eBay: The Missing Manual

Chapter 8. Specialty Selling

In recent years, eBay has worked to grow beyond its early reputation as the World's Biggest Flea Market. Now, the company also wants you to think of it as the World's Largest Big-ticket and Specialty-item Market. Less catchy, but potentially more lucrative.

eBay blazed trails into online car and house buying—items that were once thought off-limits for online sales. It took a little over four years, from April 2000 to June 2004, to reach one million car sales on eBay; now eBay Motors accounts for nearly one-third of eBay sales volume—and is still growing fast. Real estate listings have increased more than 35 times over since 1999, and real estate is one of the most popular categories for browsing.

In addition, eBay's other specialty categories, including Half.com, Giving Works, and Live Auctions, are all doing robust business. (In Half.com's case, business kept booming despite eBay's efforts to shut down the site.)

This chapter shows you how to get in on the action and create a sales niche within eBay's specialty auctions:

• Half.com: books, CDs, video games, and more.

• eBay Motors: cars, motorcycles, and just about anything else with a motor.

• Real estate auctions: houses, land, and time-shares.

• Live auctions: bringing eBay into your brick-and-mortar auctions.

• Giving Works: auctions to benefit nonprofit groups.

• B2B auctions: from one business to another.

• Elance: sell your services.

Half.com: Mass Media Mania

You buy a video game and play it until you've mastered ...