EventHorizon1984 Log

A Tale of Four eBay Sellers

A Tale of Four eBay Sellers
14 February 2011 
Valentine's Day Edition
EventHorizon1984

While scanning the various blog sites, one of us came across this interesting note.

Where CohibaStore.com, a PowerSellersUnite regular member, states:

• "Due to some moron at PayPal, or better, the morons at PayPal, I am unable to withdraw funds or use the PP debit card for a few weeks."
• "I hung up the phone and promptly shut down my ebay stores, closed all the listings and took the rest of the day off."

A week later one of his eBay Stores remains empty.

You might be asking, "why the interest in this seller?".  He happens to be one of the sellers in our eNA (eBay Noise Aggregate) study.  Where we quantified the eBay 'store to core' impact on sellers.

Since we mentioned "Four eBay Sellers", "submitted for your approval" are four sellers of the hundred and nineteen sellers studied.

1. clact (5209), member since Feb-25-02
2. cleggandco (24352), member since Aug-20-02
3. oldspartantrader (7696), member since Feb-28-05
4. z50com (10482), member since Jun-25-00

These sellers are well known successful eBay PowerSellers with hundreds of listings.  And with hundreds/thousands of posts on various venues. 

Or at least that's the way it was in 2008/2009.

1.  "Are you trying to cheer me up?" 
Captain John Sheridan, Babylon 5

Clact, better known as Marty on the eBay Stores Discussion Board, and eBay Voices participant, currently has these two listings on eBay.

A set of two listings that has been essentially unchanged since 2010.  Although it's been presumed that he is off doing other eBay related things.

2.  "I'll be back." 
Terminator, The Terminator (1968)

Cleggandco, also known at CohibaStore on the PowerSellersUnite forums, had this to say in 2007.

• "My sales are currently 90% ebay, 5% my web store and 5% blujay."
• "Most importantly you need to build a reputation. You cannot do this overnight. You need that reputation to help spread your reputation via word of mouth. It's still the best form of advertising."

Today he has an Amazon outlet, higher total sales compared to 2010, and for the moment no products on eBay.  BUT that's temporary.  

• "Of the 300+ ebay listings we used to run, we have perhaps 50 that will get re-listed when they fix it. I will continue to suck money out of their system and ride out the decline until it's completely unproductive - as everyone should be doing."
• "Customer service continues to be dreadful. Even as Gold Top Rated Power seller, getting an answer, or even making contact requires herculean effort. I'll bet cash money it will be this continued failing that finally drives me off from selling on ebay, rather than fees, idiot buyers or moronic rules."

Will this $10K a month (on eBay) seller remain on eBay?  Shrug.

3. "That wizard is just a crazy old man." 
Uncle Owen, Star Wars (1977)

Oldspartantrader or Carl, has been a fixture on the eBay Stores Discussion Board for years.  

Currently he is NARU, having left eBay on his terms in 2010, opting for retirement.

4.  "You can count on my steel." 
Unknown warrior, Army of Darkness (1992).

z50com also known as John, is a noted aerospace tool seller.  He's a regular poster on the Yahoo! EBAY Message Board and AuctionBytes.  In 2007 he had this to say:

• "Ebay works great for me. Most weeks I sell 90-100% of my listings. Prices for my products have never been higher."
• "I hate hearing all the whining from unsuccessful sellers, adapt or go out of business. The strongest will survive, I have."

Depending on the source, his "90-100%" sell through was coupled with anywhere from $2K to $10K a week in gross sales.  Making him at the time the largest, or one of the largest, in this small group of four sellers.

His current selling status has changed dramatically from those prior years.

z50com still sells on eBay in a smaller capacity, but appears to supplement his income through a part or full time job.

"What is the moral?  Must be a moral." 
Comedy Tonight, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966)

If there is any moral to this "Tale of Four eBay Sellers," it might be the comment about eBay's treatment of Calvin Klein, where we rhetorically asked:

• "if eBay is willing to show such tepid support for a $6 billion dollars in sales a year corporation, how do you think eBay treats the much smaller sellers?"

Now we know.

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"He's dead. I'm crippled. You're lost."
Flight Officer David Campbell, The Longest Day (1962)

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eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA)

• The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) - Measuring The Impact Of Store To Core
• The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) Redux

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eBay Discussion Topic - "When did "gooder" become a word?"

eBay Discussion Topic - "When did "gooder" become a word?"
2 February 2011
EventHorizon1984

Trawling through eBay, one can find serious topics of discussion on eBay's Liveworld controlled forums.

But for the purposes of this article, sometimes not.

A major eBay shirt seller, honeville1, asked "When did "gooder" become a word?".

This brought out a few collective chuckles, and remembering the quote by Edmund Burke (1729-1797) "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." (1)

1. Winston Churchill (1874-1965), "Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it." (2)
2. George Santayana (1863-1952), "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Or as we included in a previous article on forgetting the past: 

Pablo Picasso, "If there is something to steal, I steal it."

But to partially answer Honeville's question.

The year was 1984, and a scene from a television mini-series left a memorable impression on millions of viewers.  The conversation from V: The Final Battle (1984) basically started with:

"How you doin' gooder?"  Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside)
"That's short for do-gooder.  It's a little nickname he's got for me." Mike Donavon (Marc Singer)

The word "gooder" has been around the science fiction community for almost 27 years.

Speaking of 1984, it was a fairly good year for science fiction, fantasy, and horror feature films.

(Not an all inclusive list.)

• 2010
• A Nightmare On Elm Street
• Children of the Corn
• Cloak & Dagger
• Conan The Destroyer
• Dreamscape
• Dune
• Electric Dreams
• Firestarter
• Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
• Ghostbusters
• Gremlins
• Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
• Iceman
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Night of the Comet
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Oh, God! You Devil
• Repo Man  - watch the ending, ED.
• Romancing the Stone
• Runaway
• Sheena: Queen of the Jungle
• Splash
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
• Starman
• Supergirl
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension
• The Brother from Another Planet
• The Ice Pirates
• The Last Starfighter
• The Muppets Take Manhattan
• The Neverending Story
• The Philadelphia Experiment
• The Terminator
• The Toxic Avenger

And for starting a company.

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"Return the money!?  Are you delirious?"
Centauri (Robert Preston), The Last Starfighter (1984)

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