So I sell a lot of stuff online and it is really a unique business compared to a regular brick and mortar store and each venue that you use to sell it is also unique – like eBay or Etsy or Mercari or your own site or you own site with Shopify – they all come with unique conditions, challenges, problems and sometimes (hopefully!) rewards!

As I delve into more details on some of these, I will be focusing on ones that I use and where I have experience.  If it is one that I do not use, I will disclose that.  I currently use eBay and Etsy and I have tried Mercari but didn’t have any traction there.   I have tried Amazon but it is very restricted because they gate certain categories and they have category requirements that are a bit odd and most of what I sell now is Vintage so it isn’t a good fit (but even when I sold video games and automotive parts, it was still not a good program for me) doesn’t mean it won’t be awesome for you though.

I think what is unique about e-commerce is how dynamic it is.  That is also one of the frustrations as it is still changing and evolving at light speed so it can add a bit of stress because you have to keep up with the latest and also be able to roll with the punches when those changes are not ideal for you.

One of the other challenges with all online selling is the ever evolving scammers who really just want to wash away all of your profits so I won’t be shy in telling you about some of these scams and scammers and if you are an eBay seller, be sure to check out my blocked buyer list because I update it regularly and it contains the usernames of tons of scam artists (and bad buyers who are not worth it!).  Now not everyone on that list is a scammer (but lots are) but all of them have bad behavior that will cost you money and time and I don’t think they are worth it.  These range from the true scam artists who will chargeback and tell lies and open cases to other people who will threaten feedback with extortion (which is an eBay TOS violation by the way so if someone does that to you, report them).  It also includes people who have super high return percentages (basically the try and buy crowd) who also cost small sellers like me a ton of money because I cannot afford for you to try it out and then pay the return shipping back (because of course they open their case saying INAD) so yeah — this is an avoid list and I am putting it out there to try to help other sellers to avoid them before they have to lose money too.

So I will try to keep you up to date on all the latest and greatest in the world of e-commerce and I wish you the best of luck selling all of the stuff you want to sell!!