Thoughts on our first Instagram Sale
We had our first InstaSale this past Monday, and wow! So much fun. The whole thing happened so fast! Prior to the sale I took about two weeks to dig through boxes, and I spent a lot of time considering what items would go over well. And then in under an hour I had everything listed and about 99% was claimed…I couldn't believe how fast it went.
It was a lot of fun but it also took some time. I tried my best to get good photos of everything in the days before the sale. And I did a lot of research for pricing…checking ebay and etsy for similar things, just so that my prices were realistic and fair. And yeah, I'm old school…I kept notes in an actual notebook. I don't think I've gotten the old habits out of me yet…one day I'll keep notes on my iPad. I was mostly trying to make sure everything had a price that made sense. And I'd rather round the prices down just to give the things a better chance at ending up in a happy new home.
The sale was Monday evening, so in the day time Aaron weighed everything and looked up the range of shipping rates for across the country and to the UK and Canada. I then wrote up little descriptions for each item, with sizes, age, brands etc…and emailed them to myself so that I could copy/paste all that on the fly once I got the sale started.
On Monday evening the anticipation for the sale felt like we were expecting important guests in our home. I had gotten lots of instagram comments from friends who were excited about the sale. Of course we had no idea what anyone expected, but we figured 30 items seemed like a fairly good amount of stuff for the first sale.
So here is how things worked. We chose to hold it at 9:00 pm on a Monday night. We asked around and it seemed week nights are best for people, and also evening. Since we have lots of friends on both coasts we had to choose a time that wasn't too late for East coast or too early for West.
It's funny, I was actually pretty nervous. Aaron was doing something else right before 9 o'clock and I yelled into the other room "Aar, I think I'm gonna need an assistant for the sale, so if you could drop what you're doing…" So, 9:00 hits and I begin posting the items on Instagram, and that's pretty much all I can handle, since I'm having to copy/paste the descriptions from another window, etc… Aaron was on the iPhone checking to see if everything was going ok…if there were any questions, etc… The way it worked was that I would post the item, and then the item would go to whoever left the first comment with their paypal email address and zip code. As I listed each item Aaron would instantly say…sold, sold, sold…pretty much as soon as each item posted. It was exciting to say the least. Not to be corny…but I'm always thrilled when I find out that so many of us are ga ga for the same stuff.
And here are some of the items…soon to be in their new homes!
This doll size vintage high chair is so great. Perfect old pink paint, worn on the edges, adorable chipped decal. It's aged and imperfect but really charming. It's missing a wooden bead on one side. Measures 20" tall. $42.00 plus shipping (between 5.00 & 10.00 US)
A vintage Handy Hannah rare pink electric hairdryer from the 1950s. It looks great but we never plugged it in to see if it works, but by all means, you could give it a shot! Totally a great display piece for bathroom, vanity, salon etc. $36.00 plus shipping (between 7.00 & 16.00 US)
This vintage safety pin bead basket, made popular in the 1950s. Rare double handle. Blue and clear beads. Measures 11" tall. Thanks to Martha Stewart's magazine these have been hard to find in recent years. $28.00 plus shipping. (between 5.00 & 9.00 US, 20.00 UK, 15.00 Canada)
And we have a few more bead baskets which are also in the Instashop. @shoplikeitsaholiday
We are leaving these items up for anyone who might still be interested.
Currently we are already gathering goodies for our next sale, and we will announce the next InstaSale date and time soon! It was a lot of fun and we'll definitely expand upon the idea as time goes on. Definitely try to check it out next time. I'll keep everyone up to speed on Instagram and Facebook.
Thanks for reading! xo, Jenny…and Aaron says hi!
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