EBay University teaches prospective sellers tricks of the trade.

Follow us on

EBay University teaches prospective sellers tricks of the trade.

By CATHY JETT

Date published: 10/16/2004

By CATHY JETT

Jim Frago works full time as a consultant, but wants to start a part-time business to build a nest egg for retirement.

Charles L. C'DeBaca just sold one successful business and is casting about for the next.

And Anita Arms has a lot of collectibles sitting in her attic that she wants to sell.

Opportunity, all three said, could be just a mouse click away on the Web site of the 11th-largest retailer: eBay.

To find out how to get started, they joined more than 200 people earlier this week for one of six free eBay University "7 Days to Cash Flow" seminars at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington.

Run by Jack Brannelly, a Salt Lake City lawyer turned eBay Power Seller, the sessions were part information and part infomercial for a $1,249 workshop on how to build a business on the e-marketplace giant.

An eBay-based business can be lucrative, he told the curious crowd. Its 114 million users already have racked up $40 billion in sales so far this year, and about 430,000 of them earn their living selling online full time.

The beauty of eBay, Brannelly said, is that it doesn't take much to get started. More than 80 percent of novice sellers begin by posting things they find around the house, pick up at yard sales or buy at closeout sales, according to a Nielsen poll commissioned by eBay.

One seller, for example, listed a souvenir purchased while on vacation as a "Rare Alaska Starbucks mug" and made a tidy profit, he said.

"Once you start selling on eBay, vacations are no longer vacations, they're 'product prospecting trips'--and you can use them as a tax deduction," Brannelly said.

Money from initial sales can be used as startup capital to buy items at dozens of places that sell at wholesale or below, such as Costco or even eBay itself, Brannelly said.

"Some serious sellers look under [the eBay Buy listing for] 'Wholesale, bulk lots' and buy whole pallets," he said. "They use them to make gift baskets and things like that."

The most popular items are no longer collectibles, which made up 60 percent of eBay's business when it started in 1995. Now they're the so-called "practicals," or practical items people need, Brannelly said.

Date published: 10/16/2004