4 Interesting Nuggets of UsedEverywhere Information

Working at UsedEverywhere for the past year has opened my eyes in a way to the vast scope of the Internet. For many, including myself, it’s the future of newspaper. We get up in the morning and surf our favorite websites with a cup of coffee and a bagel, but we don’t necessarily think about all of the other people who are doing the exact same thing. I didn’t at least, until I saw just how many people browse and post ads on our site, and we’re just a small slice of the Internet pie. Below are a few facts about UsedEverywhere.com in 2010 that I hope will blow your mind to the extent that they did mine, or at least just make you think a little. Enjoy.

4) The top 3 most searched words in 2010 were:

1. Free – Everyone likes free stuff and many of you were searching for it. What most people don’t seem to know is that you can see everything that’s listed as “free” on our site with the click of a button. Check out our Advanced Search Options tutorial from way back when.
2. iPhone – It’s no surprise that in 2010, the year of the iPhone 4, everyone was out to get a piece of the Apple pie. Our website happened to be a platform for the selling and reselling of the coveted product, which was the second most searched term across Canada and the UK.
3. Ps3 – The Playstation 3 was released in 2006 at an incredibly high price-point and with only a small selection of games. It may have had a slow start, but in the last year or two it has gained the traction that it needed to (arguably) outperform its competitors. On our sites at least, the Ps3 is the third most searched word.

3) The Most Viewed ad of the year is:

This poor gent is still looking for his dog. Almost a full year and 61,262 people later he’s still trying. Kudos to Neil for not giving up.

2) The most expensive car posted in 2010 goes to:

1) The total value of goods sold on UsedEverywhere.com in 2010 was:

$5,031,628,792 (that’s over 5 billion dollars, didn’t you know)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Customize Your Own Holiday Paper

Last week Andrea impressed with a creative little customized gift box. I really liked that you could rip a page out of just about anything you could find, from National Geographic or Adbusters to a clipping from your local newspaper. Then I got thinking, how could you do the same for all of your holiday gifts? The answer that I found wasn’t necessarily orignal, but it’s something that my family hadn’t done before. You see, we would end up buying several rolls of expensive paper and in the end, everyone’s gifts would look the same. I never complained about it at the time, but it would have been so nice to get something that was created just for me.

So here’s an idea for customized wrapping paper that I’m sure has been done a thousand times before, but that I nevertheless found inexpensive and endearing.

Step 1) Supplies You’ll Need:

• Craft Paper – I found a huge roll of brown craft paper at the local post office for $5, you’ll be able to too. It’s about 10 times larger than your average wrapping paper and 10 times cheaper. This will last you through Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.
• Sharpie Pen – Simple enough, right? There’s really all the room in the world to play around with your weapon of choice. Crayons, pencil, markers, whatever.
• Tape – For wrapping purposes of course.
• Gifts!

Step 2) Wrap Your Gift

You’ve done it year in and year out, so I won’t go over the basics of gift wrapping. The important thing to keep in mind here is that you want to wrap before you draw. Placement is everything and you’ll have a tricky time lining up your swords and princess dresses if you do it in reverse.

Step 3) Draw, Paint, Sculpt, Sketch.

Ok, we sort of cheated on this one. Alfie happens to have a Graphic Designer brother, so we pulled him in for some wrapping paper handy-work (check out Ryan’s other work at www.designrb.ca, it’s definitely worth a look). You certainly don’t need a professional to do the deed. In fact, rough sketches and bad drawing can be even more endearing. The goal here is to pick up a utensil and try your best (and no one said tracing is a sin).

Step 4) Present the Presents

When it comes time to reveal your masterpiece, present the gift to your kids, significant other, or whomever and take note of their reaction. If all goes well, they’ll spend just as much time admiring the box as what’s inside.

If you’re feeling adventurous and you’d like to try it yourself, take some shots and send them in (michaelc@usedeverywhere.com). I’ll post whatever I get on the blog to inspire the next group of DIYers.

Buying Gifts – New or Used?

We seem to be talking a lot lately about buying gifts for Christmas and whether it’s OK to buy used (pre-loved) ones or even new ones from a Used site.  Here are my thoughts on the subject if the recipient is not a close friend or family member:

1. Buy only new and unopened items. I’ve bought new items (hostess gifts and presents for children I don’t know well) from UsedVic to stock my “I forgot to buy a gift and we’re due at the party in 1 hour” box.  These are small items that I like to keep on hand for last minute events or poor planning on my part.  This box is stocked with those nifty one-of-a-kind $10 items – like candle holders, seasonal platters and kid-crafty things. The Used sites also have lots of ads for homemade and handcrafted items that make great gifts.
2. If asked don’t hide the fact that you bought the gift from a Used site.  Besides, why is this any different than buying a item on sale?  Or buying something from the “Clearance” section at PotteryBarn.com.  Something has to be pretty fantastic for me to pay full retail price – gift or not. Like the fabulous must-have leopard print Calvin Klein coat I bought a couple of weeks ago.  I paid full-price but from a discount store, so that’s kind of like getting it on sale.
3. If you think the recipient would be offended, don’t do it. Err on the side of caution.  But I personally wouldn’t be buying gifts for someone who’d get her panties in a twist over a gift purchased through classifieds instead of a major department store.  My kind of person appreciates the thought and the deal.

If the gift is for someone you know well, a used (and maybe imperfect) gift is perfectly acceptable.  I do it all the time.  In fact a gentleman bought our old BBQ to give to his son for his Birthday.  He was going to replace the burner and tadaa! – a perfectly good BBQ.  He bought it from us for $20 and the burner cost another $40 so I think that’s a win/win/win.  His son gets a BBQ, he didn’t pay retail, and it’s not growing moss and housing a family of rats our deck.

Used sites are a great resource for buying electronics for my kids.   I know those gifts will be lost/broken/eaten/melted long before they die of natural causes - so I can’t justify spending a lot of money on them.  That 5 year-old iPod that looks like it got ran over by a car is perfectly fine for my kids.  I’d rather pay $20 and know that I’ll likely be replacing it within 6 months than spend $220 and have the kids so scared they might break it that they don’t even use it.

My friends and family expect things from UsedVic.  They love the kooky gifts I find – like the Margarator from the summer of 2009.  The Birthday hamster for my daughter.   The Birthday TV for my husband.  The DS, the DS games, the model cars, skis…all gifts for friends and family.  If anything it takes more time and thought to search out the perfect gift from a Used site than it does to go to the nearest Future Shop.  It’s more fun too!

The "Merry" Useful Postcast #3

Take three avid UsedEverywhere users, who also happen to work for UsedEverywhere; throw them into a room together and what do you get? A lot of insight.

This month we talk about what the seasons is really all about and, is it o.k. to by used christmas gifts? Plus, We’re asking for guests. Want to be on the next podcast? Or just have some questions we can tackle on the next podcast? Post in the comment section we’ll take a gander.

Click on the purple play button below!

DIY gift bag for small things

I am not very good at wrapping gifts. I always seem to cut too much paper, or worse, not enough. My corners get all wrinkled as I’m folding them down, and somehow the tape always gets stuck to my fingers. This is why I am a big advocate of The Gift Bag. Big or small, round or square, the gift bag solves all kinds of gift-wrapping dilemmas, especially for people like me. I can shove almost anything in a gift bag, throw some tissue paper on top, and the end result will end up looking pretty nice.

Also: I am a frequent gift-bag reuser. I believe – as long as a former recipient’s name isn’t inscribed on any kind of tiny matching card – that it is an acceptable practice.

There are, however, times that I have a tiny present to give and no appropriate bag to be found anywhere in my household. Let’s say I have a small holiday gift to give and I only have a giant “WELCOME BABY” bag on hand. See the problem? It will look totally stupid. And sometimes I don’t want to jump in the car and rush to the store to pay through the nose for something that costs 30 cents to make.

That’s why it’s good to know how to make Small Gift Bags for Small Things. This little trick has saved the day on several occasions, and it’s easy enough for kids to do too.

All you need is:

• a magazine (just make sure the kids know that you must have read it first)
• scissors or an x-acto knife
• clear tape

Grab the magazine and slice out a full page. I went with an old Canadian Geographic, but anything will do. (Old art, photography, and graphic design magazines are perfect for this kind of thing.)

Fold page in half as shown below:

Cut out the corners as shown. Tape the very bottom long edge as well as the one open side.

Turn it upside down and gently poof it out with your hand. Finish the bottom of the bag by carefully taping up the openings that were created when you cut the corners.

You will have to do a bit of folding to get the sides right. Try to shape it like the brown lunch bags of days gone by, so keep that in mind as you go.  It should end up looking like this:

And there you have it! A tiny bag of your very own! You can use it to package up a million little tiny things. We’ve used them to transport pretty Christmas decorations bought as thank you gifts, tiny toys and trinkets for a little friend’s birthday, candies for neighbors… the possibilities are endless. Let us know if you try it out!

Selling on our Facebook Page

Since the inception of the UsedEverywhere Facebook Page there have been people posting their goods for sale on our wall. Fair enough, I say. We’re an online classifieds site, so why wouldn’t you be able to hawk your wares wherever we are on the net?

There are a few complications however, when it comes to posting on Facebook as opposed to your local Used site. For example, when you post to one of our sites, you are bound by our ad placing requirements. In other words, we won’t let you post an ad if you don’t include the necessary information (ie: price, location). On Facebook, you can post whatever you want in whatever format you want. What we’ve seen so far is that a lot of people are forgetting to post their price and/or location, which sort of defeats the point, don’t you think?

Another concern is that our Facebook Page is for everyone from Victoria to Ottawa, from the U.K. to Australia. Even though there is a select group of people from your city that may be interested in what you have to offer, there are a lot of people who aren’t. With all of this in mind, we need your help to decide how to handle all of these ads. Here are the options that we’ve come up with. Let us know what your vote goes to in the comments below.

Option 1) Allow ads that include an item description, location, and price, while deleting ads that are incomplete or that contain personal information such as phone numbers and/or email addresses (just looking out for you!).

Option 2) Delete all ads posted to our Facebook Page. No exceptions.

Option 3) Don’t mess with it. People will post what they want to post and ignore what they want to ignore.

Your opinion matter. Post it in the comments section!

Where Do You Find Your Holiday Trinkets?

The other day our office was invited to join a “pod decorating contest.” We were told that we had 2 hours to glitz up our space with whatever trinkets, bibelots, and gimcracks we could find. Everything seemed simple enough until… wait, I don’t even know where to find baubles, gewgaws, and trifles, let alone trinkets, bibelots, and gimcracks. Where does one even start!?

Growing up I celebrated Christmas with my family, and over the years my parents built a large and eclectic ensemble of ornaments. We had small German dolls from my grandparents, cinnamon sticks from the kitchen, an ugly cat that was given as a gift (and reluctantly hung every year), and an electronic Christmas tree train that I’m sure was bought to halt my tears. For better or worse, every piece seemed to have it’s place in our family history. But now that I’m on my own, am I doomed to spend the Holiday season without a collection of my own? Am I even allowed to buy ornaments in bulk? Is it kosher to buy used or do I have to wait for someone to gift me ugly cats and other miscellaneous treasures?

In the end, the Used Crew approached the situation from just about every angle. A few brought in heirlooms of their own (or in Charlotte’s case, a trunk of heirlooms), we all spruced up our computer monitors with crackling fireplaces, and Jose bartered on UsedVictoria.com for a fancy piñata. It was a hodge podge of family histories, but it certainly worked.

My question to you is, no matter what Holiday you celebrate, where do you get your holiday trinkets? And if you were to buy used, would you go for the classics or is a light-up Star Trek Enterprise more your style?