eBay Holiday Shopping Suggestions
by acdickson
I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret. Although I've completed over 2000 transactions on eBay, less than ten have been as a buyer. I make my living as an eBay seller, yet seldom have I tasted the sweet nectar of auction glory. What's even worse, I've never won something that had any other bids. I've never refreshed my browser furiously to see if I still have the high bid, never snipped something in the closing seconds, or woken up in the middle night to put in a last minute bid. No, my scant purchases have been of the 'this is always up here' variety.
Since the Holidays are here, I thought I'd highlight a few of my past purchases in the hopes that you might be inspired to do a little eBay shopping for the loved ones in your life.
My first eBay purchase was for the services of a webdesigner in Iowa. For a mere $20 I got his budding services for a 10 page site. I emailed him my text, images, and website info and within a few weeks I had a complete if not sleek site. I thought I was pretty darn clever. Until of course I wanted to update the site and Mr. Iowa had decided his calling loomed elsewhere. While I can't recommend this wholeheartedly, it sure would make a crazy gift. "Hey mom, some guy in Tallahasse is going to design a website for your snow globe collection! I found him on eBay. What? No, I'm sure he's harmless. Yeah, I gave him your phone number."
So that's probably my best wacky eBay gift idea. The rest of my purchases are on the practical tip. Like socks. To be sure, eBay is a great place for vintage T-shirts, rare records, and unusual mementos from your Dad's high school, naval brigade or mason's lodge, but I sell that stuff. Here's what I buy.
Did you know how much it would cost to fill a Honda Accord's gas tank with over the counter printer ink from a retailer like Office Depot? $400,000. You see computer printers are "loss leaders". They sell for far less than it costs to manufacture them but they more than make up for that by charging us $40 for a few pennies worth of ink that will only last about 500 draft resolution copies. How do we get around this sleight of hand? We look on eBay and find one of the many online businesses that sell Chinese knock off cartridges for a $3 each. In the four years since I've discovered one such site I've saved over $1000. Boo-ya! Word of warning, they can take the quality of your printer down a notch. I suggest getting two printers, a nice one for resumes and the like with which you will use the same brand over-priced ink, then a cheaper work horse that you stock with the imported stuff. Looking for the perfect office party secret Santa gift? How about a sack of Chinese printer ink? Hello, Mr. Big Shot. "No fair, you broke the suggested spending limit." They'll never have to know the truth.
One of the most staggering eBay PowerSellers is the mighty Restaurant.com. With a tens of thousands of feedbacks, you'd think I'd have bought from them without hesitation, but you know that old adage of "if it looks to be good be true..." Restaurant.com peddles $25 certificates to eateries in every city in America. The cost? $5 plus a $1 processing fee. Yes, that's $19 of fine dining on the house, assuming of course you were going out to dinner anyway. The catch? They tend to be weird restraints, either brand new and looking for word of mouth or grasping for clientele with their last breath of marketing air. Susan and I hit Montego Bay, a Jamician spot in downtown Portland that has made numerous PDX top 100 lists. It did not make ours. And with a few appetizers and alcoholic drinks (not applicable with your gift card) we still spent $30. But hey, $19 of that was free. The only sketchy part is that you print the certificate out on your own printer. I half expected to be laughed out of the restaurant. But we didn't, and neither will you.
Speaking of alcoholic drinks, I'd certainly need one if I were to break my vow of never flying Southwest Airlines again. If other budget airlines like Alaska can give me a assigned seat, why can't Southwest do away with it's cattle shoot of A, B and C boarding lines. It's like camping out overnight at Ticket Master for seats to the dentist. But I digress. There is an abundance of Southwest Airlines drink tickets out there in the ether, and many of them are on eBay. You can buy drink tickets for about 20 cents on the dollar. Even if you aren't expecting to use a booklet of 80 tickets (20 mixed drinks or 26 beer/wines) in the next year (they have expiration dates) I wouldn't salt your game if I saw you working the ABC lines at PDX like a cotton candy vendor at a Blazer game. "Alcoholic drink tickets, 50 cents on the dollar!"
Finally, AC's latest purchase on eBay was another genius money saving move. Recently my trusty Canon PowerShot digital camera's battery hasn't been keeping its charge. Figuring the big boxes would charge upwards of $25 for a spare, I went to my buddy eBay. I found one for 14 cents. Yes, 14 cents. Okay, shipping was $7, but shipping on a second battery was only $4. So for $11.28 I got two brand new batteries for my camera. Not the most romantic gift, but if your camera battery dies when the family is assembled in front of the tree do you want to be the hero or the one who says, "hey can we do this again in a few hours when my battery recharges."
Inspired? Fantastic. Let me know how this great gift ideas work.
Posted on December 15, 2004 | Comments (5)
Hell Hath No Fury Like AC Scorned
by acdickson
The Portland Mercury is a local weekly paper here in Portland, Oregon. Not one of the first wave of weeklies from the late 60s that started as an alternative to the conservative daily papers (think Village Voice), but one of the more recent weeklies started in reaction to the first wave becoming a serious source for local news, politics and culture (think the Onion).
Last year the Mercury had its first holiday charity auction — a lunch date with the publisher, a mix CD from the music editor, etc. Good fun, good prizes, a good cause. Where did the upstart paper turn to conduct this auction? eBay of course. At the time I sat back, watching their auctions with bemused curiosity. They made some amateur mistakes, but nothing AC couldn't school them on.
Now a year later another charity auction comes along. They've got some good stuff for sale, not the least of which is the original manuscript of Fight Club. This alone should bring a few grand. But they also have made a score of basic 101 mistakes.
First off, nowhere in the paper is any mention that eBay is once again the auction host. The paper directs potential bidders to their website which then slowly, through numerous pages, directs them to eBay. Not only is using the greatest website ever created and not giving it any press offensive, but it's bad business. They've made it more difficult for readers to find the auctions. I defy any but the most seasoned eBay bidder to be able to pull this page of all 50 auctions up in less than 5 minutes. I couldn't do it. You know why? Cause I didn't know these were eBay auctions. People, just direct them to eBay and have them do an advance search by seller. You save them time and you raise more money.
But the biggest offense is that AC was not brought in to consult on these auctions. First the state of Oregon and their lake-capping plastic fiasco, now the Mercury trying to run an eBay game. When will they learn that when you want to run with the big dogs, you better run fast and bark loud or stay on the porch? One would think that if the most widely revered and respected PowerSeller in the world lived in your town, indeed had been written about in your own pages, you'd give him a call.
"Hey AC, we're a little new at this, we're wondering if you'd double-check our auctions before we post them."
Sadly, those sweet words were never uttered, despite that fact that I share this blog community with many of their staffers. Just taking a quick glance at the titles of the auctions I can find room for improvement in virtually every one. This isn't about being a perfectionist, this is about maximizing search engine hits, thus raising more money. When I look at the auctions listings... so much to be improved upon I don't even know where to begin. Perhaps providing a picture and including decent descriptions would be a good place. Or letting people know that this is a charity auction. Or doing some cross-promotion for the other 49 auctions. All this information is (badly) laid out on the Mercury website. If we consider that the bidders on the big-ticket items are not likely to be Portlanders or Mercury readers, this is just idiotic. The sheer amount of money that not consulting with AC will cost them is staggering.
And not to beat a dead horse, but can you imagine if they had asked AC to list these auctions through the acdickson account? Not only would I have polished the auctions up and implemented many of my patented advanced techniques, but wary bidders would have had the confidence to bid that over 1400 unique positive feedbacks brings. But hey, I'm sure the 2 positive feedbacks of mercurygifts won't stop anyone from sending thousands of dollars through PayPal for a vaguely and all-too-briefly described "original manuscript" of Fight Club. Oh wait, yeah it will.
Let's not even get into how using one of the biggest eBay celebrities the world over to shepard your auctions is a sure way to increase traffic and buzz. Portland Mercury, I wish you all the best of luck in raising money for Bradley-Angle House, but luck only gets you so far. Next time, perhaps you'll ask for the help of a professional.
Posted on December 10, 2004 | Comments (7)
Politics: AC style
by acdickson
A lot of people wonder what the political inclination of dear old Mr. AC is. Well, I live in Portland, Oregon, dress from the thrift store and stress the global betterment of an eBay nation versus how much money I make. You guessed it; I'd be prone to most liberal senator in congress charges.
So, like most of you reading this, the last few weeks have been tough. But AC has a certain can-do on-to-the-next-thing attitude that serves him well — I have effectively shut down the part of my brain that monitors politics and world affairs. The New Yorker goes unread. I still read the editorial page in the morning, but it's slid from first section to third and I don't finish reading letters I disagree with. To further isolate myself, my fiancee and I have altered our vacation plans to not only avoid red states, but red towns, and even blue towns that voted against gay marriage. I am living in a blissful bubble.
But last night my bubble was penetrated. I was hanging at the Tube, the once most trendy now most post-punk spot in Portland with a few friends. I was facing the bar, watching a gaggle of older woman (older meaning mid 30's, at 31 I'm often the oldest looking person in there) prance and play. It was getting near closing time and these women had the unmistakable mark of the cougar. I made the error in judgment of letting my gaze linger too long as the merriest spun in her chair like an office cheerleader. I averted my eyes, concentrating on serious conversation with my friends Nate and Barney, but the damage was done. I had become her prey.
It took her a whole 15 seconds to come over and begin the not so subtle art of seduction. Sorry, lady, gots to look for the ring. But she was past the point of being that attentive to detail. Her particulars — from Phoenix, works for Key Bank, up in P-town for the very first time for the mid-week Christmas party (we agreed it was weird). When I started to make fun of the idea of having lawns much less golf courses in the desert, she argued that she was in fact from Ohio. Jokingly, I reminded her that was even worst — she lost us the election.
"I voted for Bush."
Whoa. Mindblower. As I eventually told her, I know 400 people in Portland and I can't think of one of them who voted for Bush. That's part of my bubble, remember, I don't hang with republicans. Suffice is to say, she became the lightening rod for everything I wanted to tell Bush voters. The best part is she was the exact type of person who would listen. She's not homophobic (she asserted after I implied she must be for voting for Bush), she's just voted for Bush because her "that's the way I was raised" and "how could you trust Kerry?"
I won't bore you with the blow by blow, but my comebacks were along the familiar lines of "yeah, I mean Kerry is a such a liar. We all know he only went to Vietnam so he could put it on his resume. It's much more honest to fess up to being a coke addict who got his Dad to pull CIA strings to get him out of harms way."
It felt good. I got a lot off my chest. She did everything she could to change the subject, buying us a round of Jagermeister shots being the most common refrain, but we kept bringing it back to politics. Her friends kept trying to get her back to the bar — both her prissy botox blonde co-banker and her "I'm with democracy coming together it's the lesser of two evils" I'm cool even though I work at a bank quasi-hipster friend. But Maura, ah yes, that was her name, Maura really wanted to make this right. She wanted to remember meeting three fetching Portland lads in a bar she was too old to be in who were nonetheless taken in by her fading beauty and country club charm.
Finally the cab arrived, she had to leave her friends insisted. But she needed closure that she could sleep on, she had to make it make it right. I would not comply. I brought out my ashamed to be American speech paraphrased from a WWII letter to the editor that I recently read. She was fucking stunned. She just looked at me like a deer in the headlights. I feel very confident that she either blacked out and won't remember last night or that our conversation will stay with her for years. Maybe she'll do a little more homework next election and consider voting independent of Daddy, maybe she'll just remember this as the night that she was once and for all middle-aged. Maybe she'll realize that there's more on the line that tax breaks for her and her friends. I don't know. But I got to her. And that feels better than a $6,000 pop off.
Posted on December 8, 2004 | Comments (7)