h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Y'know, I'm really digging this new way of being self-employed - selling stuff on eBay. It's almost like being a songwriter and getting PRS cheques in the mail.

I heard an interview with Chris Rea not long after the release of his 'Road to Hell' album in which he said that because it was his first really successful album, he realised one day that he was making money even while he was asleep because of the royalties being racked up in sales and airplay.

So let's compare be an eBayer to being a musician. Going out and buying the stuff that Mrs Gosho and I sell is akin to going into the studio with a bunch of songs ready to record - that's the time consuming part. Once that's done and either the record is in the shops or the goods are listed on eBay, it's all up to the punters - either it sells or it doesn't.

Let's say I want to go on holiday. As a self-employed removal man, when I didn't work I didn't get paid, so if I took a week off, I simply didn't earn anything that week, and since there were only so many moves I could do in a day or in a week, and only so many people who needed my services, I couldn't necessarily take on extra work in the preceding weeks to make up for lost income.

This is very different. If we want to go away for a couple of days, we just have to plan ahead so that no auctions end on those days. Same thing if we want to go away for a week. But the advatage of what we're doing now is that we *can* find extra stuff to list before we go away in order to make up for lost income, and since Mrs Gosho uses a piece of software to 'pre-list' auction items and then upload them to eBay in one hit, it would even be possible to start listing items a week before we came back from holiday, assuming we could put the software onto a disc, and have access to both a computer and an internet connection while we're away

D'you know, I've never even visited eBay...

Me neither, never been there.

I hear it's *lovely* this time of year - not too hot, not too cold...

I've never owned a personal stereo, or bought a VCR or a DVD player. I only bought my first CD player about a year ago.

I know people who buy lots of stuff on eBay - if there's something you remember from your childhood that you wish you could have again, that's the easiest and most likely place to be able to find it.

If there's something that's no longer being produced that you need to replace, you'll likely find that on eBay too.

I've bought so much stuff on eBay that I figure
I'd better reinforce the underside of my mobile home.

I have *lots* of CD's. Also phonograph records and cassettes.
I'm a pack rat. If I have to throw anything away or sell it,
I get hives.

We may have loads of audio/video/computer equipment in this house, but none of it is actually mine (except for a clock/radio that was given to me when I was at Uni - which amazingly enough still works, even though I never listen to it any more).

To begin with, if I was going to buy some of that stuff for myself, I wouldn't be getting the complex models that Lord Scott always buys... And I *certainly* wouldn't be hooking them together in such convoluted ways that you practically have to have a degree in electrical engineering just to figure out how to get sound out of the stereo!

Yeah - it's perfect for that kind of thing Not bad for other, more everyday stuff too - we bought our coffee grinder on eBay. You really can get some good deals, but on the regular, non-collectable items you've really got to know when to stop bidding, which means that you need to know two things - how much it goes for in the stores, and how much they're going to rush you for shipping. It's so easy to think that you've got a bargain, only to find that you forgot about the shipping costs, which when combined with the purchase price will push the total over what you could've bought it for down the High Street.

I won't go back to e-bay after they pulled my posting selling my Birthday Suit.... Said they didn't allow "joke" auctions.

First: I wanted to know how it was that they determined it was a "joke". I was perfectly serious...

Secondly: I don't see why people can sell their used socks, and bags of trash, but someone cannot put their birthday suit up for sale for fear of not being taken seriously....

I never did get an answer.

For awhile in grad school, I made some money off of eBay selling dolls -- I'd find them all sorts of places (garage sales, thrift stores, other websites, eBay itself), clean them up, fix or replace their clothes, put them into an original box if I had an extra one and they needed it - then sell them on eBay for quite a markup. I could buy a doll for $5-10, and sell it for about $100, which seemed like an amazing profit.

After doing this for about 6 months, I sat down and figured out how much time I spent on it, and how much money I was making for that time. Turned out to be on the order of about $10 an hour -- not bad, but certainly less than I made at either of my regular part-time jobs. I eventually decided that if anything, it was really more of a subsidized hobby than actual employment for me. After I'd been doing it for about a year, I quit and just put that time into one of my better paying jobs.

I would think that selling LPs/CDs/cassette tapes/8-tracks or whatever may well have a better profit/time spent per item ratio.


Mikey

If you're selling stuff because you have to move and
don't want to pay moving costs for them, then it isn't
a question of profits or how much your time is worth.

That's why I'm hoping I won't ever have to move.

I've found that unless it's a collectable CD, you can make much more money selling them through Amazon.com. You can set your own price (based of course on what everyone is selling them for), you don't get charged anything unless it sells (although Amazon's cut is a lot more than eBay's closing fee), you don't need to take a picture or enter a description since that's already there, and Amazon even give you an allowance for postage.

YAY!!!!

I'd rather be my usual lazy self and not
sell anything unless I absolutely have to.

So what's your eBay ID then, so we can go lurk around your auctions? I know you can't be 'gosho' because that's some spod in Bulgaria who's done nothing at all in the 4 years that they've been registered.

Goshotowers

Any time you need a shill bidder, just give us a shout

Ooh, I didn't just say that out loud did I?

The majority of our auctions only get one bid so be careful what you try to bid up - you could find that you've bought yourself a nice summer frock

Size 16 with a bit extra room in the shoulders please