EBay Made Easier

Drop-Off Services Do the Cyber-Lifting for Auctioning Items Online

Alexandria pediatrician Annalise D'Andrade has sold some big-ticket items on eBay, including her motorcycle and her husband's golf clubs.

But faced with the hassle of offloading less expensive objects on the global Internet auction site -- which she would have to photograph, describe, list, pack and ship -- she turned to a middleman.

"The little stuff, random bizarre gifts from my mother-in-law that I don't like" and wedding china unused for a decade, all went to ezAuctioning in Alexandria, one of several dozen area consignment stores that help the time-starved or cyber-wary turn household clutter into cash. (They also liquidate commercial inventory: a boutique's last-season designer clothes, a bankrupt firm's office furniture.)

In the past year, D'Andrade has made about $1,500 selling assorted unwanted items -- a Waterford crystal bowl, a sewing machine, a bicycle -- using ezAuctioning ( http://www.ezauctioning.com/), located in an unprepossessing Old Town rowhouse. "Only a handful of things haven't sold," she said.

Alonzo Roberts, a Temple Hills child-care consultant, had no idea such businesses existed until he passed eSpot ( http://www.espotstore.com/), a similar consignment operation in Georgetown, on his way to a movie. Having recently upgraded his cellphone, he wanted to sell a year-old Nokia N93 camera phone, which retails for about $700 new.

"No other [electronics] stores wanted it, and people on the street only wanted to pay $250," Roberts said. But when eSpot listed it for him on eBay, it fetched $550; after the store's cut, Roberts pocketed $385. "I can't complain," he said.

These two stores and others like them are not owned by eBay, but by people who tout their skills in marketing a dizzying array of goods, from sterling silver trays to old car radiators.

Ebay was the pioneer but is not the only Internet auction site. Amazon.com and Yahoo have moved into the market of selling things to the highest bidder. But eBay remains far and away the dominant player, with 212 million registered users worldwide.

For their customers, Internet consignment shops do all the tedious work. Shooting pictures of items from multiple angles, writing descriptions incorporating frequently searched key words and pointing out defects, deciding whether a 24-hour, one-week or 10-day listing will bring top dollar. They answer e-mail queries from bidders, collect payments and send off all items that sell. They may relist things that haven't sold.

In return for these services, they take a hefty chunk of the proceeds -- 15 to 50 percent of the sale price, plus eBay charges -- before paying the seller.

EBay started in 1995 in California's Silicon Valley. By 2002, it had officially recognized so-called trading assistants, who buy or sell items for others, often for a fee. In 2003, that middleman service had morphed into drop-off centers easily accessible to the public, eBay spokeswoman Catherine England said. Most are in strip malls and commercial neighborhoods.

EBay appreciates these businesses because "they help bring items and inventory to the site," which claims 105 million objects in play at any given moment, England said. She estimated that there are less than a thousand stores nationwide but cited anecdotal evidence that the number is rising.