MANY of us have made a bit of extra cash selling our unwanted stuff on eBay.
But one set of Huddersfield-based entrepreneurs has revealed that using the internet retailer has put them in the million-pound club.
Bradley Mills company Tool Stop UK has sold £1.3m of drills, saws and screwdrivers through eBay over the last year – almost doubling their sales of the previous 12 months.
Director, Dean McFadden, 28, said he and his brother Jay, 31 had taken their father’s business online after it began to struggle in 2004.
Said Dean: “When one of our key accounts went bust, instead of sitting on my bum and waiting for trade to come through the door I went online looking for it.
“eBay has played a massive role with our company.
“Our sales are doubling year-on-year and I’m just in the process of setting up another shop for Timothy Wood.”
Dean said the company sold hundreds of items on the internet every day to customers across the UK and Europe.
The company has grown from a family business to one employing 16 staff and is now the number-one hardware shop on ebay and 60th biggest overall.
Business is booming to such an extent that Dean has set up his own warehouse to distribute the goods he now buys by the container load.
Dean said the secret to his success was scaling up the old fashioned market trading skills.
He said: “Jay sits in his office all day ringing round trying to find deals. We’re really on the ball, probably because we’re a bit younger and because it’s our future and our livelihood.
“It’s based on finding the right products at the right prices and most importantly offering good customer service.
“It’s absolutely about knowing your market.
“You’ve got to use eBay as they come up first on all the search engines.
“There’s no point trying to fight against them when you can sell through them.”
But despite selling more than a million pounds worth of hardware, Dean said he was far from being a millionaire himself.
He said: “Everything we make I put straight back into the company.”
eBay chiefs are predicting more than 150 of their retailers will have million-pound businesses by the end of this year.
Added Dean: “It doesn’t surprise me at all, all the big companies are going with it now.
“They’re all targeting it, even Tesco and Argos.”
Angus McCarey, retail director for eBay UK said: “We’ve seen a surge of businesses starting up on eBay since the recession, which shows the vital role online businesses play in supporting the fragile UK economy.
“Many eBay businesses including some of our millionaires are selling offline as well, so their total contribution to the UK economy is even more substantial.”
