CHAPTER 11:
Power Selling, Consignment Selling, and Analyzing Your Business
To stay in the program, you’ll have to sell at least one item every 30 days, retain your 50-orhigher 97-percent feedback score, and keep your eBay account in good standing. If you meet the initial requirements, it’s very easy to join.
Becoming a Trading Post There’s another category of trading assistant, the Trading Post. eBay requires that these companies have drop-off locations or stores with regular business hours. Some of these have hundreds, even thousands, of drop-off locations around the country. For instance:
■ AuctionDrop (www.AuctionDrop.com) This 75-person company has been given $17M in funding by several Venture Capital companies, and uses UPS stores as drop-off locations . . . 3,800 locations around the country.
■ QuikDrop (www.QuikDrop.com) This company has about 50 drop-off locations around the U.S., as well as one each in Canada, Australia, and China.
■ Instant Auctions (www.InstantAuctions.net) This company uses an UPS, FedEx, USPS, or DHL drop-off point; the item is shipped to their headquarters. Note that they are also setting up local stores.
■ zTradingPost (www.zTradingPost.com) They have around 120 drop-off locations around the country.
■ iSOLD It (www.i-soldit.com) There are over 400 locations either already open or opening soon. They claim to be eBay’s #1 seller. There are also many smaller trading posts—one-location outfits or organizations—such as On-the-Block Auction (www.ontheblockauction.com/), which set up arrangements with local packing and shipping stores to let people drop off items around the region. If you find your trading assistant business doing well and already have a retail location, you might decide to become a trading post; it’s not much more effort and may increase your chance of getting the business. Some people who are using the Trading Assistant Directory choose to search just for trading posts, so you’ll be more likely to be found; in addition, your directory listing will show the little trading-post icon.
Building Your Trading Assistant Business You might consider becoming a franchise location of one of the major trading-assistant companies; several have franchise stores. The big drawback, of course, is the hefty fee to get started; you’ll need $50,000 to get started with QuikDrop. The advantages are marketing, ready-made management systems, and so on. But right now there’s no dominant brand in this area, so you don’t know for sure what you’re buying into—McDonalds or Joe’s Burger Shack? If you do buy in, make sure the backup you get from the company is worth what it’s going to cost you.
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