Organizing Inventory For Ebay Sellers

Since I started selling on eBay 5 years ago, I have accumulated over 4000 vintage and new toys! I quickly filled both of my guest room closets. My husband drew the line when I started storing toys in our bedroom closet.

Several months ago I sold a plush animal on eBay. I looked for that toy for 2 days! I finally contacted the buyer and confessed that I misplaced it, but assured them that I would find it and send as quickly as possible. Thank goodness they were understanding and patient! I did find it after 4 days.

An International potential buyer contacted me about their child's lost toy. Now keep in mind...this is an emergency and time is of the essence! I had to empty every closet, bag and box which took me 3 days.

I decided that there had to be a better way to organize so I could have my sold and unsold items close at hand.

My mission for the ultimate storage and organization began at Home Depot, but ended up at Lowe's where I got the best deal. I bought 40 big blue plastic tubs and quickly filled them. Then I organized the garage and added shelves that would accommodate the tubs. All well and good.....but there was still one more little problem. If I had to look for a toy, I would still have to open each tub and search for it. Not gonna happen! Been there, done that.

While I was taking pictures of the items that I was going to list, the idea hit me. Wow, why didn't I think of that sooner? I stopped what I was doing and grabbed a tub and emptied it, then I arranged each toy so they could easily be seen and took a picture. I quickly downloaded the picture, printed it out and placed it in a plastic zip-lock bag, then taped it to the front of the tub. TaDa! Now when I look for a specific item I just open the zip-lock bag and pull the picture out and never have to open the tub.

I took this idea one step further and added tubs for Holidays, Dolls, Pillows, Blankets, Puppets, etc. Wow, this makes it so easy to locate, enabling me to list a lot quicker. When I finish listing the items in the tub, I just put them right back in and label it with the date.