Don't be a dick on ebay

So my probably final ebay selling spree is in full swing. Most of my knives are gone, soon I will just be selling some miscellaneous items and probably some gun stocks.

It's been pretty good this time but I again got a whiney message about shipping.

Seriously, I have all the shipping info listed and I emailed the person a separate message when I shipped it. It's been 8 FREAKING DAYS!!!!!!!!!! You paid for regular shipping, I said it would be at least 2 weeks if not 3. *sigh* But I just responded with a nice message, reiterating the shipping information and thanking him for being patient and for buying the item. I can understand a little, people want their stuff right away (too bad they won't pay for that).

I had an annoying experience myself the other day. I was looking for a new forend for my mossberg 590, something with picatinny rails, and saw one that interested me. The listing for for a mossberg 500/590 but when I looked at the picture (and it was a personal pic, not one pulled off the net), the label on the part clearly stated it was for a remington 870. Also, the person had included a link to the manufacturer's website about the item....clicked on it and it went to the 870 description.

It wouldn't be the first time I've gotten incorrect parts, either remington parts for my mossberg or vice versa so I messaged him to confirm what gun his item was for. I listed the above confusion over the listing (wrong picture, wrong link) and asked him to confirm the item was for the mossberg.

His response:

Read the listing.

Wow, that's some swell customer service (ebay business). I know who I will NEVER buy from.

Dick.

Too Many Knives

I've made past mention of my efforts to reduce my ridiculous knife collection on ebay - so far, I've managed to do some major whittling down but there are still a lot to sell.

Now it's time for some of the more tough decisions. I want to reduce what I own down to just three useful categories:

1. EDC Knives - folding and fixed blade

My current EDC knives are:

- Benchmade Griptilian 550HG
- Boker Fred Perrin neck bowie
- some crappy throw away keychain folders, one in pocket and one on my keyring

The one change I am going to make is I am going to switch to the Spyderco Yojimbo 2 when it comes available (got my pre-order in), I was able to handle a prototype and it's freaking awesome.

2. Large Survival Knives - some tough decisions here plus these can be the hardest to sell online due to the high shipping cost.

I think I am going with:

- Cold Steel Recon Scout
- Fallkniven A1

The CS is awesome but I still want to get some kydex sheaths - there's some cash out of pocket :(

I was going to sell the A1 but I think it could come in handy if I move to BC with its year-round wet climate. We plan to be on the water a lot more too. I already have a very strong retention kydex sheath for it and I think it will be my "strap to my leg in case I have to build my own civilization after I fall in the river while boating" knife.

I may keep an Ontario Rat 5 knife as well, still undecided.

3. Small Survival Knives - I am keeping my box full of $10 mora knives. I generally favor the 511 for the protruding guard and yes, I know that real bushcraft people everywhere are gasping in horror and that real men don't need guards on their knives. It's just safer and I prefer it that way. So there! :)

I will probably keep a couple of serrated river knives also, I have some quick deploying titanium knives that I attach to life vests.

Everything else must go *sigh* except for some machetes, they are handy and aren't worth selling due to low dollar value/high shipping cost.

I am selling all my "tactical" or fighting knives and all my other folding knives. What a terrible waste of money. I have no need for them and it's better to have a use version and a spare of a knife I am used to rather than constantly rotating my carry knives. Or just leaving them in a box collecting dust.

Ebay selling update

So far no complaints and no returns but I have had several "when did my item ship" and "why isn't my item here" yet questions. Not sure why people can't see the "your item has shipped email" or look at the item and see the ship date....as for shipping times, wow, some people are pretty impatient. When you pay for regular shipping you can't expect items to show up in a week or so, especially for cross-border shipping!

Hopefully things keep going OK. Got lots more items to sell but waiting for another cheap listing period for most of them. Some of my more expensive items I am going to post this week with Buy it Now prices.

One thing I totally screwed up on was with the ending times on my auctions. I work shift work and am up at all hours so I listed things at odd hours. Not thinking at all that a lot of people just look at what is ending soon to bid on (duh), ending things at 3am on a Tuesday is a bad idea! Ah well, more info. Try to end things on an evening, some people say Fri or Sat - I think any day is probably OK but probably not to early on a Mon-Fri weekend.

Ebay selling

Recently I've decided it's time to start clearing out a lot of the gear junk I've accumulated, a lot of it through online shopping - by the same means I bought a lot of it, ebay! I also started selling my knife collection, items going back 15 years. Some really good knives, some marginal, some crap, along with some of my martial arts DVDs.

So far, I've done OK. I've burned myself with shipping a couple of times (be careful there!) and I've sold a few items for less than I had hoped. The DVDs aren't selling well, maybe I need to look for a different way to sell those.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised but the folding knives get WAY more interest than the fixed blades. People are folder crazy. I can understand that, I used to feel the same way. Plus a few junk knives went for some ridiculous prices.

Selling as an auction generally does surprisingly well, people will pay more for the item at auction than the same item listed with a Buy It Now price!!! A friend of mine told my he filters out all buy it now items and several others confirmed they do the same. Weird. So a tip would be to list both an auction price and a buy it now price, I had noticed some people do that with very little spread in between, I guess it's just to make both lists (I often filter out auctions).

Been a positive experience so far but I still have a lot of items in the mail, hopefully there are no problems. I'm going on holidays so I have stopped listing items (I put about 50 up for sale, sold half so far), I have 10-20 more to list when i get back. Maybe more, I need to start digging through the mess I call "storage."

Updates to follow.