The Risks of Buying and Selling on the Internet

I choose to ignore them.  No risk, no reward.  Basic financial theory.
More about this later.  Right now, I'm watching Spain v Holland and MAN is it exciting!

The Secret to Getting Designer Shoes Cheap

You guys all know I make a small profit on the shoes I sell online.  That's the business I'm in.  And as expensive as many of these shoes seem, most of my prices reflect a 70% discount, even after I've incorporated eBay fees and a small profit into the price.

I mentioned before in this post that there are a few very easy things you can do to get shoes at a steep discount.  Today I'm going to give you a real life example of how I got $900 shoes for $240.  I won't tell you which shoes, but let's just say it's a shoe that's been among my eBay items, either past or present.

I visit my secret supplier just about every other weekend.  Once there, I scout the shoe section for shoes in desirable - but most importantly - well known designer brands.  The place I visit generally has ongoing discounts as well as regular-price items (which are already discounted off the original retail price, but still not discounted enough).  Brands I look for include Louboutin (always on the lookout for red soles!), Blahnik, Choo, Gucci, Prada, Zanotti, and to a lesser extent Kate Spade, Tory Burch, and other contemporary non-premium designers.  Once in a while, an Alaia will catch my attention and I'll consider getting one (I have two in my stores right now), but as premium as Alaia shoes are most people who shop on eBay don't recognize the brand.

A few weeks back  I spotted one very desirable shoe in a good size still at regular price.  The shoe was $400, marked down from $900.  Still too expensive for me to resell, since I'd have to sell them for close to $500 - less than 50% off - to make a profit on eBay.  However, it was a shoe that I knew wouldn't last long, so I had to be willing to take a risk if I was going to let it go.  I also know that my secret supplier regularly gets good, discounted shoes in this brand, and that if I set this one free another one would come along shortly.  Finally, I also knew that, with the 4th of July coming up, a sale had to be just around the corner.

So I waited.  Bided my time, if you will.  Finally, about a week into my wait I received a coupon in my inbox for my secret supplier. 40% off for two days only.   I also received an invitation to participate in their 4th of July sale - 30% off your entire purchase.  Sadly I couldn't combine the two offers, but the emails did give me an idea for the time frame for purchasing my shoe.  At that point, I knew it was time to act BEFORE the hordes descended onto my secret supplier for the 30% off sale and discovered my previous shoes.  The day BEFORE the sales and the coupon period were about to start, I called the store and asked to speak to a Sales Associate I work with often.  I told her I wanted to come down that night and buy the shoe and could she please set it aside for me.  She agreed, of course, but let me know she could only hold it until the end of the day.

Now, since I frequent my secret supplier so often, I knew what would happen to my shoes once the store closed.  They would stay in a "hold" drawer behind the cash register overnight, and be put back on the racks first thing in the morning.  So at 11:01 - one minute after the store opened - on the day my coupon became valid I called the store again and asked if my shoes were still there.  They were, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this story.  I asked whether I could but them over the phone and use my coupon.  And of course, I could.  The fate of the shoes?  They came home with me, and lived happily ever after, for $240.

The End

5 Reasons Why I Don't Quit My Job and Become a Full Time Shopper

1) Stress.  In general, I stress about two things related to running my business.  The first is getting negative feedback and the second is being unable to sell things and winding up more in debt than I started.

2) Money.  At a whopping profit of - MAX - $500 a month (before taxes, and that's if I'm doing the numbers right), my family would starve to death.  It would help if eBay didn't charge such astronomical fees - or if Bonanzle traffic picked up a bit - but that's still only a small faction of what I make doing my full time job.

3) Energy.  I took the day off Thurs and Friday, and yesterday was a public holiday in the U.S., so I had 5 full days of tracking down ridiculously expensive crap for cheap, and as fun as that is, it's exhausting!!

4) Location.  I mentioned in a previous post that I'm here on a work visa.  It's a company-sponsored work visa.  And no, despite the fact that I've been here for a gagillion years and I'm probably as American as they come, I can't get a Green Card.  If I quit my full time job I'd have to pack up my stuff and move to Europe (where I can get hot shoes for cheap, but where supermarkets don't open on Sunday, so no thanks!) or Nicaragua (where I'd throw myself in front of the first oncoming ox-drawn cart I laid my eyes on).

5) Money.  Did I mention money?  My margin on the things I sell is not very high.  Typically I try to make between $15 and $50 on shoes and $10 to $20 on clothes, depending on how good a deal I got and how good a deal I can give the customer.  I don't like selling things that don't allow me to offer at least a 50% discount on retail, so that limits the margin or fee I can keep for myself.

As you can probably tell, after five days of shopping, hanging out online and spending a ton of time with my son, this list is my way of convincing myself becoming a full time retailer is a BAD idea.  I like my full time job, I really do, but I love the independance my side business provides.

Alright folks.  Back to work before my boss catches me blogging on the job.  Hope you all had as nice a weekend as I did!

I Love Happy Customers

My favorite customer Maria in her brand spankin' new Louboutin Declic 90's.

Just had to share! :)

Thinking Outside the Box

I have a creative side.  Those of you who know me know I like doing things that surprise people.  I don't like doing what everyone expects, and that can sometimes get irritating for people who don't like to color outside the lines.

I've been giving some thought to why some of my shoes haven't been selling as well as I would like.  I looked at the number of impressions they got (how many times they showed up in searches), I looked at the number of clicks they got, and calculated my "click-through" rate to see how many people who found my item in their search ended up clicking on it.

I came to three conclusions.  First, some of my items were not titled properly, and therefore not too many people found them.  Second, the price might not be attractive enough to make them want to click through and third, the pictures were not attractive enough to make them click through.  Well, number one and number three are an easy fix.  For number one I subscribed to Terapeak, an eBay research tool, to help me set a better title for my auctions.  For number three, I improved the quality of the pictures I'm posting in my gallery, but I also did this:

I'm using these for my gallery picture, hoping that they will stand out and make people curious, leading them to click through to the item description.  It's a risk, I realize, because some people may be put off by the "weird" gallery pictures, but at the same time I want my listings to reflect my personality.  I want them to be fun, not cookie cutter and boring.

What do you think?  Would you click through if you saw these in search results?

For the Love of All That's Holy, Don't Pay Retail!!

One of the questions I get most frequently from people who read my blog is "who is your secret supplier?"  What if I told you there's absolutely nothing special about my "secret supplier" and that if you wanted to you could get the same kinds of things I get for CHEAPER than my asking price?

The shoe in the picture is a Christian Louboutin Declic 90 mm in a black patent.  It retails for $675 at Saks, Barneys and Neiman Marcus.  These shoes sell out quickly and never go on sale.

A while back, when I first started buying designer shoes to resell on eBay and Bonanzle, a friend of a friend (let's call her Maria) contacted me about the first pair of Louboutins I had for sale.  They weren't what she was looking for, but she wondered whether I could help her find a black Louboutin pump with a relatively low heel for less than the retail price.

Without giving away trade secrets, I located the gorgeous pair you see here from a seller abroad, had them shipped over and then sold them to Maria for about $100 less than retail.  I've had them authenticated TWICE, with the same results - 100% authentic.  And I made money.  Not huge buckets of money, but a little money.  Best of all, I had a great time trying to figure out how on earth I was going to get the shoes that never go on sale, well, on sale.

The truth is I've developed a knack for hunting things down and figuring out a system to obtain a discount. Which got me to thinking.  What if my next venture were to write an e-book about how to get discounts on expensive items?  It's not an elaborate system, but it does take time and persistence.  Since you guys have been supporting me all this time, here are a few tips:

1) Sign up for the email list to Off 5th (Saks), Last Call (Neiman), Nordstrom Rack, and any other brand that you're a fan of.  The stores will then send you information about upcoming promotions, as well as coupon you can use to get even better prices on your purchases.  It doesn't matter if you don't live close to the outlets.  Most shops will allow you to buy things over the phone and ship them to you for a low fee.  Once you've identified an item you want, call around, use your discounts and buy your item for 75% off.  Woohoo!

2)  Check eBay, Bonanzle, and if you live in the United States, Craigslist!!  You can use this link here to search all of Craigs, and despite the fact that Craiglist encourages users to trade locally, you can still safely purchase things from willing sellers and protect yourself from fraud by using Paypal and a credit card to complete your purchase.  Have the seller send you an invoice through Paypal with a detailed description of the item you're purchasing.  If something goes wrong you have the option of filing a case through Paypal, or even better, requesting a chargeback through your credit card.

3) Hoard coupon codes.  Right now I'm sitting on coupon codes from Piperlime, Endless, Banana Republic, Neiman Marcus Direct and a few other online retailers.  Using these coupon codes will allow me to buy hard to find items that never hit the sales racks at a discount.

4) Email me! :)  I may not be able to help you find what you're looking for, but I'd be more than happy to give it a shot!

Five Things You Don't Know About Me

Some of you reading this blog know me in real life, but most of you don't.  Because of my interactions with other blogs, I've had a lot of new visitors lately, and this spurred the idea to write a more personal entry about who I am and why I do what I do.

Those of you who know me will have to forgive me if this is too elementary, but I'll try to throw in some obscure Elisa V facts in here as well!

Five Facts About Elisa V

1) I have lived in 4 countries in the last five years.  In 2005, my husband and I moved from Nicaragua to Barcelona to get our MBAs.  After Barcelona we moved to London, where I was offered a position with the company I work for now.  My company then transfered us to the U.S., where we've been living since April of last year.

2) I'm sure some of you are thinking - Nicaragua??  a) Where is that? and b) Why on earth was she living there?  Google can tell you where Nicaragua is, but only I can tell you that the reason we were there is that that's where we're from.  Both our families (or at least our parents) still live there.  However, my father's family migrated to Nicaragua from Italy during the late 1940's, which means that due to Italy's lenient citizenship rules, I'm also an Italian citizen.

3) Why on earth do you run around buying up stupidly expensive shoes to sell on eBay?  Debt.  We've accumulated a lot of debt and for the longest time my husband stayed home with our son.  Now he's working for an insurance company, but it's 100% commission.  Instead of complaining, I felt like I needed to do something to create a little extra cashflow.  This is what  I came up with!

4) I have a two year old son who on a daily basis threatens to obliterate my entire inventory of stupidly expensive shoes.  He also runs up to me when I'm trying to list an item or answer a buyer's question and slams my laptop shut on my fingers so I will pay attention to him.

5) My shoes size is 7.5.  I may have mentioned this before, but you may have noticed a lot of the shoes I'm selling hover around that size.  I think deep inside I have the secret hope that I will get to keep all the shoes.  They're so puurdy.

Have any other questions about me or what I do?  Let me know!  Comment moderation is on so if you want to post a comment but don't want others to read it use the form below and then ask me not to approve the comment.  I will happily oblige!