Simply Sold Store Blog » Store News

It’s not easy to say…

admin — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 03:15:44 +0000

After 5-1/2 years in Romeoville, it’s time for a new chapter in our lives. As of March 31, 2011, Kellie and I will be closing Simply Sold on eBay in Romeoville.

We first opened the doors for business on August 5, 2005 and we have truly enjoyed the past 5-1/2 years at Weber and Taylor and will miss the friendships that have been made possible through this business. Over the years, we’ve helped people raise money to remodel basements, take vacations, buy cars, invest in new business equipment, pay off debt, feed and clothe those less fortunate, serve charitable missions throughout the world, and much more.

In that time, we’ve taken over 5 million photographs, sold nearly 30,000 items, shipped products to more than 80 countries across the world, helped local residents create nearly $2 million in value from unused items, assisted many businesses in becoming more profitable, and aided charitable organizations throughout Chicago raise money to support their mission.

•We will be continuing to accept new items for sale until March 12 to allow enough time to get the items listed, sold, and shipped by our last day on March 31. There’s only two weeks left to get your items in for sale, so act quickly! We look forward to seeing you soon!
•For those of you who have items for sale at our store, we’ll be finishing the selling process for you and, don’t worry; we’ll still be paying your proceeds as expected.
•If you have something at our store that didn’t sell, we kindly ask that you pick it up no later than March 12. Unsold items remaining after that date will be donated to a local charitable organization.
•Throughout the month we’ll be selling desks, chairs, shelving, and other equipment. If you’re interested in something, stop by and we’ll see if we can work something out.

In case you’re wondering what’s next for us, Kellie and I are pursuing other passions that we’ve held for many years. Kellie’s first love is teaching others to create amazing works of art through quilting. She’s working with a few organizations in the local area to keep this passion alive. John has been working with the Bolingbrook Park District as a Certified Personal Trainer for the past few years. As a lifelong athlete, fitness has always been a love and being a trainer has given him the ability to share fitness and health with others. Recently, John has been offered an opportunity to expand his role with the park district and he’s accepted the challenge and the opportunity to continue helping others achieve their goals.

We look forward to seeing you over the next two weeks and helping you sell those remaining items. From our family to yours, we’ll miss each of you and look forward to seeing you around town!

John and Kellie Chase

We’re changing our store hours

admin — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 19:14:08 +0000

We’re making a change to our store hours effective Wednesday, October 27. Saturday hours will remain the same, 10am – 5pm, to serve to on the weekends. Our weekday hours are changing to 10am-3pm from 10am-6pm. To accomodate special situations, if you need to drop off an item outside these normal hours, please contact us at (815) 293-0300 to make arrangements.

It’s hard to find good help these days

admin — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 01:32:25 +0000

Seemed like a good idea at the time

This guy named Darth came to the store the other day and asked if we were hiring. He was pretty convincing, although a little quiet, so we hired him.

Customer service didn't work for Darth

He started at the front counter greeting customers and researching items they brought in to sell. Honestly, customer service is not his strength.

The buttons gave him trouble

So we moved on to taking pictures. He did OK, but he had trouble with the buttons on the camera. I kept asking him to take off the clumsy gloves but he just stod there grinning at me.

Darth and Marion didn't work well togther

From there we moved on to shipping. What a disaster! The dude is like a bull in a china shop. Whacking at stuff with the tape gun. He’s putting shrink wrap on items like he’s trying to strangle them. What’s that all about? We couldn’t trust him with the delicate stuff so he’s no longer on shipping duty. He kinda pissed off Marion too. His breath isn’t the greatest and they started arguing about it, she threatened him with an atomic wedgie and we had to separate them.

Guard duty seems to fit him well

For now, he’s on night guard duty in the front window while we look for new employment for him.

Need a new employee? He might be just the guy for you. He’s only going to be around until October 24.

Get your new employee, Darth Maul, here!

Another example of how and why we use video

admin — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 00:55:39 +0000

We’ve had over half a million views on our You Tube videos to date and they’ve made a big difference in the success of many listings. Most of the videos are designed just to show that the product does what it’s supposed to do. That is, designed to show that it works. This one was a little different.

Since I’ve produced over 100 fitness videos for Inspired Journey Fitness, I decided to take a different approach here and show ways to actually use the Bowflex Ultimate Home Gym.

In our most recent video, I show you how easy it is to set up and use the Bowflex Ultimate for five different exercises.

If you’ve got something that you’d like to sell and that item might be right for a video, bring it in to the experts and we’ll take care of it for you.

Atari, Colecovision, and the old Commodore 64

admin — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 21:40:13 +0000

Take yourself back to 1982. For me, it was the beginning of high school and Pac Man was the hot game. I thought it was pretty cool when we were able to get a version that we could play on the old Atari 2600. It was the height of cool. Pac Man at home, and you didn’t have to feed a quarter into the machine for every play.

The old 2600 died many years ago and the games probably went into the trash with it. Too bad because they could have been worth something.

We recently received a large lot of old Atari, Colecovision, and Commodore 64 games. I’ll admit, even after five years in this business I was a bit skeptical but when I looked them up I found that they were selling pretty well. The Commodore games started receiving bids almost immediately after they were listed on eBay and the others have picked up a following too. By the time the three auctions had ended they generated over $500!

Do you have any old video games? If you’ve got a good sized collection (50+ games) with their original boxes, we might be able to help you turn them into cash.

Commodore 64 Games

Thanks for your help Jerry!

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:26:01 +0000

Jerry took the time to tell us how he used our business.

Thanks Jerry!

Bon Jovi, Kid Rock, Concert Tickets, and Lunch at Wrigley Field

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:12:49 +0000

We’re selling 4 Bon Jovi and Kid Rock Tickets at Soldier Field on July 30. Tickets of all sorts sell well on eBay and these will do well also. It’s the hottest concert of the year!

Every time I hear Kid Rock’s name I think of a clip I heard on the radio. Kid Rock was at Wrigley Field and sang “Take me out to the ballgame” during the 7th inning stretch and what happens at the end just cracks me up.

This clip includes a bunch of other unrelated stuff at the beginning, so fast forward to about halfway through to hear the funny part.

If you’ve got tickets to sell, bring them in. If you’d like to bid on these tickets, click here now

Cool sale of the week

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:50:07 +0000

We sold something this week that we’ve been working on for several months. That’s much longer than a normal sale for us, but we pursued this one a little more aggressively because it was a great opportunity for everyone involved, the seller, the buyer, and our store.

It was one of those types of items where there isn’t much of a market and you have to find just the right buyer. An interested buyer called and said he was deciding between our listing and one other off-eBay item in Pennsylvania.

He said he chose our item because we had a great video showing the product working.

It was the video! I think I was more pumped about the fact that the video made the difference than I was about the actual sale.

I love when we can do something like that to make the difference between selling and not selling. That’s why we do what we do.

What can we do to make a difference for you? Have we already done something that amazed you? Leave a comment on this blog and tell us about it!

Relay for Life is only 1 week away!

admin — Sat, 15 May 2010 20:17:43 +0000

Next Saturday I’ll be participating in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life in Bolingbrook. I’m looking forward to the event and helping raise money for a worthy cause. I’m a few dollars short of my goal and would love to be able to show up at the event having raised $1000.

In the 2 minutes it takes to make a donation to my American Cancer Society Relay For Life® team, you can help me save lives – and improve the quality of life for people who have cancer.

The American Cancer Society invests much-needed funds raised through Relay For Life® to save lives from cancer. They’ll use your donation to:

• Help people stay well by educating them on ways prevent cancer or detect it early, when it’s most treatable.
• Help people get well with FREE hands-on support through every step of their cancer experience.
• Find cures by funding groundbreaking research that helps us understand cancer’s causes, determine how best to prevent it, and discover new ways to cure it.
• Fight back by working with lawmakers to pass laws to defeat cancer and rally communities worldwide to join the fight.

Every donation really does make a difference. Please visit my personal Relay for Life page to make a secure, tax-deductible online donation.

If it’s easier to spread your donation over several months, you can do that by choosing a “sustaining gift” option. Thank you for joining me in this effort.

To learn more about Relay For Life®, please visit RelayForLife.org

Help fight cancer through Relay for Life

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:26:39 +0000

A little over a year ago, a very good friend of our daughters was diagnosed with cancer. In a short 9 months, Brianna finished the race strong but ultimately lost her battle with the disease. As a father, watching a child’s life cut short was heartbreaking. It’s hard for me to even write about it.

I’ve formed a team for the Relay for Life in Bolingbrook to make a small contribution and maybe help one more child enjoy another birthday and I’m asking for your support.

In the 2 minutes it takes to make a donation to my American Cancer Society Relay For Life® team, you can help me and my team save lives – and improve the quality of life for people who have cancer.

The American Cancer Society invests much-needed funds raised through Relay For Life® to save lives from cancer. They’ll use your donation to:

Every donation really does make a difference. Please visit my personal Relay for Life page to make a secure, tax-deductible online donation.

If it’s easier to spread your donation over several months, you can do that by choosing a “sustaining gift” option. Thank you for joining me in this effort. I will keep you updated on my progress.

To learn more about Relay For Life®, please visit RelayForLife.org