Using an eBay Trading Assistant to Sell Your Stuff

First, get a good amount of experience selling your own stuff - collectibles
you have around your home & 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 point of view and to build up your feedback. Of course, to
be a registered eBay TA, you must meet the requirements.

AM I A REAL BUSINESS?

ABSOLUTELY! We full-time TAs probably work more hours than our friends who
have "real jobs" do. We're entrepreneurs! We have systems in place
to take photos, do research, write descriptions, do our accounting, package
and ship, etc. We treat our clients and buyers with kindness and professionalism.
We collect sales tax when we must. We are licensed as our governments require.
We don't have time to watch the neighbor's kid just because we're home - we're
at our home office and work is what we do in our REAL JOB!

HOW DO YOU FIND CLIENTS?

As
with most businesses, finding clients is crucial to your success. You may first
approach friends and family who have items they'd like sold - ONLY IF you and
they can maintain a professional relationship (ie: get paid for your time, have
a contract).

When I first started TAing, I made up some business cards & brochures about
what services I'd provide and my fees. My partner and I went to many businesses
(cold calls) which we thought might have the types of items we could sell on
eBay - collectibles, antiques, electronic equipment. Out of the 18 businesses
we visited on our first "run", we acquired 7 new clients. We got a
couple clients by talking up our business to friends and associates. Our biggest
client (thankfully) overheard me telling someone about our biggest eBay success
to that point and she tracked me down. (I tell EVERYONE what I do...or at least
tell someone loud enough so eavesdroppers will follow me out the door and ask
for a card.)

I do a press release when something occurs which I feel may be of interest
to the local media - we're 3 for 3 on press release success - all 3 have brought
us new clients.

AND, of course, I'm listed on eBay's TA directory. Your TA listing should be
comprehensive and very professional - I suspect I'm the most successful TA in
Tucson because our directory listing is more professional than others'. (Okay,
I'm cocky, too - but that helps exude confidence to potential clients!<G>)

I've not done any newspaper or flyer advertising thus far, but I certainly
expect to when things slow down for our biz. I imagine I'll put a small display
ad in our neighborhood paper to start when the time is right.

CONTRACT

Having a contract with your clients protects both of you and contributes to
your professional appearance. There are probably as many contracts as there
are TAs, so you'll have to modify yours to fit your business. A copy of my contract
is here. Sure, my contract is quite lengthy, but
I want all bases covered in my business dealings.

FEES

How
much should you charge? First, consider how long it takes you to do each of
the necessary tasks related to listing an item and know how much you want to
make per hour. Do you want to charge your client for the eBay and any paypal
fees in addition to your own fees or will you include them in your fees? (I
find it's less confusing for the client and less nit-picking work for me to
include those fees in my own.) Should you charge a setup/listing fee regardless
of the item's possible sale? Should you have a flat rate or graduated ones?
My usual fees are here.

On occasion, I've had a client with many items which I've been certain will
sell on eBay. I've charged them a flat commission rate with no setup fee. I've
also listed a home under eBay's real estate ad format. For that, I charged a
flat fee based on the amount of time I estimated it would take me to shoot &
optimize photos, write up the description, create web pages on my site and deal
with all the email.

KEEPING TRACK

Again, there are probably as many ways to keep track of your eBay clients,
sales and buyers as there are TAs. I use BTPro (eBay's Blackthorne Pro) to create
and upload my auctions to eBay, to track auction activity and to email high-bidders.
I handle all my consignment tracking and reports in BTPro. (See this ebay
workshop I presented on using BTPro for consignments. An auction management
program, such as BTPro, will save you much time over using a listing program
or eBay's Sell It Yourself (SIY) form, sending our emails one-by-one and other
activities. (I have a BTPro Quick Start Guide here.)

INTERNAL FORMS

We have a form we've created to use when we pick up items from a client. We
make 2 copies of such forms - one for us, one for the client. Our "consignment
log" looks like this:

Granted, there's not enough room on the above form for details about the items.
So, we have a description form which includes spaces for all the details about
each item.

ADVERTISING/MARKETING MATERIALS

A business
card is a must! Have many with you always - and give 'em out to anyone who shows
the slightest interest. Someone who received a card from you 6 months ago may
still call.

A brochure outlining your services and fees can be given to or mailed to prospective
clients. It's worth your time and money to produce very professional-looking
marketing materials - potential clients will judge the "book" of your
business by the "cover" of your materials.

A flyer should also be professional, even if you're only going to post it in
your local library - you want clients who want to deal with a real business,
not a fly-by-night operation.

eBay provides some marketing materials you may use if you're a registered TA.

Another important marketing hint: Create your own brand. Get a professionally-designed
logo and put it on your listings. Have a consistent look to your auctions. The
color & design theme on this page is repeated on all our eBay listings and
this website.

GET PRESS

You've
sold a deck of cards for a client for $2500? Heck, that's news! Figure out the
angle that'll appeal to a reporter and send him a brief press release about
it. Imagine a pyramid outline for your press release. Most important feature
1st, a bit of detail, then a bit more. If I were to write up such a press release
about that, it would look something like this:

Press Release

Deck of Cards Sold on EBay for $2500!

Tucson eBay seller, GOing1nceLLC, sold a 100-year old deck of cards on
eBay for a local client for $2500. The Boman deck of cards features hand-colored
images of Swedish royalty. According to the eBay buyer, a Norwegian cards
collector, a Boman deck has not been offered for sale anywhere in over 27
years. Several bidders from around the world contacted GOing1nceLLC throughout
the auction.

GOing1nceLLC, eBay Trading Assistant, started the bidding at $19.99.
Neither they nor their client suspected they had such a collectible deck of
cards. GOing1nceLLC (going1nce.com) has been in business for 2 years, selling
items for local individuals and businesses on eBay. Sally Milo of GOing1nceLLC
has managed the eBay auctions for Arizona Stamp & Coin since 1999.

-30-

Sally Milo may be reached at Sales@GOing1nce.com or at 520-555-5555.

You want to tantalize the reporter and give him just enough info to use the
text as is, but provide your contact info in case he wants more details.

Okay, you didn't sell a $2500 deck of cards? Did you just open a drop-off location?
Got a new client who wants you to sell the estate of her celebrity relative?
Nope? You know eBay really well? At least drop the reporter an exciting-sounding
release about what you know - offer to be the reporter's expert when he wants
some eBay info. Find your angle and MILK IT!

PHOTOS & SCANS

We shoot
photos of all items that aren't flat & small enough to fit on the scanner.
I made up a 30"x30"x30" table-top photo studio out of pvc pipe
with white fabric on 5 sides to diffuse lights.

After shooting the photos, I open them up in Photoshop & create a montage
of all images of one item into one larger jpg. I adjust color and brightness
as needed. I also put our logo on the jpg.

We host our photos on our website. eBay's picture service limits you to a certain
size and just doesn't provide as good quality as you can do by yourself. For
a few bucks a month, you can use a photo host service which will give you enough
space for a couple thousand images. PictureStorage.net and P