20 Years Ago Today

I registered on eBay on March 17, 1997, which was 20 years ago today.  As now, it was spring break, although that day was a Monday.  I wrote in detail about how I was introduced to eBay eight years ago in the post "12 Years Ago Today."  

I had discovered eBay! eBay was called "Auction Web" or "eBay's Auction Web" in those days. I was so amazed that there were actually - gasp! - 50 Nancy Drew books up for sale at a time! And they were collectible ones with dust jackets and any type you could want! I remember how the search results were in random order and you could not order the search results by date or price or anything. And the searches would often take around 2 minutes or longer because eBay was growing fast and could not keep up with the rate that it was gaining new users. People would joke on the message boards that one could hit "search" and then go take out the trash or fix a sandwich and come back to view the results!

While I discovered eBay in around January 1997, it took me two months to get around to registering and bidding. I wasn't used to paying more than $5.00 for a book, so it took that long for me to change my mind about what I was willing to pay.
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I remember that the very first book I bid on was on the afternoon of March 17, 1997, and it was a tweed copy of Larkspur Lane that had a chipped dust jacket. I'm not sure what I bid, but it was around $8-10. Of course I lost, since I was not willing to pay very much.

It was not until April 1997 that I was successfully able to win an auction, actually two of them. During the first four to five years that I bought online, I always made printed copies of the item pages. I'm now glad that I did, because I still have those copies, and they are very interesting.

Go to the above link to see a scan of one of my printed copies of an eBay listing from 1997.

I started collecting series books in the summer of 1991.  From then until early 1997, my books were all purchased locally.  From 1997 on, most of my books were purchased on eBay.  While I don't have any data on how many of my books were purchased on eBay or elsewhere, I have no doubt that the vast majority of the books now in my collection were purchased on eBay.

eBay does not have anywhere near the quality of inventory that it had from 1997 through around 2002 or so.  The decline has been steady since that time and continues to worsen.  However, eBay is still the first place I look for books.  On one browser, eBay's main page is my home page.  On another browser, eBay's advanced search page is my home page.  eBay remains very important to me, although I now must also use other sites to find books that I need.

The beauty of eBay is that anything can be listed at any time.  It doesn't matter if you have checked eBay everyday for two months and found nothing, the most fabulous item imaginable could suddenly be listed, like the one mentioned in my post "Grosset and Dunlap Series Book Advertising Sign."  Amazing items show up unexpectedly. When the items are Buy It Now, the first person who sees the item gets it.  That's why I check eBay all the time and never get discouraged.  I usually make at least one purchase per week on eBay.  I am always able to spot something.

Recently, I wrote a description of how to use eBay properly in a post on Facebook.

You should save searches for all series books that interest you. This is done by first running the desired search. On the results page at the top, you will see a link to follow the search. If you click on that link, you will then see a box that says:  

"Yay! You're now following _____ in your eBay Feed. You will receive email alerts for new listings. 

Don't send me email alerts."  

In most cases, I don't want to receive emails, so I deselect the alerts by clicking on that last sentence. For extremely scarce books that seldom appear, I do receive emails. Since I currently follow 78 searches, I don't wish to receive potentially 78 messages per day about new listings. 

Whether you choose to receive the emails or not, the search results always show up in your eBay feed. I love my eBay feed.  

Go to the main page, www.ebay.com. You will find a tab labeled "following." Click on that tab to see the most recently listed items in your saved searches.  

Even better, saved sellers' listings show up as well. If you like the books offered by certain sellers, then you should follow them. The link to follow a seller can be found on the right side of any of that seller's eBay listings right underneath the seller's user ID.

Very often on Facebook, members ask where they can find vintage Nancy Drew books. They are usually told that eBay has a great selection.  Strangely, the person often responds with a statement like "I don't do eBay."  It's a shame that people aren't willing to try something new.

For some, eBay is overwhelming.  If that is the case, I suggest using the saved searches and eBay feed as described above.  Don't run the searches yourself; go to your eBay feed.  That way, you'll only see the most recently listed items and won't be overwhelmed.  You can just see the new items listed each day and gradually get used to eBay and how it works.  Take it slowly, just like I did in early 1997.

Girls of Canby hall #19 One Boy Too Many and Super Edition Something Old, Something New

In Girls of Canby Hall #19, One Boy Too Many, Jane's boyfriend, Neal, is coming to Canby Hall to visit.  The problem is that Jane has a new boyfriend, Cary, and neither boy knows about the other.  Andy and Toby disapprove of the way that Jane is handling the situation, but Jane does not care.

Cary doesn't have long hair or an earring on the book cover.  He is depicted as the exact opposite of what he is supposed to be.

Andy states that she has never been to Oakley Prep.  That's odd.  Jane and Andy went to a dance at Oakley Prep in the previous book.

I appreciate that Jane's roommates understand that Jane's behavior is disrespectful to both boys. Faith and Shelley seldom had a problem with Dana's fickleness.

I enjoyed this book.

In Girls of Canby Hall Super Edition, Something Old, Something New, the girls' housemother, Alison, is getting married.  For some inexplicable reason, Dana, Faith, and Shelley are the only previous Canby Hall girls invited to the wedding. Furthermore, they and the three new Room 407 girls plan a bridal shower together.  The planning goes poorly because the old 407 girls apparently hate the new 407 girls, and nobody can agree about anything.

This is a pretty bad book.  The original Room 407 girls act awful all through the book.  For instance, Faith tells the waitress to add anchovies to the new girls' pizza.  That doesn't even sound like Faith, and besides, it's a low trick to tamper with someone else's food without their knowledge. Later in the book, all six girls have a childish food fight.  Ugh.

This book is padded with lots of filler.  The original 407 girls just graduated a few books ago, but the reader gets to read pages and pages of reminiscing about everything the girls ever did at Canby Hall.  Spare me.

I did not like this book.

River Heights #8 The Trouble with Love and #9 Lies and Whispers

In River Heights #8, The Trouble with Love, Lacey blames herself for the accident that put her boyfriend, Rick, in the hospital.  Lacey spends all of her spare time at the hospital, much to the concern of her family and friends.

Karen is thrilled to be dating Ben, but she worries that he is still thinking about his old girlfriend. Meanwhile, Karen's friend, Ellen, seems preoccupied.

I found that Brittany's schemes didn't annoy me in this book.  I am still tired of Nikki pining after Tim. She's the one who broke up with him over absolutely nothing when he didn't want to break up!

I enjoyed wondering about Ellen's story, which will come out in the next book.

In River Heights #9, Lies and Whispers, Brittany cannot stand Chip Worthington, but if she could become his girlfriend, she would be in the top social circle.  Brittany must break up Chip's current relationship.

Ellen's father has been accused of embezzlement, and Ellen must deal with vicious rumors.  Even worse, money disappears from the junior class funds, and Ellen will be blamed if she cannot recover the money.

I enjoyed Ellen's subplot.  The back cover synopsis makes it sound like Nancy Drew helps solve the mystery of the missing money.  Nikki and Ellen speak to her, and she gives some advice.  Nancy has nothing to do with anything since she is leaving on a trip.

Nikki and her friends stake out the student council room by standing by the water fountain near the room.  They apparently do this for hours.  Wouldn't the suspect notice and stay away?  Nancy should have explained that they needed to hide in the closet inside the room instead of standing in plain site in the hallway.

I really enjoyed this book.

Girls of Canby Hall #17 Graduation Day and #18 Making Friends

In Girls of Canby Hall #17, Graduation Day, Dana, Faith, and Shelley will soon be graduating from Canby Hall.  Dana is worried about the poem that she is composing for Arch Day.  Faith is worried that her parents can't afford to send her to college while Shelley worries about Tom's new girlfriend.

Dana, Faith, and Shelley's sophomore and junior years take up the first 16 books of the series. Their entire senior year is crammed into this one book.

On page 97, we learn that Dana's sister, Maggie, is at Canby Hall.  It's odd, since Dana worried about Maggie coming to Canby Hall for an entire book.  Maggie came, but we never got to see any events connected to Dana dealing with Maggie's arrival.  Placing the entire senior year in one book is unsettling to the reader.

I enjoyed this book.

In Girls of Canby Hall #18, Making Friends, three new girls arrive in Room 407.  Jane is a snobbish girl from Boston.  Andy is from Chicago, and she wants to become a ballet dancer.  Toby is from Texas, and she isn't used to being around other people.  The three girls do not get along at first, and they must work to develop their friendship.

The premise of this book is very similar to that of the first book in the series.

On page 88, Jane thinks about how strange Cary looks.  She reflects that "by far the most amazing thing about him was the single silver stud earring he had in one ear."  Really?  Actually, Jane's amazement is logical from her point of view, since Jane is from a straight-laced family.

On page 89, Jane thinks of Cary as "this dreadful person," so I knew that meant that they would end up dating.

I enjoyed this book.

Spring 2017 eBay Seller Update

As long-time readers know, I quit eBay in early 2009 and opened a booth on Bonanza. I sold exclusively on Bonanza from January 2009 through July 2013.  In July 2013, I opened an eBay store since Bonanza sales were on the decline.  My Bonanza sales declined even further once I opened the eBay store.  Some of my Bonanza buyers may have quit purchasing on Bonanza in hopes that I would list the books they wanted on eBay. More likely, the Amazon referral links placed all through Bonanza's search results were continuing to erode away my Bonanza sales.

Regardless, I finally closed my Bonanza booth in May 2016 and opened an Etsy shop. Meanwhile, I continued my eBay store subscription.  eBay has been good to me the last few years, and Etsy has also been good to me during the time I have sold there.

Unfortunately, eBay is now playing around with its store subscribers and top-rated sellers, and I am beginning to feel like I did in late 2008 when I quit eBay.  Do you hear that, eBay?  You are screwing up again.  It's not just me.  eBay store subscribers are complaining all over the Internet right now, and eBay is giving empty responses to the complaints.

eBay is making its top-rated seller program more strict.  Top-rated sellers must currently upload a tracking number that is validated by the carrier with a scan during the seller's handling time for 90% of transactions.  The new policy increases the percent to 95%.  This shouldn't be a problem for me, but it very well could be.

My post office does the acceptance scan for most of my packages, but they always miss doing a few.  They usually miss around 3-4% of them.  This means that I am close to the 95% and could easily lose the top-rated seller status due to postal workers not scanning packages when dropped off.

eBay is also raising fees to store subscribers and to top-rated sellers.  Top-rated sellers get a 20% discount on fees, which is being reduced to 10%.  On top of that, the fees for store subscribers are increasing. Curiously, fees are not increasing for those who don't have eBay stores.  eBay is raising fees only to the customers who also pay a subscription fee.  How nice.

This next part is what bothers me the most, even though it will seem silly to many people.  As a store subscriber, I get 250 free fixed-price listings per month.  I also get 250 free auctions.  The free auctions are useless to me, since the auctions can only be used in the collectibles and fashion categories.  This means that books are excluded from the free auctions, but I only sell books.  So while eBay proudly tells me that my subscription gets me 500 free listings per month, I can only use 250 of them.

I have been okay with that, since eBay has consistently given most all sellers extra listing promotions on a regular basis.  That is, eBay did give all sellers extra promotions until sometime last year.  eBay now excludes many sellers from those promotions, and nobody knows the criteria used.  I have not received a promotion in close to four months.  Some sellers report that they have not received a promotion in over a year.

My conclusion is that eBay does not value my business.

I decided in late 2008 that I would never pay an eBay listing fee again.  I refuse to pay $0.20 per item to list any items above my allotted 250 free items.  If eBay doesn't want to give me extra listings, then I'm not going to pay for them.

Some sellers say that sellers should be willing to pay $0.20 per extra listing and that the extra fee would be covered by raising the price of the item.  This is logical, but I must sell many of my books at or slightly below cost due to the continuing deflation of series book prices.  I cannot see paying $0.20 per month to list a book that might not sell for a year or so.  It can take a couple of years for many books to finally find a buyer.

Since I refuse to pay listing fees on eBay, I must decide how to proceed.  I have to be more careful about what I list on eBay and will have to use bulk lots more often.  Those who follow me closely may notice that I currently have fewer than 150 listings on eBay. I am allowing around 80 items to remain inactive until a few days from now when I have more time to determine which ones to remove and which ones to relist.  At that time, I will also list new items to use up my 250 allotted free listings for the month.

I still have my Etsy shop, in which I can list an item for $0.20 for a duration of four months.  That's $0.05 per month.  Even though I must pay a fee for each Etsy item, the final value fees are much lower on Etsy.  In the end, I save money.  I will most likely end up listing more books on Etsy than I have in recent months.

I have also sold over half the items that I have listed on Etsy in the last year.  I don't have the data for eBay, but I have to relist a large number of eBay items each month. In fact, most of them get relisted month after month.  I am certain that I have sold no more than half of the items I have listed on eBay in the last year.  I may even have sold less than half of them.

Etsy is looking more and more attractive.  I only have to pay $0.05 per item per month with no store subscription fee.  Final value fees are lower, and I probably sell about the same percentage of items with respect to the number of items listed.

The bottom line is that eBay will lose some revenue, albeit quite small, due to it blacklisting my account for free listing promotions.  I will not pay the listing fees, so Etsy will get some of the revenue that eBay has been getting.

The loss of some of my business will not hurt eBay in the slightest.  If many thousands of other sellers should happen to take similar action, then eBay might see a loss in revenue. That is what happened in 2008, and eBay did notice.

Girls of Canby Hall #15 To Tell the Truth and #16 Three of a Kind

In Girls of Canby Hall #15, To Tell the Truth, the girls of Baker Hall take a truth pledge as part of a psychology research experiment.  The girls must tell the truth for 48 hours, no matter what happens.  Troublemaker Pamela is the only girl who doesn't take the oath, and she sets out to make trouble for the girls of Room 407.

Shelley is put in a difficult position when she must drive Ms. Allardyce to the hospital and promises that she will tell no one where Ms. Allardyce is. Shelley is seen returning with the car.  She gets into trouble when nobody can locate Ms. Allardyce, and she refuses to discuss what happened.

I was very interested in seeing how Shelley's problem would be resolved.  This is an excellent book

In Girls of Canby Hall #16, Three of a Kind, Dana falls in love with Mac.  Soon, Dana notices that Mac has a faulty memory and acts different at times.  Later, the girls figure out that Mac has an identical twin brother.  Dana, Faith, and Shelley get even with Mac and his brother by dressing up as identical clowns and fooling the boys at a masquerade party.

The last part of the story deals with the three girls fooling the two boys.  It is dragged out way too long, and I found it silly and boring.

On page  73 through 76, Faith leaves Lester, a three-year-old, alone outside on a tire swing.  The boy is only three, and he could have been hurt.

I enjoyed the first part of the book and did not like the last part.

Always Check Your Amazon Seller's Feedback

Over a year ago, I detailed how I search for books online.  I use eBay, Amazon, and AbeBooks as first choices when trying to build sets of books.  I also check Thriftbooks, Etsy, Ecrater, Bonanza, and Google's shopping search.

In January, I decided that I definitely wanted to read the River Heights series.  I had started the set and needed to acquire three titles quickly in order to read through the set in order.  I had already started the set, and the books must be read in sequential order.

I needed #9 Lies and Whispers, #11 Broken Hearts, and #16 Jealousy Trap.  I found #9 and #16 on Thriftbooks.com and ordered them with some other books.  I found #11 Broken Hearts on both Amazon and AbeBooks.  I went with the Amazon seller since the price was slightly lower.

When I purchase books solely to read, I do not need for them to be perfect.  Of course, I would rather the books arrive in very good or better condition, but I mainly just want to read the book.  I can deal with a book that is not in the best of condition.  Therefore, I often go with the lowest price online.  Typically, this is never a problem, except occasionally I encounter a flaky seller.  However, that sometimes happens even with more expensive listings.

My orders were placed on January 17.  The Thriftbooks order of #9 and #16 along with other books was shipped on January 18 and 19.  The Amazon order page for #11 had already updated to the status "preparing for shipment."  By January 19 or 20, I began to feel like something wasn't right with the Amazon order.  I actually had no real reason to feel disquiet, but I have an excellent intuition that warns me about potential transaction problems.  When my intuition warns me about a transaction, I am usually correct.

I went back to Amazon and looked at the order.  I clicked on the seller's name and then the feedback.  I had a sinking feeling.  I knew that the transaction was doomed, but I couldn't cancel it.

This is what I saw.

The feedback is great, but look at the dates.  The above comments are the seller's most recent feedback comments.  The seller has not received feedback in five years! Granted, most Amazon buyers do not leave feedback.  I do sometimes, but I forget a lot of the time.  Even though most buyers do not leave feedback, the typical Amazon seller with a storefront should have received feedback somewhat more recently than five years ago.

I decided to go ahead and order #11 from another seller.  I found a listing on AbeBooks.  I knew that I was risking getting two copies, but I considered it very important to guarantee that #11 would arrive in time.  I couldn't wait on a flaky Amazon seller, so I ordered the book again from the AbeBooks seller.

Meanwhile, I sent the Amazon seller a message expressing my concern about the order.  I don't recall what I stated, and I did not have a copy of the message sent to me. I waited one week and had not received a response.  By that point, I was at least 90% certain that the Amazon seller's storefront was untended and that the order would never be shipped.  Meanwhile, I received #11 from the AbeBooks seller.

Since one week had passed without response from the Amazon seller, I requested to cancel the order.  This was around January 24 and was another message sent directly to the seller.  The seller did not respond to the second message.  Amazon would not take control of the situation until enough time had passed.  I had to wait it out.

On February 17, Amazon sent an automated message.  "The following order(s) placed on 1/17/2017 with ----- will be canceled if the order is not ship-confirmed by 2/23/2017." I had about one more week to wait.

Finally, on February 23, I received the long-awaited message from Amazon.

"We're writing to inform you that your order from ----- has been canceled because the seller did not confirm shipment of the order within 30 days. Sellers on Amazon must ship products within 30 days of when the order was placed, otherwise the order is automatically canceled. We're sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. In most cases, you pay for items when we ship them to you, so you won't be charged for items that are canceled."

By ordering from the wrong seller, I had this order hanging over me for five weeks plus two days.  If I had looked at the feedback before placing the order, I would not have chosen this particular seller.

To my knowledge, Amazon does not let sellers list books for free.  It's surprising that a seller has an untended storefront on Amazon.  Wouldn't it be logical not to pay Amazon to list items that one has no intention of shipping out?  It could be that the seller has passed away.  Regardless, I will be more careful in the future so that I can avoid a repeat of this situation.

Canby Hall #13 Here Come the Boys and #14 What's a Girl to Do?

In Girls of Canby Hall #13, Here Come the Boys, Canby Hall decides to admit three boys on a trial basis in order to decide whether the school should allow boys to attend.  The three boys stay in Baker House and become close personal friends to Dana, Faith, and Shelley.  The boys apparently have no interest in any other girls at Canby Hall.

The trial run with the boys appears to be successful.  The boys stay at Canby Hall for the duration of Dana, Faith, and Shelley's time at the school.  After all six graduate, the school no longer has any boys.  How very odd but typical of this series.  It's not like anything has to make sense.

I enjoyed this book.

In Girls of Canby Hall #14, What's a Girl to Do?, Dana, Faith, and Shelley volunteer at the hospital as part of a class project.  Faith falls for a young resident doctor, even though he is 10 years older than she is.  Meanwhile, Shelley worries about the tryouts for the spring play while Dana worries that her younger sister, Maggie, might attend Canby Hall next year.

On page 29, Faith says that Pamela "could care less," and on the next page, Pamela herself says that she "couldn't care less."  The incorrect version "could care less" shows up in other books as well.  Apparently not even authors can get it right!  Or at least, the authors for this series couldn't get it right.

I enjoyed this book.