Social Media Seller Program

I am so honored and excited to be a part of the Social Media Seller program!

Richard Brewer-Hay from the eBay Ink Blog announced the latest group of seller this past week.

Anne Zarraonandia: http://ebayinkblog.com/social-media-sellers/anne-zarraonandia/

Bobbi Miller: http://ebayinkblog.com/social-media-sellers/bobbi-miller/

Bryan Goodman: http://ebayinkblog.com/social-media-sellers/bryan-goodman/

Betsie Bolger: http://ebayinkblog.com/social-media-sellers/betsie-bolger/

Marsha Collier: http://ebayinkblog.com/social-media-sellers/marsha-collier/

What a fantastic group to be a part of!

Check out the eBay Ink blog!

30 Day eBay Challenge Complete- Did I Make the Goals? Read Here!

Can an eBay Trading Assistant/PowerSeller

Spend 3 hours a Day

For 30 Days

Listing at Least 300 Items

And Sell $3000 worth of STUFF?

Day 30

I did it! For the month of November I sold $3007, just squeeking by the $3000 goal for 30 days. I don’t know if I listed 300 things or not, my record keeping doesn’t show the total.

So to conclude the challenge. Yes, it is possible for an eBay Trading Assistant/PowerSeller to spend 3 hours a day for 30 days and sell at least $3000 worth of STUFF!

Stayed tuned for the next challenge, beginning shortly!

ANNE Z

Anne Z's Recycled Treasures on Facebook

Days 4 & 5 - My 30 Day eBay Challenge

Can an eBay Trading Assistant/PowerSeller

Spend 3 hours a Day

For 30 Days

Listing at Least 300 Items

And Sell $3000 worth of STUFF?

Days 4 & 5

11:05 AM Didn’t post yesterday. Sent out many packages.

Sold a couple more men’s silk ties: The Beatles and Jerry Garcia styles.

A new Nike Tennis Shirt, 2 new Warners BRAS, 2 Nerf Bow attachments. Again, quite an assortment of items.

Yesterday I put up a 4 day sale on eBay for 15% off fixed prices. Once that was up, I sold 2 different Cat in the Hat books. One was the English Spanish version of the classic The Cat in the Hat, the other was There is No Place Like Space. The buyer asked if Pluto was mentioned as a planet in this book. Yes, it does! SOLD!

I relisted some Christmas dinnerware. They went into my eBay store at a higher price than the $9.99 auction price with a Best Offer button.

YAHOO I sold an very interesting Door Knocker Ornament. Check out my sale price, you won’t believe it!

WOW! Just sold a Men’s NEW Ralph Lauren Polo Shirt, Vintage AIDA Opera book, both were on sale, but for great prices.

Recap from Day 4 of My 30 Day eBay Challenge:

Sales totaling of: $104.95, I listed 5 items.

Recap from Day 5 of My 30 Day eBay Challenge:

6 Sales totaling of: $222.18, I listed 17 items.

And the day isn’t over! Great day today!!!!

ANNE Z

Anne Z's Recycled Treasures on Facebook

Day 3 - My 30 Day eBay Challenge

Can an eBay Trading Assistant/PowerSeller

Spend 3 hours a Day

For 30 Days

Listing at Least 300 Items

And Sell $3000 worth of STUFF?

Day 3

10:17 AM Luke is still home but its a recovery day. Home schooling in session. He completed his Miwok game assignment. Halfway through his spelling assignment. Still on tap, reading and math facts. He will WANT to go back to school after I’m done with him today!

10:29AM Best Offer of $7.00 on a Classic 7Up glass!

11:00 AM The SF Giants World Series Parade is happening and we are watching on TV! Awesome achievement and the TORTURE is over at least for now! GO GIANTS!

11:30 AM I have 4 packages to ship out. Packing slips all ready. Not too tough to ship. There is one breakable Boy Scout ornament.

1:45PM Time to take a break. All the packages are ready to drop off at the Post Office.

Many auctions ended. Here are a few of the items that sold: Old Apple Powerbook-broken for parts, BMW Music CD sampler, Ceramic Bowl that reads “Got Milk?”, Powerbook docking station. Also sold a Men’s silk Holiday tie.

The best sale of the day is a HOMERUN: Used Bose Noise cancelling Headphones. Click here to see how much they went for!

Recap from Day 3 of My 30 Day eBay Challenge: 8 sales for a total of: $179.70, I listed 0 items. Need to catch up with listing tomorrow when Luke is back at school!

ANNE Z

Anne Z's Recycled Treasures on Facebook

Day 2 - My 30 Day eBay Challenge

Can an eBay Trading Assistant/PowerSeller

Spend 3 hours a Day

For 30 Days

Listing at Least 300 Items

And Sell $3000 worth of STUFF?

Day 2

9:34AM Luke is still home from school. I’d like to have him eat a piece of toast to test the waters so to speak. Not sure what I can get done today, but I’ll start with taking some photographs of things I want to put up on eBay today.

12:53PM Luke is now eating toast with no butter and drinking room temperature 7-Up. He’s running a low fever, but better. I still have not listed anything yet today. Doing lots of household stuff instead. I checked the tape from our intro shooting of the footage of the 30 eBay Challenge and it’s blank. I guess my brother Don took mixed them up and took the wrong one back home with him.

12:56PM Accepted a Best Offer for a spongy foam baseball bat. Sales today so far: $2.00! Yikes!

5:00PM I just finished listing 15 items, ranging from Steve Young football photographs to new Wonder Bras in various sizes to an old Chinese Vase and a tool set. Talk about a variety of stuff!

One fun item just sold at auction, a sheet of 4 unused Vintage Apple Computer stickers for $15.50! Wow, they were tucked away under the front page of an old manual. Good thing I looked inside to find it!

Other auction sales today: Wilson Titanium tennis racket sold for $9.99, Electronic Drumsticks from Restoration Hardware sold for $9.99.

Recap from Day 2 of My 30 Day eBay Challenge: 3 sales for a total of: $21.98, listed 15 items.

Quite a variety of types of items, that is for sure!

ANNE Z

Anne Z's Recycled Treasures on Facebook

Day 1 - My 30 Day eBay Challenge

Can an eBay Trading Assistant/PowerSeller

Spend 3 hours a Day

For 30 Days

Listing at Least 300 Items

And Sell $3000 worth of STUFF?

Day 1

First set back, Luke my 9 year old is home sick. It’s either a bit of stomach flu or a little too much Halloween. The excitement of the weekend is over, but now I have a sick boy on the coach in the living room. Hope he feels better soon!

8:37AM I have sold 3 Nike T-shirts @ $15 each with Best Offer. Just accepted another Best Offer on a Christmas Relish Tray for $20. $65 so far this morning. $3000 doesn’t seem so daunting right at this moment.

I have 6 things to package and ship today. They range from an autographed Tennis Shoe from US tennis star Bettanie Mattek to a collectible bone china Tea Cup by Aynsley. Also sold a giant set of The Littlest Pet Shop toys and game that belonged to my niece Angela. I’ll be splitting the profits with her! I know she’ll be happy to start adding money towards her Washington DC trip next spring!

10:10AM Received another Best Offer, this time for $10 for a wireless HP computer keyboard. Still have 2 more packages to ship. Luke is finally asleep after a few more bouts to the toilet.

11:30AM Finished the last label for the last paid item. Luke is still throwing up. It’s not going to be a productive listing day. I want to give him some 7-Up, but we’ll see if it stays down. I am out of tape, bubble wrap, peanuts, and printer paper, but I have lots of boxes. I need to switch gears and get ready for my The Basics of Selling on eBay class tonight. I have internet and a projector for the computer.

1:36 PM Received another Best Offer on a Halloween Pumpkin Spice Scented Candle.

I’ll take it! Getting package ready to hand off to the Postman as he drives by. Up to $79.99 in sales so far today. A couple of auctions end today.

6:15PM Getting ready to teach my eBay class. Looking forward to a small group! Should be a blast! Talking eBay!!!!

9:45PM Only one student for the class, but a really nice gal from Tiburon. She’s excited to begin selling.

Day One Recap: 2 additional auctions ended at $9.99 each plus $79.99 in Best Offers. Total sales: $99.97. Good day! No listings because of sick boy home from school. Shooting for getting lots of listing done on Tuesday! Stay tuned.

2 Day Countdown to Begin 30 Day eBay Challenge

I listed some of the Disney mugs today. More going up over the weekend. Sales were slow again today. I did get a good price however, on a used Youth Aluminum Bat. Click here to see how much it sold for. Purchase price: $4.49 at the Goodwill in San Rafael.

I love looking for used Sporting Goods equipment, especially wooden or vintage tennis rackets. As a tennis pro, I always had extra rackets and lots of old tennis balls. I have sold DEAD tennis balls on eBay for years. Here’s the link to the box of 50 dead tennis balls I sold yesterday on eBay. July was a really big month for selling dead, used tennis balls. I figure I sold around 1000 total, all in boxes of 50. People love to buy them for their dogs to play fetch with at the park.

As I get ready for the 30 Day eBay Challenge that begins on November 1st, I am planning my listing strategy. Things new in boxes, higher priced items, Holiday themed items are 3 important considerations if I want to get to the $3000 sale mark.

Another area, where I have lots of STUFF is Barbra Streisand memorabilia. It was announced that Barbra is going to be on Oprah, November 16th, 2010. Barbra will be plugging her new architectural book as well as the upcoming Focker movie. She is supposed to sing a song as well. In the days when I had The i love barbra Catalog, mail order was the only game in town. I printed 200 copies a week, collated, folded, stapled and stamped each one. There was no eBay and Streisand memorabilia was hard to come by. I sold items to fans worldwide. Now with eBay, many of the same fans, are downsizing collections and the Streisand memorabilia is readily available. There are 11, 873 items when you search on “Streisand” today. I make a note to list as much as I can this November to take advantage of Barbra’s appearances and projects!

3 Day Countdown to Begin 30 Day eBay Challenge

Whew-I just finished packing up stuff I sold on eBay from last night and this morning!

It took me two hours! At least I can listen to the eBay Radio Archives while printing packing slips and labels. Even though it’s time consuming, I don’t miss the days of standing in line at the Post Office. I use eBay shipping, FedEx home/ground delivery and Endicia for Mac. (Sign up for a free 30 day trial at www.endicia.com and make sure to enter my account number (705181) as the Promotional Code. Print domestic and international postage straight from your home computer. Perfect companion for eBay sellers. )

I print anything from First Class Mail to Flat Rate Medium size and all my International shipping too. The customs forms print right on the labels Very cool! Many folks like the ease of Stamps.com, but it won’t work if you have a Mac. I cut and paste the tracking numbers from FedEx into eBay and Paypal so the buyer knows when to expect their items. FedEx billing connects to my American Express card, so I get an extra 5% discount at the end of the month.

I took a bunch of photos of some Disney mugs today and in the middle of shooting I got an offer on some Porcelain Bone China Thimbles listed in my eBay store. The gal wanted 20 of them and offered $5.50 a piece! SCORE! This past summer I bought a whole lot of these thimbles for less than $1 each. Now they are all packed up and I’m heading out to drop off my USPS packages. How great is it that the PO is on the way to my son’s school? Not to mention the new Whole Foods in Mill Valley in the same shopping area!

3 days until we start the 30 Day eBay challenge. I’m getting things lined up and ready to list. I have lots of Christmas plates, dinnerwear and glasses that hopefully will be popular this holiday season. Here is a Pine Cone mug I sold last week from The Cellar at Macy’s.

4 Day Countdown to Begin 30 Day eBay Challenge

Today’s big event didn’t have anything to do with eBay. My son stayed home from school with a sore throat. His mild illness didn’t stop him from calling my name as many times as one could count on both hands and feet! I told him that from 12 noon to 1pm I was going to be unavailable. I took part in a webinar about Sourcing Products That Sell, with Lisa Suttora and Lynn Dralle. Luke was pretty good and only came in twice during that phone call.

The webinar was awesome! I follow many people in the eBay and online selling world, trying to pick up tips whenever I can from successful folks. Anyone who knows me now-adays, knows I mention The Queen of Auctions almost daily. I met Lynn Dralle at our Bay Area eBay Seller’s Meet-Up Group right before eBay on Location in San Jose this past September. She is such a hoot! Very driven and inspiring and quite approachable. You have to check her eBay store out! She has 4,948 items in her store as I write this. I have only a meesily 873! I better get cracking to catch up!

I had an earlier opportunity to talk with Lynn by phone last Spring. Actually I WON a 20 minute phone consultation by submitting my short video on Tips I Learned from The Queen of Auctions, otherwise known as “The Wackiest Thing I Ever Sold on eBay”. If you haven’t seen this video yet, you just won’t believe what I once sold. That was way back in the early days of eBay and it helped make me the eBay fanatic I am today! Here is the YouTube link to that short video! Listen carefully to the soundtrack playing in the background to give you a hint!

It’s been a slow day for my sales today on eBay. I am hoping they pick up if I start listing more items. I did sell a fondue set, click here to see for how much! I sold this for my sister who moved and is downsizing. My commission as a trading assistant is 50/50%. She’s happy to see a little cash, unload some household items, and I am happy to help. More about my ebay Trading Assistant selling in future posts!

I also sold a Pokeman hand towel! I sold this for another friend, so it didn’t cost me anything up front to buy.

My brother Don and I have been getting our outline/script ready for the filming of the 30 Day eBay Challenge documentary. It should be fun. I’ll keep you posted.

Back to the sick boy. We had one errand to do today, so the Jamba Juice I bought for him should make him feel a little better.

5 Day Countdown to Begin 30 Day eBay Challenge

My name is Anne Z. I am an eBay PowerSeller as well as eBay Trading Assistant

and eBay Education Specialist. I love eBay. I have been on eBay since July 1, 1998.

People ask me all the time how much time I spend on eBay. My answer: 2-3 hours a day.

The next most common question is what do I sell on eBay? My answer: everything.

I've sold dead tennis balls (I'm a retired tennis pro), I've sold little girls' Ice Skating Dresses, and Starbucks Coffee Mugs, Antiques and collectibles, as well as books, playing cards,

Rubber Stamps, umbrellas, men's silk ties, Disney collectibles.......You get the picture, everything. I sell for myself and I sell for others as well.

Since reaching the PowerSeller status this past spring, I've wondered what it would take

to break through to a new high.

So my 30 day challenge which will officially begin November 1, 2010 is this:

Can an eBay Trading Assistant/PowerSeller spend no more than 3 hours a day on eBay for 30 days, list at least 300 items and sell more than $3000 worth of "stuff"? Oh, and get 30,000 hits or pages watches for those items!

This blog will follow this 30 day experiment. I will report what sells in a day, what fun things I've listed in a day, eBay scores and homeruns (things that make big profits), etc.

And did I forget to mention, this 30 day eBay challenge will be filmed for a short documentary on my progress during the next month.

Will it be easy? Not sure. I currently have an eBay store: Anne Z's Recycled Treasures with over 800 items in it. My goal for the past period of time is to try and list at least 10 items a day, so the goal of listing 300 items in a month will be right where I want to be. As a competitive person, I will try of course to break that number and shoot for more!

I also, have not up to now, broken through the $3000/month sales number. That will be an important goal as well. I am a one-person show. I take all my own photos, write all my own descriptions and do all the packing and shipping. I'm getting close to hiring some help. It's getting a bit tough to complete all the things I have to do for eBay by myself.

I am a stay at home MOM, also known as SAHM. I take Twinkles the Jack Russell Terrier for a walk everyday at noon. I have to help my 9 year old son Luke, with his homework. You get the picture, normal mom stuff and duties like laundry and cooking is a priority over eBay. But selling stuff and getting money deposited into PayPal is a sweet incentive!

Please follow my day to day trials and tribulations and ask others who enjoy 30 day challenges to follow along as well. Don't forget to make comments. I am looking forward to beginning My 30 Day eBay Challenge!