Making my First Sale

Well, I finally made my first sale and felt like a child inside a candy store; it was a great feeling and a milestone for my new endeavor. My auction was set to end within seven days of the listed date; though, for a small fee, I could have chosen a 10-day list option.

Within those seven days, I spent countless time browsing my eBay listing to see if anyone had placed a bid. On the third day, I finally received an offer from a prospective buyer; though not much higher than my starting bid price, but an offer nonetheless. By the sixth day though, my hopes of obtaining any other bids were slowly fading. There were a few watchers, but so far, no more takers.

In the meantime, I continued checking my listing everyday, though with less frequency. Also, by now I began to doubt in my ability to sell anything, on eBay or anywhere else. However, on the seventh day, something happened that raised my hopes and beliefs to new levels; the bid on one of the items went from $4.30 (my starting bid price), to over $10.00 and by the end of the bidding time, the bid had gone up to $19.53. By the way, that was the final bid offer, which helped me realize that good things do come to those who wait.

Soon after the final bid, I received an email from eBay congratulating me on my sale; it also included a link to send an acceptance email message to the buyer. Then, about an hour later, I received another email, this time from PayPal, indicating that an instant payment had been received from the buyer. The email also provided a link to my PayPal account so I could view the invoice and print a shipping label.

Printing the shipping label was a snap, as PayPal provides very easy to follow instructions. I printed a copy of the invoice and placed it inside a mailing envelop along with the item I had just sold. I didn’t have blank shipping labels, like the ones you can get from Avery, so I printed the shipping label on a blank sheet of paper and taped it to the outside of the package. Then I drove to the gas station just a few blocks from my house and dropped off the package at the US Post Office express mailing service.

As soon as I returned home, I sent the buyer an email indicating that the item had been shipped and I included a tracking number, which was sent to me by PayPal. The buyer replied back to thank me, which made me feel pleased that, at least for now, I had a satisfied costumer.

I had auctioned seven more items within this time period. Not all the items sold, at least not on the first try, and not all buyers were as generous with their bid offers. But I had succeeded and had gained a lot from these experiences. I will tell you more about those experiences when we meet again. Until then, happy computing to all!!