The eBay Entrepreneur: The Definitive Guide for Starting Your Own eBay Trading Assistant Business [Paperback]

Christopher Spencer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2006

eBay Trading Assistants are experienced eBay sellers who indicate their willingness to sell your items for you, for a fee.  It’s a great service for people who want to sell items on eBay, but lack the time or know-how to do it themselves.  eBay Entrepeneur will guide would-be eBay Trading Assistants in setting up successful eBay Trading Assistant businesses. 
 
Topics include:
-Planning, starting & executing a profitable Trading Assistant business

-Finding the best clients

-Low-cost marketing programs

-Unlocking unlimited free publicity

-Avoiding technology pitfalls

-Streamlining day-to-day operations

-Profiles and case studies of the most profitable home-based success stories

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Christopher Spencer is a former celebrity manager and lifelong entrepreneur.  He started selling on eBay in 1998 and quickly grew his online business into a major enterprise.  Chris is the president of his own corporation, The Spencer Company, based in Burbank, CA.  He founded this firm in 1988, at the age of 18, as a direct marketing company.  His hobby of selling on eBay took off in 1999 and landed him in the December 27, 1999 issue of Time magazine.  Committed full-time to eBay since 2000, Chris is now a Shooting Star member (with over 10,000 feedbacks) on eBay, an official eBay University Instructor, and a Certified eBay Educational Specialist, ranking #4 among certified eBay trainers nationwide.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing; Original edition (September 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 141958328X
• ISBN-13: 978-1419583285
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,164,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christopher Matthew Spencer was among the earliest adopters of the internet. He's been writing books and articles and developing successful education for entrepreneurs and internet users ever since. He has sold over 200,000 items online and provided consulting to many Fortune 1000 companies, including eBay, NETGEAR, Visa, and Qualcomm. Christopher has provided comprehensive training at more than 200 industry trade shows and has delivered keynotes and presentations at the top ten trade shows in the world. Christopher's education and training have been personally endorsed by Forbes Celebrity 100 entrepreneur Kathy Ireland, who runs a billion-dollar marketing and branding agency. Christopher has successfully bought and sold many companies and has run a bakery, an office products distribution company, a commercial fundraising agency, a television production company, a publicity firm, a celebrity brokerage, a hotel, a bar, a restaurant, and a real estate development firm. He presently owns and operates a full-service marketing, consulting, and technology agency servicing firms of all sizes. Christopher's personal mission is education through demonstration and he attributes his success to happiness and the pursuit of all things he finds "fun" in life. He is an insatiable learner and he loves sharing his knowledge with anyone who desires it. Christopher lives in Burbank, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for those who want to take their money making abilities to a higher level, November 26, 2006

By 

D. Torrey "dTor's Deals" (Hattiesburg, MS, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The eBay Entrepreneur: The Definitive Guide for Starting Your Own eBay Trading Assistant Business (Paperback)

This is not a book for those who are just getting started selling on ebay. If you are going to read this book, then you have to have a bit of experience selling beforehand. No, you don't need years and thousands of sales to your credit, but a good understanding of how things work is required to fully realize the potential of this book.

The book is very well written and easy to understand. Surprisingly, it is not a "dry read"; it is fun, entertaining, and can easily be read through in a single sitting if you are so inclined.

I would highly recommend this book to anybody who wishes to explore new ways of making money by selling items for others on a commission basis, either from home or from a dedicated office. Just make sure you know the in-and-outs of selling before sitting down with this book.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Full of Fluff! Highly Over Rated., June 10, 2007

By 

Mr. Majestik "Aviator" (Bakersfield, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The eBay Entrepreneur: The Definitive Guide for Starting Your Own eBay Trading Assistant Business (Paperback)

Mr. Spencer has apparently done well running his company. His book, however, it mostly the tired old stuff like: How to lease commercial space, How to buy real estate, how to buy a computer, what kind, how many megs memory, how to get connected, and on and on about stuff most everybody already knows, or can easily find out. (online, and updated info at that). Sure, there are some nuggets. About 3 type-written pages worth. It's a real chore to buy the book and spend all your time sifting through the rubble. He also warns you about wasting "your" time, and he should take his own advice.

He's proably a great guy, but certainly not a concise author. I'd pass....

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a wonderful starter guide for ANY entrepreneur that wants to start a service business!, April 15, 2007

By 

Jeff Lippincott "JLIPPIN" (Princeton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The eBay Entrepreneur: The Definitive Guide for Starting Your Own eBay Trading Assistant Business (Paperback)

This is a really good book for someone who is interested in starting a service business. I can't praise it enough in the few paragraphs I'm writing in this review. Regardless of whether or not you want to start an eBay Trading Assistant business, but you KNOW you want to start SOME small business selling your services, then I highly recommend you get a copy of this book and read it and study it. Much of what is covered between its covers applies equally to just about any start-up. And the author does a wonderful job spoon-feeding us the material.

My background is NOT in retailing. And eBay is one big online retail store. So I'm not going to say how good or bad it is to get involved with retailing. And if you become a Trading Assistant, then you are getting involved in retailing even though the main thrust of your small business will be simply providing a service.

I will say that I haven't been convinced that becoming an eBay Trading Assistant is something I would want to become or that I would recommend to my SCORE clients to consider becoming one. What I do recommend is that any owner of a retail store should consider having someone on the payroll who can do what an eBay trading assistant does. And by reading this book you will get a pretty good understanding of what a trading assistant does.

Although I liked ALL 23 chapters, my favorite chapters were 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14-17, 22, and 23. These I consider to be the universal topics regarding how to start a service business.

Last Fall I had to help put on a SCORE seminar about selling on eBay. I read a few books on the subject (including this one), got a couple of magazines on the subject, and scoured the Net for articles on eBay. I also signed up to use eBay and studied the eBay site. What I learned in preparing for the seminar was that eBay is always changing. I doubt the instant book is still up-to-date since it was written a couple of years ago. But the basics covered in this book are definitely current and well worth your time to read if you are thinking about becoming a trading assistant. 5 stars!