Selling online may have uncovered a part of me I didn’t know I had
The line between order and chaos is a tad blurry when it comes to selling things out of your house. I’ve been an online seller since the early 2000s when I started selling on eBay, and over time I’ve added more online sales platforms and it’s now basically my full-time job.
This is a good thing. I’ve built a brand for myself by selling handmade hair ties out of my Etsy shop, and sales of used clothes and vintage items on eBay and Poshmark have been pretty steady.
Here’s the problem. Actually, I’ve got two problems.
I have a history of impulse buying. My inventory is taking over my house.
I can’t remember not having a habit of buying too many things. I have ADHD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, as well as Bipolar Disorder, so the odds are kind of stacked against me when it comes to impulse spending. It also doesn’t help that I am an online seller, because I’m almost never out of excuses to buy inventory. Before the coronavirus lockdown, I was dipping in every thrift store I could find, squeezing in time between doctor appointments and trips to the gym to look through racks of denim shorts and dresses. I’d drop a hundred bucks in an hour and bring in bags of awesome finds to flip, sometimes several times a week.
It’s hard to resist looking in thrift stores and vintage shops, especially since I’ve got an eye for what people like and have gotten some great returns on my investments.
I once found a Ralph Lauren comforter for $15 and sold it for $300. It was in a vintage pattern that I knew was both rare and coveted. All that happened because I happened to be in that thrift store on that particular day. I’ve also found a vintage Burberry cap for $1 that sold for $100, an $800 Vince lambskin leather jacket with the tags on that I sold for $300, and an Alice + Olivia dress for $4 that I sold for $140.
I’m not making thousands off my finds, but the possibility of the win, of finding something amazing to flip on eBay, is too much for me to resist. It’s like a slot machine. There’s enough of a chance to win to give me a reason to keep going to these stores, as often as I can. There are all kinds of reasons my brain can come up with to keep doing what I’m doing. The dopamine rush that comes with the possibility of a reward — finding that one treasure — is the only drug I need when I’m in spending mode.
Besides, you gotta spend money to make money, right?
My one saving grace regarding impulse buying is that my spending ability is limited, because I don’t use credit cards (anymore — that’s another story for another day). If I don’t have cash or money in my bank account, I don’t buy it.
In addition to the thrifting habit, I have a history of impulse buying loads of stuff that I thought was a good idea at the time. I went through a phase of buying hundreds of dollars’ worth of beads so I could make necklaces and bracelets to sell on Etsy along with my handmade hair ties. And then I had a phase of buying huge 12×12″ packs of printed card stock (they were on sale for $5 each at Michael’s!) so I could make handmade display cards for my hair ties.
These days, because people have been buying yardage of fold over elastic from my Etsy shop, I’ve been buying more elastic by the yard to help meet the demand. And when I say “more” I mean maybe a thousand yards more.
As a result, I’ve got inventory and supplies in just about every room and closet in my house.
Half my bedroom is filled with stuff I’m selling. The dresser is filled with elastic hair tie sets. The floor in front of the dresser has boxes and bags of elastic. The corner by the dresser is a stack of eight clear storage boxes with hair ties. I have a huge armoire that is packed with hanging clothes, shoes, and purses.
My living room has rolls of elastic in every drawer. Our home office has a large dresser with bigger rolls of elastic, headbands, and all of the card stock I haven’t used yet.
Half of my closet is filled with clear storage boxes containing inventory. I have floor-to-ceiling inventory in the hallway closet. I have storage boxes of Disney VHS tapes in one of the bedroom closets.
My kitchen has antique china and vintage Pyrex and collectible Starbucks coffee cups tucked away in cabinets.
In addition to all of the inventory throughout the house, I have boxes of ready-to-assemble boxes from eBay and USPS in my utility room, along with shipping paper, bubble wrap, boxes of shipping tape, postage scales, and empty boxes of all sizes from Amazon. My dining room has stacks of larger boxes, stacked into each other like Russian dolls, that I’m setting aside for shipping.
A friend came over one time, saw all of the boxes stacked in the dining room, and asked if we were moving.
This is one of the challenges of having an online sales business in a not-very-big house that also has an open floor plan. I’ve hidden what I can, but there are only so many places that I can store things, so I’ve had to line walls and fill corners with boxes of inventory and supplies when I run out of closet and drawer space.
The good thing is that things are, for the most part, organized. My elastic is organized according to color and print. Clothing is sorted and folded and bagged or hanging by color and style. Hair ties are neatly arranged by color and style. VHS tapes are stacked and sorted alphabetically. Things aren’t just thrown in boxes or closets. They aren’t in piles on the floor. I know where things are and how to get what I need. For the most part.
The bad thing is that there are times when I get overwhelmed by all the boxes and bags and shipping supplies that are everywhere I can see, and I get to where I just don’t want to deal with it. Also, I have an immune deficiency that has kept me at home for months, and because I can feel run down pretty easily, I might get a project started and then have to quit halfway and tell myself that I’ll put everything away later. And then “later” becomes a week later. By then I’ve got more inventory showing up at the door that I’d forgotten I’d ordered weeks before. As all this is happening, more boxes from whatever Amazon delivered end up in the utility room or dining room.
I tell myself it could be worse, but anyone can say that about anything. I can just flip on the TV and watch 30 seconds of Hoarders and feel better about myself for a little while. But I don’t think that comparing my own struggles with those of someone whose life has been completely absorbed by a debilitating and misunderstood mental illness is helpful. I haven’t lost relationships with people over the stuff in my house. I am not in living conditions that cause neighbors to call for help on my behalf.
To me, watching or reading about someone whose struggles are worse than mine in order to feel superior about myself only results in more excuses for me to use to continue my behavior. It also fosters an unhealthy attitude towards people whose problems cannot be hidden so easily because in order for me to feel superior to someone else, I have to suppress compassion and sympathy.
I don’t know exactly what drives me to keep stocking up on things to sell despite having so much inventory that I’m having trouble keeping up. It could be the fear of missing out (on something to sell) or the fear of selling out (because it happens). It could be the thrill of finding new ways to make money. It could be because I just enjoy the challenge of selling things, particularly things that I either curated or made myself.
Maybe I’m just growing a business and this is just part of it, and everything will sort itself out over time.
Whatever this behavior is, wherever it stems from, is mine to own. Maybe it’s a form of hoarding. Maybe it doesn’t have an official label. Humans have had to deal with all kinds of frustrating aspects about themselves that didn’t have names. So I’m going to tackle this aspect of myself by focusing more on selling than on buying, in order to get remaining inventory properly stored and out of sight.
If nothing else, the resulting absence of chaos in my field of vision will help create a bit of order in my otherwise turbulent mind.
I look forward to tomorrow.