A lively insider's guide to starting a successful small business selling items old and new on eBay, written with personal anecdotes, well–kept secrets, and insider tips by Adam Ginsberg, eBay's most successful private salesperson.
This is the insider's guide to making money on eBay. Adam Ginsberg is the most successful seller on eBay, moving around a million dollars' worth of merchandise every month. Not only will he impart his personal secrets on how to sell on eBay –learned through years of experience – and his tips on expanding your small business using eBay as a global market, but he'll also give fun side–notes and anecdotes, keeping the book lively and making it a fun and interesting read.
This book will be a must–have for all current and aspiring eBay sellers, all small–business owners, and anyone who wants to learn how to start a million–dollar company.
Adam Ginsberg is an internet marketer. He has promoted software for marketing on Myspace and training on selling on eBay. He has written the book How to Buy, Sell and Profit on eBay, along with other titles, which were published by Nightingale-Conant. Prior to venturing into sales on eBay, Ginsberg ran a business in San Diego selling pool tables. Although he claims to have been initially skeptical about selling through eBay, in 2001, he placed a pool table for sale on the service and met success. As a result, he continued to engage in eBay sales, expanding his online business and eventually closing his physical store. By the end of 2002 Ginsberg had been named as eBay's "number-one new seller", and he is said to have sold over $20 million worth of products through the online service.
When I found this book at my local bookstore, I read the back and flipped through some pages feeling pretty sure that this was just another "get rich quick" book. My preliminary search didn't turn up any of the tell-tale signs of such a book, so I purchased it and gave it a read.
I have been casually buying and selling on eBay since 2001, yet the author explained many features and strategies that I was not familiar with. The author takes you along in his adventure from reluctantly opening an account to running a successful business on eBay. While admitting that many don't become millionaires selling on eBay, the author explains his journey of successes and failures through the steps that all eBayers will or have gone through, from opening accounts to buying, selling, dealing with feedback, strategies, and more. There is some good stuff here for the beginner and good refresher for the experienced.
I would recommend this book to all beginners and even those who, like me, have been on eBay for a while but are willing to be a young dog again and learn some new tricks - which you will learn.
I rated this book 3 stars not because there's anything wrong with it, but because it didn't particularly inspire me as a classic or anything, either.
I picked it up because I've never sold on eBay before, but I'm considering using it to clear out some old, un-needed stuff--and I wanted some basic advice about the most effective way to do so. This book assumes the reader is someone who wants to sell on eBay as a real business. Even so, if that was my situation I would have been disappointed, because it's rather heavy on the "rah, rah, you can do this, it's so easy and there's so much less risk than in other businesses," and lighter on actual solid advice.
To be fair, eBay specifics are liable to change from year to year (e.g. options available, price structure), as will specifics about shipping or sales trends. (For instance, I think this book did mention that you can get Priority Mail boxes for free from the Post Office, whereas now only one size is available for free and the others you have to buy. Probably as a result of eBay.)
Some of the information it did include was common-sense, such as: think like a buyer; include good pictures; don't include lots of visual clutter in your listing, or things that flash and vibrate.
Still, it was a worthwhile read. I now feel comfortable with the idea of diving into this activity. And while I would want to check the current details, it gave me insight into some things it would have taken me a long time to happen upon on my own, such as PayPal's debit card that gives you cashback when you use it instead of just taking the cash, or situations where eBay itself might get involved on your behalf if you ask them.
This book has some good advice for eBay. Mostly geared towards making eBay a business but I still got good tips for the "cleaning out the basement" selling.