posted on June 16, 2013 10:11:48 AM
Curious what people did before eBay?
I used to promote baseball card shows in Tallahassee, Florida while I was in college. That was about the time about 10-20% of students had computers. I discovered Prodigy's classified board where I would buy, sell and trade cards with others using the universities computer lab.
I quit baseball cards altogether around 1996 after getting frustrated with the flooded market of garbage. What used to be 1 annual set per company per sport became 4 or 5 sets per company per sport.
I moved to Portland in 1997 and got my first PC. I accidentally stumbled across a bag of Hot Wheels at a thrift store that included some from the 1970's still in their original packaging. I sold the first one on eBay for quite a bit and became hooked.
Of course, this was the day of using a 35mm camera, taking film to be developed, then scanning the images onto my computer for each listing.
posted on June 16, 2013 10:32:14 AM
Before Ebay I was not into retail. A friend of mine dabbled with a store front selling antiques & stuff she bought at auctions & garage sales. She discovered Ebay & turned me on to it. My mother had recently passed and she was an avid doll & toy collector (I am the oldest of 9, so she had a lot of practice) so I started selling her items to help my dad out.
While doing that I discovered some great suppliers nearby & started selling "new" items. Usually retired / hard to find item / old stock items. Pretty soon everyone got on that bandwagon.
I am still working to liquadate all of my mother's "treasures" but so is everyone else.
posted on June 16, 2013 01:52:49 PM
Used to buy and sell guns a guy a work suggested I try eBay to buy and sell a few. eBay stop gun sales almost as soon as I signed on. While looking through the listings I saw a niche market for old car magazines. I just happened to have several boxes. Same as shag first as no photos then I used a 35mm. Once listing fees kicked in and several 1000 other sellers joined it got to crowded and profit margins took a dive so I pretty pretty much bailed. Still list now and then.
Shorter hrs better pay with a PT job.
posted on June 18, 2013 02:48:37 AM
I sold in antique malls. Never really made that much but I had a regular job as well.
A lady who worked at the antique mall told me about ebay but it took me a year to try it.
I only had a scanner so everything I sold had to be flat.
