About

January 4th 2008

The purpose of My eBay Adventure is:

Started in January of 2006 there are close 300 My eBay Adventure blog posts for you to browse through.

How My eBay Adventure Began………………………………………

My eBay adventure is a web log started back in January of 2006 to chronicle my experiences selling on eBay. At the time I was a full time Medical Device Sales Representative making a good living traveling the highways and byways of Indiana, Michigan and Ohio and literally knew nothing about selling on eBay.

But I did know it was time to start a new adventure in my life and with that in mind began to search the Net for possible ways to earn an income online.Among the almost endless stream of online income “can’t miss” sales pitches I ran across, eBay was in my estimation, the most realistic way of generating quick positive cash flow during this tenuous time of transferring careers.

At that time I was 49 years old and had no experience living off the streets, so hitting a financial home run with some get-rich-quick online scheme was not even part of my equation.As boring as this sounds, all I wanted to ensure was that for the first two years of my eBay adventure I added positive cash flow, no matter how small, to our family’s coffers and supported my wife and family in the style they were accustomed to living for the last 29 years.

And I’m not talking a financial style of life here, I’m talking about the important stuff a family needs to stay together and be successful. Boring huh?

You’ll find no mega get-rich-quick success stories here to tease you, just a slow but sure nose to the grindstone, take it one day at a time and eventually you end up at your destination financial philosophy, my Dad taught me when I was young.

To work for myself and call my own shots IS THE DREAM and I concentrate the first fruits of my mental, physical and spiritual energies at enjoying my daily journey, with all its successes and failures, more than the arrival at my destination.

This has truly been an adventure and I want always to keep it fresh and my own, and not have my eBay adventure turn into some “canned approach” to financial Shangri-La.

To gain the necessary education and confidence to sell on eBay I again searched high and low on the Internet for someone I could trust to give me the information and more importantly, the belief, that selling on eBay was in deed possible.

I found that person and eBay education when I happened upon Sydney Johnston’s Auction Genius “Live” Course. By the way that’s me with all the catalogs covered over me on Sydney’s main sales page.

I took Sydney’s Auction Genius Course for the first two months of this web log. It was a real hoot and it shows in my blog posts. You have no idea how many times I still listen to the audio sessions of the “Live Auction Genius Class” I originally took. There is a entrepreneurial confidence in Sydney’s voice that is contagious to whomever listens. I haven’t begun to use all of the techniques Sydney teaches in her course but I will.

I decided on my product line while taking Sydney’s Course, practiced selling on eBay for a few months and took the plunge into online self-employment on May 31st 2006.

A couple of months later I acquired a significant inventory of eBay products to sell by helping to liquidate four Radio Shacks closing in the Southern Michigan and Northern Indiana area where I live.

Since June of 2006, I’ve been conservative in both the use of my time and money. No 80 hour work weeks and no big bank loans to fund new eBay product lines. So how have a done? Average…I’ve sold approximately $225,000 worth of eBay products on about 7,000 separate eBay auctions over the past 34 months.

Not enough to write a hot selling eBay ebook but enough to consistently help pay our bills and let me turn my ship of discovery into the shark infested waters of Internet Marketing where I’m just an innocent and tasty Tadpole.

The truth is I’m no superstar in the making, I’m just an average Joe struggling to churn out an online living the best way I know how with some 50 year old re-fried Irish brain cells.

What to Expect When You Visit My eBay Adventure?

My conservative leanings on eBay for the past 18 months have left their mark in both the quantity and style of my eBay adventure blog posts. I’m in no position to give away secrets and I’ve been very hesitant to share anything other eBay sellers could use in competition against me. My attitude has been, “the less information revealed the better”. This blog has been the least of my worries and used primarily to vent my frustrations.

Going forward I’m shedding the limited protection that my eBay-skin afforded me, morphing into a new creation and cutting the cord to my conservative e-Baby philosophy.

If you like your blog reading fresh and untainted by second-hand thoughts, I’ll do my best not to disappoint each time you visit my eBay adventure. My day-to-day thinking process ranges from wacky to serious and once in awhile veers on over to the practical side of all things eBay and life in general. It is my sincere hope you will be entertained, provoked to think and most importantly inspired to start your own adventure each time you stop by to visit.

I’m living proof, it doesn’t take a million bucks to start living your dream today!! Be careful though as adventures have a tendency to lead into the unknown. But if you’re anything like me, exploring the unknown is the whole idea of being on an adventure.

Thanks again for taking the time to stop by and please don’t leave without sending me a thought or three via the comment section below or on any of my individual blog posts.

If I remember correctly, wasn’t global interaction Al Gore’s original intention when he created the Internet? :-) .

Mark McClean

Finder and Keeper of My eBay Adventure

Family Picture