Hysteria

Wow, so it's already Wednesday and I haven't posted since Sunday. Sorry, I've been working a lot this week, had visitors, dentist appointments, etc.

By "etc." I mean buying and selling on eBay. It's been a while since I've done either since I've been overseas for the last couple of years. But now that I'm back, I'm back on eBay.

And it hasn't changed a bit.

Except maybe a lot more commercial vendors and dealers trying to make a killing. So here are a couple of tips for all you other people.

I won an auction the other day. It was for a guitar amplifier and I really did get a steal on this one. Usually this brand runs about $120 plus, just for the amp head. I did several searches for this particular brand and saved all of them to my "watching" folder.

As I was browsing around later, I found one more, but with a poorly written subject line that didn't surface in the search. The subject had the make, but not the model or any other information. It would be like putting an add in the auto classifieds that just said "Ford."

I'm sure that because of the poorly written subject, no one could actually find the amplifier in a search. And I ended up winning it for $70, almost half of what it's worth.

The tip then, is to make sure you put as much information as you can in the subject line. And don't think you can put it in that extra little subject line they give you. I'm not so sure that is searchable in a general search.

And the bidding hysteria is beyond belief. I saw a speaker cabinet listed under the "buy it now" option for $189. That means that if I wanted it, I could have bought it for that much money, until of course, someone made the first bid.

Someone did make a bid, lower than $189 of course. And up until the last day of the auction, the bid price stayed below $189. On the last day, it jumped quickly and sold for $240. There's a lucky seller and a dumb bidder.

Another funny thing I saw recently on eBay... I brew my own beer so I like to look through that category. I saw an auction there for a chance to talk to an old moonshine distiller.

There was this old guy who claimed to have had considerable experience making moonshine back in the day and setting up whiskey stills. The winning bidder would get a chance to talk to him for an hour on the phone.

But since making your own whiskey is illegal, he had a disclaimer on the bottom that said he could not tell you how to set up a still and do it yourself. Sure he can't.

But if you want your own still, you can buy them on eBay. As long as you are not going to distill alcohol! You have to promise!

The commercial businesses on eBay are annoying. I'm in the market for a new brew kettle, which is essentially a very large stainless steel stock pot.

There is a company selling these stock pots on eBay for 99 cents . But of course the shipping is more than $80. I didn't get it at first until I saw someone point it out in some feedback. By having a low selling cost and high shipping, they don't pay as much in fees to eBay.

That's tricky.

I have one auction open now. It ends in two days and I'm a little afraid of the current high bidder.

He or she has a rating of "0" which includes one positive feedback and one very negative feedback. I hope someone else outbids him/her.

I put a very low fixed shipping cost on the listing. I think it doesn't really matter what you put for shipping. People take that into consideration when they bid. If you have low shipping, they feel they can bid higher and vice versa. At least that's been my experience.

I hope all my devoted readers out there have enjoyed today's installment about eBay. I'm open to discuss other topics if anyone has a suggestion.