Rolling Stones need online Market Places

How many times you have heard your parents or grandparents wistfully talking about the furniture they bought, there first (and many times only) bike or car. How all those things were not just things for them as they lived with them for so many years that they became a part of their identity! Some of the folks we knew as our parents’ friends could actually be labeled with their vehicles or clothes, because they were just there, always, never changing. You would often witness them sweating over the quality of the stuff and be extremely particular about what they were buying because it always seemed like a life time decision and hence all the due diligence was worth it. I have a chair at my parents’ place that is 40+ years old and that’s just one among many other things and definitely not the oldest. But gone are those days, I believe, and for good (both in terms of never coming back as well as this being good as a trend).

The trend is changing and the mindset is changing too and I like it. The static nature of life is giving way to a more fungible and flexible mindset. The life of a job used to be 35-40 years because most of the older generation worked with government or government like private companies. People would often stick to their hometowns as much as it was possible. It wasn’t uncommon for people to pass up promotions just to be able to stay in the same place. Having this set up, it made some sense to invest a lot of time and attention in setting up your house as you were doing it once forever but not so any more. This generation isn’t sticking to jobs or cities or countries or marriages (not good!) for too long, so it is only natural to adjust the rest of our habits accordingly.

I am not one of those who fall in love with their stuff. I hold all the stuff of life at a distance and a strong believer of buy and sell approach. I think finally, the world is now coming to a place which I feel more comfortable with. There is a great second hand online market and you don’t have to spend a bomb or weeks finding the right stuff for you. You just have to log in, browse through the ads and voila, you are done.

Many years ago when I moved to Bangalore, even when I could have transported some stuff at my new employer’s cost, I decided to take only what I could with me on the flight. Coming here, a lot of weekends were spent in finding the right shops and then one by one I got things and buying after marriage is a totally different ballgame that I won’t even venture to discuss today. So, for my bachelor setup, I had to go for new stuff, because there was no reliable marketplace that I could use to buy decent goods at decent price. The world today is so much better though.

We are rolling stones and we are not looking to gain moss, we find our freedom and salvation in online marketplaces!

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