eBay Guardian Business Sense competition results

THe Guardian Business Sense Challenge 2007 winners have been announced. As predicted at the start of the competition the overall winner was laptopscrapyard aka Joe Williams who set out selling parts scavanged from broken laptops and fully-refurbished machines. Of course he had a head start as he already ran an IT support business and set up his eBay laptopscrapyard as a second income stream.

The runner up was Diane Davidson who sells Mexican hammocks on eBay as between-the-trees. She actually sold more in monetary value on eBay although laptopscrapyard completed more transactions. Diane also won the best packed item in a mystery shopper challange. The big challange for Diane was the two months it took to set up her business but says it gets easier to run as experience is gained.

Other contestants faced their own challenges, onegiantstepfootwear failed to secure a supplier and purchased goods at retail from UK highstreet stores. Although buying from the comfort of your home has it’s advantages paying retail prices for stock is never going to make a successful business, he’s already closed his eBay shop. Now Karl hopes to take the seed money from the competion to design and manufacture his own range of shoes.

David Hallworth of 100percentpurecotton admits he was unsure of his ability to sell quality cotton school uniforms on eBay and intends to set up his own website instead. Phyllis Avery trading as dollydoodle2007 found it tough setting up her business while holding down a full time job. Because she was manufacturing her own goods there just weren’t enough hours in the day but she’s in talks with publishers for the book rights to her creations.

Although I always thought laptopscrapyard would do well I’m impressed with the runner up, between-the-trees. Starting from nothing Diane has started a business with the potential to build for the future. She’s also making much better use of her eBay shop with promotion boxes to cross sell other items – click through her shop categories and see for yourself how she markets her products!