My e-commerce journey began in 2004 as a Freshman in college. One of my hobbies was playing the Pokemon TCG competitively and had finally discovered I could buy sealed boxes of cards on eBay for a lot less than the local card shops. Few months later though, my bank account was dwindling...down to $200 or so. Thus, I decided I should (and NEEDED to) start selling off the Pokemon cards that were extras or that I didn't need for decks and such. This brought in just a few hundred dollars in sales for the first few months but allowed me to keep up with the newest sets. I somehow stumbled among other things to sell as time went on. One of my earliest discoveries were Star Wars Kid's Meal toys from Burger King. I bought just the toys from the restaurant's for about $1.50 each and sold them for $4-7 each or so plus shipping on eBay.
That summer I attempted to find a 'real job' as many others would say. Despite turning in resumes and such during the winter, I had troubles finding anything I wanted to do. Ended up at Wendy's when I couldn't find anything better. Thought I'd get 20 hours a week...but 2 weeks in I had a TOTAL of about 12 hours. Often I'd go in for a 4-6 hour shift and be sent home after 2 hours because things were slow. Barely enough to cover gas to go the 15miles round trip and such. So, with the help of a family friend, I got a different job after 2 weeks at Wendy's building roof troughs. I'm a pretty scrawny guy...I don't do a lot of working out/heavy lifting/etc...so it certainly wasn't a job all that well suited for me.
I was one of four guys on my line. After 3 weeks being there, 1 guy threw out his back, 1 got a nail through his shoe/foot, and 1 got really bad heat rash on his face. Also, the head of my line was a major 'butt.' Also...the job was Monday-Thursday from 3:30pm-2:30am AND I was doing a little eBay on the side. So...average day I'd get up at noon, check email, eat, package orders, leave around 3pm for the Post Office and go straight to work from there. Get home around 3am, catch up on emails, go to bed around 4am. ZERO life. Granted all that, the 'butt' of a boss, and that everyone else got some sort of injury...I escaped while I could with my health in tact to pursue making eBay/e-commerce a full time gig....
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