08.15.2006

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Don says:

Ebay is addictive.   Lisa and I have spent dozens of hours learning how to sell on ebay; taking photographs, editing photographs, writing titles. writing descriptions, editing titles, editing descriptions, calculating shipping costs, learning about insurance, learning about click-n-ship, learning how and where to scrounge packing material and wagging boxes to the post office.   It's like having a job again only it doesn't pay as much.

Lisa put it into words when a friend asked us how we were doing on ebay.   She told him "If you have stuff you'd rather see go away than throw away you'll be very pleased with ebay." and that's how it is.   I haven't been able to figure out a consistent formula for it but some things will do very well on ebay, surpassing your expectations even, but most things just don't do that well.   You can set a minimum price on an item, but the listing fee is higher when you do and the item is less likely to sell.   Setting a low opening price will usually attract more bids but the item may very well sell for the minimum bid (if you only get one bidder).   You just have to take your chances.

It's easy for me because, as a lifetime packrat, I've got so much essentially useless stuff.   I figure I'd rather have ninety nine cents for "this old thing" than to have to throw it away.   If it sells for ninety nine cents then I'm not disappointed; if it sells for more, I'm thrilled; if it doesn't sell, I'm only out twenty cents for the basic listing and I have to decide whether to take a chance on listing it again or just throwing it away.   Any way you look at it, the math is really simple.


You might know that having a modest increase in income, due to our ebay sales, we're suddenly finding ways to spend more but that's ok, it's nice to be able to buy something without having to juggle resources or save up to pay for it.   Lisa's done such great things with her $50 Vivitar camera that I felt she should have a better camera so I ordered one.   I knew that she'd decline if I gave her a choice, so I didn't; I just ordered it, and she's thrilled with it.   I'll let her tell you about it.

Every time we get near a good sized city, like Austin or San Antonio, we try to make it to Central Market where we stock up on foods that Lisa, with her numerous food sensitivities, can eat.   It's wonderful to be able to add more diversity to our diet without threatening her health, but with gasoline costing so much we're not inclined to do much driving just lately.   Online shopping is suddenly a great deal more attractive than it's been in the past.   For example, bubble envelopes worked out to about sixty four cents each from the supermarket, fifty cents each at the dollar store, and a little over forty cents each at WalMart so I went looking for another source, online, and found PakOutlet where I bought two hundred bubble envelopes for just under twenty cents each (and that includes the freight). Maybe you're thinking "What's he going to do with two hundred bubble envelopes?" but hey, I can sell off the surplus on ebay.

It's reached the point where the first place I look for anything I want is the internet.   I found Lisa's new camera by searching for "Vivitar" at pricewatch.com (a search engine for electronic technology) which lead me to NewEgg where I bought the camera.   Later, when I learned that it needed SD memory cards for image storage (It's got enough built in memory for three or four hi-res images) I used pricewatch to find OneCall where I bought a pair of 128 MB cards.   A single 256 MB card would have been less costly but if you only have one card and it goes bad, you do without.   If you have two cards and one goes bad, you still have a good one you can use.

Where was I going with this?   Oh yeah, food.   One of the ways we add diversity to our diet is by cooking with alternative grains.   There are plenty of choices and we try to stock several of them but our stock was running awfully low until I thought to check online and discovered Bob's Red Mill.   We've bought a lot of Bob's products at Central Market but buying online is a much better deal because the product is probably fresher and they have a lot more products than the supermarket stocks so we have far more choices by shopping online.

Printing shipping labels, for my ebay sales, is making inroads into my black ink. Not only are the cartridges fairly expensive at WalMart, their nearest store is over thirty miles from here.   Back when I worked for an ink company they had something they called a "Jetpack" which I loved.   It's a little shipping box that costs around $15.00 that you open up following the directions, drop in an empty ink cartridge, and drop it in the mail (it's post paid). A week or so later you get back a full, remanufactured cartridge that's ready use.   I did some research online and found that ink cart sells a bargain package of six jet packs, usable for color or black ink, for $75.00 (free shipping) which is $12.50 each.   How can you beat a deal like that?   They take PayPal too.   Those should be arriving in a day or two and I'll be needing one for my black cartridge very soon.   I'll let you know how it works out as soon as I've had a chance to give them a try.

Update 8-31-06:   Oops, or maybe I should say ouch, whichever, I didn't read the fine print so what I bought was a single jetpack for six cartridges instead of six jetpacks but it actually worked out.   I had three nearly empty cartridges I was saving, we pulled two out of Lisa's printer that had sat entirely too long without being used, and my daughter had an empty color cartridge.   That made six so I packed them up and sent them off.   Less than a week later we got back six refilled cartridges and now I'll go back and order some single jetpacks.   The downside is I've got two refilled cartridges to store and it's not a good idea to let them sit for long periods of time before using them but they seem to be nicely sealed so maybe I'll get lucky.   Normally I tightly wrap empty cartidges and don't send them off in the jetpack until I'm fairly certain I'll need them soon.

Lisa says:

Setting up a system that makes it easier to do our Ebay routine has been a great help. The first week was hectic, running all over the house looking for tape, scissors, marking pens, envelopes, etc. so I set up "Don's Official Packing and Shipping Center".   OK, it's the laundry room but that's where the steel shelving unit and the extra table--also known as the freezer--were located.   The washer and dryer make additional horizontal holding surfaces.   Don't mess with us, we *are* professionals.

Don's Official Packing and Shipping Center

One reason behind our Ebay adventure is the fact that I'm incorporating my small household into his and we've just run out of space.   When his combination electronics, music and book swap business closed in 2002, much of his inventory was just put in closets or the shed.   When we started paring down some of our stuff, we experienced the satisfaction of 'dealing with' stuff that had been sitting around for a long time.   We all have stuff that's really pretty good stuff but we've just moved on in our interests and occupations.   Now we're more than happy to have our stuff move on to someone who needs or wants it.   These are some of the items we listed and sold to sci-fi readers, electronics technicians and luthiers (builders and repairers of stringed instruments).   Some were packages of related items, but most were sold individually.

   
      Box of Books                    RF Wattmeter                Guitar Repair Parts

So far we've had a lot of fun, but as usual with us geeky types, it makes for some short sleep.

"Honey, it's 4:00am!"
"No, it can't be, I just looked up and it was 2:00."
"You noticed it was 2:00? I was supposed to be asleep by 1:00."
"Uh..."

I love my new camera!   As mentioned above, Don had his eye on a very nice little ViviCam5350s.   It's super small because of its lithium-ion battery, has a large display and takes 5 MB images.   We got it from Newegg.com as a part of a combo-pak, together with a lightweight tripod for a total of $167.09.   I call that smart shopping.   The ability to get close-ups with the new camera and tripod made a big difference in the quality of the pictures we were able to display on ebay.   I'm certain it made a difference in our sales.

The adventure continues...