Monday, March 15, 2010

Buying and Selling

For the past month, I've been selling Israeli scarves on ebay. Yesterday I made my very first purchase(s). My almost 3 year old needs summer clothes and unfortunately the clothing Gemach (Goodwill) here is terrible for kids clothes. Since I don't have a car, getting to out of town Gemachim is difficult.

So I took the plunge and did some ebaying.

Man, shopping on ebay is a full time job! First there's searching for what you're looking for. Then it's looking over each listing to make sure the items are in good condition (we're talking little boy's clothes here). Then you want to calculate how much your final bid should be and add the cost of shipping.

Then there's deciding on whether you're going to bid right then and there and possibly drive the bidding even higher or simply watch it and come back to when the auction is almost over and make your bid then. (Oh, and I'm bidding on lots so it's comparing one lot to another and their prices).

And you need to sleep at some point, right?

Well, I won 2 bids and lost a third. Which was annoying since I went to bed as the only bidder, there was 2 hours left on the auction and the final bid was 2.5 times more than my highest offer (granted the highest I was willing to go was $5.00, but still).

So then it was back to the drawing board and I'm watching several new auctions. I'm hoping if I can win one more lot, Nati's summer wardrobe will be done - other than sandals.

3 comments:

Leora said...

Good luck. It takes a certain talent to do Ebay. I once tried for a Purim costume - and the costume never arrived, and I had to deal with Paypal to get my money back. Sigh.

So I paid full price for a Purim costume this year. But that's not in everyone's budget.

Hope Nati gets a nice wardrobe.

Batya said...

There's lots of kids clothes in the local gmachim. Contact the Hook-Greens in Eli. Also, there's one in Shiloh, Ofra, probably every yishuv. This is the season people get rid of their clothes.

Pesky Settler said...

Leora, buy the day after Hallowe'en in just about any store.

Batya, the main problem with visiting the Gemachim in other Yishuvim is most of us don't have cars.