Seller Spotlight: rosachs There's money in shoes. Well, not literally inside the shoes, but rather in selling themas eBay seller rosachs knows quite well. Rosachs is Robert O. Sachs, a sellerlocated in Memphis, Tennessee. He sells shoesand lots of themin eBay auctions and via his eBay Store, My Discount Shoe Store (stores.ebay.com/My-Discount-Shoe-Store), shown in Figure 10.1. Figure 10.1. Items for sale at My Discount Shoe Store. 
Bob got started selling on eBay when his wife started complaining about his growing collection of "stuff." Like most of us, Bob's first sales were those items lying around the house that he didn't really need. When he got into collecting (and buying and selling) limited-edition Pepsi bottles, he was hooked. Today, Bob is a bulk reseller of overstock shoes of all styles and sizes, and as he'll freely tell you, it's a hot category. He reached Bronze PowerSeller status after just two months of selling shoes online, and his sales keep going up month after month. (He's since reached Silver PowerSeller status.) Bob got into the shoe biz as an offshoot of his ongoing Trading Assistant business. He received a call from a gentleman who wanted him to sell some old personal electronics items, and when he went to pick up the merchandise, Bob discovered that the man worked for a shoe wholesaler. One thing led to another, and before long, Bob had signed an agreement to sell this company's excess stock on eBay. Bob's been at it for over three years, and he's now up to $6,000 in monthly sales. What's unique about Bob's business is that while he's selling in bulk, he's not always buying in bulk. In most cases, he's actually selling on consignment for the shoe wholesaler. This arrangement relieves Bob of any financial obligation, since he doesn't have to buy the products he sells. It's a good example of how many eBay sellers operate under a blend of different business models. Bob does buy some merchandise in bulk, howeverand passes on some, as well. He told me how he once received an offer to buy 144,000 pairs of new overstock shoes from an overseas manufacturer. (That's a lot of shoes!) Bob had never heard of these particular shoes before, so he did a little research. He found that dozens of these shoes were listed every day on eBay, yet only one or two pairs were sellingand they weren't bringing the best of prices. Bob did a quick estimate of how many of these shoes he could reasonably expect to sell per week, and discovered that it would take him years to sell off the entire inventory. He passed on the deal. Currently, Bob likes to keep about 600 pairs of shoes running on eBay at any given time, with about 500 of them running in his eBay Store as Good 'Til Cancelled listings. He lists about 20 or more items per day for auction, and what doesn't sell is relistedfirst as a fixed-price listing, and then in his eBay Store. He used to use the Buy It Now option for all his auctions, but has recently switched to the Best Offer option, instead; about 25% of his sales come from Best Offer transactions, and another 25% from his eBay Store. What started out as a part-time endeavor is now Bob's full-time job; in December of 2005 he ceased doing part-time contract programming and became a full-time eBay seller. Here's what he says about the business: "Everyone thinks that selling on eBay is super easy, and it is if you are only selling a few items to clear out a closet or straighten up the attic. But when you get down to serious dayin, day-out selling, shipping 23 times a week every week, dealing with returns, answering the same questions from buyers over and overit's a whole 'nuther ball game! You have to consider how much time you have to work your sales, how much space you have to store your inventory, how to properly price your shipping (boxes, peanuts, and tape aren't free!), and how to make time to find that next client, who is just as important as your current client." He advises other potential sellers to "play it smartkeep an eye on your true costs and make sure that what you are paying yourself for the work you do is an acceptable wage." As he notes, if you work 6070 hours a week at selling (and that isn't unheard of) and at the end of the week you have only $50 in profit to show for it, something's not right. Going big-time should mean a big-time payback, or you're not managing your business right. Given the kind of volume he does, Bob is a big fan of auction automation, eBay Blackthorne Pro in particular. As he says, "you simply cannot grow beyond a hobby status without automation, not anymore. Automation allows you to post with much greater speed, track sales with more accuracy, send emails with more details, and just spend more time doing the things that really need doing, rather than the bookkeeping things that we all know our computers are better at than we are, anyway." Bob also counsels other sellers to take advantage of all the free resources that eBay offersthe discussion forums, workshops, and the like. I first met Bob on the Seller Central discussion board and can attest to how useful these forums are. And when you visit, say hi to Bob! |
