Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/05/what-its-like-to-be-a-profes.html
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3 Likes
I can empathise here. I have a load of stuff I should eBay, but the time I’d need to spend doing that, vs the amount of money I’d make - well, it just doesn’t quite seem worth my while.
Doing it for a living must be tough.
I’ve got the luxury of working from home right now though, so really should make the most of that whilst I can…
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Go dumpster diving near any elite college campus, and you could make hundreds per week. You’d be surprised what spoiled rich kids throw away. When I was in Boston (Allston) I never paid for a piece of furniture or electronics in 4 years.
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Not something I’d be interested in doing myself to make a living, but it doesn’t seem all that bad and this fellow seems to have some efficient systems set up. I know one person who makes a lot of money selling on eBay, but his inventory is a specific type of high-margin item that he sources himself rather than going out to garage sales and such to get for re-sale.
I raided (surprisingly clean) Barnes & Noble and Borders dumpsters years ago for moving boxes for my books, and still have them broken down in storage ready for the next move. They’re very sturdy and purpose-designed.
I’m currently in the midst of a major cull of my clutter, but most of the stuff I don’t need anymore will end up either in recycling or donated or put on Craigslist/Kijiji for local sale and pick-up.
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I have considered the “ebay seller” lifestyle and made the decision that whatever benefits there are they are easily outweighed by the detriments.
You have to keep a careful accounting of junk you buy at yard sales where you get no receipt. You have to clean and store stuff. You have to deal with buyers who are either extremely picky about some tiny bit of damage, or deliberately dishonest and trying to twist your arm for a better deal. There is a lot of dull work like this guy documents (getting boxes, doing inventory, answering questions online, taking photos, typing descriptions, shipping.) There is a lot of competition with other resellers (I have seen fights/tugs-of-war at Goodwill.) Your free time and your work time become enmeshed and hard to differentiate. And perhaps worst of all, if you start out buying and selling items you love and are interested in you run the risk of becoming jaded and losing the passion for those things.
There is something to be said for “working for the man” for making life simpler. That said, if I could find a niche market on ebay that had a good profit margin and was reliable I would jump on it (living from score to score can mean dry periods where you stress about income.)
“Allston Christmas.” The bedbug problem in that part of town has scared me off for good.
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Yeah, It wasn’t so bad in the late '90s. But man, have I heard horror stories of people having to toss pretty much everything once they get the bug.
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I have severe anxiety about having to deal with such chuckleheads ever again. Some of these buyers have questionable ideas about how to function in society and they know where you live.
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need a TV, couch, dresser, bed, microwave, coffee maker, or anything else you would need to furnish an apartment? Just head to any Boston suburb on or around Sept 1st and you would be all set.
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I run a record store in California, and although i do some online sales for unique items, I do not miss when I was selling a huge collection for a customer on eBay a few years ago. The packaging, the babysitting of whether it would get shipped properly, the endless questions about the tiniest of particulars. It weighs on you for sure. I do however use the experience to tell people that want to sell records to me, well if you don’t like the price I’m offering you you can always try selling on eBay, but frankly I don’t recommend it for a newbie (and list above reasons why).
Sidenote, not to derail the topic but as amazing as eBay is especially for figuring out competitive pricing, there’s a lot of what I call “mirage” pricing that people fall for when it comes to “collectibles” and antiques. “But I have Beatles records! I saw some going for $1000 on eBay what do you mean you’re only offering me $20 ??? some of them even have the cover still !”
Good times 
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My sister did this for awhile (specializing in mid-century kitch and clothing) and these are all reasons she got out of it. Especially the latter. She sold through Etsy and other online storefronts and people who specialize in specific genres get extremely vocal and confrontational about other sellers’ merch and whether it’s legit or not. It ended up not being worth her time.
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My best Allston Christmas find was a PowerBook… who even???
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Back in the early early days of ebay a good friend of mine’s father struck it rich- he had owned a video store which he closed in the early 90’s and never liquidated, so he had a storage locker filled with tapes and film paraphernalia. Once eBay came around he started selling, and bought stock in tech- apple, ebay, Amazon etc. with the proceeds (and was lucky enough to avoid any bad bets on shit like pets.com) Within a couple years he was comfortably worth several million dollars and has lived a lazy man’s life of luxury ever since. Must be nice to have great timing!
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Could pick up a free dog or cat too, just by driving around the streets for a bit at the end of a semester. 
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This dude is a bit unclear on oversharing. The kids are cute, but at that age don’t belong on the Internet. And the scene where he enters his workshop shows us the exact keying of his lock. Glad he’s got a job he likes though.
I think most small stores now have an online presence, and pretty much have to. I can’t think of any record store locally that does not have a discogs account, and some will also have ebay or amazon marketplace accounts.
Oh man, I’ve seen a lot of this. Several years ago someone put up an ad on craigslist near me with this long list of common easy listening LPs with absurd prices for each one. I can only guess they spent hours online calculating the best possible prices for their Streisand, Mantovani and Roger Whittaker albums. I feel bad for those folks, they 've set themselves up for crushing disappointment. “But I saw on TV that records are worth big money now!”
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I know LOTS of eBay sellers! At least 2 dozen are immigrants whose Green Cards forbid working a regular job, but allow (encourage) starting a business . You can see their skills sharpen up over just a few months, and other ‘born here’ sellers will actively give them tips. When they finally get naturalized, they’re making so much money from re-selling they just keep at it, getting better cars and dressing fancier and fancier. They look like the landlord coming to check on their property, but they’re just more business-looking than the generally sketchy other customers/sellers.
I practice my horrifying French on the Africans and Syrians. They’re too polite to roll their eyes.
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Huge flat screen TV here. And this was when they were still about $2k.
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Spoiled rich kids 
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I have a half-baked retirement plan to find a high-margin niche business like this. My wife’s university used old Radio Shack “laptops” for field work data recording. They were rugged, cheap and ran on over the counter batteries. When one broke, they’d just mail it of to some codger in the Midwest somewhere that had set up a business keeping clients supplied with working units.
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Raiding the rear alleys of strip malls for free boxes is an clever and maybe obvious hack
No comment re the fellow profiled… but here I was thinking that ebay seller prices included boxes.
