The internet auction site has been criticised for selling fakes,but it does offer major opportunities,writes Garry Barker.
DANNY Gorog mines attics,sheds,and cupboards in spare bedrooms on the profitable assumption that one man's junk is another's treasure or,at least,something they are prepared to pay for. In the process he has brought to Australia an enterprise that Entrepreneur Magazine this year called one of the hottest business developments in the US in 2005.
Gorog runs Simply Sold (www.simplysold.com.au) a group of eBay"drop shops"or consignment stores in Melbourne that take the sweat and worry out of selling something on eBay,the world's largest auction house.
To do it he turned his back on lucrative offers from Melbourne IT companies keen to employ his computer skills gained from the University of Melbourne and from working with David Gold at dstore.com.au in the heady days of the dotcom boom.
"I have always wanted to run my own business rather than work for someone,and this looked like a good chance,"he said.
In 2002 he and a friend,Elliot Swart,opened Digital Survival,a computer training company,in which he worked while also handling IT contracting jobs. It lasted a little over three years,and then eBay loomed on Danny's horizon."I had been using eBay for about five years,"Gorog said."I got into it through my computer work (he has a degree in computer science and communications from the University of Melbourne).
"I would be installing new equipment for clients who asked me how they could sell the old stuff,so I would put it on eBay for them,and so I became a registered eBay trading assistant,"he said."Then I heard about the drop shops run by trading assistants."
The market is huge. Globally,eBay has 203 million registered users,more than 3 million of them in Australia where one adult in five is an eBay buyer or seller. According to market researchers,ACNielsen,nearly 53,000 Australians now derive their primary or secondary income from selling on eBay and more than 35,000 Australian businesses use eBay as their secondary sales channel.
Like the US stores on which it is modelled,Simply Sold accepts goods dropped off at one of its locations,takes the pictures needed for the eBay listing,does the listing itself,tracks the bidding for the client and,when the item sells,collects the money and handles all the packing and shipping.
For this Simply Sold charges 30 per cent of the sale price,a fee that is on the low side compared with the 40 per cent generally charged by US consignment stores. Asked if his fee might be a touch hefty,Gorog says labour costs are high,with packing and shipping charges to add.