So they're threatening to slow down the post over the festive season, and that means businesses like yours losing potentially thousands of pounds from potential buyers too afraid to buy online in case their Christmas gifts fail to arrive on time. But it doesn't worry me, not personally, because my customers will still place their orders, and my customers will wait as long as it takes for their goodies to arrive.

That's because I sell collectibles on eBay and collectibles represent a product you can't always buy on the high street, not specific collectibles at any rate.

Oh yes, you'll find a few trading cards, a couple of old vases, maybe the odd Beatles single in your local charity shop, at a jumble sale perhaps, or maybe those items are up for sale at any of hundreds of auction sales taking place all over the country in the next few days or so.

However you won't find hundreds of different collectibles on your local high street today, you almost certainly won't find the one collectible that's eluded you since you started collecting umpteen years ago. But you will find most of those items on eBay, and eBay is exactly where most collectors go to add to their pile. For people like me, also my customers, buying on eBay makes much more sense than having to wait for specific collectibles to appear on the high street and without having to travel the length and breadth of the country on the off-chance of finding something suitable sometime soon.

And because it's so convenient to buy and grow a collection on eBay most people buying collectibles, also antiques and other one-off items, will remain patient during a postal strike and wait for those items to finally arrive.

There's no doubt about it, if you want to beat the postal strike, if you don't want to go bankrupt in the run up to Christmas, then you should at least consider adding collectibles to your product range.

But wait, there's another item I sell, one you can also sell, which again prompts a finger up to the postal authorities - not the postmen, I have great sympathy with them - that other item is downloadable information products and there is just one place you can sell them on eBay, namely in the Classified Ad. columns of eBay.com. I've been growing a mailing list for ClickBank products, and selling the same products straight-off-the-page through Classified Ads. on the American site since digital download products were banned from eBay UK. And I'm doing very nicely as a result, and not playing hostage to the postal authorities.

So now you have two ways to avoid losing money while the postal strikes continue - go on then, get started right away!