Auctiva Blog

Am I the only seller that is so excited about Black Friday they actually have a “countdown to Black Friday” timer on their desktop?

Call me crazy, but I do love looking forward to the holiday selling rush. But before I can sell anything, I need to find what will be good—even hot sellers—months in advance. That means looking for trends now. Not in November or December. Now!

It was around this time last year when I noticed a lot of talk on the various e-commerce forums and Web sites about Zhu Zhu Pets. Zhu Zhu whats? I was clueless about what these robotic hamsters were, or why on earth they were in short supply and high demand.
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Every spring, a storm begins a-brewin’ here at Auctiva. I like to refer to it as the battle of good and evil.

I’d compare it to King Leonidas vs. Xerxes, or Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker. I’m talking, of course, about the Oakland Athletics versus the San Francisco Giants. This past weekend was one of the interleague rivalry series, which meant the Giants made their way across the Bay to play the A’s.

The A’s swept the Giants, btw—something that made me very happy as a long-time A’s fanatic.

But Giants fans, no doubt, hated the loss. You see, when it comes to Major League Baseball, Northern California, where our Chico campus is located, has long been divided into two warring camps: Giants fans and A’s fans. Sure, some prefer other teams. For instance, our Communications Manager Robert Green is a Yankees fan and has a not-so-secret man crush on Derek Jeter. But most baseball lovers in our area consider themselves either A’s or Giants fans. You can see this division here in our Chico offices, too.

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In the spring of 2009, I had the displeasure of dealing with a buyer I just describe as interesting, to be generous. A year later I’m still dealing with this person.

Every seller, sooner or later, will have to deal with one of these odd creatures. How you handle the situation is a test of patience, maturity, self-control and sanity. Did I mention sanity?

It all started with a question this buyer sent me about an item I had up for auction on eBay. The question seemed a little weird, and I was foolish enough to answer. Hey, I am a good seller after all, and I want to answer every potential buyer’s question.

Long story short, after many, many odd questions and follow-ups with this buyer (and yes, she did eventually win my auction) I thought I was finally done. Three weeks of this woman was enough! She had asked me if I would give her a discount if she bought other similar items from me in the future, told me way too much personal information about her health situation, harassed me about shipping times and more. Eventually she paid, and I shipped. Goodbye. Sayonara. Adios. Forever! …or so I thought.
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Encarta’s definition of “rummage” is “to make a rapid search for or through something by carelessly moving and disarranging things or to find something by searching.”

I have to admit, I do my share of rummaging, although my version takes slightly longer and is more in depth. Whenever I’m in a department store, a thrift store or a garage sale, I cannot keep myself from digging through the clearance racks or rummaging through boxes of garage sale merchandise. Why? Because I’m always on the lookout for fantastic deals on things I think I can resell on eBay for a profit. It’s almost an illness. You likely know the feeling.

Even if I’m short on time, I frequently find myself drawn toward the backs of certain stores where the clearance merchandise is often hidden. The eBay seller in me says, “If I don’t at least take a quick peek at what’s been marked down 90 percent, I could be missing a huge opportunity to make some big bucks.”

When it comes to garage sales, I have a little more control. I don’t slam on my brakes and foam at the mouth whenever I spot a sign announcing, “Yard sale today!” OK, maybe a little drooling, but that’s to be expected, right? The approach I take is more methodical: I check the local paper and Craigslist ahead of time, and look for a few big sales that I think will have the most stuff to browse through. Then when I actually go to these sales, the seller in me takes over.

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In the midst of hunting for her next great find, intrepid eBay PowerSeller and Auctiva Super Smarty Rebecca Miller came across a garden gnome statuette just like the one that appears in the hilarious Travelocity commercials. She’d been looking for one of these pint-sized figurines for some time, so it was quite a score.

Before long, he became quite popular in our Chico office. So we decided to make him our unofficial mascot and give him a proper tour of the city. The first stop was the office of Auctiva CEO Jeff Schlicht.

Where will our roaming gnome turn up next?

Follow us on Twitter for updates and pictures from his exciting journey.

Why do so many people go nuts over owning a piece of a celebrity? I mean an actual piece— whether it’s a lock of hair, a used Kleenex or even nail clippings (ewww!). This week’s auction of a large bunch of Elvis’ hair clippings reminded me of a dirty little secret I have kept stashed away in a drawer of my desk.

Yes, I have fallen victim to the “own a piece of a celebrity, no matter what it is” syndrome. In a small folded envelope I have a nice collection of hair clippings from a very famous director.

How I got these clippings is amusing, but would probably get me fired if I was still working at the hotel where I acquired them in the mid-’90s.

This particular celeb was giving a speech at our local university, California State University, Chico, and needed a place to rest for just a few hours. Unfortunately for him, our hotel was booked (as were all the other hotels in town), but we switched a few people around and made a room available to him for a few hours. He was hobbling around on crutches when he arrived because of a recent knee surgery. His entourage escorted him up to the room and left him to rest.

A few hours later, the same entourage came back through the lobby, carefully escorting their famous boss out the front and they were gone. I immediately got busy loading up some housekeeping supplies and hurried up the elevator to clean the room. We needed that room available, and because our housekeeping staff was gone for the day, I took charge of that task.

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Most people who’ve been to a carnival, fair or amusement park are familiar with the “ring toss.” Players toss wooden or plastic rings at a large grid of Coke bottles and try to get one to land just right over the bottle’s opening to win the big prize.

Every time my husband, Mike, and I visited Reno, NV, we would go to Circus Circus and play the carnival games there to win prizes for our daughter. She loved getting all those stuffed animals and anything else we were fortunate enough to win.

About six years ago, we were strolling through the casino’s family gaming area and came across the ring toss. We usually wouldn’t play it, but the prize was something we thought our daughter would love. The toys that day were from “Sesame Street”—ginormous Big Birds, Elmos, and Berts and Ernies. Our daughter was obsessed with Elmo at the time, so we had to try to win one for her.

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What does it mean to be “green?”

As Kermit the Frog once sang, it’s not easy being green—or is it? Of course our favorite Muppet wasn’t referring to the same “being green” that’s become the mantra of the 21st century.

With eBay launching its Give. Good. Green. campaign this month, we thought about the ways Auctiva tries to be more environmentally friendly. We’ve had separate recycling bins for aluminum, paper and plastic in all of our offices for a very, very long time.

There are also bins for recycling batteries and we donate used computers and monitors to our local Computers for Classrooms program.

The printers in our many offices sit silent for most of the day. Instead, our staff communicates via e-mail, instant messaging, phone and in person, of course.

Our break room has a water filtration system, but no disposable cups—you’ve got to bring your own reusable cup or your favorite Kleen Kanteen (which, by the way, originated here in Chico, CA).

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With all the hoopla lately about the new GM-eBay Motors promotion, it reminded me about my brief stint as a used-car dealer.

Back in the early ’90s, our local county had its biennial auction that included a variety of used desks, chairs, office equipment and several used cop cars. My dad mentioned that those cars went for cheap, and that if a person had the money to invest, they could make a tidy profit by reselling them. I had a little money saved up, and being the starving college student that I was at the time, I saw a golden opportunity to make a few bucks.

My dad and I came up with a deal that I would bid and pay for the cars, and he would take care of the brake-light inspection, smog, licensing, etc., and handle the resale of the cars. For his work, we decided to split any profits 50–50. We went to the auction and found a few cars that looked good if the price was right. I bid and ended up winning two of the cars—one for $250, the other for $300. They were your typical police cars, complete with souped-up engines, heavy-duty bumpers and spotlights. Of course the decals and lights were taken off (rats!), but everything else was left alone.

After getting them registered, inspected, licensed, etc, it was my dad’s job to sell them. He found buyers for both within a week, and each car was sold for $1,000. After all the fees that had to be paid to get the cars ready to be sold, we made about a $1,000 profit to share. Not bad. If only all the junk I buy at auctions would resell that well!

Rebecca Miller

Product Analyst

Sunday afternoons are usually my only free time to relax, and during the summer I’m as happy as a clam if there’s an A’s baseball game on. This last Sunday I plunked myself down on the sofa for some quality “veg out” time. The A’s were playing; I had my box of Crunch ‘n Munch and a large glass of iced tea — perfect.

I was happily munching away when I noticed an unusual piece of toffee-coated popcorn. It was an exact replica of a human brain, but obviously a much smaller version. The color of the toffee made “the brain” seem even more realistic. It even had the squiggly membranes and a line down the center dividing it into halves. After turning the “brain” around and inspecting it thoroughly, I popped it in my mouth and continued with my relaxation.

It wasn’t until two days later when I mentioned the “popcorn brain” to my co-workers that I realized I may have eaten a tidy profit. I’ve come across dozens of stories over the years of people raking in a pretty penny for a piece of toast with the image of the Virgin Mary, a potato chip that looks like Alfred Hitchcock’s profile or some other food oddity. My popcorn brain might not have been that rare, but it might have been a lot of fun to put it up for sale and see what kind of bids it attracted.

I mean, a hot Cheeto that resembled Michael Jackson doing his famous moonwalk, according to the seller, did sell for $35.18 earlier this summer.

Maybe next time I find something weird I won’t be so quick to dispose of it and will list it. The entertainment value alone would be well worth the 15-cent insertion fee.

I may not even have to wait too long to see what other fun food I come across. I could buy “bread stamps” and make my own religious toast.

Rebecca Miller

Product Analyst