Secrets of the eBay

CHAPTER 2: Establishing Your Identity: Your Mission and Your Web Presence 31
Having a mission and a strong set of business ethics helps Shiana
succeed. Just look at the comments left on the BeadStyle Community
message boards by bead enthusiasts:
"Shiana is the primary source for Hill Tribe Silver…They
deal directly with the Karen Hill Tribe artisans, and
fairly as well!"
"I’ll put in another recommendation for Shiana – love
them! In fact, I must go order more."
"The Shiana newsletter made me rethink how I take my
nice and carpeted floor for granted. I only get my hill
tribe silver from shiana.com too; fine, fine quality!"
It’s the kind of word-of-mouth advertising that eBay sellers dream of.
Giving back and helping others has always been an important mission of eBay
and part of the eBay community; many sellers are finding that adding a charity
component to their auction sales has some important side benefits. Aside from
helping others, sellers often find that they get more attention for their sales and
often receive more bids when part (or all) of the profits go to a charitable cause.
You’ll find a more detailed discussion of the different options available for
conducting charitable sales and nonprofit fundraisers on eBay in a book called
Fundraising on eBay: How to Raise Big Money on the World’s Greatest Online
Marketplace. It’s written by Greg Holden and Jill Finlayson, and also published by
“One Thing Led To Another”: How eBay Helps Preserve a Way of Life
“If you ask me how this got started, I wouldn’t really know exactly what led us here,” says
Pam Thien. “It was a natural desire to help that got my dad working and our natural role as
his children to want to help as well. One thing led to another and we find ourselves here.”
Paul Thien was originally trained as a Buddhist monk. In the 1970s, he worked as a
traveling pharmacist, delivering medicine to healthcare facilities that provided medical care
to small villages around the Thai countryside. The Karen are the largest of several tribes
that live in Thailand. Although there are many Karen villagers in Thailand, only one village
makes the silver. Around that time, this particular village was considered “forest people”
and had no regular income. They practiced logging and occasionally farmed illicit crops.
When the King of Thailand discovered what was happening, he and the queen visited the
Karen to encourage them to find another way of life. The Karen began producing silver
beads using melted-down coins. But they couldn’t find buyers for their work, and they
returned to farming and logging.
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