An eBay Entrepreneur

Every few weeks or so I make a mental list of things I would like to accomplish.  Paring down clutter is always at the top of the list.   

The room we (besides me, the we includes Ross and Rico) spend a lot of time in is our office/den.  

Ross and I each have our own computer desks.  There is another cabinet in the room which is pretty much empty.  It has just become another vessel to stow away more stuff and a surface to hold a big old TV, that we very rarely watch. 

We each have a book case next to our desks.  The only books my book case has on its shelves are old telephone books.  The rest of the shelves are filled with more stuff.

The book case next to the desk Ross uses, does have some books.  But, they are not our books.  They are more "stuff" books.  Books we picked up here and there and thought we might sell on eBay or in our shop. 

We have a nice large window in the room.  Under the window is an old coffee table.  The coffee table is used as a mini photography studio.  It holds the light box that we use to take pictures of our stuff, which someday we are going to sell on eBay.   The coffee table also allows more storage space under it.  There are old sewing patterns, jewelry, some neat hat stands, and old film camera, complete with case, etc, etc, etc.   You know, more potential eBay stuff.

I have been selling on eBay since 1998. 

eBay is great way to get rid of stuff.  It can also be very time consuming.  

I have spurts of enthusiasm for it.  Yesterday I had one of those spurts.    

  

I  picked 15 items off of my "book" shelf.   It took me about 1-1/2 hours to take pictures of the items, crop and save those pictures.   Then another 1-1/2 hours to write descriptions for each item, upload them into  Garage Sale.   

 Garage Sale is a client application for eBay online auction system designed for use with the Mac. It allows users to edit, track, and manage their auctions with one single application.

The auctions will run for 7 days.   During those 7 days I will probably get questions from potential buyers asking if the old stuff  vintage items I am selling are in perfect, unused, excellent condition.  They might also want to know why the post office I am charging so much for postage.

Once the auctions have ended, I hopefully will have sold some of the items.  Then I will have to send an invoice to each of the winners.    Once I get paid, I then will have to pack each item, and get it to the post office.
Yes, selling on eBay can be time consuming.  But the rewards for me far out weigh the minor negatives.

REWARDS

1. I now have a little less stuff.
2. I have made either a small profit or at least gained some of my investment back.
3. I get to read the usually wonderful positive feedback from the people who have bought a piece of my stuff.  It makes me feel that I have given out presents.

Here is a shameless plug for my  eBay auctions.  Since I intend to keep chipping away at my stuff, I will be adding more stuff to my auctions today.