Where to find retro & vintage items to sell on eBay

Garage Sales

Probably the easiest (and more than likely the cheapest) option to use to find items to sell on eBay. Your local or community newspapers will generally always have listings for garage sales. We head out EARLY on Saturday (and occasionally Sunday) mornings to hunt some bargain items.

Tips:

1. Plan ahead. Look for an area with several garage sales located closely together, or look for combined sales (several houses, or an entire street, getting together to hold a sale). This way you can maximise the number of sales you visit and increase your chances of finding a bargain!
2. Get there early. Our motto is sometimes "if it's after 9am, it's not worth it". We've never arrived at a garage sale before the sun has risen, but there are plenty of people who do.
3. Persistence pays off. Don't listen to anyone who says "if it's after 9am, it's not worth it". We have found some of the best items and biggest bargains by not giving up, and visiting the last couple of garage sales on our list.

Church fairs, school fetes, market stalls & other community group sales

These are an absolute goldmine! Imagine 50 garage sales combined into 1 massive sale! We've learnt that if we only visit one place on any given day, that place should be a school fete or church fair.

Tips:

1. Be prepared for these places to be BUSY. We're not the only ones who know the potential value of these places, and people can be mercenary and go to extreme lengths when it comes to finding themselves a bargain! It won't be until you've been elbowed out of the way by a 70 year old woman or seen a grown man jump a fence to get into a sale ahead of everyone else, that you'll know what we mean.
2. Know what you're after. We love retro and vintage kitchen ware, so we make a beeline for that sort of stuff. You might be into books, vinyl records, clothes, whatever it is go straight to it, you might not get a second chance!
3. If there's more than 1 of you - split up, this way you can cover more ground.

Op Shops, Charity Stores & Second Hand Shops

Generally the people that work in these places know what they're doing. They'll know the brands and makers, so you're unlikely to find a $100 item for 50 cents - but occosionally we've found bits and pieces at bargain prices. The big "depot" Op Shops or Charity Stores are probably the best (and the most fun to spend time searching through) for finding a bargain.

Auctions

We've only had limited experience with buying items at auction to sell on eBay, but we've had a reasonable level of success when we've done so. The type of auction we look for is where the entire contents of a (hopefully old) house are being auctioned. You'll have to register as a bidder (most likely on the auction day) and can view the items up for auction (most likely on the day or for a few days prior). It was at one of these auctions we discovered the Planet Lamp!