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Sally Milo is a 52-year-old eBay Trading Assistant doing
business under the GOing1nceAMC ID. She makes
her living on eBay selling items on consignment for other individuals and
businesses.
Originally from Detroit, Sally now lives in Tucson, Arizona. A
graphics designer/illustrator by training, she started selling on eBay in 1999,
when a coin-collector friend asked her to manage his eBay auctions; Sally had
the computer and graphic skills that would be useful in such an endeavor. (She
continues to manage her friend's coin auctions today, under the AzBCC ID.) In March of 2003 Sally and her partner
Kyle Bennett set themselves up as eBay Trading Assistant resellers; their eBay
Store (stores.ebay.com/GOing1nceAMC) is shown in Figure 13.5.
To attract clients, Sally and Kyle started out by going
door-to-door to businesses they thought might be potential clients. Of the 18
companies they visited during their first day of cold calling, 8 of them became
clients. Sally continues to attract new clients by telling everyone she runs
into about her eBay business, and by handing out lots of business cards. She
also says that her listing in eBay's Trading Assistant directory has provided
her with several clients.
Today, GOing1nceAMC resells a
wide variety of items for their consignment customers. They've sold things as
small as a single fava bean (previously owned by a late Mafia godfather) to as
large as a several-ton manufacturing furnace. They have no restrictions on what
they'll accept on consignment, as long as it's not prohibited by eBay.
Like many Trading Assistants, Sally launched her business out
of her homealthough by the time you read this, she should have her brand-new
drop-off location open. Before she decided to go the storefront route,
everything about her business was home-based; her living room was her shipping
room and photo studio, a former bedroom was her warehouse, and a former den was
her packing materials room. Obviously, having a retail storefront will change
all that.
Sally and Kyle don't charge a set-up fee for regular items;
bidding begins at $9.99 for a 7-day auction. They also offer a premium plan for
higher-priced items, which does have a setup fee ($19.99) and begins bidding at
a higher price for a 10-day auction. The bulk of their revenues come from their
selling commissions, which start at 40% of the final selling price and operate
on a sliding scale from there.
In a typical week, GOing1nceAMC will have at least 20 items listed for
auction on eBay. They have a very high sell-through rate, selling more than 95%
of the items they listalthough some of those items sell upon relisting, rather
than during the initial auction period. During the whole of 2005 their sales
averaged from $2,000 to $4,000 per month, with sales climbing closer to $10,000
per month toward the end of the year.
Sally says that their most memorable sale
started when a long-time client asked them to list 11 old decks of playing
cards. They priced each deck from $5 to $20. One of the $20 decks was quite
nice, she remembers, but they couldn't dig up any information about them. This
particular item ended up in a bidding war among a few bidders, and ultimately
sold for $2,575. Needless to say, both Sally and the client were amazed byand
quite happy withthe final price. The buyer, a Norwegian card collector, told
them that particular deck had not been offered anywhere in nearly 30 years.
Sally has the following advice for anyone wanting to start an
eBay consignment business:
"First, get a good amount of experience selling your own
stuffcollectibles you have around your home and nifty items you picked up at the
flea market. And buy some stuff from your fellow eBayers to get an idea how
sales are handled from the customer's point of view, and to build up your
feedback. Of course, to be a registered eBay TA, you must meet the requirements.
Know and act as a professional businessperson!"
You can learn more about Sally and Kyle's consignment business
at the GOing 1nce website (www.going1nce.com). | 
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