Wow! That’s a lot.
Our warehouse manager wants me to teach his wife how to create listings. She worked for me for years. She just doesn’t have the skills. Nobody else does.
I could really use that clone.
At one time ebay was a honey hole.
I’m sorry they destroyed your opportunities. Is there no place else?
No, what appears to be quid pro quo relationships ebay and amazon have with the major search engines has snuffed out my company and pretty sure MANY others.
I was extremely lucky, we had an entire warehouse full of equipment. If that warehouse was not full we never would have been able to do a start up. Costs to get the machinery is so high its not realistic to consider doing a start up that relies upon online sales.
Also had a terrible headwind, the major players(distributors) in the market space I had chosen, they decided to black ball my company since we sold on ebay (this was before amazon). So like a fool I keep feeding the online market places instead of building sales outside of the marketplaces…Extremely huge mistake.
I should have just pulled the plug when ebay did the “ebay store” inventory to core search dump. Then to make matters even worse they pulled bold-featured-category listings, those were the $25 per category listings (its been many years so that might be the wrong dollar amount).
We had a designated rep back then, our sales manager had a good relationship with him. He finally admitted that those above him said it was not fair to others that my company was so successful…really…
Back then they were toxic, now they are even worse…If all you need is chump change then amazon and ebay are fine, if you are running a business that relies upon marketplace sales, run in the opposite direction.
Sounds kinda woke, if you ask me.
Selling toys is a low profit, high volume profession. People come to Amazon to buy my products. On eBay the prices are so low, I don’t even want to compete. I will list when competition is high, or if there are no other offers.
I’ve been in this business since before eBay. There was a site called The Meta Exchange, it was where we all bought and sold to each other. It was great. When they closed down a few of us were discussing taking it over. That never happened. 1/2 the sellers went to eBay, the other 1/2 to Amazon. I’m still in contact with a number of them.
I am happy to report I just finished XMAS #17. It had 20 SKUs, XMAS #16 had 34. 17 down and 58 to go. 
YEP, that was around 2008 plus or minus a couple of years, its been a while. So the blue plague has been festering for many years and it was just so minute it was overlooked. Now that they have ramped up the blue agenda its very obvious.
I just dumped one of our suppliers that has a corporate headquarters / office in Michigan, shot myself in the foot doing it. However, I am tired of the BS and will not support any of it.
Never heard of that till now, thank you.
Similar here, I have thousands of products that are not even listed or sold anywhere online that require so much effort to sell:
In the past, there used to be so much less collectibles on the market and I enjoyed fishing for the best deals and rarest pieces.
But these days, there are so many new trends, new brands, new collectible toys and ranges getting released, it’s impossible to keep up with all of it.
I know that you @FunkyMonkey sell or used to sell these TY beanie babies. They are now sold so cheaply and by crowds of sellers.
It’s becoming more and more difficult to find and maintain a good and profitable niche that constitutes demanded collectibles which can be sold with a mark up and continue being rare.
Thankfully, I have a quite good niche which still pays off after 15 years - Japanese collectibles. Whenever someone asks me for a tip what to sell, I recommend the Japanese and Korean popculture, whether it comes to toys, fashion or beauty.
That squirrel looks really cool!
Isn’t that the truth. I am not into buying the new toys. I have a small group of “squishy” things," but they take so much space. We don’t have the space to store them. I have thousands of pieces of kids jewelry. They take so little space, they are still in little boxes in my dining room. The other thousands of products are here:
I still have thousands of Beanie Babies. It’s tough to sell them on Amazon because Ty never provided CPC Certification. So, I list them where i can, and won’t accept less than $13.95. There really isn’t a lot of competition.
The other “crowds of sellers” are clueless. They pick them up at garage sales and think there’s nothing to it. They don’t know how to classify them, have no idea what they are worth, and don’t even know their names. I’ve been listing the holiday Beanie Babies and Jingle Beanies for the past few days. They are so cute. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten so many of them.
My niche has been the kids jewelry. Yet, I don’t ever have time to list them.
The Webkinz are where the money is. I sold one recently for $1,750 that I bought for $7.50 from Ganz. I think I have the largest collection (or one of the largest) on “planet earth.”
Right now the problem is the economy. People stopped buying toys for the kids. That has never happened before.
Wow, you have so many products, much more than me. Are you storing them all at home? I have 3 bedrooms filled with kids jewelry.
Yes, it seems like more and more kids are just growing up glued to their phones or iPads. I have a small nephew who is 6 and he never plays with any toys. He only ever sits next to an iPad.
These days, it’s usually adults / grown millennials who are fulfilling their childhood dreams and buying collectibles.
My own customers who are messaging me are like this, where it’s clear they are the collectors shopping for themselves.
ASMR toys and collectibles for adults is the way how business is going to continue for me.
The pictures are of our 2nd, larger warehouse.
At home we have inventory in every room but the kitchen, and bathrooms downstairs. The four bedrooms have at least our personal collections, and my office has toys everywhere (that’s kind of fun).
We had a high-end collector of Webkinz place large orders a few times a year. Orders for thousands of dollars. We haven’t heard from them since COVID, so I’m hoping all is well.
Similar here. I don’t have a warehouse, but it’s difficult to find a place where there isn’t any inventory. I wouldn’t be able to store large plush toys though, since they are large and may collect dust unless being placed into protective sealed packaging.
Hence, my warehouse.
We have to move stuff to get into my dining room. It’s blocked on both sides. I really want to do it first because I picked wallpaper that would look great in there. Yet, it still gets more and more boxes piled on.
The only little stuff are the boxes of kids jewelry. You are so fortunate. :O)
