several years ago i discovered the most glorious website ever invented. the greatest testament to capitalism, american style, thy name is ebay. it was in the early ’00′s. ebay was in its heyday and my budget knew no bounds. literally over night, i became obsessed with this amazing online bidding phenomenon. after i quickly ran out of practical items to purchase, i started collecting like i had never collected before. i have been known to dabble in OCD & that combined with my failing, yet lucrative marriage made my romance with ebay’s ability to score me rare items, on which i could outbid anybody by putting in astronomical amounts, simply unavoidable. i went through major purchasing phases of different genres of items for years. i bought household items, clothing, shoes (every style of high heeled michael kors clog), designer purses, custom made bedazzled tee shirts ( i had an in with every seller) to name a few. and everything had to be new with tags (NWT). my feedback score is so high because of all the crap i bought, not sold. selling came later & we shall get to that i assure you. i was sure that if something couldn’t be found on ebay, it just didn’t exist. if you mentioned looking for something & were unable to find it, my standard response was, “did you check ebay?”
soon, my loneliness in my loveless marriage was replaced by the all consuming passion of finding my childhood items. neither my mom, nor i were big savers. so i got rid of mostly everything i had as a kid. i was rediscovering long lost items. extensively researching them, stalking, & tracking them down on ebay. offering outrageous “buy it nows” (BIN) to sellers who thought i was loopy. but my silght OCD could not allow me to rest until that item was in my hand. and all the toys absolutely had to be MINT. yes, obviously, i have perfectionist issues too. finding unused perfect toys from 30 years ago will significantly up the cash value of such items. i was buying bristle blocks, vintage board games like don’t tip the waiter, old school candyland, perfection & superfection (both of which gave my then 2 yr old a heart attack), alpha blocks, 42 boxes of vintage colorforms, miscellaneous dolls (remember dressy bessy?), several libraries of children’s books (ahh, my beloved sweet pickles set), 6 richard scarry playskool sets, weebles, fashion plates, sets of garbage pail kids cards, barbie’s hair salon, & basically every toy i could remember ever having owned. but the coup de gras was the fisher price little people (FPLP to those of us in the biz. ebay has its own language born of limits of letters on auction titles). and i remember clearly when i lost my mind over FPLP. there was a lot to learn & i was a quick study.
FPLP had their own following. a community complete with discussion boards and i fast became the ultimate ebay nerd bedecked in a bedazzled ebay t-shirt. i was thrilled to learn that there were tons of little peeps. there were the typical guys you knew, but i discovered something called the variation: these were LPs with the rare colored body, the unusual expression, the european versions, ethnicitized versions, wood bodies, plastic bodies, mistakes that came out of the factory: all highly collectible. oh, but one had to beware beacuse deviant FPLP sellers lurked among us. very very bad boys & girls who manufactured fake deviations in their domestic subterranean toy laboratories. selling them for crazy money to those poor little lambs who didn’t know. there are books & websites dedicated to cataloging authentic peeps & known fakes. it was like the fisher price CIA. but nonetheless, i had to have every single one of them. i got hooked up with another FPLP looney-toon and she started selling to me directly through my own personal auctions. she must have been happy as a pig in shit because i didn’t care what it cost if i wanted it. i was collecting the playsets too. i had to have a complete perfect set with a mint set of people. i had to own every set ever made. even if i already had the people that went to the playset, i needed a new set of peeps just for that playset. i was an FPLP snob. not only were they residing in sixteen (yes, 16) compartmentalized containers, labeled by type (via professional label maker, because i tolds ya i don’t do much 1/2 assed) but i cataloged my FPLP via an excel spread sheet. omg. a spread sheet? i was hitting rock bottom fast. how crazy was i becoming in the quest for happiness in my life? i was losing my mind & i didn’t care. i had teeny tiny plastic people to whom i could tell my troubles and who loved me (and that’s i have ever really wanted: just to be loved. well, by a full sized male human). i wouldn’t even let my kids play with the peeps for fear they might muss their mint condition status. one errant smudge or paint chip and it was all over. simultaneously, i was planning my basement remodel. i had so many FP playsets & FPLPs that i actually designed a shelving system to display all of it. my reality check came when i left my laptop out one day signed into my ebay account and mr. asspants saw the exorbitant amount of money i had spent on FPLP. he lost his shit, rightly so, and forbade me to buy anymore. shah. whatever. i would be damned if he was going to take the only joy i experienced outside of my children away from me. especially when he was the catalyst in the first place. but like it or not, i did start to see what i was becoming: a full blown mental patient. i had to stop or i had to find a 12 step FPLP recovery program. it was downright nuts & besides, storage was becoming an issue. eventually i sold off most of the childhood finds & the FPLP, but i still have approximately 272 tiny little people living here with me in my divorce process dorm room (formerly the room known as, guest). i will never unload them for more than a fraction of what i paid, so i actually let my girls play with them now. well, most of them. okay, not the sesame street people. a mint prairie dawn in worth like 50 bucks. and a mint herry monster? priceless. they come up for bid only during a harvest moon.
another part of my ebay insanity was to keep buying new sets of the same thing to upgrade it: i.e. my colorforms. if i found a rare set, say the highly coveted holly hobby glow in the dark house that i paid over 70 clams for, but if one colorform was missing, i would hold the set until a complete set came along, buy the new set & resell the one i had. usually at a loss or barely break even. i did this with all kinds of things, but vinatge toys mostly. i didn’t care if i sold at a loss because i was in search of the perfect set, not a profit. i went so far as to start an ebay group for a colorform exchange program. i am not making this up. i am truly that obsessive. you have an extra i need? i have one you need. let’s exchange them. surely i can’t be the only whack job buying entire sets for 1 colorform. umm, yah, turns out i was. ebay folded the group due to lack of interest. yay, another new low.
finally, i came to my senses and parlayed this bizarre talent into actually selling for a profit. der kommissar had such a tight hold on the family finances that i had to make some cash for myself. so i began selling anything in my house that wasn’t nailed down. i didn’t care what i made. i just wanted liquidity. i was basically scamming him. i would buy items with the credit card & then resell them on ebay when i was done with the item. this was the most fabulous justification for shopping because everything had untapped resale potential. so i reasoned i was going to make the cash back. however, it did add a certain slightly stressful edge to daily life when i had to keep not only the item, but the packaging too, in what i called” ebay condition.” i even purchased plastic 1/2 body dummies to model my clothes upon for the re-sale photos. i got a tripod & set up a photo studio in my basement. i was fuckin’ hard-core. i don’t mess around, my homies. i rarely made my anticipated killing though.
at this point a few years had passed (time does fly online), & i had become such an ebay efficienato, that friends & family were taking notice. i knew all the tricks of the e-trade. there was nothing i couldn’t buy or sell on ebay and they wanted in. i became an ebay power seller, people (for rills! they sent me a certificate and everything). at first it was a great idea. i designed business cards and a logo and dubbed myself “the tidy terror,” which i think is perfectly self explanatory. i was selling anything you asked me to for a 50/50 split of the profit after the ebay fees. hefty commission fer sure, but i got results. it became an all encompassing endeavor with more & more people wanting me to sell stuff. and i had to be diplomatic about their items. everyone thinks they have the best crap in town and it’s worth a fortune. what we all didn’t know was that the ebay market was about to bottom out from sheer seller saturation. it was getting harder & harder to sell regular items. only in demand craft items or rare & vintage items were still selling. i was losing money in fees for unsold merchandise & drowning in a sea of other people’s used clothes. let’s not even discuss how often an obsessive person like myself checks to see if her listings have any bids. there is a whole bidding strategy in which people wait til the last minute to bid, called “bid sniping.” it was driving me out of my ebay ravaged mind checking every 20 minutes for 7 days. and ebay shows you how many watchers you have. you can have 99 watchers & no bids on the same item someone else sold for a zillion dollars the week before. the ebay universe follows no rhyme or reason and it just became too much weight to bear. also, the pressure from my “clients” was becoming unbearable. i was crushing their dreams of new louis vuittons with slouching sales & poor profits.
then there was the shipping and packing: a production in & of itself. i was up late at night listing my items & exhausted in the morning packing them. i was spending hours packing & shipping items all over the place. i had purchased a postal scale, bubble mailers, shipping labels, packing tape, & was saving hundreds of boxes in my garage. i kept every box that was ebay worthy because it cut into the profit margin to buy boxes. recycling shipping supplies was a must for the same reason. i had piles of packing materials & bags of styrofoam peanuts. my mother was bringing her boxes & used wrappings over to my garage. it was out of hand – i had a gd shipping center in my basement. i had my own account with ups & the usps for jeebus chisto sakes. it was clear i had to retire and my passion for all things ebay began to subside. when all was said and done i really didn’t make money. it takes a 24/7 dedication to selling on ebay to make a real living at it. oh and a storage facility. and maybe an assistant over age 5.
however, my shining ebay moment came after that when i was redoing my kitchen and i sold the old kitchen on ebay for a few thousand dollars. i sold an entire kitchen people. literally selling everything and the kitchen sink.
the divorce proceedings really killed my whole ebay thing. i was very busy responding to false claims & general lunacy, that i had no time anymore for my previous ebay passion. then the asshat had blocked me from all of the finances and refused to pay the credit cards. ebay shopping kind of lost its appeal while he was busy trying to destroy my credit. but most recently, a dear friend asked me to help her and sell a few things for her. so i am dipping my toes back into the ebay pool slowly & cautiously. i made no promises to her, but i went to her house, collected items, measured, photographed, described, listed, & i am hoping for the best. if the results are favorable, the ebaybe just may make a comeback – i still have a few tricks up my sleeve…
the ebaybe’s 5 simple rules for ebay happiness:
yes, i will sell your crap for you on ebay, half, or craig’s list: provided you are willing to abide by these 5 simple little rules:
1. i am the ebaybe. the ebaybe shall not be questioned. i decide the amount i will list your stuff for & if it’s even a saleable item. everybody thinks their crap is the best stuff ever & worth a fortune. newsflash: it’s not. unless you have a majorly rare item or pristine antique. in which case, you should be talking to christie’s or the comic store guy & not me. plus people are on ebay to save money. this means they want cheap stuff. it’s little more than a giant glorified garage sale for the entire world.
2. you do not get to “bust the trade” so to speak, if you are unhappy with the final bid amount on your item. this is a big no-no on ebay and will fuck up my perfect 100% feedback score. understand, as a seller on ebay, all you have is your feedback score and i am already jeopardizing it by even getting involved with you & your crap in the first place. my feedback makes my lovely items more desirable over some other schmuck’s same exact crap. so the moral of the story is” you get what you get and you don’t get upset. ” well you can get upset, but i don’t want to hear about it.
3. selling shit on ebay is a very involved process, therefore i am not doing it out of the goodness of my heart. i will come to your house, inspect your items, take them home, photograph them, measure them, list them, deal with all the idiots & freaks on ebay, pack it up, & ship it. this is time consuming, therefore, i get a cut of the profits after ebay’s fee’s & commission. yes, we share the net profit, people. now, i am not a greedy person. i am a reasonable woman. but if you bug the bejeebus out of me during this process with incessant calls of “did you post it yet, ” or “how is my stuff doing?” and etc. , my cut rises exponentionally. go to my link & bookmark the page & keep it track of it yer damn self. and for god’s sake, clean your goddamn stuff before i get there. no one wants to buy things with 17 years of dust on it.
4. you must take back your unsold items. i am not running a storage facility or donation bin. you are responsible for this part. i will not hesitate to throw your priceless heirlooms out if you leave them at my house for a week after they do not sell.
5. you get paid when i get paid. you will know when this happens because you will receive money from me. it takes time to get paid. you will not harass me about it. if you do, see the part in rule 3 about my cut.
now, if you still want to do business with a complete bitch, let’s talk. until then, take a look at my current auctions (if i even have any at the time you are reading this)
check out my listings:
please…….
the tidy terror
Tags: bedazzled, bid, bidding, bin, ebay, fisher price little people, fplp, michael kors, nwt, vintage toys
