If You Want to Be a Better Seller, Try Being a Buyer

Everyone has their own business model. Mine is to be a top notch seller and I define that as offering quality glass - not necessarily super expensive - photographed and described accurately, shipped carefully and quickly, and with cheerful service and a full guarantee.

It hasn't been easy to get better. What was super helpful for me was to buy glass on eBay, from both good sellers and not-so-good, and understand what that meant to me as a buyer. How can I make my customers' experience match that of the good sellers? How can I avoid causing the financial losses and annoyance that my less-pleasant buys have been?

If you want to sell on eBay, and sell successfully with profit and enjoyment, then buy on eBay. Learn what works and what does not work. Then adjust your business practices to provide the level of service commensurate with your effort, pricing and product.

Find the Hidden Chips - Buying Depression Glass

Pretty cup, no? It is Adam by Jeannette, one of the mold etched depression glass patterns. Adam is a pattern that is hard to find in mint condition. Many of the pieces, plates, bowls and so on, have squared off rims that just beg to get inner rim roughness. I posted about my cereal bowl eBay purchases a while back that all had tiny nicks on the inner rim.

Here's a tip when buying glass. Don't just run your finger around the top of the rim. Go around the sides of the rim, both inside and outside. If there is a squared off portion or a ridge, check that out for nicks. Another place to check is the seam around the outside of the base and on the handle. Some patterns are just so prone to nicks, such as Adam, Queen Mary, Tea Room. All these patterns have sharp corners. Queen Mary has sharp vertical ribs that get nicked and Tea Room has stair stepped blocks.

So where's this mysterious nick? This particular cup has a tiny nick on the inside of the top rim and a gouge on the back of the handle. When I list this, I'll describe both nicks and give dimensions, plus show the pictures. Some nicks don't photograph and these were pretty challenging. It took several attempts to get the top rim nick to show up at all.

Help! I Bought More Depression Glass!

This is Adam pink depression glass by Jeannette and the particular piece shown is the dinner plate. I have four of these, have had them for several years, yet I just bought three more.

I'm sitting here questioning whether this was the smart purchase it seemed just a little while ago, so I'm going to write down my thinking and maybe that will help me.

Depression glass has gotten hard to find. Our local flea market and antique stores, garage sales and estate sales all have super high prices on colored glass whether it's depression or dollar store imports. The only pieces we've gotten lately have been elegant glass and clear depression and that's only because few recognize it as depression when it is not colored.

My stores are called --- Elegant and Depression Glass for a reason: That is what I sell, depression glass and elegant glass. It's hard to stay in business when you can't buy what you want to sell. The last year I've bought glass on eBay for this reason, but only a few pieces of depression since I'm looking for bargains. Elegant glass seems to go for 25-35% of book value, while depression glass is 50-60% of book. Throw in shipping and it's gotten really hard to find quality depression glass at prices reasonable enough to allow a profit. The plates I bought were not cheap, but they were 40% of book value including shipping. There. Now I feel better!