How We Got Here

Back in 1991 my husband and I found a 2 story building on the main street that runs right through our little town of Owosso. It had display windows all along the front and east side of the building. This building had been the home to many different businesses over the years with the last one being the first computer store in our area. When it got harder for the smaller computer store to compete with the big box stores it closed down. The owners tried to remodel, but life got into the way and they decided to sell the building instead. This is where my husband and I come in, we lost our marbles and bought the place on a land contract.

Ahhh Youth

We were younger then and had a lot of ideas and energy-good thing too because it was a DUMP!
The inside of the building had no supporting walls, so it was pretty dangerous to even try to enter the second floor. It also had no working bathroom which created a unique situation if you needed to spend a great deal of time at this location (I will not give you visuals of how we had to handle this). My husband being quite handy and ingenuous, immediately put posts on the lode bearing wall so we could get to all the items that had been stored over the many years upstairs. It was jammed packed with computer items, religious items (it was a Christian bookstore also) and many, many other items.

My dilemma was how to dispose of all of these items. They were too nice to throw away, and it would of taken a year to haul it to a donation center. So I had a huge garage sale. It was such a success, I started to have one every Saturday. Pretty soon people were coming to me to sell their things for quick cash. It made me think that our town could use a place to for people to get quick cash for an item they did not need anymore. Some people only need small amounts to make up the slack until the next payday and banks do not loan such small amounts. I mentioned to my husband that we should open a BUY-SELL-TRADE store. He said I was nuts-but he knew my drive and went along with it.

Opening Day

In 1992 we officially open our store 6 days a week. We bought more than we sold which created a real problem with cash flow. I was not sure how to turn this problem around-seems that everyone needed money because the economy in our area was not expanding, but staying flat.
If you can afford it, a slump in the economy is good for a shop like ours. You can buy cheap and set on it and then sell high later. I could not afford it - I had to make the payment on the building. To solve this problem we made a commercial and my husband was the STAR. He was so funny in the commercial that people came in just to see him, and who knew that he was such a good salesperson too! When the potential customer walked through the door to see the man who was in the commercial, my husband made sure they left with something he had convinced them they could not live without.

Friends Made Along The Way

Two people I met through this store were Bob and Keith. These two men taught me everything I know about computers. Bob has his own website located at: Bob's Page-The Man That Knows It All. Keith does not like attention so he does not have a web site. It is their fault that I spend so much time on the computer and not enough time cleaning my house or something like that.

Which leads me to what issues Ebay has caused me. In the beginning of Ebay I was just having fun selling. It was a thrill to watch the auctions get closer to the end and the bids going higher.

I remember a musical cylinder that I had bought at a garage sale for a song. I was not sure what it was, but I bought it anyway, put it away and forgot about it. Several years later I came across it and put it on Ebay. It was dirty and I was not even sure anyone would want it. I had 21 watchers and down to the last 6 hours and no bids. I thought, Oh Well that was a learning experience. There was 25 minutes left and BOOM they were bidding. The last 4 seconds it was at around $250.00 and my husband said you should refresh that. I said who is going to bid any higher-I do not even know what it is and maybe the bidders are confused also. I walked away and my husband refreshed the site and put his hand to his heart and started making a funny noise. I looked back and thought he was having a heart attack. I asked what was wrong and he said the auction ended at $369.71. I started to yell at him for making me nervous because I thought he was dying and it was all because the auction ended that high.

He said you do not understand-I found that in the closet a while back and it stunk and was so dirty, I almost threw it out. He now knows that what is in my closet stays in my closet, until I take it out.

Where Online Selling Took Us

It was after that auction I mentioned above that my husband seen the wisdom I possessed and started dragging things home to put on Ebay. One of those items was a early version of the hang gliders. He inherited this from someone who had passed away(from natural causes-not the sport itself).

Well, we do not hang glide and sometimes we do not use common sense-we tried to take pictures outdoors with the wind blowing quite strongly. I cannot tell you how many time this lifted my husband up off the ground before I could get an acceptable picture.

Another issue that Ebay caused for me was the fact anyone could sell here and therefore I had to work harder to get my items for selling. I also was not a imaginative person and I had a lot of competition in writing a good auction. It seemed as if everyone was selling on Ebay and writing very imaginative auctions. Now I had to work harder at finding items and describing them. I even had to think of ways to sell items which were not even designed to be sold for this purpose.
One example of this was the Wilma Flintstone Purse. One Halloween I went as Wilma and I needed a purse. Our boys were little at the time and I was cleaning out their toys. They had a case that was made into a rock formation when opened flat. When it was closed it was the perfect Wilma Purse. I used it and then of course did not need it again. When the next Halloween came around I put it on line for giggles and $3.99. I was going to be happy if I got $3.99 out of it. This purse hit $20.50! I could not believe it and people were still emailing after the auction to see if I knew where they could find a toy like this. It just goes to show you its all in the imagination. View the famous Wilma Purse below:

People now call us before they clean out their basement or garage and we really get some neat things. My husband and I are like the Sanford and Son of Owosso.
Everyone in Owosso knows we take anything and try to sell it and have lots of fun. I think we have fun because, we do not take it as life and death. We do not always get big bucks like the musical cylinder auction I told you about earlier, sometimes we lose money on something we thought would be just the greatest and everyone was going to bid on it.

Its also a lot of work -the item finding, picture taking, auction writing, packing, addressing, shipping etc.

To make a long story short, please take a look at our sites. Ya never know what you might find for sale:
We finance our Going Green projects ( wind, solar, geothermal, corn ) by selling online items from our pawnshop. You can visit us at: We Sell It All Dicker & Deal Here . Maybe you will find something you need and it would help in the financing. If you do not see what you are looking for email from our website- we probably have it in one of our storage buildings. You can also find more information on opening your own Pawnshop at: The Economy Is Right To Own Your Own Pawn Shop!!!!!