Back at the last of last year (or the beginning of this one) I wrote about how I was about to start doing toy shows again to make a bit of cash.
Newsflash… IM OLD.
I did about 5 shows and am pretty much fed up with the whole thing now. Why you ask…
- I wasn’t making money. After costs (including rent which was cheap and cost of goods sold) I was coming out with like $20 for the show. Not worth it.
- I was wasting time. Most of these shows are short, one day shows (like 5-6 hours long) but at my age my time is WAAAAAYYYYYYY WORTH MORE than make $20 at the end of the day.
- I just don’t have the collecting bug so the extra allure of being selling and buying stuff I like isn’t as strong as it used to be.
- Like I said in my previous post, all the sudden there are LOTS of shows in the DFW area this year. That leads to the problem of public apathy (the shows have little turnout) and it appears to be the same vendors over and over (so more burnout on the customer’s side).
All these things together (aka, things cause I’m older now) just don’t make it worth it. What I have found is that the best way for reselling is through Ebay.
Secret Tip for all you resellers:
How I do so well on Ebay is to buy stuff at a discount/clearance now and hold on to it for like 3+ years. The value goes way up online. I see a lot of resellers at shows with stuff you can get in the stores now and they are only charging like $3-5 more than retail so it’s not really worth the time and effort. Hold onto that items and you can get 2 to 3 times the value online.
Anyway that’s it. Conventions were always a mixed bag (sometimes great but most times not). I think it’s time to put a nail in that coffin. Perhaps when I finally decide to stop reselling all together I will do one last show to sell it all off. We will see about that.
P.S. I made 6k in the last 4 months on Ebay. Kind of a fluke but you get the idea that Ebay is much better than shows.