e(vil?)Bay

It all started innocently enough: I need money. I have some products to sell. I have an eBay account. 2 + 2 = 4. Right?

Not exactly.

I began by creating my listing as per usual. I spent time detailing the condition of the item, using photographs to support my claims, and creating what I believed to be a very good description. Clear, precise and very informational. It wouldn't win any awards for creativity, but no one reading the description could ever be under false pretences about the item.

The item itself was a Nintendo DS Lite + 3 Games.

I'd seen people offer the DS Lite /w games for about £80-£100. My DS Lite is in very good condition and with three games (all in excellent condition), I figured I'd make around £100+. But as usual, I started typed to start my auction at 99p and I charged a modest shipping fee. It'd been a long time since I had used eBay. So long in fact, that my feedback rating was 0% since it only counts feedback generated over 12 months (I have 39 ratings, all positive).

Click 'Next' and away we...Pardon?

Error? What? What do you mean I have to offer free shipping? Huh? PayPal only allowed? Immediately, I fired up google and did some research.

Firstly I came across eBay's own explanation. As a buyer I can completely understand that some people take the Michael when it comes to shippping. In fact, just last week I complained to a friend that I'd seen an auction that had something like £10 shipping. I can guarentee you that the item he was selling would not have cost £10 to send.

People put high shipping prices on because it's free money. When you bid and you see you've won something for £30 you then have to add on what it will cost you for shipping. This fee is also received 100% by the seller compared to the final auction price which eBay receives a cut of.

Yes, shipping does need to be controlled but by simply pointing at certain categories and saying "You must offer free shipping" is like trying to crack a nut with a sledgehammer and there are legitimate gripes about the move. Look at this way, I can't go to my post office and say "Hey, this is only a video game so don't charge me postage".

In my case the reason for the free postage was because I had chosen to list my item in the secondary cateogies of Video Games - Nintendo DS. As soon as I removed this, I was allowed to add up to £14. This wasn't a big deal actually. I wasn't prepared to offer free postage so I just contented myself with the one category.

The second issue though, that I had to use PayPal (and only PayPal), was a much bigger problem for me. I thought it must be a technical glitch, but a bit of research uncovered that eBay tried this trick with Australia though they failed, but nothing I found suggested they were doing it on eBay UK. As a test, I changed my auction category to another cateogry and sure enough I could use all payment methods but with video game consoles and perhaps other categories too, there seems to be a demand that only PayPal can be used. The error message did state it was because of there being a lot of complaints in this cateogory along with my seller history meaning it was PayPal or the highway.

Now, PayPal has its fair share of haters, like all companies do to be fair, but I've never fully trusted it and closed my account because of this lack of trust. I don't like being forced to do things and judging by a petition group set up on ebay UK, neither do others.

I was wavering. Not entirely sure whether to go through with the auction or not until...

Boom!

So let me get this straight...

You tell me I have to offer free shipping based on some categories. You also tell me I have to accept and can only accept PayPal because of I have a quiet history and the items being sold are in one of the most disputed categories, and now you tell me that the buyer might send me the money via PayPal, but I would not receive it until after a specific amount of time.

Yes, buyers need protection, but the general consensus is that sellers aren't cared for. I'm not sure I agree with this. eBay needs sellers, just like it needs buyers. I am not an experienced eBay user, but I've found it very off-putting to try and earn a bit of money by selling something I no longer want, only to be bullied into doing what others want. It's made the experience very unpleasant and I don't think I'll be selling anything on eBay for the foreseeable future.

There are bad buyers (another issues is sellers can't give buyers negative feedback) and while it's fairly simple for buyers to find out what protects them, what kind of seller protection do I get? If the buyer initiates a refund or complains, what can I do? PayPal has a seller protection policy but that means syncing it with my bank account and there's no way I am trusting those people with my bank details.

cold spaghetti at 5am - the lows and lows of authorhood

One of the popular misconceptions is that writing a novel is essentially a get rich quick! scheme.

In fact, this misconception is so widespread that many within the litature industry always go on the defensive the moment someone walks up and says "I'd like to be a writer".

I wish it was a method to money. Really. No one writes for money (unless they're already famous, but then they probably don't need the cash) but equally I can't think of many authors who wouldn't want to be called JK Rowling or Stephen King. Let's face it, they're at the top--the very top--of their craft and they have rightly earned the right to have their bank manager make a home visit with a smile, instead of with baliffs.

But for us, at the other end of the spectrum, things aren't quite so sweet-smelling. Allow me to give you a good example:

It was 5:00am on Sunday morning when I started this. I'd spent Saturday on a long journey around town. My body needed that. After weeks of being couped up in my cell (aka: my study), I'd gotten to see real people and looked at items more than a monitor screen's distance away.

When I got home it was late and I was tired. I had a nice bath to relax my muscles (although my feet ache now) and cooked some spaghetti. I went to bed thinking I'd get a nice sleep, wake up refreshed and have another day at work.

Except it's not quite worked out that way.

First, I couldn't sleep. Why, I do not know. But I couldn't. To make maters worse I began thinking about things...things to do with money. Then I began to worry and wonder:

Could I really publish this novel?
Can I really get people to buy it? (I'm not counting you, dear reader, because I know you will buy it!)
If it doesn't work out, then what?

It's true I've invesgted a lot into this dream, too much in fact. I left school without much in the way of qualifications so now I am not earning much money (no money!). I'm a 27 year old man and I have no life because I mustn't be away from my work for too long because if I am not working then I am not getting closer to earning money.

So I got up and am composing this blog post. I'm too sleepy to work but too awake to sleep. So I am writing this hoping I can trick my body and mind into thinking I've worked my fill and can sleep. I'm also eating left over spaghetti because there is no food in the house.

Now about writing being a get rich quick scheme...

Go, go gadget wordpress

I finally setup a wordpress blog.

I know, it's absurd. I barely update this one and yet here I am setting up another blog. But still, I need the exposure and I also think it'll help me in a bizarre way. Two blogs = more responsibility and more likelyhood that this thing will get updated (even though I have no idea what to say half the time).

Point your browsers to: http://blood2ink.wordpress.com (and yes, I'm changing the picture and the banner on here).