The Taipei Kid

Once in a while I will sell some stuff on eBay. Usually textbooks and CDs that I don’t want, although once I did sell an Italian suit. My legs had gotten so fat, almost overnight, that I couldn’t fit in the slacks. It was liking trying to stick a pair of Taiwanese carrots in those long balloons clowns use. God, it was a beautiful suit. I wore it twice. One of the bidders was this couple who later came over to see it. (Question: Why was I letting strangers into my house to try on my clothes?) They gave me a sob story about how they were about to get married and needed it for their wedding and they had the money with them, although it wasn’t quite the current highest bid and would I consider just selling them the suit to them? Nice story, but sorry. Some lucky fellow in Taichung won the suit.

In my listings for stuff to sell in the US, I usually just tell them I will pay for seamail shipping, because I think surface is so underrated and I think we should celebrate it as much as possible before it falls off the face of the earth. I am surprised by the number of people who see “Taiwan” as the shipping point and then ask (and want proof) the textbook I am selling is not just a photocopy. Textbooks here are so much cheaper than the States, even with airmail shipping, you can still make a small profit selling to the States. Just enough to pay for your bus fare to the post office.

This sounds awful, but one thing I have learned is not to make some products such as CDs available in Taiwan, especially if it is a rare or special CD. A Taiwan bidder will snap it up quicker due to the time zone as the auction ends. American and European record collectors will bid and pay more. And that’s it for my small operation online auction tips.