Shannon Yarbrough

Check out this article on more fees and changes you can expect from Ebay soon.  Sellers were encouraged to boycott Ebay this week and not post any new items for sale.

Starting in May, eBay will only allow sellers to leave positive feedback for buyers, and continue to have the option of leaving no feedback.

Gosh, I remember many years ago before Paypal when I bought a $70 dollar ring from someone on Ebay and had to pay by check or money order.  I never got my ring, and there was no feedback system for me to tell anyone.  Things have definitely changed since then.  I’ve bought and sold things on Ebay quite a bit over the years, but recently slacked off when Paypal started charging fees for using them to collect money.  They now take a small percentage of your transaction for their service.  With the price of postage these days, there’s barely any money to be made after you ship an item.

Here’s a better success story about selling things the old fashioned way…

When J and I bought a house back in 2006, I decided to have a moving sale at our apartment.  Unfortunately, I had to have it the weekend of July 4th.  There was no other time to have it, and the clubhouse at our apartment complex was nice enough to let me have it there.  I spent all night that Friday after work moving stuff over to the clubhouse, setting it up, making and putting up signs, then went back at 6am on Saturday to start pricing things.  J frowned on having to deal with the whole thing, but I put my mind to it and didn’t give up just because we were about to move and having to stress over other things.  People started arriving at 7am, and J didn’t come over and join me until noon.

By then, half the stuff was gone and I’d made $100 dollars.  Well, that definitely excited J, so at the end of the day we made another trek through the house to gather up more things to sale the next day.  On Sunday, an hour passed before anyone came.  Hey, you know how lazy Sundays can be!  But when they started coming, they didn’t stop.  By the end of Sunday, I had a small box left of just mix matched items.  We were packing up and getting ready to leave when one last customer drove up.  I made them a deal and sold them that box of junk for 5 bucks.  So, when J and I walked away we’d made $300 dollars in two days and literally sold EVERYTHING.  We walked away with just our money, and the radio that I had taken over to listen to.

Yeah, this is just my story and I know I probably wouldn’t get that lucky again, but my point is I didn’t have to pay any fees or postage that weekend!