So You Want To Be An eBay Trading Assistant?

First things first -- this is not a definitive guide to Trading Assistant super stardom. Following exactly in my footsteps is not likely to gain you anything except the ability to walk exactly as I do... and that ain't always pretty.

This lens is meant to be is a narrative, humorous if I'm lucky, informative if I do well, of my journey from simple buyer to Trading Assistant. I'll share some of my better decisions and some of my more interesting mistakes.

I cannot tell you if being a Trading Assistant is for you - only you can determine that. What I can do is try to relate some of what I went thru on my journey. Your journey is sure to be different, but that's the best part!

So pull up a chair (what? you're already sitting? Good!) and relax... because in the words of that really wise person who's name I can't recall: What A Long Strange Trip It's Been!

My online experiences started in high school, in the mid 70's, continued thru college, and on into my first career as an IT Consultant. Then came The Internet and everything started to change.

Buying and selling online was nothing new - I'd been doing in on various BBS networks for years, buying new(er) parts for the PCs I was building and selling off the parts I didn't need. When the Internet first showed up, I really didn't pay that much attention - I was quite happy where I was!

Then someone told me about this new trading site called EBAY - said you could find some pretty good deals there. So, along with needing to be able to look up documentation for all the old(er) components I was buying, I thought it was about time to give this Internet thing a try.

1997 saw me finally creating a permanent ID on eBay - my earlier IDs got lost in the shuffle thru various ISPs. What I found was a great place to buy all kinds of things - not just PC stuff, but collectibles as well, stuff from way back when I was a kid!

It was in 1999 that I was officially Hooked. I was gassing up my car and noticed some interesting Pepsi bottles in the station - Elvis on one side, the Pepsi logo on the other, and a glass bottle to boot! So I bought a few... two for my Pepsi collection, two for my parents who were fans of Elvis. No biggie, right?

When I got home, I was curious to see if these bottles were on this new eBay site. What I found set my course for my next career: These exact Pepsi bottles were being sold on eBay for $15 or more... PLUS shipping! I had paid just 99 cents plus local sales tax!

When all was said and done, I had purchased 5 cases of 24 bottles each (120 bottles total) and sold around 50 of them... paying for all the bottles and putting some nice change in my pocket in the process.

And I was officially HOOKED.

(What happened to the rest of the bottles? Some became gifts, but most are just waiting... waiting for the right price for a true Elvis collectible, sold by the original purchaser, shipped from Memphis. What collector could resist that? Besides, there were some 10,000 bottles produced... and I need more of them to get lost, broken, or thrown away to make mine more valuable! :) )

That simple influx of cash was the start... with that I started buying a great many interesting things... and soon my wife noticed the missing funds in the family checkbook. Oh yeah.

From that point on, any BUYing on eBay had to be funded only with the proceeds of my SELLing on eBay. My wife figured this would be a good way to clear out a lot of my "stuff" (I'm an incurable pack rat). Boy was she wrong...

What I soon discovered were two things:

#1 - I had a knack for selling. I may not have always gotten top dollar, but I did better than average at getting things sold.

#2 - There were other people who had things to sell that would pay me to sell their stuff!

Put the two together and it's easy to see where I was headed... straight into consignment sales, what eBay terms a Trading Assistant.

I started out selling accumulated PC parts from my own supplies, then selling parts for my employer. Contract Programmer by day, eBay Trading Assistant by night -- and I loved it!

Eventually I moved into selling for other companies my boss owned - office supplies, printer supplies (ink jet cartridges were always good sellers)... anything else that came thru the office that needed to go elsewhere. I even sold things that some of our customers wanted to get rid of... definitely a big step up!

Along the way I learned a few things:

Keep Your Inventory Firmly In Hand. Several lucrative contracts slipped away because I did not get the client to a) sign the contract and b) turn over the inventory. One contract I sorely miss was three pallets of HP laser printer cartridges. With an MSRP of around $150, and a "sell these for $50" client request, I was pretty sure these were going to be a winner. Until I came back to pick them up and found them all gone!! The owner, my client, had gotten a better offer from someone else and shipped everything out!! Potentially $1500 commission for me... gone... just like that!

Lesson: Get that contract signed, and while the contract may allow the owner to cancel the deal, there should be an early termination fee to cover your time and expenses.


Not Everything Will Sell. I have a collection of 'stuff' that needs to be just given away - items that were consigned for sale and never did... and then the clients don't want them back. Now, I could just throw them out, but the 'green' part of me has a problem with that. So eventually they will end up on FreeCycle and find new homes elsewhere.

Lesson: Define what will happen to the items consigned up front, as part of the contract, and secure a Listing Fee Deposit if you have even an inkling of a feeling that these items may not sell.


Your Clients Don't Know Value. If you are going to be selling for consumers rather than businesses, be prepared to spend a good deal of time explaining how eBay works, how final prices are arrived at, and why not everything listing on eBay sells for thousands of dollars. Aunt Gertrude's soup bowl may be a family heirloom, but to the rest of the world is just a chipped, well used, common ceramic bowl. Not Everything Sells.

Lesson: The eBay buyers set the selling price, not you, not your client. Client expectations can be way out of line with reality, so learn to do some quick completed item searches for comparable items and prices.

One big lesson to learn: inventory to be sold can be found in the most unlikely of places.

At the start of 2003, I was a newly laid off IT Consultant, collecting unemployment, and trying to figure out how to go from Part Time T/A to Full Time Trading Assistant. Sounds easy... but it's not. Sourcing inventory is almost a full time job in and of itself -- without inventory, a T/A is just a seller wannabe.

Late 2003 I got a call from a gentleman who wanted me to sell some personal electronics for him - an old computer, a stereo, a component cassette deck... stuff like that. I almost blew him off - there was nothing in the list that would generate any real big sale, and since I was paid commission on the selling price, big items paid better than 'the small stuff'.

Then that little voice in the back of my head made a very good point: "Just what the heck else are you doing right now that's so important?" Not having a good answer, and always fearful of the voices in my head, I made the arrangements to meet with this caller and contract to sell his stuff.

Meeting day comes and I'm cooling my heels in his 'waiting area'. I'm in this big, older warehouse in a not-too-bad-in-the-daytime part of town. Interesting place, but no good magazines. Just stuff about shoes and footwear. Boring stuff.

As he's about to get off his conference call, the receptionist takes me back to a conference room. Passing his door, I notice he's a VP.... not just a manager but probably the one person in charge of the whole joint! Yikes!! I can deal with managers - 25 yrs as an IT consultant and I'd gotten pretty good at that. But VP's were always a bit more... intimidating. These people didn't work for someone... the someones worked for them!

Looking around the conference room, I see a layout for a new warehouse, more footwear magazines, and other shoe-related stuff. I'm starting to get a feel for what these folks do....

We had a nice conversation about how eBay works (educating your clients is a big part of being a Trading Assistant - seperating myth from reality for your client), how I worked, what the fees would be and who would be paying them - the whole nine yards. As we were wrapping up, I handed him a copy of my standard consignment contract (every T/A needs one!) and mentioned that there were definitions of terms on the last two pages.

He asked if I needed him to sign the contract -- I told him that for these few items, a handshake would do (TN still recognizes a 'gentlemans agreement), but that if I were to start selling for his company, that we'd have to look at a contract more seriously.

You could literally see the light bulb turning on!

He'd never considered selling his company's inventory on eBay! He asked if I thought I could sell shoes on eBay... was there a market? I smiled... one of my 'students' (I did and still do help new sellers "learn the ropes") had gone from selling 40prs of shoes a month to selling 20-30prs a DAY! Yes, there most definitely was a market for shoes on eBay!

A bit more conversation and we headed out to take a quick tour of the warehouse. He explained that the layout I'd seen was for a new warehouse they were soon to be moving into - they'd outgrown their current space. In fact, they'd outgrown the new space and were negotiating for more before they'd even moved in!

Then he showed me the problem he needed resolved: a stack of assorted shoes, new in box. Odds-n-ends, overstock -- an accumulation of inventory that would eventually either be shredded or donated to MIFA (Memphis Inter Faith Association) for distribution to local charities. They dealt in LARGE orders - these odds-n-ends were just getting in the way. So the question was, did I think I could sell them? :)

I ended up leaving with over a dozen pair of mostly New Balance ladies athletic shoes (the one brand I recognized) and selling them all that very week. Within a month I was picking up new stock weekly, within two months I'd reached Bronze PowerSeller status ($1000/month average product sales over the prior 3 months).

Over the course of the next couple of years, I reach Silver ($3000/mo average) and then Gold ($10,000/mo average) PowerSeller status. My sales continued to climb, my client continued to supply more and more stock, and my buyers continued to be very pleased.

All because I took my time to learn about selling on eBay, learned to sell for others, and happened to put a few things together and opened my mouth about selling for a client's company. (I should note here that "opening my mouth" also led to contributing to multiple eBay-related books, magazine articles, online interviews, and even a spot in a local TV new broadcast on work-at-home opportunities. Speaking up can be a good thing!)

Inventory can be found in the most interesting places. Look around... what do you see that might make for interesting eBay sales? Have you checked it out? Why not? What the heck else are you doing that more important? :)

The first thing you'll have to do it get an eBay account. They are free, require only an email address (for buyers, which is where most sellers start), and are easy to get. You'll need to think up a UserID - something catchy, something easy to remember, something you can change if you don't like it. Since you are planning to sell, I'd recommend staying away from "cool" IDs and try to come up with something that sounds more like a business and less like a hyper-active kid. :) But that's just me... :)

One of the most common questions from new eBay sellers, after "where can I find stuff to sell" is "Do I need a contract to sell for others?"

The Short Answer is "Maybe".

The Long Answer is "It Depends".

Here's what I've learned over the years, and how it applies to being a Trading Assistant:

- Most folks are honest. They're not out to rip you off or get you in trouble. They just want to get a good price for their stuff, as quickly as possible, with as little hassle as possible.

- People hear what they want to hear. If you have children, you know how this works - but for the rest of you: You're clients will stop listening when they have heard enough. This is not good, since it means they are quite likely to miss all the 'special terms' designed to keep you in the black.

- People will forget what they heard that they didn't want to hear. You could explain a rather simple point several times and still have your client come back just a few days later not understanding why you are doing what you are doing.

- Judges want to see things in writing, dated, and signed by both parties. And if it comes right down to it, a judge may very well hold your annual profits in the palm of their hand... so let's make sure what they are holding is your contract and not some scribbled notes from your disgruntled client!

AVOID VERBAL ORDERS/INSTRUCTIONS/CONTRACTS!

Some states still recognize a 'gentleman's agreement' as a binding contract, but that's no reason NOT to have a contract. Put it in writing. Black and white. Simple words. They do this, you do that. They get this, you get that. If they do this, you have the right to do this other thing.

Your contract should cover at least:
- The names of both parties. Company name and address is good. Identify one party as the consignor, the other is the consignee. I always get them confused... which is why it's spelled out in my contract! :)
- Spell out handling of the money - who gets what, who pays what, and when things happen. Define this clearly up front and stick to it! Some clients may be very laid-back about the spare change you generate for them... but all need to account for it with the IRS, as will you.
- "Cherry Picking" is a term indicating the selective removal of the best items from a large lot. Don't let your client do it without a little something for your efforts. If you receive a huge box of mixed produt, spend 1/2 day sorting and categorizing, only to have your client remove the best of the product... shouldn't you be paid for your work and the revenue they just snatched away?
- Who's possesses the product and who is responsible for it. I highly recommend you accept possession of the property to be sold and keep it under your own lock and key - keeps things from turning up missing when it's time to ship! This also means you will be responsible for it's safe-keeping... so get insurance on your consigned inventory. You may not experience theft from your garage... but what if that tree slams thru the roof and everything inside is soaked overnight by rain?

You can likely find a good consignment boilerplate (basic contract outline) online from any of a dozen places - but be sure to have it reviewed and approved by a local, licensed professional - in this case, a lawyer. Fees paid for professional services are deductable against income, and having a professional vet your terms, and suggest a few things you may have forgotten, can help keep a good year from turning into just another string of losses. Nothing ruins a good profit better than a poorly executed contract.

And remember, contracts can be amended - if you come to a new agreement with your client that would require a modification to the terms of the contract, do so. Write down the change in terms, have both parties sign and date it, and keep the original in your files with a copy going to your client for their files. Simple, and it helps avoid confusion.