I have an ambitious project: sell enough junk on eBay to buy a new computer. The fact that I want either a MacBook or preferably a MacBook Pro makes the project ambitious. I think can do it within a year, as long as I can sell good stuff. For now I have a fair pile, but it will dwindle, and I don’t know quite how I’ll add to it. I must get it very cheaply; I must also be choosy because few will buy every piece of jetsam. When real spring is here (and not this freaky fake one we’ve got now), then I can go to garage sales, and at the end of the semester I can troll apartment house dumpsters for LCD monitors and new stereos the students throw away. Meanwhile, would it be kosher to start asking friends if they have stuff they want to get rid of? The other night, someone asked me how much I thought a Christmas mug collection from England might sell for. I didn’t know, and I wouldn’t ask to take the collection off their hands, but surely a lot of other people have similar possessions. Don’t you think they’d want someone to take them away, free of charge?
That said, can I interest you in a Thunderstick?
no, i don’t think it’s nice to make a profit off of your friends’ stuff when they could be making the profit themselves.
i think you’d better polish up your dumpster-diving skills instead.
by kathy—Jan 4, 02:09 PM
O spouse! Why dost thy ethics oppress me?
by greg—Jan 4, 02:12 PM
I knew a guy at HU who went to the trouble to (unironically) buy a used men’s bathing suit off eBay for $1.50. If there are enough people like him in the world, I think you may get your laptop.
Shouldn’t “dost” be “doth?” I thought “dost” was only a second person form.
by JH—Jan 4, 02:27 PM
Probably, you’re right. Ergo: O spouse! Why doth thy ethics oppress me?
Anyway, I don’t really want to sell a bunch of stuff for $1.50. With shipping and listing fees, it’s hardly worth it. I want stuff that’ll be bid on. If I can sell crap for $10 to $15 a pop, it’s much more worth my time.
by greg—Jan 4, 02:34 PM
Woo hoo! One more thing has a bid!
by greg—Jan 5, 08:40 AM
Bid now, or else you’ll lose the Thunderstick.
by greg—Jan 5, 03:11 PM
I know you’re really sad you didn’t get
the Thunderstick.
Don’t hang your head.
Buy silver boullion instead!
by greg—Jan 7, 10:19 PM
i have a friend who does this as a second income… he says that the real money is made on being able to sell the truck loads of the 1.50 stuff
by Jeremy—Jan 9, 10:49 PM
that’s largely because many of those who sell the truckloads of $1.50 stuff charge $10+ for shipping and handling, making it such that they make all of their money on those charges. In that case, the final bid on the auction is irrelevant.
I find that kind of dealing distasteful.
by greg—Jan 10, 07:27 AM
no, he charges somewhere around 3-5, granted it depends on the size of the object. he’s actually quite ethical. what lets him do this, though. is that he gets his stuff practically for free. his dad’s a junker. and, a lot of the small stuff he sells are baseball cards, which you can only make 25 cents on the dollar.
but what he does is take a collection and split it up into lots so that every sell makes 25 cents on the dollar.
don’t impung my friend’s honesty!
by Jeremy—Jan 10, 10:02 AM
I didn’t intend to implicate your friend in my blanket generalization. I was thinking more of things like this, which you’ll notice has $9 shipping on something that will cost $4.35 (with potentially even a free box) to ship. And $9 is tamer than it was a year ago, when I bought one of those.
by greg—Jan 10, 10:14 AM