Buy Your Mummers Suit Here!!

So, one of the topics I said I would write about was Ebay sales and our Ebay store. Well the store itself doesn't exist anymore, but I do still list plenty of items on Ebay on a regular basis. I actually think that Ebay has done some good things over the past year or so, making a lot of categories have options of posting items for free, while paying the selling costs only when the item actually sells. For our business of selling Mummers suits, this works out perfectly.

First, lets setup how this happened. A few years ago the idea came about that rather than throwing the previous years Mummers suits in the trash, maybe something could be done with them to bring some money back to the club. It is unclear exactly where this idea originated. Some say my brother, other folks say possibly Franny or his Mom or something like that... or maybe they were all just talking together. It doesn't really matter, the idea was born, and suits would be sold.

Last season was the first bunch of suits we went in to sell. The theme from that season's suits was birds, and we had several species to choose from. Black Toucans, Blue Macaws, Pink Macaws, Some kind of Gold bird, a Green Bird, a Giant Pink Bird, and a few others. We also had a suit that was leftover from an older show, a Robot. This suit my brother had worn for Halloween, and one of the sources of what may have sparked this whole idea.

That first selling season started slowly. We got on it a little late for Halloween, so that didn't help. We also had to find the best way to sell these suits. What do you call them? How long should the listing be for? Is it an auction, or a fixed price? All good questions, all needed to be answered. As the New Year passed, I think we had sold 0 suits. The plan was on the verge of being scrapped, and I decided to try posting the suits as a fixed price, 30 day listing, rather than an auction. In the middle of January, we had a bite, and the "Ah Ha" moment. A guy wanted to buy the robot, and use it at a Mardi Gras party... Why didn't we think of that before?? These suits are perfect for that!! All the listing titles were altered to include the words Mardi Gras to make sure that they would appear in a search. We gave this guy a good deal, and shipped him two suits.

Sales started to take off. Leading up to Mardi Gras, we sold 11 items, including a few heads that did not have matching suits. We cleared about $1290. Not bad for a first effort, and much better than $0 for throwing them in the trash.

About a month after Mardi Gras, I got one of the more interesting emails. A woman in Canada wanted to buy some suits for a children's play. And buy some suits, I mean basically all the suits we had left. In all, she wanted 12 suits or hats, and negotiated a price of $1500 plus she paid shipping. Huge. What a break. Our sales for the season shot up, and we ended up clearing $2831.23 during the season. Only 3 bird suits remained in my basement. Season 1 is a success!

Now we move to the current season. The theme was circus animals, so we had polar bears, monkeys, tigers, zebras, horses, a lion, hippos, black cats, etc. Very good Halloween costumes, and we did sell a few in October. Mardi Gras sales have started to pick up, and with about a month still remaining, we are sitting at $2500 in cleared money. A great place to be in, with the hopes of some more sales to follow.

So, if you are in the market, take a look at what Bowler275 has for sale on Ebay. Special thanks for the Golden Crown Mummers club for helping to arrange these sales, and thanks to the wifey for allowing me to store all kinds of bizarre costumes in our basement, with minimal disagreement.