Do you remember the first item you ever sold online? Let us know by sending an email to ina@auctionbytes.com and we may publish your story. Today, we hear from Ann, whose first online sale blossomed into a "beautiful" friendship.
Dear Ina,
Not sure this meets your story requirements but it's very special to me.
I began selling on eBay over 4 years ago as a hobby and to offset the money I was spending buying on eBay. LOL I found a wholesale source on eBay and ordered things that fit my interest; makeup brushes, mirrors and beauty items. My first item sold was to a customer in Canada, which worried me since I wasn't sure how to ship internationally. The item was a $4.95 makeup brush, which I shipped by Air Mail.
Weeks passed before the brush arrived to the customer, which was a great relief. I had no idea shipping was so slow in Canada and I had been very worried. The customer wrote such a sweet note and was very friendly, so we began chatting on line. She lives in Regina, Saskatchewan and I live on the east coast of the US, so we were separated by thousands of miles but weren't deterred from developing a lifelong friendship.
In January of the following year, my husband and I traveled to her home for a long visit with her and her wonderful family. Amazing as it sounds, there was no snow the entire two weeks we were there. The following autumn, she came to our home for 2 months and one of her daughters came for the last 2 weeks of her visit. Neither had traveled much and it was their first trip out of Canada. We took them a home I love to rent, overlooking the Little Pigeon River in the Great Smokey Mountains. They loved the scenery and the trip gave us all time to relax and really get to know each other. We are now more like sisters than friends and write almost everyday.
It's hard to imagine building such an amazing friendship from one sale on ebay. But what started as my first sale is now the most important sale I ever made.
Ann
About the author:
Ina Steiner is Editor of AuctionBytes.com and author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). She has a background in marketing and research in the high-tech and publishing fields. If you have story ideas, comments or questions, send them to ina@auctionbytes.com.
