Thursday, April 5, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
On Selling My iPad 2
I recently got the new iPad, and along with a bunch of other people, I had to unload my "old" iPad 2. I'm generally a fan of eBay for these sort of things, but I decided to try something different this time and sell it on Amazon.
Generally, I've had okay luck on eBay. I've had a few transactions that were a pain, mostly due to international buyers. Well, not the buyers usually, but figuring out what kind of custom forms to use, and all the paperwork that goes into filling that stuff out. I don't think Amazon really solves that problem, unfortunately. But the fees from the combination of eBay and PayPal are pretty serious business. eBay takes 9% for auctions, and anywhere from 7% to 13% for fixed-price listings. Oh, then once you get the money, it costs you another 2.9% from PayPal fees. It all adds up in a hurry.
Selling on Amazon, fees are anywhere from 6% up to 15% on most things. Amazon has their own PayPal-like service, and thankfully you don't get any fees by using it. So if you're including PayPal fees, for most items Amazon probably will end up with less fees.
Shipping on Amazon is a little different than I expected. On eBay, you (usually) pass the whole cost of shipping onto the buyer. On Amazon you get a credit based on the item. For example, for my iPad I got a $5.99 shipping credit. I'm not sure who is able to ship that for $6, but not me for sure. USPS was about $10, or $12 for priority. So I ended up paying for about half of the shipping in this case; not really ideal from my point of view.
Fees aside, selling on Amazon is a completely different experience from eBay. The most obvious is the lack of auction, so depending on what you're selling, that may work for or against you. Amazon is really geared towards "like-new" sales. You can't provide a picture of what you're selling - I tried to include a link to a picture in my iPad's description, and my sale was briefly blocked because of it. eBay you can obviously sell anything, and that's part of the fun of it. For one of a kind or "unique" items, that's for sure where you want to be. For my iPad, where there are a billion of them for sale, the auction format doesn't really do much for me. Being able to add pictures of my item would have been nice, but as a buyer, I appreciate not having to wade through individual item pictures to make sure I know what I'm getting.
Overall, I'm really happy with my Amazon selling experience for this. I was able to sell my 32gb wifi iPad 2 in just two days for a little more ($15-20) than what they are commonly going for on eBay. And I since the iPad falls into the 6% fee bracket on Amazon, total eBay fees would have been nearly 12%! That extra $6 I paid for part of the shipping was well worth it. Thanks Amazon!
Generally, I've had okay luck on eBay. I've had a few transactions that were a pain, mostly due to international buyers. Well, not the buyers usually, but figuring out what kind of custom forms to use, and all the paperwork that goes into filling that stuff out. I don't think Amazon really solves that problem, unfortunately. But the fees from the combination of eBay and PayPal are pretty serious business. eBay takes 9% for auctions, and anywhere from 7% to 13% for fixed-price listings. Oh, then once you get the money, it costs you another 2.9% from PayPal fees. It all adds up in a hurry.
Selling on Amazon, fees are anywhere from 6% up to 15% on most things. Amazon has their own PayPal-like service, and thankfully you don't get any fees by using it. So if you're including PayPal fees, for most items Amazon probably will end up with less fees.
Shipping on Amazon is a little different than I expected. On eBay, you (usually) pass the whole cost of shipping onto the buyer. On Amazon you get a credit based on the item. For example, for my iPad I got a $5.99 shipping credit. I'm not sure who is able to ship that for $6, but not me for sure. USPS was about $10, or $12 for priority. So I ended up paying for about half of the shipping in this case; not really ideal from my point of view.
Fees aside, selling on Amazon is a completely different experience from eBay. The most obvious is the lack of auction, so depending on what you're selling, that may work for or against you. Amazon is really geared towards "like-new" sales. You can't provide a picture of what you're selling - I tried to include a link to a picture in my iPad's description, and my sale was briefly blocked because of it. eBay you can obviously sell anything, and that's part of the fun of it. For one of a kind or "unique" items, that's for sure where you want to be. For my iPad, where there are a billion of them for sale, the auction format doesn't really do much for me. Being able to add pictures of my item would have been nice, but as a buyer, I appreciate not having to wade through individual item pictures to make sure I know what I'm getting.
Overall, I'm really happy with my Amazon selling experience for this. I was able to sell my 32gb wifi iPad 2 in just two days for a little more ($15-20) than what they are commonly going for on eBay. And I since the iPad falls into the 6% fee bracket on Amazon, total eBay fees would have been nearly 12%! That extra $6 I paid for part of the shipping was well worth it. Thanks Amazon!
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Yay innovative strategies!
I got an email from Discover Bank today, telling me that I've been given the chance for an "exclusive preview" of their "newly designed banking website". It also gave me this gem:
Seriously? I mean, marketing copy is usually pretty lame, but this for real sounds like the default text you'd find in a Microsoft Word template. "Man I'm so excited about new innovative strategies...in my website?"
Seriously? I mean, marketing copy is usually pretty lame, but this for real sounds like the default text you'd find in a Microsoft Word template. "Man I'm so excited about new innovative strategies...in my website?"
Thursday, February 9, 2012
That Game's UX
The last couple of months I've been working on getting another blog up and running. I don't know if it's entirely fair, but I'll put the blame for the recent lack of updates on markdehate.com on this new project =) It's called That Game's UX.
The goal of That Game's UX is to discuss the user experience of gaming. That means a lot of things, but I'm going to be focusing on various UI elements that can make or break a game. So for console/PC video games, that's going to be a lot of things like in-game menus. But there probably will be some discussion of mobile games, and maybe even some board games too. I've seen a lot of board games come with great ways to handle all the bits, and some that are just big boxes that are puzzles in themselves!
So check it out if you get some time. There's only one post at the moment, but I hope to keep it updated roughly weekly.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Custom Mobile Usability Testing Rig
With my new heat gun and a helping hand from Molly, I produced this bad lad:
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