Happy Saint Patrick's Day !

A quick, easy sale!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to one and all! They say that on Saint Paddy's Day everyone is a little bit Irish.  McDude would add that on Saint Paddy's everyone has the chance to earn a few Irish "pounds" too! The weeks leading up to Saint Patrick's Day can be a great time to sell Irish themed clothing like sweaters, shirts and hats. The very green Izod Lacoste sweater seen on the right is a fine example. I found it tagged for $2.00 dollars at Goodwill. With Saint Paddy's Day a few short months away, I would have been crazy not to buy it. So I paid the two bucks and listed it right away on eBay. My huge two buck investment paid off. The Lascoste sweater sold for $20 dollars, earning me a nice little profit of $18 green dollars!

A quick sale for this shamrock sweater? Not so much....

But even when Saint Patrick's Day is approaching on the calendar, not every green sweater is a sure bet. A case in point is this Irish shamrock sweater. I bought this over a year ago at Goodwill, paying five bucks for it. It was made in Ireland by a company called Blarney Stone. You can't get more Irish then that, right? Saint Patrick's Day was about a month away when I bought it. Although I've since changed my opinion, at the time I was operating under the belief that ugly Christmas sweaters were big sellers on eBay. I concluded that since ugly Christmas sweaters sell well, so too would ugly Irish sweaters. With Saint Patrick's Day a month away, I confidently posted the sweater with a starting bid of $20 dollars. Despite the approaching holiday, the sweater didn't receive a single bid! Where's the luck of the Irish when you need it?

You've heard the old expression about missing the train at the station? That's how it feels when you're stuck with an Irish themed sweater after Saint Patrick's Day. In my case, the train had left the station and I was left standing on the platform holding a useless sweater! Over the months that followed, I frowned disappointingly at the sweater as it hung in my inventory. In a few of my weaker moments, I actually considered donating it back to Goodwill! As you probably know, this is totally out of character for your McDude. Whether it's eBay, Craigslist or even my own garage sale, I try to wring a few bucks from every single item I have in inventory. I felt the same way about my under performing shamrock sweater. So despite missing the eBay train, I was determined to wait for Saint Patrick's Day to roll around again and give the sweater another shot!

Fortunately, I didn't have to wait as long as originally thought. In January Ebay offered one of their free "fixed price" listing specials. These occasional specials come in handy when you're trying to clean out old inventory. I prefer using auctions for most of my items, but a fixed price listing gives you the chance to post it and forget about it for a month. (It doesn't hurt that the listing is free too.) In the case of my sweater, I was hoping to find a good Irishman who was planning his Saint Paddy's activities eight weeks ahead of time. I posted  the sweater for $30 dollars; much higher then I thought it was worth. If there were no bids, I could always tweak the price down as the days passed.  It turned out that no adjustment was necessary. Within a week's time my Irish sweater sold for the original asking price of $30 dollars! What a difference a year makes....from no bids to $30 big ones! Maybe the luck of the Irish is with me...it just took a little longer! 

Have you sold any ugly Irish sweaters or other Saint Paddy's Day themed items? Let us know in the comment section below and while you're at it...have a Happy Saint Patrick's Day too!  


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