E-bay for dumb dummies?

[Kung Fu Steve]

Like some, I have a mother.

Also like some, my mother is very inept that has to do with that brightly colored box we all know as a computer.

Also also like some, this mother of mine is not so hot with finances, lost all of her retirement, and let's just say that is the best of her problems.

She does have a furniture store selling antique and danish teak furniture that is open part time. The problem is that it loses money with the space she rents being that there are no customers in the winter months around here. (It is located in a walking, touristy town)

She needs to sell this furniture, produce income, and make something out of it. I am fairly adept at motivation and teaching business, but because she is my mother she won't listen. My idea is that she posts these on E-bay and make a small business out of that.

What are some resources (keeping in mind her skills and attitude right now), that I can give her to get started?

 

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[werbl]

I can definitely relate Steve. My mom has slowly lost all of her life savings to three different financial advisers, the last running a large Ponzi scheme. I've spent the past year or so trying to help my mom get her jewelry business up and running so that she can stand on her own two feet and hopefully start to rebuild what was lost.

As for your question, I have run an art business through Ebay for about five years. For those of us that are familiar with the brightly colored box, learning to use Ebay is pretty simple and straightforward. For everyone else, Ebay's help menu on their home page is well-designed, easy to use and loaded with useful information. Your mom might want to check out the Learning Center (in help menu) and take some of the free tutorials. I'd also recommend taking the time to just browse around Ebay and become familiar with it.

In my opinion, probably the most valuable tool that Ebay offers is the Completed Listings filter. It's perfect for figuring out what sells, for how much, and what does not. As an example, from Ebay's home page, do a search for "Danish teak table." The results page shows all of the current auction listings along with their bid prices. Now, scroll down a ways and from the left menu, and select "completed listings." You have to be signed into your Ebay account to access this feature, but what shows up are all of the listings matching your search term for the past 2 weeks or so. For items that have successfully sold, the final item price appears in green. For items that have not, for whatever reason, appear in black.

I hope that helps. There are some good Ebay books for beginners out there, but almost all of this info can be found in the help menu. Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions.