New Mexico Members Learn About Selling Cruises on eBay
by Peggy Schwettmann, Director

eBay has made a big splash in the merchandising field. Perhaps some of us have found that perfect addition to a special collection, or sold some unused jewelry or even bid on "a little something" we would like to have (like Eric Clapton's guitar pick). It's an exciting way to shop!

About four years ago I found eBay to be "open territory" for selling cruises. My initial listing was "just to see what would happen" and I was surprised to get responses and even sales! So, I've continued - from time to time - to list some really good promotional deals that have come across my desk. One particularly well-priced Alaska offering that I listed on eBay ended up drawing in a total of about 40 people! Shazam! Getting the commission check for that one told me that eBay was a worthwhile endeavor!

Sometimes my eBay cruise listings receive a lot of lookers and no buyers, or, sometimes a few lookers and several buyers. It is impossible to predict. I do know that the fees charged by eBay for the listing and then the final purchase value are nominal compared to any other type of advertising my home based agency has done.

The many travel industry changes in the last five years have encouraged new avenues for distributing travel . So I thought I would share with my Chapter members the "how to" of listing cruises on eBay…in case anyone else wanted to try out this exciting venue.

eBay now regulates the travel categories, due to the initial listings that were offering bogus frequent flier miles and coupons for "someday" travel. In order to protect the buyers, rules and policies had to be initiated to keep the integrity of the method intact. One of my listings suddenly disappeared and I got a choice note in the email from eBay saying that the listing violated one of their policies. Oh. Perhaps I should review those from time to time, I thought. It was a simple matter and I took care of it and made sure to word my ads more carefully in the future.

At our OSSN Northern New Mexico Chapter meeting on Feb. 12, 2005 in Albuquerque, we gathered to listen, as well as question and share. There are definite steps needing to be taken to sign on to eBay first as a bidder/buyer and then as a Seller. We reviewed those requirements and then got to the point where we would be ready to list a cruise for sale. We collaborated about how to list an ad that would be attractive to the buyers, concise in its description and that covered all the bases for ourselves as well as fitting into the policies established by eBay.

Details, narrative, pictures, pricing, customer care……all of the things necessary to an effective ad were discussed and illustrated for the attentive members. Everyone had something to contribute to the success of the presentation.

Our discussion revealed how this form of travel sales is not for everyone, yet that the possibility of reaching hundreds of "lookers" could not be a bad thing! I was pleased to share that recently, as a result of one client purchasing a cruise from one of my eBay listings about three years ago, the client returned to me several times and just recently he booked a huge family reunion on a cruise ship! When I first began with eBay sales, I had no idea that I would be building a future client base!! So it has paid off very well.

If you haven't yet, go to www.ebay.com and type - cruise - into the search box and see what comes up. You can further refine the results returned by typing in - Caribbean cruise - or Alaska cruise. Take a look around and you can see that there are legitimate agents offering cruise specials there (and you'll also see the "not so professional" listings)

An example of the type of ads I list are at:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6511567842

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6510925241

There are definite steps to take to become a seller of travel on eBay, as well as methods that will make things go a lot smoother for you. I have a full procedure outline available for a small fee (to cover the copying, administrative costs and postage). If you are interested in that, please send an email to new-mexico@ossn.com

We all came away with a lot of new information, ideas and possibilities for increasing our home-based travel businesses. Thanks, OSSN, for providing a way for us to share these educational seminars and network with one another!