I Have a Secret

One of the things that's been bothering me all this time as I've transitioned into selling new, premium designer items is that I miss the quick petty cash I used to get from selling more inexpensive used clothing.  The less expensive the item, the easier it is to sell, which essentially amounted to quick pocket change when I first started out.  Now I actually have to worry about things not selling (not a SINGLE one of my items this week has bids), and while I have a pile of pre-owned clothes THIS high to sell I don't want that stuff to mix with my designer stuff.  It just feels weird to have my brother's two year old plaid J. Crew shorts mixed in with my brand new YSL sandals.  The other thing is that now everyone in my family knows about my eBay store and can find it through this blog, so I can't put things up for sale that they would give me crap about selling (like gifts I didn't like).

So.... I opened up another store!!  I haven't listed it anywhere, I don't track it nearly as closely and I don't plan on telling anyone about it so I can list as much crap as I want and not worry about:

1) My reputation being ruined by selling a pre-owned item that I disagree with the buyer about.  I'll be the first to admit my standards aren't super high when it comes to pre-owned clothing, and frankly perceptions vary so widely it's just bound to happen.

2) My mom wandering into my store and seeing that I'm selling the shirt she gave me for 99 cents.

The premise of my new store is that every auction starts at 99 cents, no matter what.  Do you guys remember how fun that was?  Anyway, I've already made $14, and it's looking like I'll close the week with some nice pocket cash for my troubles.  But sorry, I can't tell you where this store is or what it's called, because that would defeat the purpose.

Shhhh.... don't tell anyone.

In Case You Hadn't Noticed...

...I updated my sales figures in the header at the top of my blog entries.  I kept talking about what a good week last week was.  Here's how good it actually was - I had over $1100 in sales.

I keep waiting for the universe to strike me down or something.  Knock on wood for me.

Missed the Boat on the 300 Mark

So....  I was doing the math so I could update my earnings at the top of the page and I realized I missed the $300 mark entirely.... I'm actually now $20 from the $400, which is encouraging considering I have six or seven items listed (four of which are dresses).  Three of those items have more than 10 watchers each, which bodes well for my sales.

And speaking of watchers, I've been thinking about doing another watcher experiment.  I'm wondering what would happen if I displayed a counter on my items that told viewers how many watchers my item has.  I'm not even sure such a thing exists, but if it doesn't, I could always do it manually.  My thinking is that for really hot items with a Buy It Now price, knowing there are many other watchers might push people to throw their hat in the ring sooner OR might prompt them to use said Buy It Now price.  On the other hand, for items with very few watchers it might prompt buyers to think they'll be able to get the item for a really favorable price.

For those of you who are eBay buyers out there, what do you think of the idea??