Yes, you read that correctly: fifteen years. eBay was produced in September 1995, by a gentleman named Pierre Omidyar, who was life in San Jose. He favorite his web web site – and so named 'AuctionWeb' – to be an online market, and published the 1st code for it in 1 weekend. It was one of the first internet web sites of its sort in the world-wide. The name 'eBay' comes up from the domain Omidyar used for his website. His company's name was Echo Bay, and the 'eBay AuctionWeb' was in the beginning just 1 piece of Echo Bay's website at ebay.com. The 1st thing ever dealt along the website was Omidyar's broken laser pointer, which he made $14 for.
The internet site rapidly became massively modern, as marketers came to listing totally varieties of odd things and purchasers really purchased them. Relying on believe looked to work remarkably good, and meant that the website could almost be left alone to run itself. The site had been designed from the start to collect a small fee on each sale, and it was this money that Omidyar used to pay off for AuctionWeb's enlargement. The fees rapidly added up to more than his current earnings, and so he decided to quit his job and work on the website full-time. It was at this point, in 1996, that he added the feedback facilities, to allow buyers and marketers rate each other and make buying and dealing safer.
In 1997, Omidyar modified AuctionWeb's – and his company's – name to 'eBay', which is what someones had been calling the web site for a long time. He started out to spend a mass of money on promoting, and had the eBay logo designed. It was in this yr that the millionths item was sold.
Then, in 1998 – the peak of the dotcom boom – eBay became big business, and the investment in Internet businesses at the time allowed it to bring in senior managers and business strategists, who took in public on the stock market. It started to encourage people to sell more than just collectibles, and quick became a massive website where you could deal anything, extended or small. Unlike other web sites, though, eBay survived the end of the expand, and is still starting hot today.
1999 saw eBay move international, launching sites in the UK, Australia and Germany. eBay purchased half.com, an Amazon-like online retail merchant, in the yr 2000 – the same year it introduced Buy it Now – and bought PayPal, an online payment service, in 2002.
As a new member of Ebay, I tried various routes to make a profit. I started by going to the clearance sections at local stores, buying what I thought were good deals, and then listing them for sale on Ebay. I quickly found out that what seemed like a good deal to me must not seem so great to others: I never got a single bid.
Battered but not broken, I picked myself up from my Ebay failure and tried again. Garage sales were my next stop. I actually did make a very small profit going this route. I bought things cheap at local yard sales and listed them for sale. My spirits were buoyed by the few dollars profit I made after paying Ebay fees. It was also a great way to get some positive feedback, which is your reputation on Ebay, and very important.
Next I began tearing through my house and garage, searching for anything that might sell. I did find a set of dishes that sold for a lot, and this is how I made the most money. It was a great feeling to know that whatever my items sold for was completely profit. Unfortunately, my tap of sellable goods quickly ran dry. (My husband put a stop to the madness when I started rifling through his closet.)
Now I was back to square one. Garage sale items were making me only a few dollars, and I decided that I wanted to use Ebay to make some bigger income. I started researching, and found that dropshippers were touting their services as a way to do just that.
The idea behind dropshipping is simple: you start by finding a dropshipper that sells items for wholesale price. They have pictures and descriptions on their websites, which they allow you to use for your Ebay listings, and you set your price higher than theirs. Then when someone buys and pays you for the item, you simply go to the dropshipper's website, buy it from them, and the difference is your profit. They even use your return address when they ship it to the customer, so that your buyer is never any wiser. Sounds genius, right?
It sounded great to me too. I spent hours researching, trying to find just the right dropshipper. When I found one, I went to Ebay and started listing. At first I was so excited by the variety of items that I was able to list for sale. I chose name-brand products and things that I would like to have. I marked the items up slightly, and waited for the money to start rolling in.
My listings have all ended, and I'm still waiting. I really did give dropshipping a fair try. I listed the items under 'Buy it Now', which means that your customer pays a set price and doesn't have to wait for an auction to end. When that didn't work, I tried listing items as auctions. Still no luck. I tried different types of products and relisted others at lower price, with only a marginal profit for myself. Overall, I have listed over 200 dropship items for sale. I have sold only three.
Keep in mind that it's not free to list items on Ebay. Depending on the starting price and pictures you choose to list, it cost me between ten cents and three dollars for each item I listed. The items that I sold made barely enough to cover the fees that I was charged, leaving me with a grand profit of…nothing. If you take into account the hours that I spent researching and listing, dropshipping has actually left me in the red.
So, back to the garage sales I go. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will probably never make any kind of sizable income on Ebay. I try to keep my head up, though, and focus on the bright side. It's more fun than work, and I do make a little money. In fact, I'm already planning how I'll spend my next profit. With my next ten sales, I think I'll take my family out to dinner.
Johnnie Rhodes