system.....I did manage to find my headstones, only because they were too large to pack into a box when we moved and they are just sitting on a shelf in my tiny garage. My husband was kind enough to dig through the boxes in our storage unit and found my tote full of my Halloween costumes. I like to dress up too when I take my daughter out, and she seems to like it too. This year--a gothic sorceress (is that how it's spelled?)