This evening I was invited to host a masterclass on eBay for Business at e-Den.2 which took place at Bournemouth University. The class generated an interesting discussion on why a successful business should use eBay.
eDen is a Dragons Den type event where four Internet Entrepreneurs go head to head with a panel of world-class internet experts to mentor them on key web-business issues. The participants pitch their real life businesses highlighting the issues they believe need addressing, They receive free expert advice from the panel, and input from the audience is welcomed. The winner of each heat, judged on who is thought to have the best potential to develop their business, go through to the final to be held in September.
During the masterclass a seller of high end printers was asking why he should consider eBay. Sat next to him another delegate was discussing how he purchased some stone slabs from an eBay seller and went on to make a future purchase of several tons of paving. The seller would never have got an order for several truck loads of building material if he hadn’t listed the much smaller initial quantity on eBay.
The conversation was the convincer for the printer seller – it’s not always the sale on eBay that makes using the site worthwhile. It’s the customer acquisition and the, possibly much larger, future sales which in part make eBay such a compelling platform.
I asked the question why someone would be browsing eBay for such large quantities of building materials and the answer was as simple as they come… it’s just the obvious place to go to buy almost anything. That’s why businesses should have a presence on eBay, buyers are looking for your products.
If you live in the south and get the opportunity I’d highly recommend attending one of the e-Den.2 events. Whilst it might seen the four competitors are the ones to get the real benefit everyone I spoke to was amazingly positive and without exception came away with a raft of ideas for improving their own online businesses.
3 Responses
It has been interesting to note in the last year the number of sellers I’ve met who don’t just look at pure eBay sales but rather examine it as a marketing channel too.
Seems a fun way to go get some ideas from a wide range of people. Cheers!
Over the course of a year I get more business from people that have found me on eBay than I get from actual sales.
Kerchingggggg!!!!