How to Almost Sell a Dress on Ebay

by Molly Lorz

1. Buy lots of nice clothes and never wear them so that they are in perfect condition, practically.

2. Clean out your closet with a hard rule that anything you haven’t worn in a full year has to go.

3. End up with a large bag of dresses that someone would probably pay for.

4. But who?

5. Someone in Ohio, maybe.

6. But how … EBAY.

7. Pick one dress to test on Ebay to see if it’s worth the time/effort and if people actually buy used dresses on the internet from strangers with new ebay accounts.

8. Pick a pretty purple frock, tags on.

9. Take a pretty picture. Write a nice description. You’re good at this.

10. Post it and wait.

11. Sold! $12! To Cathy in Ohio. Thanks Cathy in Ohio.

12. Box up dress. Wrap in tissue paper because aren’t you cute. Take to post office. Mail to Cathy in Ohio, go online and mark as shipped to Cathy in Ohio.

13. Get message from Cathy in Ohio. “Did you send it to my address in Wisconsin?”

14. Write back to Cathy Ohio: “No I sent it to your address in Ohio, you know, the one on your profile.

15. Cathy in Ohio writes back, “Oh that’s wrong. You need to send it to Wisconsin. I live in Wisconsin”

16. Write back to Cathy in Wisconsin Nee Ohio, “When the dress gets returned, I will forward it to your new address.”

17. To Molly From Cathy: Has the dress arrived yet?

18. To Cathy From Molly: No, I will let you know when it has reshipped.

19. To Molly From Cathy: Has the dress arrived yet?

20. To Cathy From Molly: No, I will let you know when it has reshipped.

21. To Molly From Cathy: Has the dress arrived yet?

22. ~ignores~

23. To Molly From Cathy: Has the dress arrived yet?

24. ~ignores~

25. To Molly From Ebay: User Cathy in Ohio has filed a complaint against you and also taken back her money.

26. To Ebay From Molly: But user Cathy in Ohio gave me the wrong address and I told her I would let her know when it reshipped. Also she owes me $5 for shipping.

27. To Molly From Ebay: You can file a separate complaint. To clear the complaint on your account please do all of these things that we are going to write about now and you are going to stop reading because you were just trying to sell one dress and this is ridiculous, how many hours have you spent on this, how many?

28. Dress comes back in mail.

29. Put dress and in bag with other dresses, take to Goodwill.

Molly Lorz lives in New York.

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