Birth of an eBay Business – How It Happened Quite by Accident (Chapter 1)

Today, when I handed Prince, our local USPS mail carrier, four packages from the previous weekend’s internet sales, I thought about how in the span of two years an accidental hobby became a real ecommerce business. How was it possible that in the midst of a recession and an economic meltdown my sister and I stumbled upon and built a successful eBay business in spite of today’s horrible economy? Answer - quite by accident. Here’s how it all started:

A little over two years ago, after an unsuccessful attempt at returning a new, never worn, tags still attached garment WITH the original register receipt to a local TJ Maxx store, I decided to see if I could sell it on eBay. My initial thoughts were, “Yeah right - fat chance. Out of the hundreds of thousands of items for sale on eBay, who would buy my one pair of fancy lace French designer panties? Wouldn’t a customer want the matching bra?” Heck I did and never found it – hence the reason for wanting to return them.

Now, my boyfriend and I had been buying original art from eBay and found the whole eBay auction experience fun and even addictive. So, with a relatively low, but good eBay feedback score, I listed the powder blue Lise Charmel lace bikini panties at a starting auction price of $9.99 (the price paid at TJ Maxx) and about eight other new but never worn or gently used items from my closet. Not really knowing anything about the wonders and pitfalls of eBay selling, I was disappointed after day six that no bids had been placed on any of my items. Then lo and behold, RIGHT before one of the auction items was to end a bid came in for an Escada blouse I had listed at $19.99. At that very moment, I was hooked like a fish!

Shortly thereafter, a bidding war ensued over the Lise Charmel panties. Then another bid came in for a pair of my Calvin Klein jeans and so on. The bids were poppin’ like popcorn. I could not move away from my computer. I was refreshing and reloading the page like a crazy person. I was so ecstatic with the return on my initial investment and with all eight items selling. The panties ending up selling for $19.99 double (cha-ching) the price I had paid at TJ Maxx. And just like that – quite by accident, TJ Maxx’s return policy had in essence and unfortunately for them, created a new eBay seller, a small time online competitor but a small time online competitor who would soon offer international shipping. Upon this realization, I knew right then and there that an untapped and potentially lucrative business was inside our closets. Yes, the world is flat, especially when it comes to online shopping.

Now of course, we quickly learned just because it’s in your closet and already paid for, you have to take a picture, write a description, research comparable items to ensure appropriate pricing, answer buyer questions, package the item, ship the item, be able to track the item, etc. In short, it had become an unofficial business, but expenditures needed to be made and we now needed to make long-term official business decisions, including whether or not to become an official business.

We also realized after a couple of months of selling on eBay, that our pricing was ridiculously low (fake or fire sale is what customers tend to think) and offering free shipping was not a sustainable or smart business practice. It wasn’t smart because we were paying more in eBay fees, PayPal fees and shipping costs than we were in putting cash in our pockets. (Lesson Learned) Even though our initial selling inventory was from cleaning out our closets and listing our designer clothes, eBay sales were increasing to a point where it was no longer a fun little hobby. Instead, it had become a full-fledged business requiring a lot of time, attention and resources.

To be continued…