e-bay

I use e-bay quite a lot.

Generally with the restricted living arrangements I have, it's difficult to keep a lot of stuff. But I tend to buy a lot of stuff.

Throwing it away is a (heart-breaking) last resort. Car Boot sales are a waste of a day, plus you have to sell everything at, like 5p, which is just pointless. That means using e-bay is the only real option.

It's a lot better than it was--back when I started, getting your stuff up was like pushing red hot needles underneath your own fingernails--distinctly painful, and very slow going. Nowadays it's a lot smoother in that regard.

But it doesn't mean it's without its problems. People have totally unrealistic ideas about things.

Often is the time I've put things on at a reasonable "buy it now" price and loads of people will watch it, but no-one will actually buy. Then I'll put it on as a much lower "bid" type auction, and guess what? It'll often go for what I was asking the week before, if not slightly more.

Then there's postage. People seem to have no idea how much it actually costs to send something through the post.

The Royal Mail is expensive, unless your item is heavy. Since most of what I sell is single books and DVDs it makes it look really expensive.

But that's not me charging a lot--it's because those are the Royal Mail's prices. People have no idea. I mean all they need to do is just go an look at the Royal Mail website--it's all explained on there.

It's like padded envelopes--I add a pound to cover these. Because, averaged out, that's what they cost. Padded envelopes are not cheap--especially the really big ones, which are way more than £1. Then you've sellotape, pens to write the address on, the carpark charge so I can get into the post office. But people just don't seem to get this.

But my biggest gripe is paypal.

I have no problems with e-bay charging fees or taking a cut of what an item goes for. That's how auction houses work. They've got a big site that presumably costs a lot to maintain and run and develop, etc. I've no real problems there.

What I object to is that paypal charge a small fortune for doing almost nothing whatsoever. My banks don't even charge me for transferring money and they're a bunch of bandits--how the hell can paypal justify it? Plus, they're just part of e-bay who are already raking in a small fortune.

But you almost can't do auctions without offering paypal. I've tried with just postal order and personnel cheque, but those auctions never go anywhere.

It's almost like racketeering.