Vintage collectables have traditionally been eBay's bread and butter. When folks who haven't used the site think of eBay, they think of a worldwide garage sale, where you can find great deals on slightly seedy stuff. As such, it does not at first seem like a promising market for a small retail operation.

In the last six months, though, eBay has taken a number of steps that reflect its growing commitment to a more diverse marketplace. In non-geek-speak, that means that they've realized that the new item market is growing and making them some money. Naturally, they want to encourage it. If you're a small business, this is a great time to take a look at eBay as a potential market. You'll be ahead of most of the other folks in your niche, but not so far ahead that you won't find buyers for your goods.

At the "eBay By The Numbers" seminar at eBay Live 2003, they released a bombshell: in the past year, collectables plummeted from 60% of eBay's items to just under 30%. The number of collectable items was constant, but other categories grew so quickly that collectables generated less than half of eBay's revenue for the first time in history.

We're witnessing a sea change at eBay. Although it started out as a site to trade Pez dispensers, eBay knows which way the wind is blowing.

Five Ways eBay Can Help You

Whenever you sell something on eBay, eBay makes money. So naturally, it's in their interest get more sellers onto the site, and to help them close as many sales as possible. They've got all the collectable dealers; now they want small businesses.

Here's what they're doing to help small, established businesses be successful on eBay:

1. Providing Free Store Report Data. In a brick and mortar store, the owners generally have a raft of sales data they can analyze to figure out what's selling, when to restock, and so on. eBay Stores report data, which is the equivalent data for a store within eBay, was until recently available only to large sellers who opened a "Feature" or "Anchor" eBay store (the latter costs $100 a month). eBay now makes this data available to all eBay store sellers. This means that right away you get the data you need to make informed decisions about your eBay product line.

2. Promoting Sales of Wholesale Lots. Wholesale lots is one of the fastest growing categories at eBay. Small manufacturers and larger resellers offer product here; most purchases are made by small businesses. eBay has been heavily promoting this category, both on the front page (http://www.ebay.com) and on its advertisements around the web.

3. Expanding its Developer Program. eBay's Developer Program lets programmers write software to do common eBay tasks like listing an auction. eBay recently made this program free for in-house projects -- it previously cost over $1000 per year! This means any eBay seller can hire a programmer to write a piece of custom software that (for example) interfaces with their existing inventory program. Gone are the days when you had to hire an Anderson consultant at $300 an hour to do that! Smaller companies can now act big -- but stay on budget.

4. Putting Millions of Ad Dollars into "Do It eBay." The TV commercials have been running in prime time, and the print ads have been running in upscale magazines. They emphasize eBay's gift selection. A lot of new buyers are coming to eBay looking for gift-quality items.

5. Overhauling Trust and Safety. eBay needs to keep new users coming in, and that means maintaining a safe trading platform. Buyers need to know that their item will be shipped on time and will be as described, and sellers need to know that they'll get paid by their bidders. To that end, fraud warnings are becoming more visible on eBay and PayPal, the electronic payment service that eBay owns. They've also recently put "fraud detection" software into production. The jury is still out on these tactics' effectiveness, but the fact that eBay is worried about it should help maintain the influx of new buyers.

eBay: The Only Way?

eBay is not an appropriate platform for every small business, but for certain types of specialty retailers and service providers, eBay is starting to offer a sweet combination of huge market and low cost of sales. Like any new sales channel, it requires some planning before you leap in -- but now is a great time to do it while the pool is still relatively uncrowded.