Following on from my struggles with a Chromebook yesterday, today (daytime actually!) I got a bit more real and took lots of pictures and inventoried stuff, effectively readying a bulk collection for an eBay listing to come. I am hoping to move out a good portion of my former eBay retail stock.

The collection will consist of 223 books, 31 DVDs and 24 vinyl LPs. This isn't an advertisement for the sale; it's rather a space for me to reflect on the matter of stuff and the financial value of stuff.

Space has some financial value and a photograph of the collection in its entirety gives you some idea of that. Five big cardboard boxes and two heavy duty bags of gear. It's the extra space that I'm after having successfully been helped to dispose of a big sofa. I'll lose some potential income from these books but they sell rarely and I'm tired of them sitting around the place. In terms of home decor, post-monster-sofa-removal I'm aiming for something in a more minimalist direction.

Here in the UK it's an odd situation. People in this area have too many books (space at a premium compared to books, I suppose). The books are donated to charity shops. Charity shops fulfil a lovely function - community hubs that warm up the high streets of our towns - and are fascinating places to browse through selling goods (books! films! music!) at generally do-able, respectable and affordable prices. While I am guessing to some extent on the lookout from the perspective of the charity shops I think they often have a problem with being given too much stock. I could ring around a few of these shops and see if anyone wants to send a van out to collect these items as donations. Maybe I should. Maybe I will give one or two a try but I would be quite surprised if a charity shop (I think they're called thrift stores in the US) would want to take these items, let alone come and collect them.

Some private sellers might be more interested potentially. I imagine I can sell this as a lot and find a buyer willing to collect. If I pick a handful of these items out what are they worth?

Blue Valentine DVD - Great film. But DVDs are very low value generally. I could buy that with a case (I think a case would be nice) for £1.78 from eBay.
Legends of United - lovely condition hardback book published in 2006. World of Books would sell me that on eBay for £3.49.
Bridgerton 3: An Offer from a Gentleman - £4.43 on Amazon or £3.89 from World of Books again (on eBay).
Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam - a small seller on Amazon is going very cheap on that at £2.97.
The record I pick out - a version of Art Tatum's 'Alone' album - I could buy on Discogs for £3.53.

That's quite interesting. That's the average kind of price we're looking at for these items if you wanted to buy one on its own off the internet - you're looking at paying between £1.78 and £3.89 for the cheapest option available. Generally about £3.00. It's a long way below what some books, records and DVDs cost but also a little above many more once-but-no-longer-popular second-hand books, records and DVDs.

I'm pleased my nemesis World of Books have come up. They go round the charity shops, buy up the bulk stock that the charity shop needs to dispose of for a small outlay, add the items to their warehouse and update their inventories on eBay and Amazon. I think that's the case. This is called... where's my Economics 101 gone?... economies of scale. That's it. It makes sense and you know, business is business.

I'm not really moaning about this. I'm not writing a tale of woe for small-time entrepreneurs like myself but I just think it's interesting. Part of it comes down to the costs of postage and dispatch. Logistics are indeed something that should be paid for. These books that I sell individually: somebody drives them up and down the country. Sometimes they are flown across oceans.

There are further interesting aspects to selling product like this. It is really only in the twentieth century that some Western countries like the UK saw a change from widespread scarcity to abundance. That's very likely an over-simplification of events but I'm sort of familiar at my age with at least the idea of families helping younger members by having a spare set of blankets and quilts or extra furniture that might come in handy in a new home. Something like that.

Nowadays we're quite well up on being sold the latest new gadget/toy that does much the same as the older model. I research this just a tiny bit because I have forgotten the term. The term I am looking for is planned obsolescence. I equate that phrase with things being made to break within five years. It is very hard to believe this doesn't go on in industrial capitalist societies. The Wikipedia definition of the term is slightly hazy but "a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design" is what I am referring to.

The history I read on the Wikipedia page suggests that the concept goes back far longer than I suspected. "In 1924, the American automobile market began reaching saturation point." A century ago, companies such as Ford and General Motors were wrestling with how to sell new cars to people who already had cars. I have gone on for some time now. It's interesting, I think.

A 1923 Chevrolet, courtesy of Wikipedia. Housed in the National Road Transport Hall of Fame in Alice Springs, Australia. At least I don't have one of these in the garage to clear out!