Fleamaaahket

Today I went to the fleamarket. I bought a bagful of the pesky aforementioned My Little Pony toys, a sweetheart pillow, and a few random other things. I went up to one booth and asked the man how much he was asking for his vintage tablecloths. He snottily replied: "Ten bucks. They'd charge ya a hundred bucks fa them things at Brimfield"

I was willing to pay up to $10 for one of them, because me and Oxi-Clean are BFFs, until he opened his mouth.

Not with the stains yours had on them, dude. At Brimfield they'd be stain-free, hole free, starched, ironed, folded neatly and arranged by color, not hanging haphazardly off an old drying rack, blowing around getting dusty.

I love how people selling you something feel the need to point out what a bargain (pronounced bah-ghan. Masshole accent) you're getting. "I could get xxx dollars on ebay/Brimfield/a B&M store" Well then, sell it there!

Have I Ever Told You How Much I Hate Selling Toys?

No? LOL. Now I have had three toy deadbeats in one week's time. One was a My Little Pony toy. This bitch went out of her way to outbid someone else and then never paid. Unpaid Assistant got her and I relisted.

Then there is the chick from my previous "Layaway" post here. She made me a Best Offer, also on a MLP toy. One would think that if she was making an offer, she should have known how much she had to work with and expected to pay immediately. Nope.

I accepted, lowered the shipping price on it, sent her an invoice, and then she messaged me a couple of days later with the previously quoted message with the request for 5 more days.

This last one is a doll, the person is not a NPB yet, but I feel like she might end up being one. I find that if they don't pay within the first few hours, they generally won't.

Sometimes I post things for sale on My Little Pony message boards. The people there are always fickle, they always ask if you have something other than what you actually posted for sale. They request you to "hold" something and then never get back to you, or they wait months to answer a post and ask if you still have the item.

If you're so fuckin' interested in something, it should be simple.

You message seller, say "If you still have that, I want it, mark it sold", wait for payment info and pay. Seller marks it sold and sends it. Simple. Transaction done.

Ugh. I guess it's what I should expect from adults who watch cartoons, call themselves ponies, and dress up like them.

I used to collect MLP. Rabidly. I never felt the need to dress up like Fluttershy and prance around with pink hair while quoting a really rather asinine cartoon, and discussing the different personality characteristics of animated pony toys with other like-minded nimbuses. Even when I was a kid and I had the original toys, I cringed about the 1980's cartoons associated with them and refused to watch them

The only reason I have even seen this newest cartoon is because my husband (who is very immature, BTW) watches Transformers on the HUB and sometimes I catch part of a MLP cartoon or commercial about it. I cringe inwardly at its stupidity as he looks at me expectantly like he thinks that because I collect them I should be watching this schlock or something. Lame.

I hate selling toys with the burning intensity of 100,000 suns! Things for kids attract people with the mentality of them.

The Layaway Plan!

I just love when people use Buy-It-Now and several days later send me a message like this:

Hello!

I would like to apologise for not being able to make this payment straight away but I do still want the item. Would it be okay if I had 5 more days? I am so sorry for any inconvenience, I didn't have the available funds I should have had. Would this still be okay? I am terribly sorry again.

Oh yes. I just told her that unpaid item assistant is turned on, but she should have several more days to pay afterward...cheeri-fuckin-o. Sure girlfriend, my mortgage company that's already been waiting an extra week will love me while you fart around because you didn't check shipping price/your bank balance before you pressed that button. It's nearly always a toy person. I fucking HATE selling toys.

I do believe that about 3/4 of my auctions are being throttled. The views and interest are very lopsided. Etsy also went hot for a week, then died again. I have a $300+ clock up for sale that a guy sent me an insulting offer on, which I countered to no avail.

This stupid pony thing that this woman bought is the biggest item I've sold in days, so it figures she wouldn't pay. The lame thing is she sent me a Best Offer which I accepted, AND I shaved like $12 off her shipping price because I was offering free shipping to USA people and wanted to make it fair.

eBay For Dummies

I bought the book eBay for dummies. I read it years ago, but one particular thing resonated with me when it came to vintage clothes.

In the book, the author speaks of buying a bra for a bargain price and getting it in a taquitos box or some such thing, and while she liked the bra, she lamented how it made her feel to pull it out of a recycled food box. She goes on to say wouldn't have minded paying a higher price for a better presentation. It seems counterintuitive to spend money on fancy trappings, but I get what she meant.

This past weekend I splurged on some "fancy" trappings for my clothes goods. I bought pretty tissue paper, and sweet little bird/flower/owl stickers with which to fasten it closed once I wrap the item in it. I refuse to use recycled anything for them. Ordering brand spanking new envelopes was a must. I must say, I am pleased with the first few "fancy" wrappings I've done. It only cost a few extra dollars, and I hope that my customers will be pleased with it.

Buyer Protection, My Ass...More Like Seller Rape

There's a brand new "Money Back Guarantee" ad that eBay has right on the front page with the guy who looks like the guy from the Trivago ads touting eBay's lovely "buyer protection"

 "Get what you ordered or your money back"

What "you ordered" is all semantics. First off, did you really read the description? Did you look at the pictures? Or did you see a blurry picture and bid hoping for a bargain and then find out it wasn't all it was cracked up to be? Did you bother to ask any questions? The seller might not know how long Crissy's hair was supposed to be. My first neutral EVER, in 2001, was from some chick from California who bitched about the length of a Crissy dolls hair. I read her "feedback left for others" and cringed - she was a chronic complainer.

You should have notified the seller that their blurry picture sucked before you bid, but then the price would have gone too high, right?

Now look at your item, and imagine yourself losing your job over it. Because what you're doing when you return something is putting a strike on the sellers account.

In a perfect world, it wouldn't matter so much, but eBays lopsided "The buyer is always right" policies allow a small seller 3 strikes in a year. This means that this seller has to have it right 99.9% of the time...or else.

Sometimes you can't please a buyer no matter what you do, because they're looking for trouble.

I don't want a return, I wanted the item to be better. Now how you deal with this one, I don't know.

I don't care that you had a miscarriage and your grandfather died all in one week, you should have shipped faster than 48 hours. Granted, buyers would not know about that, I don't air my personal grievances to my buyers, but point being there are things going on behind the scenes in a seller's life that hinder eBay business at times.

This is exactly as described but I don't want it anyway. Okaay.

I had three buyers in the past year complain about something to me, but I really don't know why they were complaining because they didn't want a refund or a return, they just wanted to bitch about it. Thankfully only one opened a case...which she let close because she didn't mean to open it in the first place, but the ding was still there. I offered refunds in all three cases but only the woman took it, I forced it upon her because it was my husband's account and I wanted to make sure it stayed clean.

Sellers are not allowed to get sick, or to have emergencies, we're not allowed to accidentally leave a box checked that says free shipping and then rescind after when the auction ends and we find out about it (which recently happened to me twice, causing me to lose 50% of my profit on one item and about 80% on the other), we're not allowed typos, or blurry pics, we're not allowed to *not* have a smartphone in case a buyer needs to talk to you right away...not that they will answer you in a timely manner anyway once you respond...

These may all come back to bite us in the ass. Some predatory buyers look for these things and try to capitalize on it.

You don't know the person behind the other keyboard, so who gives a shit about them and their family, right?

Fashionista

This past week I have pulled out all the selling stops and finally started photographing my 1930's-1960's clothing goodies and am listing them on Etsy.

Also been taking my defunct ebay relists and popping them on Etsy as well, that way I am not continually being robbed of my monthly "freebie" quota and lowering prices to make some cheap-ass happy. I hate free shipping. I sold a plate a little over a week ago. It went 4 days and then ebay opened the Unpaid case on him, he paid on the LAST DAY before they dinged him and then I look...I have forgotten and left free shipping on the fuckin' thing, when I originally listed it, the price was higher which covered the shipping.

So I made about $2 on that plate, and how much you want to bet that the buyer will be pissy because a case got opened on him and will be looking for any possible thing to complain about?

So I am jumping ship and focusing on Etsy. It's way less stressful.

I've got 10 more vintage aprons to go, and have been debating whether to do retakes on some of the dresses I've already photographed/listed because some of them were wrinkled and I am trying to look as professional as possible.

I've got an entire armoire full of old early 1960's lingerie as well that needs photographing. There are little sheer shortie nightgowns, a waist nipper with garter attachments, pointy bras, slips, half-slips. Some still have the original store tags on them. It's a veritable treasure trove. One that ebay won't be getting their greedy hands on, thank you.

Looking for a low DSR?

Then sell comic books. LOL. My husband is one of those buyers. He buys something and continually checks the tracking number and stresses about where the item is. Being a seller himself, you'd think he'd cut other sellers some slack, but nopers.

"This is ridiculous, it's been almost a week"

I keep telling him to quit whining, why would someone tank their rating over a lowly box of comic books? He finally got himself so worked up over the damned thing that he had USPS text him whenever the box was scanned! They finally arrived yesterday and the drama was over. If he gives them a low DSR, I shall kick him square in the behind.

I must say though, that us shipping within 24 hours with items packed securely gives me a sense of pride in what I do when I receive packages from other sellers. A lot of people sit on the item for up to 3 days before they mail it, and just chuck it in a box with little-no packing material. How they are still selling is beyond me, because other buyers would go ballistic over that shit.