Startup Fiance

Butterfinger spotted an item at our local Big Lots the other week that he felt was an incredible deal for all of the components included – one part being the three rechargable Nickel-Cadmium batteries used to power the device, which, obviously, shall remain nameless. Butterfinger and I are a pretty good mix of hot/cold, gung-ho/weary, you get the picture, and in this instance he wanted to seek out and buy So Cal’s entire supply of these products, while I wanted to take the “safe” road and just get a few to start with and see how they sold. We compromised and started out with 10 of the $4 item, just to see what would happen.

Our first post of the item on eBay yielded about 50 page visits over the week it was up, but no bids or buyers. I took a closer look at our auction page, which was nicely laid out with html and lots of pictures that we took of the item, and I felt that the problem was with our wording – I thought I should rearrange the wording to get more hits and get noticed by more potential buyers. Instead of limiting ourselves to just one category or use for this item, we needed to get the word out that this was a versatile piece of equipment capable of emergency tasks as well as every day use.

It looks like my theory was correct, and earlier this week I mailed out my first major Ebay sale! Not only was I within 25 cents of the requested postage price (without going over, in true Price is Right fashion), but I made over a 200% profit on the item I sold. I even managed to get around the selling charges incurred by Ebay by selling the item outside of the site, and using PayPal as the means for payment to be transferred, although I did have to pay the Ebay listing fees… The buyer actually wanted to buy more of a quantity of the item than I had on hand so I had to cross my fingers and hope that Big Lots still had some of them in stock, which they did. I proceeded to buy the remainder of their inventory, which was only about 12 additional items, kicking myself in the ass all the way to the car.

Should I have listened to Butterfinger when he wanted to buy a gross of these devices? Probably. Will I be more open-minded in the future when he proposes such an idea? I hope so! Can I ignore my Pennsylvania Dutch blockheadedness and go along with every idea that pops out of Butterfinger’s mouth? Definitely not, but I think this experience will help me to think things through before being so quick to jump to conclusions or go with the first negative idea that pops into my head. This sell was what the doctor ordered to boost my confidence enough to realize that I can truly do anything I put my mind to, and I look forward to continuing to test the eBay waters and looking for other ways to live without working for someone else.

Any guesses what the item is??

Two things I would not sell on eBay -