Sourcing

[flippohippo101]

I'm completely new here and I was fairly lucky at sourcing to get started with and I know what I like selling but I'm growing and need some fresh ideas about where to find good vintage items on a larger scale. Any ideas 

[titipeo]

Don't get me wrong, but, will a fisherman tell you his sweet spot? will your competition tell you where they sourced their goods? Trial an error, as all have found. Estate sales, good will store, rummage sales, going out of business store, those are some places to go. 

[dnasilver]

rural obits if you are looking for vintage - preferably someone over 85 years old.

[5594shelleys]

Give up closely guarded secrets? It’s trial and error learning for niche and one-off sellers. Good luck. 

[aeparts1 · Accepted solution]

Why don't we start out with you telling us, in detail, where you source your items???

That way we won't spend time posting places you are already using.

[gamersbaystore]

You should be more worried about your outrageous prices. Those loony tunes glasses are not worth hundreds of dollars, not even close. Others are selling the same glasses for $10 to $15.

Things are only worth what people will pay for them. You have a lot of nice stuff for sale, but those prices will certainly scare buyers away.

[flippohippo101]

Patients please I really suck with social media and technology and thank you for the heads up, I'm already being scrutinized for my prices. I've been sourcing through word of mouth with my church community and  neighbors who are down sizing and I offer removal services and I always tell people exactly what I do and how much I can get paid for the items I see and when something is worth a considerable amount we will work out a fair deal. Sometimes they don't believe me about how much something might be worth and just tell me to take it. I also do the obvious things such as thrift stores and yard sells.

[flippohippo101]

Thank you

[simba6]

Garage sales and farm sales along with flea-markets are good places to look.  Just keep in mind you have to find low prices to make room for your mark up.  By the way, many of your prices are way too high. I suggest you search both eBay listings and sold items to get an idea of that things sell for.

[flippohippo101]

That's a great idea 

[flippohippo101]

Thanks for your advice I certainly appreciate it and will make adjustments 

[wrong66]

There are hundreds of internet auctions across the country on any given day. They've been nice sources for me for over 20 years.

[ccstreasure]

All though now GoodWill is useless as there was recent article that said you wont find anything valuable at GoodWill any more because they have their employees now put anything valuable off to the side when it gets donated and what ever the employees aren't buying themselves goes up on their goodwill ecommerce store so they can charge more for those items. 

[titipeo]

True, but still, there's is always something to be found, perhaps an odd item. 

Here is my sourcing, I'm a licensed U.S. Customs broker and work with an international freight company dealing with e-commerce, My sourcing is abandoned/unclaimed parcels, its too expensive to send back, and no phone #/email provided to contact receiver. After 3 month collecting dust in the warehouse, is up for grabs. 

[evelyb30]

Garage sales, rummage sales, estate sales/auctions, flea markets, charity thrift stores, etc.  The best rummage sales in my area closed down due to Covid.  Antique stores and bigger thrifts are good for oddball scores.  Ill Will sends anything good to (overpriced for resale) on line auction and places like Value Village/Savers are so picked over it's pointless unless you're first in the door. (and they made a mistake - one locally puts anything they recognize into a glass case and marks it just about retail.)   

If you need quanity, you have to source daily or be physically healthy enough to do estate cleanouts.