Alright, let me tell you about this little venture I tried a while back. Had some time on my hands, thought I’d try selling some stuff online. Nothing major, just these little handcrafted widgets I’d been tinkering with in the garage. Spent quite a bit of time on them, thought they were pretty neat, maybe someone else would too.
Getting the Ball Rolling
So, first step was figuring out where to actually sell these things. Jumped online, looked at a bunch of those marketplace sites. You know the ones, they all promise you’ll get rich quick, tons of customers waiting. Sounded good, but you always gotta read the fine print, right? I picked one that seemed okay, less flashy than the others. Went through the signup process, uploaded photos of my widgets, wrote up some descriptions. Tried to make them sound appealing, you know, gotta sell the sizzle.
Getting the actual shop page set up took a bit. Had to figure out their system, categories, tags, all that jazz. Wasn’t rocket science, but it was fiddly. Finally got it all listed. Felt a bit of accomplishment, like, okay, phase one done. Now just gotta wait for the orders to roll in.
Dealing with the ‘Merchants’
Well, the orders didn’t exactly flood in. But what did come flooding in were the costs and the weird interactions. The platform itself, man, they take a cut of everything. Listing fee here, transaction fee there, payment processing fee somewhere else. Felt like every time I blinked, another little chunk was gone before I even saw it. You really gotta watch that stuff.
Then there were the suppliers for the bits and pieces I needed. Had to buy some raw materials, specific little components. Found a few suppliers online that looked decent. One guy was super slow, always had some story about why the shipment was delayed. Another sent the wrong parts twice. Trying to sort that out over email felt like pulling teeth. It was like these guys, the merchants running these supply shops, were reading from the same playbook of being difficult. It wasn’t even surprising after a while, just annoying.
Hitting the Meme Wall
The real funny part, though? Some of the messages I got from potential buyers. I mean, some people were totally normal, asked good questions. But then you got the others.
- People offering like, a tiny fraction of the asking price. For something handmade. Seriously?
- Folks asking for super custom jobs, wanting it tomorrow, for basically no money.
- Endless questions that were clearly answered in the first sentence of the item description. Like, did you even read it?
It got predictable, fast. The lowball offers, the demands, the clueless questions. It felt less like dealing with real individuals and more like interacting with stereotypes you see joked about online. You know, like memes. The demanding buyer meme, the didn’t-read-the-description meme. That’s where the thought hit me: “merchants probably meme”. It’s like their behavior becomes this expected, almost scripted absurdity. Applies to the platform, the suppliers, the tricky customers – they all kinda fall into these patterns.
Wrapping It Up
Did I get rich? Nope. Sold a few widgets here and there. Barely covered the cost of materials and all those platform fees. The amount of time spent wrestling with the platform, chasing down suppliers, and dealing with the meme-like interactions just wasn’t worth the small return.
I still make the widgets sometimes, but they’re just for me or friends now. Took the fun right out of it trying to make a business out of it. Learned a lesson, though. Selling online, especially small time, is a grind. And yeah, the people and systems you deal with? They often act exactly how you’d expect based on the online jokes and stories. Predictable, kinda goofy, often frustrating. Like walking memes. So, yeah. Merchants probably meme.
