Going through my Ebay phase

A few years ago I remember loving this post from Mum of Three World - My son, gaming and the eBay phase. She wrote about how her two sons had both gone through an 'eBay phase', busily selling both their own and other people's things on eBay. Apparently many teenage boys go through this, so I've been eagerly awaiting the day when one of my teenagers shows an interest. Sadly it hasn't happened yet!

Now that our extension work is complete, I've been working on moving everything back in to our new space, and also casting my eyes over the other rooms. In particular our top floor guest bedroom has become a dumping ground for toys which the children have outgrown. Most of the room was filled with huge boxes and drawers of Lego, both sorted and unsorted.

The Lego has been bothering me for some time. The children have many sets that they love and want to keep, even some on display in their rooms, but there are also lots of sets that were only built once and never played with. My husband is a sucker for a bargain! There were a couple of unopened Star Wars Lego sets, some Minecraft Lego, and lots of those tiny sets which at one point they used to give away free with the newspaper.

I've been collecting boxes for ages, and so a month or so ago I gathered all the Lego in one place and began the painstaking task of sorting it all out. I've always been pretty good with the Lego and many sets were together and complete, but I had a huge box of random Lego which I had to hunt through again and again to find a missing piece. In the end I just sorted the odd bits of Lego out into categories - it took a whole weekend but it made the whole job much easier!

I decided that the best place to sell was eBay. We've been using eBay since 2002 and have bought and sold a reasonable amount over the years so our account is in good standing. Things have changed a lot over the years, and the process is so much easier. There are also no fees at the moment and the money can go straight to your bank account so there are no PayPal fees like there used to be.

I found a corresponding box for each of my sets to sell, and made notes about the condition of the set and weight. Then last week I began listing them on eBay. To my delight, in only the first week I made 11 sales and enough money to make the whole process worth it. 

I've made it as easy as I can on myself. Everything is set to a Buy it Now price. I offer free postage, so I set my price very slightly above the average selling price with postage and it means I can combine several orders from the same person. I don't allow offers from buyers, so there's no unnecessary correspondence to worry about. I send my parcels using InPost as there is a locker just around the corner. It's so easy - you print the label at home using your eBay balance, you can track it through the app and most importantly you can send a parcel without having to queue up at the post office and talk to someone!

It's an addictive thing - I'm constantly checking the app to see if I've made a sale and I'm looking around the house to see what I can list next. I have a massive stash of boxes ready to be filled! If the teenagers do end up getting on board we will end up with an empty house!