Making money is the aim of most people in life and the world of eBay is no exception. Bargains are to be had, but it's a murky underworld of nice people and not so nice people, of dodgy cars and dodgy jewellery. Quite basically, it's the online Hookie Street. Del Boy's still spooning the latest authentic Russian dolls out of his suitcase, it's just now he takes a quick photo of them and lists them on the internet.

There is money to be made on eBay and where there's money, there's usually someone trying to make a living out of it. I thought I'd give it a go, sell some odds and ends, maybe make a few bob. Singing up is easy and before you know it, you've got you own online market place, completely free, for now.

I've heard that quite a few people become traders on eBay, it's a bit of a fad but a lot of people are very good at it. At times it's made me fairly angry. If you ring up a ticket agent after the latest Oasis date, it will probably be sold out. Go on eBay and you're confronted with bucket loads of them. Then there's the odd guy who's not just selling the one ticket but about 17 different gig passes. Either he's highly keen on gigs and has just had the misfortune of being invited to 17 different weddings, or he's trying to make money out of other people's misery.

But strictly speaking that's touting. I wasn't going to be meddling in any of that nonsense; I was simply going to be selling the odd household item. So naturally the first step involved finding the merchandise. What exactly could I sell? Luckily most people in the house were out and my pilfering would go undetected until at least a day or so after they had appeared online. I spied an almost brand new pair of trainers that were hardly ever worn, item number one, collected.

Next came a 'vintage', or holey, sports jumper that has been popularised by a few bands lately. I had a feeling this would be a winner. After that I found an antique bottle of Guinness, two pairs of hiking socks, a rucksack and a rather fetching old-school game of Monopoly. This seemed to me like an impressive collection. I was ready to go.

After a few hours of occasional protests such as "where's my lucky Guinness bottle gone?" I settled down to survey the price rises. I started all of them at bottom rate price and expected some early movement. To my dismay nothing seemed to be happening and two days went by with no bids.

The nights were long and the days were longer, I became bored, somewhat aggravated and began considering actually opening a market stall. That way I could convince people to buy my diamond wears, surely they were sought after? The final day of the auction approached and I began to give up hope. However, things were about to change.

The antique Guinness was the first of the line, quickly scrambling to £1.86 and annihilating all of the opposition. The socks also sold, for a disappointing £1.24, but it was a sale nonetheless. With minutes remaining the trainers went for just under four pounds. "Victory," I proclaimed, before totalling up my takings.

"What a glum affair!" After all my hard work, I managed to shift a perfectly good set of trainers, a few personal items and some quite good socks for around six pounds. After the fuss and effort spent posting the things I was left with enough for two beers. Take my advice, the internet bubble's burst. I'm off down the market.


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