It's Cyber Monday! Let's Just Call It Amazon Monday...

Well it's Cyber Monday...  But being that we deal in mainly antique and collectible type items, we aren't real excited.  Heck, staff members are taking work off today to go deer hunting.  For those of you who don't live in the 19th century, deer hunting is the ritual where men go to camp to complain about their wive's Black Friday purchases, drink massive quantities of beer and occasionally shoot a deer.  The rest of the staff will likely have one browser tab opened to Amazon.com's Gold Box Specials page.  Much of the day will be spent complaining that the Gold Box deals aren't as good as last years.

Every year it's the same, whining about the Gold Box Specials.  They are selling crap, the price isn't free, etc.  But every year, the staff keeps their eyes glued to the page and always purchases something.  Today should be even worse.  Within 5 minutes of arriving I'd be willing to bet that each of them visits Amazon's Cyber Monday Deals page.  Not like there isn't anything else to do.

Usually Cyber Mondays mean nothing around here, just the usual increased volume of holiday shopping sales.  Our real sharp upswing usually doesn't start until the second week of December.  That's when the real fun begins.  Then we get to spend our entire day, every day for two weeks, answering emails and phone calls about whether or not they will get their item before their Christmas gift exchange.  -sigh-

Happy Thanksgiving - I'm Thankful I Can Read

Yesterday was a pretty solid day.  I could count the instances during the day where I wanted to shoot myself in the face on one hand...that's a pretty stress free day.  The highlight of my day had to be getting a call from someone who was illiterate (or nearly so - he was trying to sound out words like he'd tried before).  He was an adult and I couldn't really say that I thought he was in any way disabled mentally by the sound of his voice.  He wanted to buy a video game system.  I thought about pointing out that perhaps he should spend his time trying to learn to read, rather than raping hookers and shooting zombies on Xbox.

Another customer didn't read an item description and was unhappy that their product was exactly as described on the product info page.  This person, however, was literate enough to construct an angry email about the item. I find it amazing that even after one of these nitwits gets something that they are unhappy with, that they do not go back to the description and at least check to see if perhaps the item was described as having the issue in question.

Oh well.  It's Thanksgiving, so I'll be taking a break from my 18 hour work day for some turkey.  So today, I'm thankful that I can read.  I'm also thankful that my wife can read and that our 5 & 6 year olds can read as well.  How is it in this country that my boys could read when they were 3 & 4 respectively, and yet a full grown adult human being can make it into adulthood through our public school system and still not be able to read?

Welcome to The Angry Etailer

I need to vent.  I've got lots of stress and some good stories...and some that are lame, but I need to vent.

I am an ecommerce entrepreneur.  I own a small company that basically sells shit online.  When I see old acquaintances, they always ask "what are you doing now?"  I really don't know how to answer that question.  My answer usually falls somewhere between "I'm an ecommerce entrepreneur" and "I sell shit online."

What do I sell?  Well, I'll try not to get too specific here - you know, protect the innocent (as well as the guilty), but currently I have five stand-alone websites selling different types of items.  We also dabble in Amazon selling a bit, for things that really don't fit our other sites.  And though I hate to admit it, our new employees train by selling on eBay.  Sorry eBay shoppers, that's what eBay has become, a place to work out the kinks in trainee's spelling, description construction, photo editing, etc.

Why am I angry?  My anger stems from a bit of exposure to massive amounts of stupidity and from the frustration that I still have to be exposed to the stupidity on a daily basis.  I'm not talking about the kind of stupidity where someone simply has a low IQ, isn't book smart or has brain damage....I'm talking about the kind of stupidity where the stupid is caused by a complete disregard for common decency, common sense and common courtesy....or vice versa.