Seller Spotlight: bushellcollectibles Many eBay sellers make a good living selling collectiblescase in point being Jeanette Bushell, who operates under the bushellcollectibles ID. Jeanette is 37 years old and lives in northwest New Jersey. Her eBay business is a part-time one; during the day she works as a business professional in Manhattan. (That's four hours of commuting every day!) Jeanette says that "coming home to eBay helps me unwind from that commute and keeps me wishing for the day when eBay is my full-time joband I don't have to take the train anymore!" Jeanette started on eBay by buying cross-stitch supplies, but didn't become a seller until about a year later. The first items she sold were cross-stitch books and kits, but then got into selling the kinds of antiques and collectibles that she'd been interested in all her life. Today she specializes mostly in vintage souvenir collectibles"the more fragile, the better." She sells items from all over the United States, often back to the town or city they came from originally. Finding collectibles to sell is part of the fun; as Jeanette says, "I live for the thrill of the hunt." She says that the best places to scour for treasures are tag sales, flea markets, thrift stores, auctions, and antique/collectible stores. She loves finding something at an antique store for a bargain price and then reselling it on eBay for a tidy profit. During her prime selling months (she tends to sit out the summer), Jeanette lists about 4060 items per month. About 45% of what she lists actually sells. She doesn't consider herself a "big hitter," but still generates between $500 and $800 a montha good second income. In addition, Jeanette supplements her eBay sales by selling in a local antiques and collectibles mall. She finds that the two channels complement each other quite well, and what she learns from one place helps her with her sales in the other. One of the nice things about selling collectibles, Jeanette notes, is that you often help people find those long-lost or broken items from their youth. She recalls the following story: "I sold to one lovely lady a Singer sewing machine pin dish. She wrote back that she had been looking for this for years, as her mother had this dish but it had been broken. When she won the dish, she was so happy to get back this happy memory from her childhood, as her mother had passed on." When it comes to selling, Jeannette says that her biggest challenge is storage space at home. All those collectibles have to be stored somewhere! She offers the following advice to prospective sellers: "Set up an eBay Store and keep a good-sized inventory, so even if you're not able to list in the auctions every week, your customers will see that you're here to stay and will keep you bookmarked to check back often. If you don't sell an item, relist at a lower price or put the item in your store. You cannot expect the person who wants your Napco turkey candle holder to be online 24/7. I have found that if an item doesn't sell the first time, sometimes it will sell a few weeks later from my store." (You can check out the Bushell's Collectibles store, shown in Figure 9.1, at stores.ebay.com/Bushells-Collectibles.) Figure 9.1. The Bushell's Collectibles eBay Store. 
Jeannette also recommends setting up an About Me page and providing some personal information about yourself. "I have received numerous emails on my About Me page alone, people who liked my cats or just the fact that I took the time to create the page and keep it updated." | 