eBay Seller Recommends Training
By Melissa Dunson, JoplinGlobe.com
Jackie Strobl wasn’t looking for another career when she started selling outdated clothing and collectibles online in 1999.
But since then, the Webb City woman has become something of a self-taught eBay entrepreneur, selling personal items for herself or for friends, as well as a random collection of objects she picks up at estate sales. When she started selling on eBay, Strobl said, the online site had few rules, and a copy of “eBay for Dummies” taught her most of the basics.
Fast-forward eight years. Strobl says the global Internet marketplace has become a complex beast that’s constantly changing.
Strobl recommends that anyone who is interested in selling on eBay read everything and anything that is available on the subject. She said she has posted items such as antique toy guns and a medical device only to see them pulled off the site by eBay administrators because they violated the Web site’s rules.
“With all the rules and regulations, it’s so involved now,” Strobl said. “It’s not that simple. Read everything you possibly can — how to sell, how to list — and try to get training.”
Strobl said people should try to learn as much as they can about the items they are selling, and they should never underestimate the power of the unusual.
Without much thought, Strobl said, she posted a two-page golf brochure from 1928 and a 1912 boxing postcard on eBay, each with a starting price of less than $10. Each item brought more than $150, adding to Strobl’s belief that items are worth whatever someone will pay for them.
Another time, Strobl paid $2 at an estate sale for an orange butter dish with no other matching dishes and no maker’s mark. She put it online, and it sold for $60 to a woman who later told Strobl that she had been looking for an orange butter dish for the past 20 years.
With more than eight years of eBay selling under her belt, Strobl’s final piece of advice is to never underestimate the amount of time it takes to be successful online.
She estimates that she spends three to four hours a day taking photos of her merchandise, posting items and checking on auctions, and an additional hour three times a week boxing and shipping items she has sold.