Dominic Carone began selling on eBay in 2000 to make some extra money in graduate school. He currently runs the Prime Time Treasure eBay Store, which specializes in the sale of comic books, toys, books, pop culture items, clothes, and all things vintage and collectible. Interesting Notes Dominic is not a Thrifter. In Central New York, where he lives, thrift stores have higher prices compared to the garage, rummage, and estate sales. So, he stays away from thrift stores. He explained it further on his YouTube video entitled, "Why I Hate Going To Thrift Store". He goes to garage sales, but he gets most of his eBay items from estate sales. Dominic used to go to a Swap Shop in Florida. It is a huge outdoor flea market. Every weekend, he and his wife would go down the aisle. Back then there was no eBay app. So, one has to develop an eye for things. Sometimes they made mistakes. Sometimes they made big scores. That is how he started his reselling business and did it for a few years. Then, he focused on his career outside of reselling. A few years ago, he got back again with reselling comic books. He watched a lot of other YouTubers and started to diversify his content. Now, his eBay store sells pretty much anything that is vintage and collectible. He hits all the categories. Dominic runs his reselling business alone. His wife helps him, now and then, in some aspects to get more sales as he continues to grow and develop. He has two kids who once in a while come with him to the sales. His daughter who is fourteen has developed an eye for things. When she finds something, she will go to another room and bring things back to him. One time, she found a Kitchen Witch with the original tag on it. They got it for 50 cents and sold it within two days for $70. He taught his kids how to negotiate with people and how to negotiate money. One time, his son who is thirteen, go up to someone independently and try to negotiate on some action figures. Most people, especially in the Amazon Prime area expect free shipping. So, Dominic does free shipping on everything. This way, he maximizes the number of potential buyers who are going to see his items. People who search for items to buy would filter out based on whether there is free shipping. Meanwhile, he keeps the Best Offer as an option. He is less flexible with the price in the beginning. But, as time goes on and the items are not sold, he becomes more flexible. Dominic almost has two full-time jobs. He works full-time as a Board Certified Nurse Psychologist in a hospital. That is his regular full-time job. Around that, he tries to work on his reselling business. He is busy every day trying to fit in his regular work, reselling, family time and some other stuff. Now, he is more focus on Q4. He wants to have a lot of items up and listed for the people. One of the unique things that he found and sold on eBay is an old wrestling show poster from 1989. It is an advertisement for the championship match of Ric Flair. He did his research and saw that it was selling for $400 in the auction. After putting it on the auction, he received offers of $100 and $250. He took it as a red flag that it would sell higher and it did. Dominic also loves to do Metal Detecting. It is like to reselling because he gets to go out and hunt for something. He also uses strategies to detect where something valuable might be. Sometimes he scores big and sometimes he does not. He found something out of metal detecting. It was a fixture in a ceiling of an old ballroom that fits a glass lamp. It was from early 1900. He found the piece buried in the park's ground. He had it appraised to be worth $135. He could sell it on eBay if he wants to. At the beginning of 2017, his goal is to develop the Facebook Group and a YouTube channel. He succeeded in doing it. He now runs the Facebook Group called Reselling Resource Center. He created the group ten months ago and now has 3,000 members. It aims to help other resellers succeed by passing on tips and tricks. He allows people to post links to videos that they feel can be helpful. He also has posts of the "Beyond the Look Out Item of the Day" (BOLO). He provides a lot of detailed price information about the BOLOs. This way, people could learn about the items that are available and good to sell. His YouTube channel is Prime Time Treasure with 1100 subscribers. It has 225 videos dedicated to helping people grow in their reselling business. Right now, his focus is on developing a more efficient system for storage at his house where he runs his business. He does not plan to take a warehouse because he has a regular full-time job which he cannot give up. So, he is finding ways on how to work efficiently at his house. And if things would go further, his wife will take a more active role in his reselling business. Advice, Tips, and Tricks Get to know the people and cities in your area. Certain cities are much more expensive than others. Certain estate sales dealers are much pricey than others. But there are some that are reasonable. Figure it out real fast and stick with the ones who give you good deals. Subscribe to the email list of the estate sales dealers you are loyal to. This way you can get updates on the schedule of the next estate sales. Dealers would send pictures so you can preview on it and make a decision if that is something you want to go to. He does research on the "completed sold" and see what things did sell in the last 60 days. He would also see what the current competition is if there is competition for. Then, he will price his items accordingly. He does not price his items lower than somebody who had the item in bad condition. Nor does he price it lower than another seller who has a bad reputation. He has 100% positive feedback. So if someone else has a 95% feedback, he will not price his item lower than that person because that will scare a lot of potential buyers away. He would price his item relative to that taking into consideration what it is previously sold for in the last 60 days. He works the shipping fee into the price. He makes sure that he has the time to source his items low enough. This way, he could sell far high enough no matter what the price will come up with shipping. For items that he feels he is going to lose money, he takes it off and bundles it with another item. Quotes "You have to go to the right places." "If you want to be successful, you have to find a way to put the time in." "You have to make a sacrifice, something somewhere, if you have a full-time job and you want to make eBay work." "eBay is more lucrative for me than metal detecting." Contact Information eBay Store: Prime Time Treasure Facebook: Reselling Resource Center YouTube: Prime Time Treasure Sponsors Solutions4Ecommerce Norila Digital Marketing
Dominic Carone began selling on eBay in 2000 to make some extra money in graduate school. He currently runs the Prime Time Treasure eBay Store, which specializes in the sale of comic books, toys, books, pop culture items, clothes, and all things vintage and collectible.
Interesting Notes