Posts Tagged ‘notablyneworleans’

These past weeks have been a bit insane, even by the rather elastic standards of sanity in my house.

The dozens of boxes of leftover inventory were hauled out of storage, organized, thousands of items individually priced and set up for a massive garage sale (actually held in our front parlors) that spanned 2 weekends. Friends were enlisted/enslaved, Charlie’s patience sorely tested (but rewarded- with some of the proceeds I bought him a much drooled over Kindle for his b-day) and the wine (not to mention whine) flowed.

The dogs were confused. Well, Sammy was anyway- Bruiser took the opportunity to go dumpster diving in bags and boxes to find anything stuffed to steal and destroy, and the bigger the better:

The sale itself was fun, especially since we were primarily an online business- I never got to see people playing with the stuff we sold, and that was really nice. We sold a little over half- not bad, considering that a high percentage of the stock was out of season Mardi Gras decorations.

I donated what was left to charity; it was just picked up a few hours ago. Mostly I’m glad to see it go… all those boxes took up as much emotional/mental space as physical, and closure (trite tho it may be) is a very good thing.

But…well. You know.

Anyway.

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This is how I feel- and my assistant even more so- after dealing with eBay.

They keep jacking up their rates while reducing the reasons to pay them. They’re so busy trying to keep buyers happy that they’ve forgotten that SELLERS are their customers as well- in fact, we’re the ones who pay them. And we do pay- a lot.

The average eBay sale costs me between 15-23% of the overall price, between store fees, listing fees, closing fees, Paypal fees… ay yi yi.

And, frankly- (and here I don’t mean YOU, of course. You’re perfect. I’m talking about a small but vocal percentage of the others) eBayers are pains in the ass. They think I’m running a garage sale, not a business.

I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve gotten that go, “I saw your brand new in package elaborate hand sewn costume complete with dress, leggings, wings and an elf to fit it to my own personal body, and I’d love to buy it, but I am NOT paying $20 for it! But if you’ll take $3 and ship it to me free, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands.”

We’re professional about it. We’ve gotten so good at being nice to those types it’d make you puke. We’ve got 100% positive feedback and try to keep everyone happy as a matter of course.

And, to be fair, we’ve dealt with many more wonderful people than not- but those NOTS are really time consuming, so we’re getting out of the pool.

But if you’ve bought something from us via eBay- first off, thank you- I’m sure you were a lovely and absolutely phenomenal person to deal with!

But I feel better already. Thanks for letting me rant:)