What an idea. The operation required little overhead and produced immediate income. Buyers and sellers did most of the work, handling inventory, payments, and shipping, while eBay collected fees and commissions for providing the site. Listing fees ranged from a quarter to a couple of dollars depending on an item’s value, and commissions were less than 5 percent.
Competition from other online sites was slim. Numerous competitors popped up, including Amazon and Yahoo, but the sites had difficulty drawing bidders away from eBay, which enjoyed widespread name recognition and held a near monopoly on users that persists to this day. In 1998, eBay was attracting millions of hits a day, and Omidyar beckoned a crack corporate team to guide the auction site. Boyles considered buying eBay stock when the company went public in late 1998, but he dawdled. The initial public offering was $18 a share. Six months later, a share of eBay common had climbed to $80. Despite the eventual dotcom meltdown, eBay stock continues to trade at around $50 a share. Boyles still kicks himself for failing to jump on the stock sooner. More than $5 billion in goods was traded on the site in 2000, and more than twice that amount is expected in 2002. About 30 million people are registered to buy and sell on the auction, making it the world’s largest online trade center. People list their items and attach digital photos and descriptions. Potential buyers from all over the world submit bids. Winning bidders send their payments to sellers, who mail them the items. For a while, making money was easy for people with a computer, internet access, and the time to take photos or scan pictures, type up descriptions, and mail the junk to high bidders. Antiques brought top bids, and even modern, common collectibles were easy to sell. Local residents could go to Kroger and spend $4 on a six-pack of 8-ounce Coke bottles emblazoned with the latest Cowboys logo, and then resell them a bottle at a time on eBay and earn ten times their investment. Coke bottles released in 1996 with a reference to the Selena Foundation could be bought for about 50 cents each and sold for $20. Why? They were regionally produced. A Cowboys or Selena fan in Wyoming couldn’t get those bottles at their local Kroger, and so they bought them on eBay. Conversely, a Michael Jordan fan in Dallas might pay $25 for a Wheaties box that was regionally produced in the Chicago area and sold for $3. Opportunity was everywhere. A person could go to the Ernest Tubb Record Shop at the Stockyards and buy a handful of guitar picks for a dime each, and then sell them for $4 or $5 each on eBay. Pick collectors from Tokyo to Topeka, who didn’t have access to an Ernest Tubb store, were willing to spend a few dollars to add a new pick to their collections. A savvy trader could pick up Dallas Cowboys pocket schedules for free at convenience stores, and list one on eBay with a starting bid of $1. The bidding could go as high as $4 or $5, costing the seller about 50 cents in fees and commission. Then, the seller could e-mail the other bidders and offer them a pocket schedule for their bid price, selling another four or five of the collectible schedules without having to pay additional listing fees. So, for an hour’s time and an investment of 50 cents, a person could make $20 or $25.
Weekend garage sales offered the chance to earn small fortunes. Junkers familiar with online auctions learned the merchandise that buyers wanted and how much they were willing to pay. A junker with $100 could go on a daylong spree at area garage sales — old tobacco humidor, $3; Pearl Beer metal ice chest, $5; CB radio, $4; Dallas Cowboys toy helmet, $1; tackle box with fishing lures, $5; a stack of 45 rpm records, $3. On and on until the car was brimming with booty. Within a week, the items could be sold on eBay for $400 to $500. The popularity of Antiques Roadshow, which debuted in 1996 on American television, coincided with eBay’s popularity and created frenzy in the resale market. “It became the in thing to do,” said Valerie Arnett, 48, a Fort Worth junker. “Now it’s cool to be junking.” Arnett, a single parent, quit her clerical job five years ago to concentrate full-time on junking. She made enough money to survive and enjoyed being her own boss. In 1997, she began hearing about easy money being made on eBay, but computers intimidated her. Besides, they were expensive. She decided to stick with antique malls and flea markets. In 1998, she sold a tube radio for $100 to a customer at the Cattle Barn. The guy dropped by later to tell her that he’d sold the radio on eBay for $600. Arnett bit her lip and congratulated him. Soon after, she sold a vintage toy monkey to a customer for $8. The customer, Brian Green, 25, told Arnett she should be selling on eBay. Arnett made excuses about why she resisted going online. The next week, Green dropped by to tell her that he sold the monkey for $350 on eBay. Arnett broke down and cried. She had struggled financially that month, and could have used a few hundred extra dollars. “I realized what an idiot I was being,” she said. Green’s tactic was harsh, but he wanted to prove a point. Point taken. Arnett bought a computer, sought help from friends on how to operate it, and began listing items for auction. She saw her profits rise but didn’t enjoy being stuck in front of a computer. Now, she uses eBay mostly as a reference guide, researching the history and value of items before selling them in her booths. In fact, eBay has become a premier research tool, price guide, and auction site, prompting many aging Baby Boomers to risk their first forays into the high-tech world. Kovel’s, Beckett, and other price guides might project an item’s worth, but nothing is more telling than an online auction, where bidders compete for merchandise and establish actual value. More changes are coming. With high-tech advances, junkers will one day routinely carry hand-held computers with internet access. What’s the big deal? Well, suppose an inexperienced junker finds a couple of 8-track tapes at a garage sale. One is a 1975 Elvis Presley Christmas Album; the other is a 1984 Madonna Like a Virgin. A quick search of previous eBay auctions might show that the Elvis tape routinely sells for about $1. The Madonna tape, however, was released in limited quantities because the 8-track format had become hopelessly unhip by the 1980s. A Virgin 8-track currently fetches $60 or $70 on eBay. Now suppose the Elvis tape had “Quadraphonic” printed on the label. Educated music fans and savvy junkers know that quadraphonic sound was a trend that didn’t last, and “quad” tapes can be difficult to find. Yet, even a buyer who didn’t know the difference between quadraphonic and a high colonic could search online and quickly see that quad tapes earn hefty premiums. Arnett doesn’t enjoy selling on eBay, but she realizes and respects the medium’s place in the junker’s world. She certainly doesn’t want to sell $350 items for $8. So she prices her inventory to earn fair profits but leaves room for her buyers to make money, too. “I love selling stuff to people who are going to sell it on eBay and make more money,” she said. NEXT » |
They Just Stole the Carcass
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