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"A child is a curly dimpled lunatic." Ralph Waldo Emerson
A humorous blog about parenting and the perils and delights of raising kids featuring creative fiction, short stories and tales of a stay at home father and writer.

Glenn lives, writes and raises kids in Ottawa Canada with his partner in crime (and life!) Jo.

I write short stories, humorous commentary and acerbic letters of complaint and am currently working on my first novel, a comedic expose of a suburban karaoke cult.

Glenn and Jo have 3 hilarious daughters and a hypothetical dog upon whom they dote.

We also operate a successful eBay business with over $100,000 in sales and over 8 years in the e-tail jungle. Check out our site in the links section at the bottom of the page.

Saturday, April 13, 2013


Letter to an eBay customer

Jo and I have been selling on ebay for 8 or so years, over 5000 transactions and over $100,000 sales means we’ve had a lot of ridiculous inquiries from the buying public.  One of my least favorite are the people who tell you that your prices are too high.  One particular goofball sent a rather sharply worded inquiry that suggested that we were “price gouging” and “crazy” to ask such high prices.  Clearly these people don’t “get” ebay.  And while eBay has a policy of trying to ensure that all communication between buyers and sellers is positive and helpful in tone, sometimes you just get fed up.  Here was my response:

Greetings and thank you for your kind inquiry.

Please be advised that we periodically review our pricing structure with an eye to maximizing sales, taking in to consideration global consumer trends and certain key market indices which we extrapolate from eBay’s extensive live market data. 
To further ensure that our pricing is consistent with the fluctuating conditions of our particular e-tail environment we often take well-reasoned and intelligent suggestions from potential consumers.  Unfortunately, your suggestion was neither and accordingly shall be discarded.

In an effort to better connect with our potential consumers we are always willing to take some time to explain the basics of e-tail economics or “shopping” for those who have difficulty understanding the concept. 
A seller, (that’s us) purchases an item (trades money for goods) and then resells said item to another consumer (that’s you.) 
We determine how much to charge based on several factors (reasons): 
What these items normally go for on eBay
How many of these items are available
How much we have sold them for in the past
I am sorry we were unable to meet your needs and suggest that you should continue shopping at your local “bricks and mortar” (that means a real store in a building, like Walmart) until you are comfortable with the concepts of purchasing items on line. (Through a computer.)

Thanks and best regards,
Glenn

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