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The following article was written for GoTo Auctions (formerly known as AuctionRover). The rights have reverted to the author.
What can you do when instead of selling collectibles, you sell something you make new, on demand, like prints of photos?
Unlike selling items you stored in the attic and which you previously considered to be of no value, in this case you have fixed costs. In the case of photos prints, there's the cost of developing and special paper and chemicals. There's also the time spent taking the photos, filing the negatives, making the prints, and scanning the prints so you can show them with your descriptions at eBay -- in addition to the time all of us have to spend in posting the auction notices, packing and shipping the orders, and all the related record keeping. If you set your initial price too high, or if you use a reserve price, odds are good that you'll scare away most potential customers. But if the items go for too little, you could lose money on every sale. Should anyone even consider running such a business through person-to-person auctions?
An old friend of mine, Tracy Marks, (torreyphilemon at eBay) does just that and does it very well, as evidenced by 353 positive feedbacks. You can check her AboutMe page at http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/torreyphilemon/ She focuses on photos of figure skaters.
Getting to know her customers is an important part of her successful strategy:
"I mention at the end of many of my email acknowledgement that if there are particular photos that interest a buyer, let me know and I'll contact him or her when I have such photos available. At the same time, I create a database with a list of emails of those buyers who are interested in photos of particular skaters. Every time, I post new photos then of that skater (usually several sets at a time) I send an email to that "fan group" letting them know, and immediately get several bids."
The interests of the buyers also motivate her in her choices of the photos she takes. "Because the number one interest seems to be photos of Katia Gordeeva, I went to a show in Connecticut I otherwise wouldn't have attended, just to get three rolls of film of her, during her two skates. I've also paid to go to several after-show receptions in order to get autographs, because autographed photos sell for about four times as much as unautographed photos.
She adds, "I also mention in my email that if a buyer does not want to be informed of future photos of that particular skater, to let me know and I will remove his/her name from my list, so as not to bother him with unsolicited mail."
She sets the initial price, based on the associated costs, more for 8 x 10 prints than for sets of 4 x 6 -- usually between $6.50 and $14.95 -- with no reserve price. Half the time, photos sell for the initial price; other times bids reach $30 or $40. She also includes in her descriptions a link to a personal Web page of hers which lists her work "in process" (shows where she took lots of photos) as well as all the photos she has put up for sale in the past. Digital versions of all these photos (scanned in) are available for viewing at her site (a delight for figure skating fans). Many people learn about her work by finding her at eBay and perhaps buying from here there, then come back to order other photos from her collection. She also posts frequently on the figure skating newsgroup and on skating mailing lists, where her signature links to her eBay sales page.
She also points visitors to other Web sites of hers. (In addition to her career as a photographer, she also is an author, Web-page designer, and Internet consultant, and teaches Internet-related courses and courses in the use of Photoshop.) At the end of her page, she provides detail about her photographic techniques and the challenges she faces, about how she scans the photos and then edits them with Photoshop to make them presentable on the Web. According to the counter posted at the bottom, that page has had nearly half a million visitors since April 1997.
Is she getting rich? No, not yet. But she's having fun, and the potential is good as her reputation grows. She says, "I can't say I feel that successful... because of all the costs of taking skating photography and all the time it takes organizing negatives and taking them to the photo lab. I average about $6/sale and 1/2 hour per sale.....which means only about $12/hour. But it's easy to do work at home, and I do all my orders while watching skating shows on TV!"
An extra piece of advice -- Tracy also sells miscellaneous other items at eBay, such as secondhand books and videos. She notes, "When there are a number of bids and I only have one copy of the item but know how to get another copy at low cost, I sometimes contact the second highest bidder to ask if he'd be interested in bidding or directly purchasing the item for the amount of his/her bid if I was able to procure it. Most of the time, the answer is yes."
Other auction articles by Richard Seltzer
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