I did it. They all told me no too, but I didn’t listen. I quit my job to work from home at eBay. It worked out fine eventually, but the road to goodness was long and bumpy. This is what happened.
I worked in a high pressure job in IT (information technology) and I hated it. The hours were long; I was on salary so there was no overtime. My kids thought I lived somewhere else and the stress was unbelievable. I looked into other career options and quickly realized that changing jobs would lead me to the same destination, just in a different place. After talking with my spouse, we decided that I should change jobs. I don’t think you’ve realized that I’m talking about quitting my $50,000 a year job to sell items on eBay. I forgot to mention that. After we talked, the next morning I gave two weeks notice. Let the games begin!
The same night I gave the notice, I started researching what it took to sell items on eBay. Surely it couldn’t be that hard, everyone seems to do it and I have an IT background. I have an eBay ID. So I did what most people do to start with; I cleaned out my closet. The clothes were fine; especially some of the designer clothes she wouldn’t need anymore because she was going to work in her pajamas at night! Looking back I realized that I was delusional. When my husband finally realized what he was planning, he turned around. Apart from threatening divorce, he said that he was under the impression that I would change jobs or careers. He never dreamed that he would quit smoking to stay home and play on eBay. He gave me a year to fix it or go back to the corporate jungle I would go to.
My last two weeks of employment have come to an end and I am still awaiting payment from an auction. The others shipped and I’m not sure what else to sell. I started looking around at what I thought would sell. I know, I’ll be buying iPods from the trustee websites that always advertise that they have eBay items. Well, the iPods turned into a palette of electronics that cost me $1,500.00. I love my husband; he hasn’t tried to kill me yet. My loving husband assumed that I would have discussed the purchase of a pallet with him before purchasing it. Oh good…
About that pallet: It arrived and I was so excited. It was like Christmas. I unwrapped the pallet keeping it all together; I couldn’t wait to see the iPods. Oh boy was I disappointed. I thought this was new merchandise, not used open stuff. 2 out of 5 iPods would not turn on. None of the boxes were sealed and there were various other electronic items that were not working. Wait, it gets better. It was an older version of the iPod, not the new ones consumed in eBay bidding wars. These are the iPods that only sell once in 4 auctions. Some of the other electronics I was able to put to work. After spending a week going through the pallet of things, repairing items, and repacking and gluing boxes, I was finally ready to take some photos and list the items I could. Of the 100 items on the pallet, 75 were salable. Of those 75, 25 sold the first time but for much less than I expected, 15 sold the second time, and the other 35 never sold. The end result was an $800 loss! It’s not a good start.
What I learned? First thing is, I really needed to learn what all those terms mean on the adjuster’s website. If I had known what a returns pallet really meant, I would have passed on this. The second thing I learned is that I had a lot to learn. So I spent the next month reading and researching and understanding it all. So I finally started to get it right.
I quit my job to work from home at eBay. It was a good decision after all. However, I could have avoided a lot of problems from the start if I had done a little research. A return to the corporate jungle never happened. I had a successful business.
