As I have tinkered around with various business possibilities, many of them began as someone elses listing on eBay.  I sold pond filters and related products for a year.  When the profit margins were determined to be to small my partner left with the eBay ID.  When I bought my filter business on eBay 5+ years ago, it was a booming business.  I paid my sons a salary for doing the work. (Not much of a salary, but it was generating enough sales to pay them something.) I had up to 5 or more orders a day.  Many weeks it was over 20 orders.  Unfortunately, the bounty has turned to bust.  I stopped spending time running auctions.  I stopping carrying about the competition.  I put the business on absolute auto-pilot.  And, it showed.

Last week, I listed my eBay store and eBay ID up for sale on eBay.  It didn’t take long to get interest.  It was also clear the “once great” filter business was not wanted by either of the suitors.  I ended the eBay sale, and sold the eBay ID without any of the products or without any of my suppliers.  This business couldn’t hide the fact it was a dog.

Now, under the guidance of the new buyer, I make gradual changes to the addresses, the password and contact info.  I am told when changing an eBay ID to someone else it must be done with caution.  It must be done while being aware of the IP address. He is convinced the initial account changes must be done from my IP.  It is likely my “marriage” to this particular eBay ID and store will be over by the end of the week.  While I should just be grateful for the few dollars I made (at my present selling pace, it would have taken me over 2 years to make this type of profit), I still feel a bit of loss.

While we were dating, I added over 2,000 feedbacks to this ID.  I ate a number of sales because the customer whined that my product was far below their expectations.  (I gave a full refund and let them keep the product because my 100% feedback was valuable to me.)  I accidentally shipped the wrong product to a customer, and then shipped them the correct product.  I ate the first product rather than stir things up with the customer and risk getting any negative feedback.  I sweated being gone a long weekend while leaving my store open for fear a customer would get upset if I didn’t ship the product the next day.  (Communication doesn’t help if a customer is looking to “take” you.  I believe some of them do it just as a game.)  When a customer treated me unfairly, I didn’t like it.  I protected my perfect feedback while allowing myself a secret pleasure–I put their eBay ID on the “banned” list.  You treat my badly as a customer.  I will choose not to have you as a customer again.

Yes, I wish the new owner success.  I hope he sells lots of Iphone 4 phones (or whatever it is he is doing.).  I hope he stays 100% on his feedback, too.  Mingled with the regret of pruning this part of my business (granted it was quite small) is the hope rising with how the void will be filled.  Where there is hope, I can’t help but smile!