Hello All, I am an Ebay seller, though a small one. I buy my seeds from a few trusted sources who have never let me down yet. They are mostly 'mom and pop' enterprises from way back. They have helped me with the best seeds to sell and plant, and have consistently delivered seeds with first rate germination. I do not always sell all of my stock in one year, so I germination test the seeds myself before listing them again the following year. If the germination is less than 70% I plant them in my own acreage. The seeds are kept in the basement at a pretty constant low temp. The basement is dark and as I live in Idaho it is also dry, perfect for seed storage. We are growing our own seed but it takes time. We are also transitioning to organic production. Selling seeds online (selling anywhere) is not easy! I always give the customers full refunds, polite responses, and bend over backwards to accomodate. Sometimes things go wrong, and it is then that the voice is heard the loudest. For example on Ebay I sell about 20 packets of seed for one feedback, and on Amazon it is about 300 packets of seeds for 1 feedback. The sad thing is for those 300 good sales the one bad sale will leave negative feedback. With all the charges there is little profit in it, barely enough to make a basic wage but I love what I do so I continue on in the face of constant challenges. I bought a few packs of well known brand seeds from the store the other day, 50% more exspensive, dissapointed with the quality of seeds (there were dead ones and broken ones to bulk the weight out), and half the weight of what I sell... Not all of us are vagabonds! but I think my days on Ebay are numbered with the new price changes. It looks like we will go local with organic seeds, and also sell the produce we grow ourselves locally. The big internet world is getting way too greedy. Small and local is the way to go. At least you can pop down the road and have it out 'face to face'... Happy Planting! jlatchu

I am so glad to hear of all the successes on shows! Christopher...you are so so right on the tips you gave! I have been doing these shows for 20 years and the BIGGEST and I mean the BIGGEST tip I can give anyone is STAND UP and GREET every and I mean every customer that is at the table! Even when kids come to look, talk to them, they will then go to the parents and ask for money! I am a stickler on that. My Boyfriend of 4 years goes with me and helps me so much. But at the beginning, I had to tell him to stand up, talk to people. NOW, he sees exactly what I mean! I know at the end of the show you will be tired but better to be tired wth a full wallet than relaxed with an empty one! The other thing I HATE is to walk up to a table, and see the Vendor with their mouth full of food. OMG that bothers me. When we eat our lunch or what have you, we walk away from the booth one at a time to eat. My other advice, always straighten up your display! People will pick things up and then almost always not put them back the way they were....I am constantly, when there is not a crowd, re-arranging and straightening out my displays. I have learned in all honestly, that the more items I display, the more I sell. I have things priced from $1.00 to $35.00 and if it wasn't for the smaller priced items at some shows, I'd come out with nothing. Anyway, just a few tips too! I hope you all do well at your shows. I have another show this weekend. It is a smaller one and a first time show for me, so we'll see how it goes. I had nothing else scheduled this weekend so I thought I'd give it a try Wish Me Luck! Marci

I think the real long-term issue for artists is that now, in the information age, people are becoming accustomed to not paying for things at all. I was, in my first couple of years selling handmade artworks on eBay, constantly asked, why I'd make, sell, and ship original art pieces (gouache, acrylic, pastel, etc) often well below the cost of the materials. Everyone seemed to suspect I was lying, or cheating customers somehow. The real answer was, nobody was buying those pieces if I priced them above a dollar because a lot of people these days in the digital era seem to be irrationally conditioned to expect everything for free or nearly free. Problem is, nothing is really going to be free. Everything has a cost to it, and in these cases I pretty much absorbed the cost of the items I was losing money on, by doing other tedious jobs like transcription tasks for around $5/hr. The cost was my time, and all my genuinely creative projects moving forward at a snail's pace. The cost was that a lot of the things I've tried to work on, that people want me to finish, aren't getting finished any time soon. If every customer is this stingy, and everyone pirates everything, or wants everything available for free, it'll kill the software industry, games industry, movies, music, books, etc - or clutter them all with lots of ads like television. Sort of a 'prisoner's dilemma' situation, on a much larger scale. I saw this coming years ago and made a determination that I would never pirate anything. I'd be one of the ones who paid for digital products. I'm weird that way. There were some artworks back then that I made to order for customers, and sold for as little as a penny. And there were some listings priced at a penny that *still* wouldn't sell. Right now, now that I have 120 ratings on eBay, all positive, people are beginning to get that I'm actually doing this, that it isn't a joke or a trick. That's good, because now I'm actually able to sell some large art pieces at prices where I actually turn a profit on them. Not a big profit, mind you, it's more like $2-$3/hr, but at least I'm not losing money on all of my items. (Though, in between all my fixed price stuff, there are still listings with 99-cent opening bids.) An example of an ad I posted in a few places: My eBay shop The other thread discussing my work. A big thank you, BTW, to everyone who did buy from me, whether the amount they spent was a penny or a dollar or anything else, as those early ratings on eBay were key to establishing a track record there. It's really helped. I am excited about the future and how things are going now. I'm optimistic that soon I'll be able to ramp up development of indie games and videos and do some really fun stuff. So thanks, everybody.

"We were basing our offer based on fair market value - nothing has sold in this particular development in the last few years " So how did you decide on fair market value? It gets hard with no comps. "our offer was apparently 90% of appraised value." Appraised value for what purpose? Taxes? Tax assessments always lag behind sales. An actual loan appraisal? Based on what? There are no comps "nothing has sold in this particular development in the last few years" "Houses in a similar development with similar amenities are selling at or below the price we offered currently." Similar is not the same. Location, location, location. How similar? Same schools? Same Âside of the highwayÂ? "With commission at 4%, we calculated that the sellers would make about 30,000 in the one year after painting expenses. We think, although unsure that the sellers are looking to make $100,000 on the year (which would be about a 12% increase when the market has dropped about 5% in this area)." The only thing that has anything to do with process is the "the market has dropped about 5% in this area." And Âarea can be a vague thing. In the Washington, DC metro market sales are dead in some areas and flat in some. Some areas will probably end up going down but the latest overall market assessment in the news is ~10% increase. Is this market up or down? Location, location,, location. "Just think the $100K profit in one year is a bit over the top" This has nothing to do with value and is your personal opinion (and may not even be warranted). I have purchased some pretty cruddy places and sold them in 3-4 months for more than $200,000 over acquisition cost. I hit the major problems and left the minor ones to the buyers. If I fixed them all the price would go up another $100,000 and be too high for the location. Was I "over the top" for taking on the risk? The house may indeed be overpriced, but in an area with very few sales it can get very hard to tell. Are you looking for a quick profit or a long term residence? No one wants to overpay, but I have not seen any hard evidence the price is excessive yet. CMAs get very fuzzy without recent comps. I have purchased in places way over the previous sales if they are dated. I have also been caught a few times and had to hold longer than anticipated (most of the time from unforeseen problems). It is seldom simple or cut-and-dried without good comps.