Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Garage Sale Time!

I used to be a packrat, but, over the last decade or so, I get rid of things regularly now.  The stuff is pretty cool, but I just have enough stuff.  I'm selling some of it on eBay now (the link goes to my current listings).  Unfortunately, eBay is no longer what it once was, so things don't sell on there as easily.  First of all, eBay has a default search mechanism called "best match" which favors commercial sellers and not a garage saler like myself, so my stuff usually ends up at the bottom of the search listings, which means a lot of potential buyers never even see it. Second of all, eBay's fees have gotten so expensive over the years that it's really not worth my time to have an auction for something unless I can get ten bucks or so for it, so bargains are harder to find for sellers as well.  All of that hurts eBay as well in that they lose potential fees on the sales I don't make, but I guess they make enough money as is that they don't care.  Then there was the hack a couple of months ago.  That probably scared some buyers away.  In any case, eBay's getting so bad, I may not even sell on it anymore.  I might even sell some of this stuff on another site or even here if it doesn't sell on eBay.  There definitely is an opening for an alternative auction site.  None have seemed to catch on yet, but if someone could just create an equivalent to eBay circa 2002, then I'd give it a shot.

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