A Long Time Ago....Part 2

…. And oh the junk we sold! Every week, my pal would stop by with more of it, and up on eBay it would go! It was so exciting to watch people bid and bid, anxious to be the lucky winner of an auction.

DISCLAIMER: I never actually sold ‘junk’ – I sold very collectable, quality items that people loved. However, since I was not a collector, it was all junk to me! Which leads me to the First and MOST IMPORTANT Law for all eBay Sellers: NEVER GET EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED TO THE STUFF YOU ARE SELLING.

Now, not only was eBay very exciting back then, it was also very free and open with few rules and regulations. This was never a problem, per se, as eBay employed a brilliantly simple way to keep dishonest people off of their site – the eBay Feedback system. It worked amazingly well – if a party was happy with the transaction (as they usually were) they would leave positive feedback for the other party, which would kick up their feedback score by a point. Unhappy parties would leave negative feedback, which would lower the score by one. A high positive feedback score meant that that person was a good one to do business with.

Here is an interesting little tidbit about the early days. Sellers were usually more concerned with the feedback score of the buyer than the buyer was of the feedback score of the seller. Any reputable seller soon had a feedback score in the triple digits and no one was afraid to buy an item from them. Buyers, at that time, were more of a problem. Many would win an auction but never get around to sending the seller payment. Obviously, it was a waste of time and money for sellers to deal with these deadbeats, and many would often refuse to do business with buyers with low or negative feedback.

Most problems between Buyers and Sellers were resolved quickly and amiably with a few emails back and forth. Ebay back then was recognized for what it really is – an on-line garage sale – and parties who were in dispute would deal with one another like you would with a friend or a neighbor in real life. There was a real spirit of community back then, and eBay was a fun place to buy and sell. Like they sang in Rocky Horror, “It was great when it all began…”