I have a bit of an obsession with eBay, as Heather can attest after staying with me last week. I checked my eBay sales more frequently than I checked my e-mail.
Watching the auctions and checking to see if I was paid are the fun parts. Listing items is incredibly painful. Dad had 55 comics, and because I am not a collector, I really don’t know how to determine if an item is Fine or Excellent or Poor. So I took at least three incredibly high resolution photos of each comic and dictate a detailed listing of every single scuff and crease I can see.
After the first few individual listings, I decided it would be easier to post the comics in bundles. That saved me time on mucking with the eBay interface, but I still had to go through the painful process of describing them all, the HTML formatting was no less burdensome, and–to top it all off–the bundles tended to sell for less than the individual comics I posted.
So I created an Excel spreadsheet that automated the HTML formatting and made listing an item on eBay take no more than 30 seconds instead of 15 or more minutes. The only painful bit left was the process of describing them all.
I don’t know how many hours it took me–I would guess it was in excess of 60 hours total over the last month–but I listed the last comic this evening. The auctions are staggered to start over the next two weeks, and the whole lot should be sold by 15-DEC-2006.
I doubt the money I will get on eBay for these comics will properly compensate me for the time I spent posting them, but it’s a relief to have the painful part of the process completed. Now, it’s just the fun…