Greenin' and Cleanin' on Ebay

In between visits to and from the barn to visit the beautiful new twins (you didn't think I was going to miss an opportunity to mention my new lambs did you?) I have been listing some items for sale on eBay and having a blast!  The best thing about it is that I am killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.  The timing couldn't have been any better;  Mom had mentioned that she was selling some of her retired stamp sets to save up for a vacation and I have been wanting to try my selling skills to clean out a few things around the ranch, and then I got the article in my Good Housekeeping magazine about what an environmentally friendly choice eBay is.  Again, this is a win, win situation here, I now have one empty drawer and a little bit bigger PayPal account, hopefully soon there will be some very happy new stampers, and there will be a smaller carbon footprint for my hard work!

According to the folks at eBay's Green Team Challenge, buying second hand can make a huge impact environmentally.  Here is a small portion of an article you can find when you pop over there:
"For example, did you realize that buying a previously-worn pair of leather shoes on eBay versus new in a store saves more energy than an average household uses in a day, when you think about all the energy and resources that goes into making a new pair? It’s an astonishing statistic, and we were able to find similar numbers for lots of the other products you typically see on eBay.com!"Another great thing, is that between now and Earth Day, April 22, 2010, you can sign up to take the eBay Green Team Challenge and save an acre of rain forest and automatically be entered to win $10,000!  Don't let the word "challenge" turn you off, because it only means that you are making a commitment to think about buying second hand, which when you think about it is really quite simple; especially when you add up all the dough you could be saving!

It is also very simple to sell things on eBay, I have found.  I, too have decided to start out with selling retired Stampin' Up stuff so most of it is pretty repetitive, I just tweak the form a bit for each stamp set and "voila!", a new listing!  Luckily, my Mom has helped me with pricing, but I do feel that research on where to start your auction is very important on the success of your sales, so do your homework.  When you sign up to become a seller on eBay, they send you a lot of resources to check out, use them and you should have lots of success cleaning out your closets, filling up your bank account and saving the planet all at the same time!  Even if you have nothing to sell, which I have a hard time believing, keep it in mind next time you need a new pair of leather shoes or set of rubber stamps, or...