Many people leave their Ebay careers behind with anger toward Ebay. Not me. Christine was running this venue when I started selling on Ebay and few people knew the name Elon Musk although I think they may have already been using his software for Paypal. I have over 21 years as a Power Seller on Ebay so although it's not an angry departure it is a sad one. I'm not leaving by choice. Time to leave at 65 I guess.
My problem is that I am a person on Medicare with possible expensive medical procedures in the next few years. I have a spinal disease that has already reduced my left hand to a claw and is now affecting my right hand as well.
Ebay has helped me to survive and live with some dignity. I've even built up my credit so now in my senior years I have that to fall back on. I was able to operate a second store for my very elderly mother that supplemented her Social Security Income. I did over $30K gross in her store over a few years. She would go to public auctions and buy stuff. I'd sell it for her. She was able to buy gifts for children, grandchildren and great grandchildren with that money. She was able to shop online with her Paypal account. Until her Alzheimers made her unable to use computers. So for a few years I had TWO Power Seller stores running on Ebay simultaneously.
I've bought so much stuff with my Ebay earnings. I just paid off an expensive computer. Did I cuss and swear at Ebay all the time? You bet I did. They kept making changes that infuriated me. Turbo Lister was a disaster in the early 2000's. It would just go down and not come back up for months. A nightmare. I was doing 600 auctions a week in 2001. Of course I switched to fixed price listings like most sellers. But TL crashed when I had 1000 listings primed for launch load and all my previous data was in there. It was a disaster. I never used it again. And I never ran that many auctions again.
There were many ugly episodes with Ebay's coding problems usually surrounding recent changes. Every time major changes were announced I braced for yet more technical difficulties. Because almost always that's what happened. Also, ratcheting up fees accelerated seller costs to make profit margins on smaller sales almost impossible to obtain. Especially with USPS raising rates practically every year. During my journey as an internet salesmen I got a victim complex. I felt as though EVERYONE was trying to beat me. I felt that way because they were! Everybody's got their hand out, everything's a rip-off, and I'm expected to eat a lot of costs and like it. And not complain about the fact that costs accelerate so fast you think you're always in an inflationary spiral. That never tasted good. I remember when studying economics in college how many of the ridiculously numerous terms used the word "cost." So many categories of "cost." And there's a reason for that. Cost is everything. Cost will kill you. Costs always go up. Costs never go down.
Then there was Covid making it impossible for me to source product for my store. Bummer. That nearly knocked me out, but I hung on. Now I've got a lot of inventory sitting around here and in storage and I'm stuck with it. But it will be offered, I'm going to mark it all down ridiculously in the coming months and offer everything I have. Sell it as fast as I can, and close down my store so the government doesn't shut off my medical benefits. They can't shut it off until the Emergency Act is over, but it won't be in effect forever. Some time next year the Emergency Act will probably end. Over the next few months I'll be offering stuff I was saving for the web site that will never launch. This ends a web site I was working on as well.
If I don't go out of business I will lose important parts of my medical coverage. And I simply cannot take that risk given that I am old and have health problems. It is almost certain that I will have surgery in the next 18 months. I must protect my credit and not assume medical bills. If I don't stop selling on Ebay I will end up paying for prescriptions and for 1/3 of the cost of surgery and aftercare. I believe access to physical therapy would be gone, too. The last time I was sent to physical therapy I had to walk out the door (Well, try to walk, I wasn't walking very well) because they pushed a financial liability form at me. I thought, what? I thought I was covered. I WAS covered. But my HMO sent me to a place where they want you to sign financial obligation papers. I said, no, I won't do that. Either I'm covered or I'm not. This is supposed to be paid for. My life experience says to NEVER sign that. I know what has happened to others who did. This was like organized crime at this place.
I could lose other benefits as well including the rent rebate program and a low-income energy program that budgets and subsidizes my electric bill with a cap. When I looked into explaining my income and expenses related to my benefits, I found out the government can't even help me with that. Because it must be prepared by a tax accountant in a computer format. My pile of business receipts are useless. "I can't count any of that unless it is in Quicken or paid for with a business card registered in the name of your business." That's what they told me. I can't deduct the $3700 I spent on books because it was paid for with a personal credit card and not a credit card in the name of my business. That's what they told me. Even the Ebay fees will be counted as my income. That's what they told me. The only thing I can deduct is the postage label cost. It's just too complicated.
The medical thing is just a spider web of a financial tangle. Everything under the sun is just too complicated for small sellers these days. Medical and insurance benefit law is one of the most complicated things. Even many intelligent people can't understand it. So it's time to retire. I'm one of the last of the Ebay Mohicans. Small sellers like me are practically extinct. I started selling here over 22 years ago. Made $1000 in my first week. Now my contemporaries are long gone. And I'm a dinosaur.
In America they don't want people like me making an extra buck on Ebay in their old age. They want us to sit home and do nothing and just collect government benefits. But I really don't have a choice, do I? Craig's list stinks and it's not for my type of business. The way things are going the IRS will be sending out agents to threaten yard sales and flea markets. Oh, wait, they already did that. Bullying flea markets into demanding tax numbers from their vendors. And the IRS was threatening people doing yard sales. Big Brother is always watching. "Let's tax the rich" they always say. As they beat the poor over the head. The ones actually trying to make a buck. My late father said often "Incompetence Rules." And he also said something I never forgot. "When they say they are going to tax the rich, hide your wallet. They mean everybody." And he was right. He started saying that after the Clinton Administration started taxing Social Security benefits. For 50 years all of the polticians promised to the skies it would never be touched. Well, they touched it. My Father was bitter because he had been paying into it since he was 12. Just about every tax hike that comes down the pike negatively affects average consumers. Even if they are not directly taxed. Business costs go up? They pass that on to consumers. Companies never really pay for tax increases when the government hits them. Consumers pay for those tax increases with higher prices on the goods they buy. Some economists try to argue that point, but every time they raise the tax rates the Consumer Price Index goes up. Inflation hurts lower income the most. And with the worst inflation in 40 years, seniors, the disabled, those on fixed income, and the poor are getting hammered. Prices on everything including food are skyrocketing across the nation. But they're going to make sure they tax, account for, and reduce any benefits whatosever for any poor schmuck who lives just above the poverty line when they dare to make $1000 on Ebay in one year. Bring the hammer down on the little people. On Grandma crocheting sweaters. Take their medicine away, make them pay because they sold some family heirlooms to fix the roof and buy food. "We're going to tax the rich." Right. I stopped at a porch sale run by two ancient people in a run-down house near me. A pathetic porch sale. They were trying to sell a few pots and pans and these rural people were dirt poor. Driving away, I noticed their roof needed repaired. That's what's going on in America. That's what no one sees in the media. The nation is stock full of elderly poor and government has no problem with putting their foot on their necks if they sell anything online.
My lesson at this stage in my life is that "Old Sellers never die. They just get forced out of business by the government." And that's a lesson for other seniors on Social Security and Medicare. If you sell stuff totaling $600 on any online venue this year you're getting a 1099 in the mail. And it could affect a myriad of your benefits and open cans of complicated worms. Seller beware. This is not a place for casual selling any more. It is now a venue for professional sellers, box stores and companies. Just like Amazon. Every seller needs a tax accountant and business ID number for Ebay sales now even if Ebay doesn't require it. Amazon always did require a business tax ID number and I think they want an EIN from everyone now too. So to sell online with the new 2022 internet tax rules passed by Congress and signed by the President last year? You need to officially register a business. If you don't get a Tax ID number you are going to get in trouble under the new laws. It will affect your ability later to sort everything out. And you need a tax software program like Quicken before you start. Or they won't even let you write off your expenses. If you don't learn a tax software program you will need to hire some one. Even to sell $2000 worth of attic junk on Ebay you need an Accountant. Some people already pay people to do their taxes. I always did my own. People paid me to do their taxes for them. But that was over 25 years ago, and taxes are so incredibly complicated now I won't touch that job ever again. I'm the one who needs help now. I have to see an Accountant because of what the government did.
Really, my crystal ball projection is that Amazon will eventually absorb Ebay. They couldn't care less about anti trust laws in Washington any more. Warren and Sanders will protest but it will go through anyways. I knew this was coming when I saw more and more listings on Ebay being shipped by Amazon. Many Ebay buyers might note in tiny letters on their shipping labels "Fulfillment by Amazon." Ebay sellers are going to Amazon and Etsy and Amazon Fulfillment is taking their place in Ebay listings. And, the growth of Chinese sellers. Before Covid, Chinese sellers were 90% of Ebay's new sellers. That dipped to 50% during Covid. Call it CHINEBAY. There is a possibility that one day soon a majority of Ebay sellers will be Chinese. And just about everyone else on the venue affiliated with Amazon. The new tax laws are going to knock all the casual sellers off the platform when they see their tax forms in the mail at the end of the year. They're going to go WHAT? They're going to tax me for selling Grandpa's old Rolex?. The vast majority are not paying attention. You'll see the exodus start early next year.
