eBay no threat to fleaBay.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: EBay Inc.

RECENTLY, I UNDERTOOK A SHORT STUDY OF SMALL-business trends, beginning on eBay and ending at fleaBay. One unites buyers and sellers on the Internet, the other is a bricks-and-mortar version of junk redistribution known as the Mile High Flea Market.

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As I will explain later, the vaunted Internet auction site and the massive Mile High Flea Market on 88th Avenue do not compete as much as they complement each other.

According to a national survey by ACNielson International Research, more than 12,526 Denver-area residents identify themselves as "eBay entrepreneurs," earning either a primary or secondary income from selling on eBay. Some 92,782 Denverites identify themselves as "active" eBay sellers.

Those figures help explain why the U.S. Postal Service wisely teamed with the leading Internet auction seller in August on an eight-city tour to teach people how to sell their wares on eBay--and of course encourage them to use the U.S. Postal Service to mail those sold goods.

E-mail has significantly and permanently eroded the Postal Service's revenues, but eBay-induced shipping can help the Postal Service recapture at least some revenue lost in cyberspace.

During the "Denver Post Office eBay Days" Aug. 24-26 at the post office's main processing and distribution center on 53rd Avenue and Quebec, all three days of seminars--four, 1 1/2-hour classes each day--were packed, standing-room-only. Computers were set up in one room, and volunteers wielding digital cameras enabled attendees to join eBay and upload photos of items for sale on the spot. Twenty-four computers weren't enough to train all the aspiring eBay entrepreneurs, so 16 more were set up in an extra room to handle the overflow.

One sweeping glance of the items brought in to be digitally photographed and uploaded proved the adage that one man's junk is another's treasure: a golf putter, a postcard postmarked 1910, a handmade buckskin jacket, an old replica Coca Cola vending machine radio, and an Oaxacan snake--an art form whereby a twisted tree root is carved and beautifully colored. A woman sat at a computer uploading information for potential buyers of the snake, which she said her husband had found.

"She should get hundreds of dollars for this," said a postal employee, himself a collector of Oaxacan art. he turned the snake over in his hand admiringly. "Wait a minute! It's plastic."

Feeling some discomfort about to arise from the postal worker's unsolicited appraisal...