Stormy's Corner

Free ride in space?

This guy turned down a free ride to space because he realized he'd have to pay $25,000 in taxes on it.   My SO suggested that he could sell his space clothes for $25K on eBay afterwards!

Watch who you bid against in eBay!

Last night on my way home I got a text message from eBay saying I hadn't won the item I bid on.  That was a little strange.  I use eSnipe, so usually if I bid, I win the item. - If the item is still below what I'm willing to pay for it, three seconds before the auction ends eSnipe places a bid for me.  No human can squeeze in a bid after that so if the item is going for a price I think is reasonable, I win it.  So eBay only gets a bid from me when I'm going to win the item.  If the item is out of the range I'm willing to pay, eBay never even knows I was interested in it.  So, if I got an email saying I lost, that meant someone had squeezed in a bid in the last three seconds of the auction!  They had to be using a tool like eSnipe too.  Interesting.

Then I got home and Frank said, "hey, I bought one of those shirts for Jacob!"  I said "for $6.50?"  He said, "yeees ... the yellow one?"  We were bidding against each other and I drove his bid up 50 cents!  We had a good laugh about it. 

Buying Kids' Clothes on eBay

I buy all the kids' clothes on eBay.  I always search for "lots" which are large lots of clothes - they are usually the best deal.  For example, a mother might sell a "lot" of 4 year old clothes - all of her kid's 4 year old clothes when he outgrows them.  Another way to find good deals is to use the advanced search option to search in the kids' clothes category for all lots that have zero bids.  Usually those are lots that have bad pictures, bad titles or bad descriptions but they might still be good clothes.

I also bought lots of maternity clothes on eBay when I was pregnant.

Also, don't forget eSnipe when you go to do your bidding!

The Secret to Buying on eBay

Frank called me the eBay Queen today.  I told him the problem was I'm the eBay Buying Queen and I'd much rather be the eBay Selling Queen.  I'll tell you the secret to buying on eBay: eSnipe.  eSnipe lets you set how much you are willing to bid on an item and how close to the end you are willing to wait.  Then it bids for you.  So you get to set what you think the item is worth - no bidding past what you think it's worth because you got involved in the bidding frenzy.  And no getting outbid at the last second because you don't bid until the last second.  I usually tell eSnipe to start bidding three seconds before the end of an auction - no human can outbid that.

So I win lots of auctions but I never pay more than I think something is worth.