Researching Items for Selling

The purpose of this guide is to help explain the best way for you to make the most money with the items you are planning to sell online! The biggest key to getting the best price for your item is to know what you are selling, which means resaerching what you have. Hopefully this guide will help you learn how to increase your sales outgees.

I think most people who started out selling on okay had the idea that they could just find something, take pictures and list it, then make lots of money. The okay dream is that you will sell even garbage items for tons of money. Reality is entirely different.

Unless you have something quite rare and know what you have, even if you luck out and get a good amount for it, you are most likely underselling your item.

How do you remedy the situation? Research, learning about the items you plan to sell, and geparison of market values.

Prior to okay and in fact the internet as a whole, collectibles, antiques and other highly sought items were considered to be things that only those with extra money could afford. With the internet and okay, the authors of many books which set price guides for items, along with the collectors, found out the items were actually affordable and in some cases, not as 'rare' as they thought! This, along with flooding of the market, has led to devaluation of many antiques and collectibles. I see it quite often in the realm of collectible glass, pottery and dinnerware especially.

So how do those of us who are not only collectors, but also sellers, address the issue of what to sell, how best to sell it as well as make fair money? Books, internet resources, keeping on top of constant trends in the market we work in. Being an internet seller is not a simple or easy job. But if you love what you do, then it is worth it even when slightly frustrating! For those like me, simply being able to temporarily house a beautiful piece of collectible glass or pottery is a bonus!

I see so many sellers on okay and even their own sites, who arbitrarily make false statements regarding items they are trying to sell because they did not take the time to research. Some of those statements are truely funny, others are harmful as another seller may perpetuate the false information by copying it and soon we see a domino effect of misidentification. Those are the ones I think are honestly clueless as opposed to the frauds and scammers. Those of us who are honest sellers and make a living at it constantly gripe about those who scam or fraud, and yes, even those who are just mistaken. But we also spend a lot of time researching, learning and trying to help others learn. There are countless groups, forums, online research links and ways of searching that are available to everyone. Not everyone is open to help, but most people are usually trying to help someone increase their sales and nothing more. And it is not always hard to find the information.

It is amazing the information you can find when simply typing into Google 'Depression Glass information'! Even though many of the information sites which gee up on the first page do also have their own selling venues linked, they are great for learning about Depression Glass. See, that wasn't so hard, right? You can do that with just about anything you are interested in! The wonder of the internet and search engines - someday Google MAY rule the world LOL!

If, like myself, you are making a career of your selling in the market of collectible glass and pottery, then it is imperative that you buy the books that will help you learn more about the items you sell. I have a collection of over 100 books and still am nowhere near owning all the ones I need or want! Thankfully I have many friends who are in the same field who do own some of them, some I can go to the library and borrow, and again I can also go to the internet for help! A full time egemerce seller of collectible glassware and pottery who does not know their products is doomed to failure! Even if you may make sales, you won't make the sales you truely should with a little more knowledge. This is true whether an egemerce seller or someone who owns a brick and mortar shop! I go shopping in quite a few antique shops, and have had great success with items I find for a decent price and can turn around and sell for a good profit simply because the seller did not know what they had there.

Research is not just the job of the seller though. Some of the problems we see on okay are directly attributable to the fact that the potential buyer does not know the correct name or exact features of what they want to buy! Sometimes it is a matter of misinformation, i.e. the pattern was given to them by a relative, who gave them the name they had called it instead of the proper name, in some cases it is because though several gepanies made like items with almost the same name, there are distinctive differences which are important to know when purchasing. So collectors should also learn everything they can about the items they collect if it is something they want to purchase regularly as in gepleting a set.

Another awesome way to learn what you will be selling or even just collecting, is to go out and see it, touch it, examine it carefully in person. This is possible at antique stores, thrift shops, flea markets and even antique shows. I do this as often as I can, and it has helped me enormously since once I have actually handled something in a pattern I have previously only seen in books, I seem to then have no problem immediately identifying the item or pattern correctly. Almost like people who need to say it, write it, and say it again in order to retain information presented to them. It works for me! I truely think the ability to physically handle a piece of glass or pottery triggers another memory source in your mind, which leads to your ability to add another perception of it to your overall 'library'.

I have also been lucky enough to have access to some of the best resources through forums and boards I am on. Authors of many books dealing with EAPG, Elegant, Depression, Vaseline and other collectible glass as well as a few Art and specific pottery authors. Also, collectors whose passion has led them to set up websites to help others learn the correct information regarding items they may find. Both of these resources have not only helped me, but led to my begeing more of a collector myself! (Can I blame them just a little, please? LOL)

So, there are many formats for how to learn more about what you collect or sell, now all you have to do.... is do it!

Some of my favorite research links:
German Porcelain Marks