I have for the past six months begun to slowly remove myself from trading on the internet I still email and send pictures of furniture to customers and I suppose the sales are still a direct result of the use of the internet but I had for a long period become reliant on the internet for my income.
I started pre internet boom buying and selling furniture with leg work and huge fuel bills for my vehicle and this is what I have returned to and I have to report and excuse me if I sound like a new born or as if I have just floated down the river but life is good!
Sales declined slightly but have in the past few months began to increase.
There is even a plan for a new shop!
I was given a piece of advice by an old boy at an auction when I was starting out "keep it simple stupid"
Hardcore.
These fellas are right up your alley...extensive leg work & expensive fuel bills.
Rummaging through decades of piled junk/valuables...'modern archaeologists'.
http://www.history.com/shows/american-pickers
Confused
I'm still trying to understand the purpose of your post in the first place Bentply. You say that you decided to become less reliant on the internet. Why? While you suggest that "life is good" after the internet, you still use email to correspond with customers and send photos. Um, excuse my ignorance, but ain't that the internet? What exactly have you done without? A website? eBay? To confuse me more, you log on to an internet discussion forum to tell everyone how happy you are without the internet. What are we supposed to say in response?
Was your life getting too complicated with all that high falutin' technology? Were you becoming a hermit locked in your dimly lit basement eating TV dinners and spending all your time trading on the interwebs, your skin becoming a sickly gray, your eyes dilated and your brain reeling from the technological overload? Did you suffer from a lack of human interaction? Did you miss the old boys at the auction?
I can only speak for myself, and maybe I've missed something, but from where I sit the internet is a great tool for acquiring information and communicating. It can be very helpful and can greatly enhance your business. But unless you are selling porn, it seems like you need to be out in the "real world" no matter how much you trade on the internet. I can't find much at all that I can buy on-line that leaves me any margin to resell. I have to go out into the world and find things to sell. Likewise, I can advertise my wares on-line and while I do occasionally have customers who I do not have the pleasure to meet face-to-face, more often they come to look at the items before making a decision to buy or not. Email is an invaluable tool. As is the telephone. The internet is a great place to show the world what you have for sale, but it comes with certain caveats and you have to take those into account.
While I have a website, use email daily and value the internet, I'm not someone who loves gadgets or the latest electronic gizmo. I don't have an iPhone (yet). I do have a cell phone, but all I can do with it is make a phone call. I'm not in love with technology and I'm hardly "plugged in". But it seems strange to read someone extolling the virtues of living without the internet ON the internet while they admit that they actually do use the internet.
Maybe you want to unplug the computer all together, toss your cell phone, open your new shop and hand-print some broadsides which you can post on the kiosk downtown announcing your new internet-free enterprise. If I happen to see one of your notices, I'll come in and we can have a nice chat. You can tell me how simple your life is now that you have huge fuel bills from all the leg work you do while also running your store.
I may be kind of busy for a while though, I'm opening a new telegraph office.
p.s. I'm not trying to be sarcastic or snide, just having fun (and a couple cocktails) while genuinely bewildered.
The intial post was about...
The intial post was about not using the internet to sell my products, I think your (lets call it a rant) response was sugesting that I was giving up technology all together which if it gave that impression was not meant to. Yes, I have sold around 90% of my stock using ebay, my website and other onlline outlets this is what I am trying to stop reliing on not the totally use of technology in my private,social life or business.
I just read your post on how amazing Ikea is, I would happily take a match to every store but thats my personal opinion. (if someone does actually take a match to every single store I cannot be held accountable!)
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