Section 8.6. eBay B2B

8.6. eBay B2B

Most of eBay is people selling to people, or small businesses selling to individuals. The Business Marketplace, shown in Figure 8-18, is where businesses trade directly with other businesses, called business-to-business (or B2B) trading.

In fact, the Business Marketplace is still a concept in search of its identity. For a while, its name was the Business Exchange, but perhaps that sounded a little too B2B. Nothing restricts the Business Marketplace to businesses; you don't have to register or prove that you're a business to buy or sell there. The Business Marketplace page merely brings together categories that might be of interest to businesses: office products and equipment, industrial and agricultural equipment, wholesale lots, businesses for sale, and so on.

In practice, the Business Marketplace (Figure 8-18) isn't all that different from eBay's Business & Industrial category (Figure 8-19). You'll find the same subcategories on the two pages; they're just arranged a little differently.

Figure 8-18. eBay's Business Marketplace (www.ebaybusiness.com) is a showcase for categories and sellers of interest to business buyers . You can browse business- related categories or search within the Business & Industrial main category. Right-hand links (Under Services & Resources) provide information about what technical specifications mean and how to offer financing for buyers of your equipment, as well as general eBay info .

Figure 8-19. eBay's Business & Industrial category main page lists categories and their subcategories, making browsing a little more targeted than if you start in the Business Marketplace.

You can find the Business Marketplacesometimesthrough a link on eBay's home page. Because eBay is always tinkering with the site and moving things around, you might have to type the Business Marketplace's address into your Web browser to find your way there: www.ebaybusiness.com. You don't have to do anything special to list your items here; if your items are in any of the categories shown on the Business Marketplace home page (Construction, Desktop PCs, Office Products, and so on), shoppers can find them by browsing the categories from this page.

If you've got a brick-and-mortar business in addition to eBay, consider eBay as a place to sell your business's surplus equipment, goods, and office furniture. In this case, you probably don't want to mess around with shipping, especially if you're selling bulky items like desks or construction equipment. You can let buyers know you won't ship the item in step 4: Payment & Shipping of the Sell Your Item form, shown in Figure 8-20.

Figure 8-20. If you don't want to waste employee time shipping a bulky item, select "Will not shiplocal pickup only" in the Payment & Shipping step of listing the item. Giving further information in the Payment Instructions text box is a good ideafor example, telling the buyer to pick up the item between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

If eBay is your business, use the Business Marketplace to unload stock or equipment as your business grows and changes. There are always other dealers out there looking for stock, so if someone can resell something, it's business-related. When you buy new equipment for your businesswhether it's computers, phones, postage scalestry listing the stuff you're replacing if it's in usable condition. Other businesses are probably looking for just those items, so you can make a few bucks instead of paying someone to haul away the things your business no longer needs. And selling on eBay can be quicker (and cheaper) than selling through classified ads or trade journals.

Tip: If you're selling pricey business equipment, offer your buyers financing through eBay. You'll attract more bidders, get higher bids, andthe biggest incentiveif your buyer buys an item using eBay Financing, eBay waives your Final Value Fees. To become eligible to offer eBay financing, go to http://financing-center.ebay.com/ebaybusiness and click "enroll now."