20 Years of Auctions - Sharing Some of My Many Experiences of Selling on eBay

This May, it will have been 20 years since I opened by account with eBay. 

Twenty. Years.

Twenty years is a couple of eons in web terminology. The ecommerce giant currently has about 170,000,000 active users... my eBay account number is just 4 digits long! Well, not any more... these days it's four digits with a lot of zeros in front.

eBay Used to Be Cool!

I know people have a lot of mixed feelings about eBay, including the many who see the giant auction site as just another "corporatocracy" out to fleece little people.

eBay used to be a lot of fun, though. In the early days, it was a giant online flea market and collectibles fair where you could find some of the most esoteric things for sale. It was also cool because almost all the users were individuals trading with each other. It was a true peer-to-peer marketplace.

I was able to transfer most of my rare postage stamp business from purely mail order to almost exclusively web sales, all thanks to eBay. 

Some years later, I also built a fairly successful jewelry supplies business through eBay. And, of course, I sold lots and lots of random items found at thrift shops and garage sales.

That was all back in the days before eBay became dominated by large scale "corporate sellers." 

The Things People ASK About!

Being an eBay trader gives you an interesting view into the nature of humanity. Since it's a truly global marketplace, it also gives insight into what matters in different cultures.

One of the things I've learned is that people do not read, when they are shopping. They'll just see something and write a question the answer to which is right in front of their faces. 

"That's 1920's men's wristwatch you're selling, when was it made?"

In spite of often wanting to do otherwise, I have answered questions like that politely for 20 years. Even when people have asked the dimensions of something... the dimensions of which were stated four times in the description.

I used to have the "make an offer" option turned on with most of my sales, but don't anymore because of the issue with "bottom feeders." These are the people who spend hours and hours "lowballing" every worthwhile item for sale, in hopes of finding that one desperate seller who's willing the let go of a $100 item for $5.

An Extraordinary Coincidence!

Back when we were in severe financial dire straits we had to sell some old family "treasures." Included was a Danish sterling silver vase that had belonged to my grandparents, and in fact had been a 50th wedding anniversary present to them; inscribed on the bottom.

The winning bidder was a gentleman from Canada, who happened to have a very unique and rare last name. So I wrote to him to ask if he was related to a particular Norwegian painter who had been a friend of my grandfather's.

As it turned out, he was the great-grandson of that same painter, with whom my grandfather had enjoyed lunch almost weekly, back in Copenhagen in the 1920's. You might say the silver vase went to a good home!

Some People Are Just Really Cheap!

I seem to have run into my share of cheapskates over the years; buyers who seem to have time enough on their hands to engage in a furious email war in an attempt to persuade me that there is some way to ship a box for five cents less than the price I quoted.

And could I please refund the five cents.

This became particularly problematic a few years back when the US Postal service discontinued "sea mail" to global destinations. There was no longer an "economy" shipping method to get heavier shipments to other parts of the world. But people still insisted on arguing with me, no matter how much proof I provided.

I actually had a gentleman take me to task for charging 50 cents postage to mail something as a first class letter; actual cost 47 cents. 

Some have even gone as far as trying "feedback blackmail." eBay works on a reputation system to evaluate the trustworthiness of traders, which is based on the feedback buyers and sellers leave for each other. Well, somebody actually threatened to give me bad feedback if I didn't lower their postage costs. Fortunately, that sort of thing no longer works as it's one of the rare example where eBay will judge in favor of the seller.

Patience, Patience!

Some people are just incredibly impatient, when they buy things online. More than once, I have received emails within minutes of a sale wanting to know "when I shipped it" and where their tracking number is.

I know we live in a "RIGHT NOW" society, but please give me at least 24 hours to put something in a box and send it out to you. 

It's funny, though, how people in different countries have different degrees of patience. A lot of folks in Scandinavia seem perfectly content with "sometime in the next couple of weeks," while people in the USA are more urgency obsessed.

On the whole, though, eBay has been a positive experience for me and I've completed over 20,000 transactions worth more than $300,000 over the past couple of decades-- almost all of them without incident.

It is my hope that our own Steemit-based auction initiative @steembay will take off and become a really cool peer to peer marketplace in the style of the earliest days of eBay. We could really use a good peer-to-peer marketplace here. I have already used Steembay once and had a successful sale.

How about YOU? Are you an eBay user? Have you used eBay for more than just a few personal sales and purchases? Have you had any issues buying and selling on eBay? Are you interested in the Steembay project being developed here on Steemit? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

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created by @zord189

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180202 17:12 PDT