Now that Valentines Day is over, head over to the store to get some great deals on Valentines Day stuff before it’s all gone.

Got a sweet tooth? Get Valentines Day candy for 50% off at most stores. Or if you have kids at school, grab boxes of valentines day cards for their school Valentines Day party next year at a fraction of the cost.

Even though where I am, it will be freezing cold tomorrow, stores have stocked up on the first arrivals of Spring and Summer clothing, even though Spring and Summer seem far away.

The store I went to was having a clearance sale on much of their winter clothes. I got some cute pink Nascar baby outfits for my baby girl for a whopping $2 a piece.

Just like the best time to buy holiday items is AFTER the holiday, now it’s February and March will be here soon, now is the best time to take advantage of clearance sales and buy winter clothes. There’s still some harsh winter cold left for this winter, so the clothes I bought will get worn this season. But even if it was warm weather already I’d still buy the winter outfits and save them for next winter. So when winter gets here, instead of buying new clothes at full prices I’ll already have several new outfits bought at rock bottom prices.

Even eBay sellers and addicts want eBay to have some serious competition.

eBay is yet again raising their fees and eBay sellers are very angry and frustrated. And that’s not the only thing eBay is doing to make it’s seller see red. They are now no longer allowing sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers. So a buyer can not pay for an item they won and the seller is not allowed to leave any negative feedback. Erm…isn’t that the whole purpose of feedback?

The problem with eBay is that it has no competition. And we all know what happens when there’s no competition. The business has a monopoly. They have free reign and can charge whatever they want and the consumers can do nothing about it.

What if there was only one store selling jeans? They could charge 100 dollars or 200 for a pair if they wanted and you either had to pay it or you couldn’t buy any jeans. If another store opened up selling jeans for 20 dollars, the other store would be out of business fast.

EBay needs competition. Serious competition. I believe a big company like Google could do this. Definitely Google could. They could advertise to millions of people for free.  Google has the power to reach millions of people instantly. Several other auction sites have popped up over the years, but they could never gain momentum and get popular enough to be any kind of competition to eBay.

eBay has raised their fees many times over the years and a few price raises are understandable, all prices go up over the years. Every business must raise it’s prices sometime.

The problem is eBay has gone too far. They have had far too many price raises. And it’s not like eBay needs to raises the prices to survive, they are just being greedy and they can be greedy and get away with it because they have a monopoly on online auctions and have no competition. And the people they are hurting most are the sellers of cheap items. The listing fee and final value fee ends up eating any profit assuming the items even sell. Sometimes sellers are losing money because what they make off auction is less than the fee to even place the auction.

eBay is also hurting the frugal buyers. I have recently bought several items off of eBay. I have bought several outfits for really prices for my baby girl.  I even recently won an auction where I got a few outfits for only 99 cents plus shipping. I could simply go to the store and buy her outfits, but I love being frugal. I love being able to get several cute, like new outfits for just a few dollars when it would have cost me 75% more to get them brand new from the store. And babys grow so quickly they can only wear outfits for a short period of time. Why should I spend 20 dollars on an outfit when I can get the exact same thing in used, like new condition for only a small fraction of the cost?

So, if I don’t sell on eBay how is this hurting frugal buyers like me? Well, the people who sell cheap items on eBay will not be able to place anymore cheap auctions like this because they will either break even or lose money. At best, they make a few pennies profit. And this is assuming all the auctions sell. If any auction doesn’t sell, you still have to pay the listing fees.

There are people out there that literally can not afford to buy new clothes, shoes, toys, coats, or anything at all that’s extra for their family. They are struggling just to pay their bills and literally do not even have enough to buy their kids a pair of new shoes, so they depend on cheap second hand items. I guess they will have to stick to yard sales and thrift shops because I don’t think there will be many sellers on eBay of cheap items.

But that is just one angle of the whole eBay drama. There are people who make very good money off of eBay. In fact, they live off eBay. I’m not talking about some extra spending money or cleaning out of closet. I’m talking about rent, car payments, food, utilities, everything.  And these people are pissed off. They have a love hate relationship with eBay. They hate eBay and it’s policies and have been hoping for serious competition for a long time, but at the same time, they regularly list items on eBay and can’t boycott eBay even though they want to, because eBay is their income.  As long as their items sell, the rising fees won’t put them out of business, like the small time listers who list little extra stuff around their home, but the extra fees here and extra fees there add up to thousands of dollars a year. And they have no choice but to pay that extra thousands of dollars to eBay, or find another job and quit eBay altogether. Would you be mad if $5,000 was being taken out of your pocket this year? Unless, that is, another online auction opens up that can be serious competition to eBay and cause a mass exodus of eBay buyers and sellers. Google?? Are you listening?? Huge opportunity for you here.

Competition is good and healthy and keeps businesses in check. There have been instances in the past where eBay sellers have been upset and threatened to boycott and have a mass exodus of eBay, but this time is different. People are more upset than they have been in all the past instances combined. Maybe it’s because this comes along with the rising costs of food and fuel and the rising costs of winter utility bills. It’s like WHAM, WHAM, WHAM, can’t we get a break?

Whatever the reason, sellers are really more angry than they have ever been in the past and are uniting and standing up against eBay. There are thousands of anti-eBay posts on message boards, numerous blog postings, articles in major newspapers and magazines, emails being passed on like wildfire, and anti eBay youtube videos. There is a petition going around to boycott eBay for a week and the petition has an estimated 9,000 signatures so far.

In an email from eBay rep. Usher Liberman, I paraphrased it to say, “We don’t care if anyone’s mad, we’re eBay. Stuff like this has happened before but nothing happened. We just grew.” That’s not the exact words he used, that’s just the gist I got from it.

With all the eBay addicts and sellers and buyers upset with eBay, this is a golden opportunity for Google to jump in and turn the online auction world upside down. Hey Big G?! Where are you?!  I hope you’re listening!

I think they should offer some incentive, for example first month of listings for sellers are free and then whatever they are after that, they are cheaper than eBay. And if they really want to get things going fast, give every single member $5 free that they can use to buy items on the site.

Hey, what about Gbay, wonder if that domain is taken?

eBay can be the new AOL. Ha! AOL used to be the big fish in America for internet connection, and now I don’t think I know a soul who uses AOL.

I have nothing against eBay actually, I just want them to have serious competition as bad as anyone else. I don’t want them to have a monopoly on online auctions. I want consumers-buyers and sellers- to have an option for online auctions. I don’t like their attitude of “we’re eBay, so there” and I think they need to learn a lesson. Well maybe I do have a thing or two against eBay after all.

The strike is Feb. 15th-18th.

Here is an article from a major magazine that also talks about the eBay drama and also talks about sellers who have quit eBay.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/07/smbusiness/ebay_boycott.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008020718

What if I told you that you could get your girl something for Valentine’s Day that she will love and cherish and it doesn’t cost  single cent. That’s right, absolutely free.

What I’m talking about is a love letter. Straight from the heart. A handwritten love letter written by you for her that spills your heart out.

Most girls will cherish something so personal and keep it forever and would rather have something so romantic like a love letter than any material gift you buy at the store.

Then, there’s the girls who expect some gold and diamonds and won’t be happy unless big bucks are spent on them. Well, I can’t give you any advice there.

Now if you’re thinking about writing a love letter to your man, well, I don’t think like a man so I don’t know if they like this type of stuff or not.

For a guaranteed free Valentine’s Day, just boycott the holiday. I’m one of those who believe that Valentine’s Day is just a corporate holiday so that businesses can rake in the money. You can be romantic any day of the year, not just February 14th. And it feels kind of forced, like you’re expected to act all romantic that day.

I’m not doing a thing on Valentines Day besides working, so I don’t have to worry about spending a cent that day. For me, Valentine’s Day is as significant as Groundhogs Day.

But for those who want to celebrate the day of forced romance on a budget, I can just suggest writing a heartfelt love letter, ordering in your favorite food, and spending a quiet evening at home enjoying each other’s company with a massage.

In January I bought a Christmas dress for my baby girl. When I went to the store I certainly wasn’t planning on buying a Christmas dress. Christmas is 11 months away. But I saved by taking advantage of a clearance sale for leftover Christmas items the store is trying to get rid of.

You can save big by buying items leftover after any holiday. Stores want to get rid of their holiday items to make room for the next holiday so they slash the prices off of their leftover inventory 50-75%.

Their was a rack of cute Christmas dresses for little girls marked way down at only $6. These are really cute dresses and it’s certainly not everday you can find such a cute dress for only $6.

If I waited until around Christmas time when the Christmas stuff came out to by my baby girl a dress, I imagine it would cost around $20-$25. But now I already have her dress ready for when Christmas comes around and when I see the price tags on the dresses come Christmas time I will be smiling thinking of how much I saved.

I just get a thrill on huge savings!  I find it fun to see how much I can save.

Now Valentines day is coming up and the stores have all of their Valentines stuff out. I will wait until February 15th to see what I can find for 50-75% off.