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I made $100K from a dick joke

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Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#41

Post by steveBK123 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #37
anonu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant believe ebay hasnt been disrupted yet...

eBay is interesting. It has consistently high profit margins, but no upward movement in revenue or profit, which peaked over a decade ago, and its returns heavily lag SP500. I’m guessing investors don’t see much opportunity for growth in the online auction business to make it worth dumping a bunch of money just to take market share from eBay.

eBay I think had their growth capped once you had Etsy, Amazon FBA, and other options on the field.

Your average normie has no interest in the hassle of selling their used stuff (which has, if anything, got harder in my 25ish years using eBay), nor of buying random used staff from anonymous individual sellers.

Etsy covers the arts & crafts coded goods (though much is now China dropship).

Amazon allows the big merchants to sell to normies who just want to click "buy" without thinking about seller rating risk, when something will arrive, etc. Basically most people have no idea they are buying from not-Amazon, because it says amazon.com and that's good enough. eBay never had the smarts to create that user experience.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#43

Post by walrus01 »

dakiol wrote: post #12

Perhaps I missed it, but at what point the author sets an LLC or something similar? For me, that’s the main blocker: in Europe it costs money to start a business, some paperwork and taxes is involved, even if you don’t make a single sale. Also, for selling online you kinda have to show in your website your “business id” (or tax id or similar)… otherwise how do people know you are a legit business? For example, I’m no…

In many US states it can cost at little as $200 to $300 to form an LLC. The person says they used an integrated, hosted shopping cart/checkout and payment system. This means they didn't have to go through any of the hassle of doing something like even setting up a "business" bank account, getting credit card processing services and integrating the card payment portal system into their own self-hosted shopping cart checkout workflow. Shopify is used by a bunch of very non technical arts and crafts people.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#45

Post by steveBK123 »

gosub100 wrote: post #40
anonu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cant believe ebay hasnt been disrupted yet...

They cleaned up their act substantially in the past 3-4 years. There are still scammers, of course, but they seem to be taking action that favors buyers as well. I just don't see how they can protect everyone from all the various scams. If they accept all the risk, it will be exploited by scammers.

It was always fairly pro-buyer, but it's moved so much more in that direction it's somewhat hazardous to use as a seller.

For a lot of stuff, as a seller, I'll just trade-in or use random hobbyist forum buy&sell sections which ad-hoc reputation systems.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#47

Post by nyjah »

anonu wrote: post #32
oaththrowaway wrote: post #19

I sold a laptop on eBay once long, long ago. Someone did the "Buy it now" option but never paid. I'm trying to remember the exact situation (probably more than 10 years ago), but I had exchanged messages with him several times and he always had an excuse to not pay. Then I noticed he was selling the exact same model of laptop so it was easy for me to realize that he had just "bought" my laptop to remove the listing s…

I cant believe ebay hasnt been disrupted yet...

eBay has had to reinvent itself. For me, I don’t trust eBay for legit merchandise, I sorta assume it’s knockoffs now, probably wrong. I’ve never used them but I was under the assumption that offer up and what not are popping off as eBay disrupters.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#48

Post by LtdJorge »

purple_turtle wrote: post #28
dakiol wrote: post #12

Perhaps I missed it, but at what point the author sets an LLC or something similar? For me, that’s the main blocker: in Europe it costs money to start a business, some paperwork and taxes is involved, even if you don’t make a single sale. Also, for selling online you kinda have to show in your website your “business id” (or tax id or similar)… otherwise how do people know you are a legit business? For example, I’m no…

> in Europe it costs money to start a business, some paperwork and taxes is involved, even if you don’t make a single sale not everywhere - in Poland it is fine to run a tiny-scale business without registration https://www.biznes.gov.pl/pl/portal/00115 - among requirements, scale must be less than 75% of a minimum wage. Enough to test it. > otherwise how do people know you are a legit business? For example, I’m not g…

Wth? That's a great system you guys have.

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#49

Post by OJFord »

dakiol wrote: post #12

Perhaps I missed it, but at what point the author sets an LLC or something similar? For me, that’s the main blocker: in Europe it costs money to start a business, some paperwork and taxes is involved, even if you don’t make a single sale. Also, for selling online you kinda have to show in your website your “business id” (or tax id or similar)… otherwise how do people know you are a legit business? For example, I’m no…

Certainly doesn't in the UK, are you sure that's true where you are? Here incorporating as an ltd (limited liability) costs I think £25, but you can start a business as a sole trader without any kind of fee or registration (just a de facto status requiring declaring the income on your personal tax return).

Re: I made $100K from a dick joke

#50

Post by MrMcCall »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #34
oaththrowaway wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just makes me more cynical about everything I see posted. Marketers ruin everything eventually

You can extend that to stories people tell and images they portray in real life.

Dishonesty is rampant in our world.

That's why Merlin says honesty is the most important virtue.

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