Gosh. What do people write in this section without sounding like too much of a geek?
Hi. My name's Dennis. I am 42 years old, about 5'10"....
I began getting interested in computers in the mid-80's, but my interest really took off in 1988 when I took a summer BASIC computer programming course at the local college. Gosh... why didn't I pursue computers and written the source code for ebay, YouTube and facebook? Ah, hindsight really is 20/20!
Although I didn't invent ebay, I know a considerable amount about it. I've been a casual ebayer since 1997, as you probably know by reading some of my other posts, and an avid ebayer since about 2000. Things took a nose-dive in September 2001 with 9/11, but things improved slowly. My ebay sales improved with the economy, and tanked when the economy tanked again in 2008.
Now it is 2012 and the US is on the road to a slow economic recovery. I decided that I had had a pretty good run thus far on ebay, and the time was nigh to help others do the same.
Up until 2000 I had done pretty much every job under the sun. I had worked in restaurants, first at McD's, back in the late 80's, making $3.35 an hour. I have driven a taxi. Delivered pizzas. Driven trucks. Worked in factories. Driven forklifts. Went door-to-door as an enumerator in the 2000 census count. You name it, and I've probably done it.
But online sales was something that I found that I could do, and do well. I'd always thought as myself as an adaptable person, able to mold myself in to whatever job surroundings I might find myself in next. I seemingly had few issues seamlessly flowing from one job to the next.
But, alas, that grew old. And, I, too, grew old. I'm am still growing old. Yes, I am "only" 42 years old, and by the year 2000, at age 31, I could pretty much see the writing on the wall: that because I had no college degree, I was pretty much doomed to the lower-echelon pile of jobs that no one else wanted to do. Or so I thought.
I make no excuses for my life, or the choices I made. I decided not to finish college way back when. I do regret it, but that's in the past. I do not like to dwell upon the past. I like to look toward a brighter future.
So, with no degree, I'd decided to make a fundamental change in my life. I had discovered ebay three years prior, in 1997. I had made some sales here and there, but it never dawned on me that I could actually make a living doing it. In 2000, it just clicked. Why not? Why not jump on the ebay bandwagon, and see just where this wagon would take me, and if it would throw me off in to the mud?
I'd begun to hit some yard sales in the summer of 2000. A few here an there. Nothing too serious. I still had had a full time job, for what it was worth, to pay the bills, and my plan was to keep working my boring factory job until the point came- or IF the point came- when ebay would allow me to, as Johnny Paycheck so eloquently put it, tell the boss to "take this job and shove it!"
I kept at it- ebay, that is. My ebay feedback improved with my sales. I tried new techniques. I tried different formats. I tried everything. Finally I'd found something that worked.
I'd combined my ability to write so descriptively with my ability to persuade people to buy from me. I learned how to give people reasons to buy from me. I learned to accentuate the positive, and to eliminate the negative so well, that it almost became second nature.
By 2002, my ebay sales had equaled my full-time job income. While I was enjoying this new-found "wealth" (wealth, at least as far as I was concerned!), I'd decided that I had had enough, and effectively did tell the boss, "I quit!". I was diplomatic about it- I didn't know if I would be crawling back with my tail between my legs four months later or not!
Suffice it to say that I did not, don't intend to, and hope never to have to answer to a boss ever again!
In 2008, the economy collapsed again. My sales lagged, so I had to basically re-invent my selling strategy. With millions of people now out of work, I'd lost millions of potential buyers. The ones who remained on ebay had to deal with reduced incomes of their own, and an increased sense of scrutiny when it came to any purchase they made online.
My answer to the collapsing economy and decline in sales was to drop my asking price on all my items across the board by 30%, while doubling my inventory. What had once been a 1,000 ebay item inventory doubled to 2,000 items within six months. My strategy worked. My sales picked up. The market had changed literally overnight in 2008, and I had to change with it.
Now, it is four years later. Things are slowly improving. Things aren't as good as they once were, but I see no reason why they can't be soon.
I realized that many other people could benefit from my ebay experiences and knowledge. At first I was slightly alarmed at the potential loss of income for myself if I even divulged some of my knowledge and tactics to others. But, I realize that there are millions and millions of potential ebay items out there to be had at yard sales and thrift stores, and the potential for anyone else to have the same unique items as myself on ebay at the same time as myself were indeed quite slim.
Since 2003, I would head to the local Goodwill store on 1/2 price Saturdays and load up at least two shopping carts full of items I knew I could sell. Everyone else was buying clothing and essentials, and things just to get by. I was loading up on things on which I could make hefty profits. Even back then, I'd get inquisitive looks from other people in the Goodwill lines. What on earth could I possibly want with a cart full of "junk", as one person so duly put it.
"Junk?" I asked him. "I will pay about $150 for the items in my two carts, and by the time all this stuff sells on ebay, I will have earned well over $3,000." So much for junk.
I'd see the same people there, on just about every other 1/2 price Goodwill day. Many of them grew accustomed to seeing me haul my shopping carts around the store, picking up and inspecting this item and that- and all items seemingly no one else paid a bit of attention to. That's the way I liked it. No one else could see the potential earnings in the things that I saw, so on the shelf they sat until I would come by to pick them up, evaluate them for potential sale value, and in to the cart they would go with the rest of my loot.
Even after the 2008 financial meltdown, when I decided to double my inventory, no one would've been able to guess that I was doing so well- or so poorly. I was still loading up one Goodwill cart after another, month after month, much to the surprise of the onlookers.
One day recently, one of them followed me out to my truck. He just had to see if I was for real. He was impressed when he saw me loading up my loot in to the back of my Land Rover. My intention was not to impress anyone. In fact, I'd often park quite a distance away so as not to allow my Rover to get dinged my careless shoppers' abandoned carts.
"Son," the man began, "if you're doing well enough selling on ebay to afford a Land Rover, I want in.! Will you teach me how to sell?"
That was three months ago. I'd decided that although I'd learned how to make a killing on ebay, there will hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of others out there who would love to see just a fraction of my earnings to help them with food or rent.
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