People will buy just about anything on ebay. I have sold several different items on ebay in the past that I never thought anyone would actually buy, but since I was listing other more easily sold items I thought why not put this crap up for sale as well. I already had the camera out etc... Some of these items include:
-a set of 2 plastic wall mountable coat hooks . Retail value $3-4 for the set i think. Someone bought them for $1-2 plue $6 or $7 for shipping. Since I had used these coat hooks for a while I feel that the investment was profitable, and the person whol bought them either lived a million miles away from a wal-mart or forgot that they had to pay for shipping as well, but went through with the transaction anyway due to the nature of ebay.
-a crappy black cowboy-esq hat - which was in terrible shape, but i suppose someone could have taken it to a Milliner (someone who makes or repairs hats) and had it reshapped. Though for that much money I think they could have just purchased a new hat. Similar to the item above.
So why do people find it necessary to purchase things on ebay that cost more than they would if they were to go to a local store and purchase the same item? It's not like these items I sell are rare or otherwise hard to find.
Though I guess I am slightly dumb for selling some of this stuff, like this one:
v-tech 900mhz cordless phone. (the phone kinda works, but the battery sucks.) I sold it as is, what you see is what you get and made no guarantee of workability. It sold for 99 cents. The final transaction broke out like this:
sale price .99. Guy paid $8.13 including estimated shipping (for a 99 cent transaction mind you). Shipping actually cost $7.19 leaving 94 cents. I had to pay ebay 60 cents to list the item leaving 34 cents. Then paypal took their fee of 54 cents leaving me 20 cents in the hole. (i also used about 50 cents worth of bubblewrap from my work). So if I had to buy the bubble wrap, I would have been more than $1 in the hole for SELLING something on ebay. Ebay made money, paypal made money and UPS made money. The guy got an $8 shitty phone and I got nothing... well nothing except I dont have an extra shitty phone sitting around in my apartment, and I didnt have to send it to the landfill.
The internet economy at work I guess. Oh and I am sure blogger is somehow making money off me right now as I type this post...
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