I've been missing eBay, so I started listing there again--with a few adjustments.
As someone said, "Don't take a fence down until you know why it was put up".
[--various attributions, including JFK paraphrasing G K Chesterton].
eBay was providing intermittent social pleasures and the pleasure of the chase (those intermittent rewards are hard to give up)––and pin money. One time I made $55 profit, another time I lost $22, mostly I make about $4 to $14 per sale (not charging for time).
And it remains interesting:
I'm learning more about business than I did when I wanted to go into videography and took small-business classes––I regret now that I didn't just jump in and START.
I've become more aware of invisible overhead, for instance, (packing tape! not cheap), and, of course, unpaid time.
I can't do much about expenses--from the start, I've always used as much recycled packing material as possible (I find an endless supply of clean cardboard boxes in recycle bins in the alley--mostly from Amazon)--but I can manage time better.
One thing I'm doing differently is selling low-priced things in lots, rather than individually.
The price of shipping doesn't go up much when you add a couple things to an order, and sometimes it doesn't go up at all,
so it's a better deal for the buyers too (providing they want more than one of the things).
Yesterday I bundled these three stackable pedestal mugs from the 1960s.
(The colors of the top one made me think it was from the '70s, brown-and-orange being the color combo of the era, but the company went out of business in 1969.)
When did huge mugs become the norm? These only hold 8 oz./1 cup.
As someone said, "Don't take a fence down until you know why it was put up".
[--various attributions, including JFK paraphrasing G K Chesterton].
eBay was providing intermittent social pleasures and the pleasure of the chase (those intermittent rewards are hard to give up)––and pin money. One time I made $55 profit, another time I lost $22, mostly I make about $4 to $14 per sale (not charging for time).
And it remains interesting:
I'm learning more about business than I did when I wanted to go into videography and took small-business classes––I regret now that I didn't just jump in and START.
I've become more aware of invisible overhead, for instance, (packing tape! not cheap), and, of course, unpaid time.
I can't do much about expenses--from the start, I've always used as much recycled packing material as possible (I find an endless supply of clean cardboard boxes in recycle bins in the alley--mostly from Amazon)--but I can manage time better.
One thing I'm doing differently is selling low-priced things in lots, rather than individually. The price of shipping doesn't go up much when you add a couple things to an order, and sometimes it doesn't go up at all,
so it's a better deal for the buyers too (providing they want more than one of the things).
Yesterday I bundled these three stackable pedestal mugs from the 1960s.
(The colors of the top one made me think it was from the '70s, brown-and-orange being the color combo of the era, but the company went out of business in 1969.)
When did huge mugs become the norm? These only hold 8 oz./1 cup.
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