the world of commerce is to buy and sell on
eBay.
Over a billion and a half visitors a day buy everything from real estate to comic books in this virtual marketplace.
In his excellent book The Clipper Ship Strategy, author "Uncle Eric" explains the wisdom of finding a need and then moving to be under the spout where the opportunity pours out. As jobs dry up all over the United States, Americans are fortunate that we don't have to move very far at all to tap into the economic opportunity available with eBay and you don't even need a website!
Besides the obvious potential to make money, teaching your children to use ebay effectively will show them the need to master these skills, to name just a few:
~ Typing
~ Composition
~ Market knowledge of your specialties
~ Basic HTML, if you want to get fancy
~ Geography
~ Electronic banking, if you use PayPal or other options
~ Responsibility in following through on commitments
~ Figuring rates and shipping products
~ Using your profits wisely - tithing, spending, investing
At our house, we don't give our children an allowance because we don't want them to learn to work for money. Instead, we want them to learn to be masters of their money rather than being slaves to it so we allow them different economic activities.
eBay gives them the opportunity to create money for themselves. They also learn the lesson that if you don't work, you don't get paid. It encourages their creativity because every category offers a completely new market.
To learn more about eBay, I took my 11 year old daughter and my 14 year old son to eBay University, a day-long traveling seminar eBay sponsors to teach its members how to use it better. Classes were offered for beginners or advanced students. We attended the advanced classes and learned so much, including the basics of HTML.
Click here to find out when eBay University will be in your area.
The biggest mistake I see people making with eBay is buying but not SELLING! Everyone is an expert on something and if you learn to market what you know, your profit is unlimited.
Just
a Few Stories
I found four Sue Barton nurse stories ex-library books for 25 cents each and thought I would offer them to some ladies I used to sell books to for about $5.00 each. I didn't know what the market value of them was so I thought I would put them on ebay first and if they didn't sell, then I would offer them for $5.00.
Seven days later, the four different auctions closed for a total of $186.00!
I had no idea they were collectible.
I told a friend that story and she said, "That's nothing." Her neighbor had bought a china tea cup at a yard sale and taken a picture of it to show that the rim was chipped in one place. She didn't want the buyer to be disappointed or feel misled. Seven days later, the china tea cup sold for $2,000.
The Perfect Market
Anyone can sell on eBay at any time. We have found that our books sell better on the weekends so we try to make our auctions go through at least one weekend. Others find that their products sell to business people during the week. It doesn't take long to learn your market.
And we've found that winter seems to be the best time of the year to sell because most folks are stuck in the house bored and don't want to face the weather outside to go shopping. But actually, there isn't a "bad" time to sell on eBay. There's ALWAYS millions of folks out there cruising.
To open an account to buy or sell, you must be 18 and the account must be supervised by a responsible adult. eBay has wisely built in a self-regulating accountability system with its Feedback.
For every transaction, buying or selling, both parties are asked to give feedback on the transaction. If a seller gets three negative feedbacks, they are banned from doing business. Some sellers will not even do business on higher ticket items with a buyer who doesn't have a certain number of positive feedbacks.
Every time your user ID is displayed, it is followed by your feedback number in parentheses
Our user ID is boergoatman (114) and that means that we have received feedback comments from at least 114 other eBay members.
The Feedback Rating system is easy. You receive:
+1 point for each positive comment
0 points for each neutral comment
-1 point for each negative comment
A star icon for 10 or more comments
If you click on the number inside the parentheses, you can read the feedback comments left for that user.
Users are also awarded colored stars for achieving different numbers of positive feedbacks. Click here to see what the colors represent.
Here's What We Do
My 14 year old son scans the books we sell and my 11 year old daughter types the descriptions. She also enters most of the information although much of it is remembered by the eBay system.
When they are finished, I skim the entry and hit send. Then I record the auction number in a 3-ring binder along with the title, price I paid for the item, price it sells for, cost of shipping, eBay fees, and profit. I leave about 4 lines of space to write in the buyer's mailing address and user name. To be responsible, you don't want to lose that information before the item is mailed if your computer crashes. And crashes often occur when you don't need them.
Automate it!
If life at your house is anything like life at our house, you don't need One More Thing To Do. So the easiest way to simplify the listing process is to automate it.
There are auction programs you can use that allow you to enter several auctions while you are off-line and go back to them to edit later if you want to. Then when you have them all finalized, you upload the entire list at one time and you can even stagger the ending times.
eBay's own free program is Mister Lister. Requirements to use it are that you must be a registered eBay user who meets the following requirements:
* Maintain a credit card on file with eBay or be ID Verified.
* Feedback rating of 10 or more
* Registered on eBay for 60 or more days
Auction Submit is another program many folks use.
eBay now has many other auction management tools to help sellers.
How do I get started?
Before you decide what you want to sell, buy something on eBay to learn the bidding process. Make sure you mark "Watch this auction" if you find some interesting items you might like to buy.
You can either Browse categories or Search for a specific item. Browse categories by selecting one such as Books, then Children. It will list the featured items first, then you can sort the current items by "new today," "ending today," and "going, going...".
Or you can click on Search to find something you are specifically looking for, such as "Moby Dick."
Once you've bought a few items, then ask yourself, "What do I know?"
I heard of a man who buys boxes of broken VCRs for $5.00 each, then takes them home, fixes them and sells them individually on eBay. Of course, he mentions in the descriptions that they are rebuilt.
I met a man who sold his antique mall and now sells baseball cards, Nascar memorabilia and anything else he runs across that he knows appeals to collectors on eBay.
I once bought a book from a lady in a town an hour away and had her meet my husband to pick it up and save shipping. He asked her where she had found that rare book. She told him that she had no idea what the book was. She and her friend go to yard sales, estate sales and auctions on the weekends and buy boxes of whatever they think will sell if they can get them for a fairly cheap price. Then at home, they list each item individually. At that time, they were planning to quit their day jobs. She was a psychiatric counselor.
I watched an auction for a washing machine one time just to see how successful an auction that didn't include shipping the product would be. A lady had bought a house in the Dallas area that had a new washing machine. She listed her old washer which was in perfectly good shape on ebay, stating that the buyer would have to come pick it up from her front porch because she would not ship it. She started the bidding at $5. Seven days later, it sold for about $125.
So one idea to find items to sell would be to de-clutter a few closets or that garage you can't wade through and post what you find. If you need encouragement to de-clutter, I'd like to introduce you to The Flylady. Her daily emails will crank your tractor.
To post books, you need a scanner. To post other items, you need a digital camera or a 35 mm camera (but then you have to take your pictures to be developed.)
If you don't want to spend money to buy One More Gadget, consider it an investment in your children's education. Every tool you have in your house increases your children's technological knowledge and experience.
Or, let them buy it with their money!
Set up an Account
Before you go to the ebay page to register, think of a cute user name that describes you or your family.
My son chose our name when he set up our account to buy solar panels and it has caused many folks to ask what on earth it means. (We raise boer goats - meat goats - so he called himself boergoatman.) He rarely goes to eBay now and the rest of us who do were left with his name!
You might want to skim through some auctions to see what others have chosen to use.
If you've never bought anything on eBay before and don't have an account, it is easy to set one up. Just click here , then click on "Register Now."
You might also want to set up a PayPal account because buyers are more apt to buy a product if they can pay for it quickly and receive it quickly. When we first started selling on eBay, many buyers would send us checks or money orders. Now it seems that folks want to send payment electronically. And some buyers will spend more to have an item shipped overnight than the item costs!
If you have any questions, feel free to join our ebay discussion group by clicking here.
For More Details
Get a copy of the ebook.
To see our current listings, click here.
For directions on how to post on eBay, click here.
My two ebay children and I attended eBay University in Nashville awhile back. It is a traveling seminar sponsored by eBay to teach users more about using eBay. Classes are presented by employees of eBay who actually buy and sell there for beginning students or advanced students. If this seminar comes to your area, it is well worth attending!
Click here to find out when eBay University will be in YOUR area!
