I bought this kit from Chris (Virginia Treasure Hunter) and it came in today. A couple of people asked for a video so I did it. Incidentally it arrived in the mail today, which is our 30th anniversary, which is the pearl anniversary. Thought that was a neat little coincidence. Christa (PatinaPastPurpose)

Get my first shipment on Monday ! Once it sales I'm going to reinvest the profits and expand inventory.

I won this lot for 9.98!!!! I figured 10 bucks what do I have to lose? If if even a couple of these are good pieces I’m golden. I’m over the moon with what I got!!!

I feel like I have had success in the 6 months that Ive been doing Whatnot as Virginiatreasurehunter. Some may disagree, but I am very happy with how my business has grown. Ive had people asking how I started and built things up and I thought I’d share if anyone is interested. Keep in mind this worked for me, it may not be the best way for you. -Consistancy. I tried a couple of different times and dates before I settle on Friday evening being my ‘set show’ day. I have a show every Friday, I have adjusted the times, but my shows are Friday evenings and I stick to it. Ive only cancelled one (I had the flu and wanted to die, so I thought $$$-It costs money to make money. I DID pay to promote for the first 3 months. The analytics showed I was getting sales from promotion, but more importantly I was getting bidders and return visitors who initially came in from promotion. $$$-MORE ‘It takes money to make money’. (This is the really unpopular one). I had $1 starts my first show, $3 starts after that, now I do all $4 starts. Yes I lost money on many items in the beginning. I sold many awesome pieces, many that I would guess Brad would get $30-$80 in his shows, for $3-$15. I knew I had to do this to build my business and considered it an acceptable loss. I congratulated my buyers (very upbeat and cheery, even when I was sad about it) and moved on to the next item. This has cost me the most money, and its been worth every penny. -KEEPING PEEPS IN THE ROOM. I did/do this several ways. I thought ‘People have so many rooms they can scroll through, how can I keep them in mine?’ My show thumbnail and title gave people a reason to stay. To start I gave a lot of jewelry away. - Plan your background thoughtfully. Give them something that takes time to look at. Brad uses a mirror and his zany personality along with the flats of amazing jewelry he’s selling. He’s shopping with a show, personified! However, for us mere mortals….. I now set up all ‘bangers’ in the background. Amazing higher end pieces I have preloaded, a few for auction, but mostly in the BIN. I do run flash sales during my shows on those pieces and I always make a nice profit on them. I could do a better job of featuring them during my shows..but that another topic, lol. By having those in the background there is always something really nice to look at, and if asked I tell people to look in the shop at the piece then I show the item up close and run the sale. I think people sometimes look and then research and come back because I am often asked to run a piece a second time, and then it sells, sometimes even a show or two later.

If it is advice, it may not be good advice. The jury is still out. The reason it may not be good advice is because USPS adjustments probably count against you on a seller dashboard/scorecard, in the same way that seller-initiated cancelations do. I get anywhere from 1 to 5 postage adjustments on my ledger per show, and my seller metrics/score/standings don't seem to be negatively inpacted--yet? Anyway, this new bill back policy is probably affecting me to the tune of $200-300 per month. That's pretty gnarly. I'm probably catching a charge on something that is 6oz on the label but 8oz in the box. I wonder if it published material, showing how much it has to be over to bill it back to us. I doubt it. Aren't we always at the mercy of the post office? Don't get me started on the number of underweight boxes I ship. Probably 5x the number that are overweight. Do I get money back? No, the post office keeps that money, while they continue to raise rates like clockwork. I don't like clocks or watches. 😅😅 I welcome anyone to chime in on the subject, until then, here's the rant.