eBayed And Played

Ebayed and played.

Well, as a part of my clean and purge process of things in storage, I decided to take some more baby steps and sell off some of what I considered "better than garage sale" books. 

I call them that, because it's more than I'd want to see books for sale for if I went to a garage sale.  Folks just aren't willing to spend ten or twenty dollars on books at garage sales.  At least I'm not. 

I had five different hardcover editions of Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic comic compilations.  They came out in the mid nineties, and each collected a certain number of the published comics.  Roughly divided up into storylines.  I bought them at a time in my life where I was single, had my first real job, and was spending way way more than I was taking in.  I got them at a book shop in East Lansing, for around $35 dollars apiece. 

They've been living in boxes, or on shelves ever since I got them.  I never really read them.  Some graphic novel stuff I love, because it grabs me quickly.  Other stuff reads more like an actual novel, sort of forced into graphic form.  These seemed to be the latter to me. 

I took them out, and took pictures of them, and listed them on eBay.  I had them listed to start at $19 and run for 5 days.  Nothing happened.  I relisted them, dropping the start price to $9.99, plus $4 shipping. I sold two of them at the end of the auction period for the starting bid.  The two buyers didn't pay right away.

I relisted again, putting the remaining three into a ten day auction, at the same prices, plus $19.99 buy it now option.  I sold two of them to a gentleman in Australia.  International shipping was for $5 apiece.  I sort of felt bad that I hadn't included the option to combine shipping.

One of the first buyers finally sent some payment, four days after the auction via PayPal. 

Then the guy from Australia sent his payment, of $50 US.  I was feeling ok about selling them for that much.  Not great, but ok.

Then I wrapped each sold and paid for book in brown paper, put them in recycled Amazon.com boxes, padded liberally with saved bubble packets, and was off to the post office. 

I had a problem.  The package to Australia, was going to cost $29 to ship, at the cheapest possible rate.  3.6 pounds to Australia, who knew??  I set the shipping rates according to what eBay recommended.  Apparently, I didn't read something correctly.  So now I had to chip in $19 towards the shipping.  My two books had now just netted me $10.50 apiece.  Great sadness.  I paid it, and shipped it without flinching, as that is what I agreed to do. 

My other book that sold, was only going to Tennessee.  I figured, no problem. 

But, once again, burned by the shipping.  Shipping alone was $8 dollars or so.  And when possible, I always add insurance and delivery confirmation to my eBay sales. 

This is due to an unfortunate $275 incident about 6 years ago.  Where I sold an aircraft tool to someone on eBay, and shipped it off regular, with no insurance, or tracking.  The buyer claims they never received it.  So by the rules, I had to reimburse him all his money.  I had no recourse, because I had no tracking or delivery confirmation on the item.  I learned that lesson at least.

It appears I need to learn this shipping cost lesson a little better. 

Back to the book to Tennessee:  I sold it for $13.99, which included shipping.  I paid over nine dollars to ship it.  So I sold my cool graphic novel for what? less than 5 bucks? 

Jesus Christ.  Just makes me sad.  Seeing as how I got these for $35 apiece, hung on to them for almost 20 years now, being careful with them the whole while, and now they get sold for less than a third what I paid, if that.  Highly, highly disappointing.

My fourth sold book, well, the buyer still hasn't paid.  So I have to send out an "ultimatum email"  Where I inform them that if they do not pay within 48 hours, I will declare them a non-paying bidder, and do the negative feedback thing.  Which I don't want to do, as they can just do negative feedback on me, with some bullshit story as to why they didn't pay, and that I didn't give them a chance.  blah blah blah.  Sometimes I really hate the eBay system. 

But, it's either deal with the internet marketplace in some fashion, or open a shop on the side of US-23, stock it with all my cool crap I don't need anymore, and wait the ten years it will probably take for people to buy it.  That just wouldn't make much sense either. 

I like simple, straightforward eBay transactions.  Where the buyer pays right away via PayPal, shipping isn't a gouge, and everything goes smoothly.  Is that too much to ask?

When I buy anything at all on eBay, I pay as soon as I can.  Same day the auction ends every time, if not within the hour.  I just don't understand people who do not do this. 

This has been my eBay therapy, brought to you by the letter 'M'. 

Moooo!  This grass is so Gooooood! 

Shhh, Bessy, Shhh.

Cheers