As a mom of two little pumpkins, and compulsive shopper in my former life, I still love to be up on the trends in kids fashions and because of this, I have found one of the HOTTEST selling line’s on EBay, Gymboree. I have to tell you I shopped most online and at Mom 2 Mom Sales. I'm passing along a story my friend had told me about secrets of Gymboree Sales!
See, I have a girlfriend, that lives in California where most of Gymboree is based out of an concept stores are located. I’ve gotten a little bit of the inside scoop through her as she chats with the Sales Associates in those stores. Gymboree has changed over the years and now is the highest demand of kids clothes out there now, that everyone wants. Its so bright, cheerful, I absolutely love it.
Since I started shopping at Gymboree, everyone tells me I am a walking bill board for them. I can’t tell you how much I love their products, it is not just that they are cute and stylish, and at a great price line, it is that they are preshrunk, (so if you are like me and not too great with laundry) there is no way you can shrink any of their clothes. I can not tell you how fast my son out grew wearing a “onsie”, anyhow someone gave him a 2T one and I thought let me try it, It FIT…. I could not believe it, a onsie that fit my son, yeah. So needless to say this was a big selling point for me. Than there is the pant, the ones that button and zip, well inside the pants they have an extender inside, so as your little one grows in their waist the pants grow with them, no more wearing once and can not use it anymore. So this is how I got so wrapped up in Gymboree.
After owning a children’s Boutique for several years, I decided to start selling on EBay, especially a lot of my son’s clothes that were brand new or worn once type things, I started to sell them. Well than I started to research a lot of “big” sellers or in “demand” type items in the kids categories, and I found that Gymboree was a very popular item, so I did a lot of research and buying and I started to resell Gymboree items on EBay and starting making a great profit, not only a great profit, but needless to say I have all my sons new clothes basically paid for by my sales on EBay, and it is fun. Now I will tell you, you can’t make everyone happy, that is just the way the world is, but for the most part, you make a lot of the people who buy from you happy, so it is worth it, on ends, yours and theirs.
Gymboree every year comes out with many "themed" lines, all VERY lovely with lots of mix and matches. The quality is Awesome! As a mom, I can vouch for that! In many cases though, some of the pieces get sold out faster than others and the lines close out. Many times over, moms and grandmother's go to Auctions or the internet in search for
that piece or pieces to complete that outfit. So, once that line is sold out and is
gone-it is gone!!!!! It's almost like a "collection or an addiction". So, the story is simply this....EBAY and other auction websites are fun and an easy way to for the buyer to locate old lines of Gymboree or a piece that might be sold out in their store area! And trust me when I say people will search for that item or items to complete their collection or outfit, all the time on EBay just waiting for it to come up for auction, or better yet for them to be able to but it at a “buy it now” price.
Let me tell you who is going to be your next Best Fiend, the Manager and the assistant manager’s at your local Gymboree, see once you become nice with them and they see you shopping, ever so often, they really start being friendly with you. I not only have great connections with in the Gymboree Corporation, but at both my local Gymboree’s the manager’s both will call me when they are having a sale. Like recently, one of them had found a box of last summers clothing lines, and she couldn’t do anything with them, so she called me and asked if I would be interested, and of course I was, so she ended up selling most item’s to me for $1.50 to $1.99, an item, we are talking about stuff that retailed for $34.00 for $1.99, what a deal. Any how they just know that I have some sort of consignment store and they don’t care what I do with the stuff they just want to get rid of it. This happens a lot. I will tell you to introduce yourself to the manager’s and just say “hey if you ever have stuff from last Christmas, summer, spring, sitting around in back, or if you find anything than let me know, I am very interested in buying it”. This is a great and I mean great way of buying at a cheap price to resell on EBay or if you want to keep for own Children, but this is the biggest way to make money right here.
One of the other big sales that Gymboree does id the “Red Hot Dot Sale”, this sale usually happens twice a year, and this is a good one. I know for a fact that one is always and I mean always started on the day after Christmas and than the other one is usually in June or July. It is a big sale, because everything that is on sale or goes on sale is like 60% off and they really want to get rid of this stuff, because if they don’t, then it ends up in that box, you know the one I just told you about, that someone like me or yourself may end up buying for $1.99 or even $.99. So the Red Hot Dot Sale is a big Sale.
Every month Gymboree comes out with new clothing lines, this making it kind of easier to figure out what and when things go on sale. Once a line is released for public to buy, usually it takes anywhere from three to five weeks for that line to be marked down, and let me say when Gymboree starts marking things down, they get marked way down.
Let me start off with saying every three to four months, Gymboree runs their Gymbucks promotion, this is were for every $50.00 you spend you get a Gymbuck good for $25.00 off your next purchase to use during Gymbuck days which are always a later date (usually 2 months later) . Obviously the way these work is the more money you spend the more Gymbucks you get and can use later to buy for yourself or use to resell. This is one way of buying at a cheaper price and saving money, usually what I do is during the “earn the gymbuck” period I buy a whole bunch of stuff, because usually they are having some other type of sale at the same time, like back in November they had earn Gymbucks, but also the entire store was 20% off purchase and they were having a huge sale, so it was madness, but a great shopping experience.
Let me tell you too, when they are having a huge sale and stuff is like $.99 to $4.99 and this does happen where they put out barrel type things with shoes and stuff in it, anyway it is really exciting and if you are like me you will just start grabbing, anyway people will look at you like what the heck and they may ask what you are doing, if you want you can tell them, I always say I have a consignment store and I am just stocking up on item’s. It is totally up to you how to react, but people will ask, and I am talking about other customers, not the Gymboree employees, they usually don’t care they just want you to buy so they can have the sales towards their sale goal for that day.
A couple of tools I will have for you to use, one is their websites. I encourage you to sign up on the Gymboree website for their newsletter; this newsletter always informs you of special sales, promotions, and new line information. This is a great way to stay on top of lines, the names, etc., and a great way to stay informed of sales. I will tell you that once in awhile Gymboree will surprise its customer’s with a one day type sale and you won’t know about it if the Manager doesn’t call you, or you are not registered on the website. Now I will also tell you that if you have a Gymboree Visa card (I am not encouraging in anyway, but they do have benefits) or if you are interested in one, they have like every first Tuesday of the month a discount for card holders, or sometimes you get some sort of cash back, look into if you are interested, this is another method to save money when buying their products. I highly recommend and I use a website at www.gymbohaven.com, Amy the founder or owner of the website is AWESOME, she is so full of information, her website is kind of cheesy but if gives all the insight, sign up for her newsletter, she is always emailing out secret sales or new line previews coming, all sorts of info, also she has information about all the Gymboree Outlet’s, which I have not gotten into yet, but guess what? They are out there….. All over the place. The next website is www.gymboreenews.com, this website has extensive pictures to help you get names of lines, and use their photos versus you having to take all the pictures and hosting yourself when selling. Some websites like Gymboreenews, has a subscription fee of I think it is $3.00 a month, I have done fine without paying that, but if you really want to boost sales and touch out to every source out there, than go ahead and do it. Now here goes the fun part of it all, when ever Gymboree has a sale and you know it is on (example date) but like the Red Hot Dot Sale on December 26 well guess what you can buy online on December 25 and get all those sale prices along with if you spend over $100.00 free shipping, unless they are having spend over $75.00 and get free shipping. How cool is that, get the sale price, buy from home, and delivered to your door, and you didn’t even have to go to the mall with the madness the day after Christmas. This applies to using Gymbucks you get to do it starting a 12am online, so you get first dibs, it is great. Some of the other resources I found are going to www.Craigslist.org, and I have now found a lot of people selling Gymbucks or Gymboree credits on their classifieds listings, under the baby and kids section. Also if you get Gymbucks and know that you are not going to use all of them or you don’t want to use all of them, sell them on EBay, I did that during the last Gymbuck redemption and made a good amount of money on something I pretty much got for free. Always look also on EBay for Gymbucks or Gymboree credits; it is a great way to buy for a little less money.
I will share with you that the Girl’s items sell a lot better than boy’s, however since everyone seems to sell Girl’s item’s on EBay every time I have sold a Boy’s lot it sells very fast and for a good amount of profit, so I definitely recommend doing a boys lot once in awhile.
Throughout the United States there are Gymboree Outlets all over, I may not be that close to you, but it may be worth a bit of a drive, They just opened one about an hour from my home and I finally went to it this is what I found. All lines either current or past line at incredibly cheap prices, I am talking about items that maybe were released around Thanksgiving maybe $2.99 to $6.99 per item, I know it is crazy and I am telling you, you will go crazy and it is a great way to stock up. On the two websites that on the two websites that I provided for you the www.gymbohaven.com, and www.gymboreenews.com both provide excellent information on outlets. I will tell you that if you ask your local Gymboree about outlets, they usually act like they don’t know about them or they are not that helpful on giving information, let’s just put it that way.
So now I have given you all this information on how and where to buy Gymboree and there really is “NO BUYING WHOLESALE GYMBOREE” out there, please do not be fooled by other EBay auctioneers with saying there is, because there is not, now is how to figure out how to sell and make a profit the best way you can on EBay. I know a lot of people out there sell “lots” of Gymboree, this is it can be a variety of items from a full outfit to hat, shoes, or hair stuff, it all varies on the lot and how it is listed. First I need to explain a few definitions to you the first one was a lot, the second is FULL RETAIL VALUE or FRV Full retail value is not the price that you paid for it, it is the original sticker price, for example you purchased a t-shirt for $2.99, but the original price or the FULL RETAIL VALUE is $19.50, that is how a full retail value works. NWT stands for New with tags, NWOT, stands for New without tags .So let me explain selling lot’s to you let’s say this is what you have:
Item Price you paid Full retail value
Shirt $3.99 $26.00
Pants $2.99 $32.00
Swimsuit $3.99 $28.00
Hat $.99 $14.50
Socks $1.49 $6.00
TOTAL $13.36 $132.50
So this means you spent $13.36 on five items that you can turn around and sell for a full retail value of $132.50. So here is what I would do with this, I would sell as a lot; here is my example for you.
NWT Gymboree Girl’s lot FRV $125.00----------Title
New with tags, is this great girl’s lot from Gymboree, the brand that everyone loves. This action is for a full retail value of $125.00 plus a bonus (the bonus is that extra $7.50 you have left over to make your full retail value $132.50) this lot will be from summer, spring and winter lines, sizes vary from newborn to (whatever)
I did this very generic to just give you a general idea of how to describe you can either give a lot of information or just general information. I tend to use general information and not promise exact items for two reason’s, one is because I buy so much and never know what I will put together, and two if you put specifics people start becoming very demanding and it can become a pain. Plus I guarantee that you will get so many messages in your inbox regarding the lot that you will have listed. So once you get the hang of listing you can add things to your listing, I do recommend that you ad a designer listing or border to your listing, and also put a fixed shipping price in the auction for your shipping costs, I will cover those later also, but people will consistently email you questions about shipping, so put an amount on that listing so you don’t have to keep responding to those emails. Now you are probably wondering how much money you can make off this $125.00 lot, well lot’s that are around this price usually sell anywhere from $35.00 to $90.00 so it is pretty open on the amount of money you can make. I also suggest starting with $60.00 or $80.00 lot’s if you are new to doing this, it is just a good way to start, however if you want go for the bigger amounts. I would also start this listing with a starting bid of $19.99, so you already covering the amount of money you paid for those item’s, and your listing fee. I guarantee, if you use all these tools, and apply them, you will sell your listings for a profit.
The second way of selling your Gymboree items are to list an outfit together or an item on it’s own, listing it exactly the way I explained with the lot’s, but I do recommend with an outfit or individual item of not only doing a starting bid but also offer a Buy it now for the buyers, nine times out of ten someone will do a buy it now.
I will tell you before I learned how to buy Gymboree stuff at these low, low prices, I did buy several lot’s of Gymboree stuff. It was a great way to get stated into the world of Gymboree, but I do know now that this way of buying, has way more potential to be a money maker, rather than buying on EBay. You save so much money by not paying shipping charges and at least when you go out and shop than you are picking out what you want, versus someone else.
The first thing that I usually do when I buy a big lot of stuff from Gymboree is start an excel spread sheet. I put the name of the item the amount I paid for it, than what the actual retail value is. By doing this not only am I keeping track of my items but it also does an automatic tally of how much money it is worth, than from there I build my lot’s from that. It is a lot easier to do and it is all kept in one place, which trust me when I say being organized makes a big difference.
Listing fees totally vary but after I have done a lot of research and red a lot of EBay selling books this is how the power sellers make there money without putting money out. When listing fees occur, they recommend adding a couple of dollars to shipping and handling charges to cover your EBay listing and final value fees, this is totally up to you. If you have a lot that you are selling, Like the example above I would say shipping charges will be $8.95, that means you probably will ship it for $4.05, which is priority and than the rest will cover your costs and the buyer won’t question it, but if you have a pair of newborn pants and shipping is $8.95 I don’t think the item will sell, and people will send you mean emails and it just doesn’t work, so use your own discretion on it. I rarely do this unless I am selling a big lot or a large item.
One thing I highly recommend is that you sign up if you already do not have one, a paypal account. It makes receiving payments a lot faster and easier than having people send you money through the mail. I am not saying you have to do it, but I have found by giving a deadline in my actual auction listings of when payment is due, than people pay it right away. When I have not done that than people just take their time in paying you, and honestly if you really start selling a lot of stuff than it gets confusing of who had paid and who hasn’t and so on and so forth. I highly recommend just putting a time limit on accepting payments.
Some of the shipping methods I use are either USPS priority or USPS parcel post. Just a few months ago I discovered that I can actually pay and print shipping labels through paypal and a link to the USPS. It is great. If you go to your local post office or go online to www.usps.com than you can pick up free envelopes and boxes for priority and global priority shipping, along with packaging tape for priority shipping, all free to you. You can even arrange for the USPS to come pick up your outgoing mail that is if you didn’t want to go to the post office yourself. Also if you do it this way and pay, print and go to the post office to drop off, never and I mean NEVER stand in line again, you can just hand it to them and go on with your life. If you do this online, you get free delivery confirmation and you can track online if need be, and the recipient gets an email that their package was sent out. This is so easy to do; I will never go back to the old way of shipping again.
Overall, I know if you take this information and really apply it, either exactly how I do, or put your twist on things, you are sure to be successful. Does your research too, do searches on EBay and see the wording that people use in their auctions, seeing which auctions are getting more bids, than other’s, and see what items are “Hot” items that people are looking for. Do not be afraid to ask a lot of questions at the Gymboree stores to the employees or Manager’s that is why they are there. Remember Gymboree was started as a family business; they try and maintain that image. I am always monitoring EBay and seeing what the HOTTEST Gymboree item out there is, and trying to get them myself. So take this information and go shop and make money and most of all have fun doing it.
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