Sorry to waste my readers time, but I’m selling my Mercedes Benz CLK 430 convertible through eBay, craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, Backpage.com, cars.com, etc… I will let you know which advertising method worked the best. I figured this was also a good time to inform my readers that there is still a tremendous opportunity to make money through eCommerce on eBay. Whether you are trying to sell hand made goods, cars, dvds, sports memorobillia, etc… You can still make a handsome income on eBay - believe me, there are thousands of people making over $200,000 a year on eBay.

So, back to my car for sale. You can view the eBay listing here, you can view additional photos and information below. Additionally, I shot a video of me discussing and walking through the car. Enjoy. Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing this beautiful convertible for usage this summer!

I think I saw this in a dream one day actually happening: Craigslist growing so much that 30 billion dollar eBay is slowly going out of business. Is eBay so concerned of craigslist that their willing to sink these lows? Is craigslist so damn smart that they think they can win a court case based on the belief: the “man” fucked us man…and we want our company back. Newmark and Buckmaster: grow the fuck up and make some damn money. eBay is just pissed your not maximizing their investment position. eBay believes that “yeah, we own 25% of a company, and what does that do for us - very very little to our bottom line. Since we don’t own the company lets at least make some money on this bitch.” So eBay basically wants to unlock craigslist’s true value by taking it to the market and freeing up their non-capitalist approach to doing business. Little does eBay know that even if they can “unlock” craigslist they are still screwed, because you don’t own craigslist, and no matter how hard you try I doubt that those communist anti-capitalist bastards will ever sell the company. Sorry eBay, CL has a better product than you; eBay sucks. I officially announce that eBay is dying! Mark my words on this day (5/14/08) eBay’s stock price will continue to go lower and lower, till it is work about $10 Billion.

My future prediction on what will happen with this law suit controversy is: craigslist and eBay will be tied up in court for years, and the winner will be craigslist. It will take eBay so long to unlock craigslist they will become so weak in the end they will end up dying.

Another theory why Craigslist owners and operators won’t sell out the company by going public or putting ads on their site - They are an advertising website, people just dont realize it. If they put Adsense or banners on their site it will no longer be a “Zen” website and thus it will screw with their San Franciscan Karma. Craigslist is run by a bunch of hippies that smoke a ton of pot.

If craigslist or eBay executives read this article and are interested in hiring Banner Blindness Inc. as a consultant to provide expert “witness” testimony. Please call us at 843-425-3566 or email Support@BannerBlindness.com

I recently purchased a Mercedes Benz CLK 430 convertible while on vacation in Florida.  I was planning on driving the car back to Chicago, but decided against it after realizing how much work I have ahead of me for clients.  I came across the website UShip.com and placed my car up for auction to be shipped to Chicago.  Two bids have come through and I am weary of accepting either of them - take a look at the screen shots below:

I wouldn’t trust someone with my $30K+ benz if they can’t spell correctly and represent themselves in such an unprofessional manner.  I wonder how much business the seller, Ramunas, has lost because his UShip profile resembles the grammar and spelling of a 3 year old.

I had no idea that eBay had purchased UShip till I noticed their logo on the bottom of the site - seems like a perfect fit for their business model.  If eBay power sellers are making a small fortune selling items on eBay - why not start selling on UShip; in fact, you dont even have to do the shipping yourself.  Here is a method on how to make a full time living by shipping cars, boats, trucks, trailers, livestock, lawn mowers, etc… for other people:

• Don’t do any of the shipping yourself.  Simply align other shippers and sellers, and collect a spread.
• Advertise outside of UShip (Google Adwords, Yahoo Search, Microsoft) and send to a landing page/lead generation form.  You can give the landing page and lead form to affiliate networks to generate leads for you.  Use a small budget of say $1K and see if they (their publishers) can generate useful leads for you.
• Take the leads and place them up for auction on UShip.
• Connect the clients with the shippers and collect your spread.

I have no idea how much someone can make from something like this, but it’s an arbitrage play, and if you can present yourself and your company in a better light than the UShip shipper above, I can only imagine that you will find yourself with a full time and sustainable business model that requires very little work as you don’t have to do any of the shipping yourself.

I recently purchased a large amount of merchandise from eBay sellers for a future web development project we are working on with a consumer electronic manufacturer. I wasn’t really surprised, but rather upset that eBay attempts to force buyers to pay for merchandise via instant bank transfers or eChecks (which are really the exact same thing) - you have to manually change the payment method to credit card. View the picture below to see how Paypal tries to convince you that paying with your bank account is more secure than paying with a credit card:

Paypal: thanks for explaining to eBay buyers that paying with your bank account means, “No finance or bills to pay.” Does paypal suck at times? Oh wait, that was a rhetorical question as well Paypal! Paypal attempts to automatically get buyers to pay via direct banking transfer instead of paying with a credit card - so they can make more money and avoid credit card fees.

It is far more secure to pay with a credit card than it would be to pay with cold hard cash. For example, I recently got ripped off from a Hong Kong seller that is no longer a registered user on eBay. I can very well call up Visa and dispute the paypal charge (but you may risk having your paypal account closed) - which is what paypal has to deal with on a daily basis, probably by the low thousands. The only reason paypal attempts to persuade eBay buyers to pay via a checking account is so they don’t have to pay the merchant billing fees when transferring funds from credit cards to users paypal accounts. This is clearly misleading and not ethical for a major fortune 500 to be doing. Stop it eBay!

Furthermore, if you purchase large quantities of items, as I did this week, you can’t pay for ALL of the items at once with your credit card. You are forced to pay for the items one by one; and this can take an hour or more. If you choose to pay with your checking account you CAN pay for all the items purchased in one process.  Clearly a double standard and unethical business practices.  If I had the time, I would report them to the BB in California.  Please digg this below and help spread the word.

I recently purchased a media device from an eBay power seller. What I failed to realize is that this eBay power seller is from Honk Kong, regardless; his feedback was impressive and in the thousands with a 99% satisfaction rating. So how the hell did I end up getting ripped off? Well, these Honk Kong eBay sellers act like pump-and-dump stock schemes. They actually ship products for a few months, then when they build up enough credibility, they upload thousands and thousands of items, collect the money, then never ship. So thanks eBay for protecting your buyers - you suck. In the future, put a big sign on international seller accounts that say: LOOK OUT! Even more annoying is the fact that I am unable to leave the seller feedback and let him/her know how evil they are.