posted on October 13, 2005 07:03:05 AM new
My sales are okay (not great, but okay), but people sure are slow in paying. The other night, 17 auctions ended. Usually I would have roughly half pay with PayPal right away. Not a SINGLE paid right away, and I'm still waiting on 10 of them.
i've been wondering about sales this winter too. there might be, as you say, some advantage for those of us selling online, in terms of people not having to pay for gasoline to go shopping. and if the much-publicized "bird flu" gets here, i'd think that would be to our advantage to a certain extent, re: people not wanting to go shop and be around other people. for someone like me who's prone to pneumonia and bronchitis, shopping at home via the internet is an attractive option.
and living in a rural area, i've always preferred to shop online if possible because it's a real time saver. now with places like buy.com - which charges no s & h on most purchases, takes PayPal, doesn't charge state sales tax and has prices for stuff that are less than at a store, it's become a no-brainer and i always check places like buy.com before i go anywhere. all of my recent office equipment purchases have come from there, and my purse and wallet were bought online at eBags for far less than what the same nice leather items would have cost at the (shudder) mall.
but yes, i secretly worry about my gas bill. have three of those radiator-looking electric space heaters that i got at lowe's a couple of years ago and hauled them in from the garage. here at least, the cost of the electricity to run them will probably be less than the cost of natural gas. and my 70-year-old neighbor was worrying just yesterday about the cost of natural gas.
so....who knows how it'll all play out with sales this winter, but it should be an interesting ride.
posted on October 13, 2005 11:14:31 AM new
I would rather shop online than go to a store any day. I hate shopping. I don't have any problems buying off of E-Bay, I get some really good buys. I really thing prices going up on everything is just about to put this country in a depression. I would say you will see a number of the big boys go out of business after Christmas. We are losing another factory in Danville in December and others going out in Harrodsburg. They are all going to Mexico. There are so many small businesses that have closed this year,I can't even count them. I have no idea what kind of small business Bush thinks he is going to create,what I would like to know is how would you even start it in this sorry economy. I think everybody is looking at the light at the end of the tunnel,they know its an on coming train.
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Two men sit behind bars,one sees mud the other sees stars.
posted on October 13, 2005 01:16:34 PM new
not to veer off into politics here but the only kind of jobs i see being created are low-paying ones in the service industry and jobs like rebuilding nola for minimum or less than minimum wage. apparently, minimum wages guidelines have been "waived" for this rebuilding effort. lots of marginal jobs for marginal people...sad. (and nola will turn into another atlantic city and it won't be the marginally employed who rebuild things who reap any benefit from the efforts). oh well, i digress!
posted on October 13, 2005 03:21:48 PM new
go ahead, veer off vintage
I expect that eBay sales of not-necessary-but-would-like-to-have items like Hess trucks, china, etc. will go down. Items that people need but can get for less on eBay will go up.
I'm amazed at the official inflation rate provided by the government. Energy costs are obviously through the roof (I just got billed $1300 to fill up my heating oil tank), medical care is more and more expensive (and insurance pays less and less), housing in many parts of the country has bubbled, my groceries don't seem any less expensive (the opposite actually). So, who'd doing the math here? Thank God that wages are going up too... oh, that's right, they're not, are they? Suzie and Billy in Bangalore have higher wages then they ever thought they'd have, but most folks around me are starting to feel the pinch, and re-financing the mortgage one more time no longer works (mortgage rates are back over 6% again).
The only grace note in this for me is that my family likes it chilly. That's expensive in the summer, but saves us money in the winter.
