eBay Live 2008 Chicago

I promised you a report of my trip to eBay Live in Chicago this past June 2008, but I've been struggling a little with how I feel about the trip, hence my foot dragging has us all the way into the end of July already. My apologies for that. So here goes....

This was my third eBay Live in three years. I attended the eBay Live in Las Vegas in 2006 and Boston in 2007. Las Vegas was amazing. I had never been there before and it's a very exciting town. And eBay Live itself was very exciting with so much education there for the taking. I soaked up seminar after seminar and visited almost every booth on the Solutions Hall floor, which is where all the exhibitors are located. I was like a bird flying around with no one telling me I had to go here or there. The one thing missing was that I didn't know anyone. So, while that gave me freedom to do what I wanted, it was somewhat of a lonely existence. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world and it helped me immensely as an eBay seller. Probably, the highlight was hearing Janelle Elms present her Ebay Stores 101 class. More about Janelle later.

In Boston, my sister (goneantiqueing) flew up from Tucson for her first eBay Live. We had the advantage of staying with our other sister who lives an hour outside of Boston. The crowd was a little smaller at Boston, but that was to be expected because Las Vegas has more glitz than most other U.S. cities. Here I was a little pickier about which classes to take and which Solutions Hall vendors to visit. I also had made some eBay friends in the past year and took time to meet up with them during the three days. Boston was another great success for me both personally and for my eBay business. I grew again as I began hearing about becoming an Education Specialist and how websites like MySpace could help my growing eBay business.

I have mixed feelings about eBay Live Chicago. There seemed to be a cloud hanging over the convention. I guess that cloud could have been called "Upset Powersellers." In February, eBay's management made several rules changes that were designed to bring in more buyers to the eBay arena, but to do so meant making some changes that disadvantaged some sellers. eBay said the changes only hurt "bad" sellers. Not everyone was in agreement with that statement. Being neither a powerseller or a "bad" seller, I didn't have a problem with the changes, and even some of my powserseller friends told me that by and large they would make more money after the changes than before. Still there was this aire of discontent wafting about the corridors and seminar rooms from a small, but vocal group. In addition, attendance was down from the previous year and the back half of the Solutions Hall had no vendors.

I said I had mixed feelings and that is because I was there with a group of very 'positive' eBayers. About five months before eBay Live, I joined Janelle Elms' new group called OSI Rock Stars. I am so excited about being part of the Online Success Institute Rock Stars. About 25 of the members (Janelle calls us Rock Stars) were able to attend eBay Live in Chicago. It was like a mini Rock Stars convention within a convention. We had special events, our own T-shirts and goodie bags. But the best part was being able to meet all these super talented people and talk about eBay in real time. You see, Janelle has filled this group with many multi-talented eBayers that are the most positive people you'll ever meet. These folks, along with Janelle herself and other experts, have created over a thousand hours of webinars, podcasts, and video classes for the OSI members only. And as members of OSI Rock Stars we help each other in the extensive online forum. Well, I guess you can see why I really enjoyed this latest eBay Live more than the others.

Oh, remember I mentioned promoting your eBay business on MySpace. That was just the tip of the iceberg. Between what I learned at eBay Live this year and what I am learning at OSI Rock Stars, now we have Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Squidoo, YouTube, Bumping, etc. Yes, these are all ways to increase your success on eBay.

How about your Auction Progress? Are you keeping up? Leave a comment and tell us which eBay Live you liked best and what you are doing to improve your eBay success.

Enjoy Retirement? Who Has Time?

I created this blog shortly after I retired from full time employment about a year ago in June 2006 at the age of 63. I could see early on that there was a problem with this thing called 'retirement.' I thought I'd have lots more time for my ham radio hobby, selling on eBay, and enjoying my garden. Boy, was I misled!

Here it is a year later and I am just now finding the time to post my first entry in my blog. Where does the time go? I am spending even less time on the air as WA2KKG, my ham call. My eBay selling has slowed to a crawl with hundreds of items yet to be listed and sold. And the weeds have completely taken over the garden.

Some of my projects on the honey-do list were to paint all the rooms in the house--I have gotten two done so far; spruce up the garden--I've already mentioned that failed project; and when I do get on the air now, I don't recognise any of the call signs I hear--where did all these new operators come from?

To be fair, we bought a summer place at the beach which calls to us all the time. I also bought a 22 foot Catalina sail boat. Need I mention how much time (and money) boats take? And I did start another blog Ham Radio Scene which has been growing nicely. I still cannot figure out where all the time goes. Can anybody help me?

I guess I better get out there and pull a few weeds...

Ken