The eBay Millionaire: Titanium PowerSeller Secrets for Building a Big Online Business

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A few years back, Randy Adams’ wife issued an ultimatum. She was fed up with parking her car in the driveway when she had a perfectly nice, though stuffed-to-the-gills, garage. Clutter escalates when you have six kids, and the maze of junk that had piled up in the Adams family garage was driving the matriarch mad. She wanted all that “we’ll-use-it-later” stuff gone. Right now.

“Clean it up,” she told her husband. “Sell all the junk on eBay.”

Like a good husband, Adams obeyed. But he discovered that emptying a garage on eBay isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially for someone who had never sold through the auction site before. Nor, Adams realized, could he do it as quickly as his wife wanted. There were dozens of digital pictures to take and descriptions to write. Plus, he’d have to package all the junk up and haul it to the post office once it sold. Who has time to answer all those questions from potential buyers? And how was he going to attract bidders and score the best prices for his clutter with a feedback rating of zero? It’s hard being a casual seller starting out on eBay, Adams discovered.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was someone to do the selling for you, Adams mused. His wife, ever the pragmatist and eager to have her garage cleaned, suggested that Adams take his entrepreneurial know-how and start just such a company.

Adams had cofounded the Internet Shopping Network, one of the Web’s first retail sites, in 1994. Once again he decided to listen to ...