We have been reading a lot about ebay sales. Is anyone hosting ebay sales and how has this paid off? How is the time investment? Has anyone hosted a lien sale on ebay?

We would like some feedback as well. We had tried to contact Add it and never got a response to our questions.

I have been doing ebay for years personally, a couple years ago I looked into doing auctions at Fairborn Self Storage. I did not like what I was hearing, specifically getting people to drag stuff out of their unit to sell in order to pay their storage rent.

If I started an e-bay service it would be very discriminating...meaning I would only accept well researched items, items would have to sell for at least $200 and generate at 30% margin. I would not have more than 8 to 10 auctions going at a time, this keeps my manager renting units, which is what we do best.

Fewer and high items allow you to run the whole auction process in house without spending a % on a e-bay add on service.

In my opinion, if you accept items that only sell for $10 or $20 bucks you will quickly find your manager spending way to many hours researching, taking photos, shipping, answering e-mails from bidders, not to mention just having to deal with all the walk-in crack users with stolen stuff.

I for one like to always differentiate, I would be the high faluten, snob appeal e-bay drop off service...if it ain't worth a hundred bucks, hit the pawn shop.

just my opinion...

Having sold stuff on eBay myself, I can attest to the fact that building the listings is a VERY time-consuming propsect ... if you do it correctly. Sure, you can list things quickly if you don't care about being thorough, but eBay buyers will scoff at this. Or they'll purchase the item and complain the description wasn't accurate, which could mean the item comes back to you or you take a hit with negative feedback. (And feedback is a whole complex layer of consideration in and of itself.)

Don't get me wrong ... I'm not nay-saying the eBay concept. But it will require considerable time, planning and follow-through. You would do best to hire a part-timer such as a student or stay-at-home parent to manage this portion of your business, someone looking to pick up a few extra bucks and kill some free time.

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Teri Lanza
Business Development Manager/Ed Director
Inside Self-Storage

So0 Teri what do you recommend doing with a self storage facility to either save on payroll or to get business coming in ? theres a million ideas out there but I haven't really found one I like for my location rural america ? thanks Chuck HWY P STOR IT & PARK IT BILLINGS, MO.

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Pirates Life for Me

There is a good webinar on the ISS site about this and why it is NOT recommended to do lien sales via eBay:

http://www.insideselfstorage.com/web...ew/info/id/251