The eBay Revolution!

eBay (http://www.ebay.com), the online auctioneer, is one of those spectacular online success stories that showcases the power of the Internet by allowing people to connect with each other in newer ways than possible so far. As you know well, the value of an item is in the eye of the beholder. For years, Yard Sales, Trader shows, Thrift shops and so forth have relied on that theme - and made a good living with it. eBay expands on that theme by offering a vast audience (95 million registered users and growing) - and a vast supply of items for sale.

Today, you can sell on eBay:

and anything else that catches your fancy!

Success at eBay on an ongoing basis however is as difficult as setting up your business elsewhere. But at least you have the traffic on the site (even if not to your page or listings). And that is a great place to start.

Those lovely Yard Sales
Yard Sales have a long tradition in America, and if you are a regular Yard Sale visitor, you are bound to find items that are of some real immediate value to you

• an exercise bike that your were planning to purchase
• used book that is a classic
• Those exact file folders you wanted!

and many more. eBay itself runs on that premise- one man's trash is another man's treasure.

The eBay Seller
To esablish yourself as a regular and known seller on eBay however, it is best if you establish a niche for yourself. One way to do so is to focus on an area for which you have a ready supply of goods to sell, and about which you have some knowledge. This is where the regular, local Yard Sale comes in. Certain items turn up regularly at Yard Sales:

• Used books
• Used clothing
• Jewelry trinkets (necklace, ring, earrings)
• Furniture
• And more......

Sharpen your Focus

Pick an area within these (after you have listed them all) and sharply focus on it. Perhaps you will specialize in outdoor furniture, or on used Jeans, or a special type of necklace. This will of course require you to develop some expertise in the area you choose to focus on. While choosing such an area, check on eBay for existing listings on them, and study the individuals or merchants who are selling similar products.

If you find that either there is excessive competition in that area and you don't have a differentiator for your product, or that there may be no demand at all - then strike that area out and move onto the next area. In general, it is better if there are some listings and sales in your area of interest - this indicates a healthy demand, and a potential that the eBay market will support an increase in supply.

The Art of eBay Selling
Having chosen an area, you will need to really work the Yard Sales to begin picking up the products to sell, and do so at bargain prices. So let us say you pick outdoor tables and chairs in a couple of different styles and colors. You do this based on your research at eBay where you determined that used outdoor tables and chairs sell well if they are in colors other than white. In fact if they are slightly fashionable looking, they sell even better. Your picks are based on these judgments. Now you go ahead and list these items, making sure that you have nice photographs of the items, and set a minimum price and a time limit for the bids to come in.

If no bids come in at all, you may have

• misjudged the market completely 
• badly mispriced the item
• gotten no traffic to your auction (or very little)

If your initial research was reasonably accurate, you may be stuck with issue #3, not enough traffic. Improving traffic to your listing will take a separate article in itself, but suffice to say you will need to improve the keywords that are contained in your listing so that users can search and find your listing. Looking at your competitor's listings, their traffic and keywords used (and the keywords using which their listings can be easily found) will all provide clues in improving your own listing.

After you have your first Sale (congratulations!), make sure you deliver on the goods promptly and correctly. Make sure you get a positive feedback from your satisfied customer. Feedbacks are the fuel to a seller's business. Now set up your next auction and after the sale, follow through correctly again. This builds up your credibility, and improves your own confidence in your ability to sell the items.

Back for More!
Having tested the market thus, now return to your supply chain - the Yard Sale - and look for more nuggets (i.e. more outdoor furniture that is stylish) and combining your previous experience, and your continued research on the market on what sells, list your new products and set up new auctions. Your past sales and positive feedback will help you this time around as your new products sell well again. But perhaps some of the inventory does not actually sell. You may tinker with the price a little to get rid of the inventory (as all good shopkeepers do) -otherwise you will be selling that inventory in a Yard Sale of your own!

Over a period of time you wil find yourself getting established as an "outdoor furniture" specialist - and it won't be a wrong statement either, as you would now know a lot more about these issues.

So, yes, the Yard Sale can be a source of a decent income on the side for you - but you will be limited by

• Quantity of supply
• Adequate variety in your supply
• Unpredictability of supply

You could seek to compensate for this by slowly expanding your range of items, say now including lawn chairs, garden fountains and other outdoor/garden material. Note that the recommendation is to expand to related areas, so that you can play off of your existing credibility in outdoor furniture.

Converting this steady income source into a small business however requires that the processes by ground down to a science.

• Define the catalog of items that you would specialize in.
  
• Put down in words the actual process of sniffing out the bargains at the Yard Sales that would find a ready buyer on eBay.
  
• Define the complete process of listing the item, advertising it, and making the sale!
  
• Provide clear methodologies for shipping the item and collecting your payment.
  
• How do you handle any issues? Develop your processes around that.

 

Having developed your business processes to this point, now hire some help! Get a college student or other temporary help and train them in your methods, and use their help in getting more items to list.

If you find that the selections made by your help are not quite upto par, go back and revisit your processes. You have likely missed out some important detail. Then retrain your help.

In this fashion, you will be able to scour out more valuables for those yard sales and pocket the difference! Hopefully, one day, you will have enough help to handle the entire business for you, while you move on to new adventures!

Happy Hunting!