158: Amazing Story: A Job Loss, An Opportunity, A Jewelry Connoisseur - Kathleen Palmer

Kathleen is an entrepreneurial spirit, selling on eBay since 2003. What started as a hobby to supplement her husband Gary's income, has become a full-time business selling vintage jewelry. She is a new empty-nester and hopes to take advantage of her extra time by taking her business higher. Interesting Notes Kathleen used to work in the Investment Department of one of the big banks in London. After the 9/11 attack, her job dried up and they moved back to St. Louis, USA. She tried looking for a new job but could not find a job in her field. One time, she went to a garage sale with her sister. Her sister told her that she can make money from the things in the sale. She did not know then what eBay was. Her sister pointed to a couple of Disney collectible plates, 3 pieces for $10. She bought the plates and learned fast how to sell on eBay. She sold the plates for $50 per piece. That is the start of her addiction with eBay. She did eBay part-time then while working in a hospital. She hated being away from home and her kids all the time. When she was able to recreate the income that she is making at the hospital, she quits her job and does eBay full-time. Most of her inventory comes from the estate sales and antique malls around St. Louis. At times when she travels to Denver to visit her daughter, she would shop along the way. She has established a good relationship with estate dealers. If they've got quality items, they know that Kathleen is going to spend money on it. Her store carries 99% of jewelry. Once in a while, she finds something of quality. If she knows what it is, she would reconsider because she thinks that it is silly to leave money on the table. Kathleen focuses on five niche markets in the Jewelry industry. She became familiar with the Native American jewelry. She knows what the buyers are looking for. It usually has to do with the color of the stone and the type of setting. She has good friends in the Jewelry business who taught her how to measure a diamond and convert it to a Karat. She does not claim to know all the four Cs of diamond grading. Her item description does not say anything about the cut or the clarity unless it is an antique. Instead, it is based on what she knows her buyers want and how her items look. There is counterfeit jewelry, especially in the high-end pieces. She had counterfeit Tiffany pieces before. So she studied how to detect counterfeits. Now, she knows what the hallmarks are. She specialized in Victorian Jewelry and a lot of it is not gold hallmarked. She knows what gold looks like underneath 10 times magnification. She could get a good idea if an item is solid gold or gold-filled. If she has doubts about an item and it is inexpensive, she would buy, bring it home, and test it. She has two ways of testing gold jewelry. She gets an 80% success rate as far as looking at items in her hand. But the most accurate test it is to scratch a little bit off on a touchstone and place a small drop of an acid. She can also sell costume jewelry if she knows what they are and their value. She has sold some Miriam Haskall and Weiss Rhinestone pieces. Her eBay business is a one-woman show. She takes pictures of her items. She gets up five in the morning. The first thing she does is check out her eBay page. She cannot wait to see what happened overnight. Saturday is her big day. Throughout the week, she would plan on what estate sales would she visit over the weekend. She would wake up four every Saturday morning so that she could be the first person in line to get the number one. If she gets the number one, she has the first opportunity to get to the jewelry table before anybody else. Most estate sales open at 5:30 AM. Whenever she goes to an estate sale, she tries to avoid hustling and elbowing. She always reminds herself of her motto which is, "There is enough here for everybody. I am not going to fight anybody for anything." The ugliest thing she ever bought and sold on eBay is a hunk of a Sterling Silver Turquoise Coral Ring. She paid a dollar for it and somebody bought it for $50. Kathleen loves eBay though it has changed so much. People have been complaining about the changes, but if eBay had not changed at all, it would have been a Dinosaur. So Kathleen tries to keep up with the changes on eBay. Right now, she finds that the Buy It Now (BIN) items are not selling as fast as her auctioned items. So she makes sure to auction at least 10 items every week to keep her BINs in front of the people. She considers vacation and holidays as working days. It means that she does not have to do the housework. Instead, she gets to do the fun stuff on her eBay job. Now that both of her children are married and out of their house, she is considering to go to eBay conferences. She went to one of eBay fly-ins in Washington, DC and she finds it phenomenal. Kathleen and her husband Gary plan to travel around the country. They want to see and get all the available inventory from all over. Advice, Tips, and Tricks When you are working at home, it is so easy to get distracted with something else when you are mid-listing. It is a matter of - "I've got to be disciplined. I've got to put the items away." She uses plastic Tupperware containers where she keeps all her items. They are all in one spot, by item category - all the rings, all the bracelets, etc... As soon as she lists something, it goes into its proper container. She always assesses her business by asking these questions: 1. Am I paying my bills? 2. Am I making enough profit? She may not be able to identify where her sales come from - from BINs or auction. But she makes sure that she is bringing enough sales on a weekly and monthly basis to reinvest and pay her bills. Q and A Question: How do you work on shipping your items? Do you ship using UPS or normal post? Do you add shipping costs to your price? Answer: Unless somebody asked, Kathleen ships her items First Class or Economy shipping. She gives free shipping, so there is no reason to charge herself more to send it Priority. But with something valuable, she has to make sure that there is a signature confirmation. This is to protect herself in case the items get lost. Kathleen said that items almost never get lost but it is the risk that she does not want to take. Quotes "This (eBay) is going to be my life!" "Knowledge is power in jewelry." "If I kept these things for myself, it would never end. I find beautiful things and I get really excited about selling it." "It is everybody's interest to just be kind to each other and be fair." "The key to success is passion. If you love what you are doing, it is not a hustle. It is not a burden to do the work." "I want eBay to be a safe place for my buyer. And I want it to be a safe place for me to buy myself. All of us are contributing to the honesty of the site, overall." "There is enough here (estate sales) for everybody. I am not going to fight anybody for anything." "This job is so compact I can do it from the road." "You know enough what you know about so why get into something you are not sure about." - Ron Contact Information eBay Store: College-Therapy-Fund Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce 3DSELLERS eCom Chicago Norila Digital Marketing

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158: Amazing Story: A Job Loss, An Opportunity, A Jewelry Connoisseur - Kathleen Palmer is an episode from So You Wanna Sell On eBay by Ali Young & Ron LaBeau.

This episode is 33:34 long.

This episode was published on Sep 18, 2018.

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