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Using eBay saved searches to find rare items or get a deal

By on January 29, 2018 in Ebay, Tips

Some Revere Ware piece are very rare.  For example, the square skillets.

As you can see, they are expensive and there aren’t that many listed.  What I do when I am looking for something on eBay that is expensive, and I want to find a deal, or is very rarely listed, is to save a search, such that I get notified by email whenever new items appear.  Notice the Save this search link at the top of the search results.

Once you click the link, you get a confirmation, and are automatically subscribed to emails when new listings are added that match your search.

When are looking for a long item, sometimes it takes playing the long game, being willing to wait as long as it takes to get what you want, at the price you want.  I’ve gotten some great deals on all kids of stuff this way, as long as I’m not in a hurry to get them.

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Other sources for vintage Revere Ware

By on January 1, 2018 in Ebay, Tips

About 10 years ago, when I started looking into making parts for Revere Ware cookware that I couldn’t find elsewhere, I built up quite a collection of pieces to use as samples and to test the fit of the new parts.  At the time, my wife and I loved going to thrift stores, which turned out to be a great source of Revere Ware (and Pyrex and other neat vintage cookware pieces).  I think in all we ended up with about 80 or so pieces, all bought on the very cheap.

While they appear to be getting somewhat rarer (possibly because  buying stuff from thrift stores to resell on eBay has become a popular activity), I still do see some good finds to be had when I visit thrift stores for used children’s books (those care free days are over, for now).

The point is, if you are resourceful, there are lots of other more local places to get Revere Ware that are cheaper than eBay (where you can find most anything admittedly) and won’t cost you to ship.

In addition to thrift stores, sometimes entire sets are sold on Craigslist, like this one.

I’ve looked at a lot of sets for sale on eBay; let me tell you, that is a great deal.

So, if you are looking at replacing some Revere Ware, or building a collection, consider your local sources.  Many towns have thrift stores, secondhand stores, or stores that specifically consign items like cookware.  Also, setting up a Craigslist RSS feed that you can check occasionally in an RSS reader is pretty easy.  You may be surprised what you find, and you may just find a wonderful rare piece, or find what you need on the cheap.

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Revere Ware find of the week – vintage Revere Ware sets from eBay

By on December 8, 2017 in Ebay

Last week we wrote about the value economics of buying a new set of Revere Ware vs a vintage one.  Our conjecture is that, it costs about the same to get a nice set of vintage Revere Ware from eBay, which will last for decades more, instead of mere years for the poor quality newly manufactured copper bottom Revere Ware.

Along these lines, there are often full sets of vintage pieces that are available for a reasonable c ost. Take this 12 piece set.

Or this 16 piece set.

Both sets (and the many more like them) are comparable to the per piece cost we outlined in the previous post.

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Should you buy a new set of Revere Ware?

By on November 9, 2017 in Amazon, Ebay, History, Tips

If you’ve read just about anything on our site, you likely know that the quality of today’s Revere Ware pales in comparison to that made in the pre-1968 era.  We’ve heard lots of stories of quality issues like the copper bottom falling off.  But let’s say you don’t care about the quality and just want a set of Revere Ware cookware because you like the look.  Is it cheaper to get a new set, or a used set from eBay.

Here is a new set on Amazon.com.

This set costs $95.55 with free Amazon Prime shipping an option if you are a Prime member.

Here is what we put together from eBay:

4.5 quart Dutch oven with lid: $33 shipped
9″ skillet with lid: $31 shipped
1.5 quart sauce pan with lid: $$20 shipped
1 quart sauce pan with lid: $20 shipped

That gives us a total of $104 shipped.  Withe the tax you’ll likely pay on Amazon.com, and the potential to find better deals on eBay (there are lot of Revere Ware pieces listed at any given time) we’ll call the costs roughly even.

If you wanted to replace all the handles and knobs, that would run you about another $50, although all the items we found on eBay had Bakelite handles and knobs that were in reasonable condition.

If you scoured your local thrift stores, you could likely find all the vintage Revere Ware items for much cheaper, but there is a time cost involved.

It seems to come down to preference – buy a set that will last a few years before it starts falling apart, or buy as set that will likely last many more decades and has a strong history to it.

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Measuring the value of our parts, part 2

By on October 3, 2017 in Ebay, Parts, Trends & statistics

We’ve discussed the economics of small batch manufacturing and the comparative pricing of other similar mass-manufactured parts.  By that measure, what we sell might look expensive (but is justified given how much it costs to manufacture in smaller quantities).

There is also another way to comparatively view the cost of our products against what they might cost if we didn’t provide them.  Consider this eBay auction for 21 new-old-stock (NOS) replacement parts:

They are asking a starting bid price of $199 + $12.65 shipping for all these parts.  And with few such new parts available, they would probably sell in the $300-$400 range.  On our site, the equivalent parts would cost $149.79 (and shipping would be free), a 29% discount over the starting bid of that auction, and probably less than 50% of what they would sell for.

The alternative of scarcity and the pricing pressure it puts on whatever stock of something in relatively high demand remains, is something to consider when you are looking to replace something in the vintage category.

On the other hand, I do often notice that people listing items on eBay think that just by adding the word “rare” to the auction title, they can demand a higher price.  Demand is the other part of this equation; without demand, rarity along doesn’t justify value.

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Revere Ware refrigerator magnets?

By on August 1, 2017 in Ebay, Interesting

When we started selling Revere Ware replacement parts 8 years ago, we bet on the fact that, with an installed base going back to the 40’s, there would be a lot of people passionate about their vintage cookware like we were.  In the 9 years since, our business has grown at a moderate but health clip, and in all the ways you might measure the level of interest in all things Revere Ware, interest in the vintage cookware brand has grown considerably.

For example, the number of listings for Revere Ware cookware at any given time has roughly quadrupled in that time period.  Similarly, the number of impressions we see for our Adwords ads every month has more than doubled (meaning, people are searching a lot more on Revere Ware related terms).

However, I think the best indication that the vintage Revere Ware brand is seeing a revival is the fact that someone is making new refrigerator magnets out of vintage Revere Ware ads, and they appear to be selling.

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Revere Ware retail arbitrage on eBay

By on July 23, 2017 in Amazon, Ebay, Small business

Arbitrage is the exploitation of economic inbalances.  An example would be borrowing money from a low-interest rate country and investing it in a high interest rate one.

The appears to be some kind of economic arbitrage happening with our parts for sale on Amazon.com and those parts being listed on eBay.  Here is an ad for two of our lid knobs on eBay.

The ad is identical to our listing on Amazon.com, including the title, pictures, and down to the description.  We sell the pair of knobs on Amazon.com for $10.49; on eBay they are listed for $14.49.  Similarly to the fake web store we found a couple of months ago listing our products from Amazon.com, it seems likely that the back-end systems of this seller simply place orders on Amazon.com with free Prime shipping whenever an eBay order is placed, and make a few dollars on the difference between the prices.  This particular seller has 3 other products of ours from Amazon.com listed, all of which are our top sellers (so they are being smart about it).

We can draw a couple of possible conclusions from this phenomenon.

  1. Our prices are too low.  Given the proliferation of our products (and we are the only maker of Revere Ware replacement parts) on eBay at higher prices than we sell on our website or Amazon.com, perhaps the market can bear higher prices.
  2. We should start selling on eBay; there is clearly a market for our parts there.

Doing a little searching on the subject reveals that Amazon-eBay arbitrage is actually a pretty common thing.  There is nothing wrong with it, per se; people are selling a listing something on eBay and then fulfilling the terms of the sale via Amazon.com.  The only problem we have with it is that the un-savvy shopper is paying more than they need to, and that any issues with the sale may track back to us via our Amazon.com sales channel.

We would actually love to use Fulfillment by Amazon as a way to fulfill eBay sales, and the difficulty of fulfilling them separately than how we handle our own website sales (via a fulfillment company), and Amazon.com sales (via fulfillment by Amazon) is what keeps us from listing our products on eBay.   As of yet, there doesn’t appear to be a way to do this that is supported by Amazon.com.

The moral of this story is, if you want the best price on our parts, avoid eBay and go straight to Amazon.com or our website.

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