Source eBay Merchandise from JAIL??

Our membership in OSIRockstars has been beneficial in more ways that we can possibly recount in this blog.  Grandpa’s Trading Company was one of Janelle Elms first members, volunteering to help with the exciting beginning of Rockstars!  One of the multitude of ways OSI has helped us source merchandise was in linking us up with great sourcing ideas.  Heading down to your local “jail” as a way to find exciting merchandise is a great tip!  For, as any online or eBay seller is aware, one of the ongoing problems for eBay sellers is finding new and unique merchandise to sell.  One of the many ways that a seller can source new products to sell is by joining Worldwide Brands.  Sellers can go to World wide Brands also known as One Source to perform product searches, look at wholesaler listings, and do your market research.  They have a free, wonderful newsletter you can sign up to receive weekly in your inbox.  Great tips and solutions to your sourcing needs.

Many sellers have favorite, local auctions that they attend to find products for sale in their eBay Stores or their online business websites, however, most people overlook police auctions.  It was Worldwide Brands/Onesourcethat open my eyes via one of their weekly news letters about sourcing merchandise thru your local law enforcement auctions.  This is a resource for finding high-quality resale items.  Police auctions present a great opportunity to find many types of saleable products.  Millions of dollars in merchandise is auctioned off every year and many of the items can be purchased at a low percentage of their retail value.  This property to be auctoned off has been seized from criminals.  Some of the items have been abandoned.  The property is cataloged and held for a time, and then, the department that has the merchandise conducts an auction to make it available to the public.  You can find furniture, jewelry, vehicles, electronics and many other exciting items in these auctions.  There are two types of police auctions: live and online.  Each has its benefits!

LIVE AUCTIONS: 

• Fewer bidders
• Preview period to examine the goods
• Ability then to use the time to look up on laptop or PDA and research products
• All this allows you to use a bidding strategy that will make your purchases successful at auction

ONLINE AUCTIONS:

• Easier to locate in advance
• Don’t involve opening bids with auctioneers
• No travel time or expednses
• Many allow proxy bidding
• Doing market research is easier because you are already online.

Good news for the buyers is that most police auctions have no minimum bid or reserve, leaving you the ability to find some great deals.  As in any live auction, the auctioneer will try to open the bidding at a certain price and when/if no one bids, the opening bid can come down until someone bids. 

Bad news is police auctions aren’t well publicized and finding one in your vicinity can be a challenge.  Most law enforcement websites are not updated on a regular basis and may contain outdated information.  Usually the only other place they are advertised to the general public is in the classified section of the local newspapers.  While making them difficult to keep track of, it means that if you DO find one, there probably won’t be much competition.

One can also call your local law enforcement’s nonemergency phone number to inquire regarding upcoming auctions.  Perhaps you can sign up for their subscription service if they have one, or at PoliceAuctions.com or GovernmentAuctions.org,  which will give you a centralized source of information.

While these auctions may take a dedicated effort to track down, the value they offer may more than make it worthwhile.  It will be possible to find some high-end items for your e business.   What a unique opportunity to source merchandise “outside of the box” and find some profitable products for resale. 

Made some calls to my local law enforcements agencies within a 15 mile radius and found most of them have gone to the online format.  The Bradenton Police Department tells me that they use PropertyRoom.com as having live auctions was just too expensive for them.  They mentioned that most of the local law enforcements were going to the online auctions for that reason.  I was told that the Longboat Key Police Department holds items for 90 days and if the owner does not come forward, they are donated to a charity.  They are a very small department in an affluent, island community.  This apparently works for them.   Another small island community, Bradenton Beach, has a small Police Department who “destroy” their confiscated items if not claimed after 90 day.  

The Sarasota Sheriff’s Department donates their unclaimed property to the Florida Sheriff’s Youths Ranch and “other” charities.   The City of Sarasota Police Department also uses PropertyRoom.com, (like the City of Bradenton Police Department).   Finding out the above information was not a time consuming event and might have required being switched to one or two different departments to acquire.  But, did have quite a contentious time with the department below with absolutely no resolve.

The most difficulty I had in obtaining information regarding property auctions was from the Manatee County Sheriff’s Department.  It required a total of 14 phone calls to six different phone numbers over two days time.  During one particular call I was switched to NINE people that I had to recount my story to each time.  My total “hold” time was over three hours.  I was told they they would “call me back” to let me know how they do dispose of their property.  That was six days ago and have not received a call back as yet.  Interesting.

In my quest to find a good source of finding merchandise to resell locally, only had one local “lead”.  The City of Palmetto’s Police Department has an auction once a year.  That auction is coming up next week, on May 17th.  I would like to attend.  However, when I inquired as to the time and place, was told that they will also “return my call”.  That has not as yet happened.  They also were not sure how this local auction was “advertised” to the public.  Stay tuned.  If I am able to find out an actual time, so I CAN attend, will report here!   

My call was returned the following day to inform me that I would be able to “preview” the items next Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Public Works Department OR an hour before the auction began on Saturday, the 17th from 8 to 9 a.m.   Regarding the advertising…  the only advertising that is done is the auction company who places signs on the bridge into town the day of the auction.  No advertising ANY other location.  So, I figure, IF there is anything great at the auction, there will probably NOT be much competition with literally no advertising.  I have made plans to attend next Saturday and will report back.

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 May 17th 2008 Up Date Police Auctions

I got up before the sun AND breakfast Saturday morning.  Normally I’d be attending those exciting, EARLY yard sales, but today I was going to take in a police auction in the City of Palmetto about 9 miles from my home.  I grew up in Palmetto but that was many years ago.  The area that the auction was held in opened at 8 o’clock and this gave me 1 hour to look the merchandise over.  Some of the items were in an open building with some of the larger equipment outside.  This being a City of Palmetto ANF police auction combined, it had a lot of business type items offered..  It seemed that everything was wanted by someone, and sold to the highest bidder.  Some sold very cheaply and some of the brought frezied bidding and a good price, with plenty of interest form the crowd.  Here is a link to the auction and some of the things that were offered.  Check it out to view the pre-auction flyer.  They also had some items that were not from the city.  They are also seen in pictures along with the many other items from the city works dept. and the police cars and computer equipment.  The bidding was fast and furious but I did not see anything that fell into my niche.  They had advertised a lot of “manuals” and I was quite interested in them as sometimes technical manuals that are not readily available do well quite well. They were not in sight and none of the workers seemed to know where these were when I inquired.  These types of auctions are a good source of acquiring merchandise for resale.  I will go to another one in the future, for i’m sure that they are like garage sales in that you don’t always find what you’re looking for.  I will add this to my list of good sources for locating merchandise for resale.

As an afterthought, I drove home another way and found some late (about noon) estate and garage sales still going on.  I did locate a fine vintage, Lance Cracker/Peanut Jar from a general store counter display and purchase it for a fair price.  Listed on eBay already and it seems to be getting some interest and bidding.  Inside the cracker jar was a the womans 40 years collection of match books, with some quite interesting advertising matchbooks.  As my son, Ken, is a collector of these items, I gave them to him for his collection and he was delighted!