Kosh Vorlontay wrote:For the business owners and intellectual types,

Those of you here use eBay as your business store front. What do you think is the most effective part eBay has played on your business success and what effect has it had on the collecting community in general?

eBay has simply saved my business, pure and simple. In 2006 things went very downhill for virtually the entire Italian gaming industry and I was, being a game specialty retailer, in deep troubles. Then I acquired a large stock of vintage games in a bankrupt distributor's warehouse and I sold a lot of items, gaining very good money. When the goldmine started to dry up, I started offering new products as well. I added more and more products and I was able not only to stay afloat, but to prosper as well. The sad state of the Italian game retailing means that choice in the usual brick and mortar stores keeps being reduced and so more and more fans go to Internet for shopping. eBay is now a household name in Italy so I chose not to open my own e-commerce website but to use eBay. Having a successful eBay store lets me having a bigger inventory, to stock second and third tier products and to actually being paid before ordering some products (the dream sale...).  I couldn't cope without eBay and, excluding the store's lease, eBay fees are the single biggest business expense I have but worthing every cent of it. The effect on the gaming collecting community has been simply seminal - no eBay, no community...

Kosh Vorlontay wrote:For the business owners and intellectual types,

Those of you here use eBay as your business store front. What do you think is the most effective part eBay has played on your business success and what effect has it had on the collecting community in general?

Sound off

I can sell overseas, that simple.  To tap into the vast market of Canadian, Euro, Australian, Asian customers is unequaled by other platforms.  A lot of foreign buyers only use Ebay due to the protections in place, and thus you wouldn't get to deal with many of them if you had a typical mail order outfit or brick and mortar store.  That, and the fact that I've been able to stock items that I wouldn't sell in a brick and mortar store in a million years, because at any one time there is some guy out there looking for, say, a Audio Fidelity catalog from 1967, or a Adventure Gaming magazine from the early 80s, or a complete set of Doc Smith Lensmen books.

Mike B.

g026r wrote:

Why?  You got a copy?

Check the store, brother!  Included are 15 books:   All six books in the series (in a very rare gift box from the early 70s); Master of the Vortex (taking place in the Lensmen universe), one of David Kyle's authorized sequels (Dragon Lensmen); the complete 4 volume Skylark series, and three stand alones (Best of Doc Smith, Subspace Explorers, and Spacehounds of IPC.  A bargain at 100 bucks    




http://cgi.ebay.com/E-E-Doc-Smith-Lensman-Skylark-Series-Complete-15bks_W0QQitemZ110179256065QQihZ001QQcategoryZ377QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem




Mike B.

g026r wrote:I think the SO

SO = She-who-must-be-Obeyed?

During the Republican Presidential debate a couple of days ago, one of the candidates (Romney, I think?) said that 50,000 Americans earn their living on ebay.  (This was said with great sadness, as if they couldn't get a "decent" job - that's the way I took it, anyway.) I think that number is low.  Maybe that's the number who report their earnings to the IRS.  Thoughts?

g026r wrote:  I think the SO would murder me in my sleep if I bought them.

you are soooo lucky having such a merciful wife - mine would make sure I was wide awake so I was totally aware of her wrath as my life ebbed slowly away

Kosh Vorlontay wrote:For the business owners and intellectual types,

Those of you here use eBay as your business store front. What do you think is the most effective part eBay has played on your business success and what effect has it had on the collecting community in general?

Sound off

Quite simply Ebay has helped me build a world class collection by buying and selling stuff.  It is alot of fun to buy an extremely rare item with profits sitting in Paypal.

Nah, that was Ted Stevens.