A Potential Customer Base of Millions

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Fixed Price or Auction
With the eBay Stores program, members — those who register for a free user identification — can open a virtual storefront and list items for sale at a fixed price or via an auction format. There are more than 254,000 eBay Stores worldwide, including some big names, among them The Sharper Image, Sears, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.     
     But the big stores aren’t the only ones taking advantage of eBay and direct sales   mania. Sacramento Sky Ranch, for instance, for 35 years has been selling aircraft parts — airplane oil filters, gaskets, valves, engineering manuals and mechanical software that owner John Schwaner designed himself — from his 30,000-square-foot shop on Freeport Boulevard, across from Sacramento Executive Airport.     
     In November 2003, he decided to give eBay a try and quickly found a market, with his best-sellers being new items, such as aircraft radio headsets and hard-to-find parts, such as oil valves, filters, bolts and close-outs. When Schwaner acquired 300 inexpensive same-size airplane tires from their manufacturer, he saw eBay as a ready opportunity for moving them.      
     “At the rate I was selling those,” says Schwaner, 55, I would have been 90 before they were all gone.”  He listed two at a time on eBay for $30 each and eventually sold all 300 in about six months. “I wasn’t going to get any money from them sitting in my warehouse,” he says happily.

Niche Customer Base
Schwaner’s primary customers are private-airplane mechanics across the United States. “With private and corporate aircraft, we don’t have an audience of millions,” he says.     
Continued...

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