E bay Memories Happy Days......

[Coldcotes]

Just thought I'd start a thread about e bay memories of days gone by. And how long you have all been e bayers. I first started around 1999 selling bits and bobs i had in my garage or what i could pick up cheap from car boots and friends to make a few extra quid, In the good old days you just opened a account with any name any address and sold anything you wanted, in them days they only removed stuff if some one reported it e bay didn't actually police it themselves. When you signed up you got a £15 fees limit And just paid it with cheques or PO's it was well before pay pal or compulsory fees payment options, most of my payments in them days where cheques, nochex or PO's cos e bay didn't own pay pal then so no one really used it, and you could leave none paying bidders negative feedback as well. Oh happy days!!
I have seen how through the years e bay has been trying to shove the little guy like me and you out even though it was the likes of us who made them what they are today, they just don't want the little guy any more they just want to be a massive online retail shop......
I estimate that I have paid e bay around £22,000 - £25,000 in the 12 years I have been selling bits and bobs and that doesn't include the pay pal fees...
E bay has paid for quite a few family holidays and car repairs over the years
Rant over...
Any one else got any good memories of e bay days gone by??

[ShadyOne]

I didn't get on e bay until around 2006 (first started selling 2009 lol), so I have never used the old e bay, though I understand what it was like...was a different world.

A good memory for me would probably be when I first thought that e bay was going to be a goldmine, set up my first pay pal and was ready to go...

things never went smooth from that day onwards though...

still a good memory though, getting excited to make some $$££.



p.s. my bad memory is seeing all my listings end in the eb ay firefox sidebar, you just know that you have been suspended.

[Coldcotes]

The 1st item I sold was a cockerel egg cup that I had dug up years before while bottle digging in a old Victorian tip, it had been kicking around my house for years so I stuck it on e bay and it shot up from £1.50 to £39 in the last 10 seconds. Another time I listed 25 replica flintlock pistols that I bought off my father-in-law for £40, and e bay chucked them off so I relisted them at 99p with a buy it now of £40 to get shut of them some one bid 99p so the buy it now disappeared and they eventually finished at..... £195, always good when that happens I have made some good money on items that I would of binned before e bay came along....
The bad times are when bidders mess you around, like even though I state in my auctions that I have a life and a job outside of e bay so I can only post items once a week on average they buy a item and THEN ask you to post it that day! Or like shadyone says when you notice all your listings have disappeared.... I have never ripped any one off and never knowing sold counterfeit goods but e bay always find a excuse to unregister me. Now I take it as a challenge to get back on. I do owe e bay some fees though as when you get the dreaded email to say you are suspended for no apparent reason and then they demand their fees straight away, yeh like their gonna get em when you know full well you ain't getting back on and they are just going to give you the run-a-round, I have tried other auction sites but they just don't come near to the prices I can get on e bay sadly,

[ShadyOne]

Originally Posted by Coldcotes

The 1st item I sold was a cockerel egg cup that I had dug up years before while bottle digging in a old Victorian tip, it had been kicking around my house for years so I stuck it on e bay and it shot up from £1.50 to £39 in the last 10 seconds. Another time I listed 25 replica flintlock pistols that I bought off my father-in-law for £40, and e bay chucked them off so I relisted them at 99p with a buy it now of £40 to get shut of them some one bid 99p so the buy it now disappeared and they eventually finished at..... £195, always good when that happens I have made some good money on items that I would of binned before e bay came along....

£195 I bet that was a good memory!

This does make me think of what e bay actually used to be marketed as! An auction site...:D

[Coldcotes]

Oh yes, I have had quite a few like that, my wife once bought what seemed like a old dusty broken electric guitar from a car boot sale for £3, I cleaned it up and it was like new under all the dust it must of been left untouched in a attic or something as it turned out to be a Vintage Tokai Springy Sound guitar that I sold for £300. My Dad bought a drum kit for £40 out of the local paper seperated it in to bits and sold it on E bay it for over £1300, When you can make that kind of money you know it's worth using the stealth!! Lol

[ShadyOne]

Originally Posted by Coldcotes

Oh yes, I have had quite a few like that, my wife once bought what seemed like a old dusty broken electric guitar from a car boot sale for £3, I cleaned it up and it was like new under all the dust it must of been left untouched in a attic or something as it turned out to be a Vintage Tokai Springy Sound guitar that I sold for £300. My Dad bought a drum kit for £40 out of the local paper seperated it in to bits and sold it on E bay it for over £1300, When you can make that kind of money you know it's worth using the stealth!! Lol

Damn! This is some good money on the side of any business, some people do actually make a business out of this actually though don't they!

These things are out there! It is about when and where to look!



Lets see if anyone else has got some good memories of ebay...

[Sandy D]

I know of at least 3 people who do 300k per year just doing antiques and collectible items they buy from auctions, sales, tag sales, thrift stores.

Ebay has made many good memories of huge profits on a great finds for me.

I remember getting 86 bids on an item and made a ton of profit on the bidders war!!!

[rsot]

I made a solid killing when I first got on eb ay in 1998-99 with that Pokemon crapola ha then bridged out to collectibles, etc. - was good times getting flooded with money orders and cheques. Even then I kept my info stealth.

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by rsot

I made a solid killing when I first got on eb ay in 1998-99 with that Pokemon crapola ha then bridged out to collectibles, etc. - was good times getting flooded with money orders and cheques. Even then I kept my info stealth.

haha yeah i remember the days of receiving copious amounts of cheques, postal orders and i even used to receive a lot of cash through the post!

now i reckon i get 1 cheque/postal order every 250-500 sales!

2003-2006 were the best days for me! stuff that was worth peanuts made silly money!

[Skys The Limit]

Yes 1999 Selling anime stuff where big during 1999-2004
miss that profit just a kid without money : (

[Coldcotes]

Yes I forgot amount the cash wrapped in cardboard arriving through the post. I used to accept US$ as well as my brother used to go over there so I would trade them with him. I even did a few item swaps in the early days....

[ShadyOne]

Yes I forgot amount the cash wrapped in cardboard arriving through the post. I used to accept US$ as well as my brother used to go over there so I would trade them with him. I even did a few item swaps in the early days....

I am starting to see why e bay changed so much...used to be scammers heaven!

...still is, I know, I realised!

[jeffweico]

I was on eBay back when it was called AuctionWeb. I had just started when they were changing the name to eBay. The eBay I knew back then, sadly, no longer exists.

Back in the day, eBay was not only profitable, but a lot of fun. Users were ENCOURAGED to communicate with each other. In fact, your user name was your email address. There was an actual seller COMMUNITY back then. Sellers would talk to each other and share tips, product ideas, or just engage in smalltalk.

eBay was just a venue. Listings were RARELY removed unlesss they were blatantly illegal or contained adult material (outside of the adult section). EVERYTHING was an auction. There was no "Buy It Now". No major retailers were using the site - it wasn't built for that. Sellers could pretty much list what they wanted to list. It took a LOT to lose a seller account.

Feedback worked both ways. It kept everyone honest. Scammers - sellers OR buyers - were weeded out quickly. The feedback system was a stroke of genius.

There were tons of news stories about the eBay phenomenon. It created an entirely new section of the economy. It pulled people off of welfare. It gave the disabled a way to make a living besides collecting a check from social security. It gave birth to new businesses. And it lowered a lot of prices.

Back then, people were absolutely evangelical about eBay. Everyone was telling everyone they knew about what a great site it was. I could spend HOURS jut browsing the listings. You could find a lot of cool stuff, both new and used. It probably helped the environment too - products that were collecting dust and destined to end up in a landfill instead ended up with new owners that appreciated and enjoyed them.

There was an unveleivable feeling of empowerment that came along with that. Not just as a seller having a new way to make money, but as a buyer who could now find those quirky items you wouldn't find in a store.

It was almost all checks and money orders back then. But RARELY would a check bounce. Fraud was not as bad as you might think. Like I said, the feedback system kept people honest. eBay's rules fit on ONE WEB PAGE, NOT A UPS TRUCK!

Then one day, the founder of eBay decided that he had taken it about as far as he could and decided to bring in the corporate guys to run it. That was really the beginning of the end.

Fee increases came quickly, seemingly every other day. New categories were added at a furious pace. In other cases, entire CATEGORIES of products were banned. The rules became confusing. New ones were added so often that nobody could keep up. Listing became an abrasive process.

Whereas before, a seller could easily list their item, it became like walking on eggshells. You sat with two browsers open - one with the listing page and another with the rules. You had to constantly make sure that all the rules were followed - or else.

Sellers started getting kicked off for silly reasons. Not scammers or counterfeiters, but honest people with HUGE numbers of positive feedbacks. Your email address was no longer your user name. Communications with others went from being encouraged to being nearly prohibited. EVERYTHING had to go through eBay.

SafeHarbor went from being everyone's best friend to being feared. They no longer just dealt with problem sellers, they became the rule enforcers, nitpicking at every little thing. There once was a time when a seller could email someone at eBay to resolve any problems. That changed into an autoresponse. eBay's decisions were final, there was no way to appeal. It didn't matter that you were paying $5k per month in fees. If they didn't like you, you were gone.

And it has only gotten steadily worse.

I actually teared up a few times while I was writing this. eBay, the ORIGINAL eBay was something that was uniquely American. Something that stared with an idea, caught on like wildfire and affected a lot of people's lives - for the better. It was a national treasure. CNN described it as the "eBay Effect" and the "eBay Economy".

Those corporate BAS*ARDS took our national treasure and turned it into a low rent version of K-Mart! The saddest part is, it is not something that we can ever get back. It can't be re-created. If there is a God in Heaven, then the people who did this will TRULY burn in hell for all eternity. Justice demands no less.

I just love Jeff's stories, its like reading an essay lol.

[Coldcotes]

Very well put Jeff.

[rsot]

Jeffweico is strikes again ha! Ah "ye old prose" - cheers to you.

But yes, fraud - while existent - was not so rampant as the media always purports it to be. Open communication and traceable money orders were always good to me.

Was good times pre-pa yp al idiocy.

[rsot]

Even back then I would not use my real address - for obvious reasons...no buyer (or seller for that matter) should have your real address on file when $ are being spent...too much potential for things to get problematic..

Like any "business", a separate address where you aren't sleeping should be used.

[Sandy D]

Originally Posted by rsot

Even back then I would not use my real address - for obvious reasons...no buyer (or seller for that matter) should have your real address on file when $ are being spent...too much potential for things to get problematic..

Like any "business", a separate address where you aren't sleeping should be used.

I have never used my home address even back in the day. I was always afraid of that one crazy person who would show up at the door.
A horror story of a friend of mine selling a very rare piece of glassware that ending at 2 am in the morning and the buyer actually showed up demanding the item at 4 am as they did not want it shipped and take the chance of getting it broken.

I forgot about the checks and money orders. If I can find a picture I took of the checks and money orders I spread out on the floor a several times I will post it here.

Great stories everyone. Keep them coming.

[GrannyT]

That brings tears to a glass eye

[subzero3001]

I started selling in 2002 just about anything with only one account.

By 2004 I was only selling high risk and VERO items, did not see any problem yet.

On 2007 they started removing my listings and sent me countless warning emails until finally in 2010 my 8-year-old account got suspended.

I got the Platinum Power Seller by March 2010 and one day later bye bye gold mine.

All 2010 and part of 2011 I have been jumping from account to account and getting suspended here and there.

Since then, well... stealth only. Never will be the same.

If only we knew back then what we know now we'd have way more money than we do right now I'll tell you that. We'd know what items would sell well during that certain year, or month. We would know about our supplies before anyway else. Man where is the time machine!!!

They say we learn from our Mistakes, but by that time it is to Late--- Red X

[rsot]

Wrong quote bud ha - it's:

"They say we learn from our mistakes, when in truth we mistakingly learn"