You have two days to spend $40,000 on eBay. What are you going to do? (Continuing an ancient post on Buying Big Ticket Items on eBay) It’s not as fun as it sounds. I had this problem when I bought eSnipe.com, which when on sale on eBay 10 years ago. Forty grand will always be [...]

So the other night I was surfing the web in my home office and got drunk dialed by a scientist.

I haven’t forgot the seller experiment, despite almost incontrovertible proof of a severe case of ADD on my part.  In fact, I’m still sifting through the ideas you all have given me and am adjusting the experimental protocol. I am also trying to fight my way through a mental block. For some reason I keep [...]

A couple of years ago I spent $1.3 million on a new business, and lost it all. Let me tell you my $1.3 million lesson. Don’t spend $1.3 million on an Internet business. There. You’ve learned it! Seriously, though, there’s a bit more to that very expensive lesson, one that cost me my life’s savings [...]

The last month has been a whirlwind of activity, and I’ve been derelict in reporting why. It has to do with the blasted economy and how to make money from home in these dark times. I am not a great saver. I am however an exceptional earner. Always have been, and it’s because I lived [...]

There’s a lot of advice floating around about how to sell effectively on eBay. Some of these eBay seller tips are even good. But which? What are the best headlines? Does paying for bold or colored backgrounds matter? How important is free shipping vs. loss leader pricing vs. high shipping costs? Your pictures vs. those [...]

I like eBay. I especially love the concept of eBay. It is easy to forget that just a few years ago, there was no eBay. For years economists have used in their models the idea of a frictionless economy, which is one where both buyers and sellers know as much as possible about any particular [...]

eSnipe is an unusual business in a lot of ways. (eSnipe is a service that places bids the last few seconds on eBay, the best way to prevent emotional overbidding and to keep prices down.) Its way of getting new customers is a paradox: eSnipe relies on word of mouth. Yet to recommend eSnipe to [...]

Buying big-ticket items on eBay is scary. There are more scammers than there used to be, but the selection of legitimate items is bigger than ever. I have used eBay to buy some expensive goods: up to $40,000, in fact. When I say big tickethere I define it simply as this: any amount of money [...]

User rr_junk has made an interesting feature request, shown as item #3 here: http://easyonme.com/blog/esnipe/esnipes-new-look/comment-page-1/#comment-60 “An actionable warning that another eSnipe bid outbids me, sort of an eBay within eSnipe. To be fair both bidders would have to be informed in a timely and actionable way.” This has twists on it that the casual eSnipe auction [...]