Secrets of the eBay
Secrets of the eBay
Secrets of the eBay
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218 <strong>Secrets</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>eBay</strong> Millionaires<br />
do everything myself. I can’t do that anymore. We have two full-timers and<br />
several part-timers wandering around our warehouse at any one time.”<br />
His wife Linda and <strong>the</strong>ir two children might also be found helping with<br />
packing and shipping. “Finding time for your family is <strong>the</strong> hardest part <strong>of</strong><br />
running your own business. People talk about how wonderful it is, doing<br />
what you really like what you do, but keep in mind that you are going to<br />
spend a lot <strong>of</strong> time doing it. I work 70 hours a week; I love it, I involve<br />
my family too. My wife has started her own business on <strong>the</strong> side, and she<br />
will occasionally help with shipping or whatever she can do to bring our<br />
family toge<strong>the</strong>r. My four-year-old is all over this place. We use a third-party<br />
company that gets mail every day. They do all our shipping. We pack it up<br />
and put labels on it, <strong>the</strong>y insert it into <strong>the</strong> post <strong>of</strong>fice system.”<br />
Most big-time <strong>eBay</strong> PowerSellers use some kind <strong>of</strong> selling tools to<br />
expedite <strong>the</strong> management <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir sales. Many start with <strong>eBay</strong>’s own Selling<br />
Manager or Turbo Lister. The most successful sellers move beyond s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
that is available “<strong>of</strong>f <strong>the</strong> shelf.” They hire a programmer who creates<br />
s<strong>of</strong>tware that is customized for <strong>the</strong>ir own business. David Hardin (see<br />
Chapter 7) uses custom s<strong>of</strong>tware in his various shoe stores on <strong>eBay</strong>. So does<br />
ExpressDrop (also pr<strong>of</strong>iled in Chapter 7). And so does Kevin Harmon.<br />
“At first, I was using <strong>eBay</strong>’s tools—we still use Turbo Lister, in fact. As<br />
we grew, I moved to my own s<strong>of</strong>tware; we developed s<strong>of</strong>tware that can launch<br />
and manage auctions (see Figure 11-3). We are plugged in directly to <strong>eBay</strong> at<br />
this point. Our applications send data to <strong>eBay</strong> behind <strong>the</strong> scenes. To grow to<br />
a modest level, and bigger, <strong>of</strong>f-<strong>the</strong>-shelf tools work up to a certain point.”<br />
As you can see from Figure 11-3, Inflatable Madness’s development arm, Rook<br />
Technologies, is a Certified Provider with <strong>eBay</strong>: a company that has been licensed<br />
to use its application programming interface (API), so its own s<strong>of</strong>tware can connect with<br />
<strong>eBay</strong>’s databases directly. You can find more about <strong>the</strong> Certified Provider program at<br />
http://developer.ebay.com/certifiedprovider.<br />
“I Never Buy Anything Unless<br />
I Research It First on <strong>eBay</strong>”<br />
Looking ahead, Kevin Harmon strikes a cautious note. He indicates that in<br />
<strong>the</strong> future, he isn’t going to expand his business as quickly as he did over<br />
<strong>the</strong> past few years.<br />
“I would advise new sellers to not even bo<strong>the</strong>r to start an <strong>eBay</strong> business<br />
if you can’t find things to sell on <strong>eBay</strong>. Sourcing <strong>the</strong> product is <strong>the</strong> most<br />
important thing you can do on <strong>eBay</strong>. If you can find something that is rare<br />
and unique, <strong>the</strong>re are so many things out <strong>the</strong>re that you can sell. You have<br />
a big personal advantage: Before you buy on <strong>eBay</strong>, research it. I never buy
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