You Get What You Pay For

A couple weeks ago there was a full page add in the Boston Globe that said they would teach you to sell on EBAY. It was a big ad, and also a vague ad, but there was a web address where one could sign up for this class. Oh, oh, I thought. They will want my credit card. But no, the two hour class was free, and one of the locations was nearby, so I signed up and onTuesday morning we took note-taking pads and pens and drove to a local motel to learn how to sell on EBAY. Or so we thought.

There's lots of stuff that we didn't sell before the last move. Kids leave home and leave stuff. Parents die and leave stuff. You save old photos and girl scout badges and books and you end up with, well, lots of stuff. It takes up space and no one is using it or looking at it or half the time even remembering where and what it is. Significant Other and I decided we should really turn all the stuff into cash for a nice vacation fund. Big important stuff can be hauled off to an auction house and little stuff can be sold at garage sales, and pretty soon the time comes when you have stuff stuff. It could be valuable: old postcards, old marbles, old photographs. The thing is, it has to be sorted through, researched, catalogued and then, finally sold. Like on EBAY. We've been cataloging like crazy and doing lots of research on the Internet. Now, for that great final step, the selling of the stuff.

The big meeting room at the motel was stuffed (ha ha ) with people. Women and retired folks are what you see during the day time hours. A pleasant looking young man got up and talked and talked and talked and he was obviously someone who could talk the hind legs off a donkey. Finally, he talked about the EBAY workshop that we could sign up for during this meeting. Hmmm. Grapeshot had kind of hoped this was like a workshop, but what we got was about three-quarters sales yammer and a few (damn few) minutes of actual EBAY selling advice. The thing about the workshop was that I could already detect that the purpose of the workshop was to sell software and web sites and all kind of other stuff. We don't want an EBAY business; we just want to get rid of our stuff.

I found someone on the net who is looking for old postcards of New Orleans. No special software, no credit cards, no web site needed. Hmmmm.

Grapeshot