Gary at harleyglasses likes Mondays. "I sell sunglasses under my main ID, and I sell hydraulic motors under the name hydro_relic in the Business & Industrial category. Mondays are always action-packed," he jokes, referring to the fact that the start of the week includes a lot of packing and shipping. "I love packing: it reminds me that each item is an individual sale that is nearly complete. My wife, Angie, and my daughter, Kali, help me with shipping whenever they can."

In less than 2 years, Gary has gone to PowerSeller level. He's dedicated himself to learning best practices on eBay, finding tools that work, as well as products that sell. Having gone through the Advanced Selling Guide and raved about it, Gary is a rising star on eBay with positive feedback at 99.7%. "Our sales are doubling each month," he says with astonishment. "We never thought our business would experience growth like this!"

Keys to Success

To keep his feedback high and his customers happy and loyal, Gary notes that good shipping is a must on eBay. "I use a third-party shipping solution that enables me to ship up to 100 packages a day comfortably. My feedback rating tells other eBay members that I am serious about what I do. I want people to be happy with their purchases, and my feedback shows their gratitude."

Gary maximizes sales by keeping his market as broad as possible. That means accepting payments via PayPal or any other means. It also means shipping worldwide. "This has perhaps increased our business more than anything else," he notes.

Getting the word out about his Store is important in forming long-term relationships with customers. He includes business cards and sale flyers in every outgoing shipment. Gary is great at generating excitement, occasionally creating contests with a giveaway for the winners. "We recently let people guess when we would hit 1,000 feedback. Sales went crazy, and we had three winners--it was a great promotion."

He also has made great use of his About Me page, making it personal and fun to read. Besides all the important terms of sale, it also includes photos, sunglasses facts, and titles of song about sunglasses.

eBay education has helped Gary to grow his business. He recommends Selling Basics and Beyond the Basics, two CD-ROMs from eBay University. He also likes The eBay Bible, by Jim "Griff" Griffith and Tricks of eBay Masters by Michael Miller. Gary also seeks out his own educational sources, researching the top sellers on eBay and looking to see what they're doing well.

Gary stays involved with the eBay community, another source of education where tips and advice come from others who are also working to build their businesses on eBay. He also plans to attend eBay Live! this year. Besides these online sources of community support, Gary is known at his work as "the eBay guy." He answers other peoples' questions about buying and selling and plans to set up a local eBay user group. This all helps eBay thrive and grow overall.

Best Practices

Gary is using many of eBay's Seller Tools to help him run his business on eBay. He has an eBay Featured Store, a tool that lets him stock inventory in long-term listings and custom-design his own site on eBay. As a Featured store, he gets preferred placement on search pages, generating more traffic for his items.

To list items quickly, he uses Turbo Lister, a free program for bulk listing. Managing listing details and follow through is easy for Gary with Selling Manager Pro and a planned upgrade to Seller's Assitant Pro. Gary uses eBay Picture Services  to manage item images. "Photographs are very important," he asserts, "for letting customers know exactly what they're getting. We have a very loyal repeat customers who find a style they like and stick with it. They get attached to something that fits and works well, and motorcycle riders are notorious for losing or even running over their eyewear."

Good customer service rounds out Gary's best practices. "I would advise others to think of the best customer service they have every received and try to emulate that in every sale." When he does run into problems with customers, he strives to make things right and uses SquareTrade to resolve disputes. "Not only do they solve problems, but [using SquareTrade] lets my customers know that I am committed to customer service."

Gary is very positive about eBay. In finding his way, he has made some mistakes, but has felt eBay has treated him more than fairly. "I had a problem with my eBay account and it was escalated to eBay's Office of the President. I was impressed with Bill Cobb and his staff. I think he really is aware of what is good for sellers and buyers and eBay. I'm glad we have someone like him with balanced vision at the top! I hope to say thanks in person at eBay Live!"

Gary offers one last piece of advice: "One of the problems for some eBay sellers is that success can come too quickly and overwhelm the seller. Be prepared for success. It can come very easily on eBay."

And, true to character, he acknowledges the support he gets from the larger community: "The postmaster at 72550 is one of my greatest business assets! She really deserves some recognition. She makes shipping so easy for me.