drbobstamps (2200)  

Bid Higher!
Dr. Bob Friedman's message to the eBay community is simple and aimed directly at buyers: "Bid higher!" This is characteristic of Dr. Bob's straightforward approach to selling on eBay. His listings don't contain a lot of flourish or fanfare, just plainly presented philatelic lots, generally listed as auctions with a 1-cent starting price. How does Dr. Bob succeed on eBay? "By offering better U.S. singles and worldwide collections. What else?"

With 30 years in the stamp business and a 10-year-old physical store in Chicago, Dr. Bob Friedman and Son's eBay sales of about $40,000 each month represent only a fraction of the total business. The company runs ads in Linn's Stamp News, a leading newspaper for stamp enthusiasts, and they sell wholesale lots of stamps as well as individual specimens in their store and by mail order as well as online.

Dr. Bob has also expanded into coins with his eBay presence as drbobcoins (300) . Six full-time employees keep Dr. Bob's lifelong collecting hobby profitable, with nearly all of the eBay responsibilities falling to Henry Grosch.

Keys to Success
"Listing, billing, shipping, receiving, returns," agrees Henry. "The only thing I don't do is write descriptions. We're different than most sellers. We don't keep any stock at all. Our auctions all sell. We start them at a penny, and they sell.

"The best thing is just to be up front. We generally don't use reserves. Free shipping is also a huge hit," Henry points out.

Best Practices
Henry uses two of eBay's popular Seller Tools to manage Dr. Bob's eBay business. "I use Seller's Assistant Pro because we put so much volume up there, and we need to track everything. We also use Selling Manager Pro . It gives reports and tracks paid and unpaid items, and the automatic feedback saves so much time! At a glance I can tell everything I need to do. That's the greatest thing about Selling Manager."

Henry estimates that 20% of Dr. Bob's clients are international buyers. "Besides U.S. postage, we also sell miscellaneous foreign collections." A Gallery image gets applied to every listing, and other than that, the listings speak for themselves. Starting the bidding at the minimum and using Subtitles to advertise the free shipping and no reserve gets the auction fever started.

"We have a huge following," Henry says. "People add us to their Favorite Sellers [LINK10] and come back to see what we've got."

Share your experiences with other eBay sellers! Submit testimonials and story ideas to inthefield@ebay.com and include "In the Field" in the subject line. (Idea submissions are non-proprietary and non-confidential. eBay assumes no obligation with respect to such submissions.)

Read other tips specific to antiques sellers under  Seller's Edge.