Collector, entrepreneur, or off-loader of junk - all sorts ply their trade online. Fiona McCannmeets the wacky and wise at an annual eBay "convention" in Boston
Boston Convention Centre boasts three expansive tiers of escalators, walkways, seminar rooms and a giant warehouse-sized hall of Point Depot proportions. And it's full of stands, miked-up salesmen, bustle, and sundry punters with pins and whistles and hats and badges, all touting the thing that has brought some 10,000 of them together for the sixth year in a row: the eBay Live annual convention. And these people are nothing if not fanatical about eBay. Some because it has made them money - they're the "power sellers", who average at least $1,000 in sales a month, all the way up to "titanium sellers" who rake in $150,000, selling goods through this online site all over the world. Others attend simply because they love being part of this online community of collectors, offloaders and entrepreneurs.
Take Bob, who cruises by in his wheelchair, bedecked in bright colours and with a grin from ear to ear as well-wishers stop to have their photo taken with him. Since he first discovered eBay in 1998, he has become a minor celebrity within its community of more than 230 million members, many of whom contributed to a special fund set up to fly him to this year's convention. One of the first things he tells me is that eBay has saved his life.
"I was depressed. My wife was working and I was home alone. I couldn't do anything," he says, recalling how multiple sclerosis made him feel helpless and unproductive. "I just didn't want to live like that." On eBay he found a discussion thread where people asked questions about how to use the then new site, and he suddenly found himself helping out.
"One night somebody asked a question and I answered it. I was so excited, I thought: 'I did something with my life. I was able to help somebody else.' " He grins broadly.
Bob is just one of countless people who have found ways to use this ever-expanding site to buy, sell and connect with people. Many eBay employees have equally inspiring stories, among them the company's larger-than-life "dean of education", Jim Griffith. He tells me he, too, discovered the site in its early days, and began spending time discussing its potential, and problems, on online message boards with other regular users, using his self-created online persona "Uncle Griff".
When he disappeared for a few weeks during a particularly serious bout of depression, his fellow eBayers noticed and grew concerned. "When I came back to my studio after it all, the phone rang. It was this very chipper voice saying 'Hello, is Uncle Griff there?' - it was Pierre [Omidyar, who founded eBay]," he recalls.
Omidyar was not just calling out of concern. Noting how Griffith's absence had quite an impact on the site and its users, he had decided to offer him a job. More than 10 years on, Uncle Griff has become something of a celebrity, authoring The Official eBay Bible, hosting an eBay radio show and travelling the world giving seminars about how to use the site.
Griffith points to another reason to get involved with this fast-growing online community. "Because it's fun," he says with a laugh. "What do you think I would be doing this morning if I wasn't talking to you? I have to buy at least one thing a day on eBay or I get the shakes," he says.
His enthusiasm is contagious, and despite my conviction that eBay offers nothing for me, I use the convention as an opportunity to test the waters, and sign up under the tutelage of Brandon, one of the employees at the myriad computer terminals dotted around the convention centre.
An element of trust is required to make eBay function: when you buy on the site, you essentially transfer your money to a stranger in good faith, entrusting that he or she will fulfil his/her end of the bargain and send you the purchased item.
But eBay has cleverly developed its own tool to make sure users have a little more than faith to go on when they part with their cash. There is a feedback system, whereby those who trade with other users leave comments on the experience, almost like a transaction review. Users then build up feedback to show others that they can be trusted.
As soon as I sign up, a quick search reveals a first-edition signed copy of an Arthur Miller book that I immediately realise is the one thing missing from my life, and it's going on auction for the meagre sum of $80. I place a bid - it's a scarily easy type and click action - and wait, while Brandon explains the joy of eBay auctions. "If you win, you get to experience the 'windorphins'," he says. With the auction deadline still days away however, I have to sit back and monitor other bids that come in before I get anywhere near the touted headrush.
In the meantime, there is still more to learn, and plenty of people willing to tell me about their experiences, such as Renee Garvey from Pennsylvania, whom I meet ambling through the convention centre's stands, carrying a peculiar-looking baby doll in her arms, with an incongruous-looking plastic cigar planted between its grinning lips. He's Harveybaby, a relatively valuable antique doll that was responsible for Garvey's introduction to eBay.
"Without him I would never have got involved," says Garvey, who picked up Harvey for a dollar at a Salvation Army store, and then went on eBay to find out how much he was worth. Though his eBay value turned out to be 80 times what she paid for him, she decided to hang onto Harvey, and instead joined eBay to sell other items she picks up at yard sales and bric-a-brac stalls. "I would never sell him," she says, "I made him CEO of my company."
Through Harvey, she has discovered that there's no item that somebody somewhere isn't ready to shell out for. She has even managed to offload a wrinkle cream dating from the 1970s. "I bought it at a church sale for 10 cents, and sold it for $138," she says.
But eBay traders aren't all quite as kooky. Some, such as Steve Spellman, are simply using the online forum to replace a bricks and mortar shop and sell their product to a wider audience. Spellman deals in vinyl, a business that began when he decided to sell his collection to record fans, and which has since expanded into a successful enterprise that earns him a decent wage. Now some 35 percent of his sales are international.
"I enjoy being my own boss and I like the fact that my income is now based on how hard I work," he says. "It's much better than working for corporate America."
eBay's online tentacles have spread far and wide since it was founded in 1995, and there are now traders in 35 countries. eBay Ireland now boasts half a million members, a staggering percentage of the country's population, and a number that's constantly increasing, according to John McElligott, Ireland's managing director. "The thing that strikes me about the Irish psyche these days is a willingness to change. You see it with the smoking ban, with the tax on plastic bags - people are happy with those things. There is an acceptance of change that doesn't exist in other countries."
McElligott points out that eBay can be an essential tool for businesses and individuals: all they need to do is learn how to use it. In fact, the Irish have taken so readily to eBay that an item of clothing is bought by an Irish user every two minutes.
The site has also been used by a number of home-grown celebrities: Podge and Rodge sold a hipbone signed by Joe Dolan for €680, with proceeds donated to Keith Duffy's Irish Autism Alliance, while Ros Na Rún auctioned a walk-on part in the TV soap, also for charity. Ronan Keating sold his leather pants for €7,452, while Ray D'Arcy sold a pair of Lidl pants for €172.
Everything, it turns out, has value to somebody. The Antiques Roadshow no longer has to roll in and tell you that the broken teapot bequeathed you by Great Aunt Prudence is worth more than your house and car; now you can just go online and find out who'll put a price on it.
Even as the proceedings drew to a close in Boston, canny sellers were already placing some of the associated items up for sale. The stress balls going free in the lobby were being offered online for $5 a pop. It may seem cheeky, but it's the kind of thinking that has made eBay such a success. Because, although thousands were given out free at the event, somebody, somewhere will pay a price for them.
The Arthur Miller book, alas, slipped out of my grasp, and I didn't get to experience those windorphins. Yet. But it turns out there's plenty more on eBay to tempt me - a first edition of Dorothy Parker's Death and Taxes for $4.99, for example.
POWER SELLER An Irishman on eBay
Patrick McCormack may be only 25, but he's already a gold power seller on eBay, meaning his average monthly sales total is more than $10,000 dollars. He has also been crowned this year's seller of the year, earning him a trip to Boston and a prize of €4,000, plus new office equipment, which will go toward expanding his business, dr.computer-biz. He is currently selling computers, but is looking at selling MP3 players and projectors imported from China.
So how does one get from Omeath, Co Louth to Asian electrical markets in less than five years? With a carpet, apparently. Specifically, the carpet for a Renault car that McCormack bought in Liverpool about five years ago. When he decided he wanted to sell it, he sold it on eBay for twice the price he paid for it. "That's when eBay registered with me," he recalls.
Ever the entrepreneur, McCormack had been buying old computers and doing them up for resale to see him through university. He originally sold them through local newspapers, but eBay opened up a whole new market for the young Louth student. "With eBay you've potential to reach a billion people. There's no other way to touch so many people at once," he says.
McCormack has a turnover of €23,000 a month, and his business is growing exponentially. "This time last year I was selling two or three laptops a week and thinking: 'Imagine if I was selling 20 a week.' But what you imagine can happen - I know it sounds corny, but your dreams can come true. I'm selling 20 to 30 a week now. So right now I'm imagining swimming through money," he jokes. Selling online particularly appeals to McCormack as it allows him to work from home, which affords him more time with his two-year-old son Donal. "Every morning I see my son. I pick him up every morning, and see him all through the day," he says.
McCormack doesn't quite fit in with many of the die-hards milling around Boston for the 2007 convention, but as he muses on his upcoming trip to China, he repeats the mantra: "eBay changed my life."