Ebay was once like a huge yard sale in cyberspace providing cheap prices and interesting items from people all over the country. We had some good luck selling small items like daffodil bulbs and baby paw paw trees in the past. That was before they mutated into a large corporate machine that only cares about "PowerSellers" and has left the little guy holding the bag.

A recent encounter with a buyer(drk575) has soured the entire experience for us. He or she was unhappy with the daffodil bulbs we sent, even though I explained how the bulbs were leftover and varied in size from small, medium, and large. Well some of them were too small for their taste and they complained. We tried to offer a solution, and without even a rude reply they skipped right to sending negative feedback. Not giving us another chance to make it right.

We thought for sure an appeal to the powers that be at Ebay would help sort this out. Especially since drk575 threatened us with negative feedback, which is against one of their rules. No such luck. We got a form letter back from ebay proving that they don't care about small sellers even if they are in the right.

Craigslist: More cheap prices, less unfriendly buyers trying to get a free lunch.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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