March 13th, 2009 by Skip McGrath

eBay Drop-off Stores and liquidation consignment sellers report that business is up

It is a sad sign of the times, but when the economy sucks people need to raise cash. One of the ways to do this is to sell the things they have acquired over the years when times were good.  Over the past two weeks I have spoken with several eBay Drop-off Store owners.  These are folks who don’t like to share their private business information, so I agreed to withhold their names if they would be candid with me.

All of them report two interesting trends.

·        More people are coming in every day to sell stuff

·        People are bringing in better and better (more expensive) stuff

One seller from a large Southern city said he has sold four expensive watches –each over $5000 each in just the past two weeks.  Over the past year he was lucky to see one of those every other month.  Another seller reported selling an entire collection 19^th Century prints and a home-based eBay Trading Assistant in the SF Bay Area was offered and sold a large collection of vintage movie posters –the final total realized was over $10,000.

The other hot area for consignment sellers is liquidation sales.  These are businesses who need to get rid of non-performing inventory and businesses going out of business and selling off their equipment.

Steve Maxey is a double Platinum  eBay seller who build two huge eBay businesses based on working with local and national companies to help them liquidate their inventory. He recently released a report called, The Yes Program, that shows eBay sellers how to build this profitable type of eBay business.
this is not a basic “how to sell on eBay” program. It really assumes you already know the basics and want to find ways to source and sell this type of merchandise.

As for consignment selling, back in 2006, I wrote How to Start & Run an eBay Consignment Business. The book is both out-of-date and out-of-print, but there are copies on Amazon. Even though parts of the book are out of date, the basic format and selling instructions are very relevant to today’s consignment seller. I also found a few other books on consignment. Here is a link to a listing of eBay books on Amazon.

See Also

• Official Geezer Guide To Starting an Online Business
  Legitimate online business opportunities for retired folks who need to make extra money