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Seller's market for aiding eBay
clients
More people are getting the urge
to sell items on the Web but many don't relish the hassle of
registering on a site and packaging the wares
By John Schmeltzer
Tribune
staff reporter
Published April 19,
2004
Elke Buder, a
collector of hand-blown art glass, had been trying to sell her
unique purple Lotton vase for more than a year.
"I tried to
sell it through a classified ad, and that didn't work out very
well," said the Algonquin resident. "I went to the Lotton Gallery in
the Bloomingdale's shopping center [on Michigan Avenue] and they
suggested I go to
eBay."
Created by Charles
and Daniel Lotton in their Crete studio, the art glass has a place
in several museums and has attracted admirers among serious
collectors, causing prices to soar.
While Buder, who is in
her 60s, says she isn't a computer novice, going through the hassle
of registering and monitoring an eBay auction was more than she
wanted to do.
"I was hoping that somebody would say, `I'll do
this for you,'" she said.
That's the attitude Ellen Navarro
and Amy Mayer, who became friends while working at a small boutique
in the Bucktown neighborhood, are hoping to tap into with their new
venture: an eBay drop-off store on West Belmont Avenue, basically a
21st Century version of a consignment shop.
Open for little
more than a month, the ExpressDrop store operated by Navarro and
Mayer already is hitting pay dirt.
They sold Buder's Lotton
vase for $1,200 and a 1991 Acura NSX sports car on behalf of another
customer for $34,000. Those two sales alone netted the pair and
their two silent partners more than $2,500 in
commissions.
The two 23-year-old women, who hope to be
operating three stores within a year, are racing to become
established in the Chicago market before eBay holds its "eBay
University" here June 12.
The event offers a series of
classes to train eBay wannabes in the requirements of joining the
"eBay community."
"We're just the middle man," said Mayer,
who said she and her partner are refugees from the large retail
stores. "People will buy anything on eBay."
Make that almost
anything.
Despite eBay's worldwide popularity, dozens of
items posted by ExpressDrop and other stores and individuals receive
only scant interest and are withdrawn after the weeklong auction is
concluded.
Virtually all of the more than two dozen drop-off
stores that have opened since last summer are located on the West
Coast.
That's where AuctionDrop Inc., backed by $6 million in
venture capital money, has opened six stores in the San Francisco
area. AuctionDrop was the first to open a store.
Opening a
Chicago store later this year is high on AuctionDrop's plans,
according to Andrea Roesch, a spokeswoman for the San Carlos,
Calif.-based company, who said the firm is weighing whether to
operate it as a company-owned or franchise store.
AuctionDrop
likely will run head-on into QuikDrop International Inc., a Carson
City, Nev.-based franchiser that received approval this month to
begin selling the franchises in Illinois.
QuikDrop, which has
no company-owned stores, is planning to use the franchise market to
take its vision of the consignment shop national. Earlier this year
it announced plans to open 24 stores in Southern California. In
addition to a pair of California stores, QuikDrop already has stores
in Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Texas.
All of the
stores promise to handle the nitty-gritty details of auctioning an
item, from posting a picture of the item on the eBay auction site to
shipping the item to the winning bidder.
Only AuctionDrop
ships items to a central location where they are prepared for
posting on the eBay site.
At least for now, Roesch believes
there is room in the market for the local efforts backed by people
like Navarro and Mayer and the national chains, such as QuikDrop and
AuctionDrop.
"There is so much opportunity at every level,"
said Roesch. "There are so many people out there with things they
would like to turn into cash or found money."
Drop-off stores
are an extension of eBay's trading-assistant program, which started
in February 2002. The program has 34,000 registered trading
assistants worldwide who help other people sell items on
eBay.
There are about 200 stores worldwide that are involved
in other businesses that operate drop-off centers as a
sideline.
AuctionDrop and ExpressDrop likely would face stiff
competition if eBay had decided to operate its own chain of retail
stores.
"We decided that we will focus on what we do best,
remaining the best stewards of this marketplace, and if
entrepreneurs think they can create an eBay business to give access
to people who don't have the time, we say great," said Hani Durzy,
an eBay spokesman. "We're not going to play favorites with any of
them, because we aren't sure what kind of model is going to
succeed."
In the meantime, eBay is content to sit back and
watch its auction business grow.
"We think this has the
possibility to attract a whole new segment of society to the eBay
marketplace," Durzy said.
"We love to see this because
anything that expands the eBay marketplace we think is a good
thing," he said.
Navarro can testify to eBay's
impact.
"It's been amazing," she said, noting that the store
has already sold nearly 200 items in the little more than a month it
has been open. That's good considering most eBay stores host about
400 auctions per month.
"We already have had repeat customers
that we sold stuff for," she said.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
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