Welcome to 1999
I put it off as long as I could, but I have now placed my first eBay auction.
I suppose eBay is a fabulous website that offers wonderful products to people, but to me it's the ultimate white trash repository on the internet. It's my half-brother's fault. Our family has infrequent contact with him, but every time he surfaces it seems he has some new get-rich-quick scheme he's playing around with. Last time I remember him being around his latest endeavour was eBay auctioneer. He'd go to yard sales and buy crap, then post it on eBay at a markup. Or he'd shop the local clearance sales for brand name merchandise, and sell that to other suckers.
So yeah, I guess you can get good stuff on eBay, but so much of it is crap that others are just trying to unload for a profit. And while I'm all about scoring some cheezy something I'll never want or need for a quarter at a garage sale, I am NOT paying $8 shipping and handling for my detritus.
But one of the nephews wants the Star Wars version of Stratego this Christmas. They haven't made the Star Wars version since 2002. Now it's all about the Chronicles of Narnia. And on eBay there are people who are selling copies of the game, still in their original packaging. There are several copies available, but it seems to be a bit of a hot commodity at the moment. At least within my budget. I'm on my second auction right now - I got outbid on the first one. If I can't get it within my price range the nephew will get something else for Christmas.
And soon I may be able to say that I bought it on eBay.
I suppose eBay is a fabulous website that offers wonderful products to people, but to me it's the ultimate white trash repository on the internet. It's my half-brother's fault. Our family has infrequent contact with him, but every time he surfaces it seems he has some new get-rich-quick scheme he's playing around with. Last time I remember him being around his latest endeavour was eBay auctioneer. He'd go to yard sales and buy crap, then post it on eBay at a markup. Or he'd shop the local clearance sales for brand name merchandise, and sell that to other suckers.
So yeah, I guess you can get good stuff on eBay, but so much of it is crap that others are just trying to unload for a profit. And while I'm all about scoring some cheezy something I'll never want or need for a quarter at a garage sale, I am NOT paying $8 shipping and handling for my detritus.
But one of the nephews wants the Star Wars version of Stratego this Christmas. They haven't made the Star Wars version since 2002. Now it's all about the Chronicles of Narnia. And on eBay there are people who are selling copies of the game, still in their original packaging. There are several copies available, but it seems to be a bit of a hot commodity at the moment. At least within my budget. I'm on my second auction right now - I got outbid on the first one. If I can't get it within my price range the nephew will get something else for Christmas.
And soon I may be able to say that I bought it on eBay.
posted by Swankette at 7:27 PM
1 Comments:
I have actually bought a number of things over eBay, including my wedding dress. The key, as far as I can tell, is knowing exactly what you want to buy (and putting that into useful search terms), knowing what it is worth to you, and knowing enough about it to be able to identify tell-tale signs of crappiness without seeing the thing in person.
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