On ebay - Lesson 1...

I've been using ebay on and off for seven years now. Perhaps I should chronicle my ups and downs with ebay on my journal.

I started out with ebay since I think it's a fabulous idea. The fact that one man's trash is another man's treasure (much like flea markets work) brings about recycling of everything, big and small, appeals to me.

I had started getting rid of the new baby gifts that we never use. Incidentally, I have two Winnie The Pooh blanket sets that are exactly the same. And I have two humidifiers. Lots of baby clothings and stuffs. Everything was new in the box.

I suppose I could have given them away to friends and families; or I could send them all to Salvation Army (and get tax deductions too). At the time, ebay was quite a new thing. I bought one or two minor/inexpensive things on it, and it's fun bidding. So, I decided to try it out.

It really was quite fun, seeing people bidding on my auctions. (Hey, I have something people really want!) But problems started --

(1) I started losing track of all the questions coming in - answering them in time and correctly, no less - after I listed more than 3-4 items simultaneously.

(2) Shipping costs are confusing. I shouldn't have been selling bulking. At the time, USPS had not realized the revenue potential from ebay yet, so there's nothing like stamps.com or the help that it's providing these days (free boxes, free pickup, etc). Even though everything was still in its own packing, I have to literally take the boxes to the post office, and ask how much the shipping costs would be to various zip codes. It's a big hassle that I can do without.

Back then, there's less help from ebay or USPS, but there's also less fraud. Everything was sold, and there's no problem at all with payment in personal checks. Even though proceeds were not that much, I felt good about it, knowing that the goods were put to good use.

Shipping the stuffs out (bulky ones, in particular) was still a hassle, but I thought I can do more of this. So, after I sold off everything that I didn't want at home, I started scouting the neighborhood. It so happened that I lived in a fairly well-to-do area, so people would literally throw out great stuffs on the streets. There are a lot of truly antique that were thrown away, like a pair of chairs from 1800s, cute antique looking lamps, Ralph Lauren blanket that looks like new, etc. I decided to sell the antique chairs to a nearby antique shops for $250 (since I didn't want to deal with the hassle of shipping it, although I'm quite certain I could have fetched more from ebay).

It really was quite fun...for a while. That's my first lesson of it.

[TO BE CONTINUE...]