Attention New Online Retailers: Focus First on Experience, Not Your eBay Feedback Score

For anyone keeping score, my November 18, 2009, blog post titled Drop Shipping For Dummies has attracted more than 200 comments, one of which recently caught my attention. From Derick Sweet:

I have recently started with Doba on a trial basis; I have not decided yet to stick with it long term. Is it normal to not sell items at the beginning of using the service? I’m not too far into it but I’m trying to change up some of my strategies while at the same time learn how everything works and how to get my items to actually sell and at least compensate for my loss in fees. Perhaps it will improve once my eBay rating increases? That, I think, is what is crippling me, because I started a new eBay account and it placed me at 0 rating. Maybe the book [sic: Drop Shipping For Dummies] will help.

I’m guessing a lot of Doba members have asked themselves the same question, so here’s what I think: It’s not abnormal to have difficulty selling online when first starting out. While it’s true that some people hit the ground running, more often than not, those people already have retail experience. For everyone else, there’s a significant learning curve. Having low feedback on eBay definitely doesn’t help, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from plowing forward, learning as much as they can, and growing their online drop-ship business.

Many years ago, I received a phone call from a friend who was doing business consulting for a department store that had more inventory than anyone knew what to do with, so he got them started on eBay. Problem was, nobody at the company had any experience with online auctions, and as a result, the very first item they sold brought them negative feedback.

My friend then calls me to help bail the department store out of what they perceived to be a bad spot. I came in and took over management of their eBay account, starting right off the bat with a feedback rating of -1. Over the next 18 months, we sold over 10,000 items, achieved the rank of PowerSeller, and enjoyed a feedback rating of over +5,000.

Going off what Derick wrote above, my honest opinion is that he has to get some experience under his belt before jumping in full bore with Doba and eBay. The first item I ever listed and sold on eBay was a worthless baseball card. I opened the bidding at $0.01, and got one bid. I decided to ship the card for free and didn’t even bother collecting payment. Although I was out the insertion fee (back then the minimum fee was $0.30) as well as the cost of a first-class stamp, the experience was an important one… I gained a better understanding of how eBay worked and the confidence to move forward.

By the time I came to work for Doba, I was experienced enough that the very first item I listed from the Doba catalog (an avalanche beacon) sold for around $30 above cost. It had taken some time, but I had reached the point where I understood how to make money on eBay rather than lose it.

Find something, anything, to list on eBay, whether it’s something collecting dust in your attic or something out of the Doba catalog. Go in with the expectation that you will probably not make a barrel full of money right out of the gate, but will break even at best or lose a few dollars at worst. The education, experience, and confidence you gain will be well worth the cost.