We just recently reached a major accomplishment – we made our goal of 10,000 positive feedbacks on ebay! While it may not sound monumental to many folks, we know how much work it took. (Our dear friends put this award together.)

We’ve been selling since May of 2000. At first it was very part-time. Just in the mornings and evenings after work. We had some success and really enjoyed it. A down-sizing by one of our employers caused us to re-think our career path and while searching for another position, decided to try this on a full-time basis. And we found it to be just great!
Now, when we are asked “how did you ever reach 10,000 positive feedbacks?” we take our cue from an old comedian who we loved and admired, George Burns. He would have said “First you reach 9,999…” HA! We have actually had a lot more than 10,000 but when they are repeat customers, ebay does not count them again. We also note that less than 35% actually give feedback, even if they take the time to email with a thanks and ‘all is well’ message. But we are proud of reaching another milestone.

Selling on ebay, for the most part, has been a very positive experience. We’ve sent a number of items home! By that, I mean we were able to find things for people that “MEAN SOMETHING.” For example, we have sold advertising items from companies, hotels or restaurants that had the same name as the person who bought it. Or sent a calendar that advertised for a long-gone dairy to someone who worked there in the summer of 1965! Another gentleman bought a huge metal sign from us from a Milwaukee hotel that had closed years back. It had belonged to his wife’s family and he gave it to her as a Christmas gift. A recent sale of restaurant ware items found a member of the family of the original owners of the establishment! We have even sent several photographs to relatives of the person in the picture! And these were from the 1920s. Wow!

We have also played ‘match-maker’ on several occasions. We listed a bottom of a cookie jar and the lady who bought it had the top! We’ve listed creamers or sugar bowls that lacked a mate and they were ‘made whole’ when the buyer had the other piece.
We are also proud to say that quite a few of our items have been added to museum collections. For example, a photo of an old Milwaukee Clipper ship (ferry) has been added to a display case in Michigan. A gentleman in Arizona who collects unique advertising items purchased a very large, and rather unusual, beer wagon made of wood in Western Germany. It had a driver, 4 horses with a lot of fancy hardware and 80+ wooden beer kegs. He emailed to say it will be proudly displayed in his collectibles museum. Advertising items of “local interest” have also been purchased and added to their respective museums.
One of our favorite memories has been sending numerous wedding photos to a gentleman in Texas. He wanted them to display at his son’s wedding. He had purchased several turn-of-the-century wedding gowns for the reception hall. He placed the old wedding pictures on each dinner table. His son was very much into fashion design, so this was a wonderful surprise for him. He was kind enough to let us know it had been a big success!

Several of our friends started selling on ebay about the same time as we did. They thought it would be fun! And, while it is enjoyable, it is a lot of work! You have to find the items, (which is getting a lot tougher), sometimes clean them up, research to see what the minimum should be, list it, pay the fees (whether they sell or not), package them up, ship them off. Then you wait for the good news. We have used the US Post Office almost exclusively and have been very pleased with them. We’ve shipped well over 40,000 items and only 4 have ever been lost and 5 damaged in transit. That is incredible. While we have continued on with ebay, all of our friends have discontinued their endeavors.
In retrospect, it has been a very gratifying experience. We have shipped accordions, a large sink, a marvelous boat anchor, china dish sets of 80 pieces, oil paintings – you name it! We have enjoyed being ‘pickers’ for folks who cannot or do not wish to take the time to find these treasures.

We would love to hear about your selling or buying experiences!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 4:39 am and is filed under collecting fyi, events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.