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

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Hess Fine Art

For Jeffrey P. Hess, being in the jewelry business once meant constantly being on the road. From the time he founded Hess Fine Art in 1984, Hess traveled the world to show and sell his wares, which mostly consisted of antique watches and estate jewelry. Every weekend, there was another watch show or antiques show to attend somewhere in the world.

“In the beginning, we were slaves to the show circuit,” says Hess, who with his staff attended more than 30 shows a year.

While this was the best way for Hess to find a market for his unique and expensive items at the time, it was far from efficient or good for business. Security was always a concern, and it was costly to insure the inventory while on the road. Plus, employees didn’t like leaving their families so often, and many resisted the frequent travel.

For Hess, being on the road this much also affected his ability to buy goods and keep inventory levels up. Hess Fine Art gets a large portion of its merchandise in its hometown of Saint Petersburg, Florida, from people who want to sell their treasures to the jeweler, and the company’s most effective buyer—Hess—was always on the road.

That all changed in 1997 when an employee told Hess about eBay.

Hess was no stranger to computers or the then-fledgling Internet. In his work as a historian, he used computer archives to conduct research. He even used the computer for commerce, putting descriptions of antiques he had for sale on electronic bulletin boards—which ...