Pragmatic Finance

Last year I decided to clean up and throw away a bunch of things I didn’t need anymore. I went through my room rounding stuff up and wondering why I ever purchased some of this crap. I proceeded to sell as much as I could on eBay. I sold a few things for friends and then began to sell some items I had purchased after seeing deals at FatWallet and Slickdeals. I sold more and more recently and apparently I qualified for being a PowerSeller. According to the email and website here are the great benefits to being a PowerSeller:

A powerSeller icon next to your user ID.

This may help sales because people may feel more trusting that you will deliver the product because you are an experienced and frequent seller. On the other hand I remember the first time I used eBay. I don’t recall what I was purchasing but I do remember that I was hesitant to buy from one seller because he was a powerseller. I was thinking that he might sell alot of product and not ship it right away. I dunno if that was logical but it was what I was thinking at the time.

Free priority support via email webform

Is email support normally not free? I’ve never used it so have no idea how bad the customer service is for “regular” members.

Exclusive offerings on the PowerSeller Portal

This was actually somewhat interesting. They had auctions for groups or lots of items in the reseller marketplace. I assume this is from wholesalers. I guess this might be useful if you wanted to make it more of a business and you didn’t have any suppliers. I haven’t really studied how much profit margin could be made from the lots they had listed.

Access to the PowerSeller only discussion

You mean I get to join an elite, secret message board on the internet? Hah, well I looked it over a little bit. Doesn’t seem that much different than the other message boards on ebay that I have skimmed over in the past. Other than the topics obviously geared toward interests of sellers and people using ebay as a business.

Free PowerSeller Business card templates

If your business is primarily on eBay I’m not sure how useful this is but who knows.

I’m also supposed to get a kit according to the website. Maybe I can place this with the Emigrant Direct hat that lays in my closet and I have never wore.

Well, after looking over what this prestigious membership brought me I was a little underwhelmed. I guess the main thing is the icon next to your name to show others you sell over 1k a month. That could increase your sales by making potential customers feel more comfortable buying from you.

The funny thing is that I will be away most of the summer so I will most likely lose my powerseller status. I would have probably lost it anyway as I am getting a little tired of it and I don’t think I am making as much profit as I was last year when I began. The fees for paypal are a killer!