tikistitch

More weird Moon stuff on ebay starting tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel

Weird week - I've got ten kajillion bazillion watchers on everything, but almost no bids. So, might be worth checking out, if you're into Bargain Basement Moon type stuffs.

It's been a weird week in general on eBay, but I'm not gonna go into that now.

A ranty-rant, but, for those of you who found my blog through my eBay auctions, maybe this will be informational.

One sure way to get on Tiki's Happy Fun eBay Blacklist of Dooooom: don't pay me. Seems like this would be in "No duh!" territory, but I guess some explanation is needed. Sadly, the people who REALLY need to read this are probably also the people who won't. How do I know? I have maybe 10 whole sentences of text in my eBay listings, and they can't seem to manage even that much.

Some fundamentals: eBay doesn't do listings for me. I have to dig out my items, take photographs, figure out what size box I'll need for shipping to estimate postage, etc. Then I have to do individual listings for every single object I post, which often means doing a bit of research to identify what the heck I'm selling. I spend a good chunk of EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND doing listings. Unlike some other eBay sellers, I have a real full time job. And then of course I have to spend some time fielding questions, and more time actually billing and packing and shipping.

Most importantly: eBay doesn't list stuff for free. After the auction is completed, eBay takes a chunk of the selling price. They bill me for it. Unlike me, they won't wait a day or two for their money because I I don't get paid 'til Friday or my goldfish got sick or I'm going on vacation or whatever.

What happens when someone doesn't pay? If you want your money from eBay back, you have to start the non-paying bidder process. First, you have to wait at least a week after the auction ends to even file the request. Then you have to wait ANOTHER week for the person to respond. And I can't do anything else with the item during this time, like sell it to someone else or even give it away. It's gotta sit there, in eBay limbo.

If you're counting, that's THREE WEEKS from the day of listing that something has been sitting on my dining room table before I can finally try again. Then if I bother to relist it (I sometimes don't bother at this point), you have to wait another week for the auction to conclude. And, in my experience, usually the second auction doesn't go as high. And what happened last week was, the person who bought a thing that was up a second time decided she was unhappy, so in addition I ended up getting cranky feedback. Which impacts my ability to sell.

So, here's what happens if you're a winning bidder who "forgets" to pay: you go on the blacklist. Since eBay has changed the rules, so I CAN'T EVEN GIVE YOU BAD FEEDBACK FOR THIS, that and the non-paying bidder strike are my only recourse.

(Now, I have a couple people who are good customers who have taken a bit of extra time to send my payment, and that's cool. These people are "customers." How do you get to be a customer? Do at least one deal with me where you pay for your stuff promptly then leave me fair feedback. No whinging about postal prices or protesting that the dog ate your paycheck or alleging that aliens forced you to click the "BID" button. Despite what you've heard from Eddie Bauer, NO, customers are NOT always right. There are rules. And, by the way, Eddie Bauer just went through bankruptcy.)

I have some nice stuff, and actually the overwhelming majority of my customers seem to be pretty happy when they get a box from me in the mail. That's what's most upsetting. I'm now averaging about 1 auction a week where the winning bidder skips town. That's like a 10% non payment rate. If I were Amazon or WalMart or something, I could deal, but I'm not. It's just another thing that makes me wanna quit eating up my Saturdays and instead back a U-Haul to my front door and take the whole kit & kaboodle of old dolls down to Good Will, where at least I'll get a smile and a thank you.

OK, guys.

Stuff is ending tomorrow afternoon. There's still some talking dolls still going for super cheap. Actually, everything but the pen is going for super cheap. Who knew?

And, tomorrow, I'm gonna try to sell some more Moon, including some tasty Amazoness Quartet. God help me.

Having a Twofer sale this week 'cuz we're going out of town:



Lots of random Sailor Moon and Hide X Japan stuffs ending tomorrow. And then a lot of Jenny and Friends are going up on the block. Tons of dreamy boyfriends this week. Are your Jenny dolls lonely?

Mr. Tiki restacked our eBay Pile o' Doom last week, so it actually looks SMALLER. For whatever reason, for the past few weeks, the more we sold, the bigger the pile seemed to grow. Like, aliens land in my living room over night and beam down Takara dolls. Or, something. But, we're actually getting through it all. Slowly. Hopefully before we completely lose our minds.

Eels! Eels! Eels!

Kids these days. *sigh*

I've been kinda following smcollector. It's cute. It's mostly stuff I've had for a decade, but cool to see there's still interest in Mooniana. Ya know, carrying the torch. Or, the Moon Stick.

Since I'm no selling my shit, I decided to post a notice there, right? 'Cause, ya know, I probably have one of the biggest goddam SM collections in North America, no joke. And somebody's gotta buy my fucking Calices and Pegasus Messages right?

So I post. And, a couple hours later, check my email, and am completely baffled to see NOT ONE NOTE from somebody begging me to pleeeeeease set aside the Amazoness Quartet for them because they are so special.

So, I checked the smcollector group. My post had been deleted.

So, I go to the smcollector user info, and it's TL;DR. Rules, tiki has no time for your petty rules!!!

But I do see there's some kind of companion group for selling.

Which, is locked. And, no info on how to get membership, and I'm too annoyed to figure it out.

So Mr. Tiki suggests, "Hey, write the mods a friendly note, "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM DICKWEED????"

I go to the mod page. Her nick is "Notorious B.I.T.C.H." No, I am NOT making this up. Uh, yeah, I bet I'll get some happy friendly conversation there!

Eh, I think I'll go kill zombies.

Since we've been sharing our eBay woes, we thought it might be fair to share a little nice eBay story, because, tiki's crankiness notwithstanding, it's mostly not such a bad gig, and sometimes it's actually kind of OK plus you meet nice people who collect dollies.

Anyways, we had someone buy a dollie, which they liked, so they wrote us about it, which was totally cool (it's fun to see our stuff go off to happy homes of people who like them). Anyways, they wrote, "We shall send you a Stitch!" And, dagnabbit, they did!!!



This guy. Isn't he kind of adorable? It's from the Dizzney store, which means we should probably have gotten our chubby butt in gear to go out and get him ourselves.



We like especially the fact that Gardener Stitch has thought to some kind of insanely dangerous plant (like the one on that episode of the TV show) to the garden party.

More stuff up today (starting at around 2 pm PST, after we've all had our coffee). Sorry we didn't have anything up last week, but we were out by the lake visiting the possums and raccoons and stray housecats plus eating all of our friend Philip's chocolate cake, and the internet out there is kinda dodgy. Anyways, we got tons and tons and tons of Fighting Vipers dolls in pleasing designer colors. Why did we buy so damn many video game dollies, when we can't even get past the first level of the Lego Indy Jones? 'Tis a mysterious mystery. Anyways, gotta go make room for the Stitch humidifier and Stitch pogo stick. Go have a cup o' joe and then come back & buy something.

From Boneboy....

Speeding driver tells State Patrol he was rushing to bid on eBay

Just after 9 p.m., a State Patrol trooper patrolling Interstate 90 saw a speeding 2004 Volkswagen R32 passing other vehicles in the express lane in the Mount Baker Tunnel. As the Volkswagen came out of the tunnel, the trooper clocked it going 110 mph as it continued across the floating bridge. With the trooper behind him, the driver eventually pulled over on Mercer Island.

The driver, who was identified as Garrett, told the trooper he had to get home to Fall City because he was late bidding on a coveted item and eBay was about to close the auction, said Trooper Dan McDonald, a spokesman for the State Patrol in Bellevue.

You know how this is gonna end, don't you?

According to McDonald, Garrett "didn't say what he was bidding on but the trooper said his car was filled with Star Wars stuff."

Garett's car was impounded — with all his Star Wars collectibles inside — and Garrett was booked into the King County Jail on suspicion of reckless driving.

Reminder: Stuffs are finishing today.

Once they're gone, they're gone.



More stuffs going up later (1-2 pm PST).

More stuffs up today. Including pregnant Licca. You all want a pregnant Licca, don't you? Of course you do!

Y'all know, of course, if you Licca collectors don't buy our dolls, a bunch of Blythe collectors are gonna gobble 'em up and rip the heads off????