Lunch with Zappos executives
Originally uploaded by Robert Scoble
Here Rackspace executives and employees meet with Zappos
executives. They don’t like being called executives, by the way.
They call themselves monkeys.

Amazon buys Zappos for 10M in Amazon stock. Does Zappos + Bezos = Bappos or Zezos?

Last month, there was a report that eBay Senior Vice President Stephanie Tilenius said that Zappos would be selling some items on eBay. That project was promptly squashed. Now I know why.

By the way, 10M in Amazon stock is worth $890M!

Cool! There I am at the eBay Dev Conf in San Jose.

Yep, that’s the back of my head. I’m in the front/right wearing the BRIGHT pink shirt chatting with Kevin from Auctiva.

Next year, I might turn around.

My Watched Item blog is now live!

I did tons of customization on the theme, then I noticed that it looks bad in Internet Explorer. The round corners are square in IE. I almost always use FireFox.

But I’m satisfied that it matches the main site and he first couple of posts look pretty good. I just need to automate the link generation a bit. I’m doing too much by hand.

BTW – It’s blueberry season here in Illinois. We got 12 pounds of big ones. My belly is full.

Transformers in front of Paramount Studios’ classic Bronson Gate

Originally uploaded by Loren Javier

Transformer picture.

Wild Horses of Assateague Island

Originally uploaded by Hard-Rain

This picture was taken by my husband, Brian, last week on our family vacation.

I just love the Maryland coast.

Check out his photostream on Flickr.

I found an old $50 Banana Republic gift card in my box of wrapping paper. Hmmm… there is nothing at Banana Republic for under $50 so I might as well sell it.

Sell it on eBay? Naw, the gift card market is too weird for me. PlasticJungle.com? Yes!

I will get $35 by check for my $50 card. That’s close enough to the right price and there is no hassle.

Here’s the fastest way to get cash for an unwanted gift card on PlasticJungle.com.

I would add step 0: Register on the site.

Selling your gift card is easy

1. Find out what it’s worth
2. Select your offer
3. Enter your card information
4. Print two copies of your receipt
5. Send your card with the label provided

As soon as we receive the card,

• …get your cash by check OR
• …get your Amazon.com^® Gift Card* by email OR
• …get your DonorsChoose.org Charity Gift Card
  by email

The best thing is that Plastic Jungle even provides the $.61 postage for mailing your card to them.

Yep, Plastic Jungle was a lot easier than eBay. I will check them out the next time I want to purchase a card.

—————————————-
Update: July 13

I like Plastic Jungle’s communication:

Dear Michelle Waldorf,

Thank you for your recent transaction on our site to sell your Banana Republic card valued at $50.00. In order for us to complete this transaction you will need to print the free shipping label provided. Place the label on an envelope, enclose your gift card and send it to us. Once we receive your card, we will verify the card value and send payment to you. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. We can be reached by email (customerservice@plasticjungle.com) and/or telephone (877-MYJUNGLE).
Thank you,

The Customer Service Team
Plastic Jungle
877 MY JUNGLE
customerservice@plasticjungle.com

Congratulations on the sale of your gift card. We have issued your check in the amount of $35.00 and you should be receiving it in the mail within the next 5-7 business days.
We are constantly striving to provide our customers with the best possible service. We hope that your selling experience has been an enjoyable one!

If there is anything we can do to improve your experience please let us know. We can be reached by email or by phone: customerservice@plasticjungle.com 877-MY JUNGLE.

Here is the angle to why Walmart gift cards sell over face value on eBay.

LordKronos said:From time to time, eBay offers members coupons for 10% off if you pay with paypal. In addition, for Buy It Now auctions, live.com often has promotions giving you a percentage back via a deposit in your paypal account a few months later. Right now it’s at 9%. The peak I saw was the day after thanksgiving when it reached 30%. At the time, eBay had also given out some of those 10% coupons which could be combined with the live.com offer giving a total discount of 40% (I got a few good deals on that one).

Response:

Just looked back at my MS CashBack records. In November, when the discount often went to 25-30%, we purchased around $7-8K of gift cards (Costco, WalMart, Target, safeway), all at a premium. The net price to us was around 80 cents on the dollar. We also flipped several of them for $100 or so net per card. As you point out, the discount is down to 9% currently, so paying a premium isn’t worth it to us at this point.

Take a look at the Walmart gift cards selling over face value.

Fans of vintage Levi’s jeans happily bid hundreds of dollars on eBay auctions.

What makes a pair of Levi’s valuable?

The things to look for are:

1. Authentic Levi’s Brand
2. the red tab on the back pocket that shows a big “E”
3. single stitch hidden rivets
4. button marked with a “K”

Some buzz worthy eBay auctions:

Here are the most popular categories and the top search keywords:

Vintage Levis (50s, 70s, 80s, 501, Big E, redline)

Non-Vintage Men’s Levis Jeans (501, 502, 511, 514)

Vintage Levis Jackets (80s, Sharpa)

Well, we finally moved my blog to our own server. It’s easier to configure the plug-ins and there is a larger variety of templates.

Plus I saved $10 bucks on using my own blog domain name (instead of blah.wordpress.com).