Hello all, this is Gary’s son Mike. I have been trying figure out everything dad had going on online and it seems as though there were a few projects in the works but this was his baby that he tended to every day.

For the short term, 1 or 2 months, this site and the garage sale challenge site will remain up and running. Please feel free to use the forums and continue with your own garage sale challenge.

The long term has yet to be decided, I know that I am no auction rebel and am sure that all of you would fit that title more then me. Therefore I would like your feedback, thoughts, ideas about what the fate of theaucitonrebel.com should be. Is the site useful as is or does the information get outdated like dad’s computer that I’m typing this on? No idea is a bad idea, well except if you suggest I take it over, we will all go broke then since I don’t have dad’s eye for buying the 25 cent item at a garage sale that will sell for hundreds or more online.

I look forward to hearing your ideas and thoughts.

Thanks,

Mike Hendrickson

Popularity: 68% [?]

Two summers ago, the 30″ walleye to the left was tied for the largest walleye caught out of the resort we go to each year in Ontario, Canada. Last year didn’t produce anything larger than 25″ but with a little luck we can make the fellow above look small this year.

We leave early tomorrow morning and will be back home sometime Saturday the 20th. The weather forecast up there for next week looks a little damp, but it sounds like the fishing is good right now.

In the meantime I have 39 Challenge auctions that will start Sunday evening and run through the 21st.

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Yesterday evening I was reading a post on Mitzi’s Vintage+Goodness=Happiness blog titled Too much new on Etsy to fit it into one title!. In it she mentioned a group of 1970’s workplace safety posters she had recently acquired and listed.

Mitzi’s post started me thinking that I have quite a few food related advertising posters from the same time period sitting in that garage that I really should get on eBay. And that got me thinking about the day I threw away forty to fifty old posters that would, today, bring well over $20,000 on eBay.

Sometime in 1959, an issue of the now defunct Sports Car Graphic magazine came into my possession. That magazine spawned what was to become a life-long interest in Formula One auto racing and old sports cars.
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It was a typical February day in North Dakota when I left home this morning to make the rounds of the thrift stores. Snowing, windy, and -4 degrees with a wind chill factor of -25 to -35 degrees. At least it finding a place to park in any of the parking lots wasn’t a problem.

The day’s only purchase came from St. Vincent De Paul where I paid $1 for “Jochen Peiper Battlecommander SS Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler”. I ran the ISBN through ScoutPal to find a total of 50 listings. The lowest price was $4.62 and 26 copies were priced under $9.45.

Certainly not a book with much potential at first glance. But the more I looked at it, the more my gut told me it had possibilities. In the end I paid $1 for it and walked out the door telling myself I’d probably be kicking myself for the purchase.
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There’s still plenty of snow on the ground and our high temperatures are only between ten and fifteen degrees most days, but we’ve had two garage sales in Grand Forks during the last two weeks.

The first was held indoors by one of our local churches. While the sale officially began at 8:00 in the morning, for $2 you could buy early buyers rights beginning an hour early at 7:00. I got there about 6:30 and there were already fourteen people in line ahead of me. By the time they opened the door at 7:00 there were between 100 and 150 people standing in line clutching their $2 in their hand.

We were in the middle of a heat wave and the temperature was in the twenties with no wind so standing in line wasn’t bad. When they held their sale one year ago temps were below zero with a twenty to twenty-five mile an hour wind so it was a lot more pleasant this year.
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Popularity: 18% [?]

Although this post is five days late, it’s still close enough to the New Year to talk about where I want The Auction Rebel to go in 2009.

1. Increase the blog’s RSS subscriber count to 1500. As of today it’s currently at 655.

2. Increase the blog’s unique visitors to 10,000 a month. It averages just over 3900.

3. Make better use of the video capabilities of the theme I’m using. I chose the current theme because of it’s video capabilities with the intention of providing both tutorials and video posts that would help readers increase their income. That got shoved on a back burner. In 2009 it will happen.
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A possibly not so hypothetical question. How would it affect your eBay or Amazon business if an Internet sales tax were implemented?

Would you be able to implement the bookkeeping and write the checks necessary to submit the required sales tax to every state your buyers were located in on a regular basis? Or, would it put you out of business?

Earlier today Skip McGrath began his blog post - “eBay and Online Sellers, Get Ready for Internet Sales Taxes in 2009” - with the following words:

The new congress and the new president have signaled their willingness to require all on-line sellers to collect and pay sales tax

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Popularity: 25% [?]

Since eBay’s new paperless payment policy went into effect on 10/20/08, I’ve sold nine items out of my eBay store to nine different buyers. Seven of those nine buyers have written and asked the same basic question.

In addition, I’ve received emails from five potential bidders on various auction items with the same question.

What they have all said is, “The only payment option you show is PayPal. I don’t use credit cards on the net. Can I pay for this item with a check or money order?”

If eBay is determined to force their new paperless payment policy down the throats of both buyers and sellers, then they need to step-up and show they’ve got a pair by placing an explanation of the new policy on their home page large enough so it is impossible for buyers to miss it.

They need to show they have a pair by telling buyers they have taken on the roll of Big Brother and are making the buying experience safer and more enjoyable whether the buyer likes it or not.

Photograph by Steve Garry.

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MC018 eBay Listing Removed: Search and Browse Manipulation

That was the subject line of an email I received last night from eBay.

the email advised me that eBay had taken it upon itself to terminate one on my auctions because I used the two-word phrase “Like New” in my headline.

It went on to say…

“Sellers are not permitted to include any information that does not describe or is not directly relevant to the item being sold within a listing. Any information included within a listing that may misrepresent the terms of sale is also not permitted.“

Apparently I was foolish enough to think that the term “Like New” actually described, and was therefore relevant to, a set of books I was selling that appeared as though they had just come off the shelf at Barnes & Nobles.

eBay’s thinking in not allowing me to use the term “Like New” in my headline is that I am misleading buyers who are searching for a “New” set of these books. Their logic is that some poor sap will be drawn into my web of deceit and, realizing that I’m out to mislead and/or defraud them, never again return to eBay to make a purchase.

Realizing that trying to logically discuss something with an entity that more and more is demonstrating it has a collective IQ of somewhere in the 30 to 40 range, I simply removed the offensive two-word phrase from my headline and re-listed the item.

However, on the off chance that anyone from eBay might ever read this post I do have a few questions that I’d be interested in hearing eBay’s response to.
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The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines customer as “one that purchases a commodity or service“.

The upcoming changes eBay announced on Tuesday, along with changes implemented during the last few months, make it clear that eBay has never owned a dictionary.

Increasingly, eBay is operating under the delusion that the people who come to eBay to make purchases (buyers) are their customers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since eBay’s inception, no buyer has ever spent a penny purchasing a commodity or service from eBay.

eBay’s revenue is generated entirely by sellers who purchase services from them. Sellers are eBay’s customers. If eBay sustain their growth and increase profits, they need to understand that and focus on creating an environment in which ethical sellers can thrive and continue to grow.

Photograph by Larry Page.

Popularity: 22% [?]