AC Dickson: eBay Power Seller

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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.

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