{"id":96,"date":"2009-07-17T12:24:31","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T16:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=96"},"modified":"2018-08-10T16:12:52","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T20:12:52","slug":"ebay-sellers-hidden-profit-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2009\/07\/17\/ebay-sellers-hidden-profit-source\/","title":{"rendered":"eBay sellers hidden profit source?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon, my virtual landlord, has had a love-hate relationship with eBay for a while. This morning, the “love” phase seemed short and under-used:<\/p>\n

\n

Bought a magazine yesterday. Four bucks. Seemed like a good deal. Auction notes that out-of-USA losers should ask for an invoice to get their shipping rate. Thinking that shipping would be, oh, I don’t know, another four bucks or so, I figured what the hell, and use the Get Reamed Up The Ass Now<\/b> button to buy the thing.<\/p>\n

Shipping?<\/p>\n

Twelve bucks.<\/p>\n

Frig.<\/p>\n

Thinking that this was, perhaps, a one-time thing — just a spot of bad luck — I looked around today for another book that I would like to have. Found the book. Brand-new reprint of a rather old book for twenty bucks. Again, a decent deal. Shipping to Canada? Twenty. Two. Dollars. So, no book for me.<\/p>\n

No wonder there’s a recession, the dumb wankers.<\/p>\n

Speaking of wankers: I took at look at the new Schwarz plane book<\/a> and thought “what the hell.” So I started the online ordering process. Shipping to Canada for the book and a set of DVDs (on a topic that shall remain nameless)? Thirty. Two. Dollars. Cap-and-trade this, wood-boy<\/b>. I did not proceed with the order.<\/p>\n

What the hell is wrong with these people?<\/p>\n

Humph.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’ve found some eBay sellers like this: they seem to feel that the extra labour of filling in a customs sticker requires them to make a profit of 2-3 times the actual cost of shipping. After getting burned that way once, I’ve always been careful to check shipping costs before<\/em> bidding.<\/p>\n

When I requested Jon’s permission to use his email on the blog, he replied with this:<\/p>\n

\n

I guess so. What I sent is not nearly as memorable as the first draft, though. I originally had something in there about how, after Obama nationalizes their health care, I hope the eBayers all get scrofula and schistosomiasis and itch<\/em> for the rest of their lives; but then I looked up scrofula and schistosomiasis to confirm the spelling and decided that wishing those on anyone, no matter how much they distend my rectum with their take-it-up-the-ass shipping rates (Rectum?! Damn near killed him!), was just a bit over the top.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Cross-posted to the old blog, http:\/\/bolditalic.com\/quotulatiousness_archive\/005593.html<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon, my virtual landlord, has had a love-hate relationship with eBay for a while. This morning, the “love” phase seemed short and under-used: Bought a magazine yesterday. Four bucks. Seemed like a good deal. Auction notes that out-of-USA losers should ask for an invoice to get their shipping rate. Thinking that shipping would be, oh, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,57],"tags":[60],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-humour","tag-ebay"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-1y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44480,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/44480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}